Fear is a Very Powerful Depressant

I was watching a movie yesterday and heard the line:

Fear is a very powerful depressant.

On The Biggest Loser we see the contestants fears all the time. These fears keep them depressed, emotional and eating their way through life. Most often their biggest fears are part of their biggest breakthroughs.

What sort of things do you fear in your journey?

Fear of injury
Fear of major medical issue (heart attack, asthma attack)
Fear of losing control
Fear of taking control
Fear of change
Fear of being hungry
Fear of losing friends
Fear of being selfish
Fear of expectations
Fear of attention
Fear of relationship changes
Fear of affection
Fear of failure
Fear of the fat not being what is making you unhappy
Fear of success

Confronting your fears and moving past them is an important part of your journey.

IF YOU DEPEND ON FOOD as an emotional coping mechanism, you won't succeed at losing weight until you find ways to confront and resolve difficult emotions that DON'T INVOLVE FOOD, EATING OR OVEREATING.

The next time you discover a fear - confront it. Ask for help if you want or need to - or even if you don't think you need help. =) Don't bury it under countless empty calories. Eventually those calories are stored in your thighs and you still have the fear living underneath.

How do you take charge of your fears?

Research, Get Creative, and Trial and Error. =)

To start, I found this great overview article of areas of further exploration to take charge of your fears.

http://www.freedomfromfear.org/viewtopic.asp?topic_id=188

Cognitive Therapy for Weight Loss:

Education - You don't know what you don't know.

Self-Monitoring - You have to acknowledge it to fix it.

Problem Solving - You know best how to fix it, get creative and come up with solutions to your own issues. You do this in many other parts of your life (your job, your relationship, your parenting - you can do this for you too).

Accountability and support - Get tips, advice and support and have a place where you are checking in and being accountable.

Change in eating habits - Appreciate food for its taste AND how it fuels your body through each and every day.

Lorelei Added:  Fitness - Creating a physically strong exterior has a massive impact on how strong you feel on the inside.  There is a calm confidence you can have when your body is fit and you know you are a healthy person.

Responding to sabotaging thoughts - Your mind will always be more powerful than the muscles on your body. Learn to control and harness the power of your thoughts.

Experiments to decrease fear and increase tolerance of hunger and craving - create your own experiments to move through your fears. Empower yourself to solve your own issues once and for all.

Maintenance - As we have seen on last week's Biggest Loser, this is where you take everything that you have learned, and apply it along with new information that you will constantly bring into your arsenal of tricks to keep you on the right path for the rest of your life.


This is YOUR journey. It will only go as far as YOU take it. =)

It's Never Too Late To Try...

Accountability Lesson...

I am in the blahs. Been here pretty much all week. I could speculate on all of the things that got me here - but really does it matter? Getting out should be my only focus.

Instead. Have a made any attempt to get out of it - not really, that is what the blahs do, un-motivate you, and I let them. Am I working out like I should or even like I want to be doing - nope. Do I know that if I work out I will feel better and less in the blahs? Yup. Do I know that creating opportunities for success for myself would make me feel A LOT better and really move me out of the blahs? Yup.

I have slacked on my fitness all week and now I am paying for it. I feel lazy. I feel tired. I feel.. BLAH.

I had intentions all day. At one point me and hubby ran some errands and stopped at Home Depot. He went in to get something. I considered taking some carts up to the door - just keep doing that at a quick pace to get some steps in (trying to do 12,000 steps a day now) - but I didn't. I just sat there and talked myself out of it then drove around the parking lot waiting for hubby. I have no excuses. I even thought about going down there now to get on the treadmill and the bike. Just stopping this post and starting to work out at almost 12:30am - just to do it. Just to get back into the routine!...

Then the voice kicks in as I type the above paragraph.. but then you have to wash your face, and brush your teeth, and get on your exercise clothes, and then get water in the water bottle.. it will easily be another 30 minutes before you are down there. Then what.. how long do you really plan on staying down there. It is late, you are tired. You should just go to bed and wait until tomorrow. Just do it tomorrow...

Then I remember the last time I felt like this and posted about how my "head" wasn't in it, how I was taking a break.. someone said something like .. "get up.. get dressed and go for a walk.. something.. anything.. this is the most critical time for you to do something about it to break the cycle.. one day turns into two, two days turns into weeks, weeks turn into months.. you don't want that to happen so change it now - get up, go out and take a walk.."

.....

20 minutes to brush and floss teeth, wash face, change and get down there.

I am down here - VICTORY!

The second the music started I knew I made the right decision.

VICTORY!

16 minutes of increasing my heart rate walking on the treadmill and stretching.

To self: Remember the other day when you posted how good you feel after stretching? Yeah.. you need to do this FIRST thing in the morning. Just commit to the 5 minutes for the warm up, then the 10 minutes of stretching. You feel SOOOO much better when you do. I bet that feeling lasts all day.

Then as a bit of a Jillian style make up for my behavior in the temptation challenge (LOL), and as a way to support the boot camp team I am participating in.. for the first time I took on one of the weekend challenges and did:

200 Torso Twists (right and left count as 1)
100 Side Bends (right and left count as 1)
and 50 Crunches

VICTORY

Now I am all warmed up. After some very brisk walking, I made myself jog 1/4 of a mile straight. THAT was a battle. I was gonna give up three dots before, two dots before.. omg am I gonna make it.. YAY!

VICTORY

So then I push on and blow by it and go four more dots at .2 mph faster.

VICTORY

I just did half of that the other day for the first time.

Then I biked keeping my heart rate up. A song or two later I was talking myself into cutting it short. It is late.. I should head to bed.. then those little notes started to play as song number 16 began on my play list of 19 songs...

I look into the window of my mind
Reflections of the fears I know I've left behind
I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending
I am on my way
Can't stop me now
And you can do the same

What have you done today to make you feel proud?
IT'S NEVER TO LATE TO TRY (even at 1 AM! =)
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
You could be so many people
If you make that break for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud?

So I biked through the entire song, then I ran another 1/8 of a mile and back to the bike again through the last song on the CD.

VICTORY!

40 minutes of cardio!

VICTORY!!!

Cool down. WOOT!

I head upstairs and as I am standing in the kitchen eating a tablespoon of trail mix reflecting on how powerful the mind is that it can sabotage me day after day, have me believing the lies. I thought I wasn't going to listen to that voice. I thought I was ignoring those thoughts because all they do is cause failure.. I hear from the TV in the next room:

Yoda tells Luke to raise his cruiser out of the swamp. Luke, not believing he has the power of the force to take on such a huge task responds, "Ok, I'll try"

Yoda replies, "No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."

Damn straight Yoda!

This, ladies and gentlemen concludes this evenings accountability exercise.

I am tired now.. =)

Out with the Old, Make Room for NEW!

After being inspired by Jillian's new show promo where she says to the woman as her entire driveway and front yard are covered in boxes of stuff, "You are drowning in all of this old stuff. We have to make room for NEW" today I will be heading into the motor home that has lived as a storage unit in my driveway for a few years now to start the process of cleaning it out so I can sell it and get it out of my driveway. =)

Inside is years of stuff.

I will be cleaning, organizing, taking photos and preparing to sell or donate all of my old hobby items that I have an amazing amount of stuff for, but haven't actually done in any noticeable capacity for years - sewing, knitting, crochet, cross stitch.

In the future that I am creating for myself there won't ever be time for me to sew my way through the 14 bins of material that I have had for years. In my future life I will be enjoying time with others, and taking care of myself.

This packed motorhome of craft items has a history.

Many years ago, 2005-2006 to be more exact, I bought a TON of random sewing material (all really nice stuff) for $7 at the home auction for Terry O'Quinn and his wife when they moved from Maryland to Hawaii after LOST won their Emmy's and were picked up for another season. It is FAMOUS material.. for $7! LOL

I then paid $280 for the bins that all of the material has been stored in to protect it from dust and the elements.

I then bought industrial sized Velcro rolls and hundreds of zippers off of eBay with the intention of making dog beds and belly bands for the dog boutique that I now haven't owned in years.

I then had to have batting for the beds that I was going to make, so I bought five boxes of batting, and quite a bit of foam sheets for some orthopedic type beds I had intended on making.

During this time I have used probably 2 yards of material, and I have even purchased more material with the intention of making things that never happened.

Plus, this is all living in the RV I want to sell, but can't until I get the stuff out of it.

It has to start somewhere right? =)

Are there areas of your life that are keeping you in the same habits and behavior that got you here?

Do you have old hobbies that no longer apply to the new life you are creating for yourself?

Are there places in your life that you could make room for NEW? =)

Realize that to question is how we grow...

After feeling yucky for awhile, and posting about it, that was the catalyst that I decided I didn't want to feel that way anymore. I can rely on support from others, but ultimately I have to find the strength in me to move past this one moment and continue on the bigger picture journey. So I took active steps to shut down the thoughts in my mind and took steps to move on and be re-inspired.

I watched..

- Promo for Jillian's new show.. in 15 seconds just seeing her can turn my mood around and when she says to the woman, "What is holding you back?" and the woman replies, "Nothing now" and Jillian says "Damn right.."

Goosebumps every time. The determination in that woman's face is like a determined athlete fighting to get back what she now realizes was always with her all along - a healthy, fit, confident woman - she just needed someone to show her the way out. Yup.. tears just typing that. =)

- Betty White on Saturday Night Live and I was inspired by how at 88.5 that lady is as funny as ever and she keeps movin' on. She didn't let someone tell her she needed to retire at 65. Plus, thanks to.. THE INTERNET.. that is why she is hosting Saturday Night Live. Well thanks to THE INTERNET I have so many supportive people on my journey who can remind me of where my head really needs to be and teach me the things that they are learning along the way, and I can do the same for others.

- Avatar. This is now my third attempt to get through the movie - not because I don't like it, but because when you don't get enough sleep at night, that long of a movie is like 2 shots of Nyquil with a tequila chaser for me. =)

Last night I was amazed at the amount of references that fall in line with the things I am going through right now. The main male lead has to overcome a lot of challenges and has to dig deep into his moral core about how he really feels about himself, his journey, his choices. There are so many one liners that I would say to hubby, "Oohh..did you hear that? I just went through that mental struggle and what he just said is exactly how I got out of it too... creeeepy mooooovie.."

A lot of our journey is really in our heads...

Sooooo...


Today is a NEW day! I am re-inspired and for this week I am going to show my body and my mind some respect and give it consistency with my work outs just like I do my nutrition.

I listen to the Biggest Loser theme song in my workout routine. So the line that has been going through my head all morning from that song is..

Still so many answers I don't know
(There are so many answers)
REALIZE THAT TO QUESTION IS HOW WE GROW
(To question is to grow)
So I step out of the ordinary.
I can feel my soul ascending
I'm on my way
Can't stop me now
And you can do the same
(Yeah!)

I have to question myself along the way to make sure I am heading in the right direction by creating a lifestyle that can achieve and maintain my goals, plus I can live with it every day. =) It's how I grow. =)

Re-inspired!

It takes TIME to LOSE 10 pounds...

Someone who I trust, who has been right every time they have given me advice can predict my future and lay out all of the answers in front of me, but if my mind isn't open to consideration, I will never see it for myself.

+++

When I weighed in this morning the scale showed that I lost 1.6lbs this week.  I posted to the boards about how it didn't matter what I got at the scale, I had accomplished a lot this week, I felt really good about pushing myself, etc.

Well after spending the afternoon feeling like crap, I did some reflection on my challenge and I wanted to share. =)

Earlier this week someone very dear to me on this site took the time to write out a very carefully crafted message to let me know how unrealisitc my 10lb personal challenge was.  I read it, and then replied with a very long post explaining my head space, the intention of me putting the challenge on myself, how I am pushing my fitness, my head is in the right place, and on and on..

I think that the long reply post should have been just one indicator that I was completely in denial. =)

She told me how unrealistic my goal was, how I was setting myself up for disappointment.

She was absolutely right. 

I was wrong.

I should have never set the 10lb challenge for myself. 

Absolutely everything she said is completely correct and even though I have told myself 1000 times today that the goal was unrealistic, those voices are in my head saying all of the same old things they used to about how I have failed, and what I could have done different or better.  There has not been a single moment that I have been happy about the 1.6 lb loss.  I did expect more, and I am disappointed.

Phew!  I feel better already.  Takes time to unlearn these old habits. =)

Posting this is part of what I am doing to move past this and learn from these very valuable lessons:

- don't ever set myself up for failure
- don't tie an area where I want to push myself (my fitness) to an area that relies on more than just my fitness (the scale)
- no matter what I think the moment when I read a message, have someone speak to me, or get a letter or note from someone who is trying to provide me with insight on how to help myself I need to allow myself time to think about what is being said and consider that this is a perception about myself that I will never be able to access or possess - how I am perceived by others and the life advice that they have to help make my life and journey easier.  I promise to myself to be more open to that information and consider it carefuly as it is a viewpoint I will simply never possess but can learn VOLUMES about myself.

It is clear to me now about how this really is A PROCESS.  Up until now I was looking at it purely from the mathematical point of view that Jillian talked about during Melissa's tantrums earlier this season:

physical fitness > calorie intake = weight loss

in that, I was simply wasn't factoring or considering all of the other things that I have seen/learned on the show.. other things can have significant impact on our success with weight loss in areas such as:

Nutrition
Timing of Nutrition
Food Combinations
Water Consumption
Fitness
Fitness intensity
Fitness time of day
Rest
Repair
Bloating
How we manage emotional stress
and many others

So given that the PROCESS contains many factors, and IT TAKES TIME TO LOSE TEN POUNDS - not just because I set the time frame.  It was completely unreasonable that I set a 10lb personal challenge to myself - that was never a fair goal.

There is a careful balance that I am going to work on to find the sweet spot between pushing myself to stick to the program to the point that I push too far, and not pushing enough.  That is gonna take some practice! =)

PHEW!

Feeling much better, but I am sure it will be a battle to keep the voices in check.. they had a little victory there for a few days while I was in denial and they get really cocky after that. =)

I have..

I have dice on my fingers and toes.. cuz that's how I roll.

=)

Self-Imposed 10lb Challenge

So this week I did a self-imposed 10lb Challenge.

I have worked very hard this week towards that goal:

575 Minutes aka  9.58 Hours of exercise.

I took 81,532 steps on the pedometer (considering I work at home with no commute that is a big accomplishment - last week I had 64,289)

I went to my county pool for the first time and got a pass to go 12 more times to any facility in the county.

So today I also got a manicure, pedicure and massage as a reward for pushing it this week and to take care of my body while it is going through all of these transitions. =)

Regardless of the outcome on the scale tomorrow, I:

- pushed myself to a whole new level in my workouts

- have a new level of confidence in my abilities physically
 

- loved having a short term goal and pushing towards that with what I thought it reasonably and realistically took to try to take 10lbs off in a healthy way in a week. =)
 

- feel like an athlete - training for something very important - and I plan on carrying that with me from here forward - it sure does help with the workouts. =)

I am proud that I gained more out of challenging myself than just the outcome on the scale.  It definitely has boosted my confidence in my journey. =)

So we shall see what the scale says tomorrow. =)