The Trill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

Bet you thought this post was going to be about sports. Well, as a life long struggler with the challenge of being an emotional overeater, I have had thrills and felt agony often. In fact, almost every meal ends with one of those emotions. If I quit eating when I am full, then I have won and I experience the 'thrill of victory'. On the other hand, when I allow the food to control me, then I have lost the battle, and feel the 'agony of defeat'.

Fortunately, this last year has been one of more victories than defeats! Yes, my weight loss has been slow, but I decided that I am comparing myself with no one and I will win this race on my own terms and in my own way. Since using Paul McKenna's Golden Rules, it has been easier to stay on track and for that I am very grateful.

There is Nothing Permanent This Side of Heaven

There are many things I can say here. Change is the only constant in life. For every ending there is a new beginning. The one thing in you can count on in life to stay the same is change.
My life has changed. I am no longer a director in Mary Kay. There are many reasons for this, most of which I will not go into here, but I have learned that never getting above the minimums in life will eventuallyresult in defeat. At some point we must begin to reach for the maximum rather than being content with the minimum.
I have come to terms with this change, accepting it for what it is, and ready to move forward to a new challenge in life. I am endeavoring to work from home with my computer as my tool. This website: www.wahm.com contains many ideas for doing just that. If your desire is to work from your home, then check out this website!
FYI. I am still losing weight. This morning I was at a new low! I have lost 33.5 pounds with more to go! wooooohoooo!
I am still working from the Paul McKenna method for this weight loss, and so far, my weight is still slowly, but surely going down.
For lunch on Sunday I had a taste for a hamburger. Oh, it sounded sooooooo good. Rick and I ordered a couple of cheese burgers from the nearby truckstop. When mine arrived, I cut it in half, wanted no chips, took my diet Dr. Pepper (which I rarely drink) and sat down to eat. After eating one of the hamburger halves, I was full. Even tough I dearly wanted to eat the other half, I quickly put it in a plastic bag and announced that I would eat it for dinner! Victory!!!!

Stress and Over Eating

I have a friend who is one of those naturally thin people. She is in great shape and always looks wonderful. When she is under stress, eating is the last thing she wants to think about, much less do. When she is under pressure for some reason, her appetite leaves.

No so, for us who fight the downsizing war. We tend to want to eat whenever we feel stress. Our eating patterns may be very well controlled, but then something will happen and then we want to eat whatever we can find. Right?

This falls under the category of emotional eating and Paul McKenna's Techinques for conquering it is at the very least helpful and at the most a way of overcoming this critical eating urge.

Stress happens. Just as sure as the sun rises every morning, stress is going to happen. We must be prepared for it if we are going to be overcomers and victorious in our battles.

By the way, this week I wore a blouse that I had not worn in at least 5 years! The winning and losing continues!

Are you Still Trying to Feed the Hungry Children in China? I Am

Pop, my beloved grandfather, always reminded us to never put on our plates more than we can eat and to always eat everything we did put on our plates, because, as you know, there are children starving in China who would be thrilled to have what we throw away. So we did. The second part. We ate everything we put on our plate. And our waistlines grew. So did our ability to eat large amounts of food as did our inability to leave food uneaten. And, oh my, waste food by throwing it away? We could never do that!
No, I am not blaming my dear grandfather for my eating challenges. After all he was a young man during the depression. He valued everything and wasted nothing. By the way, he did not overeat. He followed the first part of his instructions to us. He didn't put on his plate more than he could eat.
Hmmmm. Things are still going well with Paul McKenna's eating plan. I do, however, have a challenge, a hurdle that I must overcome if I am ever to really reach the weight I would like to be at and have the ability to maintain it.
The problem? Often when I am eating, and by the way, I do now put small amounts of food on my plate, I begin to feel full and I still have food left on my plate!!! Sometimes it is just a few bites, sometimes it is a lot. And oh, it is so hard to stop eating! I realize that I can take my leftovers, put them in the fridge and eat them later, but for some reason making myself stop eating is just hard.
This hurdle will be a dream snatcher if I allow it to be. This realization brings into focus the necessity of conquering it completely now, not later. I am contemplating this dilemma and will write more about it in the coming days.

Food and Family Reunions

You know it's going to be there. You know you will have to face it, and you will win or lose. You will be in a 'slippery place' with 'slippery people' and there is no getting around it. Food will also be there. Family reunions are wonderful. They are precious moments in time when you have the opportunity to be with those you love, but don't often see. The downside for those of us who are trying to downsize our size is that there will lots of wonderful food, especially desserts. Oh, the temptation!

I went to a family reunion today, after spending the night with my precious grandmother who, by the way, is now 97. At this family reunion were aunts, uncles, and lots of cousins of all ages. Our short time together is always wonderful, especially since my parents both passed away. I guess in my parents absence, the rest of the family just seems more precious to me.

Anyway, as always, we have a fabulous meal together. In recent years these meals have been catered by local restaurants, with all of us supplying desserts. This year we had chicken fried steak and grilled chicken, baked potatoes, green beans salad, and garlic bread, and an abundance of homemade pies, cakes, cookies, and cobblers. Oh, my, what was a girl to do?

It was very interesting. Since I have incorporated some of Paul McKenna's techniques into my lifestyle, I realyl didn't have a problem. I didn't deny myself anything, but I knew that I was not going to overeat. I would eat until I was satisfied and then quit.

I asked for and received the smallest chicken fried steak they had, topped with some cream gravy. I got half a baked potato, a serving of green beans, and half a slice of bread. I made sure that I ate slowly, putting down my fork and knife in between bites. I enjoyed visiting with my family and did not rush my meal. I ate almost everything on my place then went to the dessert table. I got a tiny sliver of cheese cake. Yes, it was tiny, just over 1/2 inch in width. I thoroughly enjoyed every tiny bite of the tiny serving. I ate a very small chocolate chip cookie, and then later in the afternoon, I indulged in about 1/3 cup of "Death by Chocolate" pudding. I was then very satisfied and did not feel guilty about anything.

Victory!!! Oh, yes, I am down another half pound!!! 31 1/2 pounds lost!!! Thank you, Paul McKenna!

What Do YOU See When You Look In the Mirror?

Do you see a person that is beautiful, capable, and self confident with a healthy self esteem? Or do you look at yourself and see just the opposite? What do you say to the person you see in the mirror? Do you say things that you would never say to someone else? Why are you so willing to hurt your own feelings and fiercely tear yourself down?

I don't have an answer for you any more than I have one for me. One thing I do know, however. we will never be able to be all we could be, or encourage those in our circle of influence to be all they can be, as long as we insist on being our own most negative influence.

Paul McKenna's video training titled, "Your Perfect Body", on his website, www.mckenna.com, addresses this issue in a powerful way. We don't have to wait till we are thin to begin to love who we are. For me this is wonderful training. I encourage you to watch this video with an open mind, and if it addresses a need in your life, then be willing to seriously give it a try.

What do YOU see when you look in the mirror?

I'll Never Eat Peanut Butter Again!!

I have shared with you on previous posts about how much I love peanut butter. I love to eat it right from the jar. I love to eat it in a sandwich, with or without jelly. I love to eat it with syrup. You know, peanut butter and syrup mixed up and spread on toast or crackers. When I was a kid I loved to eat peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches!
Because I have loved to eat peanut butter in large amounts, it has been a real hindrance to my weight loss. I know I shouldn't eat it, but, you know, that peanut butter jar will just call my name and I will give in and eat a lot, not a little straight from a spoon.
Well, I saw Paul McKenna's TV episode on Conquering Cravings, and then watched the video clip he has on his website. On the TV show he featured a woman who ate 5 pounds of chocolate a day and another one who craved cappuccinos. They both had tremendous weight problems and seemed unable to resist when these cravings hit. I totally identify.
I watched his technique on conquering cravings and immediately decided to try it for myself. It is literally mind control and association. If you are craving a particular food or beverage and it is interfering with your weight, I suggest that you read the instructions and watch the video clip on Paul McKenna's website, www.mckenna.com, to get the specifics on this technique.
I used the technique about 2 weeks ago to help me conquer my craving for peanut butter and I must tell you, I seriously doubt that I will ever eat peanut butter again. Since that time, I have had no desire to look at peanut butter, smell it or taste it. I get almost nauseated when I talk about or think about, or even write about what was once a guilty pleasure for me.
In my next post I will begin to discuss my feelings about how well this technique worked for me, and about just how important it is to allow our mind to be a factor in our weight loss.

Paul McKenna: "Supercharge Your Metabolism"

This video on McKenna's website talks about the value of exercise and how we are all exercising unless we are bedfast. According to him, getting dressed is a form of exercise. Brushing our teeth is exercise. We all exercise. We just need to do more of it. By doing more exercise, we increase our metabolism rate, and our bodies burn calories and fat more quickly, enabling us to lose weight more quickly, or enabling us to maintain a healthy weight more easily. That's it. Nothing more complicated than that.
In addition, McKenna teaches on this video a technique that will help motivate us to exercise. Again he uses associations to accomplish this, and I believe it will work.

I must admit that the discipline of regular exercise has not as yet become part of my lifestyle. No particular reason. I just find other ways to use my time. I realize that must change if I am to attain and maintain my desired weight.

"Overcome Emotional Eating" by Paul McKenna

Emotional eating is one of the major millstones around the necks of overweight people making it a major obstacle to attaining and maintaining a healthy weight. It is also a very difficult obstacle to overcome. Many of us have been able to do it for a period of time. We have been able to focus so intently on our goal of a downsized size, that our compulsion to emotionally overeat fades away---temporarily. That is until we reach our goal, or until something emotional happens to us, and we just lose all control, and once again we begin to eat everything in sight.
Paul McKenna's technique for overcoming this overeating 'curse' is, ok, I admit, rather strange. He teaches us to use a tapping technique to help us get past an 'emotional eating moment'. I encourage you to log on to his website: www.mckenna.com and click on the "Overcome Emotional Eating" video. After having learned the sequence, I have found that it does help me, and I will use it at least a couple of times a day.
The question is: are you ready to do something about your weight, even if the something you need to do is somewhat strange? I am. And it is working!

By the way, the losing and winning continues in my life. Yesterday evening, I put on a black skirt that is a size smaller!!! WoooooooHoooooo!

McKenna's Techniques

Yes, the rules are great, and they are critical to attaining and maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle. However, those of us who have an 'over sized' size, need help with other issues related to our desire to eat and not stop until there is nothing left to eat. Right?!?!

Many of us are emotional eaters. We eat when we are happy, or sad, or mad, or anxious, or excited, or, well, you know. Sometimes we don't need and excuse to eat. We eat just because it is there and we walked by it, saw it and smelled it. In fact we seldom eat just because we are hungry because we never let ourselves feel that hungry feeling. We eat before we get hungry.

Sometimes we have certain things we crave. Chocolate, diet drinks, peanut butter, etc. We eat or drink those things just because we want to. We think we can't make it through a day without them. These are major contributers to our lack of control.

Another contributing factor to our difficulty in losing weight is that we sometimes have a slow metabolism. This means that our bodies are burning calories at a slow rate and the extra calories we eat are stored as fat in our bodies.

Many of us have self image and self esteem problems. We feel unworthy of being loved or experiencing love. We look in the mirror and hate what we see, but then tell ourselves that we deserve to look this way. Because we think of ourselves as being a person of no merit or having no worth, and that no one should love us even if we were thin, we eat more which makes us larger, once again confirming our unchanging self loathing. Yes. These are strong word. But some of us experience strong emotions when we think about ourselves.

Yes. Paul McKenna does address these issues in his programs and on his website. Tomorrow I will begin to discuss his techniques.

McKenna's 4th Golden Rule

Golden Rule #4: When you think you are full, STOP eating. OK, now this is hard. First of all, knowing and accepting that 'satisfied' or 'full' feeling as being our stopping signal can be difficult. As overeaters, we continue to eat until we get that 'stuffed' feeling. Then we force ourselves to stop. That is, unless we continue to nibble while we put away the leftovers and clean the dishes. We are also accustomed to eating until the food is gone. Yep. The old 'clean your plate' habit.
The second part of this Golden Rule that is challenging is to actually STOP eating when we do reach the recognized 'satisfied or full' point. Last night, my husband and I grilled some chicken breasts on our new grill. Yum. It was great. The problem? I got full before I had finished eating my portion! Oh, no! I didn't want to stop. It tasted so good!
I had 3 choices here. (1) eat it anyway and defeat the good McKenna's program is going for me. (2) save it for later. I could have had a small snack before it went to bed. (3) give it to my husband to eat. I chose #3. I won!!! I was satisfied and didn't overeat!!!
If you would like to learn more about this Golden Rule and specifics on how to implement it into your life, log on to www.mckenna.com and register. Then you can read the excellent suggestions contained in the Community section of the website.

Golden Rule #3, by McKenna

"Eat Consciously and Enjoy Every Mouthful" Ok. that sound good, doesn't it? Paul McKenna's reasoning here is that we (overweight people, that is) eat much too quickly, shoveling food into our mouths, and not thinking about the taste or texture of it. He stresses that when we put a bite of food into our mouths, we should put down our fork and knife and put our hands into our laps while we chew. We should also chew each bite at least 20 times before swallowing. (try doing that with cottage cheese!) While chewing, we should think about and concentrate on the bite we have in our mouth. How does it taste? What is the texture?

By eating this way, we consciously savor every bite, not at all eating thoughtlessly. He also says that we should not eat in front of the TV, but at the dining table away from all distractions. My husband said that was a waste of good TV time!!

My question is: What about people that have only a short amount of time to eat? Being a former teacher, I remember what it is like to have to rush through lunch every day. By the time I got my class to the cafeteria, ran to the restroom, got my lunch, heated it into the microwave, I might have 15 minutes to eat before I had to go pick up my class at the end of lunch. That is, unless I had something else I had to do, like make copies, or something. In that case, I might have 10 minutes to eat, if I am lucky. How do you eat at a snail's pace then?

I did some reading on www.mckenna.com, looking for information on this topic. There are some excellent ideas on the forums which are worth trying. Basically it just means being resourceful and creative about how you find the time to eat.

Eating consciously is not something I do easily. I love to watch TV and eat, but have been sitting at the dining table this week, and yes it is making a difference in how much I eat!

WooooooHooooooo!! My weight is once again on the downward slide!!!

McKenna's Four Golden Rules; Are They Realistic?

I've read those rules before in other places. You know. The articles in Reader's Digest that share how to lose weight and keep it off. The nutritionist on TV sharing their wisdom with us. I have always listened to and read that information with the attitude of "Yea, right. You don't even know how hard it is to lose weight and keep it off. I bet you have never been overweight one day in your life. I bet you have no clue what it is like to want to eat everything in sight even though you know you are not hungry." Have you ever wanted to tell those people off? I just wanted to say, "SHUT UP!"

Well, when I watched Paul McKenna's show, "I Can Make You Thin", I had already looked at his website, www.mckenna.com,
and knew something about him. I was intrigued by his message. Soooooo when I watched his show I really watched and listened with an open mind. What he says makes sense, so I have started endeavoring to follow his Golden Rules.
If this interests you also, I suggest that you log on to his website. Then read and watch the videos.
I am going to share my thoughts about his rules.

Golden Rule #1, When you are hungry, eat. That makes sense. The problem for most of us compulsive overeaters is that we also eat when we are not hungry. The very sight or smell of food makes us want to eat. Right? However, if we are ever, ever to have a hope of being a normal weight and maintaining that weight, we absolutely must learn to recognize the difference between being physical and compulsive hunger, and then program our minds to only want to each when we are physically hungry. On his website, McKenna does address that issue and even has a technique for helping us work through those horrible moments when we just want to eat. I have used his technique the last couple of days and it does help! Hmmmmmm Perhaps there is hope for me after all!!

Tomorrow: Golden Rule #2

Paul McKenna, and His Interesting Weight Control Techniques

I watched Paul McKenna's show last night. In fact there were two episodes on and I watched them both. I also registered on his website and began reading through the material posted there.
I have found in his program, of which I have only studied a part, to be a combination of techniques I already knew, and some that were totally knew.
When I first heard of him, my fears were that he might be somewhat mystical and 'new age'. However, thus far I've found none of that in his program. For the most part he is teaching people how to reprogram their brains to make positive associations and negative associations.
He also strikes me as one of those people who are trying to tell people how to loose weight and have not one day in their life had a challenge with eating and weight. I would also bet money that he is hyperactive. He does have tremendous energy and enthusiasm.
In spite of these things, I have decided to 'give his program a go'. One step at a time.
He has Four Golden Rules listed on his website which should result in weight loss. There are additional techniques for stopping emotion eating, stopping cravings, increasing metabolism, and improving self esteem.
His website once again is: www.mckenna.com

It's All in Your Mind!

Well, perhaps that is over simplifying it. I have just learned about the new TV show which is coming on TLC: "I Can Make You Thin". My Mary Kay Senior Director shared with us the highlights of two of the episodes she had seen, and everything sounded very interesting.

This afternoon I located the website of the man who hosts the show. Though I haven't had the time to really read and study the principles of his program, it seems to me that from his perspective, weight control will be attained when we have mind control.

I am looking forward to learning more about his program.

http://www.mckenna.com/