I want you to carefully read everything in this blog over & over again until you get it. This isn't just about weight loss, it's about transforming your life. Each step & thing I say is of vital importance in this one!
Women's weight especially reflects their lives & feelings about their lives & themselves. Many of us were at our best weight in our early 20s, then steadily put on weight after marriage. Women tend to put on weight when they're dissatisfied in areas of their lives. We put on weight because of stress or depression, or to hide from our sexuality or make ourselves unattractive to our mate or other men (or women, if lesbian). (All of this applies to lesbians too but my orientation is heterosexual & I'll use that in this blog). Personally, I gained weight during my first pregnancy & kept putting it on afterwards. I was unhappy & unfulfilled in my marriage & life. I believe I also wanted to be unattractive to other males to make it easy to stay faithful in an unfulfilling sexual relationship with my husband. In my second marriage I put on a lot of weight & actually got to my highest weight ever in an effort to be unattractive to him. One thing I want you to understand is that I have the perspective now but I was only very vaguely aware of what I was doing at the time. We usually don't know what motivates us, don't even realize how much weight we're gaining or why. There are so many factors. We tend to be less active when we're unhappy, less involved in life & the activities that kept us trim in the past.
If you aren't at your ideal weight, look at your emotions & life first. Really examine how you feel about yourself, first. Then honestly examine how you feel about your life. Only last do you need to look at your activities & eating patterns. The true keys are in first your feelings about yourself, then your life. Your feelings about yourself are the most influential factor in most weight problems. Then, as in all I preach, losing weight is simply a matter of changing your thinking & feelings. I'm so qualified to talk with you about this. I lost 4 dress sizes in less than 18 months this way! I'm not sure how many pounds of fat I actually lost because muscle weighs more than fat so I'm telling you in sizes. I probably lost 45-50 pounds but also gained lots of muscle so who really knows.
I joke & say first I lost 350 pounds (removed the now ex husband from my life). But that was the major first step for me. I had the courage to make a hugely major change in my life. In fact, I entirely upended it. I gave up all illusions about the 10 years of our relationship, dumped out my entire life, gave up what I was trying to do for a living since it was tied to him & faulty. I liken it to an earthquake. All of life as I knew it disappeared with the decision to get him out of my life. In this case, part of the decision involved putting a beloved son & father in jail & going back on a promise to his dying mother. I'd been like a member of his family for about 40 years by the time I put him in jail for stealing my mother's life savings. I deeply loved his adult children, had promised his mother on her death bed that I'd take care of him. None of the family except his children were alive to witness his great fall & going to jail, but I know our loved ones in the afterlife are aware. I tell you all this to point out that whatever you have to conquer to make the first step major change in your life is nothing compared to what I had to do! I did it, so can you.
About 6 months later, I recovered enough to really get involved in life, & that too is a major step. I became very physically & spiritually active. Not only was I involved in a total cleanup of all he hadn't manned up to do, I also advanced my own interests & passions, started my own business & started making part of my life finally about me. During that first 6 months, I read books on marital abuse & the consequences, & examined my role in the marriage, why I allowed myself to be so abused. I came to understand & to accept responsibility, then forgive myself. These too are all critical steps. First comes the reflection & time of bald honesty with yourself, then the decision to make the changes, then the courage & doing it. Then you have to take responsibility for your role in whatever the problem was & the steps & responsibility to heal. Then you have to go in a new, healthier, more self centered direction with your life. Yep, self centered. You have to be at the center of your life! Right now I'm just talking you vs. others. I'm not getting into Creator here. For once this isn't about the spiritual. Weight gain came from self & has to therefore end with self.
The more mentally & emotionally healthy I got the more weight started dropping off. It wasn't really noticeable until after I started my own business & really started getting on with my life, putting myself back into my life instead of living under siege. Losing weight like this becomes a snowball effect. You start feeling better physically & start feeling better about yourself. In turn, you start making healthier choices & craving healthier foods & activities. When all this comes together, it's also the key to keeping the weight off.
Please understand that none of this is about being attractive or not. It's about taking care of yourself & your needs, especially your inner needs. It's about health - mental, emotional, & physical, in just that order. Yes, I love the way I look now vs. then. I regularly find myself feeling bones like my collar bone & muscles in my outer thighs that I'd forgotten exist. I love the way my old clothes fit & feel, & having a lovely new wardrobe of old "friends," clothes from a much happier time in my life. But it was never about this & I didn't consciously try to lose weight ever while it was happening. It was the natural result of all the healthy changes I was making in my life. One of the things I love best is how much better I feel. I don't huff & puff going up stairs or working in the yard, vacuuming, etc. My legs & hip don't hurt any more, nor do my back & knees. And it's not just ending those aches & pains. Overall I feel years younger in my body, just so much better every day overall. Plus, I went from overuse of 2 kinds of insulin to barely using 1 kind! My sugar levels are better than they've been in many years, with hardly any medication to help. (By the way, part of what helps that is a Shaklee supplement I sell. If you have diabetes, please ask me about it!)
I talk about "I Am" & manifestation statements almost daily now & here I go again. If you need to lose weight or make major life changes, you need to write supportive "I Am" & manifestation statements. I'm not going to suggest any specific ones here. These need to be as individual as your needs. But if you need help with them, I'm here.
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