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Disclaimer
Beverley has prepared the content of Bev's World irresponsibly and carelessly. She therefore disclaims all warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, originality or completeness of the drivel presented on this blog or on other linked websites or on any subsequent links. She vehemently denies that the information may be relied upon for any reason. Beverley shall not be liable for inflicting laughter, shame, disgust, torrents of tears and the eventual desiccation or crashing boredom on readers.

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Wednesday 22 June 2011

The Amber Light

22nd June 2011

SMILE and be happy, the day is brand new. This is the day the universe made for YOU!

Two of my members – Lynne and Gemma - achieved their goal weights yesterday and went home with the exclusive gold membership pack and Alison achieved her 50lb certificate, a total of 229lb lost yesterday at Willenhall, which shows that the weight loss continues.

Do you have or have you ever suffered from the BUT Syndrome?  It’s a terrible affliction and one I see quite often at the scales, if I’m attempting to help a member at the scales find a solution to their weight loss problem and I hear the word ‘BUT’ or ‘HOWEVER’ I automatically know they have either not listened to me, don’t agree with what I’ve said or is going to ignore completely what I’ve just said!  Think about this, I can only make suggestions for solutions, the only person who knows the real solution is you, so say to yourself, okay this is my problem, how do I solve it?  You won’t say ‘BUT’ to yourself or maybe you will!    

Are you guilty of being able to think of more excuses and reasons not to be able to lose weight, than solutions and reasons to lose weight?  How important is weight loss to you?  There have been times in my life when it was all that mattered and there have been times when I didn’t give two hoots about how much I weighed.  I have to say neither extreme made me happy, but this middle ground I’ve discovered works just fine and keeps me smiling, I want to be healthy and a reasonable weight but it’s not the only thing that matters in my life, good friends, good company, good food, fine wine and a walk in the park with my dog are just as important.  If you don’t find a balance you’ll never be happy, obsessing constantly about your weight and getting upset over it is just as unhealthy as eating as much as possible and gaining.   

Our weight doesn’t make us unhappy, we do, remember it’s a choice, that’s why you can go from happy to miserable or angry or any other emotion in a split second, that’s why someone can walk towards my scales smiling and as soon as they’ve seen the numbers on the scales they get upset, they’re weight didn’t change in that moment, its just that their minds have suddenly chose to acknowledge the fact and get upset about it.  I missed one particular member yesterday, she didn’t come to get weighed (you know who you are) and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before she missed a meeting because she was giving the scales and those numbers too much power over her, it was all about the numbers (and lets be honest it is for the majority of us, even me at times).  Unfortunately if you give them that much power, they can take over, instead focus on eating healthy and feeling better and then the weight loss is a side effect and a very nice one too.

It’s not just weight, it’s anything that happens in your life, for example as I’m typing my internets gone down, now I could get really stressed about that because if it doesn’t come back on I’m not going to be able to post my blog before I go to work, or I can just continue typing and believe it will come back on and if that’s not before I leave for work, then I’ll post the blog later.

If you’re an emotional eater that situation might send you to the kitchen looking for something to pre-occupy you, heading to the kitchen strikes quite often for a lot of us, especially in the evenings when you’re sat in front of the tv, maybe you’re bored or tired or lonely or even happy because you’ve had a fabulous day.  It’s often suggested that when that moment strikes you distract yourself by finding something else to do, this is one option but it does avoid facing the problem.  Why not try ‘The Amber Light’ idea, we know red is for stop and green is for go, but Amber is that moment in-between. 

When you reach that moment when you suddenly want something and you know you’re not hungry, you can choose to have something to eat or you can take a moment to try and break that automatic response by thinking about why you want it.  Firstly acknowledge the urge to eat has been caused by something other than hunger, and decide (on this occasion, just once) to wait for a short time.  Make a decision how long we are willing to wait with whatever is causing your craving to eat, even if it’s only a minute, it’ll give you time to think.  Time it on your watch or using the clock on the mantel piece and for that time, experience your feelings and any emotions that may come up. Notice any physical sensations you may have or any thoughts.  Finally promise yourself that if we still want to eat it you can but acknowledge it won’t make any difference to how you’re feeling at that time.  Who knows it might be all you need to stop you on that occasion.

xx




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