Transforming Your Health Starts With Your Mind—Here Are 3 Easy Ways To Start

The range of advice on diet and exercise is overwhelming. While it makes sense to try to keep up with the latest information and to try things that are well supported by research, much dieting advice, in particular, is not established by science. So much advice is also contradictory. Fat is awful; no, it depends. Sugar is terrible, but wait, artificial sweeteners are poison.

Choose rational things you'd like to try and experiment with them. Remember: variation, selection, retention. Keep only what you find helpful. What works for others may not be good for you. For example, lots of programs tell you to eat a big breakfast. But I like a very light and very late breakfast of a few walnuts and an apple. I settled on that because I can sense in my body that for me light is better, and even that walnuts are better than, say, pecans. I call it body knowledge.

I've been watching and tweaking these patterns for years (other examples from my own body knowledge are cutting down on flour or decreasing the total time window for eating to under eight hours), and I'm not usually surprised to read studies that back up what I've seen with my own body. But a few months ago, I was startled to see a large new study that actually tested (wait for it) walnuts! Apparently, my body is not the only one reacting this way! 

Now, imagine you can reach out and touch your craving. At first, you might give it a sympathetic pat on the back, so to speak. See if eventually you can actually embrace the craving, figuratively cradling it in your arms like you would a child. Feel empathy for it, noticing how much it wants, how hungry it is for attention.

The demand for quick, big success has produced more failure than any other verbal rule. In the area of exercise, small and now will beat big and then any day. Pick small exercises you can do during the day and link them to your regular activities. Then build small habits of doing them. If your mind complains that these exercises are too small to matter, agree enthusiastically and go right on doing them.

If your diffusion skills allow you to use advanced social diffusion methods, exercise together with friends who are willing to put common shame statements out there for all to see. Do this only if you have a gut sense that you are truly ready for this practice. Say you have a friend who is also trying to lose weight and is willing to do vigorous walks with you. Both of you are ashamed of the way your bodies jiggle as you walk. Get T-shirts made with statements like My Body Jiggles. So Sue Me! and wear them together during your exercise program.

Timed well, this can be extremely liberating, even fun! Think of it as a mental Declaration of Independence, as if you are underlining that it's OK to be you, really.