Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Visualize Change
Do you remember when you were a kid? Anything was possible. You may have made a Christmas list the length of your arm and thought it would all show up on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning.
When you played with your friends, you imagined that you were a gold medal winner in the Olympics, or you were going to become Miss America, or you would drive a racecar one day. Or maybe you were going to become president of the United States. Regardless of how your vision was unique to you, you believed attaining it was something you were going to do, some day.
The blind, optimistic hopes and dreams of youth have no boundaries. However, we all know that as time passes and we grow older with each year, the sense of what we believe we can accomplish can and often does become muffled and stagnant. Certainly our hopes and dreams change as we grow and mature along the way, but something else happens, as well.
We get blindsided by a flippant comment from a teacher or a classmate when we read out loud in class. A coach says he has a basset hound than runs faster than you. Maybe you overhear someone in school make an uncaring remark about your facial features.
Regardless of our youthful hopes, dreams, and ambitions, it is not uncommon for us to lose our self-esteem and confidence as the years, acquaintances, and circumstances of life proceed to deliver a psychological beating. If you've gained excess weight over the years, this can translate into an added sense of self-defeat, over which you might feel you have little control. You may feel you've reached a point where "It just is what it is," and there is nothing more that you can do to change it.
We all feel powerless at times, whether the issue is the inability to advance at a job, difficulty communicating with a spouse or coworker, or knowing that there is a cap on your income. However, when we stand back and look clearly at the circumstances, usually we can do something to alter or improve a given scenario.
You can change jobs, decide to listen more intently to your spouse, or increase your education with the goal of boosting your income. But where your weight and physical body are concerned, you may feel that you have tried everything. Maybe you have spent your entire life dieting, only to have fleeting and periodic success followed by the return of your lost weight, plus more, along with feelings of frustration and defeat.
If this has been your struggle, please take heart. It is often possible to find an answer if you can allow yourself to stand back and take a look in another direction.
For so many of us, the decision to lose weight is tied to the only word we know, diet. It's all about the food and what you can't eat and how little you can eat. It's about starvation and deprivation. It is so painful and discouraging, but it is the only thing we know to do.
Dieting may be the only thing you know how to do, but it is rarely the road to sustained weight loss. There is another way however, a better way, and one that leads to more sustainable weight control, however, you must go back to that place when you were a kid, when anything was possible. In reality, anything you want bad enough is possible.
Just as there is a template for becoming an accountant, a doctor, a lawyer, a gymnast, a musician, an oceanographer, etc., there is a template for you to develop a better body.
For any goal that you want to achieve in life, there are coaches. There is training and schooling, formal or informal, but the information is there. If you want to learn anything at all, there has never been a time in history where the information was more accessible than it is right now. And where there is information, there is usually someone around whose specialty is teaching that information. You just have to decide what it is you want to learn and start looking.
As I said, there is a template for losing weight and changing your body. And there are coaches, teachers, trainers and individuals who have the information and expertise to teach you how.
If you are not currently happy with where you are, I want to encourage you to begin to visualize what the best physical version of you looks like. Look in the mirror. What would you change? Do you wish you had a leaner midsection? Do you have more flab on your arms than you want? How about your backside? Do you want less than what you have now?
We are all different, we have different features that we may not be happy with, but in general, I believe for many of us there is a healthier, more ideal physical body that we can visualize. There is nothing wrong with imagining a better version of you than you currently see in the mirror. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look better. Often what we see in the mirror is a direct reflection of someone who is not truly caring for themselves and not treating themselves well.
I want you to begin to picture in your mind's eye how you will look on your best day. Maybe you're wearing an outfit that you never thought you could wear. Maybe you're out jogging on the local running trail, lean, fit, and toned, your sweat-listened skin highlighting a physique with muscle definition, without excess fat. Maybe you are attending a summer party wearing a sundress that shows off your arms and shoulders, whereas before you would never have been caught dead in an outfit without sleeves.
Get this picture in your head. Visualize the change. Define what it looks like.
Now let's reinforce it.
CHAPTER 2
Find Your Model of Success
Assume that you wanted to learn to paint, how would you start? Maybe your first step would be a drive to the craft store to buy some paints, an easel and a canvas. Would you know what kind of paint to purchase? Oil, watercolor, acrylic? Would you know what kind of brushes you needed?
You could certainly "wing-it" and pick up all of the items you think that you need, head home with a plan to have a go at it, and set up your own spontaneous, improvisational studio in the garage. On your first try, you might find that you are a natural born artist and that your first painting is destined to become a cherished and valuable work of art.
We've all heard stories of this type of thing happening and somewhere out in the world there is surely a prodigy waiting to discover that he or she has this very skill. On the other hand, most of us are not prodigy painters and possibly not prodigy anything, but we all have the ability to learn, and the ability to learn is one of life's most underappreciated gifts.
A more reliable course of action on your quest to become a great painter might be to sign up for a class at your local community college that teaches basic painting skills. You might be surprised to learn that they offer courses in freehand drawing, watercolor, oil, and acrylic painting. You might also find someone who specializes in and teaches the painting style of period-specific works of art such as from the early Renaissance period.
You would also likely be able to find similar classes and expertise in photography, woodworking, piano, effective communication with the opposite sex, quilt making, macramé, Spanish or other languages, psychology, finance, astrology, and more.
Within each of these arts or disciplines, you would most certainly find individuals who were masters at teaching their specialty or craft, as well.
If your goal is to lose weight and to increase your level of fitness, you undoubtedly will find many competent trainers, fitness enthusiasts, nutritionists, and amateur or professional fitness competitors or bodybuilders who have the tools, background, and experience to guide you on a quest to a fitter, leaner body.
Any number of these individuals might also reflect a physical representation and body that you might consider desirable to model. Can you model someone else's physique? Of course you can. Just as you can learn any art or skill that can be taught by someone who has achieved competence in a particular area, you can also find someone who has the general physical characteristics and body type that you desire and can often follow the same or a similar path to a similar outcome.
Competitors in the world of bodybuilding have done this forever and if you have ever witnessed a bodybuilding competition, live or otherwise, you may have noted that it is very difficult for the casual, untrained observer to differentiate the sometimes subtle differences between the physiques of various competitors. In fact, if it were not for differences in height and overall weight of these competitors, you might note the general physical characteristics of these individuals to be quite similar.
Why such a close physical resemblance? The answer is modeling. These individuals, though their training methods may vary to a greater or lesser degree, by and large focus on stimulating the muscles of their bodies in a way that produces predictable results which they hope will be found favorable with the judges. Because the most competitive members of the bodybuilding community have a vision of the physical attributes that win bodybuilding competitions, collectively, they are able to reproduce the physical appearance that we all recognize and associate with the practitioners of this particular sport.
Images are powerful. What you focus upon can become reality. A myriad of books and magazines on the market today highlight both men and women who have achieved strong, healthy, powerful physical bodies through hard work and dedication towards a goal.
Monica Brant, champion fitness competitor, fitness cover model, and winner of the 1998 Fitness Olympia, reportedly began lifting weights in 1991, after being inspired by a photo of 1990 Fitness USA Champion, Marla Duncan, in a national fitness magazine.
Possessing one of the most proportionate and classically symmetrical physiques in bodybuilding, Frank Zane, reportedly was 14 years old when he walked into his high school math class and spotted a muscle building magazine in the wastebasket. Studying the magazine, he soon started training at the local Wilkes-Barre YMCA weight room. Training with weights for over 50 years, he has won all of the highest titles in bodybuilding, including defeating Arnold Schwarzenegger for Mr. Universe.
So you certainly can find one or more persons of similar height and body structure who have achieved a specific physical transformation and model their success, by learning the path that they took to reach their goal.
Some may argue that this is not possible or that somehow there is something wrong with trying to emulate the physical attributes of another person. In fact, when it comes to altering one's appearance with cosmetic surgery to look like a celebrity or some completely different individual than oneself and abandoning one's own identity, I would have to agree that this may not, in fact, be healthy.
On the other hand, modeling optimal fitness and the development of a lean, toned, healthy physical body, I believe is a worthwhile goal. I have been in position to observe over and over again the normalization of previously abnormal lab work and blood pressure and even the resolution of adult onset diabetes when people make the decision to take control of their health and fitness, through optimal diet and exercise.
Sure, you could model your neighbor, who lost 15 pounds by eating nothing but pea soup for a month. Or you could do what your sister-in-law did, following a stringent 500-calorie-per-day diet, while receiving hormone injections or you could ask your co-worker, who refers to herself as "a lifetime dieter," what she believes your best route to success may be.
In fact, when I ask new patients, "What brought you in to see me today?" they often respond by saying something like, "My sister in Florida is doing a diet 'just like this' and has lost 20 pounds!" I quickly make it very clear to these patients that the process I teach is based in fitness first, and that they will not simply be placed on "just some diet."
This is where, I believe, we have collectively steered off course. We have reached a place where the majority of adult Americans are now overweight or possibly obese, and yet many of us are asking our friends, family, peers and coworkers, who are often struggling with the same issues, to give us their advice or solution to the problem.
Or we may buy into some commercial dietary approach that has been around for some years, but which breeds dependency on a particular system of calorie counting, brand-specific "diet foods," or other means of quantization of food intake, without teaching an understanding of how food really affects metabolism.
I am adamant in my belief that a dietary approach that excludes fitness as a foundation of good health is generally destined for limited or marginal results, at best, for the long haul.
So having said this, if your goal is to lose weight, improve your body, and increase your fitness, I would encourage you to find someone whose physical body you would like to emulate: find someone to model. You don't have to choose someone, necessarily in the fitness or bodybuilding world. You may know someone who lives in your own neighborhood that has the physical attributes that you want to mirror. Perhaps you will, however, find your ideal model in the pages of a fitness magazine or even someone at your local gym.
Wherever you find the person or persons you wish to model, then find out as much about that person as you possibly can. What do they eat? What kinds of exercise do they do? Do they focus on walking, yoga, or Pilates? Do they swim, play tennis, or engage in regular weight-training or resistance exercise? Where do they exercise? How many days do they exercise? Do they follow a specific nutrition plan? Do they adhere to some particular training theory? Are they trying to just not gain weight, or are they trying to build muscle while also decreasing their overall body fat?
If you can speak with your ideal role model personally, you might be surprised to find this person to be very open and generous with their time and information. Often, those who have achieved success in any area are happy that others notice and recognize the success they have a won through hard work and effort. They may be very happy to share both their time and philosophy with an interested party.
My goal is to encourage you to find someone who is living a healthy, fitness-based lifestyle and has some of the physical attributes that you would like to emulate and find out how this person achieved those results. Positive, successful role models are everywhere. You just have to determine what you want to achieve and look for the person or persons who can guide you along a similar path.
CHAPTER 3
Get Clear about Your Goals
I often see men and women in my clinic who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond who tell me they would like to reach a weight they were at in their early adulthood. However, many of these patients add, "But I know that's just not realistic at my age."
Having recently read Live Young Forever, written by then-95-year-old health and fitness legend, Jack Lalanne, I realized just how limited our thinking can be, especially when it comes to what is possible with the human body. In fact, there is a picture of Jack Lalanne in his latest book, taken in 1994 at age 80. The caption below says, "I felt in top form at the age of 80, and I could still perform hundreds of pushups. I felt no different than I had at 25, a true testament to sensible exercise and nutrition. But the waistline was now 27 ½ inches — up by a half an inch. Ooops!"
This book is a real eye opener. Jack Lalanne was a true testament to what is possible when someone lives a life that is focused on maintaining optimal health and fitness. Sadly, we lost Jack Lalanne early in 2011. He was a great inspiration to me and to so many others who watched him engage in feats of strength, endurance, and seemingly superhuman acts to mark so many of his landmark birthdays throughout his life. I feel blessed to have lived during this time in history and to have had in our midst a role model such as Mr. Lalanne, who spent his entire life preaching, teaching, and walking his talk.
So what about you? What do you really want to accomplish? Do you want to drop 50 pounds, improve your cholesterol, and decrease your reliance on blood pressure or diabetes medications? Do you want to become more aerobically fit? Do you want to decrease your body-fat percentage while also building some lean muscle and adding more definition and tone to your physique?
We are all different in this regard and have different goals and ideas about what our best body looks like. Certainly some of the patients that I see just want to be "skinny." They want to reach a weight at which they are happy, without gaining muscle or increasing muscle definition. In general, I see this goal much more often in my female patient population, but the trend is changing somewhat.
I am seeing more and more people, both men and women, who want a change in their physical body that reflects an increase in muscle tone, muscle definition, and in some cases, an increase in overall muscle mass. With rare exceptions, most of these individuals voice that they would also like to become more fit and have more energy with which to pursue their lives.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Fitness Response"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Richard Kelley, M.D..
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
