- January 4, 2021 / Dr. Hal -
In I Changed My Mind and My Body Changed there are numerous ways to think to achieve your goals. Each choice in the program can be used as a stand-alone choice or can be used in different sequences. I have been asked if there is a recommended pathway or sequence to apply the different choices in I Changed My Mind and My Body Changed.
There is a recommended pathway from one choice to the next choice. You do not have to use all of the choices in this pathway. You are free to choose any pathway that will work for you so you can enjoy your satisfying weight.
In this program, you will find that there are numerous ways to conceptualize the self-defeating urges that have prevented you from losing weight and maintaining your satisfying weight. We want you to have different options to change your thinking so you can reach your goals.
We recommend that you begin with the Turnaround Eating Choice. With this option, “I want to eat what I want and be lazy” is identified as self-defeating thoughts and behaviors that have prevented you from losing and maintaining your weight loss or gaining your satisfying weight. For success, accepting and reducing the intensity of the self-defeating urges is essential. The path begins by accepting and reducing the desire and intensity of the self-defeating urges.
The second recommended option is the Responsible Choice. With this option, “I want to eat what I want and be lazy” is identified as a frustration. Just identify “I want to eat what I want and be lazy” as a frustration and not a motivational pattern. The goal is to think about “I want to eat what I want and be lazy” as a frustration and not an urge. The goal is to accept this frustration. It is okay to accept this frustration. Accepting this frustration is necessary to care for yourself and achieve your satisfying results. Whenever you accept this frustration, it reminds you to trust yourself and hold dearly the benefits of taking care of yourself and being on course to achieve your satisfying weight. You program your mind to accept the big frustrations of “I want to eat what I want and be lazy”. The frustrations of “I want to eat what I want and be lazy” will be reduced and deleted from your mind as you choose to act so you have the benefits associated with taking care of you and progressing toward or actually living at your satisfying weight.
On the pathway to achieve and live at your satisfying weight, the third option is the Wake Up Choice. With this option “I want to eat what I want and be lazy” is identified as a signal and not a motivational pattern. Every time you have the urge for “I want to eat what I want and be lazy” it is a signal for you to focus on what you really want, need, or need to do for yourself so you can be on course to achieve your satisfying weight and have the benefits for reaching your satisfying weight. With the Wake Up Choice You will get an urge which we are identifying as a signal when you are empty in some part of your life. The goal will be to reduce your emptiness and the signal will then retreat from your conscious mind. The signal will return when you again are empty. With this option on your pathway to success, you set goals to find satisfaction of your wants and needs. With this option, you stop procrastinating and commit to doing what you need to do to care for yourself and have your benefits.
The fourth option on the pathway for actualizing your satisfying weight is the Big Choice. With the Big Choice, “I want to eat what I want and be lazy” is thought of as a delusion. It is not realistic and will ominously impair your perceptions, thinking, feelings, and behavior so it is impossible to reach your satisfying weight or maintain your satisfying weight. The realistic goal is not to depend on food and being lazy to make you feel comfortable and satisfied. We go through the tribulations of childhood and adolescence in order to arrive at the place where we can depend on ourselves to care for ourselves. With this option, you focus on taking care of yourself and not depending on food, being lazy, or anyone else for achieving your satisfying weight. The goal is for you to independently motivate yourself to care for you. Caring for you will also include achieving your wants, needs and responsibly taking care of what you need to do to achieve your goals in your life as recognized by using the Wake Up Choice. Oftentimes it is necessary to focus in on taking care of our wants and needs in other areas of our lives and not just in regard to achieving our satisfying weight.
The fifth option is to use the Power Choice. The Power Choice is a three-step process to satisfy your wants, needs, and goals in your life. This is a three-step process for you also to achieve your satisfying weight and maintaining your satisfying weight. The three steps in this process are Focus, Do and Claim. At the Focus step, you do not focus on dieting or on not eating certain foods. Instead you focus in on taking care of yourself, setting goals to obtain what you want or need, completing unfinished activities and doing whatever is necessary to achieve your satisfying weight. You will focus on what you need to do at the moment to be on course to reach your long-range goals. At the Do step you will energetically and confidently act to achieve what you focused on at the Focus step. At the Claim step, you will celebrate your successful completion of the focused activity. You will confidently realize that you can focus, achieve, and claim successes throughout the day and throughout the course of achieving long-range goals. At the Claim step, you need to focus on feeling happy, peaceful, calm, free and on course to reach your long-range goals.
As you proceed down this path, you can once again apply the Responsible Choice. There will be many frustrations in regard to your thinking, feeling, actions, and relationships that will need to be accepted in order to find satisfaction of your wants and needs. There will be frustrations associated with making rational and logical decisions to achieve your goals. All of these frustrations need to be accepted and welcomed as they are necessary to accept so you can achieve your long-range goals.
The Checkpoint Choice is the next option on the path. It is important to assess your progress in satisfying your wants and needs. It is important to evaluate your progress toward reaching your goals. It is important to be satisfied on a daily basis as you pursue your goals and also to be confident that you are on course to experience the consequences and benefits in your life that you want five years from now. Using the Checkpoint Choice is the way to ensure that you are indeed thinking, acting, and claiming your successes in the present and your accomplishments are on course to live and maintain your satisfying weight 5 years from now.
The remaining choices within I Change My Mind and My Body Changed are to be used for further checking your progress and for providing information that can help you achieve your goals.
If you are having conflicts regarding not wanting to diet, then consider using the Turnaround Diet Choice. In this choice, resisting dieting is perceived to be a self-defeating solution. For most people dieting is the method of choice to try to lose weight and maintain weight loss. If not wanting to diet is preventing you from reaching your satisfying weight, then it is necessary to use the Turnaround Diet Choice to find a solution to maximize achieving and maintaining your satisfying weight.
If you are allowing the past to interfere with your progress or are living too much in the future rather than living in the present, then turned to the Time Choice. The Time Choice will help you live in the present.
If you are dwelling on past mistakes, agonizing thoughts, painful emotions, and irrational behaviors, then use the Letting Go Choice. This is a five step procedure for letting go of past failures and painful thoughts, feelings, and memories. With this choice you will liberate yourself, forgive yourself, and move forward with a renewed mind.
If you are motivating yourself with punishing and depriving words like “I have to”, “I should” or “I can’t” then use the Freedom Choice. The Freedom Choice will focus on motivating yourself out of freedom.
If you are programming your mind to fail by thinking thoughts that were generated by your past failures to achieve your long-range goals or find satisfaction of your wants and needs, then it is important to use the Right Choice. This choice will focus on thinking in a way that will generate success rather than thinking to generate never-ending failure.
If you are having relationship problems that are interfering with achieving your satisfying weight, then it is important to use the Relationship Turnaround Choice. With this choice you will identify your shortcomings that are creating relationship conflict. You will learn ways to reduce the intensity of these self-defeating patterns of relating that create conflict in your relationships.
If you are having relationship problems that prevent you from reaching your satisfying weight, then you can also use the Relationship Choice. With this choice you will focus on communicating with your significant others in a way that will enhance your relationships and provide greater feelings of safety, trust, acceptance, and importance in your relationships for you and your significant others.
If you want to have greater understanding of the theory behind the major choices in this program, then the next three choices will be very beneficial for you. There are three different parts of your mind that need to work together to reach your goals. The major thought patterns in this program are determined by this theory. The different choices are the result of different sequencing of these three parts in your decision-making.
The first part is called the child part of our personality as defined in the Child Choice. The urge “I want to eat what I want to be lazy” is a perfect example of child thinking as it is highly emotional, irrational, and not concerned about consequences. In order to gain and maintain your satisfying weight, it will be important to make child choices regularly in your life in ways that will enhance your life and not destroy your dreams.
The Parent Choice is also crucial to reduce the intrapsychic conflicts generated by the parent part of your mind trying to control, the child part of your mind. Oftentimes parent choices are well intended but actually inflame the intensity of the child choices resulting in failure to reach your satisfying weight. Self-parenting choices need to be empowering, encouraging, supportive, accepting and caring.
The Adult Choice is completely rational and logical. The adult part of our brain is very practical and always concerned about consequences. The Adult Choice is dedicated to making sure you will make a decision so you can have the consequences and benefits you want in your life.
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Dr. Hal
I am a fully licensed psychologist in the State of Michigan. My undergraduate degree is from the University of Michigan and my Ph.D. is from Michigan State University. I have been in private practice for over 45 years. I am deeply grateful for past opportunities to provide counseling to so many clients with psychological and addictive issues. My clients have taught me so much about how to solve problems and maintain successes. Now, I am excited to share with you what I have learned from counseling others in my educational E-Books, courses, and membership. Let me provide for you practical, educational insights and strategies to help you lose weight and maintain your satisfying weight. Regarding my personal life, I am married with four grown children and eleven grandchildren.