Saturday, December 5, 2015

Attracting Weight Loss As A Multi-Dimensional Being

Body composition is a multi-dimensional topic. There is an ever changing pull of gravity on your body, the time of day, the water and food content, movement of the digestive system, the moon in it's rotation and heavy mental thoughts that blur objective vision. You can instantly change from a negative Nellie to feeling a turbo-charged motivational fire under your butt. Your body can look one way in certain flattering lighting and then send you doing disgusted double takes under overhead lights. We can feel like a steaming-hottie one second and a pile of rotting turd the next. We are emotional, subjective, easily changing beings made of mental thoughts, energy and physical parts. And it's pretty amazing.

We can have desires to lose weight that are so strong you can easily snuff away foods that don't support you; only to have a large spoon stuffing desserts in your face in the next moment. It is because we are multi dimensional that you can morph moment by moment into something different. This you can see in photos, the picture you look fabulous in, the next you would just crumble if it got posted on Facebook.  Sometimes our heart wants weight loss but your head knows better of it and resists attempts at a low calorie way-of-life.

There are many ways the rivers of weight loss and change converge into body transformation. All my family and friends know how many times I've gone done these paths, being inspired by change.  I've learned a few things for certain in my weight loss that I want to share. These are things that I have personally experienced that resonate strongly for me. My first example has a story to share, so bear with me as I use it to perfectly illustrate my point.

If I was born to an Indian family, my Indian name would be Plant-Killer-She-Is. I have a black thumb. My un-green thumb kills most living plants in some way or another. Unfortunately we have a plant that my hubby has had since college, a pretty tropical thing that shouldn't still be alive with this constant abuse. This plant is alive only because when it gets thirsty the leaves wilt downward. An hour after watering it, the leaves perk back up, Just as we know everyday Donald Trump will say something ridiculous, that plant comes back to life.

In the last few months we noticed the perking up process started to take longer, and more recently it never perked back up. So I read you can add hydrogen peroxide and water to the plant and decided it was a hail Mary worth trying. Either way, the worst outcome was plant death. Meh.

Three-days following the hydrogen peroxide treatment, I looked at this very sickly plant and decided it was not going to live, the leaves were more wilted than before treatment began.Another one bites the dust. I was plant-grieving the loss of another plant but my husband wasn't in my boat. The same day that I was mentally declaring death of this once luscious has-been, he walked by it and said, "look, it's coming back to life!" and got excited. What? Huh?

Turns out, he saw one of the leaves actually perked up just a tiny little bit. A sliver, really. And just like that, the death sentence was lifted from the plant. You see, my husband was looking for ways to see the plant was living, he was looking for signs of life. I was only seeing the wrinkled leaves, I was seeking out signs of death. We were both wanting the same outcome but he was looking through a glass-half-full lens

Sure enough, once that leaf started to perk up, the others followed. The plant will live, (at least for now.) But sometimes that is all you need, just the smallest indication, the smallest step towards hope can propel you over mountains. I tell you, once you start seeing results, the steps to get those results become a cinch. So do whatever you need to do to see objective results. Do that really hard workout, do a 20-hour fast, take a weekend off of eating meat, do a 48-hour juice fast. Walk into a Crossfit and let their programming push you.  Do anything that quickly propels you in the direction you want to go. It's like a jump start to your goals. It's confirming your inner strength and it's getting you fast results. .Side note, I wonder, Is this why my hubby loses weight so quickly? He is looking for a sliver of evidence while I don't see results until I've moved mountains?

Fear and Love Walk into a Bar...
So says Wayne Dyer, that we are either living in love or living in fear, nothing else.And nothing good ever happens in the fear zone. Even when I was at my ideal weight, I was always in the fear zone despite having the body I wanted. My thoughts were always calibrating to how afraid I was of gaining my weight back. It's been a gigantic realization to see that being fit isn't a stagnant place. Being fit, just like being fat; is not a place we stay. It's a place we can stay for a while - but it's not like your eye color-once you have blue eyes you always have them. Within a moment you can become something else. And remember, the difference between how you feel and how you feel toward what you want is what launches you toward change. Without your current discontentment, you would stay stagnant and change would not be motivated.

Hindsight is 20/20
So my recent weight gain has been a major source of contention for me. I've seen it coming and I've been looking for it.  This is EXACTLY the problem. When I was at my ideal weight, right where I wanted to be, I was always feeling like it was slipping. Always looking to see  the weight gain. I know weight gain starts in the lower body, so every spare second I analyzed if my legs looked bigger. I obsessed toward what I didn't want. Where I could have been looking in glee at my massive success. Instead I lived in fear. Fear only invites cortisol into your body which makes you hold onto extra weight, among a cascade of other things. 

So my primary focus of this blog is about getting to our happy weight. So what do we do? How do we get from point A (present) to point B (goal body). The answer: We do whatever we need to do to FEEL good. When we feel good, we are in a place of welcoming what we want by doing what keeps us happy. Besides the temporary high of food, what makes you happy? Believe me, even for a foodie, it's not just eating and it's not watching TV. Figure out what those things that ignite a fire inside you and do them more. Doing things you love will propel you in the direction you want to go. I guarantee it.

The Flip Switch
What can you do to get into that happy place when you are clearly not: I suggest to move. When I feel crummy, I know that emotion is sparking a fire under my butt for change. So stand up and change something. Once I was sitting on the couch feeling like Eeyore from Winne the Pooh, and felt like crap. Instead of wallowing in deeper despair, I got up and took my kids for a walk. Wala! Ten minutes later I was back to Ms. Positive - the cold Colorado air was magical.  Another day,  I had to go outside and flip my tire. I was overwhelmed with emotion and I knew I just needed to lift something heavy to screw my head back on straight. Other days, I go lift a heavy rock, go do yard work, hit up a yoga class, play soccer with my kids or do a headstand. Or if you have kids with you, take some private time in the bathroom, 5 minutes to breathe deeply and imagine the things you are grateful for or things that make you crack up laughing. Movement of the mind and movement of the body are key to change.

David Wilson, Ex-NFL star going for the Olympics. No negative thoughts here.


Anything that makes you feel good is a step in the right direction. Thoughts that make you feel despair or guilt or yuck should be avoided. Imagine how NFL players feel. Do you see them standing in the mirror telling themselves negative things about their bodies, how worthless and fat they are? Oh hell no, those guys are pumping themselves up imaging how they want their bodies to perform on game day.


Best of luck to us all!