Truth be told, there is no “secret” to losing weight. Weight loss (or health gain) is a process, not an instant solution.

I have been working on my weight situation now since late April, well March really. In March of this year I started going to the gym. I didn’t start changing my eating habits until late April. I gave myself a good month and a half of going to the gym before I changed my diet.

I did this because in times past I tried to change my entire life in one day. I think that many times we get caught up in that way of thinking. If we don’t change everything tomorrow, we aren’t doing anything good.

This mode of thinking is detrimental to our health. We are humans, and humans aren’t known for making quick drastic changes. We get settled into a routine and stick with it until something (outside influence normally) forces us to make a change.

Losing weight is as simple as making a choice and sticking with it. But that’s the part most people have trouble with, the “stick to it” part. There is a much easier way to stay with your new eating plan, but it starts a little weird to most people.

The first step is to acknowledge that you are in the process of losing weight and that you are not going to quit no matter what. You must understand that you are in this for the long haul. When you finally make this decision you fill find it easier than ever to lose weight. This is because now you don’t have 3 months to reach a goal, you technically have as long as it takes…in other words you have a lifetime to “remedy” your current weight situation.

I have lost 90 pounds since discovering my new found strength and will power. I have found losing the 90 pounds to be tough, but at the same time not too hard. I’ve lost the 90 pounds over a period of about 6 months. And it didn’t happen because of some magical formula or starving myself.

It happened because I made a decision and stuck with it. I began by going to the gym 3 days a week and still eating whatever I wanted to. Next, I changed the way I ate. I cut back on sugary foods and bad carbs. I started eating a lot more vegetables. If I messed up I just kept on going. I didn’t let anything stand in my way.

This is the strength you must gain. DO NOT let anything deter you. If you “cheat” and eat something you shouldn’t right now, don’t worry. You have a lifetime to reach your goal. A lot of people want to lose weight really fast. Let’s say you’re 35 now and it takes you until you’re 37 to reach your target weight. Who cares how long it takes!

Either way you’re going to be 37. Would you rather be thin or fat at 37? Thin, of course. And that starts today by making proper choices.

This leads to my closing question.

If you could choose to be fat or thin, which would you choose?

I know what you’re thinking. What a dumb question! I’m assuming most (hopefully) said you wanted to be thin.

Well he is where I’m going to “Mind Freak” you. If you’ve seen Kris Angel you know what I’m talking about.  I’m here to tell you today that you have already made that choice!

As a matter of fact you make the choice to be fat or thin EVERY SINGLE DAY! That’s right…even right now as you read this.

What if everyday you got up and asked yourself the question I posed above? Do I want to be fat or thin? Could you live that day in a way that makes being thin the only possible outcome in your life?

If you ask yourself the “Secret Question” every morning when you wake up and then realize that going to the gym, eating right, and making healthy emotional choices all are statements that say, “I choose to be thin.”

Right now you’re either grinning from ear to ear or confused. If this article didn’t hit the nail on the head for you, no worries. There will be plenty more…just hang in there and work on setting goals for your weight loss.

You can and will lose weight when you decide you must. That is the power of the human mind. Now get out there and get started!

Hello and welcome distinguished guests and frequent visitors. Welcome to the OOM family. To start off this blog post I would like to say that this entry is a milestone for me. This is the big number 50! That’s right, this is my 50th blog entry. If my blog were a person, he’d be getting on up over the hill. I’ve come a long way since my first real blog entry.
Seriously though, I wanted to thank all of you for reading this blog, sharing it with your friends, and taking the time to leave me comments and emails. As of late I have been overwhelmed at the responses that have been pouring in. I have lots of goals to accomplish still with this site, and I hope you’ll be a part of that.

Look out in a week or so for the official opening of the PODCAST section. I’ll be personally going back and reading all my blog entries so those people who don’t like to read (or really love my voice!) can listen to all my content. In addition to that, I’ll be creating a weekly podcast that talks about personal development topics like weight loss, financial gain, and other cool stuff. I’ll be doing a lot of interviews too that will be featured in the podcasts and newsletter.

NEWSLETTER
Speaking of that, I’ve got a newsletter now for those of you who don’t know. You can sign up for it anytime by going to the home page and scrolling down to the bottom of the page. I’m working on getting the code embedded into the top side of every page, but it hasn’t worked yet.

The newsletter will feature never before released original content, free chapters to some of my upcoming books, interviews with various people I find interesting like NLP people, Millionaires, and Lifestyle Coaches to name a very few. It’s gonna be awesome and come out about once a month.

Sign up now because I will be offering something VERY SPECIAL to those people who have joined by November 1, 2006. Here’s a hint - it’ll be something free that LOTS of people have had to pay for… And remember — the Newsletter is FREE!

6M Profit Method
As many of you know, I’ve been promoting a program called the 6M Profit Method. I have had incredible results from the course and its subsequent launch. If you wish to know more about my involvement with that program, I have set up an entire page dealing directly with the program. I have had a lot of emails coming in asking questions, I’m trying to keep up with all them. I am compiling all my responses to various emails on that page. You can read more about it at

OnlyOneMike.com/blog/6m

I also experienced another milestone last night. I got my first negative comment left by a poster. I was a little discouraged at first, but being true to form (I actually do what I teach on this site) I searched for the positive in the situation. Know what I came up with? If I’m getting critics that must mean I’m getting heard! When I began this site it was basically being read by my 10 friends and family. Now a little over 3 months later, I’m getting 7,500 unique visitors every 6 weeks.

I don’t want to write a blog without giving you something in return for reading this far. I’m not one to toot my own horn, I just wanted to get some information out there about what’s going on with this site. So here is where the blog actually starts…

FEEDBACK

I’m currently taking a course about communication across American culture. The teacher is an awesome guy who really has a good understanding of the concepts he is teaching. A trait I find too many teachers don’t have, sad to say. Anyway, I learned something in the class that has really stood out to me lately. And as you can tell by the headline, I am talking about feedback.

Feedback is the information we use to decide if what we’re doing is working or not. For example, let’s say you want to lose weight. You have to first create a plan of action that you believe will get you to your goal weight. So, you simply write down your plan of action and the time in which you plan to achieve your goal by. This date and weight is called your destination.

Now here comes the “hard part”. Actually doing it. There is a wide gap between planning and doing. Those who end up planning but never take action accomplish nothing. It may seem counter-intuitive but sometimes the best thing you can do is just do it like Nike says so gracefully. Taking the wrong action at first is probably than taking no action ever. You can always adjust and change as you make progress. And that is where feedback comes in.

Let’s say you were accomplishing your weight loss goal. You had begun exercising and changing your eating habits and things were going well. You should set a time to stop and analyze your current situation. I recommend doing this at least every 3 months. What you’re looking for here is expectation vs. realization. Did you achieve what you planned to achieve? Why or why not? What could you do differently?

The answers to these questions are the basis of feedback. There are 2 types of feedback you can apply to your situation, positive and negative feedback.

Positive Feedback - This type of feedback works when you have found yourself off course but you like where the new course is taking you, so you increase what you’ve been doing. This usually doesn’t apply to weight loss, unless you stumbled upon a new way to lose weight when you left the original plan you had set for yourself.

This type of feedback is useful for those people who get to caught up in doing things one certain way. Be open to changing the plan if what you’re doing now is working. No business plan is perfect, as a matter of fact, most can’t foresee more than 3 months, let alone 1 year. So, use the idea of positive feedback to enhance what you may have discovered for yourself when you deviated a little from your original course.

Negative Feedback - Don’t think of the word negative like you normally would. In this case, negative feedback is actually a good thing. Let’s look back at the weight loss example. You’re going along traveling to your goal and you find yourself way off course. You’ve not been to the gym for a month, your eating habits are not so good (you mean 5 donuts aren’t a good breakfast?), and you’ve gained a few pounds.

Yikes. What should you do? Use the idea of negative feedback to change the course you’re on back towards the original goal. It’s important to remember that you have a little leeway in this. As you’re traveling back down the path you left to get off track, you may still be partaking in some of those unwanted behaviors. You’re sort of walking back the same way you came, if that makes sense. So, there is some time to get back on track.

You can use the idea of negative feedback in all aspects of life including your health, your finances, personal development, spiritual concerns, and relationships. This concept has already been invaluable to me.

So, to recap: Positive feedback means that you strayed off course but like where you’re going so you change plans and keep on that path. Negative feedback means you don’t like the deviance you’ve made so you’re changing your actions (over time) to get back on the original path to your destination. To put it simply: Positive (+) feedback increases your deviance from your original destination while negative (-) feedback decreases the deviance you’ve made from your original destination (goal).

Please spread the word about this site so other people can learn and grow as you and me continue down the path we are on. (Or at least until we use feedback to adjust). My goal is to see people live happier more fulfilled lives through goal setting and achieving.

There is no feeling as good as setting a goal and achieving it, trust me! It’s one of the greatest highs on earth. So, set some goals and I’ll see you back here real soon…