Last night one of my closest friends visited me for a 'girly' evening that turned into a motivation session with a difference. With a few very special events, on the horizon for my friend, we decided to have a 'Trinnie and Susanna' evening where she tried on loads of my clothes!

What fun we had rummaging through my wardrobes. Trying different combinations of clothes, in ways that I had not even co-ordinated them myself was great fun. We laughed together at some outfits and then were dazzled by others. Gradually it began to dawn on us just how motivational clothes can be. We noticed how in certain outfits my friend’s body language changed. Her back was straighter, her shoulders back and her head held high. Not only that, but her eyes sparkled and her smile was infectious!

For my friend, the evening proved to be even more motivational as I showered her with positive and honest feedback with each 'knock 'em dead outfit' she tried on! It also proved to be a great opportunity to discuss body shape, experiment with different styles of clothes and discover the colours that lift looks and spirits.

All of a sudden we realised that we had also stumbled on a great method of enhancing a positive body image. One of the parts of her body that my friend dislikes, and always hides, are her arms. Soft and chubby, they have been hidden from view, for years, under jackets and sleeves. Then as she saw herself in one of the sleeveless outfits she amazed herself by her level of confidence and love for her cuddly appendages.

You really do feel different when wearing an outfit that makes you feel a million dollars. And it doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. You can share and borrow clothes from friends or dress up an old outfit up with jewellery and scarves. If you really want to wear the designer labels at next to nothing prices then explore some of the charity shops in upmarket towns. They have a feast of wonderful outfits. On the other hand, if you want to splash out the old ‘dosh’ then ask for a personal shopper in one of the large department stores of take a close friend with you for her ideas and positive feedback.

Dress to impress yourself because you really do deserve it!

I have just been reflecting on how much our motivation needs boosting from time to time. I am the sort of person who can, if I let myself, withdraw from the world and all the motivation it offers. These are the times that I find my comfort eating creeping back and my motivation evaporating into the ether!

It is at times like this, that I now know the most important thing for me to do is to 'Feed my Soul'. All our souls require being full to overflowing with self-love, gratitude and joy. These are the things that build sustainable happiness. A happy soul has no need to turn for comfort to food, but it is all too easy to forget this when our focus is on the negative.

Like a drug, the first 'fix' of negativity has us looking for more and more, trapped until we make the choice to seek a way out. For a long time I struggled to get out of the traps by doing something self-loving that was not linked to food. This was a good first step but it was still hard to make the changes in my habits.

Then I began to realise that the self-loving acts that are best antidotes to the negativity 'fix' are the ones that lift our spirits and 'Feed Our Souls'. You know the ones that life your energy and positive emotions within seconds. They are different for all of us and so your list of ‘Soul Full Actions’ is a personal one. Some of mine are…

·           Joyful and lively music I can sing along to;

·           Reading a book that fills me with inspiration such as ‘Loving What Is’ by Byron Katie

·           Beautiful photos of our wonderful world;

·           Songs with an uplifting message in them.

The last two on my list, I think lift a lot of souls so I have attached an inspirational slide show that a friend sent me recently. The pictures are really amazing and the words and music uplifting. So, I hope they feed your soul.

The other day I was with someone who passed the comment “Just look at the size of her!” about a lady who was larger than nature intended. As I looked in her direction my thoughts about her revolved to the negative. Then I stopped and considered my own attitude. I was shocked and so disappointed with myself!

In the past I would have deflected this by getting angry with the other person for their prejudice. I would have felt hurt and offended that they could think so badly of a person who, like me, was overweight. Not for one minute would I have taken responsibility for my own negative thoughts! It would never have crossed my mind to reply with “Yes, doesn’t she look beautiful!”

"If you want to know what you think of yourself,

then ask yourself what you think of others and you will find the answer." 

                                                                                                                        Seth

This quote sprang to mind. All the thoughts I had about the lady were actually the thoughts I had about myself! The ‘mirror’ was reflecting back at me, my own attitudes about myself. This is the mirror of learning we can use when we look at others with negative thoughts in our minds.

By rewording my thoughts and replacing the word ‘she’ with the word ‘I’, the lesson struck home. That was what I thought of myself. It was a salutary lesson and one that pinpointed for me how much work I still had to do in the area of self-love.

My own lack of self-love was reflected in my very thoughts. So I looked at her again. This time I focused on her beauty, on the soft cuddliness of her body, on the depth of love and care in her eyes. I felt a warmth and glow within me as I acknowledged these same attributes in myself. All of a sudden I had opened another door of self-love.

I was recently getting ready for a weekend away and considering what to take with me.

Then I began to think about the one thing we so easily leave behind when we go away - our weight loss motivation mindset. You know what I mean. We leave behind the...

* Mindset of 'Abundance' that allows us to choose the foods
  that fuel our body best;

* Key that switches our mind onto our body and tells it when
   we have eaten enough;

* List of all our favourite foods that fill us with energy and 
   happiness;

* Instruction book on 'Conscious Eating' that helps us enjoy
  every bite we eat without guilt and shame;

And the reason we leave these things behind? Our minds get 'stuck' believing that food was 'Scarce' and is now about to become 'Abundant'. That's what happens when we label food 'good' or 'bad'. We demonise it, making it scarce in our world until we go on holiday! Then, with all the abundance of food to choose from, we forget our food labelling and often binge on what previously we made 'scarce' in our world. How crazy is that!

Well, not that crazy because overeating is instinctive survival behaviour following a period of starvation or food restriction. The key, therefore, to permanent weight loss or stability is seeing food, in all its abundance, for what it really is - a fuel on which to run our bodies. Link to this the ability to eat consciously, gauging when our fuel tank is just full enough and you have a perfect recipe for loving the food you eat and attaining the weight you want!

When we tell ourselves that no food is restricted, make choices to create a fuel mix that is really enjoyable, yet perfect for our body, we have no need to alter our pattern of eating when away from home. We can even have great fun experimenting with new foods and recipes, expanding the variety that makes up our perfect fuel mix!

Give it a try! Enjoy your holiday and return home without the guilt or need to find the next 'quick fix diet'. Better still; see how often you return home without having put on an extra pound!

I have just been going through a period of stress with publishing deadlines to meet and too much to do! I'm sure you know what it’s like. All the good intentions begin to slip during these times if we are not vigilant. One of the things I have learnt is that this is the time when I so easily lose my connection with my inner self. Life becomes so focussed on work, responsibilities and problems that I 'unplug' my connection between my mind and body.

Once this connection is fully broken, and my focus placed elsewhere, it is all too easy to reach out for food as a comforter or to overeat. I begin to stop using the skills of ‘Conscious Eating’. These are the skills required to keep a healthy and alert connection between our mind and body. Using them we are able to easily assess the types and amounts of food our body requires for energy and happiness.

Way before my conscious eating skills begin to wane I start to think that I do not have time to do my yoga and meditation in the mornings. Gradually I allow my priorities to change and my time to be taken up by work and problems. What I forget is how important it is to begin each day by connecting to my inner self and feeling the joy and energy in every cell of my body.

It is this early morning ‘fix’ that sets me up for the day. I have turned on the switch between my head and my body as my first priority of the day. In this way I am beginning each new day with a loving act that prepares my mind and body for the day to come. This one act of loving-kindness sets a positive pattern for the day, which allows an easy flow of…

·           Positive thoughts and feelings;

·           Energy that dispels the stresses of the day;

·           Decisions and actions about eating the foods that fuel my body the best;

·           Energy that makes me want to be more active and take exercise;

·           Work that does not stress me in the usual way;

·           Connections with everything around me that brings me joy and happiness.

All this from just one act of loving-kindness first thing in the day. What way do you start your day to give yourself a lasting happiness and motivation fix?

Phew! I have just completed an hours exercise without going to the gym. Actually my gym doesn't open on a Saturday at present, so this morning I decided to Active8 myself and get my daily exercise in a different way - picking up plums!

Yes, I am serious. My decking was covered in plums from the trees next door that overhang my garden. Every year I curse the deluge of fruit that carpets the area. This year was different, as it became part of my daily activity practice. So out I went and surveyed the mess. As my heart sank at the thought of all that work, I began to think about something the author Byron Katie talks about - being joyful and grateful for the work we need to do.

Katie (as she prefers to be known) who wrote 'Loving What Is' explains that everyone and everything comes into our lives to help us to learn. So, as I began to pick up the messy, splattered fruit I began to feel the enjoyment of the stretching and bending exercise I was getting. Then, I remembered something else that she had taught me at her recent seminar. To be grateful to the tree for doing its job and carpeting the floor so that I would get more exercise!

If you were thinking 'why on earth would you think like that?' Well, consider for a moment how stressful it is to be angry at something you cannot change. It is how it is, and so it is futile getting angry, upset or frustrated about it! How much better, to let the situation offer you something in return like exercise or a learning experience.

This sort of situation brings with it a double-edged advantage that motivates and keeps me on track. The tree doing its job and dropping its plums gave me...

1.  The opportunity of getting a good hour bending and stretching exercise.

2. The opportunity to be grateful to the tree; let go of my usual negativity and stress about having to do the job and therefore, reduce my need to comfort eat.

Give it a go next time you are getting angry and frustrated at something. Try considering that they are doing a job to help you learn how to be more accepting of 'What is' and so keep your stress at bay.

This morning I received an email from my great friend Jen. In it was a question asked by the cybernetics engineer Norbert Weiner in response to a question, about how to determine the causes of schizophrenia, from his friend and epidemiologist, Gregory Bateson.

The email went on to adapt the question into one that I found most revealing. So I though you may like to ponder over it as I have done...

"If you were going to build a machine that produced a battle with weight, size, shape and food the way you do it, what would the machine need to do?"

Think about it and write down your own answers before you read what mine were. Don't forget, we are all uniquely different and your machine may be quite different from mine!

So my machine (as it used to be) was developed to run a programme that...

1. Constantly identified food as 'good' or 'bad' so I feared it and yet craved it.

2. Ran continuous movies about the 'bad' food and how much I loved to eat it.

3. Was based on a negative body image 'platform' (belief system) that considered my weight, size and shape was all wrong.

4. Contained a database of negative messages that I was not 'good enough' to be loved, and distributed them constantly.

5. Picked up all external messages that reinforced that I was not 'good enough' and added them to the database.

6. Easily stored negative and unhappy memories.

7. Made the storage of positive and joyous memories difficult and inaccessible for quick retrieval.

8. Easily triggered the rebellious 'child within me', giving permission for me to eat whatever and whenever I wanted.

9. Prevented me from connecting my mind to my body.

10. Triggered binge eating as a means of avoiding my emotions and the truth within them that was there for me to learn from.

 Now you have the basis from which to modify your present  programme and so rebuild your machine without all its negative viruses.

Happy programming! 

Have you ever noticed that when the day starts badly for you, everything just seems to 'go to pot' after that! Your mood is negative, you eat more food and of course the day feels like a battle!

The key to this problem that inevitably leads to more comfort eating is what you do immediately you get up in the morning. If you are anything like I used to be (and still can be at times when I forget this key), I either lie there thinking and worrying about the day ahead or get up and rush round like a headless chicken trying to fit everything in before I go out! Both of these actions have a tendency to start the day on a bad footing.

When I realised the huge difference a good start to the day made to my motivation, happiness and eating habits I began to make it a priority in my life. So here are the 'Morning Ritual' tips I would like to share with you today...

1.  Get up an hour before you normally do. Now don't pull that face! This is the time of the day that is truly your own private time ('Me Time'). So relish it with delight, especially if you can go outside and enjoy the beauty of the world around you.

2. Decide on an action you want to take that is self-loving, enjoyable and energising. I love to do a series of stretching yoga type exercises that help me switch my mind into my body and away from any thoughts of the day or negative nattering.

3. Spend 15 to 20 minutes in meditation. If you have never meditated, I can highly recommend it as a wonderful way of starting the day. You would be surprised just how much tension and negative emotion can be held over from the previous day that meditation can relieve.

4. If meditation is not your thing then try a relaxing peaceful bath or an activity / exercise you really love. Don't try to do any activity / exercise that is a struggle or not enjoyable. The whole part of this ritual is to bring enjoyment and love into the first hour of your day.

5. Spend a few moments giving thanks for all your blessings. Gratitude is a very powerful process that when practiced throughout the day helps you focuses, so much more easily, on the positive things that life offers.

6. Finally, play a movie in your mind of all the things that you are planning to do that day and see yourself undertaking them easily and smoothly. Visualise the people around you happily helping you and the day being filled with fun and laughter. Don't be tempted to skip this last bit as it has a major impact on how you cope when reality does not match up to your 'morning movie'.

Give it a try and see the difference it can make to your day.

Last week was one of those testing ones - you know, the ones with lots of lessons in them!  The fact of the matter is that life happens and because we are only human, and not perfect, we err from our focus of comfort loving and return to comfort eating. Keeping a focus on happiness at these times is a lesson in itself.

So we turn to food when the going gets tough. Worse still, we then give ourselves a good mental beating for having eaten inappropriately.  As all our negative messages flood back with vengeance our focus on happiness and self-love disappears. How helpful is that? The stress that this causes only leads us into more inappropriate eating. It is all a vicious circle!

What we actually need is love, understanding and to refocus on the thoughts and actions that make us happy. The steps to take at these trying times are easy but unfamiliar so they require practice.

Remember, this is a new mindset, abundant with love and so if you have reached out inappropriately for food try the following steps...

1. Switch off the 'Negative Natterer' that fills you with guilt and shame.

2. Reflect on the situation with empathy and understanding.

3. Reflect on what learning you can gain from your present situation.

4. Make a list of all the positive signs of love that surround you.

5. Consider the actions you can take that are self-loving.

6. NOW TAKE ACTION

7. Praise yourself for your change of thoughts and actions.

No more berating yourself for being human.

Watch how quickly you get back on track an how the happiness flows back to you.

As I awoke this morning I was thinking about happiness. For most of my life I had been unhappily living in a daily struggle with my weight and size issues. Yet, not for one minute did I ever consider that happiness was a choice I could make, or that it was a major key to permanent weight loss. I lived out almost every day with negative emotions such as fear, guilt, shame and loathing dominating my time from a conscious and subconscious position.

Then gradually, with each small step I took towards the weight I was born to be, through a different abundant mindset, I began to see the importance of happiness to the process of permanent weight loss.  

With every negative emotion and thought, comes a level of stress. The more we pile on the negativity as we fear food, hate our bodies and struggle with life the more our stress levels increase. And what happens when we are stressed? Yep - we reach out to food as a comforter! A truly vicious circle.

This negative cycle cannot be broken or our comfort eating stopped whilst we choose to use a 'Scarcity' mindset that demonises food and tells us we are 'Not good Enough'. The truth is that reality is ALWAYS kind and abundant with love but we hide it from ourselves by failing to make the choice of happiness.

Happiness IS your birthright. It is your choice what you fill your mind with and how you view every situation in your life. You see, happiness is the by-product of self-loving actions and thoughts. By making a conscious effort every day to challenge your negative thoughts, replacing them with positive ones, your self loving actions will begin the process of bringing you the happiness you deserve and dispelling your comfort eating for ever.

Watch out for my future blogs where I will explain more about your birthwright of happiness.

Keep those happiness thoughts flowing!

Isn’t it wonderful to be inspired by others? Yesterday I was at an amazing workshop attended by over 600 people. The presenter, Byron Katie, author of the book ‘Loving What Is’, re-confirmed to me the huge importance of working at ridding our minds of all our negative chatter. She calls it ‘the Work’ because quite simply that’s what it is – our ongoing work to find the joy in life every moment of the day.

When your world is focused on the issues of food, weight and size it is in a total judgement state. Where there is judgement, there’s no love or joy, only negative thoughts, fear, shame, guilt and remorse. This negative mindset only leads in a continuous vicious circle from our destructive thoughts and emotions to increased stress levels and the inevitable comfort eating!

This is why, for most people a dieting mindset does not work. It is focused only on the negative. Based on a negative focus of looking backwards over what has been and cannot be changed and looking forwards to the future which is yet unknown, it is completely self-destructive. What is missing is any time spent in the joy of the moment, accepting reality and creating positive thoughts, pictures and emotions that relieve stress and comfort eating. 

By keeping your focus in this negative cycle, you are stuck as you project thoughts that will forever keep you trapped in your unhappy battle with yourself. Breaking free is a choice that takes commitment to daily practice but the rewards are immense – weight loss and happiness brought about by self-love and a mind filled with joy.

Write It Down And Turn It Around

The process is simple…

1. Keep a note book with you;
2. Write down your negative thoughts, one at a time;
3. Change the thought to a positive one and write it down;
4. Continue to write the as many positive thoughts to supersede the negative one;
5. Reflect on what evidence you have that reinforces your new positive thoughts;
6. Be joyful and give thanks for the opportunity your struggle with weight, food or size gives you to learn about how to love yourself unconditionally

Take a look at ‘The Work’ at www.thework.com and explore how to hone your skills of ‘Turning it Around’.

Have fun finding your ‘Happy Thoughts’!

This week I have joined a new gym! It is the 5th time in my life I have joined such an establishment, so I had to seriously consider how I was going to activate my motivation to make it work this time. In light of the fact that over 80% of people who sign up for gym/leisure club membership, stop going within the first 3 months, it was time I seriously considered my ongoing motivation enablers. If truth were known I never even managed to achieve 3 months of regular visits to the other 4 gyms!

So what makes this time any different? Firstly, I decided on a set of criteria - Motivation Enablers - that would inspire me to increase my physical activity regularly...

1. Have fun

2. Meet new people

3. Be part of a group doing the activity

4. Work with people who share my philosophy about exercise and weight loss

5. Find an activity that inspires me to keep going back / doing more

6. Easily accessible

7. Inexpensive

Then I started to think about all the abundance of choices open to me. Quite a number were discounted, as they did not fit my criteria. It was then that I realised that all the other physical activities I had tried in the past, and didn't stick to regularly (including the gym), such as swimming, walking and cycling, I had undertaken alone. No wonder I hadn't stuck at them, they did not match my criteria of being part of a group.

The next stage was for me to be a ‘butterfly’ and flit between different activities, or in some cases just explore them a few times...

*  Dance classes

*  Rambling Group

*  Yoga lessons

*  Ladies only gym

Trying out a number of activities was great fun, I met new people and it left the door open for me to put a few activities into my life instead of just one. As it turned out, to my great surprise it was the Ladies only Gym, Curves, with their Abbreviated Resistance Training that I found ticked all my boxes.

Now that all my Motivation Enablers are ticked I find myself seriously looking forward to my fun activity every day. I will keep you posted on how well I do with sustaining the momentum, but I am not really worried as there are two or three other activities in the pipeline for when or if I get bored with this new activity!

Why don't you set your Motivation Enablers for your increased activity and then go out and have fun finding what really suits you.

Happy hunting!

After years of yo-yo dieting and food obsession I came to realise that for me the dieting cycle had created a mindset of food fear and food scarcity. I had demonised so much food as ‘bad’ that life had become almost unbearable. It was only then that I realised that dieting did not work for me. I realised that I needed a new way of living with food in abundance, where my fluctuating fear of eating followed by rebellion against self-imposed controls would be a thing of the past. At over 21 stone (294 lbs) my fears, shame, guilt and messages around me only served to reinforce my belief that I was not ‘Good Enough’. Then I began to realise that listening to these messages and what other people said I should and shouldn’t eat had only served my constant weight gain. I felt trapped in a cycle of thought and behaviour that only proved my downfall. Even my attempts at a mind and body approach – integrating positive mental attitudes and more frequent exercise – lead to an inevitable rebellion and weakening of my resilience and focus. What was wrong with me?

The answer was remarkable – there was nothing wrong with me! I was perfectly normal. I was no different to anyone else. I responded with guilt, fear and shame to constant messages from others and myself that I was not ‘good enough’ as a person; I responded to self-imposed food ‘scarcity’ (dieting) by the inevitable craving, rebellion and comfort eating; I responded to self-imposed exercise regimes by giving up and feeling a failure. What did I see that made me realise that I was normal? The statistics that show that 98% of dieters regaining their lost weight and at least 10% more within a 2 – 3 year period and the fact that 95% of people who start a gym exercise programme give up within 3 months!

Then it was confirmed, research had proved that a gene exists which predisposes people to obesity. It was time to finally confront the issue, accept the absolute truth, do something about it and move forward. The truth of the matter – the ‘what is’ – was that my tendency to gain weight easily was an issue for life. There was no getting away from it that was a fact! Coupled with the fact that a dieting ‘Scarcity’ mindset had never worked, long term for me meant that I needed to find an alternative if I was to loose weight permanently.

The problem was the mindset I had got into – one of food ‘Scarcity’ and a belief that I was not ‘Good Enough’. I was therefore ignoring the key to any form of sustainable motivation -personal power and positive reinforcement of individual self-worth. It was then that I began to realise that all of our trials in life are just opportunities to learn. So, what are we learning about? The answer - how our repetitive thoughts (MIND) and actions (BODY), keep us trapped in old patterns of behaviour from which only unhappiness is derived; habits that block love, joy and happiness from our life (SPIRIT). What is the way forward to sustainable motivation? To take responsibility for our own past, present and future, thoughts, accept ‘what is’ and create new actions/habits to change our lives in ways that we never previously thought possible - we begin to love ourselves more than food!