Linda Solbrig, a professor at the University of Plymouth’s School of Psychology in the UK, and her team have developed an interesting program called Functional Imagery Training (FIT), a technique that allows you to use your imagination to really experience what it feels like to lose weight. Thanks to the program, its volunteers managed to lose up to 10 kilograms in one year. How did this happen? 141 people took part in the tests, which were divided into two groups. The first one was engaged in Motivational Interviewing (MI), which involves conducting so—called “motivational interviews” – when a consultant provides professional psychological support in order to lose weight. The second group was engaged in the FIT method. This approach differs in that, instead of receiving motivation from the outside, the participants visualized the final result on their own. “Creating functional images supports a person’s desire for change and, when tempted, helps to get rid of the urge to eat something harmful. Over time, this behavior becomes habitual, and the visualization experience allows you to anticipate problematic situations and develop an effective response to them,” explains Dr. Linda Solbrig. Both training sessions, MI and FIT, took place in approximately the same mode: an hour-long one-on-one conversation with a psychologist, followed by 45 minutes of telephone conversation, followed by 15-minute telephone consultations every two weeks for three months, and then once a month for six months. The volunteers of the second group were taught how to create motivational images on their own, and were taught to imagine how their lives would change and their health would improve when they lost weight. They were asked to create images whenever they needed to increase motivation. However, none of the groups received additional recommendations regarding diet or exercise. “We started with an exercise about lemon. We asked people to imagine a lemon, how they touch it, squeeze and drink the juice, and so on. This was necessary in order to emphasize that the images are much closer to our feelings than we think. This is how we taught people not just to think in the style of “I want to lose weight,” but to clearly understand what specific benefits they will receive from weight loss,” says the psychologist. To help the participants of the second group, they were offered to download the Goal in Mind app. This application contains motivational photos that help create even stronger emotional images, allows you to record specific goals that need to be worked out, and provides access to short audio recordings. Such recordings helped the participants in the experiment imagine exactly how they would work on their goal today and how they would feel when they reached it. The initial result, recorded after six months, showed that the MI group lost an average of 0.74 kilograms, while the FIT group lost five times as much — an average of 4.11 kilograms. The waist size in the second group decreased 4.3 times compared to the first (7.02 versus 2.72 centimeters). A year later, when the volunteers came to the control weigh—in, it turned out that the result had not only strengthened, but also improved: the MI group lost only 0.67 kilograms and 2.46 centimeters in the waist, while the FIT group lost 6.44 kilograms and as much as 9 centimeters! So, for a whole year, participation in the FIT program allowed people to lose more than 10 kilograms. As the authors of the study had planned, functional imagery training led to greater weight loss, and the effects achieved persisted after 12 months. They explain this by saying that unlike a motivational interview, which has only a short-term effect, functional images allow you to stay motivated all the time, because they are fixed in the mind and then on a subconscious level. Thus, visualization can be a useful tool for achieving goals, including those related to weight loss. Using the power of your mind, you can make your imagination work for you!