Little Black Dress Challenge - Week 9

It’s week 9 of our Little Black Dress Challenge and this week we are going to try visualisation. As we get closer to our target of a stone it can really be powerful to begin to visualise ourselves having achieved it. Visualisation is a powerful technique used by many athletes and other successful people to help them to achieve their goals. And it can be used when trying to lose weight.

I am not sure of why it works and nor do the scientists, as they are still conducting studies into it. It may be that your brain is tricked into thinking you are getting thinner and healthier and so it subtlety alters its cravings or the way it uses food. It might be that imagining yourself eating healthily and getting fitter helps you to stick to the right choices by rehearsing your responses first. There has even been studies that seem to show that if you imagine yourself eating before you sit down to a meal, you may eat less in reality, as your brain seems to be tricked into thinking you are already full! Or maybe it’s just the power of positive thinking and helping us to believe we CAN do it. We might not know how it works, but it seems to have enough success to be worth trying visualisation for weight loss!

So this week try some visualisation. Try to do it a few times a day, perhaps when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed, or when you are in the bath or riding on a bus. Close your eyes and imagine yourself at your target weight, without that extra stone. Remember what it felt like to hold the bag of tins we weighed out at the start and how much lighter you now feel without it. Think about your body – your arms, your waist, your legs, your tummy and imagine them getting smaller, firmer and more shapely. See the fat disappearing from each of those areas, one by one. Imagine yourself getting dressed into the outfit you want to wear at Christmas. If you haven’t already got one in mind, imagine going shopping for it and finding something you love which actually fits when you try it on. Imagine showing your friends and family how nice it looks on you and how good you feel.

Now visualise the day ahead, what you will eat at breakfast, how you will say no when someone offers you a cake with your coffee, how you will prepare your low-fat meal at dinner time, or how hard you will work-out in tonight’s exercise class. Pick one or two of your weakest moments (whether it’s around snacking, or not making time for exercise, or drinking a glass of wine in the evening) and imagine yourself doing it right and sticking to your regime.

Hopefully, if you go through these visualisations a few times each day, it will help you to focus on your challenge and help you to stick to it.

Let me know how you get on!