If You Want To Lose Weight Fast, Put A Your Lizard On A Leash!

It seems these days that everyone wants to lose weight fast. Yet they’re having more and more trouble finding weight loss solutions that works.

Think about this…

Have you ever wondered why food looks so good, so tempting? Or why you push the plate aside telling yourself that you’re done. Then find your hand reaching toward the plate, for 'one more bite' even though you are entirely stuffed? Suddenly, the food is all gone, you're miserable and beating yourself up for your lack of willpower.

Why?

It's your primitive brain at work. But if you want to lose weight fast, or even slowly, you've gotta tame that lizard!

What is a lizard brain? If you were to look at a sonogram of a fetus newly forming in the womb, you would see a little shrimp like creature and the outline of a spinal column running up its back. At the top of the spinal cord is a tiny speck, the first part of the brain that will fully develop later. That little speck is the limbic brain, also known as the lizard brain and is responsible for self preservation, the survival behavior that you have zero control over.

This part of the brain commands some of your involuntary actions and serves as the hard drive of your basic bodily systems, things like your heart beat, breathing and digestion. Repetitive behavior and aggression are born also born here as well as the need to reproduce and eat. Remember, it’s all about survival, and the survival of the species.

But here’s the thing…the limbic brain is primal. Eat, breathe, have sex, repeat is the all that it considers. And it’s selfish…terribly so.

To accomplish the enormous task of keeping you safe and reproducing, your lizard brain has evolved to the status of a teenager, and is forever hungry, scared, selfish and horny. (Now you know why they say ‘sex on the brain’!!)

This part of the brain has a fatal flaw, its short range vision. It doesn’t stop to consider the long term consequences of its actions… it simply triggers the craving and leaves the willpower and decision making for the more evolved, grown up gray matter.

Food is a component of the fatal flaw.

Remember that it’s the lizard brains responsibility to make sure that you eat, to ensure that there is energy to get through the day and survive a famine. It’s triggered by the sight of food and nag, nag, nags you until you take that first bite (or twentieth).

If food is present, the nagging kicks in because it wants you to take advantage of its presence NOW. It requires immediate action and doesn’t foresee the long-term effect (obesity, ill-health, low self-esteem) as an obstacle.

A hundred years ago, making sure you craved the food that was in reach was ok, because most of that food was healthy, whole foods in limited supply. But, in today’s society, that “eat while you can” part of your brain wasn’t prepared for fast food, high fructose corn syrup or donuts by the dozen. It isn’t your fault that an uncontrollable part of your brain creates a fierce craving of food upon sight. Willpower often simply isn’t strong enough to keep automatic response at bay (think Pavlov’s dog).

That is why it’s so vitally important to create a micro-environment of health around you. By eliminating the junk foods in your home, car and office you automatically reduce the lizard’s ability to nag you into making unhealthy choices. When you’re looking for easy diets, surrounded yourself with healthy foods. It’s one of the quickest ways to lose weight.

Come on...give your lizard a break. Put your kitchen on a diet by removing the unhealthy foods and drinks from within your reach. Take control of your own life… because you’re smarter than a lizard, right?

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