Visualize the Body You Desire

While I do not consider myself a student of metaphysics, I do think there is a lot to be said about the power of positive thinking and visualizing a desired outcome.  Many years ago I read a research study on the power of visualization in which 3 groups of people were tested on their ability to shoot basketball freethrows.  At the beginning of the study they shot freethrows to establish a baseline performance level.   After establishing a baseline, the different groups were given different sets of instructions.

Group one was the control group.  They didn't have to do anything differently.  They just went about their normal lives.  The second group was asked to practice for a certain time period or number of shots every day.  The third group was asked to imagine successfully shooting freethrows for a certain length of time each day but they were not to actually shoot freethrows. 

After 30 days, the groups were again evaluated on their freethrow shooting ability.  Group 1, the control group, showed no change in their ability to shoot freethrows.  Group 2, the group that practiced freethrows consistently showed a 24% improvement in their performance.  Most remarkable, however, was Group 3, the visualization group.  Although this group hadn't touched a basketball during the entire experiment period, their freethrow shooting ability increased by 23%.

Whenever we visualize something, our brains begin active recruitment of body systems to carry out the task being visualized.  If you want to shoot more freethrows, practice AND visualize.  If you want to throw more strikes in bowling, hit better tee shots in golf, or blast more home runs in church league softball, visualize your goal and the path leading to it and see if performance improves.

The process of transforming your physique isn't immune to the effects of visualization.  Here are a couple of ideas on how to visualize the body you want.

Meditate

Sit or lay in a quiet, comfortable place.  Darkness helps.  Close your eyes and visualize your perfect physique.  Make sure every body part is accounted for - arms, shoulders, chest, abs, waist, back, thighs, and calves.  Imagine them as being lean, muscular, and rippling.  Imagine yourself running and not being tired.  Imagine that you are lifting weights you never imagined and your muscles are responding to the activity exactly as they are supposed to.

Further, visualize the inside of your body - the heart, circulatory system, and lungs.  Imagine a perfectly clean circulatory system - no clots, plaque, or other harmful deposits in your veins or arteries.  Imagine your lungs as clear and able to take in as much life-giving oxygen as possible with every breath.  Visualize every cell in your body working as it was designed to work.

These visualizations don't need to take a long time - 10 minutes or so should suffice - and can actually be done when lying in bed before sleep.  If you fall asleep while visualizing these things, all the better since they will be the last thing your conscious mind contemplates just before entering subconscious patterns.

Conscious Visualization

I'm not exactly sure what to call this practice, so I'll just call it conscious visualization.  Back in 2008 when I was working on getting out of the rut my life had fallen into, I was working in a position that had me sitting all alone in a building (a double-wide "office") monitoring a database.  The job afforded me a few nice perks, one of which was a dual-monitor computer setup and a laptop.  When I wasn't tied to using both monitors, I would leave the picture you see to the right on the second screen.  If I was using both monitors, I would pull the image up on my laptop.  I always had the image in front of me.

The body in that image belongs to Jamie Brunner.  The head was from one of my before shots.

The color was bad, and the image looked a little funny, but what I was trying to do was visualize myself with that body.  I got the idea from a Body-for-LIFE video that I got back in 2000 in which Hank Johnson used the technique to create an INCREDIBLE transformation of his physique.

All you need to do is find a picture of the body you want to walk around in, superimpose your head onto that body, and save the image.  You can print it and put it on your fridge (the trouble spot for many a would-be physique transformer) or put it on your bathroom mirror as a reminder that yours is a body under construction and the picture represents the goal.

Hopefully all of this makes sense and doesn't sound to woo-woo for anyone out there.  There is a lot to be said about the power of the mind over the body.  Tap-in to this potential gold mine and put it to work in your favor.

Like this article?
Buy us a Fat-Free Latte!

Why Diets Don't Work

Throughout the history of weightingon40.com, I've struggled with keeping certain negatively charged words at a minimum in my writing. One of those words, to which almost EVERYONE has a visceral negative reaction, is 'diet'. In a website like mine, it's nearly impossible to avoid the use of the word 'diet'. The problem is that the word expresses ideas that most of us just disagree with: starvation, elimination, hunger, deprivation, etc. Because of that fact alone, I use the word 'diet' as little as possible.

It's worth discussing, then, why we should avoid using the word:

• "Diet" implies a temporary change. People go on a diet for a time in order to achieve a certain goal they have set for themselves. 'Bob' might go on a diet in order to lose 20 lbs, and he's very likely to achieve that goal as long as he stays dedicated to his diet. What then? If 'Bob' ends his diet and returns to his previous patterns of eating, he's very likely to gain the weight back (plus a few pounds). The temporary nature of the diet concept is a major failing.
• "Diet" implies starvation. Truth be told, most people haven't a clue as to what a sound nutritional program should involve. When 'Bob' starts his diet, the first steps he'll take will likely be reducing calories to ridiculously low levels by cutting portions, replacing higher calorie foods with low calorie alternatives, and eliminating between-meal snacks. The body's first reaction to this new plan is to feel hungry and urge 'Bob' via grumbling hunger pangs to eat. Because 'Bob' is steadfast in his diet, however, he ignores the pleas of his body. The diet works in terms of the initial goal (to lose weight), though not because 'Bob' is doing things right; he is forcing his body to consume itself, usually in the form of muscle depletion, to function. After a while, 'Bob' is tired of feeling hungry all the time, so he starts eating more and subsequently gains weight.
• "Diet" involves the wrong type of goal. As Alice pointed out in her article, "Why Do You Train So Hard," people who set weight-loss goals are setting themselves up for failure because that goal has such a narrow focus. My personal goal weight is in the mid-170's (I'm currently 184). I could stop eating today and reach my goal sometime next week, but that's not a healthy plan. A healthier approach is to set a different sort of goal - overall fitness, being able to perform certain activities (running distance, speed, etc.), weight training goals, and the like. With those types of goals, there's no defined end point at which we would psychologically (and physically) stop working to become better. If I can bench press 60lb dumbbells today, I can strive for 65 tomorrow. This is a better goal than saying, "I want to weigh 176 lbs."
• "Dieting" is martyrdom. People like the attention they get when they're on a diet. I've witnessed examples of people who order just a salad at a steak restaurant because they are "on a diet." Everyone in their party 'oohs' and 'ahhs' over the dieter's determination to lose weight, and the dieter's ego is stroked. However, since most diets cannot be sustained over the long term, the dieter eventually falls away from the "plan" and starts eating again. I've discovered that a lot of people notice me now because I'm nearly 40 and in pretty good physical condition. It's a bigger ego stroke (though I'm careful to keep my head on straight over it), and I'm not starving myself (literally) for the attention.
• "Dieting" does not achieve the desired fat-loss result. Dieters are often just people who realize the fact that they have excessive fat and want to do something about it. Their first course of action, then, is to "go on a diet". Since we already know that the "diet" concept usually involves calorie restriction, the first thing the dieter does is stop eating as much. It doesn't take long for the body to realize that there are fewer calories coming in. The body perceives a famine state and shuts down metabolism to conserve energy. Rather than go after fat for fuel, the body resorts to consuming muscle tissue while saving fat for emergencies. The dieter loses weight, but the weight isn't in the form of fat - which is what the dieter wanted to eliminate in the first place. Prolonged occurrences of caloric deprivation can be physically harmful or, at worst, fatal.

While it's sometimes impossible to avoid using the word 'diet', I think it's worth pointing out that we should refer to diet solely as a way of eating and not as a lifestyle choice. Wherever possible, we should refer to a 'nutrition plan', which doesn't carry the same baggage that "diet" does.

Be well!