A member said to me a good while ago..

“You can’t talk yourself out of a situation you have behaved yourself into”

And this is MEGA! It is basically saying the following:

If you have always got up in the morning, had a cup of tea and eaten a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and have done this for 15 years, you can’t expect to suddenly wake up one morning and tell yourself thats no longer going to happen (not without some difficulty and discomfort anyway).

You are battling against hormones, habit and willpower. 3 of the biggest enemies you have when dieting. Once you master them they are your friends, but while you are trying to change something they most definitely are not.

Clearly, when you start dieting things have to change because as things currently are it’s not working, your current habits have made you overweight and that’s what we want to change. You can’t expect to keep doing what you are doing and get new results.

Yes it’s important to make your diet include foods you enjoy but sometimes you have to make it uncomfortable, you need to branch out, try new things, change your habits.

Always trying to make your new diet fit your old eating patterns and habits is simply delaying inevitable trouble and failure. It will work for a while but you have got to embrace different ways. The cereal may be swapped for yoghurt and fruit, or an omelette for example. Yes you like cereal in the morning but you want to lose weight, you want to be slim, which is more important?

The hardest part of change is in your head, because as soon as you tell yourself you can’t have something your mind simply wants it even more, so you have to be smart, because simply telling yourself this is the new way is fraught with peril.

So think of something now. Think of something you have clung onto from your old life and you have made TSP now fit, it might be a naughty habit or indeed something perfectly fine and on plan. EVEN if you are flying and weight loss is happening and you are happy, think of something, challenge yourself.

Then do it slowly, if for example its breakfast then just alternate days for a couple of weeks, gradually introducing the new habit/food/drink whatever it is. You will be amazed how easy it actually is to do and I have had members move from a completely processed, ready meal diet to the very thought of eating those foods now turning their stomachs, but it took time.

BUT is definitely worth doing. Just remember though, you can’t simply tell your mind and body that’s what you are going to do, it will rebel. You need to coerce it, romance it, break it in gently and get it on your side.

But PLEASE change something, you will feel SO much better for it, both mentally and physically.