Dieting and Weight Loss - A New Programme For Achieving Your New Year Resolution

A world of food abundance; that's the reality we live in on this part of our planet. So after all the over indulgences of the festive season, the New Years resolution for most of us is yet again to lose weight. How many years has this been your resolution? Now be honest with yourself, how long does the resolution last?

How would you like the ability to sustain your motivation all year and find the weight you were born to be? Believe it or not you have that ability right now. The problem is you have probably been looking in the wrong direction and with the wrong mindset. Sustainable motivation is fed by positive thoughts, feelings and actions and not by shame, guilt and self-loathing.

So here we are at the start of 2008 with a great opportunity to change the way you think and live. Change first comes from recognising the starting point from which you want to make the changes. To do this I invite you to answer the following question...

"If you were going to build a machine that produced comfort eating and weight gain, what would the machine need to do?"

Interesting question? I sat down some time ago and made a list of what my machine would be programmed to do. Yours may well be quite different so have a go at this yourself. I decided that my machine would need to be programmed to...

Focus obsessively on food;

Make some food 'Good' and others 'Bad';

Fear the 'Bad' food, restrict its intake and then crave it;

Believe that its present size, shape and weight is never 'Good Enough';

Pick up all the negative messages (viruses) that come into contact with it;

Have an already full memory of 'viruses' of negative messages and beliefs;

Be rebellious sometimes and give out lots of messages as to why the 'Bad' food is deserved;

Quickly bring the emotions of guilt, shame and self-loathing into play when not in rebellious

mode;

Hate its body no matter what size or shape it is;

See exercise or increased physical activity as a painful or boring process;

Make sure its mind is never in tune with its bodily feelings and needs;

Make sure that happiness is a fleeting experience;

Make sure that a 'not enough time' programme deletes thoughts of self-loving actions.

Can you see the pattern of negativity? I realised that nothing programmed in this way can ever sustain motivation for permanent weight loss. The programme needed to be changed. The wonderful thing is that we CAN reprogramme our minds. After all, we ourselves programmed it to comply with the dieting game so we can certainly change the programme again.

Why not make your 2008 New Years resolution to be one of reprogramming, support and self-loving actions. The amazing thing is the results will be the permanent weight loss you have wanted year after year. Isn't it time to make this year the one where you discover the weight you were born to be?

Chrissie Webber is a published author, business coach and leadership trainer. As Managing Director of Life-Shapers Ltd she is developing her online weight-loss motivation company http://www.lifeshapers.co.uk into a franchise of Life Shapers Weight Management Coaches.

Her track record in the area of weight management is firstly a personal one. Following a lifetime of weight issues - at her heaviest, over 21 stone and a massive size 30 - she has personal experience of diets and their devastating effect on size and psyche.

With a background in nursing, psychology and business coaching, coupled with a lifetime of dieting, she developed and successfully used a series of models and tools that enhance weight loss motivation. Now over 5 dress sizes smaller and having sustained her weight loss for several years she has written a book about her motivational journey. Weight Loss, Life Gain - A Motivational Journey to Permanent Weight Loss was published in January 2008 by Accent Press.

Her Blog http://www.chrissiewebber.co.uk and free monthly eZine now offer support to others.