Whenever I do initial consultations with weight management patients I make sure to ask them what their ultimate weight loss goals are.  Invariably my patients will mention a friend or relative who has the physique they desire, or they will mention a time in their lives at which they considered their own bodies to be ideal for them.  At the end of the evaluation, I instruct my patients to find at least one picture of that ideal body and post it in a prominent place, either on a desk, bathroom mirror, refrigerator, or car dashboard.  The whole point is to create a visual representation of the patient’s goal so that it becomes more tangible over time.

Another tip which I give to weight management patients is to take weekly progress pics so that they can monitor the subtle changes in their bodies over an interval period of time.  What they might not see from week to week can be very dramatic when they compare their baseline photos to photos taken many weeks or months later.  Over time it becomes easier to take these progress pictures.  Trust me, I do it regularly myself.

The tips I have just mentioned also work EXTREMELY well for people in the midst of contest prep.  What I employ with my contest prep clients is the weekly progress picture ritual, as I have seen the high value of doing so in order to monitor subtle changes week by week and to provide information which I can use in order to make small changes in a prep plan.  However, when I first began competing in 2009, I quite randomly picked a couple of images of female competitors whom I really admired, printed them, and placed them on my bathroom mirror.  I saw these images daily and was able to visualize my goal on a consistent basis.  I did not remove these images from my mirror until I moved in October of last year, and when I did so, I moved the images to bulletin boards in our trophy room.

What is amazing now is that I have images of myself next to the images of the ladies I had so admired, and you know what?  I achieved my goal.    I no longer look at the images of these ladies as something to aspire to, but instead look at them as peers.

In summary, there are two things you can do to visualize your goal:

1. FIND AN IMAGE OF THE BODY YOU WANT AND POST IT IN A PROMINENT PLACE.

2. TAKE WEEKLY PROGRESS PICTURES OF YOURSELF.

Visualize and make your goal materialize!