Weight Loss With Science and Paradigm Changes (reprise from April 2016)

Dawn...Each New Day

I think I want to start going back to see what I was writing about at various times in the past.  How we think is so key to what we accomplish.  It seems as if when discouragement sets in, it is as though a cloud of fog covers us like a gray sheet.  Our mind and heart become shrouded and forgetful of what made us find success in something once before.  This holiday season I fell off the wagon a bit and gained a few pounds.  I wanted to get back on my program and found this post I had written a few years ago to be very inspiring and timely  It was a good reminder. Frame of mind is so important and I was falling into the same old trap of looking the other way.  Now my eyes are set on my target and I am thinking this way again.  You thoughts govern everything!  It truly is mind over matter in most things.  Below is what I  wrote then.

I seriously don't think I could accomplish a single thing if the Lord had not seen fit in His wisdom to allow us a new beginning whenever we need it.  Even when we don't think we need it, we get a new morning every day!  Sometimes we get stuck on a paradigm that simply isn't true but we believe it with all of our heads and hearts.  I cannot tell you how many new things I have learned in these later years.  Learning is a lifelong pursuit.

About six months ago I read a blog post by a good friend who talked about her weight loss struggles. It just made me realize how much I have been coasting. This is something I have struggled with for a long time.  Off and on I have tried various things but never felt terribly successful.

Sometimes my perceptions in this department would get very skewed.  If ever I wanted to know how skewed my perceptions were...I could use the scale as my tool. It seems like when I should be up I'd be down or vice versa fairly regularly.  It was uncontrollably and unconditionally linked to my self-esteem.   Up I was bad, down I got lucky.  I was always blaming myself or discounting my efforts in some weird way.  I knew it wasn't true in my head but I let the scale have too much power over my feelings of worth.  When I'd get into the game playing with the scale or ascribe too much importance to an ounce here and there it got ridiculous and controlling and self- defeating.  When I couldn't take the failure any longer I'd just walk into my denial mode.

The complexities of what motivates us to do and be who we are continue to confound me. Still waters run deep and I think for each of us it is a combination of so many factors. It is never just one thing but many experiences and hurts, and failures that add up and become satan's favorite tool~Discouragement. Without hope there is no faith to go forward with a plan that will work. Weight Watchers is a good program but it didn't work for me because I could not adapt it to my life successfully.  I had the best leaders ever and still it wasn't a good fit for me.  I felt outside the circle.  After several do-overs over many years I finally had to walk away from it.  Again, it was not the program, it was me.  One size does not fit all in weight loss programs.

Some reasons it did not fit for me was that I'm not a group person.  I am more a one on one person.  I never felt comfortable discussing my weight problems in groups of people I didn't know and if I did know them it was even harder.  I am also not a kitchen person.  All the preoccupation with shopping and cooking food and tracking and all the counting of points was a battle every single day.  It required too much time, energy and it was very slow.  It took me over 16 months to lose 13 pounds.  Not motivating.  It wasn't the program it was my struggle with actually doing it.  I was not good at it and the underlying failure was just too hard on me.  I didn't handle it well emotionally.  

I needed to stop the negative self-talk. It was more than positive affirmations that I needed. You can tell yourself you are a thin and healthy person even when you are not but, once that hits your brain, your brain tries to figure out if the thought is true. Quickly everything you know tells you the positive affirmation is a lie and you throw it out as nonsense.  Or worse yet it becomes a negative affirmation. It then produces the 'why am I this way' type questions, leading to discouragement and eventual defeat. This applies to everything not just weight loss.

Recent studies have discovered that our brain works by solving our dilemmas by answering our questions. As an example...When we are unable to succeed at losing weight we ask ourselves why this is? Immediately our brain sets out to answer that question. I am just not good at this, I love my ice cream (or whatever), I have never been successful at this, I'll just gain it back, people will be watching me to see how long I can keep it off, I hate to exercise, it's my genetics, etc.  The thought occurs to be me that being overweight is definitely more difficult than losing weight.  I can say that now that I have successfully lost nearly 60 pounds in the past six months.

Ask yourself this question..."Why am I a fit and healthy person?" Why am I a happy person?" What things have I been successful in accomplishing in my life? Immediately your brain starts to answer you with real, not hoped for positive affirmations! This is powerful. Try it. Seriously try it!  It works.  

When our daughter had lost a significant amount weight on the plan she had discovered I was astonished.  She looked fantastic and she felt so good.  She told me all about it and I wanted to try her program.  So after checking it out I got my doctor 's approval and began on November 9, 2015.  Right before the holidays. Who does that?  I actually survived Thanksgiving less than two weeks later with salad and turkey.

It was simply my time.  It is a balanced good carb and protein plan.  I learned so much about myself.  I can do these things and it is not as hard as I had always imagined. My body thrives on this type of eating.  My weight problem that I was so certain was my lot forever has proven to be completely false.  I felt better from day one and it has gotten better and better as I have lost more weight.  No one is more surprised than me.  I have felt better in the last 6 months than I have felt in decades.  It had been so long that I had forgotten how good it feels to be healthy.  It has changed my life in so many ways.

What is really important is concentrating less on the weight and more on being healthy and fit.  This is the goal, not the weight loss.  As we improve our lifestyle the weight loss will follow as a natural consequence.  Right?

That changes the whole process from what we don't want (being overweight) to what we do want (being fit and healthy.)  Thinking and acting in a positive frame of mind is always a winner.  It also takes the sting out of the many past personal failures and puts it where is should be.  Losing weight is purely scientific.  It has nothing to do with being a good or bad person.

Focusing on improved behavior is key.  You are the same person of infinite worth no matter your dress or pant size or the number on the scale.  Sometimes we forget that. If the goal is just weight loss when we are at our goal weight we relax and start the bad habits over again.  Could this be why so many regain their weight?  

Ask yourself what am I doing RIGHT to accomplish this goal of good health? Our brain automatically goes to what am I doing WRONG if we don't direct the question differently. I promise you, your brain will answer you and reveal to you what you can and have already been doing. This actually does kick discouragement and a desire to quit to the curb! We all need this tool when struggling!

When discouragement comes and is allowed to stay...it follows that it's very hard for us to continue on any kind of journey when we feel sad, alone, depressed or afraid of success or genetically pre-disposed to be a certain way. We have to stop thinking that we can never measure up...no matter what we do.  It is flat out 100% WRONG!

Weight issues stem from multiple sources.  Most from paradigms about ourselves that simply are not true.  We cannot keep internalizing the negative thoughts about ourselves and be successful.  Simply put, our brain can derail us or help us. We just have to pursue the right questions as we try to solve our dilemmas. This really works; talk about new beginnings! We just have to retrain our brain to think in a way that helps and encourages success, not defeats it.

Oh and two other things...eat right and move more!  If we keep putting diesel in our gas powered engine we are not going to function as we would like.  I've learned that my body functions very nicely without sugar, bad fats, bad carbs and unhealthy dairy products and bread.  And by not spiking your blood sugar every few hours the magic begins...no cravings for any of that anymore and scientific weight loss happens.

Sometimes the whole scramble gets confusing~
we need to step back and view each component specifically!

And remember we need to be a friend to ourselves
as well as to others.

Staying closer to the Lord always seems to be the answer to every problem, burden or concern. For all things unto the Lord are spiritual. My desire is to remember this day by day! I will ask myself the right questions to my dilemmas and trust in myself in addition to the Lord, so I can accomplish the desires of my heart. I am putting all my eggs in one basket~The Lord's.

When I hear something that is true,
I know it~ if I am living close to Him.