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?
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.
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I WALK DOWN THE STREET. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.
I WALK DOWN THE SAME STREET. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in, again. I can’t believe I am in this same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.
I WALK DOWN THE SAME STREET. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. It’s a habit. But, my eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.
I WALK DOWN THE SAME STREET. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
I WALK DOWN ANOTHER STREET.
CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) is all the rage these days. Here is a pretty useful CBT exercise for those of us over-identified with our ‘thinking part’.
The Daily Mood Log (© David Burns, ‘Feeling Good Handbook’, 1989) comprises a four-step approach to tackling distorted thoughts - which we often don’t even realize are distorted until we get some external feedback or do something like this exercise. Get some paper out and try it next time you’re feeling a bit low or stressed. I’ve adapted David Burns’ original format slightly. Step One: Record the Upsetting Event in between about 10 and 25 words. Step Two: Record your Current Emotions and rate them from 0 (the least) to 100 (the most). Examples of Emotions are: sad, guilty, lonely, gloomy, miserable, cheerless, unhappy, hopeless, dismal, sullen, despondent, melancholic, angry, annoyed, irritated, livid, furious, enraged, resentful, outraged, cross, irate, frustrated, afraid, fearful, anxious, scared, terrified, helpless, nervous, worried, alarmed, frightened, embarrassed, mortified. Step Three: Record your Upsetting Thoughts and then next to each of them write the Distortion contained in the Thought together with a more positive and realistic Counter-Thought. The Upsetting Thoughts and the Distortions will probably be habitual and even feel ‘automatic’, whereas the Counter-Thoughts may be less familiar: be creative and give yourself some lovingkindness through this process! Examples of Distortions are: ‘All or Nothing’ (thinking in absolute black and white categories). Overgeneralisation (one setback makes you think in terms of never-ending defeat). Negative mental filter (dwell on the downside instead of exploring the upside). Dismissing yourself (insisting your qualities and achievements don’t count). Assumptions (taking it for granted that other people are reacting badly to you, even though you can’t possibly know for sure). Fortune telling (pessimism, even though none of us knows the future). Magnification (blowing things out of proportion). Minimisation (inappropriately dismissing the importance of people, things and events). Inappropriate reliance on your feelings (I feel like an idiot so I must be one; I don’t feel like doing this so I’ll put it off). Inappropriate reliance on the word ‘should’ (taking your internal Critic too seriously). Labelling the person instead of their action (calling yourself a ‘loser’ instead of acknowledging you ‘made a mistake’). Blaming (usually simplistic and leads nowhere!) Step Four: Reflect on your Counter-Thoughts. Try and make them believable to you, such that you can take them on board, literally breathe a sigh of relief, and think to yourself ‘Actually I’m not a bad person’ or ‘The world isn’t a wholly bad place’ or some such, more realistic view. The breath of relief is important. Take your time over this. Then consider your relationship to your original Upsetting Thoughts, and make a note how you experience yourself: · No better. · Slightly better. · Somewhat better. · Quite a lot better. · Much better.
Repeat dose as often as required!
Caring behaviours are the life blood of a relationship. They are those small, frequent acts of sensitivity, kindness and caring that let our partner know that she or he is important to us. They range from a warm greeting on return home, to a phone call during the day, to special gifts and cards at birthdays and anniversaries, to a back rub or a foot rub for a tired partner. They are signs that we matter and that our relationship is important. A lessening of caring behaviours is often a sign that the relationship is under stress or that negative feelings are accumulating and grudges are being held. Often partners wait for good feelings to return before continuing caring behaviours. However, these good feelings are frequently elicited only by experiencing such caring behaviours. Therefore, to improve a relationship, it is important to take the initiative in offering acts of caring and kindness. It is important that each partner take responsibility for offering caring behaviours rather than waiting to see what his partner is going to do, in a tit-for-tat fashion. The following exercise is an important one to sustain a loving, nurturing relationship. Practice it whether or not you at present feel committed to your relationship. The only way you can make an intelligent decision about staying or leaving is to see how you feel after such positive acts of caring have been taking place. EXERCISE: Make a list of 12 or more behaviours that your partner does, could do or that you wish he/she would do that help you to feel more loved, important, special. Think carefully of your wish list. It is a list of small present or potential sources of pleasure in your life. Make the list specific, e.g. not “I want you to be more considerate” but “I would like you to carry the groceries out of the car and stay and help me to put them away when I have been shopping”. Or “When I come home from work I would like 20 minutes to be left alone to unwind and read the mail”. Be as specific as you can. You can add to the list later as you think of other caring behaviours, but for now write at least 12. These are some examples from other people: “I feel cared about when you…” “…give me a massage or bath (not only as a prelude to sex)”. “…shampoo my hair”. “…ask me about my work or how I’m feeling or how my day went”. “…plan an evening out instead of me planning it”. “…kiss me goodbye in the morning”. “…hold my hand in the movies”. “…put your arm around my shoulder or your hand on the back of my neck”. “…rub my head or play with my hair”. “…do one of ‘my’ chores (e.g. make dinner, wash the dishes, mow the lawn)”. “…exercise with me”. “…are nice to my parents/friends”. “…call during the day or if you are going to be late”. “…give me love notes”. “…bring me flowers”. “…snuggle with me in the morning before we get up”. You can include special circumstances, e.g. “When I am sick, I love it when you…”. “When I am tired…”. “When I am worried…”. “When I am afraid…”. “When I am unhappy…”. “For celebrations…”. Then exchange lists with your partner. Read each other’s list carefully and clarify any confusion you may have as to what is being requested. Feel free to add any caring behaviour your partner has listed to your own list, if it is something you too would find pleasurable. Post your partner’s list somewhere you’ll see it every morning, e.g. bathroom mirror, dresser, fridge. For the next week, make a point of expressing your caring in at least 3 actions daily that your partner has requested. Each evening, review both lists, mark the caring behaviours you noticed that your partner offered and the date, thank your partner, and if there are caring behaviours you’ve offered that your partner didn’t notice or mark, gently call attention to them. Continue to offer caring behaviours and to acknowledge with appreciation those you receive. We all need to feel appreciated and we all want to receive pleasure. Take responsibility for noting or requesting those things that make your life happier, and don’t expect mind-reading. Caring behaviours nurture a relationship and create an atmosphere in which tenderness and love can thrive.
