(Page 2 of 3)

The turning point came when I arrived home from high school one day to find my entire family gathered around the television. They were watching a gymnastics competition, including one guy performing the iron cross on the still rings - a pair of rings suspended from the ceiling about eight feet above the floor. The iron cross requires the gymnast to hold on to the rings with his arms straight out at his sides while both his body and the rings remain absolutely still. The amount of upper body strength required to hold this position is enormous. The guy who was doing it wasn't big, but he was "ripped" and symmetrical. At that moment, I knew I wanted to be that gymnast.

Although I didn't realize it then, I'd stumbled upon the single most powerful tool for any athlete - or anyone trying to get healthy and lose weight: visualization. Normally, if you visualize yourself in a particular situation, it takes a while for that visualization to become internalized and move from your conscious to your subconscious mind. But that afternoon, I claimed that image on the TV screen for myself. The picture of me as strong and powerful immediately became anchored in my subconscious, and I knew I would one day make it a reality.

An anchor is a specific stimulus that calls forth particular thoughts and emotions. When you anchor something, it's like falling in love. It doesn't happen on a conscious, rational level; rather, your heart speaks to your mind, and you know it is right. Once the anchor is in place, it will always be there for you to call upon to reinforce your commitment if and when you feel yourself wavering. In that moment, I fell in love with the concept of being and feeling like that young man on the still rings. Doing that became my core desire, and having that desire unleashed a magic within me that I couldn't possibly have known I had.

You must understand that I was then nineteen years old. I weighed 108 pounds. My younger sisters were bigger than I was. But once I had identified my core desire, I became unstoppable. I saw myself having the body of that gymnast on TV, and that image allowed me to use the power of my intention, which was to learn whatever I needed to learn in order to fulfill my desire. At that point, I took what I believed to be an appropriate action: I went to a gym to learn gymnastics.

I joined a local gym that had a gymnastics team, of which three of my friends were already members. Because my friends were good gymnasts, I was allowed to join the team as a favor to them. For a while, I was just too skinny. While my teammates were performing more and more difficult moves, I was doing bench presses in a corner with an empty bar because that was all I could lift.

Eventually, however, the coach took me aside and told me that if I ever hoped to succeed at gymnastics or any other sport, I needed to put on some weight. And so I went in search of a weight lifting gym. I remember walking in and seeing the owner/instructor coming toward me. He looked like a mountain that was growing bigger with each step he took in my direction. I turned and walked out. But my true core desire was still there.

My parents had always been very supportive of whatever I wanted to do, but they had also always made it clear that getting an education was going to be my key to a better life. I never gave up on education - in fact, I later earned a master's degree in physical education - but I also knew that if I didn't achieve my core desire, my education wasn't going to help me. I applied my resolve and returned to the gym.

I worked out six days a week for about an hour each day, and I asked a lot of questions. Whenever I saw someone in the gym who was more bulked up and muscular than I was, I asked him what he had done to get that way. I learned the proper ways to eat and work out, and slowly my core desire began to shift. I no longer wanted to be that gymnast; I wanted to be a competitive bodybuilder, and the image I now held in my mind was that of the bodybuilder I saw myself becoming. I began building my body and, at the same time, became more resolved than ever to succeed. The more successful I became, the better I felt about myself. My successes were continually fueling my desire.

Three years later, in 1986, I won four bodybuilding titles - Mr. France, Mr. Europe, Mr. World, and Mr. Universe. But my initial success actually derailed me. My original goal had been to get out of my misery and find happiness through bodybuilding, but I now became miserably obsessed with my body.

I was constantly driven by the fear that I wouldn't be good enough, that I wouldn't win, that my fans would desert me. Truthfully, if you spend all day staring at your body and measuring your body fat, you don't have much time left over to devote to your mental and emotional well-being. And if you're afraid all the time, there's no way you can be happy. Since that time, I've come to understand that unhappiness is something we create for ourselves when we stop trusting what comes from within and lose touch with our true core desire. For a while, I lost track of that, and I needed to rediscover my inner truth.

© Nordine Zouareg 2007

Tags: Diets and Weight Loss

About the Author

Nordine Zouareg is an International Celebrity Fitness Coach who works with clients from around the world. Nordine has come a long way - from being born in the back of a truck in the Sahara desert and contracting Rickets to becoming an acclaimed fitness expert worldwide.