"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Janice Taylor spent a lifetime losing and gaining weight, until Our Lady of Weight Loss entered her life. Now more than fifty pounds lighter, Janice is a professional weight-loss coach, artist, and creator of a popular e-newsletter. She has been featured in Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, and the New York Daily News.
LAUGH YOURSELF SKINNY
I know that 99.9 percent of weight loss programs start with a food plan, but remember— you are blazing a new trail. Let's start with laughter!
HUMOR AND LAUGHTER
"Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on."—Bob Newhart
Is there anything more delicious than a sidesplitting, hearty belly laugh—complete with tears running down your cheeks? Certainly not! I love to laugh and to smile.
Humor and laughter can help to . . .
That's right–not only is laughter the best medicine, it gives your diaphragm, abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles a fabulous workout. In fact, a good, hearty laugh burns more calories than several minutes on a rowing machine or exercise bike; and it causes a domino effect of joyous proportions.
Once one sugar cube of joy is set into motion, a number of positive physical effects take place. And without humor, your thought processes are likely to get Krazy Glued to some narrowly focused corner of your brain, leading to increased distress and weight gain.
Laughing at ourselves helps to shed light on our dietary transgressions, proving them not to be the derailing events that we think they are. Humor changes the ways we think and offers a lighter perspective. (Remember, we want to "lighten up" any way we can.)
OUR LADY OF LUMINOUS LAUGHTER'S TOP TEN TIPS GUARANTEED TO ACTIVATE YOUR HUMOR GENE
Here's how you play! All players sit on the floor in a circle. The first person starts the game by looking into the eyes of the person to the left of him/her and saying "ha." That person, in turn, says "ha, ha" to the person to his/her left, and it continues on like this, adding a "ha" with each person.
The trick is that you have to do it without laughing or smiling and you must maintain eye contact. And if you make it through one round, you just go on to the next round. It's difficult enough not to laugh, much less keep track of how many "has" you are up to! The last person remaining wins!
Want more intimacy? The more intimate way of playing HA is to have the first player lie on the floor on his or her back. The next person lies perpendicular to him or her with his or her head on the first person's stomach. And so on and so on until you have a chain of people lying on the floor. Then the game is pretty much the same, except you are just playing for the Has—the belly laughs from having your head jump up and down. You can't help but create a chain of people cracking up. (No eye contact necessary.)
UGLY—Unique Gifted Lovable You (whether you are a teenager or not) nothing unpretty about you!
HUMOR GENE—Believe it or not, something we are all born with. Uncover it, cultivate it, use it, enjoy it or lose it!
* NEW POINT OF VIEW
I approach Permanent Fat Removal with a chuckle, laugh, or smile. I am feeding myself and filling up on laughter. *
FORGIVENESS: A KEY INGREDIENT TO PERMANENT FAT REMOVAL
"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you."—Lewis B. Smedes
FORGIVENESS IS A KEY INGREDIENT TO PERMANENT FAT REMOVAL
Many of us have been known to scoff down one piece of cake, beat ourselves up, feel rotten to the core, and then have another slice of the devil's food to soothe. Our fat cells multiply—our pants tighten—we feel even worse—yet we indulge in still another serving of forbidden food, followed by the inevitable platterful of punishment. Results? Broken zippers; broken dreams. (I confess! My zipper broke on my first date with my husband.)
In terms of Permanent Fat Removal, holding a grudge against ourselves—being unforgiving for what we perceive to be horrific dietary crimes and misdemeanors—can only impede our progress. There is absolutely no point in unleashing mammoth–sized portions of anger or the relentlessly chastising inner voice upon ourselves.
Confess your dietary sins, forgive yourself, and move on. Remember that one slice of cake does not a fat person make. Get back on the wagon NOW... laughing and smiling, if you please!
Here is a forgivercize that will help you to accept yourself with all your wondrous imperfections, as well as lighten your load.
FORGIVERCIZE
Do the Potato
I'd read about a teacher who asked her students to bring a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes to class. For every person the students refused to forgive, they were to write the person's name and the date of the upset on a potato and put it in their plastic bag. The moral of the story was that they were lugging around some pretty hefty amounts of anger that were clogging their spiritual development.
This got me to thinking. Not only am I carrying around a lot of anger at all those other people in my life who clearly haven't read the script I've written for them, but I'm also cartin' around barrelfuls of upset and anger at myself—for my dietary transgressions, lack of exercise, occasional snappishness toward my loved ones, and who knows what else.
Imagine if I dropped a potato in my proverbial plastic bag every time I was upset with myself and dragged it around with me, all day and into the night. Whoa! That's some heavy–duty, weighty bag that is robbing me of my energy, focus, and determination.
Rather than buy bushels of potatoes, I went to the supermarket and bought the biggest baking potato I could find. I baked it, and when it was done, I opened it up and wrote "Sorry" with green peas. I shared it with my husband. He wasn't sure what I was sorry for, but he was appreciative of my creative cooking.
SVELTE TALK
FORGIVENESS — A key ingredient to Permanent Fat Removal. You can give yourself absolution or pray to Our Lady of Weight Loss for clemency. Whatever you do, learn from your past and let yourself off the hook now.
* NEW POINT OF VIEW
I do not let one "dietary transgression" take me on a ten-year detour! All is forgiven, move on. *
My husband was following the Our Lady of Weight Loss approved, low fat, lowcal, lots of laughs lifestyle for a few months and was steadily losing weight until he hit a wall, aka the dreaded plateau. We just couldn't figure out why, because, after all, he is a man, and as we know, men burn fat faster and lose weight faster than women do and he was laughing a lot (stop #2 on your way to Sveltesville)!
So not fair, I have to say totally annoying. I digress ...
We were stumped until about half an hour ago. We were in the supermarket shopping together (a joyous experience, although he wrecks my Olympic speed shopping personal best each and every time), and he was commenting, "Those ramen noodle packages are one of my favorite dinners." He enjoys boiling up a bag or two, adding all kinds of vegetables. With great pride, he added thinking that I would be duly impressed that he was reading the labels "each package contains only 180 calories."
I replied, without even looking at the package because, after all, I am me and I know the calorie count of just about everything that, yes, ramen noodles are 180 calories per serving. However, there are two servings per package, so he was eating four servings, totaling 720 calories, not two servings totaling 360 calories.
This led to a discussion about 94% fat free popcorn. I asked, "How many calories do you think are in that bag that you ate at one A.M. last night?" He said, "A hundred calories?" as if it were a question, because his confidence in his knowledge of calories had been shaken a bit. I grabbed the box in the cart and showed him the label, and guess what it's closer to 250 calories. Now, multiply those numbers times seven days per week and add in the other miscalculations, and it's clear (is it not?) that he didn't hit a plateau. He hit a miscommunication of mammoth calorie proportions.
While we are talking about labels, I would be remiss not to point out that calories are not the only things we should be considering. Along with checking for the absence of trans fats, please be sure to read the ingredients, and if any of the following items are among the first five, be forewarned: This product is in all likelihood not only not good for you, but quite possibly bad for you.
SUGAR
Sugar will produce an insulin surge that rapidly drops the blood sugar level. Within a few hours you are likely to feel hungry and tired. You will crash!
HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP
The body processes high fructose corn syrup differently than it does sugar, and this messes with your stopping mechanism. HFCS stops leptin, a chemical that communicates with your brain, saying "Hi there, brain. The fat has arrived. You can stop eating now."
ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR (AKA WHITE FLOUR)
News flash: Enriched does not mean it's actually better for you. This flour has been stripped of anything that is worthwhile, and then those who have done the stripping have added a little back into it so it looks okay. Look for labels that say "100 percent whole grain" or "whole grain" flour.
SATURATED FATS
Saturated fats are found primarily in animal products, and at room temperature, they turn solid. Do you want solid fat globbing up your arteries?
HYDROGENATED OIL
Certain oils are hydrogenated in order to increase their shelf life. Again, these oils turn solid at room temperature. More solid stuff to clog, glob, and blob you up. Items that contain hydrogenated are often labeled as "trans fats." Steer clear of trans fats as well!
SVELTE TALK
HUSBANDS Misguided males who annoy us with their fatburning ability and slow us down in the supermarket.
PLATEAU A truly good, calm, and peaceful place to reevaluate strategies and rest (no longer a landing for frustration).
* NEW POINT OF VIEW
I derive great satisfaction and comfort from reading the labels. Knowledge is power. *
SINFUL FEELINGS
"Size matters not.... Look at me. Judge me by size, do you?" Yoda, Star Wars
When did all the madness begin? My dear friend Janet, from North Carolina, told me that she can remember wishing on eyelashes (remember that?) when she was maybe four or five years old for a fast metabolism! Imagine, at four years old her deepest desire was for a fast metabolism. (She was an advanced child.) It was then that she started to equate food with sin, guilt, and lunacy.
THE "BAD" FEELINGS STARTED (MORE OR LESS WITH MY GRANDMOTHER)
Have you ever wondered when people started to obsess about food and weight? There was a time when no one "dieted" and nasty fat words didn't exist. Oh yeah cavemen didn't call each other fat slobs. Those types of words weren't created until the late 1800s!
Cases of dieting were documented over one thousand years ago, such as William the Conqueror (1028 1087), who tried drinking extra wine as a substitute for food after getting so fat that he had trouble staying on his horse. But our obsession with dieting took root at the end of the nineteenth century.
LET THE "BAD" TIMES POLL!
In fact, the first fat ass, corpulent words were "porky" in the 1860s, "jumbo" in the 1880s, and "butterball" in the 1890s. By the time World War I rolled around, being fat was deemed unpatriotic!
Food was plentiful, and Americans were wolfing it down with a vengeance. Health reformers declared the endless supply of meats, cakes, and pies immoral. They preached that gluttony was a gateway to sinful sexual practices (woo hoo!). In addition, they proclaimed that gluttony caused constipation and indigestion.
As Americans entered the twentieth century, interest in weight loss grew. "Experts" offered a number of surefire solutions magic bullets flying everywhere. Somewhere between the main course and dessert, dieting became a national preoccupation. A multibillion dollar industry was born.
It's not quite clear why dieting took hold (and hasn't let go since), but theories point to the abundance of food, the increase in sedentary jobs, public transportation, and corsets being out of vogue.
SVELTE TALK
METABOLISM A mysterious bodily function steeped in science that we love to blame for our lack of ability to burn fat.
* NEW POINT OF VIEW
I do not accept delivery of my ancestors' nasty terminology or fat genes. *
The foregoing is excerpted from All is Forgiven, Move On by Janice Taylor. All rights reserved. Copyright © Oy Caramba! Ltd., 2008.
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