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Keys to Happiness – Love

I was raised as a Roman Catholic and so I heard a lot about love in Church. The Gospels were full of the stuff. But I never really got the hang of it. I think I got a sense of what it was, but I was totally puzzled because the behaviour of the people who were teaching this to me and supposedly demonstrating it (like my Catholic school teachers) didn’t behave the way the gospels and the sermons said they were supposed to be behaving.

In my very first year at secondary school the children were split in to four ability streams. I was in the top stream and my classroom was back to back with the room that contained the bottom stream. There was a connecting door alongside our blackboard that opened into the back of the other classroom. Our teacher, Mrs Griffiths I recall, was a lovely gentle woman. But as we would go about our lessons it was not an uncommon occurrence to hear the board duster hit the back wall of the class next door as it missed the student it was aimed at. We knew what the bang was because it was always preceded by shouting in a manner that, as an adult, I would say indicated a total loss of control. The board duster, by the way was primarily a 6” x 2” x 1” block of wood.

In a school whose raison d’etre was the promotion of Love!

I’m sure you can understand the confusion of an 11 year old, who had led a relatively sheltered life up to that point, when he was trying to make sense of what love was by noticing what his religion taught and how the practitioners of that religion behaved.

In my adult life, after moving away from the religious programming of childhood I discovered an interesting fact when researching the truth about the times of the gospels. The version of the gospels that we used in church had been translated from Greek. It appears that Greek has four words for love: agape, eros, philia, and storge.

Agape – affection, the feelings you have for your children.

Eros – passion, sensual desire and longing.

Philia – friendship and loyalty to family and community.

Storge – acceptance of things the way they are.

They all turn into the word ‘love’ in English.

No wonder nothing made sense, and you might be wondering by now what it’s got to do with happiness anyway?

Let’s consider another definition of love that brings us much closer to happiness.

What isn’t fear is love.

I’m using fear here in a very broad sense to describe any negative emotion or feeling. You might put it this way, when you are unhappy you are in a state of fear; when you are happy you are in a state of love. Love in this case being nothing more than a sense of well-being and good feeling. You know, one of those mornings when you wake up and the world seems like a wonderful place to be. If that’s an unfamiliar experience to you, then let me tell you that it is possible for you to achieve that state from time to time with nothing more than a shift in your thinking – a shift in the way you look at the world.

For instance…

You set off to work. You are driving along quite happily when someone cuts right in front of you. Immediately you feel a flood of negative emotion because this person was driving with no concern for your safety, and without an ounce of respect for you. You know that you deserve respect and you want to get to work, and home again, without having an emergency visit to the hospital in between.

Nothing wrong with any of that but it ain’t love and it ain’t happiness.

With a little effort you can forgive the other driver. Be aware that they may have had things on their mind. They may well be inconsiderate of others, but you can’t change that, and if they are generally inconsiderate of others then the only one suffering as a result of their bad behaviour is you. They are unaware of your ire. They are totally ignorant of your ill-feeling directed towards them – unless of course you sound your horn. Especially if you sound your horn in a repeated, angry fashion – because that will make sure they never do it again.

Except it won’t make any difference because if they are truly inconsiderate they’ll be wondering who the idiot is behind them blasting away on the horn. Some people are so insensitive…

Here’s another way of looking at this. It might have been a close call but nothing bad happened. If you had to take avoiding action then give thanks for your concentration on the traffic and the speed of your reflexes. Understand that not everyone has your empathy for others. See yourself as special. Feel good that you can rise above such trivial events. Feel good about your calmness in a crisis. Resolve to use the time in the car in future by listening to educational, or inspirational audios from your favourite speakers or authors. That way you’ll have more important things to do on your journey than sit in judgement of the driving skills of others.

There is always another way of looking at this.

Your task, if you are truly a happiness-seeker, is to seek out that other way, that more positive way, of looking at each situation that attempts to pull you into its negative mindset.

Is there something to learn here?

What else could this mean?

What does this feeling remind me of?

That last question will often reveal something from the past that has been triggered and you will discover that your negative emotion is arising out of the past not from the present. Heal that past situation in your thoughts and this kind of event will no longer be experienced by you.

Look at the world through eyes of love. Look for the good intent that was behind something that went wrong. Release judgement of others as best you can. When those judgements arise in your mind (and they will whether or not you want them to) remind yourself that you are not your thoughts. Remind yourself that just because you are thinking it, you don’t have to believe it. Remind yourself that you are not in control of, nor responsible for, the thoughts that arise in your mind. Your only responsibility is to choose whether or not to act on them.

As you do this, you will find that your reactiveness to the world decreases. You will become more peaceful. As you become more peaceful, the happiness that is your true nature will come to the fore.

Michael

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Qsymia/Qnexa – the New Weight Loss Miracle Drug.

I don’t have a lot of time for pharmaceuticals – especially for those associated with weight loss, but there’s a new one, Qnexa (which will be marketed under the brand name Qsymia), that’s about to receive FDA approval. So I thought I’d do a little bit of research and find out what all the fuss is about.

Here’s what I found out. Qnexa is manufactured by Vivus Inc. On the day the FDA panel voted 20 to 2 in favour of approval, Vivus’ stock jumped 98%.

So that’s great isn’t it?

FDA approval means it’s safe and it does what it claims it will do – doesn’t it?

And that’s got to be really good news for people struggling to lose weight – hasn’t it?

Well…

One of the things most people don’t know about pharmaceutical solutions is that all drugs have side effects. What approval means is that the benefits outweigh the side effects. Sometimes drug side effects are quite severe, but if the drug means the difference between life and death then the severe side effects can be tolerated. If it’s an over the counter preparation (OTC) available without prescription then the side effect tolerance is much lower – in theory at least. You might want to check this out for more on OTC safety

So how does this new drug work and will it really help you to lose weight?

Qnexa is a mixture of phentermine and topiramate.

Phentermine

Phentermine was a part of a diet drug marketed in the 1980’s but it was withdrawn because it damaged heart valves. It works like amphetamines and suppresses appetite. It has two sigificant side effects – tachycardia and elevated blood pressure. Interestingly, the FDA is concerned about heart risk with phentermine and is looking at the possibility of further studies – but these will only be required after approval and not before. Safety seems to me to be taking a back seat when there are billions of dollars waiting to be made.

Interestingly the appetite suppressant effect of phentermine only lasts a few weeks, so the problem will be to stop people increasing the dosage when this happens. Especially if they have enjoyed watching the pounds fall away effortlessly.

Increased dosage means increased risk.

But let’s not ignore the other drug that contributes to the magic of Qnexa – topiramate.

Topiramate

Here are some of the listed side effects:

Depression, confusion, chest pain, memory loss, difficulty breathing, concentration problems, hallucinations, difficulty with speech, fainting, mood swings, paranoia, fatigue, vision difficulty and eye pain, wanting to sleep, deep vein thrombosis, suicide, hyperglycemia, kidney stones, and allergic reactions.

42% of people taking this drug reported cognitive or mental problems.

Qnexa itself seems to be causing serious concerns relating to cardiovascular problems (just as with most other miracle weight loss drugs that had to be withdrawn) and also possible birth defects (cleft lip & cleft palate). The solution to this, suggested by the manufacturers, is adequate birth control!!!!

So it’s looking good so far.

But when we look a little deeper into this we begin to see something more than a wonder drug that benefactors Vivus are blessing humanity with.

FDA – going through the motions

Before the vote the FDA prepared a 161 page document espousing Qnexa’s benefits and strongly recommending approval. The FDA, by the way, gets most of it’s funding from the pharmaceutical industry. Isn’t that a bit like letting the criminal fraternity run the Justice System? It seems that wisdom, and the safety of those tha FDA is supposed to be protecting (the American people), fall by the wayside in the FDA’s desperate attempt to come up with an ‘easy solution’ to the obesity epidemic that the US is suffering from. And, of course, the medical mindset is that the only solution is a pharmacological one. Never mind encouraging people to do something simple and safe like eating a little less and exercising a little more.

The problem, it seems, is that there is no competition for this new drug, so everyone who wants to carry on eating and make no changes to their lifestyle sees this as an easy option. Every one will want it. Everyone wants the easy option. Even though a prescription will be required it will be available without through internet sources and Vivus will make billions of dollars.

This drug, if approved, would likely be prescribed to millions or tens of millions of people,” said Dr. Michael Lauer, director of the division of cardiovascular sciences at the National Institutes of Health. Dr Lauer voted against the approval of this drug back in 2010, and was one of the two who voted against recently. He also says “We cannot assume that just because a drug reduces weight and improves some biomarkers that it will be safe, let alone beneficial.

Serious Safety Concerns

The overwhelming consensus (outside of the FDA of course) is that there are potentially serious cardiovascular problems with this drug and it needs much more rigorous examination. That examination needs to take place prior to approval, not after. But the writing is on the wall and the desperate search for a magical solution to a lifestyle problem is going to ensure that profits win out over safety and the only ones who will suffer are those who trust their doctors and are desperate for help with a problem they feel powerless to impact.

 

Michael

My thanks to:
http://www.justiceforyou.com/2012/02/consequences-qnexa-side-effects-american-consumer/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaiken/2012/02/23/new-diet-drug-qnexa-promises-10-weight-loss-at-what-price/
http://marilynmann.wordpress.com/tag/michael-lauer/
http://www.theheart.org/article/1361583.do

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If You Knew How to Not Worry – Wouldn’t You Already Be Doing it?

Worry – we all do it.

But why?

What purpose does it serve?

For the majority of clients who come to see me for help with anxiety or stress I focus my first session on worry. Worry is what is causing a lot of the trouble a lot of the time. The problem I have is that people think they are supposed to worry. Their parents did it. Their friends do it. In fact worry is so integrated into the fabric of Western society that to not worry is thought to be uncaring, antisocial, or even, dare I say it, heartless.

Now who wants to be thought of as uncaring, never mind heartless?

I mean, if your Mum is seriously ill in hospital, what it would it look like if you just went about your business with a smile on your face? Then your best friend is being evicted and will be on the streets and homeless in short order – hardly the occasion for levity is it?

Before I return to those questions I want to come at this from another direction.

Considerworrying is magical thinking.

By magical thinking I mean exactly that, thinking thoughts in order to control outcomes.

We don’t want Mum to die, or be seriously impaired. We don’t want our friend to suffer the humiliation of having to beg for help. We want everything to work out for the best because we are kind, caring people. But the only way that we can prove that to the World is by showing the world that we are worried. Anything less would be a devaluing of ourselves. We want to be thought kindly of – and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But what exactly does the worrying achieve. In my own experience all that I’ve ever noticed happening when I worry is that I feel bad. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t like feeling bad. Whenever I’ve had a bill and no money to pay it I’ve worried. But I’ve also noticed that the worrying doesn’t magically make the money appear. All it does is make me feel bad. It doesn’t even motivate me to do something to get the money, because I’m worried, I’m already performing under par and my ability to think and act effectively are compromised. I’ve found the best time to make money to pay bills is when I’m not worried about the bills.

Considerworrying is a way to ward off evil.

We have discovered that when we worry enough about something bad happening, it rarely does. The truth is that to any one individual really bad things (beyond the ability to cope with them) don’t happen that often, but we don’t notice the statistics, we notice that when we worry bad things don’t happen and so worrying becomes a way to ensure that bad things don’t happen. And like any other superstition we get scared not to worry, because then something bad really will happen and it will all be our fault because we didn’t worry.

The risk becomes too great to take.

Considerworrying is a preparation.

We also worry about things like our own or other people’s illnesses as a way to prepare ourselves for the worst. We do that because we don’t believe we have the internal resources to cope and so we imagine all the possible ways we can of not coping in the hope that somehow that will help us to cope. But what you will notice, if you look back on your life, is that when there was no warning of ‘disaster’, you still coped. It probably wasn’t fun, but you managed to get through it. It may have left scars, but you survived.

In my life I’ve been an expert worrier. I’ve also discovered that it is possible not to worry. I’ve also noticed absolutely no difference in outcomes whether or not I worry.

But in my study of minds and the interesting things they get up to I have found that, whenever a worry raises its ugly little head, I can interrogate it and find out what message it is attempting to bring to my attention. Let’s take, purely as an example, a serious illness in the family. When we project into the future, we see the loss we might experience and the grief we will suffer. We also see our own discomfort as we watch our loved one in distress. All of this worries us because it interferes with living the peaceful and happy life we really feel we deserve to be living.
The truth is we don’t actually know what is going to happen, but we try to buffer ourselves against the worst by pre-living it in our imagination.

With the friend who is suffering, again we project into the future, but this time we imagine that it is us that is homeless and we feel all the feelings associated with that. We really don’t like that and don’t want it for our friend. So again we suffer.

Have you noticed the pattern?

We use our imagination to create negative fantasies about the very outcomes we do not want.

And then we feel bad because what we experience in our imagination is experienced by the body as if it is real – so we feel all of the uncomfortable emotions associated with the undesired outcome.

So how we do we stop this pattern.

And how do we stop it without becoming the hard, heartless, uncaring human being that we fear so much?

Whenever you find yourself imagining negative outcomes then immediately imagine a positive outcome as well. Whenever you think about the worst that could happen, then follow it by thinking about the best that could happen. Spend just as much time worrying about the positive outcomes as you do about the negative. This keeps things in balance.

If there is something really seriously negative going on in your life and you just can’t pull your thoughts away from it. Then make an appointment with yourself for 15 minutes twice a day. In that 15 minutes you have permission to do your very best worrying. You can use this time to think about even more dire outcomes than you ever previously imagined. But, you must stick strictly to those times to do your worrying.

It is only fair to warn you that if you do either, or both, of these then you will experience a shift in your perception of life that will seriously damage your ability to worry as freely or as intensely as you did before.

Michael

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How About a Cup of Instant Weight Loss?

If you are a coffee lover like me, then you will find instant coffee unpalatable. It’s not a patch on the real thing. It’s just the same with weight loss. When I get a cup of good coffee I like to drink it slowly and savour every mouthful. That way the pleasure stays with me long after the coffee is finished. So much so that one really good cup of coffee a day is more than enough to satisfy me. Any more than that and it just becomes normal and all the pleasure is lost.

Now the speed of weight loss is a big issue and one of the reasons why many people make the wrong choices.

I mean, when summer is approaching, or that special event like a wedding, and you really need to look good it’s no use talking about taking one or two years to lose that excess weight permanently. You want it gone and you want it gone now.

But we live in a society of instant gratification. If you have a weight problem then your kitchen is likely filled with instant snacks where all you have to do is open the packet and your need is satisfied. Entertainment is available at the touch of a button in most living rooms – whether that be tv music magazine, internet, or book.

Walk down any high street and you won’t go far before you are tempted by the aroma of that fresh coffee I mentioned earlier. Delicious coffee that you can be enjoying in moments – along with the sugar, the cream and maybe even a cake. Hungry? Then nip into a fast food outlet and again within moments you are sitting down and satisfying that desire.

No waiting. No delay. Instant.

The weight is piled on like this so why shouldn’t it come off the same way?

Well it can.

At the end of the day if you don’t eat you’ll lose weight. The bigger the difference between the calories you eat and the calories you use in exercise the faster the weight loss. Live on nothing but water for a week and you’ll lose a bit of weight (I’m not recommending this, by the way). Unfortunately those who are overweight tend to be those who don’t exercise much. The greater the excess weight the fewer calories burned through exercise so that’s a bit of a vicious circle. The one thing you need to do – exercise – that would allow you to eat more without adding weight, is the one thing you don’t want to do.

But excess weight is a bit like smoking. Smokers think that this cigarette (the one they are about to light up) won’t kill me and so they smoke that one. They think that with every cigarette, until one day they are lying in hospital with a smoking related disease wondering how they could have been so stupid. Eating is just the same. This little cream cake won’t make much difference. I’ll make up for it tomorrow. These three spoons of sugar won’t matter. I’ll have less tomorrow. But it all adds up. At the end of each day you are either heavier because you ate more fuel than you used; or you are lighter because you used more fuel than you ate.

Of course food isn’t just fuel. It’s pleasure too… and distraction… and emotional support… and a love substitute… and a boredom buster… and social oil… and that’s why it’s such a problem. And there are so many lies about food – like you are somehow a bad person if you don’t clean your plate. Waste is evil and so are you. Better to be fat than waste food. We use food to make ourselves feel good. It doesn’t work because the ill-feeling is born from beliefs about self and no amount of eating has any impact on your thinking style. It takes a different approach to make the change where it needs to be made. If you want to find out more about this check out my weight loss video.

So we are conflicted. Eating just the right amount of fuel for the energy we use up in a day feels like we are being denied something we deserve. And when we are denied something we want it all the more and this is the vicious circle that makes rapid weight loss so difficult to do, and if you are one of the few who succeed in rapidly arriving at your ideal weight – you will not maintain it. Rapid weight loss – because of what it does to the body, is almost impossible to maintain without engaging in a lifetime of struggle with food and who wants that.

If you want to find out more about what rapid weight loss does to your body and why it is so difficult to maintain that lost weight then check out my book How to Lose Weight Easily – and Free Yourself from Diets Forever

Don’t forget to leave a comment and share this with your friends.

Michael

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Is it Anxiety… is it Stress… or Just a World Where You Don’t Fit In?

I’ve just finished a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. It’s a good book.

Extroverts outnumber introverts in the world by a significant percentage – possibly as many as 3 out of 4 people are extroverts.

I’m one of the World’s minority, an introvert, so I’m pretty clued up on how difficult that makes it to navigate through life in a world where the extroverts seem to be making all the rules, calling all the shots, and deciding what’s in the best interests of all of us.

This morning I was reading a report about a young boy with severe emotional problems – he would rather go hungry than talk to someone. Anyone who has suffered from panic attacks, or agoraphobia, will know just how difficult the simple task of supermarket shopping can be and be able to relate to that young man.

There’s another book, by Elaine Aron, that I read a few years ago called The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You. This book covers another aspect of introversion – High Sensitivity. There’s also a handy little questionnaire at the beginning of the book to let you know whether or not you fall into the category of Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). Now this sensitivity that Elaine Aron writes about isn’t emotional sensitivity. It isn’t about being sad or happy, or angry or blissful. It’s about physiological sensitivity. HSP’s are people who suffer physically and mentally when there is too much going on for their bodies to handle.

HSPs can get overwhelmed when there is too much noise or just too many people.

About 1 in 5 people fall into the HSP category. I’m one of those too. Elaine Aron’s book changed my life. By the time I’d finished the first couple of chapters I felt, for the first time in my life, as if someone actually knew me. And that, strangely enough, was someone I’d never met.

Now because we extroverts & HSPs tend to be quiet, thoughtful individuals, we, and our ideas, are frequently overlooked in a world where loudness is thought to be the same as wisdom. Quiet explores aspects of this as it relates to survival and success in Harvard Business School – a place where gregariousness & loudness gets you your degree.

It’s tough being in that quiet minority. It’s even tougher when you think it’s a medical problem – as I did. It gets even worse when your doctor agrees it’s a medical problem and then introduces you to the dark, emotion-suppressing world of tranquillisers and anti-depressants. This is a world you can get trapped in because these drugs sap your will and your will is what you need to get yourself out of the hole you are in.

You get medication when you have a medical problem – not when you are just the way you were meant to be. And so the medical solution teaches you that you are ill. This is the lie that is still perpetuated even 20 years after I found my way out of that minefield.

That’s not to say that the medical world doesn’t have some options that are helpful. I had some fantastic help from one psychologist who ended up as a close friend. The help I got was simply the idea that my beliefs about the world (developed through eyes of fear and my recognition that I was different) were mistaken. Once these mistaken beliefs were corrected the anxiety retreated.

But the medical view is generally that you need fixing.

My view is that you are ok just the way you are. And the minute you accept that the anxiety starts to drop away.

Yes it’s difficult, and if you are very lost, as I was, you need someone who knows the way to guide you out of the terrifying jungle that is life as you know it. A jungle where to survive each day is a miracle and evening brings the blessed relief that another day is over.

Acceptance of you just as you are is the starting point. Once you recognise that even though you don’t seem to fit in with everyone else; once you realise that it’s okay to prefer reading to mindless social chitchat; once you realise that it’s okay to watch a good film with a friend rather than go to a party; once you realise that it’s okay to want every conversation to be meaningful rather than inane; then you can start to make the changes you want to make to have the life you want.

A life free from anxiety about not fitting in – a life free from worry about not being normal.

Just remember that it’s the extroverts who have created the mess the world is in today.

You are perfectly normal, embrace your differences and be proud to be just exactly who you are.


Don’t forget to post a comment and share this with all of your extroverted friends so they can begin that process of understanding.

Michael

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Weight Loss, Aviva, and Your Bank Account

A new survey conducted by Aviva (in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic) establishes a strong connection between dramatic weight gain and financial stress. The survey shows that the major cause of stress in US males is their financial situation.

Here are some of the things the survey discovered:

  • 1 in 4 men never exercise.
  • 1 in 3 claim their stress is the consequence of their financial situation.
  • 2 out of 3 stressed men would like more money.
  • The men who are most stressed are 3 times more likely to have a significant weight gain.
  • The men who are most stressed are more likely to be fatter than men who aren’t worried.
  • Men don’t go to their doctors enough.

Now let’s have another look at this.

Excess weight causes premature death through a variety of health problems. Aviva sells life insurance. The younger you die the more it costs them – because you haven’t paid your premiums for long enough. Therefore they have a vested interest in encouraging people to visit their doctors.

The Mayo Clinic sells health. The more convinced you are that you have a problem that needs medical attention – the more money the medics make. Being overweight is a health problem. It is not a medical problem. Severe obesity might be considered a medical problem. Being overweight cannot be ‘cured’ by visiting a doctor. The only ‘cure’ is to decide to do something about it and then to act on that decision – forever. If you make being overweight a medical problem then you are opening the door to more of your money being sucked into the pockets of medics, surgeons, and already bloated pharmaceutical companies. And you are already overweight because of your difficult financial circumstances (according to this report, at least).

In my reading of the report the connection they make between weight and financial stress seems a little tenuous.

A survey that I reference in my book How to Lose Weight Easily – and Free Yourself from Diets Forever suggests that 1 in 3 Americans are obese. Another 1 in 3 are overweight. So two out of every three Americans has a weight problem. That’s a lot. That’s so many it must be unusual to find someone who is a normal weight.

We are also in a recession. In a recession it is no surprise to find that a lot of people have financial problems. Because of the high numbers of overweight people and the high numbers of people with financial difficulties there are bound to be a lot of people in both categories.

To imply, therefore, that one is connected to the other, is a misuse of the statistics.

However, it was an internet based survey so the cost of the survey was presumably quite low. The number of responses was around 2000. And for that Aviva gets its name in lots of headlines.

Here are some of the other article titles based on this report that I discovered with a quick Google search:


Aviva USA Survey Finds Financial Situation is Top Stressor for Men and Links Stress Levels to Weight Gain

Aviva: finances top stressor for US men and linked to weight gain

Aviva Survey Identifies Strong Link Between High Stress Levels and Weight Gain


All of them emphasise the link to weight gain.

This means that Aviva’s name will be subconsciously registered, i.e. programmed, when people search for help with weight loss and come across internet references to this survey. That means Aviva becomes more familiar. Familiar = trusted. Trusted = I’ll buy from you.

It seems to me more of an exercise in advertising than a valuable contribution to the state of world’s knowledge regarding stress and weight gain.

If you liked this, don’t forget to share it.

Michael

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Now in paperback on this side of the Atlantic

Great news… I’m now able to make How to Lose Weight Easily – and Free Yourself from Diets Forever available in a paperback edition on Amazon’s European sites.

So now you can take advantage of Amazon’s free delivery to get hold of a physical copy at an almost give-away price. This book is choc full of useful hints and tips about how to lose weight easily without having to endure diets and all the suffering and struggle they entail.

So why not end the suffering and find out not only how you can do it differently, but also why it works, and be the shape and size you know you are on the inside.

So just click on the image below and check it out.

Michael

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The Truth About Weight Loss and How to Succeed Anyway

It Has to be More Complicated than This!

With a goal in mind, there are only ever two choices – something that works, or something that doesn’t. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Obviously you are going to choose what works, aren’t you? Yet what a lot of people don’t know is that when it comes to losing weight, what they choose, what they think is going to work – actually won’t. What most people actually choose is to inflict upon themselves months of suffering, agonising, disappointment, and, eventually, failure.

This failure then has the knock on effect of lowering self-esteem, which triggers emotional eating and further weight gain.

Here are your real choices:
The Old Way: find a diet; join a weight club; weekly weighing and hoping; thinking about food all the time; constant battle with temptation; frequent failures; leading to feelings of guilt; then trying even harder; and 12 months later repeating the whole cycle.

Or,
The New Way: no diets; no public weighing; eat what you want; eat when you want; no rules, so no failure; no failure so no guilt; lose fat rather than muscle (muscle is what you lose when you go on a diet); enjoy, possibly for the first time, a healthy relationship with food; and eat less because you want to eat less – not because you have to eat less.

It Can’t be this Easy

Now I know the New Way seems too easy. There’s no suffering, no struggle, and no pain.

I know you like all that fighting against your desires and then giving in and feeling bad and deciding, since you’ve already fallen off the wagon today, you might as well just binge for the rest of the evening and start all over again tomorrow. If you didn’t like it, you simply wouldn’t keep on doing it, would you?

If that’s you then you might not like the new way because there’s no way to fail, and so no way to break any rules, and so no excuse, ever, for bingeing. You get to eat what you want when you want, and you’ll find, most of the time, because there’s nothing to push against, you just eat what you need when you need it; and eat what you enjoy when you fancy it.

The Old Way is a myth. It ignores how body & mind interact. It consistently fails to sustain weight loss, while teaching you to ignore important sensations like hunger which are actually the key to escaping from this nightmarish merry-go-round. But the biggest problem of all is that the Old Way focuses on food.

The New Way is kinder, easier and works long term because it works with your body and not against it.

Do What You Do, Don’t Do What You Don’t Do

Once you throw off the shackles of the Old and embrace the New you will realise that it isn’t about being Good or being Bad. You aren’t bad when you overeat and you aren’t good when you follow your diet, or eat healthily. You are just doing what you do when you do it.

And there’s no way round that.

You are always just doing what you do when you are doing it and so it’s totally pointless beating yourself up. Just think about that for a moment. How can you ever be doing what you are not doing. If you find that you don’t like what you are doing when you are doing it, then just stop – even if that’s mid-mouthful, or part way through a big bite. Just stop as soon as you realise you don’t like what you are actually doing, because each moment of awareness is a choice point where you can continue to do what you are doing, or just stop. There is no rule that says just because you’ve started you have to finish.

Choice Points

Each moment is a choice point when you can free yourself from the chains that bind you to your excess weight.

But if you choose to carry on with whatever you are doing – even if what you are doing is over-eating – then carry on with a light heart and enjoy every mouthful.

With the New Way you can forget about: diets; calories/Syns/Points; eating what you don’t like; the struggle; social isolation because eating out with friends just reminds you of all the good stuff you can’t have; and thinking about food all the time.

Life is here to enjoy, not to fight against. The same is true of your body. It’s here to enjoy, not to fight. It’s your personal transport system that takes you everywhere you want to go and lets you enjoy all of those places you visit and all of the experiences you encounter.

So doesn’t it make at least a little sense to take care of it?

Focus on Enjoyment & Pleasure

When you focus more on enjoying your life, you’ll find that your subconscious mind starts to work with you, because your subconscious draws to you more of what you think about. If you think about being fat, or overweight, or obese, your subconscious figures that’s what you want more of and it helps you to get it with cravings and urges and guilt and a whole load of other emotional baggage that drives you towards the cookie jar.

When you push against something it pushes back. As soon as you finish reading this go to the nearest wall and push against it with all of your strength. It might not seem like it but that wall is pushing back with exactly the same force that you are using against it. If it didn’t it would fall over.

So when you push against your fat, it pushes back, just like the wall. And just like the wall it stays just where it is.

What you resist persists.

Whatever you push against just pushes right back at you. That’s what causes it to remain in your life.

Do What Works, not What Doesn’t

The New Way is based around how your bodymind works. Its focus is on what you want to have not what you want to get rid of. When you focus on slimness, when you picture yourself doing all the wonderful thinks the slimmer you will be able to enjoy so much more, your subconscious says “aha! This must be what she wants, better get to work on reducing urges to eat; increasing motivation towards enjoyment of exercise; feeling full sooner, increased enjoyment & pleasure with healthy eating, and more and more dissatisfaction with sweet, sticky, over-fatty foods”

The New Way shows you how to eat less and still feel completely satisfied by maximising the pleasure you get from eating. This is about discovering how easy it is to develop a healthy relationship with food that allows you to enjoy what you want, while reducing your weight naturally and easily.

More on How to Succeed with the New Way

If you would like to find out why the Old Way is a myth; if you want to know why you have been lied to; if you would like to discover the truth about metabolism and how you can make it work for you; then check out how to lose weight without dieting, for a free video. Or if you prefer a good read then have a look at my book that not only explains all of this in much greater detail, but also shows you how you can win at the Weight Loss Game How to Lose Weight Easily – and Free Yourself from Diets Forever

If you’ve found this interesting, then your friends probably will too. Be sure to let them know by leaving a comment below. Any questions for me can also be posted below.

Michael

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Two Approaches to Weight Loss – Which One do You Use?

There are two approaches to weight loss. The way that works, and the way that doesn’t. The vast majority of people use the way that doesn’t work. After all if what you did worked you’d only ever have to lose weight once. The vast majority of people who ‘battle’ with their weight are on a treadmill they can’t find the way off. The new diet,or maybe the old diet, is ‘tried again’ ever year, with the same results. Short term weight loss and a feelings of longing for what you are being denied. Longings that get so strong because of the implied injustice of being unable to eat what everyone else is eating – so strong that you eventually give in. Then comes the guilt and more eating to drive away the guilt feelings.

To put it simply – you deserve better than this.

If you want to get of the treadmill the video below is your first step. The rest is just as easy.

Hope you enjoy it.




The next video in the series is here How to Lose Weight Easily”

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Chakras – in the Balance

chakras with sanskrit names and locations
I don’t know about you but I find invisible stuff difficult to deal with. Take electricity for instance. You can have a bare copper cable connected to a plug which is inserted into a wall socket. The cable is either lethal or totally safe depending on whether the wall switch is on or off. Looking at the cable gives no indication. The cable looks no different – safe or deadly.

Magnetism’s another one. It’s all around us. The Earth’s magnetic field goes right through us. It even has an impact on the iron in our red blood cells, but unless we have a magnetised compass needle we are completely unaware of it.

Gravity is a bit easier because we aren’t all floating around, but with gravity it’s more of an intellectual knowing. We never knew we should be floating until gravity was discovered. Things falling on the floor just seemed normal.

Chakras are also invisible. The big difference between a chakra and electricity is that you can’t prove a chakra is there. Not because we can’t see them (though some people claim they can – See Barbara Brennan’s Hands Of Light: Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field, where she describes them as mini-tornados), but because we can’t detect them without some human intervention. Chakra detecting instruments are still waiting to be invented.

The problem with Chakras, or energy centres, is that they:
• Are invisible
• Seem a little far-fetched
• Don’t lend themselves easily to rigorous investigation

However, what isn’t so easy to dismiss is personal experience. And my own personal experience strongly suggests that the presence of these whirlpools of energy could very well be a reality.

Many years ago I discovered I had some healing ability and while I was exploring that, I read some stuff about chakras being the focus of physical well-being. You couldn’t see them, but they were there. It sounded to me as crazy an idea as me holding my hands above someone’s body and their pain easing, but that was happening – and I didn’t understand how that worked either.

So next time I had a visit from a patient I had them lie down and I got my pendulum out and held it over the places where these chakras were supposed to be and to my amazement the pendulum would spin around. But the spin would be different over each location. Sometimes fast, sometimes sluggish, sometimes no movement at all, and occasionally the opposite way round to the others.

When the spin was slow or non-existent I’d work on that area until my pendulum was spinning at the same rate as the other energy centres and the patient would report immediate changes in their body. A pain, or stiffness, would ease; mood would improve and they generally left feeling very much better than when they arrived.

So even though it doesn’t make much sense, in my own experience, chakras seem to be an invisible reality.

Because working with and balancing chakras seemed to be having such a beneficial effect, I delved a little deeper in to this whole chakra business and discovered some interesting things – like:

Perhaps working with chakras is a way to…

• Address causes rather than treat symptoms
• Heal from the inside out
• Restore balance to your life

There are seven major chakras and each one is responsible for the health & well-being of specific areas of the bodymind. I discovered that they act like valves controlling the intake of energy from the Universe (perhaps they tap into the energy of the Zero Point Field). When fully open, that particular energy centre is able to draw in all of its needs to nourish and sustain the emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of the areas of the body that are under its control.

And all you need to do in order to be fit, well, and achieving your dreams is to ensure that they are all fully open.

Life experience is what closes them down. Hurts, disappointments, losses… especially when very young, can have a devastating impact on the functioning of one or more of the chakras. The consequence of this is living on a treadmill where the same problems seem to keep cropping up, even though different people are involved each time. If your very different romantic partners all turn out to be the ‘same’ unkind, controlling, person then you probably have closed down throat and heart chakras. If you always have problems making ends meet and when you enjoy a windfall, an unexpected bill turns up to snatch it away, then look to your root and sacral chakras – your connection with feeling grounded and safe.

I’ve found that a pendulum (I use one made of lapis lazuli, but any weight on the end of a string or chain will work) shows up quite clearly the size, vigour and direction of rotation of the energy centres. And yes you can check your own chakras this way.

Chakra balancing is adjusting the energy, size, and rotation so that all chakras are the same.

Check them out and play with the energies and see if it makes a difference to how you feel.

And if you’ve enjoyed this article, or would like to share it with your friends then please comment below.

Michael