How I Really Lost the Weight

Based on the comments on my post from yesterday, I wanted to clarify a few things about my weight loss.

I do highly recommend Marianne Williamson's new book--A Course in Weight Loss--if you are metaphysically oriented. Otherwise you will not enjoy the book. I was talking to LoveHubbie about it and he thought things like "being in your body" were "mumbo jumbo..." "Where else would I be?", he wondered, and could not understand it no matter how I tried to explain it. It is a very metaphysical book from the perspective of the "A Course in Miracles" (ACIM) study path and is excellent. If you like ACIM, you'll like the book. For me, though, the book alone would have not been sufficient. I own most of the best weight loss books that exist--I'm convinced of that.

My very favorite book is "Transformational Weight Loss" by Charles Eisenstein.  See some of my TWL posts from two years ago here. Here is another book by Charles Eisenstein called "The Yoga of Eating". These are great. I had lots of insights and changed for a short time. But the net result of a "bibliotherapy alone" approach for me was no substantial change.

For me, it took more than just books.

I knew I needed support as well. I had a diet buddy--Kat--and four people who followed me and offered support on my private diet blog. I had to be accountable to post my weight every day. And blog about my progress or lack of progress. And some of my feelings, too, which was as important. Was I dealing with my feelings by eating? I knew I couldn't cheat and not have to discuss it the next day. Which I did--cheat and then discuss it. But there were people coming along with me.

In addition, the people at the chiropractor's office, including my chiropractor and his receptionist were doing the diet along with me, so I would phone my weight into them weekly as well. This was support for me.

Plus I did the new form of tapping that I am studying intensively called "faster EFT". At first I did it very little and had enormous resistance to using it. Now it is a spiritual practice for me. This has been a great side effect of the diet. It is a life skill and spiritual practice that I want to be permanent as it is a great emotional management tool and spiritual centering tool.

Using fasterEFT, I would tap for cravings. And tap late at night when I usually eat. And tap for troubling emotions during the day. So I was dealing with my feelings instead of avoiding them.

Lastly, the homeopathic drops. I needed physiological help. Most of you who are readers of my blog know that I am ardently anti-diet. At the same time, my metabolism was messed up. Plus I was hypoglycemic and couldn't eat any less than I was already eating. I was hungry most of the time anyway, and would often get hypoglycemic and sick when I would try to wait to eat. I was eating very cleanly, low glycemic, sugar-free and as little as I could anyway---that was my eating style. Still, I felt tired and starving and was filled with cravings at 220 pounds! So I needed some type of "metabolic reset", and for me, for some unknown reason, the homeopathic hcg drops worked. At least today, on the second day of maintenance, my metabolism feels healthy, I don't feel tormented by cravings, I am not obsessed by trying to hold myself back from food, and I feel good. I have felt good for weeks.

People say, "It's easy to lose weight; it's keeping it off that's hard." Well, for me, losing weight has been hard my whole life.

I have tried many other diets over the years out of desperation and couldn't lose weight on them even when I was much younger and thinner. When Nutri-System first came out I was in college and tried them for a month. They ended up refunding my money because I didn't lose weight! At that time, I was playing women's ice hockey and only eating their food at a price I couldn't afford. And they had a nurse who monitored you to make sure you stayed in ketosis. I still couldn't lose weight. So this has been a lifelong problem.

I cannot imagine being successful without this multi-pronged approach. Each part was essential. All of them worked together and any one alone would have been very nice and interesting and helpful but not sufficient. 

Some more helpful components:

• The strict protocol on the hcg diet, and my following it for the most part, even on Thanksgiving.
• The example of LoveHubbie who is diabetic and my friend Akoni who is dying of diabetes--I saw my future, since I am pre-diabetic.
• Getting caught in the bus turnstile in Brazil. And barely fitting in the plane seats. Knowing I was almost "too fat to fly". 
• Not fitting into my 2X (size 20W-22W) clothes...not being willing to special order 3X clothes. 

For me (since I have so much more weight to lose--I weigh 193 but I fit into blue jeans!) this is just the start of a journey. I am doing what feels like "repatterning" (a Marianne Williamson word)--changing how I do many of the things in my life one step at a time. The challenge before me is maintaining my new weight or pretty close to it at a much higher calorie level, through the holidays and a vacation--and then later in the spring tackling the next round of the homeopathic hcg diet.


~Photo by Roderick Lee Dail 30 years ago

Sacred Life Sunday: The Fragility of Life and Diabetes

Today in church I heard much about the fragility of life. It really got me thinking. I've had a lot of feedback about my post yesterday, all of which I really appreciate, even though some of it was not positive. Yes, it's true: I have a family member who is reliably negative about everything I do. This person took my post as "a big long whine" and a plea for support. I did a lot of thinking about how this post may have come across. I like to use my family member to flesh out the gnarly side of life. So I wanted to clarify a few things.

I appreciate the support I get here so much. It is my main support in life, and I really do value it so much.

With my lifestyle changes...I fully expect that I will be the one who has to do most of the supporting of myself, and as I mentioned, this ongoing support, almost a positive kind of brainwashing, will be vital. I need to constantly remind myself of what I'm doing and why. I need to feed my mind supportive literature and podcasts and self-talk. I need to buck the culture that pushes me to eat certain things for social reasons. That's been my downfall in the past.

Not everyone needs to eat a rigorous diet. Moderation is a beautiful way of living and I believe in it. Green smoothies (not just a food item but an way of eating popularized by Victoria Boutenko in 2005 in her book "Green for Life" and others) are working out well for Julia. I drank green smoothies for months when I was totally raw and also at another time when I was without most of my teeth and yet wanted to keep a clean diet; again, a healthy way of ingesting nutrients. I have training as a raw chef, have been vegetarian and vegan and totally raw, and as I wrote, am familiar with many other different healthy ways of eating and of weight management, having studied nutrition for over thirty years. I am talking about something quite a bit different. Something that has to do with the fragility of life.

I have a friend, a Hawaiian teacher (kumu), the one I was writing my book with initially. He has diabetes, just like my husband, and just like I will if I keep on eating healthfully while including carbohydrates in my diet. In the almost three years that I have been working on my book, my friend has gone from being healthier than I am, to being ill, to losing his eyesight and then one by one, each of his legs and most of his fingers. Diabetes is a special disease. It may seem to be a common problem, more of an inconvenience almost, and it is, but it can suddenly and without warning, turn deadly. Peripheral neuropathy is incredibly painful. So I saw my friend deteriorate swiftly and surely.

Diabetes must be taken seriously. I see my husband going down a similar path to that of our friend's. Someone who knows he has diabetes baked him special treats and sweets for Christmas as a loving gift of her expertise, not really understanding that for a diabetic, sugar is a killer...someone in his office baked him homemade goods daily for weeks and would leave them in the break room for him, because he is such a hard worker and deserves them, in her mind. He has progressed to the point where he will need to begin to inject insulin soon, despite all of the medication he is taking, because he can not seem to modify his diet. He is tired all the time and continues to gain weight.

It is up to the individual to make intensely personal decisions about how stringently they need to eat and what they want their quality of life to be. After extensive research first for LoveHubbie and now for myself, I know exactly how to eat. I have just delayed. Been afraid of change and allowed myself to buy into a story that makes it "hard" for me to do anything else. But I can just as easily do the hard work of being different and having a different story. This is what I've decided to do!

So I meant the post from yesterday to be kind of a confession of my general laziness and of my ability to buy into a "oh I can just live like everyone else" type of denial. I didn't mean it as a whine but as a transparency of my hitting bottom that is hopeful and exciting and adventurous because I've finally gotten the message. I can indeed write the story of my life differently, and I am ready to do the work. I can and will show the integrity that is so important to me and so vital to my experience of who I am in the world.

I appreciate your reminders to be gentle and compassionate with myself and I will. I promise.

Most important of all, I've truly realized in the last day or so that it is absolutely, positively A-OK that change is hard and uncomfortable right now. I've let that stop me for too long. I've let it discourage me and dissuade me from doing what I know is right for me. Hard---okay, check. Yes, yes. Uncomfortable---okay, check. Yes, absolutely. I can handle this. I'll do the mindful thing. Breathe. Get through this. Observe. Breathe. I know that my path is leading me toward abundant life, which is all that matters to me right now.

This road is not for everyone. But I can say that I wish that it had been the road for my friend. And that I wish it will be some day for LoveHubbie. And that I'm glad it's here for me to provide an alternative for me.

Thank each one of you for what you wrote, and to those who supported me off the blog as well (especially@livinlowcarbman). A special thanks to my cranky family member whom I love and who brings out the negative in every situation---you are my greatest teacher on the road to love.


~Photo from 1980 taken by Roderick Lee Dail