In this article, Vanda North introduces Mind Chi – an 8 minute a day program that can give you the reins of self control, allowing you to overcome problem areas or achieve goals for greater overall success and fulfilment in business and life.

Your Mind Chi Basic 8 minute program takes 28 days to create the cornerstone of your ‘New You’, after this you can advance to Mind Chi in Action where you address a specific topic or issue. To illustrate Mind Chi more effectively we’ve adapted the following from the book ‘Mind Chi – rewire your brain in 8 minutes a day’ (written by Richard Israel and Vanda North), that addresses the issue of ‘Achieving Your Perfect Size!

We’ve broken this article down into two parts:

1. Mind Chi in Action, and
2. Mind Chi Applied.

Mind Chi in Action

Figure 1: A map of the Mind Chi Plan to ‘Achieve your perfect size’

Mind Chi Goal – To be my perfect size
Mind Chi Meme – ‘I choose to be my perfect size’ or ‘I choose my size’

Please note that we very carefully did NOT call this strategy ‘Become Slimmer’ or ‘Lose Weight’ because those may have the unfortunate end result of anorexia. Where does ‘Lose weight’ end? That is not what you (or we) want.

Numerous things can affect your ‘perfect’ size. It does not stay constant throughout your life. Only a very small proportion of people are overweight because of disease or the side-effects of medicines. Recent research (although this science is still very young) has NOT been able to prove a ‘fat gene’, only that the reason people are overweight is because of their lifestyle.

There are only three factors you to consider:

1. What you put into your body;
2. What you do with your body and
3. Your Mind Chi direction.

Let’s look at each of those.

1. What you put into your body

• The more sugars, carbohydrates, ‘empty’ calories and fatty or preserved foods you eat, the more weight you will put on. If your diet has fresh fruits, vegetables and lean meat or fish you are less likely to put on weight.
• How often and how much do you eat? Many people tend to ‘graze’, losing the delight of the feeling of being ‘hungry’. Try three meals a day; eat them when you feel hungry.
• Develop ‘delayed gratification’. If you keep busy, or do something physical, you will often find that your ‘hunger’ disappears!
• Help yourself by using a small plate (especially at ‘all you can eat’ restaurants!). A simple rule is eat 20% less for every 20 years of your life (for example, when you are 40 eat 20% less than when you were 20, when you are 60 eat 20% less than when you are 40) – as long as you are maintaining the original level of activity.
• Most importantly, eat SLOWLY. Your appetite is a bit slow at informing you of sufficiency! If you eat very fast you are unlikely to give your body time to tell you when it has had enough and you end up saying ‘Gosh, I am STUFFED!’
• Put your knife and fork down and talk (with your mouth empty, please) to your table companion (pet, teddy bear).

2. What you do with your body

• Just as longer car journeys use more petrol, so too the more active you are, the more calories you burn. If you want to eat that doughnut, you must walk fast for 1 hour to burn it off! (Now THAT may make you think twice!)
• The ONLY way to lose weight is to burn MORE calories than you eat. That is it!

3. Your Mind Chi direction

• Your motivation to overeat is complex, as ‘hunger’ is often a ruse feeling for missing love, attention, satisfaction or confidence. The ‘hunger’ is momentarily satiated by food, (drugs, nicotine or alcohol) but the subsequent ‘low’ afterwards, requires you to crave MORE the next time. That causes a very negative downward spiral. Becoming aware of what is really happening is already a big step in the right direction.
• Enroll your ‘Chi’ to assist you. (This is your inner voice, the same one that talked you into eating, and it can be encouraged to assist you to make good decisions). Make a commitment to your new size, with a new outfit as the reward. Your volition (willpower) will take you there. Tell those closest to you of your goal, so they are your supporters.
• What are your habitual triggers? The phone ringing triggers the need for a chocolate? The end of a day requires several glasses of wine? It is 1:00 and time for lunch? Use delaying and distracting activities until your triggers melt away.
• It is very important that you use moderation and still enjoy life! So if it is your birthday, have that piece of cake and plan to run a bit further the following evening. Keep flexible and, at the same time, steadfast in your direction.

» Now read about Mind Chi Applied (the next article in this series)

Buy the book:

Thanks to Vanda North and Richard Israel for the reproduction and use of this article.
Mind Map® and Mind Maps® are registered trademarks of the Buzan Organisation.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 11:48 am and is filed under 5. Engagement & Personal Balance, Engagement and Motivation, Well-being. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.