Think yourself lean: if your fat-loss program seems to have a will of its own, you may not be able to keep the lard off. Here are 10 mental strategies that will turn your mind into your most powerful weight-loss tool and your body into a lean machine

Men's Fitness, Sept, 2002 by Matt Fitzgerald

Improvisation has its place. When done well--think Miles Davis, Jim Carrey, Barry Sanders--it's evidence of genius. It indicates resourcefulness, an agile mind, nerve. With weight loss, however, it's just a bad idea. You simply can't ad-lib a diet. If you try--and so many of us have--you'll stumble over the same obstacles that have tripped up countless weight-loss improvisers before you.

So many of these obstacles are mental. It's not the Eskimo Pie in the freezer that's tripping you up--it's the gray matter between your ears. The success of a diet depends on how you approach it, the mind-set you adopt before you begin. The following 10 mental strategies can help fortify your resolve to follow the eating plan of your choice--whether it's Weight Watchers, Atkins or any offered in MEN'S FITNESS--and radically improve your chances for success.

1 Think before you act. When you contemplate making a radical change in your life, avoid at all costs the temptation to dive dramatically into the deep end. "Chronic behaviors are so well-established, you can't just jump immediately into action and change them," explains James Prochaska, Ph.D., author of Changing for Good. Prochaska, who has studied successful self-changers for years at the University of Rhode Island's Cancer Prevention Research Center, observes that favorable, purposeful action is nearly always preceded by a period of mental agitation, a.k.a. psyching oneself up.

Before you swap your cheesecake for a rice cake, give yourself a chance to reflect on your motivations, draw inspiration (from old pictures of yourself, magazine covers, etc.) and set achievable goals. When you're truly ready to begin, you'll know.

2 Find a good woman. Women are famously more eager to commit than men. So it comes as no surprise that research shows women are generally more eager than men to commit to weight loss. Research also indicates that men and women who begin a diet with a partner are likely to stick with it. If you have a wife or girlfriend, ask her to change her diet with you. If she replies, "Are you saying I'm fat?" let us know how you wiggle out of that one.

3 Watch yourself. Only you can be accountable to you. According to Gary Foster, Ph.D., clinical director of the Weight Loss and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, people who keep a written record of what they eat are much more successful in sticking with a diet than people who don't bother noting their efforts. "You don't need to get into calories, fat grams, or whatever," says Foster. "Just do enough to increase your consciousness about the foods you're eating." The key here is to develop conscious purpose, that is, become mindful of the benefits of such actions and then carry them out.

4 Climb back on that horse. Accept the following: You will return to bad habits now and again, and even gain back a pound or two. Not a problem, unless you're the type who can't avoid making too much of a little weight gain. "The only serious mistake you can make is to give up on your effort to change," says Prochaska. When you have a lapse, which is normal, don't use it as an opportunity for an excuse: The last thing you should do is blame a slow metabolism, bad genes, or anything else you think is beyond your control. Instead, enlist that gray matter of yours to figure out the genuine cause of the relapse (you let yourself get too hungry; you had junk food in the house) and don't let it happen again (eat more regularly; throw out the junk food).

5 Take the long view. Remember in junior high school when you were forced to run the mile? If you were like most guys, you started out at a full sprint only to succumb to a wobbly death march a couple of hundred yards later. Plenty of diets go the same route. Don't sprint. Begin with a few healthy modifications and proceed gradually, allowing yourself the time to become acclimated to the new behavior. The goal here is to believe that every change you make is permanent. "Small changes last. Big changes don't," says Foster.

6 Thwart temptation. In one way or another, temptation is to blame for every abandoned diet. One of the best ways to maintain more-healthful eating habits for the long haul is to fortify yourself against those situations that entice you most.

"When you're ready to make the commitment," says Prochaska, "you need to ask yourself: `When am I most likely to lapse?' The next step is to come up with concrete strategies that can help you deal with your particular weakness. If eating out presents a problem for you, ask the waiter about healthful menu options, and choose restaurants more carefully." By naming your top temptations and equipping yourself with effective ways to address them, you'll greatly improve your chances of resisting them.

7 Turn saboteurs into allies. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to eating healthfully is having a circle of friends, colleagues and family members who do not--and who may even sabotage your attempts to lose weight by razzing you about your diet.