What’s your Why?
"Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it.
Make your mental blue print, and begin to build."
- Robert Collier
For many years I decided to lose weight because a big event was looming – it was my sister’s wedding then it was a trip to Vietnam; or it was a beach holiday or a hundred other events! They were all pretty much unsuccessful because I hadn’t thought what would happen after the event was over and therefore basically went back to my “normal” eating, slowly putting the weight back on.
For those who have always struggled with weight loss will know that it is never short term; you can’t just lose weight for some event. It may be a good incentive to get you started, but you must also make the shift in your mind about how you see yourself and also have a compelling reason to make that change. Without the change in mindset, the weight loss will never be permanent.
It’s always more powerful for the reason to be moving towards something positive, rather than away from something negative e.g. “I want to feel good wearing that little black dress I have my eye on” as opposed to “I don’t want to feel self-conscious anymore”.
What’s your why? One of my reasons is because I want to confidently wear glamorous clothes in summer. My plan is to spend a few minutes at least twice every day, visualising myself wearing the clothes; focusing on how I feel, what’s going on around me and basically just immersing myself in my desired surroundings. According to one of the Universal Laws - The Law of Attraction - what we focus on expands. (“This Universal Law demonstrates how we create the things, events, and people that come into our lives. Our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions produce energies which, in turn, attract like energies. Negative energies attract negative energies and positive energies attract positive energies.”)
In my case and applying the Law of Attraction, the more I focus on what I will look like and how that will make me feel, will eventuate.
So, spend some time thinking about your compelling reason to lose weight and LightenUp even more. It must be for you, not for your kids, your family, your friends. While they will benefit from your change in mindset, the change can truly only happen internally if you are truly making the change for yourself.
So, what’s your why??
How do you eat your elephant?
I used to try and eat my “elephant” in one go until I realised that was just a ridiculous and unsustainable approach! My “elephant” was my eating and exercise regime. I would suddenly decide that I had eaten enough “bad” food and therefore had to stop, only allow good food to pass my lips and exercise like I was training for an Olympic event! As you can imagine, this approach did not last very long and then I reverted just as badly the other way – if I couldn’t do it all at once, I wasn’t going to do it at all! Pretty crazy….
Instead of trying to tackle my elephant in one sitting, I learnt to break it down into “chunks”. Just by taking one section at a time, and focusing only on that, things felt far more manageable. Instead of becoming a wannabe Olympian, I decided just to make sure I did some form of exercise every day – a walk during my lunch hour, gardening on the weekend, a walk to the coffee shop with friends (it all counts J). Once this became a habit, I then didn’t think about it, it had become part of my lifestyle.
With my food, the first choice I made was to eliminate something from my diet – the first for me was dairy – I thought I couldn’t live without milk but in fact I actually now prefer my tea with out milk and I’ve discovered the wonderful world of Chai (for those of you in Launceston, Stillwater River Café does a superb Soy Chai Tea). Now I have adjusted my diet to exclude milk, my next “chunk” is to cut down and eventually eliminate wheat – I’ve already started and found the most delicious 100% organic rye bread – it’s a little more expensive, but certainly worth it. I’ve also noticed how much more energy I have.
By tackling my diet and exercise in this way, I find it much more sustainable, far more enjoyable and easier to incorporate into my life.
Think about what your “elephant” is – are you trying to tackle it head on, or have you broken it down into smaller pieces and focusing on just one element at a time?
What’s the news?
There has been some media lately related to weight loss, fad diets and also how your mind is so closely related to your physical results. We’ve included a few links here for you to have a look at in your own time – we encourage you to check them out.
http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s2657885.htm - this is Part 1 of a 3 part series on what living the good life means – in this video, Ian Gawler talks about his cancer journey and about his pioneering work in integrated ‘mind-body’ medicine and the therapeutic use of meditation and nutrition.
Check out this new show on Channel 10 - http://bodybrain.com.au/info/home
This article is about the Government’s move to regulate the $414 billion diet and weight loss industry in Australia
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,28383,25959709-5007192,00.html
and finally, Size 14 models are back!!!
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/government-to-crack-down-on-fad-diets/story-e6frf019-1225763537476
Next month we are looking forward to profiling one of our wonderful members. We are so excited to see all the entries on the Forum and what changes people are making as a result of working through LightenUp. We also acknowledge that some people are finding things challenging – when making significant changes in your life, it’s completely normal to experience challenges. In fact this can sometimes indicate that you are getting close to making that big shift. Continue to provide your feedback/comments and successes – and make sure you chat amongst yourselves on the forum – I find it really valuable to talk to others who have experienced similar issues in their weight loss/mind-shift journey.
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