Kansans and Friends In Weight Loss

Yesterday was the last day for my Emotional Eating 101 free articles emailing. In the last article we are given what are called 6 failure strategies and are asked to look at them to see where we fall. For space and times sake I am going to just give you the strategy and the first sentence to give you a glimpse into the description of the strategy.

Failure Strategy #1: Deprive and Binge
Almost every single diet book and diet plan leads to the deprive-and-binge approach, and so this is the most common strategy.

Failure Strategy #2: Binge and Run
This is the approach where
you allow yourself to overeat, or try to exist side by side with your
addiction, but try to compensate for it with exercise.

Failure Strategy #3: Binge and Purge
The binge and purge
cycle of bulimia is a very dangerous strategy, and luckily it is
normally viewed as an unhealthy approach to weight management.

Failure Strategy #4: Going Public
I call the fourth failure
strategy “Going Public.” I’ve seen many variations of this strategy,
including losing weight for a specific event such as an upcoming
wedding or family reunion, or making a public declaration that you’ve
started a diet, or buying clothes that fit only if you lose weight, or
paying to join a support group that encourages success but rejects you
if you fail.

Failure Strategy #5: The Blame Game
Do you curse parental
genes for giving you a slow metabolism? If so, you’ve fallen prey to
the fifth failure method–blaming the extra pounds on your metabolism.

Failure Strategy #6: Medicate the Hunger, Trick the Metabolism
In
our culture, many seek a magic pill to dissolve cellulite, reverse
weight gain, and make getting thin a breeze. This search constitutes
the sixth and final failure strategy.

Then we are asked to think back to a time when you tried to lose weight with one of the
failure strategies. Describe the attempt in detail. Was emotional
eating the main reason it was unsuccessful? If not, why didn’t that
strategy work?

For me the first strategy certainly holds true. I am one to find a diet that restricts me and then when it puts me into feeling like I am deprived I want to immediately go off of it because I don’t want to be hungry all the time. Now with the fifth strategy that is something I can honestly say that is a problem for me I don’t blame it on genes that my metabolism has slowed over the last couple of years. When I started taking birth control and Zoloft together it did cause some weight gain and also caused my metabolism to stall out. This is where the vicious cycle of depression rears it’s ugly head because I am on both medications for a reason. I need the birth control more for regulating that time of the month and allowing for an easier time of it during that time. I need the Zoloft to function every day.

I tried Nutri System and that diet was too restrictive. Even though I had great immediate results I felt starved and the cost was too much. I have sat in on a Weight Watchers meeting but when I went it felt too robotic. I don’t do well with that approach. I have tried Isagenix which again has some great short term results but I couldn’t handle being physically hungry for the first week on the program and it was an MLM type product that they would try and sell you only if you became a distributor. I didn’t want to become a distributor at the get go I just wanted to lose weight and see if the product was right for me. I have tried ephedra based products. Now I am here to tell you that is one thing that did work for me. In a matter of two months I easily lost 10 pounds because it kick started my metabolism so I could lose the weight.

I know I know what your thinking,”that’s failure strategy number 6,” and your right. I needed it and to be honest if it sounds like a cop out here or a sell out if I could find it on the market again I probably would go out and buy it because it was the only thing that worked. With that being said though I still have deep seeded emotional issues to deal with and I know this too.

What I need to do is refocus my energies back into running my support group full steam ahead because that is what has helped me with my emotional eating. I need to bring us out of the box and make us more main stream, but everyone that I talk to says I have to have a degree to do this and that so I have a lesser chance of being held liable in case someone runs into a problem. To that I can only say even though I am not a Dr. I am still someone who has the same struggles that people who are losing weight have. I don’t need a degree to support someone and to be a source for assisting them in finding resources in their community to help them with their weight loss needs. I don’t need a degree to sit quietly by while someone sobs their frustrations in life out to me and I don’t need a degree to take that persons hand and tell them I DO KNOW what they are going through. I don’t need a degree to take that person in my arms and give them the comfort of a hug to make them feel they are not alone. I got my degree in the school of hard knocks a very long time ago. I have street smarts and am working on the book smarts. Those two combined can be a very lethal combination.

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Try to pinpoint the times when you were tempted to break your diet or overeat. What were the main causes? Were you anxious or angry?How about depressed or stressed? If you do eat during these times, how specifically did it make you feel? Content or safe? Numb or detached?How many distinct patterns can you identify?
The most recent incident that I wanted to overeat but fought it was when I found out that my sons father had been approved to be released back to the woman he was with when he committed the crime that landed him in prison. I found out that the parole plan had been approved back in Nov. of 2007. I was furious that they did all of this without considering what kind of impact it would have on his son. I was even more anxious when I found out that I would have to be facing him this coming month so soon after his release to have to go before the court to settle child support. Again no one told me a damn thing about any of this until I had to call for information and no one told me that the judge had revoked the warrant for his arrest in Douglas county so he could do work release. It feels like the parent in prison has more rights than the parent out in the world trying to work to make it for her son. I was glad that on both of these occasions I was broke and also had a pretty slim selection of food here at the house to medicate myself. If there would have been ice cream here the whole half gallon would have been gone in one sitting I would have really felt crappy afterwards but that is the reality of the situation.

Beside emotional eating patterns, what evidence for food addiction can you find in your life? Your weight might be one piece of evidence, but there is probably more if you think about it. Try to think of at least a few things besides your weight that show food addiction plays a major part in your life.
I like chocolate and ice cream.Those are my two food weaknesses. My other addiction is Diet Pepsi.I really am hopelessly addicted to that I have to have a case in the fridge at all times. I know all the caffeine isn’t good for me especially when I am trying to wind down at the end of the day, but due to all the medications I am on that make me sleepy I have to have one thing that keeps me awake and alert albeit artificially.
You undoubtedly have positive motivations to lose weight. What are these positive motivations? Try describing what you would feel like if you reached your target weight. After you’re done, ask yourself why these motivations aren’t strong enough to carry you to success?

My big motivation is that I want to always be healthy. I do not ever want the life many relatives on my mothers side of the family have had. So many have had heart problems, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancers the whole lot. I just don’t want that for myself ever. I don’t want to be 60 yrs old and taking insulin injections instead of going out and taking in a movie because the insulin is taking more of my money to live and I can’t afford to do other things I want to be doing. I want to live long enough to see my son grow up to be a good man and find a good woman if he wants. If he chooses to have kids I want to live long enough to see those grandchildren and I want to have the energy to keep up with them. I want to be healthy so I can make clear headed decisions for my son right now at this moment in time. I would say I want to look nice in clothes but I don’t look bad in the clothes I have right now, I could look better but feeling better and having more self confidence still outweighs that.If I were to lose the weight that I need to lose I would feel even better than I do right now. It isn’t necessarily that these motivations aren’t strong enough it is that too often even with the help of Zoloft depression takes hold of my brain and I can’t shake the fog that settles there even if I try very hard to shake the cobwebs. This will be a process for me for the rest of my life.

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Are you concerned about the quality of the food your child is eating at school? Many parents are, and for good reason. School cafeterias have long been criticized for offering unhealthy choices like fast food and french fries instead of healthier fare. So what can you do to help your child’s school district shape up? Here are a few ideas from the experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

• Get the kids involved. Urge school officials to form a student council to examine the issue. Then have the kids themselves identify which foods could be replaced by healthier options.
• Persuade your district to make healthy eating fun, with contests that promote both physical activity and healthy eating.
• Suggest to your child’s teacher that he or she include daily exercise breaks during class time to cut down on children’s chair time. Taking a stretch break can help reduce stress and improve concentration — so they’ll do better in school too!

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I am doing some more work into emotional eating as it is something that is a big part of my love hate relationship with food.I was surfing The Fit Shack blog the yesterday and JoLynn Braley was talking about the Shrink Yourself Diet Plan that looks into the emotional side of eating. Well I took the free diet profile analysis and surprisingly it was dead on as to what my eating habits look like. It said that I am a merry go round dieter. Which is very true I freely admit this.

I decided to sign up for the four day emotional eating 101 emails. They give you an article to read and then some questions to ask yourself. These are the questions they ask in the first module.

How hard is it for you to see emotional eating in your life? Is it very visible? If so, describe the instances you’ve got in mind. Do you think instances like this are the main obstacle to you losing
weight? If it’s not so visible, why do you think you have trouble eating less and exercising more?
For me it isn’t very hard to see where I do a chunk of my emotional eating. I seem to do a lot of mindless eating when I am working on the computer and I also used to have a very bad habit of going for what ever was close when I would get angry or upset or depressed. This happened frequently when I was growing up it seemed food was my only outlet from the abuse. I knew I was a little bit overweight it seemed as though I was always 20 pounds overweight and could never get under a certain number because I knew what I needed to do in order to stay in that 20 pound comfort zone. I knew that if I just did an average job of eating right that I would never achieve maximum potential. I think that is also true in many other patterns in my life. I never felt that I really had to be anyone special because at the time I didn’t feel special. I felt dirty, unattractive and like a loner. I didn’t think there was anyone who could relate to how I felt about abandonment issues I suffered from an early age. Many times I just wanted to curl up into a corner and let the world pass me by.

Do you have trouble differentiating between emotional hunger and physical hunger? Describe
a time when you may have mistaken emotional hunger for physical hunger.What was happening at the time to make you emotionally hungry? Why didn’t you deal with it directly, instead of using food? This is a good question in relation to boredom eating. I sometimes do eat when I am bored. I just eat because well I am not hungry I just eat to have something to do. I did this last weekend and just felt horrible about it the next day. My son and I had been out and about and we had just had a bag each of M and M’s. Well ok I was physically hungry at that point, but then I had kept promising my son a hot fudge sundae and well mom couldn’t get the kiddo something and not get herself something. Yeah you can see where this is going. I got an ice cream too just because I wanted something to do while he was eating his ice cream. I sometimes catch myself snacking at meetings because well it is there and the people who prepared it for us worked so hard to fix it. Yup I grew up in the household that you ate what was on your plate and you also didn’t leave much leftovers or they became the meal for the next day. There again old habits from the past carry over into adulthood. I don’t do that so much now. I used to take seconds growing up just to not to have to eat leftovers the next day or try and get a second helping before my brothers got one. Now if it is leftover it is ok with my son eating at school all week I have to have something to eat for lunch so now I am cool with leftovers. Now actually I did do very good this past week dealing with my emotions instead of going to the fridge or cupboards to find something to snack on. I was upset about his father finding a loophole around a warrant for his arrest and I could have done any number of things but instead I got online and chatted to my friends in order to keep my mind from going to food. I am working on that it is going to be an ongoing issue with me.

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Makes 4 burritos

The red and yellow cherry tomatoes combine with the pale green avocado for a gorgeous salsa. Spiked with lime and cumin, the flavors pop.

Ingredients:
Cherry Tomato–Avocado Salsa
1 1/2 cups quartered firm red and/or yellow cherry tomatoes
1/2 ripe avocado, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Pinch of salt

Burritos
4 whole-wheat flour tortillas (7 1/2″ diameter)
1/2 cup canned fat-free refried beans
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons water
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
To Make:
Salsa: In a small bowl, gently mix together the tomatoes, avocado, lime juice, cumin, and salt. Cover and set aside.

Burritos: Warm the tortillas in the microwave or a conventional oven according to the package directions. Cover with foil and keep warm.

Place the beans in a small microwave-safe bowl, cover, and microwave on high power for 45 seconds, or until hot. Keep warm.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, water, salt, and pepper until well blended. Coat a medium nonstick skillet with cooking spray. Heat over medium heat. Add the eggs and scramble until cooked but still moist.

One at a time, spread each warm tortilla with about 2 tablespoons of the beans and fill with 1/4 of the eggs. Top each with about 2 tablespoons salsa, reserving the rest to serve at the table. Roll up the tortillas, folding in the sides. Serve right away, with the remaining salsa.

Serving size: 1 burrito
290 calories, 32 g carbohydrates, 13 g protein, 12 g total fat, 210 mg cholesterol, 6 g dietary fiber, 480 mg sodium

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Makes 1 Serving

Summer is in full swing, so be sure to take some time out to enjoy it! To start your summer day off right, take a few minutes to prepare this healthy and refreshing breakfast. If you have a table outside, eat outdoors and soak in the sunshine! And don’t forget — the berries in this recipe are freshest during the summer months, so eat up!

French Toast and Berries

Ingredients
2 slices whole-wheat bread
1/3 cup egg-white substitute
1 teaspoon canola oil
1 teaspoon sugar-free maple syrup
1 cup blueberries or strawberries
Directions
Dip 2 slices of whole wheat bread in 1/3 cup egg-white substitute, then brown in a nonstick skillet with 1 teaspoon canola oil. Top each slice with 1/2 teaspoon of maple syrup and 1/2 cup of blueberries or strawberries.

Per serving: 302 calories, 7g fat, 488mg sodium, 41g carbohydrates, 6g fiber, 16g protein

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The KDHE is urging people to take The Healthy Kansan Pledge to get all the info on this pledge click the url below or copy and paste it into your browser window.

http://www.healthykansas.org/pledge.aspx 

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In Part 2 of this series Teresa shares her personal issues with weight loss.

My head

So in my head it went like this. Usually it was one of those times where my body really mounted a great defense against me and had decided that this new low caloric intake was just not acceptable and it tried its best to make me eat. And it really pulled out all the stops and cranked the appetite up so high I thought I hadn’t eaten, ever. So I’d start with the raw carrot, then the popcorn, celery and peanut butter and finally, I’d just pig out on dinner and eat so much I felt bloated. And my body won and I just gained back a week’s worth of work of losing weight. But I told myself, oh well, more work this week. And usually it was an easier week because my body got the calories it wanted it usually left me alone. I might throw in an extra 10 minutes into my walk/run or do a few more laps on the rock wall or throw in an extra day of biking or go around the block one more time, stuff like that. No big deal.

But people who “fail” tell themselves lots of huge things, with big words, with lots of drama and negativity and bigness. Can you change what you tell yourself? Can you learn how you identify yourself? Can you see that failure is only a definition created by you? Where was this line? Where was this place you dropped off? Where did this failure exist, except in your mind and your own decision to stop eating well and moving your body? No one can define it but you, there is no end point, there’s no certain amount of days that if you haven’t eaten well, then you failed.

If I stop eating well for a month, then I can tell myself one of 2 things:

1. I failed, that diet is over, time to shelve it and find something new after I eat a lot of crap that I deserve now that I did without for a month and yet again I failed.

2. Geeze, I think it has been 4 weeks that I haven’t eaten right, now. I bet that set me back a few pounds. Actually it only set me back 4 weeks, but in the grand scheme of things what’s 4 weeks, if I start looking better in a month, any looking better is good and at the back end of it, what’s 4 more weeks, when I’m a size 8 versus a size 7? So now I eat better and get back to moving my body more. And again, in a few weeks, actually probably less, I’ll start feeling better and noticing a difference.

When people ask me how the diet’s going and I hadn’t eaten well in 4 weeks, I can answer in one of these ways:

1. Yeah, that didn’t last. Not so good, it failed. That book was stupid anyway. I mean there wasn’t even a diet to follow, plus you know it was birthday party time and all that cake, LOL you know. Oh well, better luck next time.

2. Great! It’s up and down but it’s all part of the process. I’m learning a lot about my body and I can’t wait to see a difference. (Then be grateful for the wonderful gentle reminder to eat better and keep at it).

Do you see how the external circumstances were the same but it was the choice on the individuals part that determines the failure or success?

I’ve been there. I had to make these choices. I had to answer these questions, I had to face these feelings and circumstances and I had choices. I had to face my victim identity, I had to not know who I was for a while. And so do you. Just don’t ever choose failure and you will never fail.

Epilogue

I began my endeavor to lose weight in the spring of 2004. I worked at it hard fast and steady throughout 2004, continued in 2005 but somewhere in the fall of 2005 my weight loss kind of stopped or plateaued out between 115 and 120. Sometimes it would dip a little below 115 but usually bounced back up. My size steadied at jeans size 7. Once I realized that this was where my body was going to stay I backed off on dieting and enjoyed a few more carbs and relaxed some on the training. For the rest of 2005, and all of 2006 I remained there. In 2007, somewhere near the fall, I started losing weight again. I didn’t do anything different, didn’t eat differently, or exercise differently, my body just started burning more fat. So I decided to work with it and started watching what I ate, and started doing more core work. I lost another size and instead of a soft smooth tummy, I was starting to see ripples of obliques and abs. Hubby was quite pleased and so was I, especially with so little effort on my part.

After thinking a lot on what was different, I realized some things. I hope this helps you understand the power of your mind and the power of stress on your weight loss. During 2005 I was a victim  experienced hurricane Katrina. The depression and stress, and fall out and move and subsequent debt stayed with me for 2 years (the debt hung around longer). When I started pulling my way out of that, I started feeling happier and getting back into wanting more for myself again. I started seeing other girls’ abs at the gym and wishing I could get that. I started thinking much more about my tummy I was looking at it in the mirror and trying to see what I might look like with ripples and how it would feel.

My body responded to these wishes and with my new found lack of stress it was able to, once again, put energy toward weight loss. These wishes were suggestions put to my body much like cancer patients are counseled to do during their support therapy. It works in the same way imagery works. Each time I looked in the mirror and saw my abs and ripples, even though they weren’t there, I was doing imagery.

There’s a lot of research that backs up the power of imagery. In college I was a gymnast and cheerleader then went on to coach a swim team and teach gymnastics. A fundamental part of training to was to imagine, in great detail, any part of what you’re working on. I remember every single night, when I went to bed, the new stunt I was learning, going over and over it in my mind, where my hands were, when I jumped, where I looked, where my legs went, in perfect execution. I would do this many times. We know through research that this causes changes in the part of the brain where the physical actions are stored, not just memory. There’s emerging research now that is studying how this affects the nerves and muscles.

So I don’t doubt that each time I looked in the mirror and visualized the abs I wished I could have I was making changes in my brain and eventually after several months of this, my body began to respond by creating that. This, mixed with the new lack of stress, caused this turn around. I wonder how much my body could have done without my help physically but I know that of all the weight I lost and muscles I’ve built, those last pounds and these abs came the easiest.

As I write this epilogue I sit at 110 and feel strong and fit, my abs look great and I must say, I never figured at 42 I’d be looking like this.

I’m not done yet though.

I’ve always had a rear end that hung down a little lower than most but after 2 kids, forget it. I have been recently picturing the buns from a beer poster girl, as being what’s actually back there, every time I look in the mirror. I can’t wait to see what I’m going to do with this……

To learn the science of how the body is programmed to hang on to or let go of fat, click here to read lots of free excerpts from the book, The Reality of Weight Loss by Teresa Bondora or log onto, www.HowToTeachScience.com where you are welcome to stay and read and learn.

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I am running this article which I was given permission to use by Teresa Bondora in a two part series. There is a lot of good info in it and I don’t want anyone to miss getting that info.

You can’t fail to lose weight.

The only way you can fail is if you decide you’ve failed and then stop trying for a very long time. And even then, really, it wasn’t failure, it was you stopping for a while. Losing weight isn’t something that happens to you, that you do what you’re supposed to do and then sit back and hope that the weight comes off. That supposes that you are not in a position of power, that something else is. That losing weight is some mysterious thing your body does or doesn’t do for you. And you’ve got to sing the right song and dance the right dance and then IF your body agrees it will let go of the fat. Actually there is a formula to making your body let go of fat.

Powerlessness is the root of what some people call failure. Until you grow up inside your body and take charge and own the power you hold, you will remain a slave to your body and will stay feeling powerless. Every set back will be proof that you can’t do it. The truth is that your mind IS your body. Your will IS your body. You have control over what your body looks like and does.

By reading this you are learning more tools and information on how your body functions so that you can use those tools to be in control and guide the fat loss and muscle building. It’s math, it’s formulaic, it must happen. There is no failure, there’s no “let’s hope”. If you eat well, if you move your body and IF you intend to lose this weight, your body must do what it is programmed to do, it must let the fat go and build muscle.

So you are not powerless, you’re not a child, you’re not at the whim of a body that does strange crazy things. It’s measurable, it’s science, you control it. And now you understand it more. So once you take charge and realize you will lose, and the only question is going to be how quickly, then you know there’s nothing to fear, nothing to question.

If you are scared, if you are looking for the first sign of “failure” so you can quit, then you are looking to identify with failure and you need to stay overweight so you can continue to be the victim. Look inside yourself and feel if this rings true to you. Are bad things always happening to you? Do you find yourself always saying “See, I told you”, do you feel unlucky? These things are indicators that you have identified with a victim mentality. It’s alluring and easy to slide into, especially if you grew up hearing it in your home.  But look underneath that. It has sort of a childlike “somebody help me” quality to it, doesn’t it?

I’m not laying blame and I know nobody would ever WANT to be a victim, we’re talking about going underneath the surface and feeling something a little deeper. I don’t think identifying with victim-hood is something anyone wants on the surface, I believe it is frustration, a lack of answers, a true, “What’s going on, why are things like this, why is this happening to me?”,kind of thing.

It’s strange that stopping asking those questions, is actually the answer to those questions; that to help yourself, to end fear, powerlessness and confusion you have to stop feeling powerless and fearful and stop asking for help. In doing so, you have to grow up, you have to be wiling to not know and be okay with that. You have to not have an identity with “help me”, you have give up the “poor me” talk, you have to stop feeling broken and unlucky and you have to begin to say, “Okay, if I’m not those things, then what, and who, am I”? And for a while you may not know. It’s weird how people will lose friends, abuse others, make bad choices and stay overweight just so they don’t ever have to experience not looking at who they are for a while. But once you do it, once you sit in a lack of victim-hood but not yet in a place of power, you begin to get good at it. And after a while it’s not so bad. Until one day you realize that you have slowly begun to find out you are powerful. This beautiful person emerges that, all that “I can’t” was covering up all along. It doesn’t mean you have all the answers, it doesn’t mean you are perfect or that now you’ll lose weight, you won’t fail (there’s that word again) and that life will be rosy. But it does mean that now you see everything differently. And hopefully you’ll understand what I write next.

There’s no failure

So when you fall off a diet, you used to tell yourself, “See, I’m a failure, I can’t do this, I thought this diet would help but it too failed, I’m a failure and there’s no point continuing if this is just going to fail too.” But when I “fall off a diet’ , firstly, I don’t consider it falling off a diet. I consider it, eating badly for a few days. By calling it a diet, I’ve created this campaign that I’m a part of that has some direction that’s right or wrong. Then by saying the word, failure, I’ve created finality to it, not continuity. It’s not a diet, it’s eating differently to steer my body in a direction, it’s not final, everyday is a new day. Each day bleeds into the next, each hour into the next, each moment into the next. How can I separate that? So the BIG difference, the IT that will decide whether or not “this” diet works and you will lose the weight lies in what we call it, what we tell ourselves and how we see it all. Do we see some big campaign with a win/lose proposition or just another day where we are doing our best because we TRULY don’t want to be victims to our body anymore and we really want to lose the weight.

Read on tomorrow for part two of what Teresa has to say. 

To learn the science of how the body is programmed to hang on to or let go of fat, click here to read lots of free excerpts from the book, The Reality of Weight Loss by Teresa Bondora or log onto, www.HowToTeachScience.com where you are welcome to stay and read and learn.

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Want dancer’s legs without having to go to dance class? Here’s a move that will help give your legs that long, lean appearance!

You’ll need a chair for support. Start by standing tall, with one hand on the back of the chair for balance and the other on your hip. Begin in “first position” (think ballet), with your toes turned out and your heels touching. Keep your back straight and your abs tight. Dip down by bending at the knees, keeping them square over your toes. Lift your heels off the floor, pushing from the balls of your feet. Straighten your legs, squeezing your buttocks and inner thighs, then lower your heels, returning to the starting position.

The move has four steps — plié down, lift heels, push up, and heels down to starting position. Repeat the series for two sets of 8 to 12 reps each. Rest for 15 seconds between sets. Fabulous! It’s that simple!

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