Want To Change

Thank you so much Madeline Sharples of Naturally Savvy for writing the following article about LIghten Up with Lynda Beth

http://www.naturallysavvy.com/savvy-over-60/accountability-%E2%80%93-its-up-to-us

Our times seem filled with bad news. Do we really want to make a list? Earthquakes and hurricanes on the East Coast, heat waves and fires in the Midwest, and a sagging economy.

As we live our lives, I wonder — and am often asked — what can I control these days? The answer, unsurprisingly, is that which is within our reach and can strengthen us from the inside out.

1. You can control what you eat and drink.
2. You can control how much you move and/or exercise.
3. You can control the colors and style of the clothes you wear.
3. You can control — to some extent — how you think and feel.

Which of these is the hardest? Which brings the most rewards? You got it — controlling your mind and emotions. At the heart of health is knowing how to use your mind and work with your emotions.

Have you ever felt that:

1. No matter how hard you try, it will never be enough and you will never reach your cherished life-time goals?
2. You can’t be successful, powerful, outgoing, and attractive?
3. It is not safe to speak out?
4. Others are more important than you?
5. You must follow others or suffer?

If you answer yes to any of the above, you are undermining yourself with harmful core beliefs. And these days, we have to be very careful what we tell ourselves, and what we allow ourselves to hear from the world at large. These core beliefs have a role in everything we do, including weight loss, which, beside being a goal in itself, is a proxy for how we feel in the world.

Before people begin to lose weight, they think that when they reach their goal that everything else in their life will simply fall into place. They’re surprised when that does not happen as cleanly or neatly as they assumed. If they look a little deeper, they will discover that core beliefs they may hold still impact their lives more than they suspected.

This brings us to a threshold that is so important — for ourselves and our dealings in the world. Inner change, like weight loss, comes slowly but surely. If you can set aside or shift even one negative belief, you will experience an improved relationship with your life and health.

Losing weight without doing corresponding inner emotional work often sets you up for unexpected disappointment. That’s why journaling emotions and feelings on the daily food log is as important as the nuts and bolts of watching what you eat, controlling portions and counting calories.

Losing weight is not easy, because it involves discipline and awareness. But those very traits are within us, and if we can call upon them to help us improve our bodies and minds, then we can also reap unexpected rewards to face the rest of what life is throwing at us.

Consider that a just dessert — and one that is calorie-free!

You’ve kept a daily food diary, you’ve counted calories, and you’ve started to lose weight—maybe a pound or two a week.

And then it happens: You hit a wall.

You tell yourself, ‘It’s too hard.’ ‘I’ll never get to goal.’ ‘I’m hungry at times.’ or ‘I can’t go on.’

This is The Dreaded Plateau.

You tell yourself, ‘No more food diaries.’ ‘No more counting calories.’ ‘No more being hungry.’

But you also like the lower number on the scale and how you look a little trimmer in the mirror. You like how your clothes fit a little looser and how you don’t feel stuffed so much between meals anymore.

You’ve reached a tipping point—a line where you can go back to old ways or into a new future.

What will you do? What do you want? What’s in your heart and head?

A complex dynamic is at play.

Tony Robbins, in a TED speech entitled, “Why We Do What We Do,” said, “Emotion is the force of life and if we get the right emotion, we can get ourselves to do anything. Decision is the ultimate power in our lives.”

Emotions propel our actions and help us achieve the success we want.

When people reach The Dreaded Plateau they want to give up on their weight-loss regimes. I encourage them to write all the reasons they want to get slim. According to Judith Beck, PhD, psychologist and author of The Complete Beck Diet for Life, people who write down their reasons and read it daily are significantly more successful than those who don’t.

That is because life is unpredictable, we can all feel vulnerable, and we need to know our reasons to resist eating more than we should as a form of self-medication.

Reminding yourself everyday why you want to get slim keeps you focused and on track.

Ask yourself, how would you feel, with a better weight and body image?

Write the answer. Read it daily. Listen to this voice. It is you.

Believe you can be more comfortable in your own skin.

Nobody said that weight loss was easy. People who lose weight experience many complex emotions.

People at the plateau—and this is almost everyone—including me, overlook many subtle benefits that are surfacing.

If people are mindful of the positive emotions associated with reaching their goals, they can do The Assignment again and again—the food logs and calorie counts.

You actually want to do it—and do it right—because you can see and feel the work is bringing an emotional and physical payoff that has meaning and is fulfilling.

Sometimes we need to return to the basic desire or goal that pushed you toward this journey.

You would rather sit on the ground and play with your grandchildren than have more dessert.

You want to feel light and flexible in your body and move with grace and ease.

You want the pleasure of fitting into and wearing stylish clothes.

Personally, I want to feel strong, fit and attractive.

Kate Moss the super-thin model said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Everyone has a credo that works for them, but I would amend her motto to say, “Nothing tastes as good as feeling good in and confident about my body.”

What are your emotional and physical payoffs for losing weight?

Can you write them and emotionally connect with them now?

I would love to hear what they are for YOU!

You do not have to stay on the plateau.

You can have the future you want—what you dreamed when you began the journey.

“If you were going to live on a Desert Island for the rest of your life and you could only take 15 foods to eat, what foods would you take?”

That is what I ask new weight loss clients.

People often are dumbstruck when they hear this question. They think that if they are about to embark on a weight loss journey, the foods they love to eat will be banished until they meet their goal.

Actually the opposite is true.

If you don’t eat the foods you love in moderation, you probably never will succeed at weight loss. Living in deprivation of what you love to eat means you are not likely to succeed in the long run.

Most people write down:

1. bread
2. cheese
3. pasta
4. wine
5. coffee
6. chocolate.

Perhaps the Dalai Lama is right: People are more alike than different. Maybe I could open a coffee shop/wine bar that serves yummy pasta and chocolate? That’s food for thought — but in small portions. Let me explain.

Once I see client’s Desert Island menu, I ask them to imagine a day of eating that includes at least one or two of those foods on their a la carte list, which prompts more raised eyebrows.

Then I ask them if they know how many calories are in their favorite foods and the portion size they eat. Most people cannot precisely answer because they don’t eat with a heightened sense of portion size and the caloric implications.

You can eat your favorite foods, I tell clients, but you must do it with a new awareness, knowledge and discretion to lose weight successfully.

Learning how to do this takes practice, patience and discipline.

It isn’t easy and most people don’t master it overnight.

And you may change your diet on this journey.

Indeed enlightenment comes little by little.

But you do not have to move to a Desert Island to lose weight. You just have to eat the foods you love more consciously and in moderation.

You can lose weight and maintain it without feeling deprived.

What’s on your Desert Island menu?

“The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought.  That’s what we’re going to discover again and again and again.  Nothing is ever what we thought.  I can say that with great confidence.”

–Pema Chodron, “When Things Fall Apart”

Before we talk about making your dreams come true, let me talk about one of mine.

In the fall of 2008 I bailed Big-Time.  I sold my house.  I walked away from the business I’d created and worked hard at for 12 years.  I wanted to  write my first book.

I was so supported in my dream that I was given a place to live rent-free.  For two months,  I wrote from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day.  Then I worked out.  Then drove to Safeway, bought food, and cooked.  I ate, slept, got up and wrote more.  I produced a real work-in-progress–but my book?  It isn’t finished. I ran out of money. I had to go back to work in the “real world.”

To tell you the truth, writing my book wasn’t that much fun. Sitting for hours produced a stiff back and a sore butt. Revising sentences was slow and tedious. Thinking about those sentences and a good story line made my head spin.

Book-writing was such a lonely business! I missed talking with people on my old jobs.  It was the hardest thing I’d ever tried. It made law school feel like kindergarten!

My life-long book dream took a severe beating. I discovered something I wanted was not what I thought. Oh,  I still want a book, but not the work to make it happen.

What can we do when we face dilemmas like this?

If we heed Pema Chodron’s advice, then we won’t bail, we’ll keep exploring.

When clients complain they are not losing weight fast enough, or it isn’t as easy as they thought it would be, I gently reply, ‘If you do the work, the change will happen.’

If we look at our lives, we know this is true.

A man I met taking his first acting class four years ago now has his own one-man show opening for eight weeks in a good San Francisco theatre. When I wrote him recently about my book-writing realization, he wrote back, “Keep searching.  You’ll eventually find it.  Shit, it took me 61 years!”

I felt so much better after reading that. Whether it’s weight loss or writing or whatever, I promise, ‘If you do the work, the change will happen.’

If you bail, well, maybe there’s something else you need to do first and it will be better for you.

Nothing is ever what we think it’s going to be.