JILL’S WEIGH TO FREEDOM - Blog 3

Date: Monday April 1st 2013

     This week I found it necessary to delve back into Chapters 2 and 3 of “The Weigh to Freedom” and re-read about mindset and about overcoming emotional eating. The intuitive eating seemed to come naturally to me in the preceding weeks and I was joyfully discovering how to slim whilst enjoying the foods I loved. 

     It wasn’t Easter that presented me with challenges as there were no Easter Eggs in the house. The challenges came with a high stress situation that occurred over a number of days. I could barely think straight, let alone think about whether I was hungry or not.  By the time I realised I needed food, my eating seemed all over the place.  Was my body demanding foods that would provide the energy I needed to cope? Or was I comfort eating? One thing’s for certain: I was eating when I wasn’t hungry and didn’t stop when I was satisfied. 

     Although I’m still trying to gain back the control I had before the week began, I decided that I could look at this week’s situation from two points of view. The first would be that I’d failed miserably and I could “beat myself up about it” or the second (and most appealing to me) is that I’d experienced a situation that I can learn from.  How could I do things differently next time? What is one thing that I could focus on next time? By reading Chapter 3 I decided I could focus on how I’m feeling, accept how I’m feeling and then try to bring a balance to my thinking that allows me to “sit with it” rather than fight it. 

     Using Lysa & Gina’s approach to weight loss I don’t have a set agenda for losing my excess kilograms. I know that slowly and surely the kilograms will melt away provided I follow the three weight loss principles and examine my thoughts and feelings in difficult times. I am in this for life, so this week was merely a learning experience. I’m not dwelling on the decisions I made under stress, but I am looking forward to using my experiences to do things differently next time.

‘Lasting Motivation’ The real holy grail…

I’m incredibly curious, I believe that successful strategies are only ever a few minor tweaks away. After years of being stuck in a ballooning body (peaking at 99kg/ a size 20), I now find joy and excitement in contemplating what small adjustments could easily shift me toward my goals. 

Of course it wasn’t always this way for me. I would ignore my failures, and suppress any awareness of my mistakes and be trapped and tricked into perpetuate them over and over again. Yes, I was ‘insane’… I did the same thing over and over and yet expected a different result – every time... Now after receiving the body, life, husband, family, business and career of my dreams… I have an insatiable appetite for uncovering the slight adjustments that make all the difference to helping myself and others to achieve our goals.

There are two ways that we all motivate ourselves. One burns us out and leaves us falling short of the mark… and the other is enduring and sustainable… After 8yrs of experience in weight-loss, having helped hundreds of others to lose weight, having shifted 30kg myself and having stayed slim for over 6 years… I’ve been blessed to identify a trend that is replayed over and over by countless thousands...

It’s trying to make change for others. Trying to take action or make change for your partner, children, lover, parent, Doctor etc. External motivation is changing for someone else. It starts out feeling pretty good… we get heaps done, fly around like a rocket, accomplish some fast wins… start feeling really proud of ourselves and then THUD, you wind up crashing and burning… You come down in a heap, and no matter how you fight it you can’t overcome the fatigue and exhaustion. External Motivation is simply unsustainable! 

Motivation simply means ‘why we do what we do’. It’s a powerful feeling. It prompts us to take action, it’s the feeling that we really want to do something or make change. But we need to remember that there are two styles of motivation. External motivation, which is hot and fiery and Internal motivation; which is feeling prompted to take action for your own self-interest. It’s about doing something because you care about you; because you want yourself to be happy, because you know how much calmer/joyous/simple or enriched your life will be if you choose to take this action/ make change. 

Seems pretty simple right… Try to do it for others and your steam will run out fast… You’ll lack sufficient follow through to create any lasting results. Or do it for yourself and stay consistent, and sure enough in time the results show up and you enjoy the process so much that you still keep going. Obviously right now, your probably realizing that internal motivation is the holy grail of lasting change. 

 

So ask yourself right now, what do I truly want most right now? Disregard any supposed limitation… If you could receive anything you truly desired what would it be? Write it down/ say it out loud now:

My deepest desire is: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Great, well done. Now I want you to write down the 3 most powerful internal (you-focused) reasons why you want this (Reasons why it will directly benefit you personally):

1)

2)

3)

Now, how are you feeling? Can you feel that surge of power and energy inside, the light that has gone on, you have a sense of purpose and intention. This is what we are made for; to acknowledge our deepest desires, and to know why we truly want them, and then to go out and do whatever needs to be done to receive it/them/that.

Week 5, Intuitive Eating Challenge for Isabelle & Lilly

Isabelle

This week has been a bit up and down, I've had some really, really good days and some really really bad days.  Today for example, was one of those bad days.  I was all on my own at home, had no study or work to do so had a great lazy day just watching movies and doing nothing of value.  I went to the supermarket and got myself a few treats, which ideally should last the week, except, they haven't.  I wasn't hungry, but I was bored, there was no one to witness me being a piggy and there is something about tim tams that i just can't say no to.  So that's the whole pack gone, along with heaps more food that I wasn't hungry for, or craving, it was just there and for some reason self control and reasoning didn't kick in.  But now the guilt has kicked in, knowing i've let myself down and I'm actually feeling pretty sick since all that food too!  But I also need to remind myself that tomorrow is another day, and there is no point dwelling on today.  It's been a good reminder - the guilt and sick feeling really isn't worth gorging myself.

I know my cues, I know when I'm hungry and when I can stop eating, I just need to remember to acknowledge that instead of ignoring it.

Unfortunately, I have put on 200g this week but this little reminder to pay attention to my feelings has been beneficial!

Lilly
 

This has been mostly a good week however, there's been some anxiety and a feeling of not fitting in. I have found that I am applying reframing to many situations, but not really my food. This is because food is becoming more and more neutral.  Instead of feeling bad about something, remedying by eating too much and then focussing all my negativity and guilt on my weight and ‘eating problems’ I have begun to be conscious of my emotions and separately conscious of eating, even if I choose to have a little too much. I have spent years and years speaking harshly to myself for overeating rather than being kind to myself because I feel down about something and for once in my life, my emotions and my food are mostly separated. Of course I have fallen over a couple of times and tried to drown this week’s issues with food, but there is no despair or helplessness in this. In fact, I have never felt happier and more in control. Even when I feel impatient and down about the time that it will take to reach my ideal weight, I can look and see that I am already about ¼ of the way there. I am feeling more and more freedom with food and it is literally liberating me in all aspects of my life. 

101 yay!

Does weight-loss have to be a struggle?

 

We’ve all struggled with our weight. Feeling like it’s a difficult process is extremely common in our field.  Gina and I felt that way for so long, and it wasn’t until we took charge of how we were thinking that we were able to change.

How can you take charge of how you’re thinking about weight-loss?

Write down the top three things that come to your mind when you think of weight-loss:

1)

2)

3)

Now look at these answers. If someone else thought and felt this way about weight-loss, would they be getting any results? What you get is what you expect! So, you may as well expect what you want then? 

However we choose to see the situation is exactly how we see it. How we choose to talk about our experience actually defines our experience.

If you have been unconsciously viewing your slimming process as a struggle, realize all the pictures and expressions you use in your mind and speech are making this come true for you. Consider what difference it could make it you used more supportive images and words which would help it feel like a slim healthy vital person?

Some suggestions for new thoughts/ metaphors around weight-loss include:

•  I’m going to allow my excess weight to melt away, as easy as the snowcapped mountains melting in spring. 
•  Just like when I first learned to drive I concentrate on eating only when I’m hungry and soon it will be habitual and I’ll have slimmed easily in the process. 
• With the excited anticipation of a count down to an exciting event, each kilo vanishes as quickly as each week. Steadily and surely my day will come.

Go on, do something different. Gina and I always believe that the proof is in the pudding… What if you believed that weight-loss could be easy and focused on that thought everyday really believing it for a month… What could happen for you? It’s only after our clients learn to change their thinking around weight-loss, continually re-enforce the new belief and act from a knowing that it is true for them (even if that can’t fully comprehend it in the moment) that they see easy results. Is it worth a try for you?