Recently I stumbled on the following story which I find very inspirational. When I read it, I instantly had to think of you. So I decided to share that story with you today.
Enjoy reading it!
Appreciating Appreciation
by Michael Josephson
There’s a song called “Thank God for Dirty Dishes” that makes the point that if you’re lucky to have enough food to make dirty dishes, you should be grateful.
So instead of grousing about your property taxes, be thankful you own property. When you have to wait in line at the bank or are stuck in traffic, just be grateful you have money in the bank and a car to drive.
It makes sense, but that doesn’t make it easy.
I have to admit that appreciation has not been a natural attribute for me. In my more ambitious days when I believed that excess was not enough, gratitude seemed like a form of surrender and a very poor life strategy. After all, if you’re satisfied with the way things are, you’ll never make them better.
What a pity I had to reach my 50s before I began to appreciate appreciation. I finally began to see that it was irresponsible and irreverent not to realize how many things I should feel grateful for. I also came to realize how good it feels to acknowledge how good I have it.
Real gratitude is much more than politeness, like saying thank you when someone passes the salt or conveys good wishes; it’s a deeper psychological state of genuine thankfulness.
Whether we believe whatever good fortune we have is the product of our own labor and talents, random luck, or a gift from God, the fact remains that each of us could spend a full day identifying all the things that merit gratitude.
According to an old proverb, “If you never learn the language of gratitude, you’ll never be on speaking terms with happiness.”
I’m still a beginner, but it’s true; the more I appreciate, the happier I am. That’s a lesson I want my children to learn.
For years I am trying to convince my readers and clients to practice appreciation toward their body, because appreciation can really heal many wounds, especially the wounds of the soul. I do get how hard it is to appreciate a body which is overweight or even obese, a body you don’t like. But sometimes it just takes a small step beyond the ordinary, a step into the unknown, an uncomfortable step, even a step that might seem weird at the beginning to make new and desired experiences and see better results.
Why can and should we appreciate weight issues?
- First of all we should be thankful that we have a body and thus that we have life. Without your body you would not have anything to complain because you would not have a life. You wouldn’t exist in this form.
- Even a bigger reason to be thankful and appreciative our body is the very fact that it is overweight. When the body accumulates extra fat, it always has a reason for it. Under normal circumstances our body doesn’t have a problem to burn extra fat. But sometimes it needs to accumulate fat in order to safe your very life. Two very common reasons for that are being undernourished (through intensive dieting or real famine) or an accumulation of acid and toxins which need to be stored away safely from our vital organs and the blood stream (the fat serves as “storage room”).
- Very often extra fat serves a psychological purpose, for instance when a woman feels unsafe or in danger. So the body helps her to gain extra protection or a “buffering” so she can’t be hurt that much.
- Most of the time excess weight is simply your body’s way of talking to and trying to alert you that there is something “out of balance”.
- Many women like to “hide”; they don’t want to step up and show their talents, they play small for different reasons. To them the extra fat serves a very important purpose.
- Then there are women who don’t like sex or they don’t want sex with their husband. When they belong to the group of women who find it hard to say ‘No’, their body finds a solution to say ‘No’ in their behalf by accumulating so much fat that they are no longer attractive to their partner. Of course that is entirely unconscious and bypasses the mind.
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Whatever the root cause behind weight accumulation is – yours might be a completely different one than mentioned above -, the body always has a purpose, and thus you have plenty of reasons to show your body your appretiation and be thankful for what it is doing in your behalf. Although this completely bypasses the mind and we often don’t understand what’s going on, your body is actually doing you a tremendous service. Many women, including myself, wouldn’t even be alive anymore without the extra fat.
And if that all is not enough reason for you to be thankful to your body, how about appreciating everything your body is doing every minute and second of the day, 24/7, 52 weeks of every year? Each second of the day our body is doing a million different things to keep that “machinery” going and keeping you healthy and alive without your collaboration and often even despite of all the bad things you are doing to your body and all the verbal punishment.
Today I want to challenge you to make a test for the next seven days.
Write a list of everything you can be thankful for to your body and everything you like about it. Then keep writing that list for seven days minimum. Every morning after waking up and every evening before going to sleep you thank your body for everything it is doing for you. Try to be serious. Remember, you have plenty of reasons to be genuinely thankful for to your body.
Then, in seven days from reading this article, you post your experiences below. I bet you will feel very differently and have gained a better relationship with your body. Some results are no less than miraculous.
Happy slimming!
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On the very first coaching call she brought up all her problems at once and it was a real challenge to dig through the clutter and to choose the most pressing issue to begin with. She had pretty much all the problems you can have: deep depression; financially broke; unemployed; she had no idea what kind of job she wanted – all she knew was that she no longer wanted to work as a nurse; she had no more energy left and has gained a lot of weight (close to being obese); a daily almost crippling head ache; in a relationship she was deeply unhappy with; having been abused by her father; an extremely dominant mother who thought that Giselle was not capable of accomplishing anything and thus made all the decisions for her and even took over the job of raising her child.
After some job interviews she realized that she no longer wanted a job and put an add in the newspaper offering her service as a caretaker for elderly people. Within only a few days she got two great engagements and now she is her own boss, deciding how much her work is worth and making the price. Now she earns more money than she has ever earned before as a nurse and has not to work any night shifts anymore. 
She began to be more careful about when and how much she would allow her bossy sister and girlfriends into her life and what she would tolerate from them. She learned to say ‘No’. For the first time in her life she could set boundaries and clearly say what is tolerable and what is not. 
Two weeks ago she met a lovely man who is 10 years younger than Giselle – the kind of man she always wanted and was certain he would not exist. They both fell in love with each other and both feel that the other one is just the “one”, the partner they have always been looking for and dreamed of but never found before. Very quickly they realized that everything fits. Beside the fastly growing love, they have many common interests, he treats her with the respect she deserves, and they have the best sex life ever. They both feel that they have arrived. 
In Giselle’s case, I did nothing else but helping her to transform her personal root causes which had led to weight gain. We never did anything regarding her weight at all. She always loved cooking and she is still enjoying it and has no food restrictions except those foods she is allergic to. What we did do for the sake of her health is eliminating a few bad habits. 
Root causes can be found on the physical level (e.g. food intolerances, diabetes, toxic overload, etc.), the emotional level (how you emotionally respond to circumstances and the world around you), the mental level (your mindset, your way of thinking, what you say, your belief system), the psychological level (your memories, your subconscious mind, past experiences, unhealthy boundaries, etc.), and even on the spiritual level (karma, stuck energy, etc.). They can be experienced in relationships with the opposite sex and the family, in your professional life, in your health or the lack of it, and whether or not your life is interesting, fulfilling and well balanced or not. 
When you adhere to the laws of the universe, you will reap positive things in ALL aspects of your life. It doesn’t matter whether you want to lose weight, find a better paid job, find a new love, gain better health or achieve any goal, the way to approach these goals is always the same. Just follow the laws of nature and you will manifest all these things into your life because when you do that, literally your whole life is going to improve. You can’t cut your being and your life in slices and pieces either. On the other hand you can not go on a diet and by doing so find a better job, find a new love, improve your health and lose weight all at the same time and with that same tactic. The reason is because diets are not only not based on the laws of nature, they are flat out a violation of the laws of your body. Our body reacts conversely to diets than we want and consequently we ‘reap’ the yo-yo effect.
According to scientists, the worst of all bad habits – besides smoking – is a sedentary lifestyle. Frankly, I have no doubt that sitting all day is very unhealthy. You don’t have to be a physician to understand what sitting all day can do to our body. But what are the alternatives when you have an office job? There are a few ways you can do about that:
Although eating a good amount of protein is important for weight loss, many people eat far too much meat. The biggest problem is the growth hormone IGF-1 farmers use to raise their animals for bigger profits. That substance can promote the growth of cancer cells.
Unfortunately it gets worse regarding cooking. The by far worst and most health hazard habit is using microwave ovens. And it doesn’t matter whether you just defrost some frozen food or heat the food in the oven. First of all, although the manufacturers will tell you, that their ovens don’t leak, they do. Secondly, as soon as you switch on the oven, the electromagnetic radiation goes up dramatically – in other words, they radiate a lot. Thirdly, microwaves alter the DNA in your food and thus your body does not recognize food as such but as toxins. Within only three minutes of eating something microwaved, your blood tests positive for cancer. I know scientists who call microwave ovens “The kiss of death”.
Using bad oils to cook is another health threat. For several years now health experts are warning from using the wrong oils. Most of the time these are cheap ones. When heated, they release compounds that are found in cigarette smoke, such as aldehydes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Many Americans are insanely sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation leads to symptoms like high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, and obesity. Studies show that poor sleep or sleep deprivation can speed up the growth of tumors.
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Later we form habits by making daily poor decisions, mostly in an attempt to stay in our comfort zone and out of laziness. Most of the time these are the poor habits…those habits, which contribute to poor health and weight gain.
Therefore, the bad habit of being overweight is not only in the eating, drinking and exercising, but also in the thinking, behaving, and feeling. For example, one of my former participants used to enter the gate to her yard side-wise even long after she had lost all her excess weight with WW. That, of course, created a new reality of gaining weight back in order to fit into that old habit of entering the gate side-wise. Only once she realized how she had been creating that reality of being obese through her behavior and by changing that she began to get lasting results. 
Then they go on the next fad diet, take expensive weight loss products or get a gastric surgery done which create tremendous health problems and make matters worse in any regard. And at the end they gain that quickly lost weight back because it was not a sustainable method. Yes, they did have quick success…but at what cost? 
If you have thought so far that you’re just a victim of your ancestors’ DNA, this is now good news for you. It is worth to eat healthy, it is worth to sleep enough, it is worth to exercise regularly, it does matter who our friends are. Therefore, our health, weight, and pretty much our entire life is very much in our own hands.
It is my hope that you begin to realize how powerful habit change can be, how much easier weight loss can become and how much better your overall life can be.
Sоmе оf these habits are simply about kеерing our body funсtiоning рrореrlу but a lоt оf habits have to dо with the way wе do things, move, behave, react to people, situations and circumstances; the way we think and perceive our environment. Unlеѕѕ we livе in a ѕоlitаrу wоrld with no intеrасtiоn with thе rеѕt оf thе wоrld оr thе people thеrеin, wе will аlwауѕ bе соnfrоntеd with ѕituаtiоnѕ where wе must mаkе сhоiсеѕ, and these choices often happen within a split second by bypassing our conscious mind. Sоmе are simple, ѕоmе are more соmрlеx like whаt tо еаt оr what not tо еаt, when to exercise and when to relax. Many оf them require nо thought though since our brain is already pre-programmed tо асt in a helpful wау in our body’s terms. We hаvе done something wеll or inappropriately in thе past and our brain hаѕ received fееdbасk (it wеnt wеll, do thаt аgаin; аltеrnаtivеlу thаt wаѕ rubbish, do ѕоmеthing differently). Cоnѕеԛuеntlу the unconscious part of our brain iѕ full of wауѕ of dеаling with situations that wе thоughtlеѕѕlу еmрlоу to make our lives easier.
You just can’t conquer habit with willpower. The only way to optimally dealing with habit is by understanding the way our subconscious mind works and using it’s own way of forming new habits. By the way, strong willpower is a habit as well. Your ways of aproaching weight loss, your ways of pursuing a goal, your mindset, your motivation (or the lack of it), these are all habits as well and can – need to – be trained.
How many times did you decide to exercise three to four times a week and then something came into your way? You thought, “Well, what does it matter. It’s just once.” But then something else came up, the weather wasn’t to your liking, your child looked like he might get a cold…and then there was the point where you realized that you haven’t been to the gym for two weeks and now you have lost all your motivation?
One of my current members recently had some great success simply by following the daily action steps in my free Facebook group. Then Christmas came, New Year came, now we are two weeks into the new year and she almost disappeared.
Here are 30 signs of self-sabotage:
And here is the big problem.
Then check back on your bigger WHY – the reason WHY you wanted to lose weight in the first place. At this point it may also help to go deeper with your WHY, away from your own person to a bigger purpose. 
And it gets much worse.
The second time I really struggled a lot was with my self-growth business in the 1980s. I was a single mom and I wanted to be with my daughter as much as possible. So I decided to build my own home-based coaching, seminar, and public speaking business. I did all right from the get go and we were lucky enough to always have some food on the table. And though some months I couldn’t pay my bills, I could always pay them the next month. However, I was never able to save any money for my daughter’s college or buy some special things like new furniture, a car, or nice clothes. It was just enough for what we really needed. And I was trying really, really hard.
Because I know that so many women have been struggling with their weight for years and just don’t seem to be able to find a way to lose their weight for good. They are all on a completely wrong route. With a small mindset shift and a new weight loss strategy, their weight struggle could end almost instantly. 
It’s the letting go that is a very important part of your weight loss process. 
