Weight Loss is Only Possible With the Correct Psychology

Losing weight is often a struggle but it is even more of a struggle without the right psychology. You can have all the information in the world about how to lose weight but without the right psychology to apply it, it is useless.

Weight loss is only achieved by having the correct information and using that information to take action.

Having the appropriate psychology is the most important element of weight loss but is usually overlooked and underestimated. The right psychology will give you motivation, commitment, and help you to overcome obstacles, temptations and distractions. The proper psychology can also make weight loss fun, easier, more exciting and develop changes towards a healthy new lifestyle and a better quality of life.

I will try to keep this article as simple as possible. I will avoid jargon whenever I can. I will not go into detail about how some of the processes work, as it is irrelevant. However if you would like more detailed information then feel free to contact me, my details are at the end of the article. During the article I use the term losing weight. When I say losing weight I am specifically referring to losing fat. Weight loss is all about fat loss. I want you to lose fat but keep the muscle.

What is the right psychology and why is it important?
First off I will start referring to a person’s psychology as a mindset. A mindset is important because it controls our behaviour, thoughts and actions. As people grow they develop habits and associations that govern their life. These habits and associations are controlled by our subconscious and people are usually unaware of them. A person’s subconscious can also sabotage their weight loss efforts.
The right mindset consists of using various techniques and strategies to control your behaviour by monitoring your actions and thoughts. This will help to replace your old habits and associations with new ones that will be more beneficial.

“Why do overweight people moan about losing weight but don’t do anything about it?” – Jack Bauer, BPhEd

A colleague of mine Jack Bower couldn’t understand why people moan about being overweight but wont exercise. I replied by saying that they don’t have the correct mindset. You might think that they just lack the correct information but if they had the proper motivation then they would find it. Nothing can stop someone that has a powerful mindset. People like this will always find a way no matter what obstacles they face. People that don’t lose weight have formed associations and habits that have taken control of their life and stopped them.

How do you get the correct mindset?

Developing the correct mindset is not an instant change. It will take time and constant and conscious awareness. By this I mean you will have to regularly monitor your progress and behaviour. Sometimes it will be easy and others it will require will power. On the good side there are strategies and techniques that are easy to apply. Using these techniques will give you motivation, determination, commitment and make you emotionally charged and driven to succeed. One such technique is the power of goal setting. This is one important technique that you could use to achieve your weight loss goals. Below I have listed simple guidelines to follow when goal setting.

· You have to write your goals down.

· Your goals have to be specific.

· Your goals have to have a deadline.

· Your goals have to be measurable.

· Your goals have to be achievable.

· You have to focus on your goals everyday.

· You have to have emotion behind your goals.

The best way to set a weight loss goal is to set more than one. Have one long-term goal and then break it down into smaller goals. Make some monthly and weekly goals.

You can only eat an elephant a piece at a time. This is a very simple and basic overview of goal setting. There are other strategies involved that will make goal setting more efficient and make you driven to succeed.

There are also other techniques and strategies apart from goal setting which will help you develop a powerful psychology including controlling your focus, having a critical action plan, forming new associations, developing new habits and controlling you internal dialogue and self talk. This might seem complicated and a bit overwhelming but the techniques are simple and easy to use.

To lose weight you also need a nutrition plan and it is also important and highly advised to have an exercise routine. When obtaining a nutrition or exercise plan you have to make sure that the information is correct, suited for your needs and lifestyle, individualized specifically for you and your goals, is in your best interest and that the source of the information is trustworthy and creditable. Information is readily available, free and easy to obtain. However not all of this information is correct and the best. Make sure that you get your information from a trustworthy source and that they have some type of credentials or experience. If you can find this type of free information that is great but you will usually have to pay for it.

I wish you all the best with your weight loss goals and I know that if you develop a powerful psychology you will achieve your goals and success will be yours. So aim high, push the limits become all that you want to be and live the life that you want and deserve. We are not given the gift of dreams without the power to achieve them. I highly advise you to now take action and do something towards helping you achieve your weight loss goals. The sooner you start the sooner you will lose the weight. If you do not take action now to achieving your goals and developing a powerful psychology then you will put more weight on and not live the better quality of life that you deserve. TAKE ACTION NOW!! Do some goal setting, get some information or give me an email just do something.

How do I Choose a Research Topic for my Coursework in Psychology?

The Initial Agony

The clock ticks away and still you haven’t thought up a design or even a topic for your coursework – a psychological investigation on an issue of your choice. Many students come to me in the agony of not knowing what to study for their investigation with its impending deadline. Some say things like, “Well, I want to do something on eyewitness testimony but I don’t know exactly what.” On further questioning it appears not that they haven’t spent hours thinking about it, but rather they haven’t spent time asking themselves the right sort of questions. So, if you are in this position, listed below are a number of steps that will turn your agony into ecstacy (well maybe not ecstacy but certainly a sense of achievment).

Step 1: An Everyday Observation

The first step (which seems the easiest) is to make an observation of someone else’s behaviour (or your own) in a situation that holds some fascination or interest for you. This can be anything from the behaviour of your cat, to the behaviour of your boyfriend, to the accuracy of your own ability to remember something. Although, I said this seems to be the easiest step, it is not so easy to find an observation or issue that can be readily studied. How do you know if your idea can be studied easily? The answer is to test it against the next few steps. If it fails to satisfy one step then return to step 1 and try again. You’ll soon be able to identify an idea worth pursuing.

Step 2: Read an Article on the Issue

Having identified an issue or a behavioural observation, the next step is to read up about it. Ideally, you should read a journal article – you can find many of these on the web and also in EzineArticles. Just type in your key terms in a search engine and look for any research that has been done that is related to your issue or observation. Note that you should read research articles and not Joe Blogs’s home page. As intelligent as he may be, his ramblings won’t impress your examiner or marker; however, a published article by a reputable academic psychologist will, even if he is dumber than Joe Blogs (so a rule of thumb is to try to access genuine sites, such as a university’s website or a publisher’s online database of articles).

Step 3: Identify the Explanation

In reading the article what you are looking for is an explanation for the behaviour you are thinking about as a result of step 1. The explanation will be a theory of the hows and the whys of the behaviour (that is, what causes it).

Step 4: Read About the Problems with the Explanation

You may ask yourself why you are looking for an explanation for the behaviour you are thinking about. After all, isn’t your study suppoosed to do that and if there is an explanation then why go on? Here’s the rub: There is no explanation in psychology that is (a) a perfect account of the thing it’s trying to explain, and (b) universally accepted. It follows that explanations are themselves the targets of further study. It is true that theories provoke more research than the initial observations they attempt to explain (well, at least in psychology it is so). So, try to read about the problems with the theory or you could even find its problems yourself if you think carefully about it.

Step 5: Does One Explanation Appeal to you More than Another? Your Research Question

Remember that in step 1 you thought of an issue that aroused your curiosity. Now ask yourself whether one or any of the explanations you have read satisfies you. Where are the gaps? What is there that makes you feel uncomfortable about accepting it? Are there any assumptions in the explanation that you don’t agree with? Decide to address one of these questions. This will be your research question.

Step 6: Read About the Research Design and Choose Yours

In reading around the issue, you should by now have an idea how it is studied. Usually the method of investigation is one that has been used many times, although with a slight variation each time. It is NOT wrong to borrow such a research design, but you will usually be expected to modify it in some way – indeed, if you are following these steps then of course you will. Previous studies may have used an experimental method, a correlational study, a survey, a case study, or a naturalistic observation. This is the junction at which you need to marry the research question with a particular methodology. Some of these may not appeal to you or may even be out of bounds. If you simply CANNOT or don’t want to use the most obviously appropriate research method then you need to return to step 1 and try again. Otherwise if you feel comfortable with the method then continue to the next step.

Step 7: The Participants and their Task
Having identified the method you need to think about who the participants should be. The easiest route is to choose fellow students as they can be readily recruited. However, these may not be the most appropriate. If you need a specific population (e.g., the elderly or children) you must think about how you are going to obtain volunteers. The two problems here are (1) it isn’t always easy to find such volunteers (2) there may be ethical reasons why it is best not to use the population (especially children as you will need ethical approval for your study from the school, the parents, and the kids themselves). If only one type of group of participants are appropriate and you can’t or dare not attempt to obtasin them then go back to step 1. If you can then you should think about the task that you will set them. If this is an experiment then it should be desinged to test the hypothesis – and this should be derived directly from your research question. You can borrow a design from another study but you must modify it in some way so as to be original. If you are asking a new question about a particular explanation then it follows that your desing will also be original.

Step 8: Evaluate Your Design
Having thought about your design, take a break and come back to it later. Then read through your outline and ask yourself whether the design would answer the research question you thought up in step 5. “Possibly” or “maybe” are not good enough. Your design should put a theory to a stringent test, it should take no prisoners! So at this stage you may need to revise your design a little so that it could in principle directly answer your research question.

Step 9: Your Analysis
Before you finally reach that moment of ecstacy, remember that you may have to collect and analsye data. You must think about how to analsyse the data so that it reveals whether the hypothesis will be accepted or rejected. In other words, you should always think about how you are going to analyse the data before you start testing or interviewing participants. It is a common mistake for a student to have a wheelbarrow full of data and no clear idea what to do with it. This is a nightmare situation because you may discover that you have been asking the wrong questions or giving the wrong task to your participants. If you can’t see how you could possibly analyse the data from the design you have created then rethink your design until you can. For example, if you thought about using a t-test then you should gather data appropriate for this test, no more, no less.

Step 10: You May Begin
When you reach step 10 (without having returned to step 1 too many times, I hope) you can begin refining the design (e.g., prepearing the materials) and then start to test you participants. If you have followed the advice here then you are in a much better position to get the grade you really deserve than if you began your investigation without giving it much thought. Good luck!