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ROTATION DIET: DEALING WITH PROBLEM AREAS USING FANTASY AND IMAGINATION

I know that there are many areas in your life in which you are a success. When it comes to performing in these areas, you never think twice - you have no doubt at all about your ability to do what it takes to be successful. If you took a moment to think through what you do in these other areas (even if it is just making a bed, or, at perhaps a more complex level, getting your professional jobs done) you would see yourself in your mind's eye carrying out appropriate acts. But I know that you will have difficulty seeing yourself being this successful with weight-management behaviors, at first.

Having given many concerts in my first career as a violinist, and having become a pretty fair tennis player at a later age, I know what mental work it takes to build self-confidence and then to expose yourself in the arena for the true test of your ability. Actors, musicians, and champion athletes all visualize themselves on the set, the stage, or the field going through the motions that lead to success. We learn to do this as children, and this mental activity is an essential part of practice, just as essential as the physical part. If the actor, musician, or athlete has never learned how to fill his mind with success fantasies, it is quite likely that he will have an anticipation of failure that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You may be in this latter situation when it comes to weight management - you expect failure and you get it!

Unfortunately, we tend to forget the role of success fantasies as we grow older. Perhaps we become accustomed to our limitations and, for lack of knowledge or skill, we fail at things, such as controlling our weight that we could really learn to master. Perhaps we feel sheepish about fantasizing, as though it is not a grown-up thing to do.

It's time to start putting your childhood gift for fantasy and imagination back to work again!

So pick an approach to mastering those eating urges when you are preparing a meal, and take some time out to imagine yourself being completely successful in your performance. It is important to visualize yourself clearly in the situation, actually experiencing the difficulty that you have faced in the past. Then, you visualize yourself going through the specific actions that will lead to mastery, and you boldly carry them out in your mind's eye.

Let me emphasize that attention to specific behaviors is very important in this fantasy process. For example, champion tennis players put their major effort into visualizing perfect strokes and their plan of attack. They spend much less time dreaming of the trophy! This is where most persons who attempt to use fantasy as an aid to change make their crucial mistake. They dream about the end product, whereas they should be concentrating on the means to that end. As a concert violinist it was one thing to dream about being a success on the stage, but I soon learned that the most profitable time had to be spent mentally rehearsing the bowings and fingerings of every selection I was to perform, and hearing the music I was working on in my mind's ear as I watched the score flow by my closed eyes. Working mentally with a great deal of attention to detail, I was able to increase my technical security and I never had a memory slip.

You, too, will build confidence in the technique as you practice, and as you continue with the next steps in the mastery process. And, by the way, the time when you are out walking alone, or engaging in any other solitary physical activity, is one of the best times for productive fantasy. That's when you can engage in the mental practice that is necessary to learning to control your weight. Soon you may find that you are applying mental practice or rehearsal to many other things in your life. Today, being alone in some physical activity has become my best time for mental practice, and it makes going for a jog in the woods my best time for preparing classes and speeches and outlining articles and books. Try it - being alone during a walk or a jog may become your most productive and creative time as well.

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WEIGHT LOSS/BODY-BUILDING