"I Have a Hot Bod"
by Jennifer Strailey
Mimi Braude's got a date. So naturally, she's spent the last half-hour doing serious damage to her closet in search of that elusive garment: the clothes that are going to make her look thin.
For most of her adult life, the 30something, clinical social worker has wanted to drop a few pounds. At times, she's succeeded, and that's why she knows her current attitude is all wrong.
"I'm worried about how what I'm going to wear will make me look instead of focusing on feeling good to look good — that's the battle," she says.
While many of us are guilty of this kind of Fernando Lamas-like lunacy, the truth is: when you feel good about yourself, you can't help but look better. This is often hard to believe because we're so focused on how we look today, we don't plan for how we want to feel tomorrow.
But what if we could cultivate the attitude that we're good, healthy, active people who deserve to be happy about what our bodies can do rather than punished for our shortcomings? You can, and you should, say Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander, authors of The Art of Possibility.
You won't find their writings among the Sears' and Atkins' diet books. Nor will you see them hawking some butt-slimming contraption on cable. The husband and wife team wrote their book as a guide to personal and professional transformation. But their philosophy makes perfect sense for dieters.
We live in a self-imposed "world of measurement," in which we are forever grading and comparing ourselves, they say. The secret to getting out of this world of limitations (in which you see yourself continually falling off the fitness bandwagon) and into the world of unlimited possibility (in which you get back on the bandwagon as many times as it takes) has to do with seeing your body as a success.
This is not as cornball as it sounds. There are no Successories posters or "world's greatest whatever" mugs involved. The vision of your success is a mindset.
