Today is my wedding anniversary...8 years married. And today is another anniversary...900 days of intermittent fasting!
Wow, I can hardly believe it has been that long, yet somehow I always knew this would be a lifelong journey for me. When I first started fasting for weight loss, I would talk a bit about the intermittent fasting program with people I knew and I got a regular question: "But, what will you do once you lose the weight, go back to eating normally?"
I knew from my past failures with dieting that of course it never works to change your routine temporarily. I knew this because I had always gained back any weight lost while dieting. So when I found intermittent fasting, I decided right away that I had to do this forever.
And that really is the key. Doing something forever, whatever it is.
I say it all the time, diets don't work. That is only because diet = temporary. If you took on any diet out there as a forever thing, they would all work! But really, who can eat only lettuce forever, or count calories forever, or not eat carbs forever? Not many people I know.
Lifestyle change is just a fancy phrase that means forever. And the only way you will want to do something forever is if it doesn't feel like work, like effort, like a diet.
Intermittent fasting is my forever thing. What is yours?
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
How do I lose weight?
Everyone thinks they know the answer to this question.
Less carbs, No sugar, Count Calories, Crash Diet, Surgery, Diet Pill, Join a Gym...on and on and on...They are all right...you can lose weight doing these things...but chances are you will find it again...
I don't want to lose weight...I want to release it...forever.
The real question we should be asking is how do I release weight? This is much more complicated and only creates more questions.
Why are we fat in the first place?
If you think it is because you have no time, or you are tired, or you are lazy or you have no willpower or you just eat too much or you don't exercise enough, these are not the real problems...they are only the symptoms. The real problem is much deeper than that.
Do any of you know someone who has just always been skinny. They have never struggled, and yet they seem to always enjoy food and be just as busy as we are and yes they are tired too...the difference is that they are not trying to fill a void (or maybe their void doesn't fill up with food as nicely as ours does, they may use other things to fill their voids).
What is your void?
Happiness...we all want it, it is the one thing that everyone will say they want, the problem is that we don't really know what it is or how to get it. Maybe it is as simple as that, you don't really know how to be happy. Maybe it is more complicated than that. It is a fight that is going on inside.
The fight is deep, it is harder than a change of diet or an addition of exercise...it is psychological. The void is the culprit and sometimes that void is so well hidden that it may never be found. Go deeper than just the actions that have caused weight gain...look to why weight gain is making you feel better.
I know, you are saying: "What!? But I don't feel better, I feel awful, I hate being fat, I want to be thin, being thin will make me feel better!" Maybe not.
Being fat is a response that your subconscious has created to protect you from something. Maybe you are padding yourself against the world. Maybe you want protection against being hurt or being loved. Maybe you want to be invisible. Being fat makes you invisible in a way, people look away or see the fat and not the true you. Maybe you are punishing yourself for not being who you think you should be or who others think you should be.
Being fat is the symptom, not the problem.
What is the problem?
Look deep. Pain is usually the culprit. There is deep pain somewhere. Release the pain if you want to release the weight. A diet is not the answer. A new exercise routine is not the answer. Surgery is not the answer. These things are not treating the problem, they are only treating the symptom.
Talk about it, with a friend, with a counsellor, in an online forum, in your church...reach out to those who can understand and help you see the truth. The problem is sometimes well hidden. You may not be able to see it yourself. You are too close, to comfortable living with it. Someone else can help you to see things in a new light.
Be open to accepting this problem and facing it. It may be hard, you may have trauma to deal with. You may not want to think about it or talk about it. But in order to truly release, the pain and your weight, you have to accept the problem.
How can I change?
One small step at a time. Only things that are done out of pleasure really continue to get done. Even a job we don't like comes with reward, a pay check, benefits etc. We get pleasure out of it and that is why we keep doing it. If there was no reward and no pleasure we would stop. That is why a crash diet won't work because you will stop doing it eventually.
Change little by little and all the while look inside, go deeper. See fat as a symptom. Find the problem and face it, rid yourself of the void to get to the cause of why we are fat in the first place and finally RELEASE.
Less carbs, No sugar, Count Calories, Crash Diet, Surgery, Diet Pill, Join a Gym...on and on and on...They are all right...you can lose weight doing these things...but chances are you will find it again...
I don't want to lose weight...I want to release it...forever.
The real question we should be asking is how do I release weight? This is much more complicated and only creates more questions.
Why are we fat in the first place?
If you think it is because you have no time, or you are tired, or you are lazy or you have no willpower or you just eat too much or you don't exercise enough, these are not the real problems...they are only the symptoms. The real problem is much deeper than that.
Do any of you know someone who has just always been skinny. They have never struggled, and yet they seem to always enjoy food and be just as busy as we are and yes they are tired too...the difference is that they are not trying to fill a void (or maybe their void doesn't fill up with food as nicely as ours does, they may use other things to fill their voids).
What is your void?
Happiness...we all want it, it is the one thing that everyone will say they want, the problem is that we don't really know what it is or how to get it. Maybe it is as simple as that, you don't really know how to be happy. Maybe it is more complicated than that. It is a fight that is going on inside.
The fight is deep, it is harder than a change of diet or an addition of exercise...it is psychological. The void is the culprit and sometimes that void is so well hidden that it may never be found. Go deeper than just the actions that have caused weight gain...look to why weight gain is making you feel better.
I know, you are saying: "What!? But I don't feel better, I feel awful, I hate being fat, I want to be thin, being thin will make me feel better!" Maybe not.
Being fat is a response that your subconscious has created to protect you from something. Maybe you are padding yourself against the world. Maybe you want protection against being hurt or being loved. Maybe you want to be invisible. Being fat makes you invisible in a way, people look away or see the fat and not the true you. Maybe you are punishing yourself for not being who you think you should be or who others think you should be.
Being fat is the symptom, not the problem.
What is the problem?
Look deep. Pain is usually the culprit. There is deep pain somewhere. Release the pain if you want to release the weight. A diet is not the answer. A new exercise routine is not the answer. Surgery is not the answer. These things are not treating the problem, they are only treating the symptom.
Talk about it, with a friend, with a counsellor, in an online forum, in your church...reach out to those who can understand and help you see the truth. The problem is sometimes well hidden. You may not be able to see it yourself. You are too close, to comfortable living with it. Someone else can help you to see things in a new light.
Be open to accepting this problem and facing it. It may be hard, you may have trauma to deal with. You may not want to think about it or talk about it. But in order to truly release, the pain and your weight, you have to accept the problem.
How can I change?
One small step at a time. Only things that are done out of pleasure really continue to get done. Even a job we don't like comes with reward, a pay check, benefits etc. We get pleasure out of it and that is why we keep doing it. If there was no reward and no pleasure we would stop. That is why a crash diet won't work because you will stop doing it eventually.
Change little by little and all the while look inside, go deeper. See fat as a symptom. Find the problem and face it, rid yourself of the void to get to the cause of why we are fat in the first place and finally RELEASE.
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