*Akrasia is a Greek term meaning “weakness of will” or lack of willpower. Like the body, the will must be exercised and developed.

Sports psychology isn’t just for pro athletes —

it can help you lose weight too.

Weight Wellness Coaching

Get ongoing encouragement and support to reach your ideal weight in a fun, fast, healthy, sustainable way. Get a guide for your journey for knowledge, direction, inspiration, and motivation to keep you going every step of the way from goal intention to goal realization. Connect at whatever frequency you’d like for help, support, and positive accountability to stay on track with your eating plan, fitness plan, stress management, time management, as well as help with any obstacles that may get in your way.

Coaching channels:

• In-person

• Phone

• Google Hangouts

• Apple FaceTime

• Skype

Form follows function – we are authors as well as products of our lifestyle and the key to changing your body weight is to change the lifestyle that shapes your body. Progress on your weight loss and fitness goals is the yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of weight loss coaching. People usually notice significant results in 3 to 4 weeks, and substantial results by 12 weeks. Most people can achieve all of their weight loss and fitness goals within a year.

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

Mahatma Gandhi

Online Weight Loss Coaching Santa Fe Style

All of the spheres of life in the Integral Wellness box are interrelated, interconnected, interdependent – whatever happens in any area of life affects all others. They can only be compartmentalized analytically, theoretically; in actuality they are inextricably bound aspects or dimensions of the same person. As aspects of the same person they either rise or fall together as a person develops, degenerates, or regenerates as a whole.

Growth in one area beneficially impacts all other areas, while neglect of any area tends to drag down the others. By developing several areas simultaneously you can reach your goals faster. A holistic approach exercises a healthy whole by developing interdependent parts simultaneously: cross-training for life as a whole.

Beyond calories in = calories out

At the physical level of complexity that classical science can see the imbalance we call overweight or obesity appears to be caused by an imbalance between calories in and calories out. That’s a partial truth based on a Newtonian interpretation of the first law of thermodynamics – an oversimplified belief not supported by 21st century evidence.

It applies to closed systems like machines but not for open complex adaptive systems like living human beings who have single and double feedback loops for adaptive self-regulating metabolisms, appetite, satiety, energy storage, etc., and where the scientific approach ends and the systems approach begins. You are not a lawnmower.

Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.

Albert Einstein

That visible imbalance at the physical level of complexity is often caused by deeper less visible imbalances in the body, mind, or other areas like social or economic, imbalances at higher levels of complexity that lead to things like stress and emotional eating and drinking that result in the energy imbalance in the body.

When it shows up in the physical body at the simplest most obvious level of complexity the conventional physician can then see and measure it but will tend to give equally obvious and superficial physical remedies: to eat less and exercise more, thereby treating the results instead of the underlying causes. That’s the reductionistic allopathic way: treat obvious surface symptoms instead of deeper root causes.

Beyond Newtonian science

Any approach that does not include all major dimensions, facets, aspects, or components of life and all levels of complexity within it is inadequate to serving whole, compound, multidimensional people with many social roles to play. It is also inadequate according to available knowledge at this point in time, so it borders on the irresponsible to make recommendations not appropriate to the times.

For more on the 21st century evolutionary epistemology of postmodern systems thinking contrasted with the 400-year old Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm of pre-relativity, pre-quantum, pre-systems classical science that is still the official religion of old-fashioned allopathic conventional medicine: Compare.

Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use.

It is the theory which decides what can be observed.

Einstein

Up-to-date tools don’t make up for out-of-date interpretations of the data collected with contemporary tools: a traditional fundamentalist preacher may write his sermon on an up-to-date 2014 word processor (form) while the substance of his sermon (its content) may be informed by a 2000-year old Biblical-era worldview.

Likewise, a conventional physician may use shiny new expensive tools while interpreting the raw data obtained through the lens of a 400-year old Enlightenment-era pre-Einsteinian pre-systems modern worldview due to the traditional training and wrote memorization received at a conventional medical school steeped in the scientific materialism and methodological reductionism of modern science.

21st century postmodern systems thinking to the rescue

Form and substance are frequently conflated. The way practitioners and professionals see and understand problems directly shapes their proposed solutions whether or not they’re consciously aware of the worldview or lens through which they interpret reality.

We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself,

but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Werner Heisenberg

Up-to-date tools are necessary but insufficient – the interpretive apparatus of the tool user also needs to be up-to-date for the tools to be used in a way appropriate to the times. Once a technology or tool is created anyone can use it, regardless of whether the tool user’s paradigm is up-to-date or old-fashioned. Fresh data misinterpreted by an old mindset doesn’t do much good as we can see from the high failure rate of conventional weight loss and the high rates of obesity among conventional physicians.

When you change the way you look at things the things you look at change.

Max Planck

Therefore, an effective weight loss approach and weight loss coach must use an up-to-date 21st century methodology as broad as life itself. The corollary in the coaching relationship is that the client must be open and willing to look at and improve any aspect of life that’s impacting their body weight for weight loss coaching to make lasting change. And of course, you will enjoy privacy, confidentiality, and moral/emotional support during your transformation.

This is the essence of a Santa Fe Way coaching relationship:

a relationship of open-mindedness and courage among equal partners

in a positive partnership of transformation in the service of your goals.

Beyond the body: Change happens from the inside-out

People sometimes need help with emotional eating or drinking, low self-esteem, cognitive biases, cognitive distortions, irrational beliefs, limiting reductionisms or absolutisms, fixations and stagnation at a particular stage of growth, ego defense mechanisms, memetic defense mechanisms, or replacing bad habits with best practices that can be habituated into lifestyle habits.

1. Watch your thoughts; they become words.
   

2. Watch your words; they become actions.
   

3. Watch your actions; they become habits.
   

4. Watch your habits; they become character.
   

5. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
   

6. Lao-Tzu, Founder of Taoism
   

All of these are vitally important to deep sustainable change, yet none of them can be seen with a microscope nor quantified because they are qualities of the interior consciousness who sees, quantifies, and measures – the subject who is aware of external objects ‘out there’ on the other side of your face: the mind has to be trained along with the body for change to stick.

Purpose manifests from the inside-out:

worldview > thoughts > words > actions > practices > habits > lifestyle > body

Shape-shifting requires paradigm-shifting

Changing your body requires changing your mind. The mind controls the body. Change comes from within: we change our lives from the inside out.

Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created

with our current patterns of thought.

Albert Einstein

State Training: Begin with the end in mind.

You can change your life by taking responsibility for your own state of mind. State training is about exercising control over our states of consciousness, both from the inside-out as well as from the outside-in, so they don’t control us.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – 

to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Holocaust survivor, founder of Existential Psychology and Logotherapy

Harnessing the subconscious with goals

One of the most effective tools you can use is goal-setting so you can “keep your eyes on the prize” while working towards your goals as well as harnessing the powers of your subconscious mind in resolving the dissonance between where you are now and where you want to be, using cognitive dissonance to reach your goals. Think hard about your goals, not in terms of body weight, but in terms of your body composition and waist measurement and perhaps other body measurements as well as your clothes sizes. Change happens from the inside-out.

What are goals?

Goals provide a preview of future events and experiences in life because goals form the content of your future. But this is only true if you create goals and use your will to fulfill them. If you don’t proactively form and reach goals you live a passive life – merely reacting to others and to circumstances over which you may believe you have no control.

Creating clear and worthy goals is the most important step in creating change. That’s why it’s by far the most important step in improving your health and fitness. The reason goal-setting is so important is that goals are what guide our volitional powers. This faculty, capacity, or power that we have to act – the will, or willpower – is guided by mental models, cognitive concepts, or ideas that create an intention to act in a certain direction toward a certain end or goal. A goal is a concept of a clear and specific end that motivates us and creates an intention to act in order to attain it – goals are ideas or concepts in the conative realm of volition, the realm of intention and action.

Without goals, the will is directionless like a rudderless ship in the ocean with no destination. As the journey of a rudderless ship is determined by ocean currents and winds, a person without goals does not create their own purposes in life, their purposes are determined by external forces such as material circumstances or other people.

Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Holocaust survivor, founder of Existential Psychology and Logotherapy

The structure of goals

We informally set and reach many small goals every day without realizing it. If we didn’t, it would be impossible to carry out everyday activities. One of the main keys to accomplishing important goals that take considerable time and effort to accomplish is to create very clear, vividly imagined goals by concentrating and focusing attention on the process of goal-setting. This makes goals more conscious – it sharpens our awareness of our goals, making them stronger, more powerful, more real. A good way to do this is to write them down. This makes goals more tangible: you can see the goal represented in written language. With written goals, you have a visual reinforcement of your mental vision.

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

Japanese Proverb

This great proverb highlights the two essential elements of successful action: the vision that guides action and the willpower to actualize vision. Vision – a product of the intellectual imagination, and willpower – the faculty of the will, or the volitional power to act, are both qualities of mind, awareness, or consciousness. Because thought and intention precede and cause action, and action is, in turn, perceived, interpreted, evaluated, and stored as a memory in the mind, all action begins and ends in the mind. Both elements of successful action are necessary: interior positive intention as well as exterior positive action; each is necessary but insufficient without the other. Positive thinking is only half the equation; positive action is the other half.

Goals have to do with the first half of this equation: forming the vision that guides prospective action. Serious goal-setting is the purposeful directing of the will towards the ends of action: the goods of life. It involves the intellectual setting of intentions and the emotional commitment and courage to then move with certainty towards the objects of our goals. This act of creation is a mental act occurring in the mind with conception and intention.

Goal-setting strategies

This simple string of quotes from some of the greatest minds of our cultural heritage forms a powerful syllogism regarding the supreme importance as well as content of good goals:

The soul that has no established aim loses itself.

Montaigne

In the long run, people hit only what they aim at. Therefore...they had better aim at something high.

Thoreau

For what is most choiceworthy for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve.

Aristotle

What’s the alternative to aiming at the best, for the highest that’s possible for you to achieve? The alternative is to sell yourself short by setting your sights too low and never approaching your full potential. This applies to all areas of life for which goal-setting is important, but regarding your weight and fitness goals, it may mean the difference between aiming at your optimal lean-to-fat ratio or body fat percentage or one that is merely acceptable, normal, or average.

Realistic or challenging goals?

Much is said in the popular self-improvement literature about making goals realistic because if a goal is not realistic it will set one up for failure. While this is a partial truth, emphasizing this single aspect of good goals over others is often a product of an underlying fear of failure, a broader fear of change in general, or of a lack of confidence in the ability to accomplish goals. The problem is that this kind of thinking can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, causing you to set your sights too low thereby undermining your potential.

This conservative approach to goal setting starts with limits, or the current actual, and focuses on incremental improvements underneath those limits or within the current actual. This is small thinking. It’s also backwards, in that it begins with the material circumstances from which one is starting, rather than with a forward-looking vision of where one wants to be in the future. It’s also static, in that it mistakes the current status of things as the actual, relegating future potentialities or actualities to the non-actual.

It’s also reactive, in that it unrealistically perceives external events as the only true causes, and limits the will to merely reacting passively to them, empowering external events as determinates of our behavior, relegating humans to observers of reality who merely react to these external stimuli (as in the reductionistic behaviorist school of psychology), rather than as full participants in reality, both shaping it and reacting to it. It’s easy to see how this reductionistic view of the world, or worldview, can lead to feelings of hopelessness and alienation.

Progressive or conservative?

Better, by far, is a more progressive approach whereby one begins with universal ideals and then works to approximate those ideals as closely as possible by raising the current material circumstances towards them, the upward movement being progress towards your ideals. This is based on a broader view of reality that includes not only the current material actuality, but also nonmaterial possibilities and potentialities and ideals and goals; after all, ideas of how things might or could or ought to be in the future are real, or there would not be a current object of our attention.

The conventional approach to goal-setting is inadequate to the task of actualizing our potential for excellence, because it reduces human beings to merely physical organisms subject only to physical laws. It completely ignores the nonphysical dimensions of our being, narrowly confining its scope to the lowest level of complexity, the physical level of complexity known through the senses by means of the scientific method where indeed the physical laws of nature are operative in a seemingly deterministic manner.

The progressive approach to goal-setting, based on a broader view of human nature and on reality as a whole, whose non-physical dimensions are known by us through reason, passion, and intuition by means of philosophy, literature, and meditative experience is consequently more adequate to the task.

Seen proactively rather than reactively, current limits are not static givens, but dynamic boundaries that are stretched outward through a dynamic, proactive process of growth. A limit is only the boundary between what is currently possible and impossible, it’s not always permanently fixed. The more you increase your abilities, the farther out you push your limits; as your capacities grow, your limits correspondingly diminish.

Stretch goals or fear of failure?

The kind of vision necessary to lead this process requires a creative imagination. Not that part of the imagination that deals with fantasy and fiction wholly outside the realm of the possible, but rather the intellectual imagination that deals with the possible as distinguished from the (current) actual.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

While it’s true that goals should be within the realm of possibility, if the object of your goal-setting is to reach positive goals rather than to merely avoid failure in a negative sense, then it’s actually more important to set challenging, demanding goals that require you to stretch beyond your current conception of what you can accomplish, to stretch beyond your current capabilities, thereby requiring you to transcend your current limits in order to accomplish larger goals. Hamel & Prahalad call these ‘stretch goals.’

Goal setting research has occupied the attention of researchers for over 25 years. The core findings of this research are that goal difficulty is linearly related to performance; the establishment of specific and difficult goals is associated with higher performance than are instructions to do your best or the absence of specific goals.

Karlene H. Roberts, Encyclopedia of Human Behavior

How are these two apparently contradictory qualities of good goals – realistically attainable, yet difficult and challenging – reconciled? Well, goals certainly need to be within the realm of possibility, but not at the low end of that range. Goals should be at the highest reaches of the possible. That way goals are achievable, yet also valuable enough to be worthy of your time and effort. Far from being unrealistic, setting ambitious goals is the best way to harness the power of cognitive dissonance. The higher and more ambitious your goals – within the realm of the possible, for the mind has to perceive it as possible for it to be a real dissonance – the greater dissonance you create, and the higher level at which that dissonance will be resolved, more closely approximating the ideals for which you strive.

Set your goals based on what you desire to achieve, not on what you are afraid to fail at. The intrinsic objects of your goals – the goods of life – are the focus of goal-setting, not the internal workings of the goal-setting process itself, which only has extrinsic value as a means to realizing your goals, the goods of life. It doesn’t make sense to sacrifice the goods of life to the means for achieving them out of a fear of failure to reach goals – that would be a perverse fear-driven misuse of goal-setting to remain in one’s comfort zone or to rationalize complacency. Instead, use goal-setting as a powerful tool to harness cognitive dissonance and guide prospective action toward a preferred future. Good goals are driven by hope for the future, not fear of it.

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure,

than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much,

because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt 1899

Don’t be the timid soul living the impoverished life Roosevelt refers to: Better are ambitious goals with sights set on greatness than small goals designed to avoid failure – the former might lead to greatness even if not fully attained, while the latter ensures mediocrity even if fully realized. Likewise, better is confidence in our ability to actualize future potential than confidence in our current state – the former encourages growth, the latter complacency.

Humility or hubris?

Humility is universally recognized as more virtuous than hubris, and rightly so, especially in the social arena. However, I submit to you that this is not true in the realm of creating goals for yourself: in this private realm the exact opposite is true! Goal-setting is not the time for humility or modesty. Instead, visionary boldness and confidence are called for when setting high standards and ambitious goals for yourself in order to harness the powers of cognitive dissonance and creative optimism that engage the creative subconscious in producing positive self-fulfilling prophecies.

Think of your goals as ceilings: the lower the ceilings you build, the less room you allow for yourself for growth; the higher the ceilings, the more room you are inspired to fill. Overall, the key is to balance the attitude of humility with the inspiration of nobility, with emphasis on nobility in goal-setting, and emphasis on humility in goal-achieving: first establish your nobly inspired goals, then work in humility to fulfill them, knowing that the higher the standards and goals you set for yourself thereby, the more humility will be called for regarding your current circumstances in comparison, not to mention the daunting (and adventuresome!) journey ahead of you in fulfilling such ambitious goals.

We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow worm.

Winston Churchill,

Churchill used cognitive dissonance when a young soldier in the British Army:

He was known for muttering to himself that he would one day become the greatest

Prime Minister Great Britain had ever known some 40 years before he did.

Past or future?

How do we know what is possible to achieve? One clue is to look to the past. If something has been achieved before, then we know it is possible for us to achieve it again, and even more so due to the intervening progress in science and technology. Psychologists call this ‘anchoring’ on past achievements to give you confidence for a prospective achievement. This is what the great postmodern philosopher Nietzsche regarded as the ‘monumental’ use of history:

What is the use to the modern man of this ‘monumental’ contemplation of the past,

this preoccupation with the rare and classic? It is the knowledge that the great thing existed

and was therefore possible, and so may be possible again.

Nietzsche

It’s important in goal-setting and goal-reaching to maintain a prospective orientation. Avoid the trap of historical determinism and its cousin, genetic determinism, which undermine the will and short-circuit change and progress. While the past obviously has a great impact on the present and the future, and is important to know and to learn from, it’s a starting point, not an end point – the past should inform the present and the future, not limit it:

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

Shakespeare

In other words, understand history for the sake of the future. Nietzsche also spoke of this. The following quotes, with added emphasis, are from The Use and Abuse of History and while they have to do with history in general, the concepts are fully applicable to the use of our own personal history in our own lives and in our goals for the future:

The deeper the roots of a man’s inner nature, the better will he take the past into himself; and the greatest and most powerful nature would be known by the absence of limits for the historical sense to overgrow and work harm.

Nietzsche

The tree feels its roots better than it can see them: the greatness of the feeling is measured

by the greatness and strength of the visible branches.

Nietzsche

The knowledge of the past is only desired for the service of the future and the present,

not to weaken the present or undermine a living future.

Nietzsche

If we could only learn better to study history as a means to life!

Nietzsche

Who alone can learn from that history the one real lesson, how to live,

and embody what they have learnt in noble action.

Nietzsche

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard observed that although life can be understood only backwards, in retrospect, it must be lived forward, prospectively. Look to retrospective history to understand the past; to the sciences to understand the present; and to prospective philosophy, the arts, and literature – the humanities – for vision and wisdom in creating a preferred future.

Plato taught that life is a process of becoming, not one of doing, nor even a state of being. Being – the object of becoming – is always in the future. A focus on becoming prevents the complacency of conservatism and the corresponding tragedy of wasted potential, and keeps us on the dynamic and noble path of growth and progress that rightly honors our tremendous potential for excellence both individually and socially.

I am captivated more by dreams of the future than by the history of the past.

Thomas Jefferson

Greatness appeals to the future.

Emerson

Creativity or complacency?

When creating goals you are in a very real way creating your future – actualizing your goals with the customized strategies I’ll provide you in your program is merely a matter of following through on your intentions. A goal is an idea in the conative realm of volition – the realm of intention and action – and the act of creation is a mental act occurring in the mind with intellectual conception and emotional/motivational intention. The actualization of the goal at the physical level of complexity is merely a material representation of this creation, a manifestation or configuration of energy in the form of the goal previously created by the mind. The conception of the goal in your interior consciousness is the creative cause that necessarily precedes its effect in the external world evident to the senses.

The mind can thus be seen, using a biological metaphor, as an organ of energy manipulation. Everything begins and ends in the mind: all our thoughts, feelings, motivations, intentions, goals, perceptions, interpretations, values, judgments, memories, passions, loves, etc., are the content of interior consciousness, the metaphorical heart and the mind, that manifest in various ways in the physical world, including the actions and corresponding adaptations of the physical body.

The physical environment evident to the senses is a mirror that reflects these higher realities, and as the image in a mirror is a form, an appearance, a reflection of reality, if you change the mental realities regarding your health and fitness beginning with clear and worthy goals, and follow through with purposeful behavior guided by the will in order to actualize the potential conceived in the mind, the reflection of this in your physical body will materialize. Intention precedes and causes action, and form follows function, thus intention causes form; put another way, intention informs substance or gives it form.

Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.

Shakespeare, Othello

Miracles of Mind

When we are truly aware of the awesome power of the mind – particularly the power of conscious creation – the real meaning of ‘miracles of mind’ becomes evident: if what we call a ‘miracle’ is a break or exception in the normal causal chain of events at the physical level of complexity, then the mind is quite literally a living, everlasting miracle in that it’s a source of events without external causes – it’s an originator and creator of effects. When this is realized at a deep, meaningful level as a reality in your life, not merely as an interesting idea, apparently insurmountable physical obstacles, such as being overweight, can be reframed as static, passive, unconscious challenges surmountable by a dynamic, proactive, conscious being who exercises volitional power over physical processes.

You are the author of multiple series of cause-effect relationships at the physical level of complexity through nonphysical conscious causation or creation. But this can be realized only when you’re fully aware of the power of the will so that it can be exercised and made stronger. Like a muscle or the intellect, as the will is exercised it grows stronger, building on past accomplishments.

Great people have an extraordinary awareness of this creative potential, and they actualize it to create great things and great lives. This greatness can inspire the ordinary use of the will by good people to create good things and good lives.

Lofty goals worthy of your time and effort require a long time of hard work to fulfill, but also motivate you to mobilize your time and energy in their realization. On the other hand, vague goals can’t direct and motivate the specific behavior necessary for success. Clear goals create a clear vision of the future essential to guiding prospective action toward a preferred future.

Don’t sell your dreams short: make life pay your price.

Think different in The City Different

Many of the evidence-based technologies and methodologies in the Weight Wellness Toolbox to the right will be used or recommended, according to your interests and goals, as part of your coaching.

Santa Fe Way integrates the general orientations and applications of these related but separated fields. Santa Fe Way is building a network of the top conventional, alternative, complementary, holistic, integrative, and integral specialists for more in-depth focus as needed.

A more in-depth explanation of the Santa Fe Way can be found here: Compare Weight Loss Options and more here: FAQs

Weight Wellness Coaching: How it Works

Weight Wellness Project™

Your Weight Wellness Project™ is your map for the journey and your Weight Wellness Coach™ is your guide who knows the terrain and helps you reach your destination – providing information, inspiration, motivation, structure, consistency, positive accountability, feedback, and encouragement to help you reach your goals.

Your project is your blueprint or roadmap we’ll use to create a path to your goals. Coaching helps you follow and adjust your plan and help you with obstacles that get in your way.

In-person, on the phone, or online coaching

If you live in or near Santa Fe coaching can be done in person. Wherever you live, coaching can also be done by phone or online. A great option is coaching via video calling. All you need is a webcam. We can use any of the following:

• Google Hangouts (recommended)

• Apple FaceTime

• Skype

• Phone

Video calling is more personal than a phone conversation because we can see each other while we’re talking: the way the Jetsons would do it! It’s also available on the new iPhone. And it’s done over the internet so the channel is free. All you need is a webcam.

Frequency and duration

For optimal results a 30-minute coaching session once a week is ideal. Longer or shorter coachings can occur more or less often depending on your needs and goals. Coaching can also be done spontaneously as needed during stressful periods in addition to a regular schedule.

Traveling schedule

With 24-hours notice, you have unlimited freeze privileges and there is no time limit or deadline for using your coachings, they can be used anytime you wish.

Guaranteed results

Long-term coaching packages are guaranteed.

New! Members of New Mexico GREEN Chamber of Commerce save 10% on all packages.

Not a member? Join now as an individual or business who supports progressive public policy

and save up to $719 on your personal ‘Go Green from the Inside-Out’ health & fitness project.