The “Visionary” (1% of the population)
Cate Blanchett and Mahatma Gandhi share your brain type, so it may not surprise you to hear that you have good discipline and a clear vision, which will help you create realistic goals. Committing to these goals will make them happen, so reminding yourself of them by writing them down initially and then referring to them daily will help you stay motivated.
Since you are not as concerned with instant results and immediate gratification as some of the other brain types, you find it easier to seek optimal health on a long-term basis. Because of this, the majority of the people with your brain type don’t typically have a major weight problem, as long as they regulate their emotions well.
You have a tendency toward eating when you are bored or when you find yourself in a blue mood, so when you catch yourself feeling that way, turn it into “kitchen time” where you get to create something there.
You do your best work with your own imagination and creativity (although you do enjoy guidelines), so you can either choose to follow one of the recipes in this program or create a new concoction of your own (within the guidelines of this program, of course). Either way, this will solve your boredom problem and feed your creative side at the same time, making it a win-win for your brain!
Since your brain is more apt to crave sweets for a quick fix to escape a mood, you may tend to find yourself addicted to sugar. This, of course, means sweets but also bread, pasta and other flour-based foods and starches, because as far as the brain and the body are concerned, they are all the same.
Eating those foods will result in a lower immune system and make you more susceptible to frequent illnesses. The Hunger Scale brain training technique will help you here too because it will remind you to eat only when hungry, instead of every time your brain calls for that quick fix.
Like Al Pacino, you are most likely a good storyteller. Or you might find hearing stories particularly enjoyable. Or both, but regardless, your brain loves stories and actually needs them, so if you don’t feed stories to your brain, it will make up stories of its own. If you find yourself making up negative stories, stop and turn those stories around into positive, fun stories. The “Stories” brain training technique will teach you how to do this.
Like Plato, your strength is your imagination, so visualizing yourself and your own health and fitness possibilities is very powerful. The visualization technique will train you how to do this properly. This technique should be quite fun for you to do, so you will most likely enjoy doing it often.
You value consistency, are organized and decisive, and are willing to work hard – especially when that work is stimulating to your imagination. Staying focused on your end result and using your imagination to visualize yourself at optimum health will keep you moving forward through each step in this program, even when the going gets tough.
Like Agatha Christie, you are a master of words and tend to express your ideas very well verbally but especially in writing. Use this gift by journaling your feelings each day. Write about your struggles and your successes, but be sure to write about two successes for each struggle, so your brain can stay focused on the positives while learning from the struggles.
You don’t typically take part in mass movements because you would rather walk to the beat of a different drum, so if this diet appeals to you more when it’s new than after it becomes a best seller, that’s why. Keep an open mind, and if you seem to be dissuaded because of its popularity, remember that it’s not just another fad diet. It’s a lifestyle choice that you can stick with for good, which also happens to allow for copious amounts of chocolate.
You have endless ideas, always considering possibilities, being happiest when these ideas are helping others. Because of this quality, you often feel compelled to render service to humanity. Therefore, focusing on how your results can help others will be motivating for you. Visualize your success and how this will motivate others to achieve their optimal health because of your example.
You are extremely concerned with others, even to the point of seeming extroverted. This concern can cause you to become overwhelmed with the world’s troubles though. Once you feel overwhelmed, your PFC shuts down and the right decisions are harder to make. It’s especially important for you to stay away from negative information (like watching the news, for instance) in order to keep your PFC clear so you have access to willpower when you need it and so your mood stays elevated to help you stay on track and away from emotional eating.
It is very important for you to work on maintaining an elevated mood because when you slump into a funk, you tend to run low on motivation for achieving things like optimum health, which can contribute to poor eating choices and weight gain. It’s important that you maintain a good balance of logical reality in life’s dilemmas. Explore your emotions with the brain training technique, “Surfing the Urge.”
Since others can hurt you more easily than other brain types, it’s important that you look at things rationally instead of taking insults to heart. A couple examples of questions that could help you step back and get more of a rational take on things are, “Is what they said false?” If your answer is no, or you are doubtful whether it might be false or not, ask the question, “Is their intention behind that comment meant to help me, and what emotional state were they in when they said it?”
Your health goals should primarily be internally motivated, so they are set to achieve for your own benefit. It can also be helpful though, for your brain type to supplement that with some external motivation by identifying another important person in your life who you would like to please with your improved health.
On the other hand, you do tend to care more than other brain types about 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. It’s critical for you to accept yourself as you are before beginning a program like this.
If you find that you are putting too much emphasis on the opinions of others (external motivation), then it might be helpful to find someone you would like to mentor in their journey to optimum health, as opposed to thinking about pleasing someone with your progress.
Exercise is particularly important for your brain type to achieve optimal health and weight. You need a physical outlet for your pent-up energies. Exercise keeps you mentally alert and optimistic, as well as complementing your diet through mitigating the negative results of occasional emotional eating temptations. For all these reasons and more, exercise tends to make it easier for you to stay on track with your food. It’s like a “reminder” of sorts to your subconscious, so healthy choices are easier to make through the day.
Exercise will help you to slow down and think more about the whole process of becoming healthier. You need to give extra concern to what goes into your body. Be sure to plan your diet by deciding what you will eat – at least two days in advance and shop the day before you need to prepare that food.
It’s harder for you to sense your body signals than some of the other brain types, including fullness and true hunger. You aren’t as concerned with the taste and texture of food as some of the other brain types, so you don’t tend to chew food as slowly. The Conscious Eating brain training technique will be especially helpful for you.
It will be helpful for you to contemplate often on all the positive aspects of proper nutrition and exercise and how the new lifestyle habits you are creating with this program will bring improved health, harmony and inner peace, brought by self-control.
Making a list of the benefits of this program can be of particular help to your brain type. List both short-term and long-term benefits and make this diet as enjoyable as possible (which should be easy, since you’re eating massive amounts of chocolate). You tend to live for inspiration and hope, so this program will certainly help with that as well.
You need affection and verbal rewards, so it’s important to pair up with an encouraging friend who believes in you during this process. Dieting with a person like that can be especially helpful for your brain type because a close friend can hold you accountable in a non-threatening way. You also won’t want to let your dieting partner down. This person should not be your spouse though because your brain type has the tendency to be “hot and cold” with your spouse from time to time (more on this later).
Come up with a creative diet game for yourself and with your dieting partner. This will keep things interesting for you and give you the creative expression your brain type needs in order to stay entertained. Once things switch from entertaining to routine or mundane, your brain will go on a search for something else that looks like more fun. There are plenty of programs out there that are designed to look like fun but could be much less effective, so stick with this one. Besides, what could be more fun than copious amounts of chocolate every day?
In the beginning stages of a diet, more verbal intangible rewards are necessary. Your brain type may view dieting as a punishment for having a perceived weight problem. The antidote for this thinking is to make sure that you feel valued for who you are. The Affirmation technique will certainly help with this.
Your goal setting should be realistic. Make sure to be careful not to make those goals too idealistic. There can sometimes be a conflict between your vision and your idealism. Your program partner can certainly help with this. Your spouse or significant other may have valuable input as well.
A food log will keep you closer to reality by forcing you to realize what your health habits truly are. Otherwise, you can easily tune out your poor practices, imagining you are doing much better than you actually are. The Conscious Eating technique is going to be extremely useful for you as a brain training exercise.
You need interesting recipes, varied activities, and entertaining exercise programs to help you stay on course and to feed you your brain with the stimulation it needs to stay in for the long haul.
Because your brain type tends to find people very interesting and even fascinating at times, you can sometimes be mistaken for an extrovert because of your interest in others and your desire to learn more about them and how they tick. This will bring a valuable quality to your partnership with whoever you select as your accountability partner for this program. They will appreciate this enthusiasm and be motivated to reciprocate and continue the program with you.
You may become stubborn, especially when you feel overcommitted or overwhelmed. You are a natural “giver” so you may overdo that from time to time and run out of fuel. If you reach this state, you may find yourself withdrawing into a cocoon of sorts, in order to recharge your energy levels when you feel overwhelmed. You may even temporarily shut out the people that are close to you. This can be confusing to those people (especially to your accountability partner and your spouse), so be sensitive to that and make sure they know this about you so if it happens, they don’t take it personally and allow you the space and time you need to recharge.
You tend to recharge quickly though, so these periods don’t tend to last more than a day or two at the longest. If you do feel the need to retreat into yourself, be sure to use the Journaling technique to get those feelings out so you can release them, investigate them and learn from them.
Summary and Recap
Goal setting: Write your long-term goals and post them somewhere you will see them daily.
Best Workout: Personal training or training with a close, supportive friend in a relatively quiet and private setting. Outdoor exercise will also appeal to you.
Motivated by: Carrying out a plan that you formed ahead of time. Dieting with a friend and making it some sort of game with them. Fun, interesting foods, with lots of variety, will keep you interested and less likely to stray.
Supported by: A close friend to experience this journey with.
Areas to strengthen: Emotional eating – especially when bored. Stay away from the TV (especially the news) in the last 90 minutes of your day. Reduce the number of projects you have going in order to fully concentrate on this program, at least until you have adopted it as your new lifestyle.
Strengths to use: Your ability to see a clear vision of your success will keep you inspired. You are a great planner, so be sure to plan ahead for your meals and exercise.
Brain training techniques: Stories, Visualization, Success Journaling, Last 90 Minutes, Surfing the Urge, Conscious Eating (part 1 and part 2).