![\"IMG00199-20120114-0953\"](\"http:\/\/brianberkman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/IMG00199-20120114-0953.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI had to get my thinking clear.<\/p>\n
Although all the supporters I connected with to help me on this journey contributed, I think the sessions with Cognitive Behavioural Therapist Bradley Drake made the single biggest contribution to me getting my thinking right. I can remember me telling him that was not possible for me to leave food behind on my plate and becoming very angry when he asked that if someone were standing next to me with a cocked gun threatening to shoot would it still not be possible for me to leave food on my plate. What made me so angry was that I thought he was being trite. Obviously, with a gun to my head, I would leave something behind on my plate. What he was illustrating was that it wasn\u2019t impossible. It may be hard to do but it is not impossible, given the right motivation.<\/p>\n Me getting clear about why I wanted and needed to be at a healthy weight was the equivalent of the Godfather \u201cmaking an offer he couldn\u2019t refuse\u201d.\u00a0 I first had to accept that I was killing myself by the way I was eating and then the motivation became clear. I chose life.<\/p>\n If you\u2019d told me, even offered a money-back-guarantee that I could and would shed excess weight; be able to be without medication for blood pressure and diabetes and, moreover, have energy and lightness that made me want to be active, I wouldn\u2019t have believed you. That is how compelling my self-beliefs were. As someone who has achieved a healthy weight, I can offer you that guarantee. However, I imagine that you, like me before, will have to find that motivation yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Know why you want to lose weight before you start. I had to get my thinking clear. Although all the supporters I connected with to help me on this journey contributed, I think the sessions with Cognitive Behavioural Therapist Bradley Drake made the single biggest …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[21,30,33,40,61,156],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weight_loss","tag-brian-berkman","tag-choose-life","tag-cognitive-behavior-therapy","tag-diet","tag-healthy-weight","tag-weight-loss-surgery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2407,"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions\/2407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianberkman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>