A Little of This; A Little of That

Well, this isn't the "tomorrow" I said I would write this ~ sort of "manana" time though.

The problem I'm finding with writing my blog is that I get up fairly early, do some mundane things, then get out and walk. After writing my "How I Gained Weight" blog, the next morning I walked for about 2 hours. The following morning, I walked for 90 minutes (over 8,000 steps). During that time I think about all the things I want to write about including how I eliminated weight.

The difficulty is that by the time I get home, everything I want to say has already been said (in my mind) so, nothing left for me to say. O.k., well, not nothing. I can pretty much always say SOMEthing.

So, here's what happened.

As you may have read in my previous blog, I had put on about 30 excess pounds. Usually, when I've gained weight previously, I didn't have to do much other than to move! Mostly go to the gym for about 6 weeks and voila! Done! PLUS, I'd be buffed! (I buff easily)

This time however, it was a bit more difficult for a number of reasons. One, menopause. I've NEVER had a weight issue I couldn't eliminate easily yet, my head was wrapped around what others have said about it being harder to drop weight during menopause.

Two, I LOVE staying warm in bed and cuddling with himself which means I didn't get up and out walking or doing anything else for that matter. No matter how many times I promised myself at night that I was going to do it, in the morning that didn't happen.

Three, my computer addiction. When I DID get up, I'd turn on the computer, sit down, go through emails, facebook, twitter, RFT, etc., etc., etc. By the time I took care of that addiction it was either too hot out, too late and had to begin work OR, I'd eaten (overeaten) and just didn't feel to train and remember, it was already hot!

Fourth (last, but not least), he'd be up and asking if I wanted to go somewhere. Uh huh! Yep!

In essence, it didn't take much for me to be distracted from what I said I wanted to do... eliminate the excess weight!

So, what to do????

I don't remember exactly what turned me on to it but I'd been hearing about (Emotional Freedom Technique) EFT for awhile. Even though I've had training in Polarity Therapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine including Taijiquan/Qigong, reflexology, etc. I kind of poopoo'd that something so basic could really make a difference (which is really funny because all the health I have is from "energy therapy" which is what EFT is.)

One night in class, I noticed that my teacher had some information on EFT that he was handing out to his students. I always figure he doesn't waste time with something that doesn't "work" so began using it with myself and my students. WOW!

Then I had a 4-week study group with 5 other overweight women. Each week we'd show up with new stories of how much weight we'd eliminated or inches lost.

One woman told us on the first meeting that when she was stressed she'd eat a full carton of ice cream. She was using a sentence similar to ... "I totally love and support myself." She returned one week totally astounded. She said she'd never loved herself which is why she ate and overate yet during the previous week she'd felt stressed and instead of reaching for the ice cream she made some brown rice.. and overate it.

By the end of the 4 weeks, every one of us had eliminated 8-10 pounds. (I had already dropped the first 10 before beginning the study group). Not to say this will happen with EVERYone yet, it's possible AND, just consider, if we can eliminate even 5 pounds per month consistently for a year, that's 60 pounds!

So, EFT is one way. Another thing I included with the group were sentence completions which I'd learned many years ago during my training with my teacher. How that works is, we begin a sentence such as "One reason I keep the weight on is..." Then give 6-10 responses which may include "... I'm afraid to be seen"; "it's too much work to eliminate it", "I'll have to purchase a new wardrobe"; "I wont know who I am", "I'm afraid I'll feel deprived"; "I don't know what else to do when I'm feeling stressed", etc. (All of which are addressed during my "Tap Into Your Ideal Weight" program.)

Two other things I've found help a lot are tapping while doing appreciations. I've found at the end of classes that when we do this, the women leave feeling calm and not stressed so they don't go home ~ or out together ~ and eat late in the evening.

The final thing is visualization. Who are you when thin? What will people say? How will you look? How will you feel?

I wrote all this down for myself and am continuously adding to it. As I'm writing, I find how much of my life is interconnected and how it improves across the board.

Some of the things I worked on specifically for me were ~ getting up and walking or training so, tapping on procrastination. I'd make a list of what I wanted to do and get it done.

Tappin on elimination of the desire for sweets. On the landing page for my program I have a picture of this overweight woman sitting with a place of chips (cookies?) beside her. The next picture is the plate behind her and she's sneaking the chips. Been there, done that with sweets. I didn't want the cake, I wanted the frosting! Now, cake with all that colored frosting doesn't even look like food to me. When I go to functions I barely look at the sweets and when I do, it's like they're bugs under a microscope. It's very weird and interesting. Almost as though I don't recognize what they are as they seem to be from my distant past.

Tapping on elimination of the desire for what my husband eats including cheese and pizza. One night I was feeling very alone and he was gone so I cooked a pizza. Uh huh. I was physically done eating it by the time I was half-way through yet told myself I was going to finish it even if it made me sick. I did, it didn't but I've not had enough desire to eat it again.

I eat salads! What I've found is, I can pretty much have the same ingredients in my salad every single day IF I have a good dressing so, 3 fresh dressings and, I have 2-3 different salads every day.

When going to a buffet, fill my plate with half of what I would normally. I can always go back for more and now, instead of going for pasta, I go for more salad!

When we go out to eat, I ask them to divide the meal and pack half of it to go.

In the mornings, if I get up around 5, I get dressed (my clothes are either in the bathroom or my office so I don't have the excuse that I didn't want to wake him up by turning on the light) and head out.

Lately, I've been waking up around 3:30 so, I prepare my UStream show read all my personal emails, take care of Facebook and Twitter, might do daily appreciations THEN head out for a walk.

I'm much more consistently disciplined now that I've brought more focus on when, where, why, how and what I eat AND having eliminated much of the cravings, habits and eating patterns I've established of the past 6 years or so.

Thank you for reading all of this. It really wasn't supposed to be this long.

With that, I'll just say:

remember, live bodaciously and always celebrate your potential!

Revvell