The other day I heard the phrase ‘Weapons on Mass Reduction’ which made me stop and think. What are the weapons in our arsenal that can be used to destroy our motivation disablers and boost our motivation enablers?

  After years of playing the dieting game we need an arsenal of new weapons. These are required to remotivate weight loss, whenever it wanes. It is these weapons that are the tools used to boost your motivation. They form a toolkit for the development and maintenance of sustainable motivation. This in turn aids effective, long-term weight management.

The tools that form your weapons arsenal are…

Change Champion – the desire and determination to change, which stems from a solid belief that you can make it happen, given the right tools and support.

Uniquely Lovable – the belief that you are and always have been deserving of all the love in the world and especially that which comes from within yourself.

Conscious Eating – the skills and habits with food, used by people who have always lived diet free and without a weight issue.

Image of You – the ability to sustain the image of a slim, trim self, which is accomplished through loving support from yourself and others.

Mind & Body Connections – the skill of switching on your mind to your body in order to monitor your satiety and emotional levels to prevent overeating and comfort eating.

Comfort Loving – the ability to find loving actions that replace the habit of comfort eating

Energy Enhancers – the desire to increase the peace and energy in your life through the food you eat and the physical activity you take.

Positive Reflections – the skill of inner reflection that aids in you reframing old, unhelpful beliefs, leading you away from shame and guilt and towards the joy and bliss of life.

Soul Food  - the skill of connecting to a power of love far greater than ours that has only our happiness at its heart.

These are the tools that unlock the truth of the motivational potential that lies within you. Understanding your motivation disablers and developing your own strategies to ensure that you use an abundance of motivation enablers is a commitment you make to yourself.

A few weeks ago I joined a choir. After some 30 years of not singing I am somewhat ‘rusty’ and had forgotten just how uplifting and motivating singing is. It is as if every cell of your body resonates with joy as you sing.

As one of those special things that ‘Feeds the Soul’ you don’t even have to sing in tune for it to make you feel joyful. Of course, choosing the right music to sing or sing along with is so important. Music is an emotional trigger that can lift you up or pull you down.

So I was delighted, this morning, when a CD arrived by post from the USA. I had been approached, by an American company, to review an album with the unusual title of ‘Skinny Songs’. From the moment the music began I not only found myself singing along but also inspired to get active!

At first when they contacted me I thought it a strange idea to write songs about losing weight. On reflection, why ever not with so many people struggling to lose weight?   

The fact is the music motivates, the lyrics make you think and the whole thing makes you smile. It is definitely a new tool for my toolkit for when things get tough and I need to find that special lift.

If you want to hear samples of the tracks then take a look at their web site www.skinnysongs.com. It is worth a look and a listen.  

The one thing that we need and desire as people is love. How strange it is that it can be one of the most difficult things to give, unconditionally, to ourselves.

 When we are unhappy with body image, our size, shape, and ourselves, self-love is nowhere to be found. We are unhappy with everything about ourselves and we believe ourselves lovable. Once in this state of mind we make it impossible for us to truly love ourselves.

So what does unconditional self-love look like?

·        It has a foundation based on the belief that we are and always will be a uniquely wonderful human being.

·        At its core is an understanding that we are not supposed to be perfect but instead a pupil of life, learning from all experiences.

·        It is built strongly through the habit of unconditional self-forgiveness.

·        It is filled with many acts of self-kindness every day.

·        At its centre is an ability to identify and chase away all the negative and untrue errors of our mind that negatively attack us.

And where do we find such sublime love? Deep within ourselves, waiting to be set free every minute of the day. So what is it that stops it shining through and feeding our souls?

~       Our actions of overeating and comfort eating.

~       Our inaction where physical activity would bring balance into our lives.

~       The way we wait for others to give us their love, forgetting what a store we hold within ourselves

~       The way we switch off our mind from our body and forget to eat consciously.

~       The way we fill an empty void with food instead of love.

~       The way we allow our mind to be full of negative and demotivating thoughts and beliefs.

To find this unconditional love, all we need to do is put new actions and thoughts in place to overcome the old negative ones. And how do we do this?

  We fall in love, all over again, with ourselves through the small and loving things we do constantly throughout the day…

ü      Feed our body’s with the fuel that suits it best

ü      Balance the intake of fuel with physical activity that aids our wellbeing.

ü      Forgive ourselves as often as necessary for old habits and attitudes.

ü      Find ways of loving your body image – even the ‘wobbly bits’.

These are the actions of unconditional self-love. They are not always easily achieved but the more we practice them the more we feel the love that we so definitely deserve.

My wonderful friend Jennie bought me a lovely Christmas present, a 365 day calendar of ‘Moments of Indulgence for Girlfriends’. This morning when I turned it over I read…

Flowers are lovely;

Love is flower-like;

Friendship is a sheltering tree.

                                                         William Taylor Coleridge      

  Choosing the friends we want, as our tree to shelter under when we are changing our lifestyle and habits with food, is so important.

Some trees whither and fade away because they cannot relate to our changes. Other trees look the same but on closer inspection their branches and leaves are spread in other directions and they are not in the right place themselves to shelter us.

Then there are those who stand like mighty oaks. Always splendid in their strength, beauty and glory, they are there to shelter us at any time. Yet just as often they come to shelter under our very bows.

It is these friendships that fill our hearts with joy and feed our souls. They are the ones who help to raise our motivation when life throws us a ‘curved ball’. In their loving ways they are…

·         Challenging without being judgemental;

·         Critical in a constructive way;

·         Full of good ideas and useful tips;

·         Full of fun to make you smile and your heart sing.

They are sometimes like Angels, replenishing the love that has eluded you. It is from this reservoir of their love that we re-kindle our remnants of self-love, depleted by the ravages of life.

Finding the trees that provide you shelter is a very important part of the process of motivational change.

It is very rare for me to promote a dietary substance as I feel strongly that each person’s body has its own individual fuel needs. However, I watched a programme last night about longevity. In it they highlighted an area in Japan where the people regularly live to over 100years old. They were also very fit and with no obesity issues.

  The researchers identified that people in this region ate a diet high in, not only antioxidant rich vegetables, but also soya. They lived on this simple vegetarian diet and were fit, agile, mentally very alert and active. However, within one generation, where a change of diet was made that was high in animal fats, salt and sugar, the problem of obesity reared its head.

I was also fascinated because from his early 50’s, when angina struck him, my father has been taking a pure soya derivative – Lecethin. Following the advice of a friend, who explained that the soya product would aid in lowering his cholesterol, he has taken it in granular form daily and is now nearly 93 years old.

Research into this product has shown that regular use has many more benefits than just that of regulating cholesterol in the body. By nature of the fact that it breaks down unhealthy fats in the body it also…

·        Aids in the breakdown of gallstones

·        Keeps skin looking radiant and younger

·        Aids in weight loss when on a healthy diet

·        Reduces memory loss

·        Reduces joint and muscular problems

  Sounds like quite a product and it certainly works for my

family. The point is that we each, individually, need to find the right foods

and supplements that aid our body’s development.

No one can tell us what that may be; we have to find it out for ourselves.

I have just been invited to join the ‘Experts’ list of an American web site www.weightlossbuddy.com. They have a great ‘buddy’ support system going and it got me thinking about how much more we could support each other by sharing our thoughts, tips and ideas about motivation.

 Whenever we support another person the process has such an advantage for ourselves. It raises our own motivation…

·        Through the thought we have to put into how we support another;

·         By the response we get when it helps another;

·        By the response we get when others support us with their thoughts, ideas and tips;

·        Through the fact that when we help another we are more committed to helping ourselves.

As the saying goes, ‘You have to be in it to win it’. That is the same with any form of support but especially for weight loss motivation. To get the most out of it and to keep your motivation levels high you need to engage with the process of helping others.

I have certainly noticed this since I working with Lynne Rees, my first Life Shapers, Weight Management Motivation Coach, as she develops her weekly meetings in Swansea. The very process of attending her motivation classes and sharing with others the ups and downs of weight loss keeps me on track.

So, I was thinking what better opportunity than using my blog to get a support network off the ground. You can easily and quickly create a user account (left hand column) and then write your comments. That way I can support you individually through some online coaching as I respond to your comments. 

  We can grow each others potential to find the weight we were born to be. How great is that?

Alternatively why not join my support group ‘Permanent Weight Loss Motivation’ http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1064361795 through my Facebook site. I have just started a discussion topic on motivation so why not join me http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10299177974 and get involved with supporting others.

I look forward to meeting you through my blog or Facebook and raising our motivation even further.

At last the fashion industry is acknowledging that they are not catering to the real market of women, through the sizing policy they are using. Today on breakfast TV it was accepted that the average women’s size in the UK is a 16.

Not only that they admitted to the fact that sizes are not standardised throughout the industry. This means that at last we can rest easy in the knowledge that clothes in one store can be one to two sizes different whilst still showing the same size label. How crazy is that!

  No wonder we women are so confused and not to say a little demotivated after a shopping trip! And the solution to this dilemma is that they are talking about labelling clothes to match body shape or going back to the old fashioned way of labeling with measurements. Well at least that works well for men’s clothes, which are standardised across the retail trade.

So why have women’s clothes sizes become so distorted? They say it is to aid their sales. I wonder if they calculate in all the wasted size 8-10 clothes that they over-produce and can’t sell, leaving the average size 16 and above with less choice?

What we need is a system that is not only consistent but also fits us in a way that makes us feel good about our body image. At the moment many of us shop at the same ‘faithful’ retail outlets where we know we can get something to fit and feel good in.

The interesting thing is that last year when I was in Australia there were hundreds of shops and stores that stocked a fabulous range of my size clothes (20/22). And this was in a country where their weight issue is not nearly as hefty as ours. So there was only one thing I could do whilst down under, I shopped till I dropped. Then I had to ship my old clothes home and buy a new suitcase for my great new-look outfits!

  The motivation levels were at their highest, down under, because for the first time I did not feel different. I did not feel a failure because clothes would not fit and I did not feel embarrassed at trying the clothes on in a place where choice was abundant.

The fashion industry really does need a wake-up call because they are losing out on lots more sales if only they only served our needs fully. What we want is not just consistency but also a wider and bigger choice of average and larger sized clothes.

Over the weekend I was doing some research for my third book, which is about the issues of parenting overweight children. The more I read about the research into obesity over the past 30 years, the angrier I became.

 Statistics and information that diets don’t work for 95% - 97% of people have been available for as long as three decades. The problem is the media are withholding these truths from us. It is not only the findings about weight loss efforts leading to inevitable weight gain, for those millions of people who weight cycle (yo-yo diet), but the findings regarding the psychological harm dieting does.

Yet the quick fix diet is still being promoted. Many of the healthy eating campaigns fail to address the issues of how to change your mindset away from ‘Scarcity’ – demonising food – to be able to lose weight permanently.

Just think about it for a moment. When did you ever buy a product or service (apart from a diet related one), that when it didn’t work you blamed yourself? Have we gone crazy? The research has proved time and time again, for over 30 years, that diets don’t work. All we do is blame ourselves and inevitably reach out for food as a comforter to our stress and feelings of failure.

The point is YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE. You are absolutely normal.

What is failing you is the mindset of a dieter and the media messages that portray a distorted picture of the truth. The point is there is an alternative, one that leads you out of this mindless and destructive trap and still leads to weight loss.

All it takes is a decision to change your habits and your lifestyle. Easier said than done for some people. But it is not impossible, with the right mindset and loving support from yourself and others.

 If you want to find out more about the research and statistics then I can recommend you read…

Underage and Overweight by Frances M Berg, MS LN

It took me over 30 years to realise that the dieting game was failing me. Before that I thought I was the failure! What a relief it was when I woke up to the fact that I was normal and that even people who have never dieted before actually crave food and binge after being on a restricted food programme.

The problem for many people, these days, is that they are trying to change their lifestyle, to a healthy eating one, whilst still retaining the mindset of a dieter…

~       Food labelling – good/bad

~       Guilt and shame around food

~       Hating their body image

~       Spending much of the day thinking about food

~       Believing they are ‘Not Good Enough’

~       Counting calories, points or colours

 It's no wonder that healthy eating still sees people struggling with life and weight. The key is to change your perspective completely…

ü      Stop playing victim to food and weight by allowing it to control your life

ü      Change your focus away from food and onto things that bring you joy and happiness

ü      Stop talking about food in terms of good and bad

ü      Start discovering the foods that suit your body best

ü      Experiment to find the foods that fill you with joy and energy

ü      Stop complaining about your weight, size and shape – take action to make life changes

ü      Find the positive support you need to sustain your life changes

Creating the actions you want to change your life is obviously not a quick fix. But when did any of the quick fixes you have tried ever work as a long-term solution to your weight loss?

  If you really want to eat healthily and lose weight permanently then you have to be prepared to make some real life changes. That’s why ongoing support and motivation is so important. Without it you so easily slip back into the old familiar habits with food. So here are a few tips for staying on track…

Ø      Remember this is a life change not a weight loss destination

Ø      Search for the triggers that pull the rug out from your motivation

Ø      Find ways to overcome your triggers that lead to comfort eating

Ø      Re-learn the skills of listening to your body – it really does know exactly what it wants and needs

Ø      Surround yourself with positive people who actively encourage and support your life changes

Ø      Increase your physical activity but find a way to make it fun and enjoyable

Ø      Give yourself lots of loving and caring moments every day

Now take action, get rid of the dieting mindset and make your healthy eating plan work for you.

A focus is now being placed very firmly away from dieting and onto healthy eating. However, for most people who have spent years playing the dieting game, this is not such an easy transition to make.

  After years of thought processes around calories, points, ‘good’ food/’bad’ food and shed loads of guilt, the process of healthy eating may still revolve around this destructive mindset. Even with healthy eating it is still so easy to fall into the trap of food restricting which inevitably leads to craving and overeating. (Read more articles about weight loss the non-diet way at http://www.lifeshapers.co.uk  towards the bottom of the page) 

The problem that we face is not one of dieting but of the mindset that accompanies it. Studies are now showing that we are 3 times more likely to be obese if we diet than if we had never dieted. This is down to the weight cycling (yo-yo dieting) that occurs when we rebel against our mindset, which is telling us ‘no you can’t’, or ‘I really shouldn’t.’

The key is to get rid of these destructive thought processes and to…

1.      Acknowledge that all food is good when eaten in the right balance to suit your body.