14 Years on the Permanent Weight Loss Road: Finding Love in All the Right Places

As I celebrate 14 years on the permanent weight loss road, my own little “self” anniversary, I’m making it a point to look back as well as forward.

Reflection is only useful if it brings greater awareness. Speaking from the beginning stages of weight loss, one of my newer clients asked me, “Oh, don’t you look back and feel bad for those days when you could enjoy eating anything you wanted?”

permanent-weight-loss-14th anniversary pic

She was earnest, and honest, but looking through the lens of her own fears. And, no, the pleasures I feel and create today don’t even compare to pepperoni pizza. They couldn’t come close to that meaningless little chocolate truffle. No, they’re not even on the same planet.

Sure, food can be a pleasure but, when your senses are tuned into life, you are constantly creating heightened states of energy, ecstasy, and expansion — within your soul, not just your body.

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Paying Attention to Human Limits (movie “Limitless”)

The new movie “Limitless”, starring Bradley Cooper as a blocked writer seeking a pharmaceutical boost to meet a publisher’s deadline, inspired this post.

The movie is built around several cliches, including the one known as “blocked writer syndrome” (I’m always incredulous when I hear “blocked writers with publishers’ deadlines”, since I have 3 books ready for publication right here on my desk, can always meet a deadline, am a self-starter and finisher (because I can coach myself out of any hesitancy), and have no contract yet) — but its bigger themes include “power is seductive” and “today’s world lacks humanity.”

limitless

Another cliche caught my attention though. It’s the “quick fix.” Our growing cultural belief that we can “fast forward” (more…)

Checked Baggage: Life Without the Stories

For anyone living under a rock, Geneen Roth’s new book “Women Food and God” is a New York Times bestseller recently featured on Oprah. I first studied Geneen’s ideas on intuitive eating and breaking out of diet hell many years ago.

Here’s an idea from the new book that had great impact on me:

love life without the story,

you without your past

 

Wow – all that past … just gone.

All those stories … obliterated.

All that baggage … dropped at the airport and left on the conveyor belt of life.
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Food Fight!!!

YellowGirlFruit

It’s the middle of January and, in one form or another, many of us are fighting with our food.

As New Year’s Resolutions fade and sputter and maybe even get thrown to the wind, it’s easy to fall into a real struggle with food. Most diets set us up for struggle. They make some foods “good” (which doesn’t line up with what our mind says is “good”), and some “bad.”

But even an old pro like me has a momentary brain fart around food.
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Fat and the Bridesmaid Dress

Tomorrow is always a sad day for me. Even though it comes right after Christmas, it’s been a sad day for me for the past 15 years.

During the decades I spent overweight, fat had a big impact on my life. My appearance kept me from enjoying many activities, made me feel shy and awkward with people, and impacted my relationships.

I hid whenever possible. I dressed in black and stayed in the background. I hoped no one would notice me in crowds or at events. I grew very uncomfortable whenever attention came my way because of my size. You can imagine the horror I felt when my sister Paula asked me to be in her wedding party. It was 1991 and I was at a “medium” weight, having regained some 60 lbs after a 3-year hiatus from sugar and white flour. The weight had returned, as it always did, with a vengeance.

I was even more horrified when I saw the dresses she had picked out!
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