The Secret.....

This week saw quite the landmark for me. At my last weigh in I found that I had lost another five pounds, bringing my current weight down to 12st 5lb. This figure means a lot to me as it was my initial target when I first began trying to lose weight this time. I’m not exactly sure why I picked this figure, I think it may have been the lowest I managed to get down to on a previous weight loss attempt many, many moons ago. By ‘many moons’ I am talking a good twenty years if not more. It struck me just today that I have spent at least half of my Twenties, the vast majority of my Thirties (give or take a year, when I lost the weight before piling it all back on again) and the first part of my Forties in a physical state where I have weighed in excess of 20 stone. Not a very nice statistic, but no more – that figure will be relegated forever to ancient history… So here I am now, just five pounds away from “halving myself” , from a life, and happiness, threatening 24 stones down to a comfortable, energetic 12st. And I’ve achieved it, so far, in just under a year. So I am feeling contemplative and very, very grateful…. People approach me all the time, now, to ask me how I managed to lose weight. The ask me what is “The Secret” to my success. Well, after keeping it under my hat for a year it’s time for me to do the Big Reveal, to disclose the Truth about how I have so succeeded so far. So here goes….. The Secret Is…(drum roll…)…There is no Secret! (oh dear, I can hear the sounds of people reaching to click off the page as I type….) But, bear  with me, please. There is no Secret but there is a Big Obvious Truth ( the kind that comes in neon, six feet high letters) that is staring us all in the face. The problem with Truths, is that very few of us, including me, actually want to see them…. If you want to get scientific, the basic equation of weight loss is : More Calories Out + Less calories In = Weight Loss. But I think that there’s a little more to it than that. Science is all well and good but it doesn’t take into account the emotional and spiritual factors that have an inconvenient way of interfering with our day to day lives.  So I’ve been doing a lot of exploring over the past twelve months and come to this very simple conclusion. You can apply this to any diet you like, be it Cambridge, SW, WW, 5:2 or any other convoluted nutrition plan… So here is my Secret -…… Losing Weight Does NOT Make You Happy. It will NOT fix your problems for you. Ok, I can sense the impending mouse clicking already…. I am sure that this simple statement will l disappoint a great number of people. How many of us have told ourselves that our lives would be much better if only we were thinner, that our quality of life would be somehow magically enhanced on the mythical day that we slip effortlessly into those size 8 jeans? Some of us get to that target, but many of us don’t, or if we do, it’s a fleeting moment of glory before we slide back in bad habits and the ensuing conclusion that “it can’t be done”. So I maintain my statement. Losing weight cannot possibly make you happy. Only you, the wonderful person inside can do that. It took a very long time for to realise this and to finally understand that my weight gain was a SYMPTOM of all the bad things that were going on in my life, and not the cause.  Long before I was able to embark on this weight loss journey,  I had to work on fixing my head, getting myself straight and reconciling myself with the poor image that I saw reflected in the mirror.

I have come to believe that we each possess a certain amount of energy within us. Not the physical stuff, but the emotional and spiritual energy. Trying to lose weight, especially if you are or have been an emotional eater, expends a vast amount of that energy. It takes a lot of effort, determination, dare I say it, Willpower. The problem is, that if some of our energy is diverted dealing with other matters, which, more often than not, can be more pressing and urgent, then we simply do not have the resources required to dedicate ourselves to changing ourselves into the people we want to be. It’s pretty simple, really.
 The problem is that Obesity has been cited as the One True Evil, it’s the first bastion that the medical researchers cling to. And it is also one of the “Easiest” things to fix, if you believe all the hype of the diet industry. “Just eat less and you’ll get skinny” they cry. What they don’t tell is HOW to eat less.

My advice to anyone who wants to embark on a challenging journey such as I have is this: 

Get Your Heads In the Game First. Take a long, deep look at your life and see what other things you need to change first. What are the aspects of your life that are draining and blocking that emotional energy? For me, it was Toxic Relationships. It took me a while to realise but I was beset by Emotional Vampires in my life, and I was allowing them to suck the very life source from me. And as I became more and more drained, I needed to find a replacement source to sustain me. For me it was Food. But it didn’t work. The Vampires kept sucking and I kept eating, and all that happened was that I got fatter and fatter. And the problem didn’t go away. Eventually, I just cracked, nothing else had worked, I couldn’t run away so I had no choice but to turn around and face my demons. I stood up to them, I told them to leave me alone. It was a painful, terrifying process but one that I had to go through. And I do not regret it. Once the dust had settled and the Vampires had retreated from my life, slowly and surely I began to feel stronger…the energy that had been stolen from me for so long began to ebb back into me. With this energy came a self love too, an innate pride in having mustered the courage and strength to take what I deserved and reject what I did not. And so, a little seed of thought began to germinate in my head….If I had the inner strength to tackle those demons, maybe I had the power to broach others.  Finally I had the energy to tackle my weight loss. And I haven’t looked back so far…..

So that is my Secret… straighten your head before you tackle your body.

Strangely enough, “The Secret” is the title of a best-selling book, all about the Law of Attraction. I have yet to actually read all of this, but I do know that the principle of this book is that “Like Attracts Like”. This means that, as I did, the more you give into Negative Energy , the more likely it will seem to be bestowed upon you. Conversely, if you approach life with a positive and thankful attitude,then life will give you more to be grateful for. Of course, this could be dismissed as hokum, and I’m sure that there there are plenty  who will provide examples to the contrary, but it certainly seems to be working for me! Ever since I took that momentous decision to pick myself off the floor, then blessings seemed to start landing on on my doorstep. Maybe they were always there and I was too deep in my own misery to see them, who knows. All I can say is that life seems a lot rosier to me right now. Of course, even in all this glowing positivity, I am acutely aware that I am living in a very comfortable, unchallenged lifestyle right now so it is easier to see life from the sunny side. We are not beset by illness or poverty, we are secure and happy. I often ask myself, how would I cope if life were to suddenly throw me an unpleasant curve ball. Would all my efforts diminish and would I resort to the destructive and self-defeating coping mechanisms that I relied upon so many times in the past?

This is where the true hard work comes in, and I am currently at the stage of re-assigning my beliefs and thought patterns and endeavouring to change the way I think. Even now, as I suspect we all do, I have that little voice (or Devil on My Shoulder) encouraging me to stray off the righteous path. This voice can be pretty convincing, it knows me well, how to exploit my weaknesses and foibles. Thankfully now, I am learning to listen to another voice that exists within me, one that is learning to speak up and put the Devil in his place. For a very long time I believed that initial Devil voice, after all, it came from within so it must be true. And I became a slave to my Devils’ wants and desires, most of which were very bad for me. I am learning now not to give credence to this voice and to stop, think for a moment and wait before  acting compulsively upon its demands. If I slow down for a second, and wait, the other voice, soft and reassuring, like my own little Fairy Godmother, slips in and gently guides me back down the right path. You just have to wait for a moment. After all, Cinderella’s godmother was clearly a bit of a last-minute merchant, But it did Cinders the world of good when she finally turned up!! So when the Devil speaks up , telling me of the virtues of that delicious cake I hang around until the fairy Godmother slips in with a whisper, “you don’t really want that, dear, you’ll feel guilty and terrible for eating it, and it will make you fat…”

The Devil is at his strongest when we are at our weakest, when our energy is diverted by trauma, drama and tragedy. He is the ultimate Emotional Vampire. So how do we defeat him? This is my strategy… The Devil hates repetition, he doesn’t need it, if he is doing his job properly he only needs to slip in one seductive suggestion and we’re hooked. So to really piss him off, find yourself a Mantra, some affirming positive words you can repeat over and over in your head until you have drowned him out. I was thinking long and hard about this recently and I have now found something that stroingly resonates with me: “Food Never Got Me Through Anything. It Didn’t Fix the Bad Times”. Let me explain…when I reflect on the bad times that happened in my life, the times I struggled and faltered, what are the things that I remember that  helped me to survive, the little life rafts that I clung onto that stopped me going under forever? For me, it was mainly people, good friends that supported and tolerated me, folks that held me up when I had no energy of my own. I can remember the things that they said to me, the gestures they offered and the places they took me.   I can remember songs, movies, quotes that resonated with me at the time because they gave me hope or made me fell less alone. These are filed under "Good Times through Adversity" and they really were life savers. I can draw on these unforgettable moments to sustain me when I'm feeling blue. Strangely enough though, I simply cannot remember the foods I ate during those dark periods. I know I ate, lots of very bad foods, because I got fat, but that’s where the details fade out. So why was the food so forgettable? Because it did nothing for me, it gave me nothing of use to aid me in my recovery…. So, why oh why, did I consistently turn to food when the going got tough?? What magic quality did I think it was going to impart to me? So that is my mantra when I’m feeling down and want to reach for something sweet and sugary because I’m having a tough day:

“Food Never Got Me Through Anything. It Didn’t Fix the Bad Times”. I will repeat it over and over again until the message finally sinks in.

Try the exercise for yourself, think of a difficult period in your life. Firstly, congratulate yourself for surviving, And then, make a note of all the things that helped you get through. I bet you won’t find any list of any foods there.

The only person whose life can be changed for the better by food is a famine victim….

I guess you can call that my Secret. I’m still working on the rest. Wish me luck….