It's hard to imagine a more practical and useful piece of advice than Siebold offers today. He says, if your beliefs are standing in the way of your success with losing weight (or anything else) then:
1. take an inventory of your core beliefs;
2. turn each of these beliefs around and reframe it as its opposite;
3. repeat the new belief (even if you don't believe it at first) until it's absorbed by the conscious and the unconscious minds, just like learning a new language.
What would I have to believe in order to succeed at losing weight? The belief precedes the action, so if I change the belief I'll change the action.
Siebold gives us a list of 10 core beliefs he had when he was fat. Dieting equals pain; dieting is short term; I can lose weight without a formal diet; diets don't work; diets make me unhappy because I can't eat what I want; diets deny me pleasure; dieting means I can't eat in restaurants; diets are too much work; diets involve extreme discipline; the pleasure of fitness is not worth the pain of dieting. He says he had a whole lot more,
Then he deliberately "replaced" each of these core beliefs: Dieting equals the pleasure of being successful, energetic and happy with his body; dieting is long term success; dieting just means following a successful system; diets work perfectly so long as I stick to it; I can develop new favourite foods that are on my diet; dieting is pleasurable because I like feeling fit and looking great and being successful; I can eat in a restaurant so long as I prepare in advance; being fat is too much work, it weights on me all day long every day; dieting is a light discipline which returns disproportionate rewards including looking terrific all the time; the pleasure of fitness is worth any price I have to pay because without my health I have nothing.
He didn't believe these new beliefs at first. He felt like a phony repeating them over and over, learning the new language of the new beliefs. But with adoption of the new beliefs came changes in behaviour, changes in results, and genuine belief. Most people quit too soon: small changes in behaviour take maybe 3-4 weeks, and major changes in behaviour following deliberate replacement of old core beliefs with new ones may take a year or more. But with persistence, the reiteration of the new core beliefs does create permanent change in behaviour and in results. It's a simple process but it takes time and it takes patience.
Siebold bases this approach on years of interviews. He asked 500 fit people about their core beliefs and then he copied them. (He did the same thing for rich people; and for people with good relationships/marriages; and for people who are good parents.)
Is he right? What do I have to lose by trying it, by copying the success of others?
I was stunned to check the difference between my answers to the homework questions from last time I took the fatloser course and this time.
Last time, my strongest beliefs about dieting and exercise included: I don't like dieting; dieting means that I can't eat what I like(chips and French fries); dieting is a lot of work; I don't like to exercise; exercise hurts etc. etc. And: at that time I'd already lost the weight. I was in maintenance.
This time? And, nope, I didn't peek in advance. But I had very different responses. Diets work. My diet is permanent. I like the food I get to eat on my diet. Exercise feels great every time even if I didn't want to exercise. And so on.
Replacing core beliefs sure does take time and patience. And the old beliefs will creep back unconsciously if I permit them. But taking an inventory of core beliefs from time to time seems to me a terrific maintenance tool. And taking this fatlosers course over again (for the third or fourth time) has given me a chance to do that.