Scott: When it comes to the mind, and you teach all the fantastic ways to reprogram it, what are some of the things that people are doing that are holding them back, in regards to their current mindset?

Jim: Well, that is a great question. I am going to kind of break it down, because, people do not realize that they are literally sabotaging their own success, with the way most people think about weight loss. Usually, when you ask a person how they’re going to lose weight, the answer is always they are going to go on a diet.

The problem with a diet is that the presupposition of a diet on a deeper level is that a) it is only temporary, and b) it is going to mean deprivation. Those two things do not create lasting results, obviously.

I spend a lot of time talking about the conscious and unconscious mind; so let me give you a little bit of foundational information on that.

Scott: That would be great.

Jim: We all have a conscious and unconscious mind. Your conscious mind is logical; it understands what you should do. Everyone knows what they should do to lose weight. I mean there’s not a person out there that doesn’t know that. Basically, eat better and exercise more.

Scott: Right.

Jim: The other part is the unconscious mind. And this is the part of our mind that truly runs the show. So we like to think that we’re consciously in charge of everything, but we’re not. There’s too much stuff going on in our lives to consciously think about every little thing.

The example I use a lot to describe this kind of difference in our minds is when we drive. When you first learned to drive, you understood how to do it. You saw your parents doing it most of your life, and it seemed pretty simple. Then you went and got behind the wheel. And you began gunning it, braking too hard, you couldn’t keep it straight. But as you continued driving, it just became completely automatic.So that when you get in the car now, you don’t even think about driving.

And if you look at all the things that are like this, all our lives become pretty routine. We don’t have to think about it, it just kind of happens. And that’s the unconscious part of our mind.

Scott: Sort of like what happens to me a lot, where I follow the same path to work all the time. And if I’m going down the same road with a different destination and my mind is somewhere else, I catch myself continuing along that path when I really should have turned a couple of miles back.

Jim: Sure, sure. That’s a common phenomenon. They call it “highway hypnosis, ” and everyone’s experienced where you’re driving and you kind of go past the exit. You’re just lost in thought. So, when you’re lost in thought, who’s driving the car? It’s your unconscious mind.

And if you look at reading and writing, at one point that was extremely difficult to do, but now it’s completely automatic. It’s so automatic that if I held a word up in front of you on a piece of paper you couldn’t even not understand it.

That’s how quick your unconscious mind is. So that’s what runs most of our lives. Now, we can obviously make decisions. Our conscious mind matters. But most of our behaviors are automatic. They’re kind of programmed into our unconscious mind so that we don’t have to think about them.

When you get up in the morning, you go through the same routine. It just becomes a process. You don’t have to be thinking about it. But the problem is that our eating behaviors, our exercise behaviors, those are in the unconscious mind as well.

The important part is this. The conscious mind is logical. We all know what to do, right? I mean if we could run everything consciously, no one would smoke. Everyone knows it’s bad. But the unconscious mind is in control, and the unconscious mind is not logical. It works by association.

The classic example is, you’ve heard of Pavlov’s dogs, right? He was a Russian scientist, he was studying dogs, and he came up with this experiment where he put the food in front of the dog and they would salivate. And every time he did this, he would have someone ring a bell. Put the food in front of them, salivate, and ring a bell, over and over and over again. Eventually, all they needed to do was ring the bell and the dogs would salivate. Because in the dog’s mind, the sound of the bell and the food had become one, and now elicited the same response.

So, that’s called associative conditioning, and that’s how our unconscious mind begins to work.We can’t approach it in the same way that we do consciously.

That’s why when people do dieting, they know what’s good, they know what they should do and all the rest of it, but they never go to the unconscious level where they begin changing up their association for what these things mean. They’ll say, “I know I need to eat healthy food, ‘ but on a deeper level, they think healthy food is boring, gross, not fun.

So, they’re constantly fighting against these associations that they have. That’s how most people start. They rely completely on willpower to do this.”

Willpower is not the most effective way. I say if your willpower is so strong, do you want to take your breathing and let your conscious mind be in control of that? Or your heartbeat, do you want to consciously control that?” So, the most powerful part of your mind is your unconscious mind, and you need to learn a few basic techniques on how to influence it and how to program it so that you have the connections and the associations that you want.

So, that’s kind of the beginning on the conscious and unconscious mind.The next two things I want to point out, and this is kind of the foundation that we will keep referring to, is that the unconscious mind, first of all, does not understand negatives. Now this is very important.

What I mean by this is, most people, when they start dieting, are totally focused on everything that they can’t have.Now if I tell you… Use all the will power you guys have got. Get all your will power in your body, because I want you to not think about what I’m about to say. And everyone who is listening to this: get ready. Don’t think about what I’m about to say. Don’t think of a yellow banana. Don’t think of a yellow banana. Yellow banana.

Scott: [laughs]

Jim: All right, what happens? [laughs]

Scott: Total banana in my head right now.

Jim: It’s impossible not to, because your unconscious mind needs to think about it first in order to understand what I’m even saying. So it’s very difficult not to think about what I’m saying. There’s very little difference between your experience when I say: “Think of a yellow banana. Don’t think of a yellow banana.” “Think of sundae. Don’t think of a sundae.” “Think of a cookie. Don’t think of a cookie.” “Don’t think of a cookie.” [laughs]

But this is what people do themselves on diets constantly. They keep telling themselves what they can’t eat, and then they are unintentionally focusing on exactly what it is that they want to reduce in their lives.

Scott: Right.

Jim: That’s one problem. And the other thing is this, and this is very important. The unconscious mind cannot tell the difference between vivid imagination and reality. The unconscious mind will respond to vivid imagination.This is why horror movies exist, because you can go watch a horror movie, you’re in a theater with a hundred other people and you’re safe, but you’re sitting there and you’re all tense, you’re nervous, you’re not breathing, because you’re living through the movie. You’re vicariously living in that movie, pretending you’re the character or in that situation, and you start to actually have the physical response like you would have if you were in that situation.

Scott: Right.

Jim: So when you add these two things together, what people on diets are doing is… I mean, think about it right now. Think about your favorite dessert. Think about it in really vivid colors. Think about the most enjoyable time you ever had it, and you might find your mouth start to salivate.

Scott: That’s right.

Jim: Now this is what people are doing to themselves 24 hours a day when they go on a diet. And they’re actually increasing this. They’re increasing, physiologically, their desire for these foods [laughing] that they want to avoid. So you can see how it’s almost like self-torture.

Scott: Totally!

Jim: And this is why a lot of times people find it very difficult to stay on a diet, because they’re concentrating exactly on what they don’t want.

This interview was an excerpt from the MP3 audio interview program, Unstoppable Fat Loss . To learn how to get the complete interview and many more, click here

Often, it stems from the mistaken belief that they need to be “hard” on themselves, but there is a huge difference between being hard on yourself and being supportive and helpful.

One of the techniques I often suggest to instantly illustrate the difference is to imagine saying the things you often say to yourself (in the tone you say them in) to a person in your life that you love.

For example, imagine saying to that person “you’re so lazy and stupid, you’ll never lose weight”. (harsh I know, but I want to point out the things that people are often saying to themselves constantly). Do you think that would motivate them or just make them feel bad?

Now, imagine you wanted to help and support this friend. What would you say to them? Notice how your words and tone are different, probably more supportive. What would happen if you began talking to yourself this way?

Remember you don’t need to be harsh with yourself to get great results, you need to be effective and helpful.

Jim:    So seeing how hormone’s influence muscle growth and weight loss, what are some natural ways to stimulate those hormones?

Vince:    That’s a great question.  Let’s look at three things – training, lifestyle and nutrition.  Let’s start off with things people might miss on lifestyle.  The reality is that when training, you’re only in the gym a couple of hours a week.  The majority of the time you’re outside of the gym.  So sleeping eight hours a night is very important.  These are the things that can’t really get dressed up as sexy and they can’t market on the cover of a magazine, “Sleep Eight Hours a Night.”

People underestimate this stuff.  Going to bed earlier I found was one of the big things for me in recovery and being able to train harder the next day.  I would let that kick in.  So I recommend that everybody – I’m just painting a perfect situation.  Whether you can do this or you can’t, that’s up to the person listening to the call to make that commitment and lifestyle change.

If you can get to bed closer to 10:30/11:00 each night, that’s going to help a lot.  They say for every hour of sleep you can get before midnight, it’s almost like the equivalent of two hours sleep.  I tested this out.  I know it’s amazing.  You wake up earlier and you’re able to start your first meal earlier.  You’re able to finish your last meal earlier.  Everything just seems to work a lot better.  Your body is able to start building muscle quicker.

That’s going to produce growth hormone.  That’s one of the hormones that are going to allow you to build muscle and aid in weight loss.

Also minimizing stress in your life.  Looking at the relationships you’re in; the career you’re in; the social settings you’re in; how late are you staying up – all those little things – the one isolated incident might not make a big difference.  It’s what happens when going to bed at 2:00/3:00 in the morning occurs two or three nights a week over a course of six to nine months.

That’s where the damage is.  So that’s lifestyle.  Alcohol too – that’s another thing.  A lot of people ask me, “Vince, can I drink on the weekends?”  Of course you can drink, but is it going to get you closer to your goal or further from your goal?  It all comes down to how serious you are about the weight loss.

If I’m getting ready for a show, the booze has got to go.  If I’m just wishy washy; I’m happy with how I look and I’m just trying to relieve some stress and that, well then sure.  A drink here and there isn’t going to be a big deal.  So you have to ask yourself how serious you are and then you’ll be able to start answering these questions better for yourself.  That’s lifestyle.

Jim:    That’s really interesting.  I like again just kind of expanding on what people already know.  Everyone knows if you sleep better it’s good for you.  It sounds like there’s a scientific reason that it literally affects the hormones in your body when you sleep more.  That’s pretty important.

My friend Rob Poulos, creator of Fat Burning Furnace just gave away over $2300 to the winners of his New Body Challenge.

you can see them here:
==> New Body Challenge Winners

The cool thing is that he didn’t just post the pictures of the winners, he also had them explain their motivation in the beginning and what it felt like to successfully create this transformation.

As you read their stories, notice how they describe having these new bodies.

- “My confidence has skyrocketed!”
- “I can fit into my skinny clothes!”
- “I feel like a new person!”

The most common motivation mistake people make is focusing too much on weight and the external measurements and not enough on how these changes can transform your entire quality of life.

I realized that my changes were made possible by one belief; that if I wasn’t getting the results I wanted, it was because I was wrong.

Now that may not sound like a big deal to you, but it was HUGE for me. Why? because I was very defensive. I was so busy defending myself that I missed noticing the results I was getting, which were crappy.

But, when I began to accept that there were better ways to do things, everything changed. I began to realize that the accepted conventional wisdom was often dead wrong. I began measuring the value of methods not by popularity, but by effectiveness.

The reason I’m writing about this is because if you’re not happy with your results, instead of beating yourself up, take some time and educate yourself about new ways to get what you want.

Don’t get caught in the trap where you say “I know what to do, I just need to do it.” because there is a good chance that the real problem is that you don’t know what to do.