Can I lose and maintain weight this time?

by Elad Levinson

Yes, thousands have and you can too. But it will not be because of some revolutionary diet or exercise program. What the successful have found is that you must give up the notion that something other than new behavior and acquired skills will make the final difference.

Our research overwhelmingly demonstrates that there are two profoundly simple sets of behaviors that lead to newfound competence and capability to improve health and lose weight.

1. Stop, look and listen- stopping refers to slowing down our actions and reactions by using our breathing as a tool to maintain calm and focus; looking relates to observing objectively to our wants, needs and desires and then decide which are self caring versus self harming; and listening is the act of hearing our best self’s answer to the question: “what do I need right now to stay on purpose and focused upon improving health and losing weight?
2. Redirecting the desire to nurture and care for ourselves solely through food or anything we are over doing to caring for ourselves and others who are suffering in a manner that builds self esteem. Nathaniel Branden, the founder of the self-esteem theory, defines it as “Our reputation with our self”. We become more positive when we are kind, compassionate and loving in a healthy way.

In Pounds for Poverty, we say that skills trump good intentions and we are aligned with the aphorism in Alcoholics Anonymous that, “you can act your way into right thinking faster than you can think your way into right action.”

Red Light/Green Light

by Maryann Marks

I’m at the gym, with the energy flow working at optimum. This is when I get the best ideas for my blogs. Red light/green light flashed into my mind.

I’ve been under the weather the past two weeks. I noticed that I had no enthusiasm for anything. Because my appetite was gone, I lost a few pounds. I decided to run an experiment about keeping my portions smaller as my health returned.

I recently read a research study that gave three groups of people, who just finished a big lunch, three sizes of stale popcorn as when they went in to a movie. Everyone ate all the popcorn, and when interviewed about the taste, no-one mentioned it was stale. We’re suppose to eat when we are hungry-wrong. We tend to eat what is in front of us, especially when we are with others doing the same.

It has been a great surprise to me that I can eat small portions and be satisfied. Usually, after my stomach has shrunk from either an illness or planned fasting, I inched my way back to my normal portions without a blink of an eye. What happened this time? Using mindfulness as a steady practice, I believe, I am connecting my body with that part of my brain that ruled the portion size. It always said, “this is how much you have to eat to be full.” If I ate less, I was hungry.

Now, I’m being mindful and curious about the hungry instead of assuming I’ll be hungry if I don’t eat a larger portion. I suspect that our hunger factor is not very reliable. It will play tricks on us unless we learn to challenge it. The red light is the body saying that’s enough; the green light is the mind saying more.