Don't Worry - Be Happy!

9^th April 2014

No matter what you look like, I think the key is to be happy with yourself. Adele

Sometimes I get to thinking – A LOT, and I’ve done a lot of that the last few days, it started Monday when someone commented “Beverley Longsden sort it out woman!! lol what would you be telling us xx”.  Although this comment was meant in a nice way I’m sure,(you can’t always tell can you when something is in ‘text’) it immediately annoyed me (I can be funny like that, especially if my head isn’t in the right place).  I can go into rebellion mode and do the opposite of what I know I should be doing when someone says something that gets my back up – even if they didn’t mean what I read into it.  Aren’t we humans silly sometimes, that line in the past could’ve made me spiral off on a “don’t tell me what to do, if I don’t want to eat well I WON’T!  If I decide not to be healthy and happy, that’s my choices and I’ll do what the hell I please”.  This actually sounds ridiculous as I type it but I know my inner “NUR” reacts in that way sometimes and I don’t always seem to be able to control that reaction.  Then another conversation about my idea to give up alcohol for 21 days with someone else got my hackles up too, and I had to have a word with myself to find out WHY I was reacting in this way. 

Then something my bestie says to me often came to mind, “weight loss is so easy when you can do it & so hard when you can't.”  Oh how true is that statement, I’ve been weighing people for almost ten years and helping them to lose weight and when they’re “in the zone”, in the right head space, food and weight loss doesn’t seem a problem to them at all.  Then there are the people who want to do it and just can’t, something is standing in their way, whatever that may be and as much as they know they want to do it, as much as they know everything they have to do to ensure a weight loss, they just don’t do it OR they do everything they should be doing and the weight loss still isn’t happening.  The latter is a whole subject of its own, however the “I know what to do but I’m not doing it” well we all can relate to that I think.

Our minds work in amazing ways, the brain, the subconscious and conscious mind, they have amazing powers to control our behaviour, we may want one thing but a part of our mind is telling us another, this makes it all so difficult.  The more we worry about the fact we can’t do it, the more we worry about what we eat and how much and why, and when, and how, and if we’re going to lose weight that week, or whether that chocolate bar we had yesterday and that bag of crisps we consumed on Sunday is going to affect the scales on weigh day – the less we are likely to have any form of weight loss success.  Reading that last sentence was difficult wasn’t it!  Imagine having those thoughts racing round your mind constantly, filling your brain with doubt and worry and concern – taking away any space there may have been for joy and happiness!  Chances of success – not very high I’d say!

There is lots of research out there about the effects of stress on the body, lots of reading, lots of clever words, lots of educated studies, but I think we all know it’s not a good thing to have excessive stress in your life or your body.   I’ve read that the part of the brain that turns on stress turns off digestion and the part of the brain that turns on the relaxation response turns on full, healthy digestive power

Interesting that, so if you eat in a state of stress and worry, your digestion doesn’t work as well as if you eat in a relaxed state which would suggest that eating healthy food is important but not the only thing to think about when it comes to good nutrition. 

So we all need to chill out a bit! The more we stress about the numbers on scales and losing the weight, the harder it gets, the more relaxed we get about it all the easier it gets.

Then there’s another important key to it all – I believe, and that’s BELIEF, believing in yourself, having confidence in yourself, trusting that you will make the right choices, and that you have the strength to do anything you decide to do because you are amazing!

Wasn’t that a nice paragraph to read, as I wrote it I felt calmer, I know if I want to I have the power to achieve anything whether they be my dreams or weight loss, however if I doubt myself and my ability (I’m frowning now as I type) immediately I feel deflated before I’ve even started. 

So today I will continue to do what I’ve done for the last two days, knowing that I can stick to my Filling and Healthy plan because I believe in myself and feeling good about my decision to do my 21 day habit change because I’ve chosen to do it for the benefit of my health and happiness and determined to succeed because I have that confidence in my own ability.

How will you feel about yourself and your choices today?

Eat Gorgeous BeYOUtiful, focus on the Healthy & Happy and enjoy every mouthful because eating should be pleasurable not full of pain and worry.

 xx