"Anything is possible if you put your mind to it!"

Evening all! It's been far too long since my last entry and I'm feeling inspired tonight so I'm sitting wrapped up in my bed with my laptop (in a far less glamourous than Carrie Bradshaw way I might add, there are bedsocks and a bobbly dressing gown involved, I'm freezing!) and seizing the moment.

So it's New Year, and the world seems to have gone a little bit resolution mad.  Every ad break since Boxing Day seems to have featured a plug for the latest celeb diet/fitness programme and the supermarkets have got loads of offers on healthy foods and exercise gear.  Newspapers are giving away free diet plans and exercise booklets and all the gyms have got special offers on.  It really does seem to be the time of year to think about improving health and wellbeing and losing weight too.  So it's got me thinking too; all of the things I've just mentioned are great tools for helping with weight loss but there is one vitally important ingredient missing from this mix, and it's the one thing you can't buy.

Willpower.  Not available in any supermarkets, or given away free in any Sunday paper supplement, this one thing which cannot be bottled is the one thing we need to lose weight that only we can generate ourselves, yet it is the hardest thing on Earth to find most of the time.  When you read articles about people who have lost atonishing amounts of weight, it's glaringly obvious that all of these people have from somewhere found the willpower and self belief to succeed with their weight loss journeys.  And it's not something they've always possessed or they never would have got big in the first place.  So where does it come from and how can we get our hands on it? Those are two questions that are often asked, and if I had a magic formula that I could give you I'd probably be richer than Richard Branson and my assistant (ahem) would be typing this up...

I've mentioned several times before that losing weight is a state of mind and nothing else, and it's from this state of mind that willpower comes.  You've probably heard athletes being interviewed on the telly and talking about being in "the zone".  This is the time when they are at the peak of their concentration, and when they are most likely to achieve maximum performance.  Now, I'm not claiming that I can put you in the zone with world class athletes and give you the body to match, but if you can find your weight loss "zone", then you are far far likelier to achieve any goal that you set for yourself. 

This all sounds very complicated, but using your brain to dig up a little willpower is not as difficult as you might imagine.So, I have little bit of a plan for helping you to increase your willpower:

• Firstly, face up to your body and the bits of it that you are unhappy with.  We have a tendency to hide the bits that we don't like when really by being mindful of them we will be far more likely to succeed with a weight loss goal.  By ignoring them we are pushing them to the back of our minds, along with a little sliver of something that can turn into willpower.
• Believe that you can achieve your weight loss goals.  We often limit ourselves with the idea that we cannot do something.  For example, if you've struggled with your weight for a long time you might tell yourself  "I'm not going to lose weight because I've always been big" and if that is what you tell yourself then you will achieve nothing.  You need to change that into "I've been big for a while now  but I'm not happy to be big any longer.  I'm going to make sure I do something to change my shape" and you will be far likelier to succeed.  Write it on a slip of paper and keep it in your pocket and look at it often to remind yourself that you are doing this and you are in control.
• Use your imagination to create a vision of how you want to look at the end of your weight loss journey.  Your imagination is an incredibly powerful tool for helping to increase and embed your positive thoughts and if you do this you will really boost your willpower.  At times where you feel like you may be about to deviate from your weight loss plan take a few moments to close your eyes.  Slow your breathing and concentrate on relaxing the muscles in your face and neck and imagine looking in a mirror a slimmer version of you.  Think about the sort of clothes you want to be able to wear at the end of your weight loss journey and picture yourself in that outfit as you continue with your slow breathing.  Imagine how wearing those clothes and seeing that reflection will make you feel, and how other people seeing you like that will make you feel too.  This is also a great relaxation technique and I like to practice this to help me nod off to sleep at night-time too.

Sciency bit: Psychologists believe that we are far likelier to achieve our weight loss goals and break bad habits if we believe in an alternative version of ourselves.   By using the three points above and repeating the techniques, you can create a "Healthy You", a virtual picture of how the healthier version of yourself would look and behave, and more importantly what food choices they would make.  By practicing these techniques you can start to challenge yourself at times of weakness, and you will find that you naturally increase your own willpower. I'm not going to tell you that this is an easy thing to do, it's something which requires conscious thought but it's a great way of shifting your perspective to a more positive one and that in the long term is something that will help you get to where you want to be.

So, reading this may make you think I've gone a bit mental and typed up a load of new age mumbo jumbo, or you might think this could work for you.  If you are of the latter opinion then give it a go and let me know how you get on :)