Best Weight Loss Programs what good weight loss programs are like
We are too fat because we're out of balance. Do typical weight loss programs explain how to restore balance?
No!
Here we show you the reasons for preferring one to another.
The great news is that, if we do what is necessary to treat the underlying causes of weight gain and achieve balance, permanent weight loss is automatic.
If you have not yet read part 1, we suggest that you do so. You will find the link to that page awaiting you at the bottom of this page.
Again, it's helpful to think of the best total weight loss program as like a stone monument built in the shape of a seven-layer wedding cake.
Each layer is circular and each layer is smaller than the one that supports it. So, this monument has seven steps to the top.
Enjoying a trim body is like being on the top layer. The view from the top is terrific, but it is a view that requires climbing all the steps.
The best natural weight loss programs emphasize understanding from the bottom up.
The real journey to achieving permanent weight loss begins with the fundamental steps.
What are the steps?
This question is both important and impossible to answer in full on just this one page. Here we can only sketch the seven steps.
Dr. Bradford's book The 7 Steps to Mastery provides in-depth information on each of these steps. (It's available from Amazon as a Kindle book.)
Reality
Reality is the world (truth, what-is). There is one world, which, as a whole, is greater than all our thinking about it. This explains why it cannot be adequately described.
As Philip Kapleau writes: "The truth is more than anything that can be said about it. . . Explanations and descriptions are only peepholes on a limitless universe."
Surreality
Each of us understands reality a bit differently. There are many ways of understanding the world. We do not create the world, but we do create the worlds we inhabit by making judgments about reality.
To use a technical term (sorry!), your "surreality" is your understanding of the world.
Self
Your self-concept is all the ways you think about yourself, for example, as a friend, a reader, a driver, a party-goer, a daughter, a student, and so on. It's composed of hundreds of such mini-self-concepts.
Three mini-self-concepts are so important that they have been given names: your "ideal self", which is your the answer to 'What would be the ideal person for me to be?'; your "self image", which is your answer to 'Who am I?'; and your "self-esteem", which is your answer to "Do I like myself?" These three strongly affect how you make decisions.
Attitudes
Your attitudes are dispositions to think in certain ways. They come from your surreality and self-concept.
They are your answers to important questions such as: Do I dislike being here or am I grateful that I'm here?
Do I live in a world of scarcity or abundance?
Is security or risk more valuable?
Are others unlike me or are they like me?
Is it better to take first or to give first?
Should I try to avoid change or welcome it?
Should I stay in my comfort zone or should I stretch myself? Which is best for me?
Values
Your values are your preferences. They come from your attitudes. For example, if you value your own life and think others are like you, you'll value life itself and attempt to cherish life and avoid killing.
If you value growth over security, you'll risk challenging yourself. If you think there's plenty to go around and have high self-esteem, you'll play big rather than small.
Habits
Your habits are what you routinely do and think. They are the flywheels of life. Have you been going for a walk three times a week for years? Do you eat three meals daily? Do you brush your teeth after dinner? Do you frequently deplore fanaticism? Do you meditate daily?
Techniques
Your techniques are the ways you engage in your habits and implement your values. They are how you do what you do.
For example, when you prepare a meal, how do you cook your food? Do you bake it, broil it, or fry it? When you eat a meal, how do you eat it? Do you eat it in silence, or do you eat it accompanied by talk or music or the television?
If these are the best criteria for evaluating weight loss programs, what practical implications follow for achieving permanent weight loss?
The most important is this: to become an expert at a skill or set of skills, start at the bottom —- not at the top. We resist accepting this because we want to change as little as possible, and tweaking techniques is much easier than, say, revising or even detaching from our self-concepts. However rational it may appear, this approach always fails.
We cannot become experts and remain unchanged beginners!
Effective techniques that flow from congruent fundamentals work; those techniques that don't, fail.
Please recognize your impulse for instant gratification and resist it. We all want instant success! We evolved to desire instant gratification. The truth is that, with respect to becoming an expert, there's no such thing.
You already understand this. You don't think that Horowitz could enthrall audiences when he first started playing the piano as a boy or that Gretzky could mesmerize crowds when he first began playing hockey as a boy.
It's good that becoming an expert begins with the fundamentals!
If this were not the case, the only experts would be the naturals, the geniuses, the innately gifted.
To play the piano well, one must begin by playing scales--just like everyone else. To play hockey well, one must begin by learning how to skate well--just like everyone else.
Realizing this is very important. Why? We can all become experts if we will learn and practice the fundamentals. This is fortunate, since how could anyone have good self-esteem without becoming an expert at something.
If you are already an expert at something, congratulations! Let's transfer what you have already learned to achieve permanent fat loss.
If you are not already an expert at something, do not get down on yourself. Even if you have tried hard, the explanation may just be that you have not yet learned how. Perhaps you tried to learn some fancy techniques without proper preparation and quit in frustration?
Learning the steps in the proper sequence is critical. The very best weight loss programs will freely show you how it's done.
Notice that the differences among people usually occur with respect to the top two steps. Experts and non-experts may share many characteristics from the more basic steps.
Once you get the more fundamental steps in order, there will be no reason you cannot regularly practice well and become an expert.
Practicing well leads to becoming an expert.
Furthermore, becoming an expert in one field makes it easier to become an expert in another field.
Why?
Imagine yourself already being an expert. Suppose, for example, that you have managed to lose weight and achieved lasting weight loss.
You will have already handled the basics; you will have worked on yourself (by clarifying and strengthening your self-concept), straightened out your attitudes (by neither wanting nor seeking instant gratification), and clarified your values (by disciplining your life to enable you to practice sufficiently each day).
You'll already be ready to install new habits and learn new techniques, ready to become an expert at another field.
You will already be much of the way home! Why shouldn't life get better and better?
sidebar quotation from Brooks Atkinson: "The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Life is growth and motion; a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one."
You have the option to live well. Imagine and savor the possibilities! From all the weight loss programs you can find, choose the best and most comprehensive one for you.
Of course, we think that the best weight loss programs are our own. Our explanations of how to eat well, to exercise well, to recover well, and to control your thoughts free weight are excellent for natural fat loss.
One small step at a time is all it takes to begin any journey. Take some right action soon!
Other pages related to this weight loss programs
This completes part 2 of the weight loss programs section. If you have not yet read part 1 of this page, you will find the link given below. Alternatively, you might like to view some of our free diet and exercise weight loss programs. If so, see the first two page links given below.
