Want to See Your Fitness Goals Come to Life?

Despite massive government, medical and individual efforts to win the war on obesity, more than 71 percent of Americans are overweight based on the clinical definition. The average adult is 25 pounds heavier today than in 1960. Moreover, our growing mass and expanding scales add as much as  US$200 billion per year to our national health care expenses as a nation, which amounts to an extreme health crisis.

Modern drug research has yet to invent a pill that allows us to lose weight and keep it off, nor will one single pill ever do so without cooperation from us to add nutrition, activity and supplement support to help us help ourselves first. Traditional approaches such as diet and exercise do work but most of us almost inevitably regain the weight because we don’t have a system, a routine and the discipline to use moderation, routine and limits where necessary to maintain an equilibrium and balance in health and wellness.

If there is ever to be a “pill” – a solution to weight – it will be changing the brain, particularly the primitive areas of the brain, the “emotional brain” or mammalian and reptilian brain as it is our behavior that drives our end result in terms of whether we stay fit, focused and healthy, or fat, fatigued and frustrated. These emotional brain circuits that control stress and our stress-fueled emotions, thoughts and behaviors are central in achieving the results we desire – and in the end, it’s simply about the choices we make that determines our health and fitness success. These circuits can be rewired in humans by changing the way we think, feel and act.  We can address the root cause of stress-related problems, including obesity if we understand how to implement the balanced approach required to achieve the results desired. Though some believe that being overweight and obese are caused solely by genetic make-up, more and more research is indicating that this is only a minor contributor – and as it turns out, stress and our thinking and beliefs play a bigger role in weight gain that was ever thought possible. As thinking, beliefs and emotions lead to poor behaviors and choices – for example many under stress turn to food for comfort due to emotional triggers to reset emotions. 

Scientists are now working to develop a neuroscience-based approach to manage weight control and fitness, as  a means of addressing the common excesses that tempt us, through emotional brain training. What scientists are realizing through cutting edge neuroscience-based research is that to change the brain we must change subconscious beliefs, behaviors, habits and patterns that we’ve learned from years of social conditioning and influence.. The new science is beginning to reveal many key distinctions and new cutting-edge advances in managing the mind to then manage our physical bodies through cognition.

The emotional cognitive brain is  the command center for weight and common behavioral excesses. This includes the management of fear, reward and starvation centers. When that brain is in stress, these three behavioral command centers promote overeating and weight gain during periods when we’re inactive and consuming more calories (energy) than we’re burning. We all have strong drives when the emotions are activated behaviorally and we do exactly what we shouldn’t do, even knowing that its wrong. When our emotional brain is in stress, even in children, it makes decisions without us even knowing why or that we’re even doing it! These psychological cues create stress triggers that amplify the reward value of food, and it increases hunger for carbs and decreases our metabolic rate, almost ensuring weight gain as in that moment, eating takes priority over all possible options of activities and priorities. This stress-obesity link has been well-documented. Our neocortex, which is the thinking brain is temporarily neutralized, and our emotional brain begins to call the shots.