Realistic Resolutions for Real Results

Realistic Resolutions for Real Results
by author Brad J. King

You wake up one morning in January and take a good look in the mirror. Are you happy with the person staring back at you?

Are you in the body you want to be in? Or do you see the body of someone who took advantage of the holiday season with too much great food, a few too many holiday beverages, and no time for exercise? If you’re nodding your head&and let’s be honest, most of us are&then the following information is imperative to your New Year’s resolution success, whatever it may be.

The late Dr. Maxwell Maltz, one of the most widely known and highly regarded plastic surgeons of our time, once said in his best-selling book, Psycho Cybernetics, “When you change a man’s face, you almost invariably change his future.” This change occurs on a much deeper level than mere cosmetics. It also occurs in personality, behaviour, and sometimes even basic talents and abilities.
Dr. Maltz noted that some patients - no matter how physically altered through surgery - showed no change at all in personality. It was as if nothing had changed; in their minds they remained scarred or ugly. Dr. Maltz later went on to discover that a person’s “self-image,” or the way an individual perceives themselves, is the real key to a person’s personality and behaviour.

For example, if you plan to change the way you look, feel, and perform, proper exercise is a necessity. But 50 per cent of people who start an exercise program after New Years quit during the first six months. Could it be that they don’t believe in themselves?

A study published in the Journals of Gerontology indicates that how you think (in terms of what exercise can or cannot do for you), will determine how well exercise will work for you. After questioning 364 women over 55 years of age for the study, lead researcher Joanne Schneider, PhD, realized that those who believed the most in the benefits of exercise were the ones who benefited the most physiologically and psychologically. They exercised for longer periods of time and with more intensity.

Another study published in the journal Obesity Research showed that the longer people are successful at keeping excess weight off, the easier it becomes and the less effort it requires. This makes sense since the more a behaviour - such as exercising or eating right-is repeated, the more likely it is to become a habit. That habit becomes your character and your character determines your destiny.

So in case you haven’t gotten it by now, it is only when you believe 100 percent - within your soul - that you are ready to make a change in your life, that change will happen in your life. Once you truly believe that change is not only possible but simply a matter of time, your personality and behaviour will guide you to your ultimate destiny - in this case, the new leaner, more energetic you.

Brad J. King, MS, MFS, is a nutritional researcher and author of the international bestseller and the new . To subscribe to his free monthly newsletter, the , visit: .

Source: alive #255, January 2004

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