Hi everybody, I'm new here 
With my first post I wanted to introduce myself and make you aware of to me the most important part of weight loss...
I'm 31 years old and I love the workings of the human mind. Although my academic career took me down the path of molecular biology and biochemistry, I'm fascinated by the mind and how to accomplish our full potential.
I believe that if we can make certain things conscious (in other words, if we become aware of them), then we gain control over them and can do something about it!
So, regarding weight loss...
We know we want to lose weight.
We know we want to be healthy.
We know we want to be irresistible to the opposite sex.
But instead of going on a weight loss diet and sticking to it until we achieve all of the above, for some reason we just don't do it (most of the time).
Why is that?
Well, the key isn't in what we're aware of but instead in what we're NOT aware of...
And because of that, we simply can't defend ourselves from it.
Now, I'm going to give you a quick story about a very interesting experiment they did on a split-brain patient. Bare with me, it has a great point that we can use in weight loss...
A split brain surgery is a very radical procedure but in a few cases it is necessary and the only way to treat very severe and frequent cases of epilepsy.
In the procedure, the communication connections between the left and the right brain hemisphere are severed. In these people, the left and right brain can't communicate between each other.
For most of the part, these patients behave, feel and are absolutely normal. But, given certain circumstances, the severed communication shows itself in rather interesting ways, giving insight into the workings of the human mind and the role of each hemisphere.
The left hemisphere mostly deals with language, math and logic (in a sense it's reductionist), while the right hemisphere deals mostly with spatial awareness, singing and the "big picture" (it's more holistic). The right hemisphere also can't speak although it can understand language.
There's also one more important detail we have to know...
Everything that comes from the left field of vision, goes to the and is processed by the right hemisphere and everything that comes from the right field of vision, goes to and is processed by the left hemisphere.
Now back to the experiment...
They put the patient in front of a television screen and the patient had to focus directly on the center of the screen.
Now, everything that was flashed on the left side went only in the right hemisphere and what was flashed on the right side went only to the left hemisphere.
The patient was asked to perform certain tasks based on the flashes on the screen.
Now let's look at the experiment that might be of great interest to us...
When a flash "Stand up" appeared on the left side of the screen (which goes to the right hemisphere) and when the patient stood up, the experimenters asked him: "Why did you stand up?"
The patient replied without hesitation: "I'm thirsty, I just wanted to get something to drink"
Now this was very interesting. You see, since the right hemisphere can't talk and there's no connection between the hemispheres, the left hemisphere was left in the dark and had to somehow justify the action of standing up.
This experiment showed the lightning speed ability of the brain to create reason for actions out of thin air. The left hemisphere, being the dominant hemisphere in most people, wanted to stay in charge and dreamt up a reason for the person's actions.
And it would bet everything that being thirsty was the reason for standing up!
Now, how does this relate to our weight loss efforts...
Well, humans are emotional beings first and rational beings second. And through our ancient history, we evolved to conserve energy because food was very scarce at that time.
Nowadays food is everywhere. And our brain wants it and it will stop at nothing to get it. The left, more emotional hemisphere tells us we need food now. And although out left hemisphere knows we want to lose weight and although we decided to do it, it WILL instantly make up an extremely believable reason WHY we should eat now and make up for it the next time!
So, now you're aware of this process that goes on in your mind and now you can fight it. When it comes to food, you simply can't trust your emotions. You HAVE to be rational.
But by all means, stimulate and trust the other emotions that make you want to lose weight and be healthy!
It's really easy when you know what's going on in your mind
Hope this helped at all. As you see, weight loss is really a state of mind. Everything else is just a means to get there.
Take care.
With my first post I wanted to introduce myself and make you aware of to me the most important part of weight loss...
I'm 31 years old and I love the workings of the human mind. Although my academic career took me down the path of molecular biology and biochemistry, I'm fascinated by the mind and how to accomplish our full potential.
I believe that if we can make certain things conscious (in other words, if we become aware of them), then we gain control over them and can do something about it!
So, regarding weight loss...
We know we want to lose weight.
We know we want to be healthy.
We know we want to be irresistible to the opposite sex.
But instead of going on a weight loss diet and sticking to it until we achieve all of the above, for some reason we just don't do it (most of the time).
Why is that?
Well, the key isn't in what we're aware of but instead in what we're NOT aware of...
And because of that, we simply can't defend ourselves from it.
Now, I'm going to give you a quick story about a very interesting experiment they did on a split-brain patient. Bare with me, it has a great point that we can use in weight loss...
A split brain surgery is a very radical procedure but in a few cases it is necessary and the only way to treat very severe and frequent cases of epilepsy.
In the procedure, the communication connections between the left and the right brain hemisphere are severed. In these people, the left and right brain can't communicate between each other.
For most of the part, these patients behave, feel and are absolutely normal. But, given certain circumstances, the severed communication shows itself in rather interesting ways, giving insight into the workings of the human mind and the role of each hemisphere.
The left hemisphere mostly deals with language, math and logic (in a sense it's reductionist), while the right hemisphere deals mostly with spatial awareness, singing and the "big picture" (it's more holistic). The right hemisphere also can't speak although it can understand language.
There's also one more important detail we have to know...
Everything that comes from the left field of vision, goes to the and is processed by the right hemisphere and everything that comes from the right field of vision, goes to and is processed by the left hemisphere.
Now back to the experiment...
They put the patient in front of a television screen and the patient had to focus directly on the center of the screen.
Now, everything that was flashed on the left side went only in the right hemisphere and what was flashed on the right side went only to the left hemisphere.
The patient was asked to perform certain tasks based on the flashes on the screen.
Now let's look at the experiment that might be of great interest to us...
When a flash "Stand up" appeared on the left side of the screen (which goes to the right hemisphere) and when the patient stood up, the experimenters asked him: "Why did you stand up?"
The patient replied without hesitation: "I'm thirsty, I just wanted to get something to drink"
Now this was very interesting. You see, since the right hemisphere can't talk and there's no connection between the hemispheres, the left hemisphere was left in the dark and had to somehow justify the action of standing up.
This experiment showed the lightning speed ability of the brain to create reason for actions out of thin air. The left hemisphere, being the dominant hemisphere in most people, wanted to stay in charge and dreamt up a reason for the person's actions.
And it would bet everything that being thirsty was the reason for standing up!
Now, how does this relate to our weight loss efforts...
Well, humans are emotional beings first and rational beings second. And through our ancient history, we evolved to conserve energy because food was very scarce at that time.
Nowadays food is everywhere. And our brain wants it and it will stop at nothing to get it. The left, more emotional hemisphere tells us we need food now. And although out left hemisphere knows we want to lose weight and although we decided to do it, it WILL instantly make up an extremely believable reason WHY we should eat now and make up for it the next time!
So, now you're aware of this process that goes on in your mind and now you can fight it. When it comes to food, you simply can't trust your emotions. You HAVE to be rational.
But by all means, stimulate and trust the other emotions that make you want to lose weight and be healthy!
It's really easy when you know what's going on in your mind
Hope this helped at all. As you see, weight loss is really a state of mind. Everything else is just a means to get there.
Take care.
