I once had a therapy client who told me she bought an exercise bike about six months prior to coming in for some one-on-one coaching. As is the fate of most exercise bikes, treadmills, and gym equipment, it just sat there getting dusty. So she was thinking about getting rid of it. The reason was that she lacked the energy or motivation to use it and wanted to know how to get back into that mindset to lose weight.

My suggestion was that she make a routine where she would do just one minute of walking on the treadmill each day. After all, this required very little energy and motivation. She told me that “doing one minute of walking per day wasn't enough to make any difference to her weight" and questioned the point.

This is true, one minute of exercise daily would not do anything for her "physically"; however, the weight was not the cause of her problem, it’s the consequence or the result of the problem. The cause is the "psychological" thinking and underlying beliefs about the particular problem. So by getting on the treadmill for just one minute per day, she would be communicating something very different to herself. She would be telling herself that she doesn’t need to wait until she feels enough energy to have a hard workout before giving herself permission to get started. The catch is, after one minute, she would probably feel like continuing on anyway because she would then have the momentum. It's always harder to get started when it comes to training and exercise. But if not, then just giving herself permission to stop would make the difference. Either way, the key for her was to break down the dangerous "black and white" thinking that underpinned this problem and instead learn how to change her thinking by changing the rules and permissions in which she communicated to herself. That’s how to really get someone into that mindset to lose weight.

You likely won’t lose any weight straight away. However, it’s really important to remember this point, your weight is not the cause of the problem, your over eating is not the cause of the problem and your lack of exercise is not the cause of the problem either. Those things are coming from your headspace, your thinking and your fixed mindset. The reality is that it might take you a while to rewire your brain before the consequences of the problem start to show real noticeable changes. If you’re only ever looking on the outside, then you’re going to have a hard time changing the problem which ultimately, stems from within you. If you want to know how to get in the mindset to lose weight though, the key is to start looking less to the outside (which includes the food labels and the scales) and instead, start turning your attention inward, to the inside.

If you would like to get into the mindset of loosing weight this book is for you, I'm sure you have heard a personal trainer or athlete talk about the importance of mindset before, but this book is something completely new, this book is getting to the core of the problem and understanding the psychology behind what drives, motivates, and inspires us.