Last week I offered you to make a decision leading up to Christmas. A decision to lose weight, maintain your current weight, or put on a couple of pounds. What did you decide? Whatever your decision you can now make a plan. The plan is like the GPS road map that gets you to your end goal, and in December it will help you avoid saying ‘stuff it’ and giving up on your decision, or more importantly giving up on you.
But you may feel planning is a chore, you want to be spontaneous and it takes time to plan. All very sneaky thoughts that your brain offers to you, to avoid change. So here is what you need to know about your brain and weight loss.
When no plan is present, your primal brain will seek pleasure and avoid pain. That served us when we were back in caves trying to find berries and stay away from a saber tooth tiger. Now, it looks like Aunt Bessie offering you a plate full of Christmas pie pleasure, and you not wanting to offend her (as it could lead to a painful emotion).
Without a plan, your primal brain is the one making all the decisions, the one who seeks out the Christmas pies, mulled wine, and apple cider.
The great news is that we do have another part of our brain that is on our side in weight loss. This is the prefrontal cortex. This part of our brain is always looking out for our long-term wellbeing. It is best used to plan ahead of time, at least a day ahead for best success. If left in the moment, the primal brain generally wins out.
I like to describe the primal brain as the child, and the prefrontal cortex as the parent. Let’s use the analogy of a child and a parent relationship to explain what happens in your brain If you don’t manage your brain around food and pleasure.
If you don’t give your child restrictions, they will sit and eat the whole chocolate advent calendar or sit on a play station all day. Your child will always seek pleasure, and often have a tantrum if you don’t give them what they want. How many times have you heard yourself think the following around food…? “But I want it”, “I am going to have that”, or “If they can have that so can I”.
Nothing has gone wrong, it’s just your child primal brain seeking out pleasure. In fact, it is working just fine. But left to its own devices you can see how it can cause problems. It was essential to seek pleasure when we were evolving humans, but we are not cave men anymore, and pleasure in high doses comes in sugar, alcohol, social media likes, and other immediate forms of concentrated pleasure.
Indulging in these pleasures can lead to negative consequences like weight gain, relationship issues, foggy heads, poor functioning, shame, self-judgement, and self-loathing.
What should we do instead? The first step is to understand there is nothing wrong with you when you feel the strong urge to eat highly concentrated food and drinks, like Christmas pies and alcohol. You are not out of control or lack willpower, you just have a human brain! Great news, right? The next step is to put the adult brain in charge by making decisions ahead of time. Decisions that are for your future wellbeing.
So, step up adult brain! Supervise that childlike brain because you know that giving your child restrictions will allow them to live a longer healthy life, free from an addiction to sugar (and hopefully play station), and free from issues with their relationship with food. You may feel some resistance from that childlike brain, as we do as parents, but eventually your child gets used to the idea, and the rules, and gets on with it. Just like your brain.
Planning for how you want your December to look is not a chore, it is looking out for you and your goals. I don’t mean you have to count calories; no one likes counting calories and if you can’t do it for the rest of your life, it’s not worth doing in my books. So here are 3 things you can do to put your adult brain in charge this Christmas.
- Plan what you will eat or drink a day ahead of time.
- Be prepared that your primal brain may resist, just like your child does when they ask for sugar and you offer them fruit.
- Enjoy the feeling of accomplishment you get from following through on your plan and yourself. Celebrate the new relationship you are building with you.
Weight loss has a lot to do with your mindset. If you know that this is something that you need to work on to get the weight loss results you desire, then get in touch for a free 20-minute mini call. There is a no obligation to sign up for anything, it is a chance for us to get to know each other and to find out if coaching is right for you and get you a some help on the call. Click here for my contact details to schedule a call today.
Have a brilliant week.
