Amazing diet to add 5 pounds solid flesh in 1 week!
Prof David Haslam, chair of the National Obesity Forum, is quoted as saying: ‘If someone close to you has a large waistline then, as long as you do it sensitively, discussing it with them now could help them avoid critical health risks later down the line and could even save their life.’
Dr Jean Pierre Despres, scientific director of the International Chair on Cardiometabolic Risk, agreed: ‘Start by encouraging someone close to you to make simple lifestyle changes such as becoming more active, making small alterations to their eating habits and replacing sugary drinks with water.’
The plate that nags you to diet.
Does exhortation to lose weight ever work? Whether it’s coming from another person or from inside our own head, are we really likely to comply, on a permanent basis? Now there’s even a Talking Plate that nags you to eat slowly! The outcome of most diets is to gain yet more weight, once the diet has ended. And the truth is, they always do end!
However, the good Prof Haslam did put in the proviso about discussing this issue ‘sensitively’ so on that ground alone it feels OK to me to give him a grain of publicity.
My own approach when working with people who consider their weight or fat to be a concern, is to emphasise learning trust in the self, using intuition about what is ‘good’ behaviour around food, listening to the body’s internal signals, discarding shame and replacing it with self-love – all of which, I’m sorry to say, takes time.
SIX TOP TIPS Take small pauses to listen to your body’s own signals. Eat when you’re actually hungry! Then stop when you’re not! Eat sitting down, calmly, in company. There are no forbidden foods (that ‘naughty but nice’ nonsense!) End the diet rollercoaster (drama but no fun!) Eat with pleasure and gusto!
Of course, in actual fact it saves time: it’s the diets that waste time! If you drop quick fixes and focus on finding a sustainable relationship with food and your body, you are likely to lose weight over a period of time and keep it off without worrying. This entails deep re-training of ourselves to differentiate between ‘comfort’ eating and ‘hunger’ eating. It also means tackling the guilt and shame head on, by ending the habits of eating in secret, or when distracted such as when driving in the car. It’s a process, I say again, that demands time and effort.
The 12-step programme of Overeaters Anonymous is worth a mention here as it suits many people. Again, it has a slow, steady approach – not shouting at people but supporting them! I’m not sure if the medical profession in its institutional form, say in the shape of the National Obesity Forum, is capable yet of finding the right tone in which to address all the people who feel distressed about their eating, and for whom food is not the unalloyed pleasure it should be. But then, do organisations composed of doctors know how to talk about pleasure?
Therapists increasingly recognize that talking about past abuse or neglect in therapy may not of itself help people to move beyond such experiences. I am always interested and excited by innovative techniques and approaches that come along, which aim at changing the self-destructive behaviour patterns that are often the mark of someone who has been abused or neglected.
One such method which I am now exploring is called Lifespan Integration. It is a gentle method which works on a deep neural level to change our self-attacking scripts, and people report that it has enabled them quite quickly to feel…
Read the rest of this entry »
Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain, …I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awake in the morning’s hush I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft star-shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.
I find this a moving anecdote from ‘Learned Helplessness’ by C. Peterson, S.F. Maier & M.E.P. :
On its two floors, the Arden House Nursing Home had about 100 patients in residence. Their average age was eighty. Two psychologists, Judy Rodin and Ellen Langer, decided to introduce some additional good things to this particular nursing home: movies and decorative plants.
At a meeting on the first floor, the director told the patients:
I was surprised to learn that many of you don’t realise the influence you have over your lives here. It’s your life and you can make of it whatever you want. You made the decisions before you came here, and you should be making them now. I want to take this opportunity to give each of you a present from Arden House. [Plants are passed around, and each patient chooses one.] The plants are yours to keep and take care of as you like. One last thing, I wanted to tell you that we’re showing a movie two nights next week, Thursday and Friday. You should decide which night you’d like to go.
I have spent a lot of hours in therapy group settings over the past 15 years. There have been tears, there have been laughs, but nothing quite like this bizarre depiction, which gets better every time I view it. It’s from Israeli tv show ‘Ktzarim’:
If you get a chance, do consider joining a therapy group, short or long term. A safe, confidential group led by a skilled psychotherapist fosters the appropriate desire to speak and be heard. It supports dignity, self-respect and self-responsibility, and there’s an enormous need for that in this world of indignities and irresponsibility.
Therapy groups sutbly alter the expectations we’ve inherited from our family and schooling. They’re rare, invaluable spaces where we can try out new and different ways of relating and become saner, healthier social animals.
Opening Up My Heart To My Home by Denise Dupont
Coming home. Coming home to me. This is the way I would like to be. To walk in my home with love, integrity Honour, respect for myself and respect for others.
Coming home to myself, means I take Notice of me, my skin, my smell, my shape, My hair, my sensuality and sexuality. My dance and my love My love for myself and my love for others
Coming home to myself is opening up my Heart to the core of my existence My essence, my beauty, my creativity My soul and my roots.
Coming home is being able to say to myself I LOVE YOU.
I Do Not Love You by Jeffery Lane
I do not love you because you are not good enough.
I do not love you because you do not deserve love.
My love is not something I will give you freely.
My love is something you must earn.
You want to know what you must do in order to be loved, and only I can tell you.
If I tell you what to do and you do it then you’ll expect me to love you.
So I won’t tell you what it is you must do, so you cannot do it.
How can I prepare for a fulfilling life? (letter from an enquiring girl, aged 15)
Virginia Satir wrote this reply:
Laura Schlessinger is a radio personality who has said that homosexuality is an ‘abomination’ according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be ‘condoned’ in any circumstances. The following is an open letter to ‘Dr Laura’ from a US resident.
Dear Dr Laura,
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.
As the New Year reminds us of our gradually advancing age, let’s just consider the not inconsiderable, brighter side (with gratitude to Anthony):
