The “Innovator” (6% of the population)
Like Audrey Hepburn and Paul McCartney, you tend to be a perfectionist, so you may need to feel like you have become a master of each tip, trick, or brain training technique before moving to the next one. This is truly a gift and will give you the ability to master many skills and crafts as the true artist that you are, but if you feel like you are stuck for too long at a particular place and aren’t moving forward, seek the advice of a logical friend who can step in and give an objective opinion on whether they think you are ready to move forward or not, so you don’t find yourself spending more time than necessary at any particular place in your journey.
Obtaining and maintaining optimal health and weight are highly desired goals for you but this may take more work than some of the other brain types. Your brain type comes in many shapes and sizes, but few are obese. Those with your brain type who do maintain optimal health and weight generally have more developed people skills, have stronger values, and have not let emotional traumas affect their eating habits.
Because you are highly sensory, you may have an elevated interest in food – especially to the taste, color, texture and feel in your mouth. This may sound like a liability at first, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be an overeater. In fact, your heightened ability for senses allows you to become satisfied sooner from foods because you are able to take in more information from that food, therefore requiring less volume. Be sure to focus on your fullness sensation and listen to your body when it tells you to stop eating. The Hunger Scale Technique will help you with this (all the techniques with their links are listed in the summary at the bottom of this page).
You like to help people and make their lives better. You are also highly creative, so you often think of ways to improve products, services, and ideas. Because of this, you tend to make decisions based on how it will affect other people, so it could be helpful for you to think of how others’ opinions of you will improve as you achieve optimal health. This might seem somewhat “co-dependent” at first glance, but since your brain type values the opinions of others and their opinion of you, this can be a great way to use this to your advantage instead of fighting that tendency or perceiving it as a negative.
It can be harder for you to see the logical side of issues since you are more apt to understand things based on feelings, internal sensations, and perceptions. Your brain style is fantastic, and certainly has many advantages, but to seek balance, you should form some close relationships with people who are more logical and objective in their opinions. They will be able to provide you with some wise counsel regarding decisions you feel are based mainly on emotions.
You will do better by following general guidelines, rather than distinct, individual steps, which might be too rigid a structure for you. You enjoy spontaneity and can see routine and structure as boring or confining, so feel free to explore all the recipes on hardbodcafe.com, especially if you are already comfortable in your kitchen. If you aren’t yet comfortable with meal prep and cooking, phase into it slowly with recipes that seem easy and fun at first, building with more complex recipes as you become more comfortable with cooking.
As long as you stay within healthy guidelines, you are able to take liberties with your nutrition habits. If not allowed to indulge your food cravings some of the time, you may feel like throwing in the towel and going back to your familiar freedom-seeking ways, even if those ways are damaging to your health. This program is designed for people who need to indulge because of the many chocolate, sweets and dessert options built into it. On this program, you can indulge and satisfy your desires, while getting healthier and fitter at the same time. You truly can have it both ways!
You also need to be aware of your tendency to change nutrition strategies and escape exercise when things start to feel mundane or routine. Be sure to commit fully to this program along with the brain training, tips, shortcuts and tricks for at least three months and you will be much less likely to “jump ship” because by then, your cravings, patterns, and habits will have changed from unhealthy foods to the healthy foods and habits in this program.
You tend to get flustered easily when you are stressed or are in an uncomfortable, high-pressure situation, so you may tend toward emotional eating to change your state. It’s important to have healthy snacks on hand and readily available when you find yourself in a pressured state. Use the EFT Technique to calm yourself down when needed.
You value fashion, looking good, and expressing your uniqueness through your clothes and artistic tendencies. It’s no wonder Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Princess Diana are classic “Artist” brain types. This tendency will help you stay thin so that is a plus.
Your motivational reasons for attaining optimal health, however, may need to be developed beyond just the advantage it provides for a thin body. Concentrate on how this improved health will make you feel better, give you more energy and balance out your moods more effectively.
You may find that organizational skills are not one of your strengths, so devising a structured plan may seem daunting to you. This is why you prefer a more structured program because that saves you from having to come up with an elaborate structure system yourself.
You need encouragement and a show of appreciation from others. You need helpful, loving encouragement along with practical guidelines. The practical guidelines part is taken care of with this program, but it will be helpful for you to ask for the support of an encouraging and loving friend who will commit to providing that type of feedback along the way.
You can take criticism harshly, even letting it affect your self-image, so critical friends should not be part of your support group for this program. It’s important for you to work on your self-confidence, so negative feedback doesn’t affect you as much, and self-worth comes more from the inside than from other people’s approval. It’s okay to seek other people’s approval and that will certainly help you, so I’m not saying here that you need to get over that, but I am suggesting that this not be a requirement of yours, only coming from external situations. The Affirmations technique will help you build your own internal self-confidence.
You are generally more optimistic than some of the other brain types, but you can also have the tendency towards despondency if you do not keep your emotions in check. You are typically more humble and kind, harmonious, serene, impulsive and fun-loving than other brain types. Since your moods have a wider range than most other brain types, your mood swings are also greater than most other brain types, which can set you up for emotional eating, both when you are low and when you are high.
You also tend to be more self-critical, being perhaps the most humble and misunderstood of all brain types. This may seem like a contradiction to the last paragraph, which described you as optimistic, but because of your ability to handle a wide range of moods, you can be both optimistic and self-critical. The Word Swap technique will help you be less critical of yourself. Listening to praise from others and working on believing what they tell you will also be helpful.
You have the occasional tendency toward self-deprecating behavior in addition to being hypercritical about yourself. This makes it important to remember that you are designed as more of the sensitive artist type to bring beauty and rhythm to the world and that your lifestyle is actually something to be modeled because you bring harmony to a world moving too fast and insensitively.
You learn best by hands-on experience, so it may take you several attempts to master some of the more challenging recipes in this program, but when you do, you will typically become the most skilled at these recipes, over most of the other brain types.
You prefer group training, despite the fact that you are an introvert. You are closely in tune in with your body and enjoy the feelings you get from graceful movements, so high-impact sports or heavy, ballistic weightlifting methods might not be the best choice for you. You will be better suited for program styles like Barre, X Gym, and Pilates.
You enjoy life, are respectful, compassionate and kind. You are typically a “now” person who enjoys the moment and craves excitement. You plan for and plan on having lots of free time to enjoy simple pleasures. This program will suit you well because I designed it to be maximum enjoyment with minimal time commitment.
You are satisfied easily, so you are not typically excessive in your indulgences, but the very next day requires another “fix” for these pleasures, which can set you up for an addictive personality. This is not a bad quality because as long as your addictions are healthy, that will certainly work to your advantage. Becoming addicted to Fitness Chocolate, for example, instead of harmful drugs or alcohol would be a great example of this.
You are more in tune with the needs of others, so you are more effective at helping them reach their goals. This gift comes at the expense of often overlooking your own needs though, so be sure to be mindful of this and make it a priority to prepare food at least two days ahead of time, so there is plenty on hand to access whenever you need it – especially Fitness Chocolate!
You have a tendency towards underestimating your own abilities and accomplishments though, which may keep you from achieving something a far less capable person ends up doing. Expecting more of yourself by reciting affirmations about your high ability to achieve things you are passionate about will be helpful to maximize your confidence in your capabilities.
You need to be especially aware that repeated behavior, whether undesirable or desirable, can lead to the formation of habits in your brain easier than other brain types, which is an advantage when forming new habits but can work against you as well because bad habits are just as easy to form. Be especially mindful of this by watching your repeated behavior, because repetition quickly forms habits in your case. Use this to your advantage by catching yourself repeating unwanted behaviors and then turning that around immediately to act out the opposite behavior. Remind yourself to keep repeating that behavior in order to form that new, positive habit, like making and eating Fitness Chocolate for instance.
You diet best one day at a time, rather than focusing on a long-term goal. Even as far out as next month or especially next year, can seem like an eternity to you since you tend to be wired for today, instead of a more long-term perspective. Therefore, you should focus on short-term objectives and rewards such as fitting into your clothes better, feeling good and looking good, rather than on the pounds you need to lose.
Scales can certainly help point out daily success but can also point out failures, so it’s important for you to understand how body weight goes up and down within a set point range until it breaks free from that range. Scales and circumference measurements will be helpful for you, but you should also remind yourself that you are also on a journey to better health. Enjoy the process along the way and be grateful for each day’s successes. Keeping a success journal will be very motivating for you.
Monitoring your progress in other ways can also be very helpful, as in a food log, exercise time, tracking fitness results, weekly measurements, etc.
Summary and Recap
Goal setting: Base goals on how much better you will look in your clothes and new outfits. Short-term goals with easily attainable time-based milestones for frequent success will keep you on track. Make sure all your goals, whether short-term or long-term, are realistic.
Best Workout: Group training in a quiet, intimate atmosphere like Barre, X Gym, and Pilates.
Motivated by: A supportive friend who will help you with your time-based goals and stick to your schedule for success. Track your food, measurements, and biometrics.
Supported by: Logical, objective, friends who praise your successes.
Areas to strengthen: Make sure healthy foods and snacks are always readily available, whether you are at home or on the road. Cut yourself some slack when you feel like you are failing. Organization of your kitchen, shopping and cooking schedule will help clear your mind and let you see the bigger picture more clearly.
Strengths to use: You form new habits easily, so watch your repeated behaviors – they will help you if you focus (or hurt you if you don’t pay attention).
Brain training techniques: Hunger Scale, EFT, Affirmations, Word Swap, Success Journal, Visualization.
