Making Our Reality Everyday

A friend, who is a cancer survivor, gave me a book that has some valuable information for everyone with a chronic condition.  The book is Cancer:50 Essential Things to Do by Greg Anderson.

As I read it, I thought about how excess weight is like a cancer in the body. It won’t out right kill  but  it will weaken the body and has negative effects on  health. I began to look at obesity as a long, drawn out disease.

 I may have the disease of obesity, but I am not the disease! I may be overweight but that is only a part of me. I have fat on my body but I am not the fat itself and the fat is not me.

I have a serious condition that limits me in some ways.I want to modify that condition so I can enjoy life more! 

I need to accept in my mind that maintaining a healthy weight for my body is possible.I need to believe that I can lick this challenge!

I need to change some things about me that keep me from being a person without a weight problem.

I’m aware that I don’t take good care of my body. I overwork it, over tire it and often feed it  food that is quick but no necessarily good for it.

So, I’m going to go through the book and apply it to weight. It never hurts to refresh my mind because most of what is good for me I already  know –  but don’t do.

So, join me and let’s see if we can grasp on to a few of these ideas and actually begin to apply them to our lives.

Here are some things from the book (most of which I have read elsewhere) and some of my own ideas:

Being successful requires tactics that involve the mind, the body and the spirit. Getting our weight in a healthy range and keeping it there  requires long term participation in a healthy lifestyle  program in which we have confidence. Eating high protein meals is a good plan because it helps us  feel satisfied.

Everyday we need to take positive actions to enhance our greater well-being because when we’re down, we eat. Going to bed early a few times a week is a positive step towards keeping our body rested and our energy level high.

We strengthen our immune system by getting adequate sleep and practicing stress management exercises. When we take positive actions and strengthen our immune system, we mobilize all of our powerful natural healing potential to help us lose weight!

 Our immune system is profoundly influenced by our lifestyle choices. We handle cravings better when  our immune system is strong. Another way to build up our immune systemis  by taking 5 minutes during the day  to meditate. We feel stress the most when it accumulates. We get a stiff neck or we are irritable. Then we act impulsively instead of acting rationally.

We feel low energy in the late afternoon. We might grab something quick, sweet or with caffeine if we are reacting to stress. Instead we can be good to our body and bring a piece of fruit or some cubes of cheese with us in the morning. It’s in our best interest to eat something that strengthens us and repairs our cells.  

Take a time out. Most people feel that they don’t have the time or can’t take the time to meditate for 5 minutes. That really isn’t true. If you want it bad enough and know that it is for your health you will do it. Even if it means going into the bathroom stall for 5 minutes.

Adopt an attitude of hopefulness.We always have 2 paths before us when we encounter any challenge. One is marked by passiveness and despair. We give up trying to change our weight and feel helpless and hopeless about the situation. It seems that it really doesn’t matters what we eat anyway because we’ll gain the weight back anyway. If we feel hopeless to control our weight, we will never overcome the urges to eat. Embrace hope. Hope heals. It is a decision that always leads to better days and the belief that we may be capable of maintaining a healthy weight at some point in our lives. Chose to live life to the fullest no matter the number on the scale.

Always chose and act on hope! The triumphant person who battles cancer believes they worked for their wellness.They focueds on mobilizing body, mind and spirit in their quest for high-level wellness.We can do the same in our mastery of obesity.

Our beliefs and attitudes are what heal us. The most empowering belief is that we can attain and maintain a healthy weight. Much of the world still thinks that fat people are lazy and self-indulgent. We are self indulgent when it comes to food but we are way too hard on ourselves for everything else. Underlying everything is a sense of not feeling good enough or adequate enough. These feeling and thoughts are dis-empowering and lead to bad feelings –  feelings that lead to eating to soothe those feelings. Food will never replace good feelings. Overeating leads to negative feelings of inadequacy. It’s a self perpetuating circle.

Stop the feelings in their tracks! Refuse to harbor negative thoughts about yourself and your body! Whenever you become aware that a derogataory thought has entered your mind, counteract it with an affirmation of what a great person you are. Keep a list of your best traits near you and go to the list when you feel the urge to eat or have a bad thought about yourself. Read a few of your good traits and feel your spirits lift. Keep reading until you can walk away from the treat. Indulge yourself in another way. Take some lotion and give your hands a massage. Put on your favorite tune. Get up and dance to it.

In the book, the author gives some good advice.

• Stop “awfulizing.” So, you have a weight problem. Everyone has a problem whether it is apparent or not. Refuse to engage in conversation about dieting, calories, points or enumerating the “bad” food you ate over the weekend. Don’t focus on what you can’t eat. Focus on what you can eat. That’s plenty of protein, veggies and fruit. Eat as close to nature as possible. Talk all you want about that!
• Take charge.Clear your house of food that is “nasty’ to your body. Create a stock pile of healthy foods for lunches and to grab on the go. I like to keep some high protein bars in the cabinet by the door so I can grab one (just in case) when I’m going out to run errands. That and a bottle of water satisfies my hunger and makes me feel good about myself because I won’t be tempted to pick up some fast food instead. And, I won’t be starving when I come home and wolf down too much food as soon as I get in the door.
• Conviction vs wishful thinking. Be sure of the reason why you want to lose weight before you try another program. If it is for any other reason but wanting to get healthier, it won’t work!