Be the Weight You Want - Part 5

Well I’ve had lots of feedback regarding my weight loss programme, 'Be the Weight You Want.  Just to explain how I came to know about it and write about it ... as part of the training I underwent in order to gain my NLP Master Practitioner qualification, one full day was spent learning, understanding and being able to deliver this weight loss programme.  There is more to the full programme, however, this is a blog and not a book and therefore I have included all the fundamentals you need to make a start and see a difference. 


If you are really interested in this programme and would like to take it to the next level, I suggest that you read Paul McKenna’s “I can make you thin” which is pretty much exactly the same programme with lots of exercises and additional information that you would find very useful.  Alternatively, if you would like personal coaching on this programme, then please do not hesitate to contact me.  My contact details are on the left hand side of this blog.


Following your feedback, I thought it may be useful to answer some of the questions I’ve had.  So without further ado...


I don’t think it’s as simple as that


As long as you don’t have any underlying medical issues that affect your weight eg thyroid or medication which has weight gain side effects, then it is as simple as that.  However, like anything in life, not everything is for everyone.  All I can say is that this method has been proven to work for 70% of the people who try it as opposed to 9% who try traditional dieting.


If you are worried about the programme in any way, then I suggest that you discuss it first with your doctor.  However, I reiterate ... IT ISN’T A DIET ... it’s a change to the way you eat and view food.
How much can I expect to lose?


This isn’t a quick fix – it’s a life change and therefore, the amount you lose per week will differ depending on your starting weight.  On average, you should lose around 2 lbs per week.  That’s a healthy, sustainable weight loss as recommended by health professionals.


What if I ‘fall off the wagon’ and have a binge?


Don’t worry and don’t beat yourself up.  This will undoubtedly happen as your subconscious is adjusting to your new way of eating.  You may simple ‘forget’ to apply the rules and before you notice it, you’ve already woofed down an entire meal or absentmindedly eaten a full packet of biscuits.  If this happens, just start again.  Wait until you’re hungry (use the hunger scale for reference) and then start your conscious eating again.


What do I do if I go out for a meal in a restaurant?


You order exactly what you want, but eat it consciously - YOU DON’T HAVE TO CLEAR YOUR PLATE!  Put your knife and fork down between each mouthful and consciously chew your food.  When you notice that full feeling, stop.  Don’t let yourself get to 9/10 on the hunger scale.  There’s no shortage of food.  You’re not starving yourself ever again, so you don’t need to binge anymore.  If you get hungry when you get home ... have something to eat!


Not clearing your plate seems to be the thing that people are struggling with the most.  If you’re at home, you can do the things I suggested eg use a smaller plate however, when you’re in a restaurant it can be a bit more difficult and it will need a bit more self control to do it.  But the more you practice it, the more you’ll get used to it and it will get much easier.  The alternative is to ask the waiter for another plate and transfer some of the food to the other plate so that you’re not tempted to binge on it.


How often should I weigh myself?


You should only weigh yourself every 2 weeks.  Quite often, people may not lose weight in the first week as their body adjusts to its new routine.  As I keep saying, this is a change in lifestyle, not a diet and weighing yourself everyday can be quite demoralising.  There are lots of things that can affect our weight from day to day or even hour to hour and therefore, weighing yourself every two weeks will give a better reading of your true weight. 


If you have any more questions that you’d like me to help you with regarding this programme, please do not hesitate to contact me.


In my next post, I’ll be discussing dynamic goal setting and why many of us fail to reach the goals we set.  Until then, have a wonderful day.


Jo


 

Be the Weight You Want - Part 4

Here are the last two fundamentals of the “Be the Weight You Want” weight loss programme...

Rule No 3 – Eat Consciously and Enjoy Every Mouthful

For me, this is the Golden Rule out of the whole programme.  When a client that is doing this programme says that they aren’t losing weight, when I dig down into the cause, this is the rule that they fail to put in to practise.

Have you ever noticed that you go into an ‘eating trance’, especially if you’re having a bit of a binge ... you can eat a whole pack of sweets or crisps absent mindedly and not even notice that you’ve been eating them until the packet’s empty?  Or you eat your lunch at your desk while you’re doing something else and all of a sudden, you look down and you’ve eaten it?  Or you eat your meal while watching the TV and don’t realise you’ve eaten it until you wonder why your fork is empty?  That’s an ‘eating trance’.  It’s eating without realising what you’re doing.

Overweight people tend to shovel food into their mouths as quickly as possible in order to get the serotonin high.  They don’t actually taste the food ... it’s not even the food that they really want; it’s the high it gives them.  One of the many problems with eating like this is that you don’t notice the subtle sign from your stomach to your brain which says “that’s enough thanks ... I’m full” so you continue to eat and eat and eat.
With this programme, you can eat whatever you want as long as you do it consciously and enjoy every mouthful.  For the next two weeks, slow your eating speed down to about a quarter of what it used to be and chew each mouthful thoroughly.

Exercise

Take one piece of chocolate and eat it consciously.  Turn off the TV and/stop whatever you’re doing.  Take one piece of chocolate and put it on your tongue.  Allow is to dissolve very slowly on your tongue (don’t chew it quickly and swallow it) – let it melt and savour every tiny bit of it. 

What did that feel like?  Did it feel completely different from when you wolf a chunk down and reach for another before you’ve even finished the first?  Did you really taste it?  It’s silky smooth sweet chocolate taste filling every part of your mouth?  When you eat like that consciously every time, you will find that you won’t eat as much because you are much more satisfied with the food you are eating.

Eating consciously doesn’t just mean eating slowly; you need to remove any other barriers to being thoroughly conscious while you’re eating.  You need to remove any distractions so that you can focus solely on your eating so turn of the TV/laptop/computer game, ring your friend back, move away from your computer.

Put your knife and folk down (or prise your fingers from your sandwich and actually put it down) between mouthfuls.  That way you’ll be fully aware of the food in your mouth and not concentrating your thoughts on loading up your fork for your next mouthful.  Doing this is so simple, yet so powerful as it allows you to really taste and appreciate the food you’re eating.

Rule 4 – Stop Eating When You Think You’re Full

Sounds simple doesn’t it?  But how many of us do it?  How many of us actually hear the message from our stomachs that tell us we’re full?  Most of us don’t.

Our bodies are designed to eat when we’re hungry and stop when we’re full.  Over the years for the various reasons I’ve mentioned previously, we’ve overridden our natural feeding habits and so we no longer listen to what our bodies really need.   Our body sends a message to the brain when we’ve had enough to eat (this can actually take up to 20 minutes for the message to reach the brain) so by slowing our eating down, it gives are brain the chance to actually hear that message when it comes.

The message is usually a warm feeling we get in our solar plexus – if that’s too subtle for you, when you are actually full, you’ll notice that each mouthful doesn’t taste quite as good as the last.  The more you pay attention to these feelings, the more able you will be to be control your eating.

When you get that feeling, no matter how much is left on your plate ... STOP EATING!  “What happens if I’m hungry 10 minutes later” I sometimes get asked by clients who are panicking at this suggestion, “Then as long as you can identify where you are on the hunger scale and are actually hungry – EAT!  When you become full again – STOP!”  It’s that easy.

You are never denying yourself food as long as you’re hungry ... therefore, there’s not need to fill yourself up to popping point or gorge on your favourite food because you may never get to eat it again!

The Clean Plate Club

I’ve had clients say, “I just can’t do that.  There’s no way I can leave food on my plate” If that’s the case, use a smaller plate or put less on your plate.  Once you’ve eaten that plate of food and listened to your body, if you are truly still hungry, then you can have some more!

Recap

Using these very simple principles daily will change your relationship with food.  Unlike a traditional diet, you won’t be denying yourself you are changing your relationship with food and how you manage it.  Here are the principles again...

1. Eat when you’re hungry (use the hunger scale for reference)
2. Eat what you want
3. Eat consciously
4. Stop when you’re full
5. Drink 1.5 – 2 litres of water
6. Move your body (even if it's just a 15 minute walk each day)

Next time I’ll answer some commonly asked questions about the programme.  Until then, if you have any comments or issues you’d like to raise with me regarding this or anything else I’ve written about, please do not hesitate to contact me.  If you would like a factsheet which outlines the programme in full, please subscribe to my newsletter by clicking the link below:



Subscribe to my newsletter




Have a wonderful day.

Jo

Be the Weight You Want - Part 3

In previous posts I’ve talked out the reasons why we are overweight:


1. Obsessive Eating

2. Emotional Eating

3. Faulty Programming

I’ve outlined the secrets of naturally thin people, the importance of drinking water (to identify whether you are really hungry or just thirsty) and how moving your body more will release endorphins (happy hormones) making you feel better about yourself.

Today, I want to give you the first two fundamentals of the weight loss programme (there are four in all).  It’s really simple (in fact, you may think it’s too simple!), but like I said in my first post, it has over a 70% success rate against a 9% success rate for regular ‘dieting’.  Again, this isn’t a diet, it’s a weight loss programme which will alter your pattern of eating forever – therefore, if you follow the instructions and continue to put them into practice every day, you won’t ever put any weight you lose back on again. 


So let’s get started...


Rule No 1 – Eat When You Are Hungry


When you starve yourself, your body goes into self protection mode (especially if it’s a pattern that you used to repeating ie when you yo-yo diet) and holds on tight to any food/fat reserves that it may have.  By doing this, you body is protecting your vital organs by holding on to as much fat as possible.  In fact, over time, it gets really good at leaching every bit of fat it can from your food to store in your fat cells.


Part of why naturally thin people are thin is because they never starve themselves and therefore, their body has no need to store more fat than is needed.  Make sense?

In addition to this, when we don’t starve our bodies, our metabolism speeds up as it’s not trying to conserve energy due to the lack of food (energy) we are putting in.

 

 

So what I want to you do is to only eat when you’re hungry.  So how do you identify when you are hungry?  Here’s a scale to help you:

1. Physically faint
2. Ravenous
3. Fairly hungry
4. Slightly hungry
5. Neutral
6. Pleasantly satisfied
7. Full
8. Stuffed
9. Bloated
10. Nauseous

True hunger is different from emotional hunger (which I discussed in Part 1) and before you eat anything, you should establish where you are currently on the hunger scale.  Give it a go now ... where are you on the hunger scale at the moment?

You should aim to stay between 3 and 7 at all times.  If you let yourself get to 1 or 2, you will undoubtedly overeat and your body with grab and hold on to those fat cells.  Eat when you’re at 8, 9 or 10 and you will obviously put weight on.

Try tuning into your body throughout the day and identify where you are on the hunger scale.  If you are at the lower end of the scale, have a drink before deciding to have something to eat and you may find that you are pushed further up the scale.  By recognising the feelings of hunger at their earlier stages you will be more in control of your eating.

Rule No 2 – Eat What You Want, Not What You Think You Should

As soon as you tell yourself that you can’t have something, you obsess over it and you upset the natural balance of your relationship with it.  That’s why there should be no ‘forbidden foods’.  I find that once my clients realise that they can have whatever they want, they actually don’t want it anymore!  The whole obsession with that food often disappears altogether. 

So, as long as you’re hungry (go back to the hunger scale) and follow the other Rules of this programme, you can throw out all your diet, low fat, low carb food and just buy food that you want.

From this day forward, nothing is off-limits to you.  As long as you are actually hungry ... EAT WHAT YOU WANT!

In my next post, I’ll give you the last two fundamentals of the programme, Eat Consciously and Stop Eating when you’re full.  Until then, try practicing and getting used to using Rules 1 and 2.  If you have any queries about either of these rules or anything else that I’ve written about, please let me know.

Have a wonderful day.

Jo

Be the Weight You Want - Part 2

Hello and welcome back after the Easter Break.  I hope you had a wonderful time.

In my last post I said that I would let you into the secrets of naturally thin people ...

Basically, naturally thin people eat what they want.  They don’t deny themselves.  If they want something whether it’s chocolate, crisps, and chips they have it.  They don’t count calories and they don’t feel guilty when they’ve eaten something.  So what’s the difference between them being able to that and not put weight on and you “only have to look at a cream cake and you put pounds on”?  The difference is the amount that they eat.

Naturally slim people eat whatever they want but the main difference is THEY DON’T EAT AS MUCH AS THEY CAN POSSIBLY FORCE DOWN!  Because they aren’t denying themselves anything, their subconscious mind doesn’t tell them to “each as much as you can of this, because you don’t know when you’re going to have it again!”  Sound familiar?  Is that how you react around your ‘forbidden foods’?

As I said in the previous post, as soon as you cut something out of your diet and don’t allow yourself to have it, you begin to almost have an obsession about that food.  You can’t stop thinking about it and when you finally give in (because you always will), you can’t stop eating it.  Undoubtedly you don’t need it and actually if you ate it consciously instead of cramming it into your mouth, you’d find that you really didn’t need that much of it to feel satisfied.

Back to naturally think people ... because they don’t deny themselves anything, they don’t have the cravings around any foods and therefore don’t have the urge to cram as much of that particular food into their mouths as they can possible eat.  They eat whatever they want, just in moderation.  They enjoy the food that they eat and because they aren’t putting any emphasis on their even being ‘forbidden foods’ they don’t have any unhealthy obsessions around them.

So, if you really want to eat something that you’ve considered ‘forbidden’ have it, but eat it consciously, don’t just cram it in until you can’t eat anymore (I’ll be talking much more about this in my next post) and you’ll find that you actually won’t eat as much of it as you might have done previously and may even wonder why you put such emphasis and obsessiveness around it!

Water and Weight Loss

Nine times out of 10, when we feel that we are hungry we aren’t – we are actually thirsty but our bodies just can’t tell the difference between us being thirsty or hungry.  Before our mouths go dry through lack of water (you should never get to this point because when your mouth goes dry it shows that you are already dehydrated) we experience a feeling of mild hunger ... it doesn’t mean that we are hungry, it can quite often mean that we’re thirsty!

So when you get that feeling of mild hunger, have a drink before you head for something to eat.  If, after having a big glass of water (preferably) you are still hungry – not emotionally hungry – then have something to eat.

I know you hear over and over that we should drink more water but really, if you can drink 1.5 to 2 litres of water a day, it really will help you lose weight because you won’t be eating when you think you’re hungry but you actually are thirsty.


Exercise and Weight Loss

I can almost hear you a lot of you groan as you read that, but exercise really doesn’t have to be doing 3 hours in the gym every day.  You’re setting yourself up for failure if you expect to achieve that kind of goal.  All I’m talking about is doing a bit more than you would usually do.  That could be:

• Getting off a bus two stops earlier and walking
• Walking up stairs rather than taking the lift
• Walking to your kids school to pick them up
• Walking for 15 minutes each day (you don’t have to do a full on ‘run’ – although you may find that you build up to that)

Just moving your body a bit more each day will make a massive difference.  Not only will you feel healthier and burn more calories but you will be releasing the ‘feel good’ endorphins which are proven to give us the ‘feel good factor’.  There are recent studies that have shown that the release of endorphins after exercise can be a massive factor in overcoming physiological issues such as mild/moderate depression and stress as it lifts the mood, burns off any unwanted chemicals (eg adrenalin that we release when we’re stressed) and generally makes us feel much better.

So, get your trainers on, put some good music on your iPod and get walking.  Everyone can fit in 15 minutes a day ... find a friend to do it with and that way you’ll encourage each other and will be far less likely to let other things get in the way.

In my next post I’ll give you the full details of the weight loss programme.  What to do and how to do it.  So keep tuned.  Until then, have a fantastic day.  I hope the weather is as good where you are as it is here!

Jo

Be the Weight You Want - Part 1

How many diets have you tried where you’ve lost weight only to pile it back on (and more) once you stop?  There are currently around 250,000 diet books in print, there are numerous types of diets from weekly ‘groups meetings’ to pre-prepared, calorie counted food delivered straight to your door to full meal replacements not to mention the plethora of diet supplements and pills available.  However, studies have proved that traditional diets only work (ie people lose the weight and keep it off) for 9% of people who do them.  9%!  No wonder the diet industry is a multimillion enterprise. 



So, why do traditional diets not work or only work for a short time until the weight piles back on?  The answer is that they don’t deal with the underlying issues for the weight gain.  If you don’t deal with the  issues, no amount of dieting is going to work long term.  So what are the most common underlying issues when it comes to managing sustained weight loss?


1. Obsessive Dieting


According to Paul McKenna,


‘A diet is any system of eating that attempts to exert external control over what, where, when or how much you eat’


We are constantly looking for “that perfect diet” and it doesn’t take an expert to tell you that most of the diets can be completely contradictive and leave us confused and deflated.  Diets are basically training courses that teach us how to become fat and invariably make us feel like failures.

Have you heard people say, “It’s me.  I just can’t lose weight, no matter what I do” of course you have!  You may have even said it yourself,  it’s because you've trained yourself into this way of thinking from doing and failing at so many different diets.

Experiments and research has shown that where people have had their food restricted for a period of time, even when that restriction has been lifted, people still continued obsessive behaviour around food eg hording, talking about it , overeating.  Food restriction triggers the subconscious survival instincts in us - it's not a conscious thing - it's the body protecting itself.  In fact, there was a piece of research done in the 1950s, The Biology of Human Starvation, which completely bears this out.

Depriving yourself of food is the worst thing you can do if you want to lose weight.  It will only make you want more, FACT.

2. Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is directly responsible for the majority of our overeating.  People will eat excessively when they’re bored, happy, stressed, angry, lonely, unhappy etc none of these reasons have anything to do with actually being hungry.  We are trying to fill a void left by an emotional feeling or issue we are facing.  However, no amount of food is ever going to fill an emotional void, that’s why people eat and eat and eat when they are suffering emotionally but never feel full.

Many people, when they look back over their lives can often see the triggers that have caused them to start putting on weight – it may be a trauma or a particularly difficult time or situation that happened as a child or teen.  Without addressing those issues, they keep knocking and knocking and knocking and we keep eating in a vain attempt to try and quieten that knocking ... all to no avail.

Next time you feel like reaching for something to eat, think to yourself:

Am I hungry or do it just want to change the way I feel?

Put is on a Post It note and stick it to your fridge, computer, cupboards if that helps.  Just asking yourself that simple question will help you identify the difference between real and imagined hunger.  I’ll go into this much more in following posts.

3. Faulty Programming

Being overweight is just a by-product of faulty programming.  It’s not your fault, it’s just how you’ve programmed yourself subconsciously throughout your life in response to experiences you’ve been through, the behaviour you’ve witnessed around food as you were growing up, TV advertising etc etc.
Like I’ve said in previous posts if you’ve learned unproductive behaviours and limiting self beliefs, you can unlearn them just as easily and replace them with productive ones.  That’s what I’ll help you do through this programme.

In Summary

Traditional diets don’t work, we all know that and have experience of it.  Restricting our food intake only makes us want more, therefore, what we need to do is to change the way that we think and act around food.  We need to change our relationship with food and we need a programme that will help us do that.  The programme that I will be outlining in future posts is not a diet, it is a weight loss programme that has a proven success rate of 70% as long as you follow the instructions and do the exercises as described. 



In my next post I’ll tell you how ‘naturally’ thin people keep thin whilst eating what we would usually class as ‘forbidden foods’.

As always, if you have any comments or feedback on anything I put here, I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time, have a wonderful day.

Jo

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Explained

I’ve had so many people ask me what Neuro Linguistic Programming is and I’ve been promising to tell you pretty much since I started this blog.  There is so much that NLP can do and help you with, so if you want a full explanation I suggest you Google it.  However, I’m just listing how I use NLP to help myself and my clients.

 

NLP is basically a way of reprogramming the mind by changing or removing:

• Unhelpful learned behaviours that are no longer useful and replacing them with more effective ones 
• Unhelpful ‘movies’ or memories that we replay over and over and either replacing them with more constructive ones or changing their intensity

Dealing with Learned Behaviours

What most of us don’t realise is that we create the way we react to situations when we are children.  Something new happens to us and we react in a certain way and the subconscious then stores that reaction for use when that situation arises again in the future.

The problem with this is that we learn much of these reactions as children and they never change (learned behaviours) therefore, as an adult we can react to something in the same way we did when we were 6,  which is no longer appropriate as an adult.  As these reactions tend to be learnt subconsciously years previously, we can’t always understand why we react the way we do, or how to actually change our reactions.  That’s were an NLP practitioner comes in.

All behaviours are learned, therefore, if we’ve learned them once, we can re-learn a new, more effective behaviour to replace it.  What I will do is help clients pin point which behaviours or reactions to situations are no longer working for them and help them replace them with more effective ones.  Once you’ve used the new reaction a couple of times, that then becomes your ‘normal’ reaction and the old one disappears.

One of my favourite sayings (and I must use it at least once a day, every day, especially with new clients) is:

“Always do what you’ve always done; always get what you’ve always got”

In other words unless you change what you’re doing/thinking/saying you will always get the same result.  It never ceases to amaze me how people continue to do the same thing and are surprised that their life never changes and they find it impossible to solve their problems.  Another quote I love which says the same thing in a different way:

“Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” Albert Einstein

That hits the nail on the head.  You’ve got to do something different from what you’re doing now in order for a change to occur.

Dealing with Negative Memories

Most of use run ‘movies’ in our minds of past events.  However, for some of us, those movies can be really destructive eg consistently re-running something negative that happened to us can have a long term negative effect on us.  When I speak to clients who are suffering from mild to severe bouts of negativity or even mild depression, when i dig a big deeper  I will undoubtedly find that they are re-running/reliving events that may have happened to them years before.

The problem with this is that the mind cannot tell the difference between something real and something that we vividly imagine and that’s not something I’ve made up or read in a book, it’s been tested in experiment after experiment.  Therefore, by helping the person change the intensity of that picture/movie or removing it all together and replacing it with something more positive, the pain and negativity can often be totally removed thereby giving a much better standard to living to the client.

What can NLP be used for?

• Removing phobias - a phobia is just a learned behaviour to an event or object which can be just as easily unlearnt
• Removing old negative or destructive ways of thinking and replacing them more positive and effective ones
• Removing old patterns of behaviour and replacing them more positive and effective ones
• Increasing confidence – removing any unhelpful images and thoughts and replacing them with

How do you change these things using NLP

We do this through a range of techniques (depending on the person and the issue) including hypnotherapy, language patterns, questioning and observation.  I don’t tend to use hypnotherapy very often as I don’t find that I need to.  It’s enough for me to use in-depth questioning techniques and visualisation in order help the person identify exactly what the problem is and then to use specific language patterns and further visualisation to help them change things.

Famous NLP Practitioners

If you wonder if you know anyone who uses/practices NLP but haven’t actually recognised it, yes you do ... Paul McKenna is a Master NLP Trainer and Practitioner.  All of his recent books and ‘self help’ TV programmes that he’s done over the years are all based on NLP principles.  In fact, he studied for years with the co-founder of NLP Richard Bandler and still works very closely with him now.  I’ve done a few workshops with him and read all his books and I can’t recommend them highly enough.  His stuff works. 

Another person I know who uses NLP (although he doesn’t like to admit it) is Derren Brown.  When I watch him I can often spot a mile off how he does his tricks, because he uses so much of the NLP language patterns.  Funny though, he does make a habit of knocking NLP, although I know at least half a dozen people who’ve been on NLP training courses and Derren’s been there too!

Summary

That’s a really quick overview of NLP.  Like I said at the beginning, there’s so much more to it than I’ve put here, but it gives you a good idea of what it can be used for and what I use it for.

In my next post I’ll be starting my weight loss programme “Be Weight you Want” so don’t forget to tune in.  Until then, have a wonderful day!

Jo

For my most up to date blog posts, click here to visit my new website, jobanks.net.

Body Language Part 4 – Male/Female Attraction

I hadn’t planned on posting this information. However, I’ve had lots of feedback asking about what different body language poses mean regarding male/female attraction.  So it seems that you’re interested in hearing more, so here goes...

If you’ve read the other three posts in this Body Language series, you’ll know that no matter how far we think we’ve come in terms of equality between men and women, our evolutionary, subconscious reactions to each other yet haven’t caught up.  Our physiology (body language, facial expressions and paralinguistics – pitch, tone, speed of voice) are predominantly instinctive/natural reactions of which we aren’t always consciously aware.

It’s important to become more aware of your physiology, especially when it comes to interactions with the opposite sex, so as not to offend or give the other person the wrong idea about your intentions.  For example, what a man may think is a reasonable pose may be quite offensive to a woman; alternatively, what a woman may think as being ‘friendly’ may be interpreted as a ‘come on’ by a male and vice versa!

The easiest way for me to explain the differences between male/female attraction is to split the traits into two:

Female:

 

On spotting someone she finds attractive:

• Suck ‘n’ Tuck – she will stand taller (pull herself up to her full height), suck in her stomach and stick out her boobs to show off their best assets.
• The ‘sashay’ – swings her hips from side to side as she walks.
• Hair – she will play with her hair, twirling it around her fingers or tossing it over her shoulder if it’s long.  I once witnessed the most bizarre display of hair tossing I’ve ever seen.  
  This was a woman in a nightclub who kept dropping her head forward so that her hair fell over her face and violently jerk her head back so that her hair fell down her back.  Far from looking attractive, to me, she looked slightly crazy!  She was definitely overdoing it.
• Head gestures – many women will use the sideways ‘peek-a-boo’ look.  This is a quick sultry look where the woman will make sure the man is looking at her, then quickly look away.  Or she may tilt her head sideways, revealing her most vulnerable part, her exposed neck.
• Blushing – I don’t think I need to explain that one.
• Facial changes – when we find someone attractive (this is the same for a male or female), our pupils slightly enlarge, and blood pumps to the lips, making them seem fuller.
• Hand gestures – a woman will put her hands on her hips to draw the man’s attention to her childbearing capacity or touch her mouth to bring awareness to it.

Before you get all feminist on me for the last point, remember, our human subconscious behaviour hasn’t yet caught up with our conscious minds, and these movements are usually entirely without our realising that we’re doing them.

Male

On spotting someone he finds attractive:

• Suck ‘n’ tuck – as with females and man will draw himself up to his tallest and suck in his stomach.
• Preening – a man may check his hair, slick down his eyebrows (honestly) and check his clothing.
• Body Language – a man will often put his hands on his hips to make himself seem larger.
• A man will lean in/lean forward, and his hips will be square on to the lady he’s talking to.  This shows that he’s fully engaged in the conversation.
• The Crotch Display – this is where the man sits either with one ankle over one knee or with his legs completely splayed.  In extreme cases, it is usually accompanied either by hands behind the head or outstretched resting on the back of the chairs, either side or across the back of the sofa.  
  If these arm movements are involved, it’s subconsciously shouting, “LOOK AT ME, I’M VIRILE ... CHOOSE ME!” Alternatively, it could mean, “I think I’m better than you.”  Now, guys, I have to say that to a woman, this pose, far from being attractive to us, can be a huge turn-off and sometimes hugely inappropriate. 

I once had a business meeting with a man who sat opposite me doing a full crotch display with his arms outstretched on the chairs on either side of him.  That just screamed either, “COME AND GET ME” or “I’M SO MUCH MORE SENIOR THAN YOU AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT”.  

Either way, it was downright rude in a business (or pretty much any) scenario and made me feel very uncomfortable.  He definitely wasn't reading my body language (arms crossed/legs crossed, perched awkwardly on the edge of my seat)!  Guys, you need to be careful with this pose; you may want to tone it down a touch – at least drop the widespread arms! Men also use this posture when they’re together in a group – it’s a display of manhood, i.e., ‘mine’s bigger than yours’!

Touching is interesting from both a male and female point of view.  If one finds the other attractive, they will tend to touch them fleetingly and enter the other person’s Outer Personal Zone (or even their Inner Zone - see the first post in this series for more information regarding zones).  Therefore, it’s important to understand that if you are a generally ‘touchy-feely’ or a demonstrative person, others may read things into it that you don’t mean, i.e., they may think that you find them attractive.

Another good way to tell if two people are attracted to each other is to look at their body language as a whole, especially their feet.  Individuals who are drawn to each other will use open body language with open palms (if someone hides their palms, it’s a dead giveaway that they don’t like talking to the other person, and they have something to hide).  

Also, THE very best thing to note is which way their feet are pointing.  We always point our feet in the direction that we want to go. Therefore, if someone’s feet are pointing away from the other person, then they want to get away in the direction that their feet are pointing.

Going back to yesterday’s post, if you really want someone to fall for you, you need to get in ‘rapport’ with them as quickly as possible.  Therefore,  as soon as you start a conversation with them, begin to do some subtle mirroring.  Take it slowly, at first. That way, they won’t consciously notice when they pick up their glass; you pick up yours. When they cross their legs, you cross yours.  Keep your palms open, lean in and point your feet towards the person.  Although, if there is real chemistry between you, you’ll notice that you are mirroring each other subconsciously anyway!

Jo

For my most up-to-date blog posts, click here to visit my new website, jobanks.net.

Body Language Part 3 – Building Rapport/ Mirroring

As an NLP practitioner and a coach, it is essential that I build rapport with my clients.  Quickly building rapport means that my clients will feel comfortable with me and trust me enough to be open about things that quite often can be extremely personal.

Building rapport is not only important in the job that I do, it’s important for a whole range of jobs where getting the other person to ‘buy in’ to what you’re telling them is integral to the success of your role, e.g. sales and marketing, negotiating, bargaining etc. it can also be useful for diffusing conflict and getting someone to do something you want them to do whether it be in your professional or personal life.   

Building rapport is critical in certain roles as it lets that person think that you are on the same wavelength as them, so they will see you as credible and ‘like them’ (people will often buy more or be more open with people they perceive to be like them).

How to build rapport

The easiest and quickest way to build rapport is by mirroring the other person’s body language.  If you ever spend any time observing others (as I’ve said in previous posts, I’m an avid people watcher and really enjoy sitting in a coffee shop and watching what’s going on around me), you can pick so much up about the relationships of the people around you just by watching their body language.

For example, you can usually pretty easily identify if they are in love, if they are colleagues, if they are friends, and whether their relationship is new. I even find it relatively easy to tell if a couple is having an affair, all by observing their body language and mirroring).

You’ll notice that when people are in complete rapport with each other, they have exactly the same body language, i.e. one will lean forward then the other will, one will take a sip of their drink and the other will, one will cross their legs, and so will the other.

Again this is completely subconscious, but it is this exact mirroring that indicates that both people are totally on the same wavelength, in complete harmony with each other.  Next time you’re with someone you know well, take note of how your body language, after a few minutes, ends up being exactly the same without you consciously realising it.

On the other hand, look at the body language of people who are in conflict, those who aren’t getting on, who are miles apart in their thinking -  their body language will be quite different.  It will be opposing and usually not the same in any way. We call this mismatching.

So, why is consciously mirroring someone useful?  If there is something that you want someone to agree with you on, if you want someone to buy something from you, you just want them to see your side of things, or if you find someone attractive and want them to find you attractive too, mirroring is the key.  

In fact, mirroring is so powerful that if you are in conflict with someone, mirroring their body language will usually help to bring that person around to your way of thinking.

Now I’m not talking about ridiculously over-emphasising their body language so that it’s immediately obvious that you are copying them.  That will just look crazy, and the other person will notice it a mile off.  You need to be subtle about it, VERY subtle in the beginning.

Mirroring

Start by sitting the same way they are sitting, i.e. cross your right leg if they cross theirs (a mirror image).  If they take a drink, you take a drink.  If they touch their face, you touch yours but in a very subtle way.  For each movement they make, leave it for a few seconds, then mirror it.  

Also, watch how they are speaking and mirror their tone, their volume and the speed at which they are speaking.  This is obviously incredibly helpful for building rapport with someone over the phone.  Some behavioural experts, especially professional negotiators I know, take this to the ‘enth’ degree and even copy the person’s pattern of breathing. 

Give it a go:

1. Next time you’re sitting with someone opposite you, take a minute to notice if you are in rapport and have been subconsciously mirroring them
2. Try mirroring with someone who you want to bring around to your way of thinking

It really is a powerful tool that, if you can master, will pay dividends.

Jo

For my most up-to-date blog posts, click here to visit my new website, jobanks.net.

Body Language Part 2 - In the Workplace

Who’s ‘Top Dog’ (or who wants to be) in your office?

It’s unbelievably easy to spot the person (usually a man – I’m not being sexist here, I’m just saying it like it is – male and female body language is usually quite different in the same situations, that’s just a fact) who is, thinks he is or wants to be ‘the boss’ in a work situation.  This behaviour is most noticeable in a meeting situation.  When I’m in meetings, this is the body language that I always look out for and is the one that I find the most interesting. 

I’m going to talk about 2 different scenarios here, however, they relate to the same body language/ posture:

Situation 1 – A meeting/group with a leader

The designated 'leader' of the meeting (usually the manager or team leader – the person who is perceived to be the highest ranking or the ‘Chair’ of the meeting) will sometimes adopt the ‘hands behind the head’ pose (which is usually accompanied by a ‘crotch display’ if it’s a man doing the pose ie one ankle over the other knee exposing the genital area) they will also lean back in their chair or even swing back on two chair legs in order to assert their authority on the rest of the group or to leave them in no doubt who’s in charge.

What is often most fascinating (apart the fact that people subconsciously feel the need to non-verbally shout “I’M IN CONTROL HERE ... I’M THE BOSS ... I KNOW MORE THAN YOU DO” because that’s what this pose suggests) is when someone else in the group mimics the pose, thereby trying to assert their authority over the ‘leader’. 

This is most interesting where the other person adopting the pose is junior to the ‘group leader’.  It’s actually quite a threatening/confrontational posture in this situation.  I’m always intrigued to see how long each person will hold the pose, as the one that holds it the longest is perceived to be the winner.  In observations I’ve made, that tends to be the manager pretty much without fail and quite soon after I’ll sometimes see the relationship between the leader and the ‘challenger’ deteriorates  (where the 'challenger' is of a lesser grade) for a while after.

Situation 2 – A meeting/group without a leader

A meeting of peers where there is no obvious leader.  In this situation, there will usually be a battle of at least two people to become the leader.  Again one will adopt the ‘hands behind the head’ pose and at least one other will do the same.  They will both stay in this pose until one backs down – the other will perceive that they’ve won the right to be the leader of the group or the most senior person/person with the most knowledge.

Now I must point out here, that most if not all of this is done subconsciously and people honestly don’t know that they’re doing it, which makes it all the more interesting for me.  Incidentally, this display is very rarely shown by women, like I said earlier, however, I have seen women do it when they are vying for position (always with a man) in Situation 2.  I’ve never observed two women striking this pose in the same meeting (and I’ve been in hundreds if not thousands of meetings over the years).

What your body language says about you...

Arms crossed

Most of us don’t need to be told what this means ... it often indicates defensiveness.  People tend to do this when they’re feeling unsure, unhappy or negative and we want to keep people at bay.  I often notice this stance on my very first session with a coaching client or at the beginning of a training session (I often run workshops on CV writing and Interview skills) when people feel unsure of what’s happening and what's going to be expected of them and are feeling vulnerable.  However, that body language does change pretty quickly once people realise there’s no threat and what we are going to do is going to be fun.

There is also the one arm across the front which is often used by people (mainly women) who are aware of what both arms crossed indicates and don’t want to be so overtly defensive (Princess Diana used to stand like this very often).  Women will also use their handbags as a prop to do the same thing; whilst men will tug on a shirt cuff (you must have seen Prince Charles do this before he gives a speech?).

I do have to point out though, that crossing arms doesn’t always indicate defensiveness.  I’m aware that I’m often really cold and tend to cross my arms to keep the warmth in, especially in today’s air conditioned offices (although I usually make a point of telling people that so that they aren’t offended).

Personal Space

There are 4 zones associated with personal space

1.   The Intimate Zone – reserved for people with whom we are very close eg family member, mum/dad /children, partner

2.   The Outer Intimate Zone – for close friends

3.   The Personal Zone – for people we feel comfortable with eg colleagues, friends at the pub

4.   The Social Zone – People we are not familiar with

We should be very carefully that we enter the correct personal space depending on the person that we are talking to.  For example, if you don’t know someone well but enter into their Outer Zone, that could be perceived as being very intimidating by the person whose space you’ve entered.  Similarly if you are in a relationship with someone but don’t enter their Intimate Zone, they may well feel isolated and unloved.

It amazes me how some people don’t know this really simple stuff about personal zones.  I remember talking to someone (as stranger) at a networking meeting and he kept moving into my Outer personal space.  Each time he did, I would take a step back as it felt incredibly uncomfortable and a bit intimidating.  Unfortunately, each time I took a step back, he took another step forward until I ended up pinned between a wall and him – absolutely not a good place to be.  I politely excused myself and got away as quickly as I could.

Summary (Personal Zones)

Whenever you’re talking to someone, be aware of their personal space and make sure that you are in the appropriate zone according to your relationship with that person.  Remember that most body language (unless you’ve studied it or know a bit about it) is completely subconscious, ie we don’t know that we’re doing it.  Therefore, it really is your choice to make sure that your body language is positive and relevant to the situation you’re in.

There is so much more that I could talk about regarding body language.  I’m really only scraping the surface here and choosing the most common body language mistakes that people make.  What I do want to tell you about in my next post is creating rapport using a body language technique called mirroring.

Jo

For my most up to date blog posts, click here to visit my new website, jobanks.net.

Body Language Part 1 - How to Spot a Liar

One of the most useful things I’ve learned over the years is how to read body language.  I’ve studied it avidly over the years, and it’s helped me immeasurably in my professional life.

From the beginning of my career, I have observed others’ body language.  Not only have I found it fascinating, but it has allowed me to perform my job better.  As I’ve always worked in people-centric roles, understanding what others are really thinking rather than just taking what they say at face value has been invaluable to me.  Particular examples of this are:

·         When trying to ascertain the truth when conducting  investigations into disciplinary issues with staff

·         Gaining an understanding of what Union Representatives were really thinking rather than what they are telling me during complex union negotiations

·         Being able to immediately see whether my clients are ‘bought’ into what we are discussing

·         Being able to see where my clients are storing their memories and whether they are emotionally attached to them or not (honestly!) so that I can help them change negative ones to positive ones (these are some of the skills you learn through Neuro Linguistic Programming – NLP)

Spotting deception  

There is a number of ways of spotting deception, and it’s a combination of these which makes identification more accurate.  However, I have to say that the study of body language is not an exact science.  Sometimes we may think someone is lying, but signs exhibited by deceit are virtually the same as those we exhibit when we’re stressed.  Therefore, I’m going to put a huge warning on what follows in this post – THIS IS A GUIDE ONLY and should not be used to make any life-changing decisions!

Spotting deception through eye cues

In NLP, we learn eye cues (which direction a person’s eyes are looking when we ask them certain questions) in order to get a good idea of what someone is thinking. Here’s a quick diagram that illustrates it perfectly (the illustrations assume that you are facing the other person (so that their left is your right):

Eye Cue Summary

Try this out on your friends – after each description, I’ve added questions you can use to test the theories out.  When you’re facing the person...

·         Up and to the right usually means that a person is remembering something visually – ‘Do you remember the last time we went to the pub/cinema ... What did we do/see?’

·         Up and to the left usually means that a person is imagining (constructing, i.e. making something up - lying) something visually – ‘What does a dog look like with a cat's head?’

·         Right side (horizontal) usually means a remembered sound – ‘What does your phone ring tone sound like?’

·         Left side (horizontal) usually means an imagined (constructed) sound – ‘What do you think you’d sound like if you were a man/woman?’

·         Down left usually means that a person is accessing a bodily feeling – ‘How did you feel about....?’

·         Down right usually means that a person is accessing internal dialogue – ‘What do you think about...?’

A word of caution here, you cannot rely on these eye cues 100%.  Experienced NLP professionals use them in conjunction with observing what the person is saying, together with their general body language.  Also, eye cues may be reversed in some people for a number of reasons, including if the person is left-handed.

Spotting deception through body language

We also need to be aware of other body language traits, which, together with the eye movements, will give you a better idea of whether someone is being truthful or not.  When we lie, no matter how accomplished we are, we usually can’t control our automatic or reflex body reactions.  Our blood pressure and pulse tend to rise, our breathing patterns change, and the blood drains from our faces (causing our noses to itch!).

Deception traits to look out for:    

1.     Touching the nose – very few people can resist touching their nose when they lie (during Bill Clinton’s interrogation over his relationship with his former ‘Aid’, he was seen to touch his nose more than 25 times)

2.     Blushing and sweating – this often occurs in less experienced liars

3.     Posture – we like to put some space between ourselves and the person we’re lying to, so people tend to lean back in their chairs or back away if they’re standing.  People will avoid body contact if at all possible

4.     Head positions – we don’t like to look a person in the eye if we’re lying to them, so a person may move their heads to the side and will avoid your gaze

5.     Facial expressions – we often grimace involuntarily

6.     Mouth expressions – Children often cover their mouths when they’re lying, and we take that trait (albeit not always as overtly) into adult life.  We’ll often take our hand toward the mouth but touch the chin, cheek or side of the mouth.

7.     Hand gestures – a common gesture is the palms turned out and a sharp shrug of the shoulders.  This can indicate a feeling of helplessness and is almost an apology for lying

As I said with a HUGE caveat – this information is for guidance only and shouldn’t be relied upon for making big decisions.  What I will say is that your ‘gut’ feeling is usually the most reliable indicator of who’s telling you the truth.  That ‘gut’ feeling is there for a reason and is usually right; however, we do tend to override it quite frequently.  Start tuning into that feeling more often and act on what it’s telling you – nature created that feeling for a reason, to keep us out of danger.  Your decisions will turn out to be much better for it.

In the next post, I’ll talk a bit more about general body language in the workplace, including how to tell who is and who wants to be ‘top dog’.

Jo

For my most up to date blog posts, click here to visit my new website, jobanks.net.