Dieting: What Your Focus Should Be!

 Have you ever made up your mind to go on a journey to someplace fairly unknown? All of a sudden, everywhere you look, you’ll see something about your planned destination. Switch on a travel TV and it is featured. Take up a newspaper and there is a write up concerning it. Why this all round interest in a place didn’t really think much about.

That is secret; before now you never gave it much thought. The subject was always there somewhere but you did not give it any attention so you didn’t take note. We are encircled by lots of motivation and information that we do not have the ability to notice more than a fraction of what enters our environment. We sieve out most of the stimuli through our own concentration or lack of it. Get involved in a new endeavor and what you perceived as a constricted underdeveloped subject is exposed as a wide reaching, massive, largely developed area in which you are a greenhorn among professionals who seem to be widely acknowledged and respected- the ‘sage’ of the new field- but you have never come across them before.

Shifting your interest alters your world in that your filters have been reshaped. It usually happens instantaneously when something you see or hear connects to you, fascinates you and pulls your thoughts in novel directions. It may also occur by obligation when you are compelled to look into new areas so as to achieve a special aim. For instance, I have been writing for a long time, I never considered anything outside the usual publishing which says put it forward to the commercial publishers and believer that after a mindboggling number of refusals, something will work out. I found out about self publishing on the net one day, and walked into a huge world I had no prior knowledge of. Once published, I was compelled to delve into the world of publicity that I hitherto thought was a small segment mainly composed of celebrities and public personalities. The depth and width of knowledge was inspiring. After many months going through, I barely scraped the surface.

The bottom line is this; if we can alter the way we perceive our environment instinctively or by obligation, WHY NOT ALTER IT BY DESIGN? If I mostly ponder on food then all I see around is food related stimuli. I will see and concentrate on food advertisements, cooking shows, recipe sources, new eateries, cookware and ‘absolutely amazing’ kitchen appliances. If I think of myself as a gourmet, I will examine the look of the dish and the complexity of the ingredients. If I am on a diet, I will look at the details of how many carbohydrates, the level of fat, the number of grains of protein, and the overall caloric content. If my concentration is on health, I will check out the vitamins, minerals and the free radical scavengers. Wherever I focus on, it doesn’t make any difference. IT’S ALL ABOUT FOOD.  If we desire to alter that, to take away food from its vital position in our lives, we have to quit pondering upon it. It is not a simple task but it is possible even if it is agonizing. The valid question is how we can achieve it. Go over the last two pages. We design our world through the way we sieve its inputs. We will have to sift every scrap of food (forgive the pun) possible and substitute it with a dissimilar input that will not make us fat.

Pleasurable Diversions

This is where we go in divergent ways since everyone have their own favorites and unfavorable. For someone, the thought of sex maybe a good alternative while for another football may be it. Yet another may see a great mystery novel a pleasurable diversion. What is significant at this junction is to choose something you enjoy doing. You will have lots of time to deal with the excruciating parts of weight loss but at this initial stage, your preference is of topmost significance. Put down your martyrdom inclination for another time.

Make your choice from any of these items or include your own personal selections;

Reading

Sewing

Solitaire

Mah-jongg

Video games

Jigsaw puzzles

Knitting

Quilting

I’m reluctant to add workouts. Though that is clearly a good thing for your health, If it is something you enjoy, you will not be overweight. However, we are on the lookout for pleasurable diversions here and not ‘shoulds’ and ‘ought tos’.