by patbarone
I’m just back from a conference focused on scientific studies about change where I heard a repetitive chant: “People Don’t Change.”
I’ll acknowledge there are studies that show most patients who encounter life threatening conditions return to old behaviors that caused the problem in the first place. Hence, the red meat seduces the heart patient. Nicotine lures the smoker. Permanent weight loss is rare as weight comes back to the dieter.
I know some people don’t care to change, or it is too threatening to them to do so. Yes, living without food as a soother, friend or emotional barrier can be scarier than death.
I fit that picture once.
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by patbarone
I hear the phrase “People Don’t Change” a lot, especially from the scientific and medical communities.
I’m just back from a conference focused on scientific studies about change. I’ll acknowledge there are studies that show most patients who encounter life threatening conditions return to old behaviors that caused the problem in the first place. Hence, red meat eventually seduces the heart patient. Nicotine lures the smoker. Weight comes back to the dieter.
I know some people don’t care to change, or it is too threatening to them to do so. Yes, living without food as a soother, friend or emotional barrier can be scarier than death.
But the problem with the general belief that “people don’t change” is: it’s just that – general.
And it’s not necessarily forever.
I fit that picture of “life-threatened-but-not-changing” once.
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by patbarone
I love baseball. I love the symbolism, the metaphor, and the geometry of it.
Phil Hughes is a Yankee pitcher.
He started his big league career with a couple stints as starting pitcher in 2007 but was injured in just his second game. He rehabbed but wound up in the minor leagues. Phil DID NOT LIKE the minor leagues! He made no bones about it.
Last year, he returned to the major league but didn’t fit into the Yankees’ rotation of starting pitchers. He wound up in the bullpen, a place starting pitchers don’t like. Phil, however, said he’d do anything not to go back to the minor leagues (hint: he had motivation).
This year, he competed for the 5th and last spot in the Yankees’ starting rotation of pitchers and won it. Yankee starting pitchers are VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE!
Good for Phil, right?
Last night was his second start. He was hurling heat! His curve ball was curvy (admittedly a girly descriptive for a pitch), his cutter was slicing across the plate at unhittable angles.
He issued only 1 walk in 5 innings. Phil was working on a no-hitter, a rare feat in baseball! (Even rarer, a perfect game is no walks and no hits.)
It was mesmerizing. After the 6th inning, still a no hitter!
After 7, Phil still in charge!
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by patbarone
This past weekend, I led a wonderful seminar full of amazing women learning about permanent weight loss for the first time in their lives. Many of them had been focusing on food as a solution to excess weight for 10, 20, 30 years! It’s funny how we tend to doubt ourselves, rather than the methods foisted on us by commercial weight loss, doctors, trainers, diet gurus, etc. So often, we naturally assume we did “something wrong” when the diets fail time after time.
But this workshop was about changing our minds! And we did! Mindgames, be gone! We witnessed some major change to thinking patterns that get in the way of progress towards a healthy weight.
March 13 also officially marked my own 10th anniversary at my current weight after losing over 70 lbs. I very much wanted to be teaching others on this anniversary so the timing was perfect. I was looking forward to raising a glass of champagne with friends and clients but, when the time actually came, I was oddly emotional.
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by patbarone
As the 21st Olympics enthrall the world, I find myself once again amazed by the grace, beauty and achievement of the world’s finest athletes.
This year, perhaps because I’m a bit more reflective about life these days, the games have reminded me of all the Olympics I’ve watched through the years. Beyond the athletic achievement, competition and “overcoming the odds” stories guarantee drama.
One of the reasons I think the games appeal to us is that we live cathartically through them. After all, most of us will never achieve a triple axle jump, even without the ice skates. I know I hesitate to jump off a fence, much less a mountain on skis. And I bet I can’t find one of my dear readers rushing out to luge down a frozen tube at 90 mph!
But, there is not one of us who can’t be an Olympian when it comes to permanent weight loss. I’m convinced of that. In order to compete on the world class stage, seek to develop these elements that Olympians master:
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