I've been thinking a lot about mind-sets. We keep hearing that the AIG executives didn't realise there was anything amiss about accepting bonuses because of their mind-set, that Rick Wagoner didn't have the right mind-set to fix GM, that, ahem, newspaper folks need to get away from a print mind-set.

A mind-set is not just a buzzword, says Norman Doidge, a psychiatric researcher at the University of Toronto and Columbia University. Doidge is also the author of "The Brain That Changes Itself."

"Brain" explores the research into neuroplasticity: how changes in skills and behaviours are linked to physical, measurable changes in how the brain works and how we go about changing our mind-sets.

"Plasticity is like snow on a hill in winter. Because it is pliable, we can take many paths if we choose to ski down that hill," Doidge says. "But because it is pliable, if we keep taking the same path, we develop tracks, and then ruts, and get stuck in them." What does this have to do with fitness? Well, over the course of three years in my early 20s, I lost 100 pounds. When the subject comes up, inevitably people ask how I did it, and they always seem a little disappointed when I say, "I ran, and I ate more carefully."

I feel bad, like I should have a more elaborate answer involving a secret Tibetan meditation that burned a pound every 20 minutes, or some fat-absorbing nanobots I cobbled together in my garage.

In truth, the mechanics of losing weight are simple: Exercise more, eat less.

... contd.