If you have a back problem you go to the doctor.
If you have a headache you take a pill.
If you have a toothache you go to the dentist.
If you have a mother-in-law problem....... sorry.
You can't get away from any of them.. You can't pretend they are not there. They are with you all the time. They hang around. Dragging you down. Making you depressed, because someone or something has snuck in and taken control of your life.
Life's a bitch, they say. But only if you let it be.
The only way you will feel better about your nagging mother in law, or a nagging molar, or worse, a sagging belly, is to stand up to it and take control.
What is it about your weight that makes you depressed? And I really do mean depressed. Not just fed up. You are fed up when Eastenders is cancelled for snooker, but it doesn't last. This feeling goes deeper than that.
Do you get up in the morning and look critically at yourself in the mirror? More fool you. I don't bother. It's a knack. I can look into a full length mirror each morning and see only the part of the body I need to see.
Firstly its my hair - is it sticking up?
Half an hour later I might glance all over but I don't actually 'look'. It's really a cursory to see that nothing is where it shouldn't be. By then the hair has settled down and I am quite at one with myself. I don't need to look any more. And if, when I sit down to put my shoes on I feel my belly balancing comfortably on my thighs the last place I will go to is the mirror. I'm not a masochist!
Are your clothes too tight? That's the biggie. Do you want or even can you afford to buy bigger clothes? Do you want to take on a mother earth image and buy clothes that mask your shape? Or do they? I find that flowing shapeless clothes make you look like a fat person in shapeless clothes. The material has to land somewhere.
I used to say I don't care if I weigh fifteen stone as long as I look slim. The trouble is if you weigh fifteen stone you wont feel slim and that's the key.
Can you run for a bus, or run to answer the phone without feeling
1. out of breath
2. sore boobs
3. rickety knees
Rather than knock yourself black and blue with all that flab jumping around, a slim body is actually easier to move about. Without worrying from what angle people are seeing you, you can just get up and move, nay, glide gracefully from A to B. And when you move with confidence people will actually look at you, notice you and admire what they see. We need to harness that confidence.
How old does our shape make us feel?
I recently lost half a stone and my daughter commented how young I was looking. Yet half a stone isn't much in the grand scheme of what we want to lose. It's the confidence that we get from being in control of ourselves. It bursts out of our faces, shows in our stance, the way we walk. And its the addictiveness of that confidence that will take us all the way into last years jeans/shorts/bikini.
Chapter 2:
Metabolism is a 10 letter word
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT apparently, according to the experts. Ergo, the more we eat the more of us there will be. (Equally the more rubbish we eat the less likely our bodies will function properly. But that's another story.)
That must be why we are the size we are. If you don't believe it wait until the next mealtime and look down at your plate. Or if you are a sneaky type and your calorie consumption is spread throughout the day in the form of aerobic eating try and write down what you eat in a typical day - it might be frightening.
We are very good at finding excuses for ourselves, reasons for doing nothing.
'I must have a sluggish metabolism'
'When you get older your metabolism slows down'
'I'll just have to accept I am fatter because I'm older'
'Is it my glands?'
Is metabolism a magic word that can explain away our weakness in the food department?
Your metabolism is the rate at which your body processes the food you put into it. You can't do anything about it. Right?
Wrong!!!!
Yes, you may have a slow metabolism, and yes it does slow down with age. And getting older does creep up on us and before we know it we have a weight problem.
But having a weight problem is not a life sentence imposed on you from above. It is a wake up call. Its a memo from your body requiring action points, and someone to take responsibility. You.
Your metabolism is governed by your weight, your sex, your age and how active you are. Which of these things can you control? Obviously not your sex or your age. You can be in control of your weight, so start now - not tomorrow, or after your dinner date next week, or after the weekend. If you put it off today you could put off a few more pounds before you get round to it again.
How active are you? Be honest.
'I'm always on the go'.
Pull the other one.
Yes, maybe on the go to the fridge. Someone who is always on the go tends to use their feet, and little else. And it wont even be sustained exercise. It will be darting about, doing very little. It's imagined activity. Imagining how busy you are is not reality, and it wont speed up your metabolism. And its amazing how much darting about you can do with a packet of sweets in your pocket to keep you going. And between darts you can always find time for a sticky bun.
As your metabolism slows down with age, emotional factors, being less active generally, the food you have always been used to eating becomes too much for your needs. So it gets stored away, with less than desirable effects. So you have to 'up your game', by either burning it off with activity, or by eating less.
Sometimes just eating less will not immediately be enough. Sometimes you may need to kick start it by taking up some exercise.
It's not easy to take that initial step but the rewards can be worth all the effort. You will have lapses. You can easily forget how exhilarated you felt after that exercise and undo all the good work in the chip shop. And that can make you depressed, quickly sending you to the fridge or the biscuit tin for comfort.
Everyone's strategy for energising their life is different. What works for someone else will not always be the answer to your dreams. Don't give up before you start. It is not their dream you are after - its yours.
Chapter 3 :
Negative Reinforcing
How often in the day do you actively seek out confirmation that you are what you think you are? Fat, too bulky, unattractive.. and so on.
You don't have to go far.............. how many mirrors throw themselves in your path during the day?
How can you resist shop windows? and you never look good in a shop window.
Your hair is blown back, you might be hunched against the weather, you probably look miserable.
Think how much better you look when you are with a mate, laughing and having fun... Shop windows hold no terror for you when you are happy with yourself.
There are all sorts of reminders .... when you bend over to fasten your shoes... there is always something in the way.
When you walk along the street, your thighs rub together.
And isn't there always a large mirror when you step out of the shower or the bath? Nice.
Tell yourself that you are an attractive person. Believe it. Because if you don't, no one else will.
Or if they do they must have an ulterior motive. It may be someone fatter than you, so their opinions don't really count. You don't want to be a pin up for the fat club, do you?
Or it may be someone thinner than you who is quite happy for you to stay the way you are. No competition.
DON'T TRUST OTHER PEOPLE'S OPINIONS. It is what YOU feel about yourself that counts.
And isn't that the problem?
Try this.
Get a piece of paper and write down everything, no matter how small, that you like about yourself.
Start with physical attributes. Have you got lovely hair? Pretty eyes? A rosebud mouth?
No? Well what are they like? Do you like them?
Move on down your body. How about lovely skin? a slim waist? an attractive bosom?
What about your legs? and your ankles?
Then move on to your personality. A sunny personality shines through and makes someone attractive.
Are you kind? Helpful? A good friend? Someone who can be relied upon? Someone who makes people laugh? Are you clever? Are you the one people come to when they need answers? A level head?
If you are honest about yourself and objective you will find there are lots of things on your piece of paper. Look at what you have written. Wallow in it. Don't see all the things that are not there. See yourself for what you really are, and love yourself for it.
Read the list again. Be subjective. Be proud.
I always imagine that when people see me they see that its weeks since I coloured my hair, or I have an enormous spot on my nose, or my saddlebags are showing badly.
But in fact if you walk tall, smile,and look confident, all people will see is an attractive likeable woman who is in control of her life - and as they are all probably thinking about their own spots and dowdy hair they will probably be quite jealous of you, you sexy thing.
Think badly about yourself if you really want to feel bad.
But if you want to feel great, you know what to do, don't you?
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