The “Guru” (4% of the population)
Like Maya Angelou and Cicero, you are very personable and take pride in hard work and values. These qualities make you an effective leader who nurtures the growth and maturity and others. You are typically an eloquent and charismatic speaker, so you are able to persuade others more easily to your opinion. You are able to motivate others through your leadership, wisdom, clear thinking, and your special ability to visualize the direction a group should go.
You have strong leadership qualities, are very tolerant of others, and can do pretty much any job you set your mind to. Since you place people high on your priority list, you tend to become a nurturing, responsible leader. You would be an excellent health coach to someone else, so use this gift to help others.
Leading a group towards better health and fitness could be very motivating for you. You are also very well suited for that, so forming a group to lead will make your journey much more fun for you and for them, increasing everyone’s chances of success of achieving optimal health.
You are typically the kind of person that looks for the good in others, which makes you very likable by other people. This quality will also make you very encouraging to others because you will be more likely to catch them doing things right than doing things wrong. This is of course very motivating and will make them want to do more of those things, which is another reason you would be an effective group leader.
Feeling good is very important to you, so good health is a high value to you because you know that is necessary in order to feel good. Using the “feeling good” incentive will be an effective motivator in helping you make better health and fitness choices.
You tend to care more about your physical appearance than some of the other extroverted brain types, so when you have your body dialed in, your self-image is positively affected.
Being an idealist and perfectionist, you tend to easily want to move on to something new and different that you think might be better as soon as you begin to feel like you are experiencing failure. This can kick you off your current track and on to a new track (that might be less effective) if you’re not careful, so be sure to commit to this diet for at least three months, no matter what. That will give you enough time to see enough positive results to motivate you to stay on this track, even if you falter or experience a temporary setback during that time.
Your feelings guide your actions more than most of the other brain types. Positive feelings can be a powerful motivator to keep you on track. Negative feelings, on the other hand, can lead you toward emotional eating and turning to food for comfort.
Your brain type is particularly susceptible to emotional eating if you let your mood slump. This pattern will, of course, cause your health to also slump, which will conflict with your priority of feeling good. This decreased health will then make you feel worse, which could likely trigger more emotional eating, which would then further affect your health and then your physical appearance, driving down your self-image and mood even further and so on, building a dangerous downward spiral that all started with negative feelings and emotions.
This is why it is particularly important for you to focus on the positives and catch yourself falling into negative moods before that cycle gains any momentum. Luckily, your brain type is easily able to see the positives in life, so this should be pretty easy for you.
Your mood tends to easily go up and down, so yo-yo weight loss patterns are most common among your brain type. Oprah Winfrey, for instance, is a classic example of this.
It’s still quite possible to stay out of the yo-yo world though. If you don’t make health a priority, you will likely just stay heavy instead of yo-yoing, like Michael Moore for instance. If you do make health a priority though, you could stay lean like the singer Bono for example. It’s all about your priority for health and/or thinness and if this is high enough on your list, you can override your “feeling” sensations that tend to pull you toward emotional eating.
It should also be pretty easy for you to catch yourself when you’re thinking about negatives, because of your natural tendency to see the positives. When you do catch yourself with negative thoughts, give those thoughts a name and that will take much of their power away. For instance, if you catch yourself being critical or too hard on yourself, say, “OK Critical Kristin, time for you to leave now. I’m on to you and you’re not welcome here anymore.”
You like to be caught doing stuff right, so while it will, of course, be helpful to get that support from others, you can do this for yourself too with your notes during the day and journaling at night. Practice catching yourself feeling successful during the day and jot it down to remind yourself later about that time. Another effective technique for you would be to post your successes publicly (on Facebook, Instragram, Twitter, etc.) so others can comment on them. Then record your successes in a journal that night. You should be able to come up with at least three or more small or large successes you experienced each day to write down. Since you are more adept at seeing positives, journaling about your successes and what you are grateful for should be easy and fun for you to do.
The reason it’s so helpful to journal at night is because your brain will replay that information 15 times or more while you are asleep – especially if your journaling takes place within the last 90 minutes of your day before you go to sleep. This technique is described in more detail in the brain training techniques section, so be sure to read that if you haven’t already.
You are especially adept at understanding to and relating to words and their meanings, so journaling your feelings – both positive and negative – will be extremely helpful to keep you on track. Your journal will mostly be about your successes because those are the things you focused on during the day and kept notes about, but you will also remember the struggles you had and they should be noted as well. That will help you get them out so you can see them from a more objective viewpoint. It will also help you to recognize your own patterns and triggers, so you can be more effective at noticing those patterns sooner and avoiding the triggers better.
The Ho’oponopono technique will also be extremely effective for your brain type in keeping you in a good mood and more resistant to mood funks. This technique is useful at any time throughout the day, but especially within the last 30 minutes of your day before you go to sleep and again within the first 30 minutes of your day after you wake up. The technique only takes a few minutes and you are wired to enjoy it, so it should be easy an easy habit to implement.
You like to search for perfection, always looking for the ultimate in personal satisfaction. You tend to expect too much of yourself though, so you may feel like you fall short often. This is why keeping a success journal will help keep you focused on your successes and away from the times where you feel like you might not be living up to your own high expectations.
You like to express your values to the world, so announcing your goals and the reasons behind those goals in a public way is beneficial for you to stay accountable and motivated. You can do this through social media or some other form of a group, but this will help you tremendously since you are energized by other people and their feedback.
You are fascinated by testimonials from other people and find inspiration in their stories, so be sure to visit the testimonial page of xgym.com for motivation.
Your brain tends to work in a planned, orderly way and you tend to present ideas that same way. Organization and planning are both strengths, so you may get frustrated if you are not as organized as you’d like to be.
Like Dr. Maslow, you like things organized and in a particular order. Make a list of the healthy habits you do now and want to develop. Next, rank them in a progression, bottom to top, from easier to more complex and make sure you do the lower, easy habits regularly. This order will make sense to you and will help the upper habits come easier, kind of like a domino effect.
Scheduling times for your exercise will be helpful for you. Plan your meals for the week and write out a shopping list. Then look in your refrigerator and cupboards to take inventory of what you already have (while you’re doing that, you will probably find yourself organizing those spaces to make them more efficient and accessible).
Next, plan a time to do your shopping. Twice a week will be a good frequency for you in order to keep things stocked and to prevent food from spoiling. Then schedule a time for cooking. It doesn’t have to be every day because you’re planning capabilities will help you create a system for making food for two or even three days at a time, so you will be able to organize those meals properly to fit in your schedule.
Remember that this planning and orderly execution is all necessary to achieve optimal health and when you reach your goals, you will look great and feel amazing! You will also enjoy increased feelings of good health along the way and will easily be able to appreciate your body changing as well so the journey will be just as fun as the destination.
You possess superior abilities for insight and imagination of new possibilities. Stimulation of your imagination is a core need for your brain, so the visualization technique will be useful for you.
Exercise is particularly important for you to achieve optimal health and weight. Exercise will keep you mentally alert and optimistic, as well as complement your diet through mitigating the negative results of occasional emotional eating temptations. Exercise will also remind your subconscious to stay on track during the day, so morning exercise routines will work best for you.
Participating in an exercise program comes easier to you because it aligns with your priority of feeling good. Working out by yourself can be a struggle for you though. You need at least one other person to train with, but the more people the better, so while having a trainer or workout partner is good, a group workout is best for your brain type.
Like King David of the Old Testament, you tend to wear your emotions on your sleeve and you are not afraid to share your heart with the world. This will help your group or support team because they will always know where you are and how you are feeling. It would also be helpful to send them this brain type profile so they understand how to best support you.
If you do end up leading a team, it would help you tremendously to have each of them take the brain type test so you can better understand what they need as well.
If you don’t form a group to lead, you can still make great progress, but you will be most successful if you have a support group of at least four or more people. These people don’t have to be doing this program with you, but they do need to agree to be a support to you. They should also be people who can cheer you along and notice when you are doing things right and making progress, so keep this in mind when choosing who you want to be on that team.
You tend to value cooperation in harmony and consider personal relationships to be of utmost importance. The concerns of others, however, can easily overload you and put you into an emotional funk, so be sure to catch yourself if you begin to feel this way and talk it out with an objective and logical friend. This will effectively get it out of your system and help you take a step back to see things more clearly.
You honor your commitments, especially those made to others. You expect that quality to be reciprocated from them too, which makes it easier for you to feel disappointed if they don’t. You also tend to be idealistic with your friends and significant others, which can result in feelings of disappointment if they fall short of your expectations for them.
Because of your optimistic tendencies and ability to find the good things in others, you tend to seek their approval and appreciation as well. This can make you more sensitive to personal criticism, so be mindful of that. Developing a thicker skin and seeing criticism as constructive, to help you become a better person, will be quite helpful in keeping you on your path to progress.
If others disagree with your opinion, you may tend to take it personally, even interpreting that as rejection. You may also have a tendency to second-guess yourself because you value other people’s opinions so much. It’s easier for you to lose your logical perspective when criticized, so it would be helpful for you to “call a friend” (an objective, logical friend) when you feel like you are taking things personally or doubting yourself.
I mention all this because merely being aware of your tendencies and potential weaknesses can be enough to fend off negative mood cycles. When you know how to recognize them as soon as they start and then which brain training techniques to utilize in order to stop those cycles, you can turn them around before they have any negative effects on you and your habits.
You want to help others, so you will have the tendency to give too much of yourself at times. Burnout and negative moods can also occur if you don’t learn to say no, so work on improving that ability. Since you are good at communicating and thoughtfully choose your words, you will be good at turning down requests from others in a graceful way so their feelings and emotions are preserved.
You are driven to succeed, often caring tremendously what others think of your performance. If staying thin becomes too important to you, you may have a tendency towards unwise and unrealistic health habits. You may also yo-yo more than other brain types because of your constant conflict between the opinion of others and the foods you love so dearly. It’s critical for you to accept yourself as you are before beginning a program like this.
You need to slow down and become more aware of your nutrition habits and give extra concern to what goes into your body. Ask yourself the question, “Is this food making me healthier?” with each food you eat.
It’s harder for you to sense your body signals, including fullness and true hunger. You aren’t as concerned with the taste and texture of food, so you don’t tend to chew it as slowly. The Conscious Eating technique will be helpful for you.
Be sure to stay focused on the positive aspects of improved health, like improved harmony, inner peace, body confidence, and self-control.
Summary and Recap
Goal setting: Set your goals based on health improvement, in order to enjoy a longer, more confident and active life.
Best Workout: Group exercise with energetic music and a high energy instructor.
Motivated by: Helping people, feeling good and public accountability.
Supported by: A group of friends who can cheer you on, catch you doing what’s right and praise you for that.
Areas to strengthen: Can feel hurt easily and then harbor those feelings, which can lead to emotional eating. Might also take failures personally, which may reduce your motivation.
Strengths to use: You honor commitments, both to yourself and others. You are organized and good at making plans, so be sure to schedule your shopping, cooking, and workouts ahead of time. You would also be a great coach and could motivate, guide and help others with their fitness goals.
Brain training techniques: Ho’oponopono, Success Journal, Conscious Eating (Part 1 and Part 2), Visualization. Label Emotions, EFT.
