How Visualization Can Help You Lose Weight

Recently I read an amazing article from Personal Trainer Tony Books Avilez of The Body House. Tony's an amazing author and trainer and made some excellent points about the power of the mind when it comes to achieving your health and fitness goals.

Many fitness experts fail to convey this to their clients or people that learn from them. In fact Tony actually recommends that this is the first place you should start when beginning or continuing a health and fitness program.

My favorite point is that of motivation in that many people say they don't exercise because they can't find the time. He talks about Donald Trump promising you 10 million dollars if you participate in a health and fitness regimen while still maintaining family and business obligations. In this case I don't think there is a person in the world that would not find time to exercise then. Do you? Tony goes on to say that it's not time that's a problem but motivation which made great sense. Also remember that in the short term and long term exercise will save you money and aggravation. Health costs associated with LOE (Lack of Exercise) only go up as you age and haven't taken care of yourself.

With that in mind here is an excellent technique you can use right away to help you with the mental aspect of your health and fitness program:

Create a vision in your mind of how you want to look or want to accomplish: For example how will you look when you lose 15 pounds or how will you look in those jeans you can't fit in anymore. And I really mean sit down, lie down or stand up somewhere, close your eyes and visualize how you will actually look.

Here's a little story about how I visualized training professional athletes which was a big goal of mind for many years:

I would just imagine getting off the train in the Bronx on my way to work at Yankee Stadium. If you've ever been to Yankee Stadium for a game you can feel a giant buzz of energy as soon as you get off the train because of the thousands of people there in anticipation for the days game. In this visualization there is no buzz because there are a lot less people. You see in this scenario I'm arriving at Yankee Stadium as the strength and conditioning coach and it's 9 to 10 in the morning. There aren't as many people and I'm just getting there to work with the players. I walk in to work and set up the exercise circuit I've prepared for the players and update their training logs. I think about talking to Derek Jeter and his tight hamstring and how we're are going to overcome it.

I hope this gives you a picture of what I mean. You really need to think and imagine real life scenarios and they will come true. Remember your thoughts create your actions and actions create your reality.

The funny thing in this visualization story is that instead of training the New York Yankees I ended up training the WNBA's New York Liberty Women's Basketball team. But all the other details were very similar. I'd get up each morning and go to Madison Square Garden or Basketball City (where we practiced) and set up strength and conditioning programs for one of the premier women's basketball teams in the world. I remember sitting in the trainer's room at Madison Square Garden chatting with All-Star and future Hall of Famer Teresa Weatherspoon about a recurring hamstring injury and how we were going to fix it. Turns out we took care of her hammy but the point here is that I really visualized all this before as I wrote earlier about Derek Jeter.

Every time I think about the power of visualization I think about that very instant speaking with T-Spoon and that there is a great deal to be said about the power of your mind. So the next thing for you is to vividly think what you want to achieve and your mind will move you to that goal.

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