You Must Believe

You’ve no doubt heard the adage “Believe and you will achieve.” The more research that’s done on the mind/body connection, the more valid that statement becomes. Here’s a good example: In the March ’08 issue of Bottom Line Health, Rebecca Shannonhouse discusses a study performed with 84 hotel maids. Being a maid at a large hotel is a very physically active job, but almost 70 percent of the maids in the study didn’t think their work was exercise. The researchers took physical measurements and then divided the maids into two groups, with one group being informed of the number of calories they burned per day and how it related to exercise, fat loss and health. The other group didn’t get that information. A month later the maids were measured again, and those in the first group had a 10 percent reduction in blood pressure and an average two-to-four-pound loss of bodyweight. The uninformed group’s stats stayed the same. It appears that if you want a weight-loss program to work or a bodybuilding regimen to get you big and ripped, the first prerequisite is that you believe it to achieve it.