BARRIER BUSTING – Overcoming the People, Places, and Things That Sabotage Success

Eileen, one of our All-Stars, was doing great with our weight-loss program and was thrilled to see the pounds melting away as she adopted brain healthy eating habits. But then she took a trip to Las Vegas and had to eat at one of those opulent buffets that Vegas is known for. You know the kind of buffet I’m talking about — fried foods galore, mashed potatoes smothered in butter, rich cream sauces on everything, and endless desserts. With these tempting foods right in front of her face, Eileen could have easily piled 5,000 calories—or more—onto her plate.
Riz, our Amen Clinics psychiatrist All-Star, had no problem sticking with his new eating regimen until he went to dinner parties with friends and family. Then his loved ones would offer him all kinds of foods that he used to love but that no longer fit into his new brain healthy lifestyle. Riz’s friends and family would try to pressure him and coax him into eating or drinking things he had given up. “What’s wrong with you?” they would ask. “You’re not obese. Why aren’t you having any kebab? Why aren’t you eating any rice? You’ve always loved kebab and rice.” They made Riz feel like he was being rude if he didn’t give in and take a helping… or two.
Jeanne, sixty-five, is one of our weight-loss participants who lost eight pounds in our ten-week program and then went on to lose another thirty-two for a total of forty pounds in less than six months. She has learned to control her eating and curb her calories, but she says her husband occasionally tries to sabotage her. She says that even though he says he wants her to continue losing weight, he sometimes tries to get her to eat three or four times as much as she should. “For breakfast, he’ll give me two pieces of toast, two poached eggs, three pieces of turkey sausage, and a big glass of orange juice. I don’t need all that, and I don’t want it,” she said.
I know that feeling very well. When I became a grandfather for the first time, I couldn’t wait to visit my new grandson, Elias. When I went to my daughter’s home, a friend of mine was also visiting. She asked me if I wanted something to eat, and I said no, I wasn’t hungry. A few minutes later, she asked me again, and I told her no again. I thought that would be the end of that discussion, but she continued to ask me an additional five times if I wanted something to eat!
I call these people food pushers. And as you embark on your weight-loss journey, you need to be aware that on a daily basis, you will face many types of food pushers who will attempt to derail your weight-loss efforts. But food pushers are not the only obstacle you will face. Energy zappers that rob you of the will to exercise and money concerns that hold you back from getting healthy can also stand in the way of your efforts to improve your brain health and drop the extra weight. Sticking with your lifestyle changes isn’t going to be smooth sailing, but if you are prepared for the challenges, you can deal with them more effectively.
Fortunately, Eileen, Riz, Jeanne, and I have all strengthened our brain’s brake, which helps us say no when food pushers put us to the test. And we have learned to deal with the daily obstacles that threaten to derail us. Now it is your turn to learn how to fight back against the food pushers, energy zappers, and other obstacles. Do not let other people, places, or things make you fat, stupid, and unhappy!
Put a H-A-L-T to the Barriers to Weight Loss
The acronym H-A-L-T is a term commonly used in addiction treatment programs that can be very helpful in dealing with the daily obstacles you will face. I understand that you may not equate an addiction program with weight loss, but as I have said before, chronic overeating is akin to substance abuse. And H-A-L-T has proven to be a very effective way to keep people on track when they are trying to change their habits.
H-A-L-T stands for:

    • Don’t get too Hungry.

Eat frequent, small, high-quality meals and take nutritional supplements to optimize your brain, balance your blood sugar, and keep calories under control. See Chapter Three: Eat Right to Think Right and Get Thinner, Smarter, and Happier for more on brain healthy eating.

    • Don’t get too Angry.

Maintain control over your emotions and don’t let negative thinking patterns keep you stuck in your old ways. See Chapter Eight: Kill the ANTs That Steal Your Happiness and Memory and Make You Fat for more details on changing your thinking.

    • Don’t get too Lonely.

Social skills and a positive social network are critical to happiness and to freeing you from emotional overeating. Enlist a team of supporters and healthy role models.

    • Don’t get too Tired.

Make sleep a priority to boost brain function, moods, and energy levels, and to improve judgment and self-control.
Don’t Let Food Pushers Sabotage Your Weight Loss
Food pushers are all around us. Every day we’re bombarded with the wrong messages about food. TV commercials, billboards, and radio ads are constantly showing us images of happy, attractive people enjoying greasy fast food, judgment-impairing cocktails, and dehydrating caffeinated drinks that decrease brain function and lower your self-control.
Corporate America is highly skilled at pushing people to eat and drink things that are not good for brain health. Restaurants and fast-food joints train employees to “upsell” as a way to increase sales and subsequently, expand our waistlines.
Here are some of the sneaky tactics food sellers use to try to get you to eat and drink more.

  • Do you want to supersize that for only 39 cents?
  • Do you want fries with your meal?
  • Do you want bread first? (This makes you hungrier so you eat more!)
  • Do you want an appetizer?
  • Do you want another drink?
  • Do you want a larger drink? It is a better deal!

Your response to all of these questions should be, “No!” Eating or drinking more than you need, just because it’s cheaper, will cost you far more in health care problems in the long run.
Your beloved friends and family can also make you fat … if you let them. A 2007 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that your chances of becoming obese increase dramatically if you have friends and family who become obese, regardless of how far away they live. Even if friends live hundreds of miles apart, they can still have a strong impact on your weight. For this study, the researchers repeatedly evaluated the BMI of 12,067 people over a thirty-two-year period. They found that having an obese pal increased the risk for obesity by 57 percent and added an average of seventeen pounds to one’s frame. Having an obese sibling raised the risk by 40 percent, and having an obese spouse increased it by 37 percent.
Friends also play a major role in influencing the eating habits of tweens and teens. A 2009 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition tested the snacking habits of twenty-three overweight and forty-two healthy weight young people. Results showed that the young folks gobbled up substantially more snacks when they were with a friend compared to when they were with a peer they didn’t know. Also, when an overweight kid ate with a friend who was also plump, they consumed more about 300 calories more than if they ate with a healthy weight friend.
So, is obesity contagious? To a certain extent, I would have to say yes. As I like to say, you are who you eat with. If you surround yourself with people who have bad brain habits, it is easy to get sucked into those habits. In most cases, your friends and family inadvertently influence you to adopt their bad habits. Sometimes, however, they may willfully try to undermine your efforts.
When you start living a brain healthy life and losing weight, it can make those around you uncomfortable, especially if they are overweight or have a lot of bad brain habits of their own. Deep down, some people — even those who love you the most — don’t want you to succeed because it will make them feel like more of a failure.
For others, their habits are so ingrained that they simply don’t know how to react to your new lifestyle. Many of my patients notice this kind of behavior with their families, friends, and coworkers. For example, a friend who smokes may thoughtlessly light up in front of you even though you are trying to quit. A neighbor might show up with a box of home-cooked brownies for your birthday when you are trying to curb your sugar intake. At work, the receptionist may bring in doughnuts and coffee for your company meetings, or your supervisor may invite your team to go to happy hour for some high-calorie cocktails.
On the flip side, your new brain healthy habits may rub off on your friends and family. When people see the new and improved you, they may be inspired to get on the brain healthy bandwagon. Take Riz, for example. His friends who were somewhat offended when he first started turning down food are now asking him for tips on how to lose weight.
The people around you can either hurt or help your chances for success. This is why it is so important to encourage the people in your social network to get on board with your brain healthy weight-loss efforts.
When you enlist your friends, family, and coworkers to support you in your new brain healthy lifestyle, they will be less likely to put you in situations that jeopardize your weight loss. It is also critical to create a strong support group of like-minded brain healthy role models, such as our BFL online community, where you can turn for help when you need it.
People aren’t the only pushers. Places and environmental cues can trigger your cravings and overeating. Almost everywhere you go, you will see reminders of the foods you used to crave or that you ate mindlessly. Drive to work, and you’ll have to pass by the fast-food place where you used to order three cheeseburgers, jumbo fries, and an all-you-can-drink soda. Take a cruise to Alaska because you want to see the beautiful scenery, and you’ll have to face unbelievably copious amounts of food and desserts at the buffet not to mention the free-flowing alcohol.
Even though churches can be very good for your soul, many of them can be terrible for your waistline. I have gone to church my whole life and lately have been frustrated by the generally poor food they serve their parishioners. Recently, I went to church near my home. My wife Tana dropped our daughter off at children’s church and I went to get us our seats. As I walked in I passed the donuts for sale for a dollar a piece, men were cooking sausage and bacon, and I saw hundreds of hot dog buns stacked up for after the service. I was so irritated that when my wife joined me she saw me making notes to myself on my Blackberry. Giving me one of those disapproving looks that only she can give me about typing on my Blackberry in church, I showed her what I had typed in:
“Go to church and get dollar donuts, sausage, bacon, hot dogs … send people to heaven early. They need to know how to become a brain healthy church.” Tana agreed and forgave my indiscretion. Work to help your church, school, business and family become a brain healthy place.
See Chapter Six: Nine Secrets to Conquering Your Cravings for more information on how to deal with the urges that arise from environmental cues.
Food Pushers You May Have to Face

  • TV commercials
  • Billboards
  • Radio ads
  • Servers in restaurants
  • Cashiers in fast-food outlets
  • Spouses
  • Parents
  • Grandparents
  • In-laws
  • Kids
  • Friends
  • Neighbors
  • Bosses
  • Coworkers
  • Vending machines at work/school
  • Office/school cafeterias
  • Teachers
  • Classmates
  • Students
  • School administrators
  • Churches
  • AA organizations
  • Community clubs
  • Gyms
  • Holidays
  • Movie theaters
  • Sports arenas
  • County fairs
  • Amusement parks
  • Brownies selling cookies
  • Little Leaguers selling candy bars
  • Vendors offering free samples

Learning to deal with and say no to all of these pushers in the home, on the town, at work, and at school is critical to your success.
Here are some tips to help you fight back.
50 Tips For Dealing With Food Pushers

  1. Ask your spouse and kids to hide unhealthy treats and snacks out of view or get rid of them so you don’t have to be tempted.
  2.  If you are going to a dinner with friends or family, call ahead to inform the host that you are on a special brain healthy diet and won’t be able to eat certain foods. You only have to do this once or twice before your friends start to ask you what they could serve that is brain healthy.
  3. If you are at a business luncheon, and your new boss or a potential client raves about how wonderful the bread is and offers it to you, take one small bite, tell them it is delicious, and then wait for your meal.
  4. When going to parties, consider eating something at home first so you won’t be hungry at the event.
  5. Be upfront with food pushers. Explain that you are trying to eat a more balanced diet, and that when they offer you cake, chips, or pizza, it makes it more difficult for you.
  6. Instead of going out to lunch or dinner with friends, choose activities that aren’t centered around food, such as going for a walk.
  7. If your coworkers invite you to happy hour, but you don’t want them to push you to drink alcohol, ask the bartender to put sparkling water in a glass with a splash of cranberry juice and sip it slowly.
  8. When people offer seconds, tell them you are pleasantly full. If they insist, explain that you are trying to watch your calories. If they continue to push extra helpings on you, gently ask them why they are bent on sabotaging your efforts to be healthy.
  9. I know some people who will accept a piece of cake or a cocktail and then toss it in the trash or the sink as soon as the host turns away.
  10. Avoid visiting with coworkers who have a bowl of candy on their desk.
  11. Tell your host you don’t drink alcohol… period. It doesn’t agree with you.
  12. With hosts you don’t know well and likely won’t see again, consider telling them you have food allergies so you don’t have to try their chocolate mousse pie or mayonnaise-laden dip.
  13. Eat very slowly so when the host starts asking guests if they want seconds, you can say you are still working on your first helping. By the time you have finished, the second round of eating could be over, and you won’t have to be subjected to the offer for more.
  14. Give kids a healthy sack lunch so they don’t have to eat from the cafeteria, if schools serve unhealthy food.
  15. Commit to taking control of your own body and don’t let other people make you fat and stupid.
  16. When food commercials come on TV, leave the room, switch stations, or hit the mute button.
  17. When driving past food billboards, focus on how many calories are in the food they are offering and allow yourself to feel disgusted, because you know if you give in to it, you will be sitting in extra fat.
  18. When radio ads are aired, turn off the radio or switch to another station.
  19. Tell restaurant servers “no bread” or “no chips” before you’re seated.
  20. Tell restaurant servers “no dessert” before they have a chance to bring the dessert tray to your table.
  21. When ordering fast food, just say no to super-sizing.
  22. Ask your spouse not to eat trigger foods in front of you.
  23. If family members are eating foods that tempt you, leave the room until they finish.
  24. Inform parents and in-laws ahead of time that you won’t be partaking in certain foods at family gatherings.
  25. Ask grandparents to avoid giving food rewards to your children.
  26. Don’t buy junk food for your kids or keep it in the house for them. If they have it, you’ll want it. Plus, it’s better for their brain health.
  27. Ask friends or your spouse to split an entrée with you.
  28. Ask the restaurant server to pack up half your meal to go before they bring it to you.
  29. If the neighbor brings you a plate of chocolate chip cookies, immediately “regift” them to someone else.
  30. If the boss brings birthday cake for your birthday, say thank you, take one small bite, and tell them how wonderful it is.
  31. If you can’t resist those high-calorie cocktails or you’re worried that a few glasses of wine will ruin your self-control for the rest of the evening, say no to happy hour with your coworkers.
  32. Don’t walk past the vending machines at work/school.
  33. Bring a sack lunch instead of eating out or eating at the cafeteria.
  34. When a coworker suggests celebrating birthdays with cupcakes, recommend a healthy alternative.
  35. If coworkers want to share their snacks, say no thank you.
  36. Ask office administrators to contract with healthy food providers and get rid of vending machines filled with sodas and candy.
  37. At church, skip the doughnuts and coffee after the service and stand outside if you want to socialize.
  38. At community clubs, bring your own snacks.
  39. Don’t take the free samples of the “energy bars” or “energy drinks” offered at the gym. Remember “energy” equals “calories.”
  40. At all-you-can-eat buffets, go for the salad (dressing on the side), steamed vegetables, and lean protein first, then after you have eaten that, go back if you still hungry want to try a higher-calorie item. Chances are you will eat a much smaller portion than if you had started with the fatty fare.
  41. Bring your own healthy snacks to the movies so you don’t have to go near the concession stand.
  42. If you’re at a sporting event, be aware that many ballparks and sports arenas are offering healthier options so explore all the offerings rather than heading straight for the hot dog vendor.
  43. If you can’t resist the goodies at county fairs or amusement parks, get one item and split it among your friends.
  44. When temptation wins out, use the three-bite rule. Take three bites of the item, then toss it.
  45. Donate money to the Girl Scouts rather than buying cookies.
  46. When your spouse asks you to finish off the small amount of food left over from dinner, say no, box it up, and put it in the fridge for another meal.
  47. When it’s your turn to host a party, send all the leftovers home with your guests so you won’t be tempted to eat them.
  48. If someone in your dining party orders fries for the table, make sure you have a glass of water or green tea to sip on while they munch. It will keep you occupied and help prevent you from reaching for a fry, or two, or twenty.
  49. At the grocery store checkout stand, keep your eyes focused on the checker so you don’t have to look at the candy and other impulse-buy items calling out to you.
  50. Make it a rule NEVER to take free food samples ANYWHERE!

Hold the bread before meals.
Why do restaurants serve baskets of bread before each meal for free? Why not cheese? Why not almonds, or chunks of beef or chicken? The reason is that bread makes you hungrier and encourages you to eat more. Bread, especially white bread made from bleached and processed flour, spikes your blood sugar and boosts the natural feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. Serotonin helps you feel happier and less anxious.
On brain SPECT scans, I have seen that serotonin interventions help to relax or lower function in the PFC (Pre Frontal Cortex). When I prescribe antidepressant medications or supplements that boost serotonin in the brain, my patients often say they feel better, but that they are also less motivated. Anything that lowers PFC function makes you more impulsive and less worried about long-term consequences. The bread or simple carbohydrate to start a meal helps you feel better, but also more impulsive when the dessert tray comes by later on. Hold the bread, wait for your meal, and you will be happier with the end result.
The Three Circles: Know When You’re Safe, When You’re Vulnerable, and When You’re in Danger
It is absolutely critical that you know what helps keep you on track with your weight loss, what makes you more likely to fall back into your old ways, and what puts you in imminent danger of overeating. To help my patients understand the people, places, and things that are helping them reach their goals and those that are putting them at greater risk for overeating, I use an exercise called the Three Circles.
For this exercise, I have my patients take a page, draw three circles on it, and label them “Red Circle,” “Yellow Circle,” and “Green Circle.” In the green circle, I have them write down all the things that help them stay on track with their weight-loss and brain health goals. In the yellow circle, they put things that make them more vulnerable to getting off track. In the red circle, they list their danger zones — the things that put them in imminent danger of reverting back to their bad habits.
Don’t Let Energy Zappers Prevent You From Getting the Exercise You Need
Maria, forty-four, is one of my patients who has started doing a thirty-minute burst routine every morning before work in an effort to burn calories and boost her brain. But several days a week, her husband Ben tries to coax her into staying in bed with him and going back to sleep instead of exercising.
Be prepared to deal with people who try to get in the way of your commitment to exercise. Like Maria, your spouse might tempt you to give up your workout in favor of a little extra shut-eye. You might be heading out the door to go to the gym when your kids say they need a ride somewhere NOW. Your boss might put a last-minute project on your desk just as you were about to leave work to go play basketball. Don’t give in to these people. Slip out of bed quietly so your spouse can go back to sleep. Tell your kids you will give them a ride after you have worked out. And let your boss know you had a prior commitment, but you will work on the new project later that night.
When an energy zapper tries to keep you from exercising, let them know why exercise is important to you and why it is also beneficial to them.
Arm yourself with responses like these:

  • “I’m exercising because it makes me feel good and helps keep me healthy by preventing cravings. If you care about me and my health, you won’t ask me to skip it.”
  • “Physical activity puts me in a better mood, which will help our relationship and make me a better partner/friend.”
  • “If I go exercise for an hour, I will think much more clearly afterward and will do a better job on this project.”

The people around you aren’t the only energy zappers. There are many other things that will rob you of energy, including:

  • Inherited brain disorders
  • Infectious causes
  • Hormonal issues
  • Anemia
  • Brain trauma
  • Environmental toxins
  • Many medications
  • Chronic stress
  • Untreated past emotional trauma
  • Caffeine
  • Smoking
  • Poor eating habits
  • Poor sleep
  • Too much alcohol
  • Lack of exercise
  • Low/erratic blood sugar states from any cause

Things that will boost your energy include:

  • Treat the energy robbers described above.
  • Get at least seven hours of sleep.
  • Eat a brain healthy diet.
  • Maintain a level blood sugar.
  • Exercise four to five times a week.
  • Use stress-reduction techniques.
  • Test and optimize hormone levels.
  • Meditate.
  • Eat low-calorie, high-fiber foods (fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains).
  • Drink green tea, which includes theanine.
  • Take natural supplements, such as ashwagandha and green tea leaf extract.

Sometimes, your biggest energy zapper can be yourself … and your excuses. So many of us can come up with a million excuses why we shouldn’t exercise. Even I have days when I have to engage in a full-fledged battle against my excuses to get out the door.
Common Exercise Excuses:

  • I’m too tired.
  • I’m too busy.
  • I’m too fat to go to a gym.
  • I’m too old to exercise.
  • I’m too stressed out.
  • It’s dark out.
  • It’s drizzling.
  • It’s too cold.
  • I don’t know what kind of exercises to do.
  • I’m bored with my workout.
  • I hate exercising.
  • I’m already five minutes late for my aerobics class, I may as well not go at all.
  • I’m still sore from yesterday’s workout.
  • My back—or knee, foot, arm, shoulder, ankle, toe, finger, or head—hurts.
  • I’m not in the mood.
  • I get enough exercise around the house.
  • I don’t have any exercise equipment.
  • The gym is too far away.
  • I can’t leave the kids alone.

By now, you may recognize that these thoughts are ANTs that can drain your energy and motivation to exercise. If you find these thoughts creeping into your head, go to Change My Thoughts and do the Kill the ANTs exercises to challenge them.
Don’t Let Money Concerns Stand in the Way of Brain Health
Brooke, twenty-two, wants to optimize her brain so she can stop her sad and emotional overeating, and she knows that exercising and taking a multivitamin, fish oil, and vitamin D could help. But she’s worried about the cost of a gym membership and high-quality supplements so she doesn’t get the mood-boosting exercise or nutrients she needs and continues to overeat.
Being too fat is what is really expensive. It can ruin your health and lead to serious diseases that can drain your brain and your bank account. Plus, research shows that being obese is associated with lower salaries and fewer job opportunities.
Fortunately, I can tell you that living a brain healthy life doesn’t have to cost a bundle. In fact, many of the tips in this book are absolutely free. Just check the following list for inexpensive ways to boost your brain.
50 Free and Low-Cost Ways to Improve Brain Health

  1. Loving your brain is free.
  2. Talking about the brain with family, friends, coworkers, and classmates is free.
  3. Learning something from articles and TV features about the brain is free.
  4. Keeping a daily journal to track your brain healthy habits is free.
  5. Becoming aware of the various brain systems is free.
  6. Understanding your own brain and how it affects your life is free.
  7. Avoiding activities at high risk for brain injury is free.
  8. Putting a halt to any drug use saves money.
  9. Limiting your exposure to toxins like nail polish and hair chemicals is free.
  10. Cooking healthy food at home can be less expensive than eating out.
  11. Buying frozen fruits in bulk is an inexpensive way to get your antioxidants.
  12. Buying frozen vegetables in bulk is another low-cost option.
  13. Stocking up on brain healthy beans is an inexpensive way to get more fiber in your diet.
  14. Skipping the candy, cookies, and ice cream lowers your food bill.
  15. Eating fewer calories costs less.
  16. Eating five or six small meals doesn’t cost any more than eating three big meals.
  17. Saying no to super-sizing your meal saves money.
  18. At restaurants, splitting meals cuts the check in half.
  19. Skipping the appetizers and desserts lowers your check total.
  20. Cutting out the alcohol can significantly reduce your dinner tab or bar tab.
  21. Quitting smoking saves money spent on cigarettes.
  22. Getting more sleep is free.
  23. Drinking water costs less than drinking energy drinks, coffee, or sodas.
  24. Exercising outdoors is free.
  25. Thinking positive thoughts is free.
  26. Cutting TV time is free.
  27. Limiting video game playing is free.
  28. Buying fewer video games saves money.
  29. Eliminating Internet time is free.
  30. Limiting texting can save money.
  31. Cutting caffeine can trim your Starbucks bill.
  32. Getting books from the library for new learning is free.
  33. Getting foreign language CDs from the library is free.
  34. Games and puzzles are a low-cost investment for mental workouts.
  35. Classes at local community colleges and the Learning Annex are relatively inexpensive.
  36. Improving at your favorite activities can be free.
  37. Shaking up your daily routine is free.
  38. Surrounding yourself with smart people is free.
  39. Meditation is free.
  40. Prayer is free.
  41. Saying no to invitations that don’t serve your goals is free.
  42. Being grateful is free.
  43. Deep breathing for stress reduction is free.
  44. Self-hypnosis is free.
  45. Soothing music doesn’t require a big investment.
  46. Focusing on positive memories is free.
  47. Talking back to your ANTs is free.
  48. Writing down your goals is free.
  49. Staying focused on what motivates you is free.
  50. Saying no to food pushers who want you to eat unhealthy things is free.

On the other hand, there are times when it is well worth it to spend money on your brain health. Don’t skimp when it comes to the following:
Getting a complete physical to check for medical conditions that might be affecting your weight and brain health.

  • Taking high-quality supplements to optimize your brain and control cravings.
  • Seeing a professional to diagnose and treat possible brain disorders.
  • Choosing a treatment program if you suffer from an eating disorder, such as bulimia.

When Your Brain Fights Change, Fight Back
Change is an uncomfortable process, and your brain is hardwired to resist change. When your brain tells you to stick with the same old habits that have made you fat, you need to fight back. The steps in this book are designed to help you rewire your brain so you can lose weight, but don’t expect it to be as easy as flipping a switch. It takes time to overwrite old neural pathways with new ones. Here are a few tips that can help you retrain your brain to stay on the right path.
Don’t try to change everything at once.
If you have come to the decision that you want to make changes in your life, you probably want them to happen NOW! But after nearly thirty years of helping patients navigate the change process, I have learned that taking a gradual approach is the surest way to success. So many people try to change all at once, but this almost inevitably invites disappointment and failure. You don’t have to change dozens of behaviors at once. Start with a few vital behaviors—the ones that will have the biggest immediate impact — and go from there.
Believe you can do it.
If you don’t believe in yourself, you will never achieve your goals. Take what you learned from “Killing the ANTs” and start changing your negative thinking patterns to honest and positive thinking to help you believe that you can do it.
Reward yourself for the small successes.
When you reach short-term goals, give yourself a pat on the back, but don’t celebrate with substances or activities that harm your brain. Why do we choose to celebrate birthdays, promotions, and other successes with foods and drinks that decrease brain function and make us fat? Find brain healthy ways that don’t involve eating and drinking to reward yourself.
Here are some non-food rewards you might want to try:

  • Enjoy a few hours of quiet time.
  • Spend an evening alone with a good book.
  • Take a warm bath.
  • Get a massage.
  • Get a manicure or pedicure.
  • Make a hair appointment.
  • Get a spa treatment.
  • Go to the movies or watch a favorite movie on TV.
  • Download your favorite songs to your iPod.
  • Buy your favorite magazine.
  • Give yourself a compliment. Write it down and put it where you can see it often.
  • Visit a museum.
  • Get some fresh-cut flowers, a plant, or herbs for the garden.
  • Buy a spice rack for all the new spices you’re using on your food.
  • Get a new vegetable steamer or other kitchen gadget to make healthy cooking easier.
  • Buy a new fitness DVD or equipment.
  • Get a personal training session.
  • Buy some new workout clothes.
  • Get a pedometer.
  • Get a sports watch that also tracks your heart rate and calories burned.
  • Go out for a guys’ night out.
  • Go out for a girls’ night out.
  • Go to a garage sale.
  • Go antiquing.
  • Take a day off work.
  • Get a photo shoot of the new you.
  • Hire someone to do the housework or gardening for a day so you can have more “me” time.
  • Take a day trip.
  • Buy something for your favorite hobby—yarn for knitting, scrapbooking materials, or tools, for example.
  • Buy yourself a number of small inexpensive gifts and wrap them up in identical packages. When you reach one of your goals, unwrap one of them for a nice surprise.
  • Put $1—or 50 cents or a dime—in a piggybank each time you do a particular brain healthy habit. Let it add up until you reach a big goal and spend it on whatever you’d like.

When should you reward yourself? It’s up to you. Of course, you can reward yourself for every pound you lose, or say for every five pounds. But rewarding yourself for the brain healthy habits that are going to help you shed those pounds may be a smarter move. After all, it’s the new habits you want to reinforce.
For example, you can reward yourself for meditating every single day for a week. You can give yourself something special for doing your ANTs exercises ten times. You can celebrate a week without caffeine, a month of eating vegetables every day, or exercising four times a week. In general, it’s best to reward yourself for the habits that are the hardest to change.
Don’t swap one bad habit for another.
If you’ve got a sweet tooth, you may think that kicking your sugar habit is the ultimate goal. So instead of chomping on chocolate in the afternoon, you start sipping a diet soda or a café latte. Yes, it isn’t chocolate, but it still isn’t good for your brain or your weight-loss efforts. I see this so many times with my patients who quit one bad habit only to acquire another one in its place.
Some people even turn to illicit drugs. At the 2010 meeting of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, researchers presented evidence that some people who have bariatric surgery replace their food addiction with drug or alcohol addiction. A survey of post-bariatric surgery patients in substance abuse programs revealed that 85 percent of them put some of the blame on “addiction substitution” and 75 percent thought “unresolved psychological issues” played a role in their substance abuse.
This doesn’t surprise me because, as I said in the Introduction, stapling your stomach may be working on the wrong organ. There may be underlying biological, psychological, social, or spiritual causes for your overeating. If you get rid of your problem foods or have surgery to shrink your stomach but do NOT address these underlying problems, you won’t make any progress. You will simply look for other ways to self-medicate. To be your best self, you need to kick your bad habits without replacing them with others.
Get back on track—setbacks don’t mean failure.
The road to change is not a one-way street. The steps to change are not static. I frequently tell my patients that their journey will be like going up and down a staircase. They will go up several steps, feel like they’ve made progress, then go back down a few steps when difficult situations arise. They will make several more steps of progress, then slip back a few, but usually not as many as before. Usually, the slope of progress is in an upward, positive direction.
If you aren’t expecting to encounter setbacks, it can derail your efforts. Let’s say you’ve been doing a great job sticking to your daily calorie limit and have lost five pounds after a few weeks. But then you go to your parents’ house for the holidays where you overindulge and end up gaining two pounds in a week. Then you feel like you’ve blown it, so you continue overeating after you return home and then you give up entirely on changing.
Understanding that setbacks are part of the process and planning how to deal with them makes them easier to handle. So you ate more than you should during the holidays and gained a couple pounds—just get back onto your program the next day. Remember, losing weight is not a race, and faster is not necessarily better. Slow and steady is the healthiest way to lose weight and keep it off.
If you hit a plateau, change things up a bit.
Hitting a plateau can be one of the most frustrating challenges in your weight-loss journey. A plateau is when your scale seems to get stuck on a certain number and just won’t budge even though you haven’t veered away from your new brain healthy habits. Rest assured that this is a common scenario.
Often, the problem lies with your resting basal metabolic rate (BMR). This is the number of calories you need to maintain your current weight. You see, when you lose weight, your BMR goes down too, so you need fewer calories to maintain your weight.
For example, let’s say you are a fifty-year-old man who is 5’10” and 250 pounds, and you eat 3,000 calories a day. If you cut the recommended 500 calories per day from your diet to lose one pound a week, you’ll be eating about 2,500 calories a day, and you’ll start to see the weight come off. (To keep it simple for this example, we won’t factor exercise into the mix.) If you lose forty pounds in six months like some of our All-Stars, your BMR goes down and your body no longer burn as many calories per day. So, the 2,500 calories you are still eating may actually be too high for you now.
Using the equation below, at 210 pounds and sedentary, you would need a total of 2,308 calories per day to maintain your weight. But you are still eating 2,500 calories, so the scale stops moving in the right direction. As you lose weight, you need to make adjustments to your caloric intake and energy output to compensate for your changing BMR.
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) Equation
Women: 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)
Men: 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years)
Take that number and multiply by it by the appropriate number below:
1.2 — if you are sedentary (little or no exercise)
1.375 — if you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week)
1.55 — if you are moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week)
1.75 — if you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week)
1.9 — if you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports and a physical job or strength training twice a day)
Total: ________
The first thing you need to do when your scale gets stuck is make sure that you really have hit a plateau. Even if the number on the scale hasn’t dropped, your body composition might still be improving. That is exactly what happened to Eileen, one of our All-Stars. After losing about fifteen pounds in her first ten-week session and another fifteen in her second ten-week session, her weight loss seemed to stall at about four pounds midway through her third session.
But her body was still changing. In fact, even though she had only dropped four pounds, she had dropped two full pants sizes during her third session alone! Altogether she went down five pants sizes in about six months.
So don’t automatically get discouraged if the number on the scale isn’t changing fast enough for you. We often get so hung up on a specific number that we lose sight of our real goal, which is to look slimmer, feel happier and more energetic, and be smarter.
If you really have hit a plateau, then it is probably time to decrease your caloric intake and change up your workout routine. For example, let’s say you have been doing thirty minutes of walking with bursts four times a week. At first, it was probably a real challenge for you. But after a while, your body learns to work more efficiently, and you no longer burn as many calories doing the same activity. Plus, as your body becomes lighter, you burn fewer calories.
To increase your calorie burn, you have to pump up the intensity of your workouts. Consider adding some hills, jogging, or full-out sprints to your walking routine. Or add fifteen minutes to your workouts. Or try doing another activity altogether, like swimming or dancing, which will challenge your muscles in new ways.
It is also a good idea to add strength training to your routine because working your muscles ultimately boosts your metabolism. The more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism. Strength training can help keep plateaus at bay by increasing your BMR.
Remember that change never stops.
Our bodies and lives are in a constant state of change. Marriages, divorces, job transfers, pregnancies, injuries, illnesses, and hormonal transitions are just some of the many things that keep us in flux. Because of this, as you reach your initial goals, you may decide that you want even greater results. Or unexpected things might happen in your life that make you reevaluate your original benchmarks and downshift your expectations. Just know that with every change that comes into your life, you have the power to be in control of the way you handle that change.
Dealing With Obstacles
To prepare yourself for the barriers to brain health and weight loss, take time to think about the challenges you will face and how you will handle them.
Use the chart below to write down your obstacles and plans to deal with them.
My Obstacles to Brain Health – How I Will Deal With These Obstacles
and Weight Loss

__________________________ ________________________________________________
__________________________ ________________________________________________
__________________________ ________________________________________________
__________________________ ________________________________________________
__________________________ ________________________________________________
Brain Fit Life All-Stars: Cam Cleeland
At thirty-four, Cam Cleeland is one of our younger retired NFL players. He played football at a very high level in high school, in college at the University of Washington, and eight years in the pros as a tight end with the New Orleans Saints, New England Patriots, and St. Louis Rams. At age thirty-four, he volunteered for our study because he was struggling with problems of depression, irritability, low frustration, tolerance, high stress, obsessive thinking, and memory problems.
While playing football in college, he had a concussion and was unconscious for eighteen hours. He was diagnosed with a total of eight concussions—three in college and five in the pros. He said his “bell was rung” every week.
Once in his rookie year while playing for Mike Ditka in New Orleans, he was involved in a hazing incident during which other players whacked him on the head with socks filled with coins (not the sign of intelligent life). Cam suffered a concussion and vision problems after the incident. Cam said that the NFL changed its position on hazing after the incident.
Cam’s evaluation showed clear evidence of depression, brain trauma, and cognitive dysfunction. His SPECT scan showed left-sided brain damage (he said he was hit in the left eye during the hazing incident and that he felt better on blocks when he led with the left side of his head). His Microcog (a test of neuropsychological function) showed significant decreases in general cognitive functioning, information processing speed, attention, memory, and spatial processing.
As part of our study, we put Cam on our brain rehabilitation program, which included fish oil (Omega-3 Power), a great multiple vitamin (NeuroVitePlus), and our Brain & Memory Power Boost.
Eight months later we re-assessed Cam, using the same protocol as before. He reported he felt much better and noticed significant improvements in his attention, mental clarity, memory, mood, motivation, and anxiety level. He felt his anger was under greater control and he was getting along better with his small children.
His SPECT scan showed dramatic improvement in the areas of his temporal lobes (memory and mood stability), prefrontal cortex (attention and judgment), and cerebellum (processing speed). His Microcog showed dramatic improvement as well (see the following table).
He feels the difference and is excited to do everything he can to change his brain and change his life. You see, changing your brain can make you smarter and happier! It also made him thinner — Cam has lost twenty-five pounds since starting the program.