Adam Pedley

Well after years of trying I finally did it. There was no secret diet pill, or magic fairy dust. We all know how to lose weight, it’s just the motivation to do it. That’s where the secret lies, in the motivation to change, not how you do it.

If you read my post on forward thinking you will come to realize that time is your most precious resource. On average you live 4000 weeks in a life time. Now that doesn’t sound like much, especially when you might have already used 2000 (40 years) of them.

Now I’m not still motivated, and I don’t have to be. I only used motivation to change my lifestyle not to keep me on this new path. Motivation will come and go, I am yet to be motivated 24/7/365. You just need motivation to change your lifestyle, then there is no more need for motivation as you will just be living your life.

The motivation to lose weight has always come and gone for me. I imagine just like myself you might have said, yes this is it, I am going to be healthy and lose weight, i’ve had enough. 2 days later your in front of the TV eating chocolate.

There was a combination of several things that helped me do this. And I must put emphasis on it was just me, I didn’t have someone there helping me along, or calling me up saying go to the gym. Im most cases I had people trying to persuade me to have a soft drink, lets get take away tonight.

First was a piece of information from Tony Robbins. Imagine your favourite food or drink. I did this with coke as I used to drink anywhere from 2 to 4 litres a day.  Now imagine your worst experience with it. I imagined the metallic taste of the aluminum can. Every time I felt like I coke I imagined this and then would wait 60 seconds before making my decision. Every time I would then decide coke is not good and I would drink water. The first week was the hardest, I felt like I had no energy, I had a headache and as you might have experienced a drink of coke would fix it all. Why does this happen, its caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Yes caffeine is a drug that you get addicted to. The same will happen if you stopped drinking coffee or tea (mainly black).

Is a glass of softdrink good for you occassionaly. No. I haven’t touched soft drink in over 2 years now and it feel immensely better for it. Just some of the other symptoms I had with soft drink are, if I drank coke early in the morning my shoulders would ache. If I drank pepsi max, I would get head spins within 1 minute.

So if  you don’t have a bad experience with your favourite food or drink, make one and think about it whenever you have a craving. You will be quickly turned off the idea of eating or drinking.

I was talking to one of my old friends in which we discuss a huge range of things. We ended up talking about emotions and different parts of the body. When you are nervous or have some emotional issues where do you feel them? Its in the stomach, feeling butterlies when you are nervous or feeling sick when something disgusts you and there are many more. So if you want to get rid of these feelings what do you do. Lets go and keep the stomach occupied with something else, food. You eat when you are upset because you want to stop feeling your current emotions. You need to learn to deal with them. 

If you are feeling down, exercise will cheer you up. Just going for a walk outside or jogging if you are that way inclined will help. There are other ways, that aren’t so good, such as watching tv (shuts down your brain), and getting involved in a project or task. Ever wondered why some people bury themselves in their work?

Many people don’t know what it is like to feel hungry. I know you might think you do, but really, who gets hungry in the morning, lunch time and dinner time every day regardless of activities. Not many. If you were a lumberjack or an athelete then 3 meals a day might be suitable, but not an office worker. Builders or trades people may also require 2-3 meals a day. It all depends on your physical activity.

Now I am not recommending everyone do this, as I do not know your current health state, but I didn’t eat until I really felt hungry, which was in about 48 hours. Yes you think you are hungry to begin with, but that doesn’t last very long. I only knew I needed food when i felt light headed and my hands started going cold.

When you do start to eat food, chew each mouthful until it is liquid. This may mean a mouthful might take 1 minute but just enjoy the flavour of the food. Your stomach takes a while before it even knows it full. Taking your time to enjoy your food will give your stomach enough time to realise when its full.

Another good thing to note is that sometimes thirst may be confused with hunger. So drink a nice cool glass of water and wait for a minute or 2 before deciding on when to eat.

Throwing out or leaving food is by some considered wasteful or disrepectful. But when you consider that if people did do this, they would live longer, be more productive to society, put less strain on hospitals and there would be more left over money to create more food. If you are no longer hungry, don’t eat. Even if there is 1 mouthful left, if you are full, put down your knife and fork (or spoon). If you think someone might be offended, who cares, they will forget within a few days, whereas if you ate the last mouthful your body would still be carrying it around. Think about whether this would really matter in a weeks time, or are you just doing it for instant gratification or pleasing of others.

Just a quick note on calorie counting. It’s a waste of time. Eat when you are hungry not by how much a book says you should eat. Also not by when society says you should eat (e.g. Breakfast, lunch time and dinner).

The subsconcious mind is a large factor in everything you do. To have a quick overview of this, is the subconscious mind details things with things in the present tense only. Going to be healthy and I will be healthy means nothing to your subconcious. It only understands I am healthy. I know it seems very weird to say these things, but when you do it will tell your subconscious mind that you are healthy and to act like a healthy person. The Secret or Psych-K were the two tools that explained this well. This is a huge subject on its own and I will write about this in other posts.

Exercising is the dreaded word most people fear when losing weight. (sorry this next part may be more male specific) It will help you lose weight. Now the secret I only found out later is that you don’t need to do a huge amount. There are four things I did, walked the dog (30 min walk) each night, squats, situps and pushups. Now I know you might not like the sound of those last 3, but just try this. Do as many situps/pushups/squats until it starts to hurt then just 2-3 more. Make your way so you can do 30. Then don’t start doing more, but add more resistance. For situps start putting your arms on your chest or head, instead of your legs and keep working until you can do situps with your arms behind your head. Then add a small weight, and keep building. Do this for the squats as well, keep adding weights. For pushups you might need to buy a bench press. Now do the situps, pushups and squats on different days. Thats right, dont do each of them every day, do a different one each day.

But the secret part here is once you build that muscle, it starts buring energy for you. Muscles use energy even while they are not doing anything. So it means that while you are stationary, you are burning more energy and losing weight faster.

Choice is the final thing that let me succeed. A major breakthrough in my mindset was made, when I realised that everything I did, and that is everything, was because I chose to do so. So I was overweight because I chose to be overweight, I was unfit because I chose to be unfit. You need to make the choice to be healthy. Once you have made the primary choice to be healthy you should notice all smaller decisions to be healthy are also made. You can make the choice to do anything you want and where you are now is because you chose to be there, circumstance has nothing to do with it.

Now is all of the above going to be hard. It was for me, but it’s worth it. Please just try it and you will be greatly rewarded. Remember you are doing this for later not for now. Just keep imagining everytime you make a decision, how good it will be in the future when you are looking great. If you do try my approach I would love to hear if it has helped you, so please comeback and leave a comment or email me, I do read all of them.

You might like to keep in the back of your mind that you never notice a great accomplishment while it is being acheived only once it is acheived.

Here are some resources I read and watched that helped me greatly and are well recommended to read or watch.

In order to help make little changes in your life that will have a huge impact later, I have decided to do the occassional quick tip. So here is my first one.

Being confident is largely to do with body language. Most importantly posture and head positioning.

Look straight ahead, lift your chest up, put your shoulders back.

Walk around like this all the time. There is no need to over exaggerate the movements and this may feel a little strange at first but in that position you will be filled with confidence.

You might be suprised at how people interact with you from now on.

I thought I would compile a list of my favorite quotes which I find have powerful meanings. I will continue to add to these over time.

“Begin each day as if it were on purpose” – Mary Anne Radmacher

“Only a life lived for others is a life worth while” – Albert Einstein

“Never wish life were easier, wish that you were better.” – Jim Rohn

“A life lived for happiness is a life lived with purpose.” – Adam Pedley

Connecting with people is one of the fundamentals of being human. We all connect with people, its in our nature. So how does this connection work? My understanding comes to the commonalities between people.

When people first meet, people will make small talk about such questions as where they work and what their hobbies are, anything to try and find a common ground. If one is found the conversation will expand to include more about personal opinions on the common interest.

From here it is common values or beliefs that will decide on whether they become friends or aquaitences.

Now have you ever admired a person or found traits in person irritating or anything along those lines. Well, say hello to everything you admire about yourself, desire to be or dislike about yourself. You like to project yourself on to others, as I do as well. It’s not a bad thing, its great as it shows you who you are.

So what if you want to have a relationship, friendship with someone else. Be an equal!

What are the values that you admire in the person. Make these values your own. Values and beliefs can be difficult to change if you belief they are. If you want to have a relationship with a person at least one core value or belief must be a match. To have a deeper relationship multiple core values and beliefs must be a match.

One interesting thing you might notice is that once you change a core belief or value to one that you admire, people who have that core belief or value will surround you.

So right now, write down a core value or belief you wish to have and believe it. If you don’t know google on how you can do it. And once its changed, watch your equals surround you.

For this year I want to follow a theme for how to improve your life in all areas. While my life is brilliant in some it’s catching up in others. I will share my experiences I have had so far in each aspect, hoping to help others towards their goals.

The main aspects I will be looking at (and please tell me if I have missed any) are

• Relationships
• Health
• Wealth
• Purpose

In terms of relationships I am speaking about any relationship with any other human being or yourself. They are different types of relationships that can be had, and as I will hopefully enable you to discover is that the relationship to yourself is the most important.

Health and Wealth are possibly the 2 largest chased after areas of someones life to improve. While they are both important, you must realize they are only a part of your life. If you have no purpose or no relationships how can you lead a fulfilling life?

Purpose is something that drives us all. We all want to know what it is, we have something driving us to complete or make a difference in some part of the world. It’s a fascinating area to learn as when it comes down to it, our purpose is life is what ever you want it to be, what ever makes you happy.

With all of these aspects, it is important to note, there is only one thing all of us are chasing, and that’s happiness. Once you achieve happiness in area’s of your life, those areas only ever get better. I look forward to our journey this year and that we all make this a great year.

Only a life lived for others is worth living – Albert Einstein