JILL’S WEIGH TO FREEDOM - Blog 2

Date: Friday 22^nd March 2013

     There’s no doubt that traditional dieting, involving restriction of calories or restriction of foods can be a major catalyst for over-eating.  In my case my body always wanted to make up for the deficit in calories or nutrients by embarking on days of out-of-control eating.

     To me, the destructiveness of this kind of eating was pretty evident, so it made sense for me to follow Lysa & Gina’s weight loss principles which don’t involve deprivation and don’t  involve being hungry. In fact, it feels so right to be neither hungry nor full – a sensation that I’m not used to experiencing.

Using the WEIGH TO FREEDOM method of intuitive eating I have lost the desire to “treat myself” all the time. It’s not that I used to feel that I’d “been good” and deserved a treat, it was that I was sub-consciously miserable and was “treating” myself with food to make me feel better. I was always seeking an excuse to indulge in a treat.

     How liberating it is to know that I’m free to eat whatever I wish as long as I don’t eat past the point of satisfaction. Lysa and Gina’s most powerful words for me are “Eat what you truly want to eat”. This is not the same as “Eat what you want”.  Whenever I’m faced with a decision about food I use those words to decide. My decision is not based on the calories, fat, fibre or nutritional value of the food, but on what I truly feel like eating at that moment.

     Today I weighed myself. There was no feeling of urgency to weigh myself; there was no waiting for “that” moment when the scales came up with the number that would make or break my day;  there was no panic about whether I had been a success or a failure over the last week; there was no loading up on protein so that I could manipulate the results of my weigh-in in order to  feel like a winner.  Not this time. I felt calm, relaxed and confident that I had followed the three principles. I had done my best, occasionally eaten a little more than to the point of satisfaction and felt I was about to receive some valuable feedback.....nothing more, nothing less. The week ahead looks positive as I follow three easy to remember principles. Thanks Lysa and Gina.

     Oh and by the “weigh”, I lost a happy, stress-free, diet-free 1.5 kilograms this week. I don’t need to “reward” myself for this effort, because it was done whilst enjoying all of my favourite foods J

JILL’S WEIGH TO FREEDOM - BLOG ONE:

                                                                                                                       Tuesday 19^th March 2013

     Every now and then, something remarkable happens in my life. Something unplanned and yet, something that was meant to be.  And so it was, when I was in a mechanic’s waiting room and came across a magazine that was nine months old. The article that struck me was the story of Lysa and Gina and their “Weigh to Freedom” approach. For some time I had been thinking about a slow approach to losing unwanted kilograms; for many months I had been analysing my relationship with food. Yet, try as I might, I could not find an approach that was sustainable for me.

     

     I had tried them all: low-carb, high-carb, high protein, Atkins, counting this and weighing that. Yet still I couldn’t sustain the effort required. Dare I say, the more I dieted, the more weight I gained and the more I berated myself for my failure to “have what it takes”.

     

     A quick visit to Lysa & Gina’s website, an exchange of emails, a conversation with Lysa and before I knew it my new book “WEIGH TO FREEDOM” was delivered to my letter box and was begging to be read.

      

     I started with the supplementary work-book “The 3 Principles to Weight-Loss 7 Day Course”. There are times in my life when I would have read those words “The 3 Principles of Weight-Loss” and would have “poo-hooed” them. But not this time. What I was reading made sense, seemed right, seemed easy and believable and I was keen to put these principles into practice right away.

     

     DAY ONE: and I made two amazing discoveries..... I didn’t actually feel hungry  during the day and therefore my meal times varied incredibly from my norm; and being allowed to have whatever I wanted had a reversal effect on my brain. Suddenly, it didn’t matter whether I ate those biscuits or not. It didn’t matter if I had home-made cookies in the jar. They lost their appeal.

      

     DAY TWO: was equally astonishing. Eating only when I was physically hungry, meant that my breakfast was eaten much later than usual and my next meal wasn’t until mid-afternoon. COULD THIS BE ME?  I was eating LESS by NOT dieting than I do on my “diet days”. I can honestly say that this was completely effortless. I gave little thought to what-and-when I would eat and by the end of the day I realised that my body had told me exactly what I needed  (just as  Lysa and Gina had said).

     

     DAYS THREE & FOUR: Yes, I’ve only just begun but already I feel different: more relaxed, free from rules and constraints, less stressed out about food decisions and happier within myself. I have read the book and am now re-reading, taking notes and learning about myself. I’m excited about the possibilities ahead and already, I feel as though I am SUCCESSFUL.

Jill Brooks