I have a confession to make – I am an inveterate people watcher! It is so fascinating what you learn when watching others. We can learn not only about them but also some important lessons for ourselves.

  The other day I was aimlessly watching people when I noticed a lady who stood out from the crowd. It was not the fact that she was big and beautiful that caught my eye, but her deportment. Her body had a natural grace to its line and flow. As she walked there was an air of confidence about her that seemed sadly unusual in a woman of her size.

The straightness of her back yet the relaxed posture, with head held high, was indicative of slim attractive women. You could tell at a glance that she was happy in the skin she was in, a sadly unusually thing for woman who are overweight.

What was most remarkable was the way people were noticing her. This brought back a memory of what a man told me many years ago – “A beautiful, confident and well groomed, large lady who enters a room will turn more heads in admiration than a thin one, as thin confident women are ten a penny.”

It is usually the norm to notice large people (if at all) because of the way they look so uncomfortable with themselves and the clothes they are wearing. Sadly, many take not pride in their appearance because no matter what their weight and size they hate their body image. This is then reflected in the way they walk and carry themselves.

This got me thinking about the importance of our deportment to our confidence and visa versa. I never know which one comes first as one can influence the other so dramatically. The more confident we feel the more we show it in our body language. We stand more erect, walk with an ease and give confident eye contact, connecting with others without a worry about being judged.

This is when our true beauty radiates for all to see. The problem is that the way we carry ourselves and walk can either make us appear thinner or fatter. The more erect we walk the thinner we appear. The more we walk with a waddling gait, the greater it exaggerates our size.

Remarkably we do not have to build our new self belief and confidence first to achieve this new and confident look. We can fake it! Yes, that’s right. Using more positive, upright body language and practicing a relaxed and flowing walk has a major knock on effect. It can heighten our sense of confidence and self-esteem.

 By re-learning the skills of deportment you can stop hiding in a skin that you dislike and learn to feel confidence in yourself no matter what size or shape. Releasing the power of your uniqueness and beauty for all to see and admire is the outcome of positive deportment.

It really doesn’t matter what others think or say, if you feel confident and beautiful in the skin you’re in. Don’t let presumed thoughts, of what others may think of you, stop you radiating who you are for all to see. Let you beauty shine forth and see your confidence grow and the compliments flow as you look slimmer and more radiant.

A few weekends ago I had a wake-up call regarding portion control. I was away for a short break, staying in a hotel, where at breakfast I had cereal from one of those individual packets. As I poured them into my dish I was amazed at the size of the portion. It was so much less than I would have served for myself at home.

This made me think about all the other portions of food I serve myself and just how easy it is to be eating far more than you realise is really needed by your body. So as an experiment I bought myself some of the healthy option ready meals for one. That was also an eye opener. I had not realised how much my self-served portions had crept up in volume!

It has to be said that I had also been an advocate of fresh food over ready meals. So it was quite a surprise to me when I found such a variety of healthy options without the additives that I had expected.

My initial reaction to my first ready meal was “That’s not going to be enough to keep me satisfied.” How wrong was I! The saying of ‘eyes being bigger than stomach’ sprang to mind and with such a truthful ring to it. The portions were just right and the different varieties kept me eagerly looking forward to my next meal instead of wondering what I wanted to eat or cook.

This got me thinking about how much is ‘full enough’. Eating these ready sized meals made me realise that I was experiencing a completely different feeling of satiety than I had been previously working on. The great thing was I did not get hungry any sooner with these smaller portions. And another advantage I found was the reduction in me food bills!

 By taking note of how the portion size fitted my plate and by down sizing my plate – something I used to do – it is so much easier to serve up more appropriate portions of my good old home made cooking. It has also been a lot easier and more enjoyable than the old dieting method of weighing all my food portions. I don’t know about you but that always heightened my feeling of being different and somehow not good enough to eat like other people.

Training our eyes to be the scales for our stomachs is far easier and more motivating. Don’t forget though to watch for those portions creeping up in size again. It is all too easy to do.

Does it take you ages to get back on track when you have broken your diet or healthy eating plan? Do you beat yourself up because your willpower has been lacking? Do you feel a failure and convince yourself that it is not worth even trying to get back to your diet plan or healthy eating regime?

These are certainly behaviours that the dieting game has programmed into us, all because of the unhealthy relationship that food restricting creates. For over 30 years researchers have proved that food restricting, even in people with no weight or size issues, leads to binge eating and weight gain in most people.

I concede that after years of dieting, it is not easy to break the guilt trip brought on by a period of overindulgence, on the foods that do not suit our body best. However, it is made so much easier when we alter the way we view the situation…

Ø        Look back at the period of overindulgence and focus on what you ate that you really enjoyed. Allow yourself the enjoyment of food.

Ø        Remind yourself that no food is bad but some foods suit your body better than others. Allow yourself the occasional enjoyment of the foods that do not work well for you.

Ø        Consider whether you overate and if so think about how it spoilt the overall enjoyment of the food. Remind yourself that no food is restricted, only eaten in a balance to suit your body.

Ø        Now plan how you will create a mind and body connection, before you eat, that will enable you to stop when you are just full.

Ø        Congratulate yourself on having created a learning experience out of your overindulgence.

Ø        Remind yourself that past actions cannot be changed but can affect the future if you dwell on them with guilt and shame.

Ø        Let go of these negative emotions as they only raise your stress levels and lead back into more inappropriate eating.

Ø        Take action to reduce any stress in your life and so eliminate the need for comfort eating

Ø        Focus on NOW. Switch on your mind/body connection and take action to get back on track with your Conscious Eating Skills.

It is actually the negativity of our thoughts and emotions that holds us trapped, for periods of time, in patterns of unhealthy eating. Guilt and shame are massive demotivators. It’s therefore no wonder we have such difficulty in re-starting our healthy eating or diet plans once we have ‘broken’ them.

Accepting that we are only human and so will overindulge from time to time is a vital part of the process. Reducing the amount of times we overindulge is a major key to sustainable weight loss.

  By changing the way you view the whole situation of overeating you make life far less of a struggle and so reduce your stress levels. Being more loving and caring to yourself, whilst at the same time resetting your positive rules around food and ‘Conscious Eating’, you have no need to rebel and continue your unhealthy eating patterns.

Have you ever considered how much time your mind is focussed in negative mode? The time we spend ruminating on past or present issues can have one major effect on us – it can raise our stress levels. This is not always apparent as we may not feel particularly stressed. However, consider for a moment how much more you comfort eat when your mind is stuck in negative thinking.

  The more we struggle with these thoughts, try to problem solve them, fight against them, and the emotional turmoil they can create, the more we can get deeper and deeper into the negativity trap. What I never realised, for many years, was that all my efforts to escape these negative thoughts and the pain they brought with them, only lead me into withdrawing from the world and eating more and more.

Positive affirmations were helpful at times but still didn’t solve the problem of my comfort eating. The power of overcoming inappropriate eating habits actually lies, not in trying to avoid or escape the negative thoughts and their associated emotions but, in actually welcoming them inquisitively and letting them drift away. Being in the moment, as much as possible, without fighting the flow of thoughts; acknowledging them inquisitively and letting them go offers a freedom from the stressful battle in your mind.

This method of ‘Mindfulness’ has dramatic effects on your life when practiced on a daily basis. It allows you to develop the skill of living in the present moment. Regular practice enables your mind to quieten its negative chattering in order to experience the power of the present. It is in these moments that reality lives; at peace with the natural flow of life, unhindered and uninfluenced by past or future rumination.

This is where true peace lies. It is this peace that frees us from the need to comfort eat. So what methods can you use to aid you in your search for mindful moments during each day? Here are a few that you can start using right now…

Ø      Singing and playing a musical instrument– especially when you focus on the music resonating through your body;

Ø      Listening to music intently – becoming rapped up in it;

Ø      Mindfulness breathing – concentrating fully on your in and out breath, allowing your thoughts to drift in and out as they do and each time refocusing on your breathing;

Ø      Gardening – being in touch with nature as you work;

Ø      Physical exercise – especially where you focus your mind on the movements of your body;

Ø      Yoga / Pilates / Martial Arts and other forms or exercise where the mind in trained to be in touch with every movement of the body;

Ø      Meditation – both quiet and guided formats where the mind is being trained to slow down its thought processes.

Creating space every day for this type of activity is more beneficial than you could ever envisage. It reduces the guilt, shame and self-loathing instilled in us by years of playing the dieting game. It reduces the stress in our lives that has us reaching out for the false comfort of food. It reduces the time we waste each day worrying about things that may never happen, stressing about what we ‘should not’ have eaten when it’s already done and can’t be changed. And most importantly, it reduces the amount we beat ourselves up mentally, reinforcing within our own minds that we are ‘bad’, weak willed or just ‘not good enough’ because of our size, shaper or weight.

  The truth of the matter is that you are unique, wonderful and loveable, right now, no matter what your weight or size. These techniques of being in the moment allow you to see, feel and believe this, as your rumination reduces and you live more and more in the reality of the present moment. That is the true gift of life.

I was just reflecting on how, last week, I felt completely out of balance. I had lost my flow and felt as though, instead of easily sailing along the river of life, I was on a river with lots of whirlpools and eddies. Not only had my feeling of being centred and balanced been lost but also my mind more easily filled with its old habitual negative thoughts.

 There are many things in life that send us along an off-shoot of our personal river of life. You know the one. When you are on it, life and happiness flow, you eat appropriately, feel in control and never comfort eat.

When on the wrong river, we struggle against the flow of water. My life of playing the dieting game was like that as I battled with my weight. The more I fought against the reality of my body image, the food that suited my body best and the negative and self-critical thoughts in my head, the more I prevented myself finding my own river of life where food and nature work in harmony.

How do I know I have wondered away from my river of life…

*    My life or day is full of stress

*     I start to give myself excuses for not taking exercise

*    I  withdraw from the world, into myself and comfort eat

*    I set up a battle within my head about food

*    My thoughts revolve to those of self-criticism and self-doubt

*    I start to live less in the moment and more in the negativity of my head

 Creating the right balance in my life of loving actions that increase my physical activity and fun, feed my body with foods that fill me with energy, feed my soul with the love of friends and family and feed my purpose in life through the work and writing I do is the way I get back on track.

I find again, through these actions, the peace and tranquillity that comes when going with the flow of life and not against it. Follow your intuition, find the synchronicity in your life, get out of your own way and let nature do the rest.

I did something a few weeks ago that I said I would never do again – I weighed myself. That wasn’t too bad, as I promised myself that I wouldn’t get on the scales again for six months. But the temptation was too great. I had been taking much more exercise, eating healthily, most of the time, and was itching to see the results.

 So at the weekend I jumped on the scales only to discover I had not shed a single pound! The old thoughts and feelings flooded back as I began to beat myself up about the odd time in the past few weeks when I had over overeaten.

Then I stopped myself and began to think about how, only minutes before, I had felt so positive about myself. Yet again I had fallen into the trap of linking my self-esteem with my weight. I had attached myself to an outcome which had a chance of demotivating me.

Thinking about it now, I can see how much more productive it is to attach ourselves to outcomes that only motivate…

J        Doing things that feed our soul, not our weight issue

J        Creating and seeking happiness in our lives

J        Making time for self-loving actions for ourselves

J        Setting aside time to practice mindfulness and connecting with the present moment as often as possible

J        Counting our blessings every day

J        Creating space and time for the people who feed our souls

 The weighing scales have gone and in their place are the self-loving actions that will inevitably let my body settle at the weight it was born to be.

What sort of a day or week are you having? Is it filled with happiness? Do you eat less when you are happy? I am asking these questions because I realised a long time ago that the happier we are the less we reach out inappropriately, for food . The more emotionally balanced we feel, in our life, the less we need to use food as a substitute for happiness.

 Of course, happiness for most people is not a permanent state of being. However we can make a choice, in our lives, to fill each day with as much happiness as possible.

We also have a choice about how we handle the things that make us unhappy. The fact is that unhappiness is a state of mind that generates uncomfortable emotions, which many of us then try to bury with food. What we are missing out on is the lesson those emotions are there to tell us. They are actually the needle of our internal barometer, indicating to us when we are off course.

To get back on track or stay on a course for happiness there are 6 Key things we can do…

1.         Make the choice to seek and focus on happiness every day.

2.         Acknowledge the things that are outside of your influence to change and let go of them or they will continue to cause you pain and upset.

3.         Practice noticing any thoughts that focus on negative past events and
            remembrances. These are gone and cannot be changed but they will
            cause unhappiness if you allow them to. Let them go by bringing all
            your attention to the here-and-now.

4.         Practice labelling your thoughts into categories such as judgemental,
            fearful, depressive, guilty, helpless, worried, lonely, jealous, sad or
            anxious. Let them go by creating and taking actions to overcome them.
            It is in the inaction that unhappiness lies.

5.         Practice noticing when you are focussed on fears and worries of the
            future. Acknowledge that these things have not occurred as yet and
            may never do so. Let go and stop wasting the happiness of the
            moment on things that may never be.

6.         Practice Mindfulness, living in the moment as much as possible,
            without past or future thoughts. See the joy, beauty and happiness in
            whatever you are doing, no matter how mundane.

Giving up food and weight control to a holistic natural process, linking mind, body and spirit, after years of playing the dieting game, can be a scary prospect. That is until you consider that the human mind actually knows how to do a jolly good job of taking care of you, if you could only switch off your judgemental and self-critical thoughts.

These are the negative thoughts that get in the way of the natural mind, body processes and produce the stress and emotions that lead to our inappropriate comfort eating. They keep our mind firmly routed in the past or the future, yet it is the present moment that contains all the information we need to instinctively make the right choices with food and life.

In the present moment, ‘The Now’, we are…

J     In touch with our body signals and satiety levels

J     Able to make rational and appropriate choices about food, without them being obscured by emotion

J     Able to see and feel the joy of life and therefore do not need to find comfort in food

Training the mind is no different from training the body. It takes daily practice in Mindfulness techniques. These are a variety of meditative and body awareness practices, that when used regularly, every day, change the way you view and use food. The wonderful thing is that these changes occur without you even controlling them.

Take the example of last weekend. I had a personally difficult and emotional situation that would have normally sent me on frequent visits to the refrigerator. My comfort eating and even binge eating would have been triggered by the stresses of my emotions. In the past I may sometimes have managed to overcome the temptations of my mind but it would have still been a struggle.

Using the Mindfulness techniques I was able to sit and welcome my emotions, not bury them with food. By healing the emotions and letting them go I was again, balanced and at peace. Where peace is present, there is no need for food as there is no longer anything that needs comforting.

Without the clutter of negative chatter or emotions, the mind is able to see clearly the loving choices that the moment presents. Instead of withdrawing from the world and eating inappropriately I was able to easily make decisions that enabled me to stay in the moment much more, connected with the love and beauty that surrounds us every minute of our lives.

This is where reality lies, not in the past or the future. This is where our mind is free to make the choices it needs to keep us happy and healthy. Of course we need to spend some of our time in reflecting on the past and planning for the future. It is all about balance and making sure we spend time every day in Mindful pursuits.