PEACE AND PREJUDICE: HOW THE KEY TO PEACE IS THE SAME AS THE KEY TO WEIGHT LOSS (Issue 31)

By Diane Gold

Peace among humans stems from sameness, not difference. When we are peaceful, things are harmonious. When we are prejudiced, there is unrest, internal to us and external within our world.

We all breathe the same air, have the same powerful epidermis to protect us (we share this with plants), respirate similarly, replenish regularly, get inhabited by viruses constantly (we share this one with plants and bacteria), are all subject to the perils of weather and do well when we honor ourselves.

BELIEF IN OURSELVES

So, with all these major similarities, what are our differences, other than melanin levels, pride in roots, levels of security, money and intelligence? It’s BELIEF IN OURSELVES, the level at which we LOVE ONE ANOTHER, tolerate, nurture, sanction, recognize and respect one another AND OURSELVES, the level at which we give our neighbor the same courtesy as our family, the same respect we should be giving to ourselves and our fellow humans.

So what is the key to this tolerance that is the same for losing weight, gaining weight, stopping our urges, removing our prejudice? And how do we get it?
Those of us whose urges take us to eat too much, drink too much, use or do too much lack a certain security in and love for ourselves. These urges drive our chemicals inside to run in ways we have not yet grasped. Happily, we can learn to understand them and work with them and adjust them.

The same urge chemistry occurs in our body when we cannot tolerate someone else’s beliefs or any of the traits listed three paragraphs below. This chemical imbalance strips us of our ability to be socially acceptable; and we bash, malign, plunder someone else’s appearance or belief. This is social prejudice.

If my family teaches me to believe in the golden calf, your family teaches you to believe in the family religion and our neighbor’s family teaches their daughter to believe that she is the master and controls her own life; these three different beliefs exist. We can learn tolerance if it is doesn’t come naturally by remembering that each of us breathes the same air, eats the same food and gives birth the same way. How much we remember our sameness determines whether we have social prejudice or peace.

Similarly, the more we develop the ability to control our urges, such as eating chocolate, drinking soda or maligning a religion; the more we can exercise tolerance of ourselves and others.

So what can we do to raise THE LOVE LEVEL (which comes from BELIEF IN OURSELVES) and give ourselves the love that we deserve that will help curb our urges? What will help our health, our ability to feel good, and help us love our bodies and minds, know that we are assets to the world, know that weight, skin color, style, thoughts, feelings, hairstyle, differences, size, lifestyle, height, preference, orientation, age, race, religion, politics, color, nationality, wealth, language, beliefs, birthplace, traditions, economics do not define whether we are kind, fun, funny, loyal, honest, devoted, confident, uplifting, empathetic, charitable, attentive, considerate, dependable, generous, motivating, patient, perceptive, thoughtful, tolerant, understanding, warm and caring?

And what can we do to remove social prejudices when they appear?

SEEING OUR HOMOGENEITY, THE BIG ACTION STEP

The BIG ACTION STEP, should we choose to take it, is that we must look at our homogeneity. We must celebrate our sameness and be enlightened by it.

What if we used it to further our belief system and strengthen our tolerance?
What if we used it to help us be strong individually?

We are all a part of a body of humans and, I believe, can find a way to peace.

Whether we are too slim, too large or just right; we all enjoy the security of shelter, clothing that makes us feel beautiful, friends and family who really care for us; and we all love our own individual hobby, creative passion and cause.

If I could animate, I would draw a giant globe with people in every country representing all of us. Every time any one of us executed a prejudicial act, even if against ourselves; one of the cutout figures would collapse, only to be regenerated by a positive act, such as generosity or forgiveness. If we saw this visual representation on an ongoing basis, which measured our love and hate, we might more easily cherish, forgive and love each other.

Most of us don’t think that feeling bad about ourselves or treating ourselves badly is a negative act. It is, though, an act of social prejudice against ourselves, when we judge ourselves in comparison to runway models if we are not, or in comparison to the lifestyle of the latest female self-made billionaire if we are not.

We say what we feel for ourselves doesn’t affect others, but this is not the truth. Aside from the fact that we are all in this world together, everyone we contact is affected by our good or bad attitude. So how do we mend a bad attitude or social prejudice?

FORGIVENESS, THE NEXT ACTION STEP

1)    Forgiving ourselves for whatever we think is wrong with us
2)    Forgiving what we did wrong
3)    Forgiving someone for having a different trait or belief
4)    Forgiving someone for a bad act
5)    Forgiving ourselves for being prejudiced against someone

are very hard to do, but great steps to take.

I can think of the many times I have said,

“I forgive him,”

in my head. I have also said,

“I forgive you,”

in person, to someone in my life who did not treat me well. The words have not created absolute forgiveness in me, but it is a work in progress. It is easy for me to forgive myself for the feelings of resentment I still have, but it is hard to forgive with full sincerity.

It is almost unfathomable for me to think how hard it would be to forgive someone who had physically harmed a family member. But, that is how hard peace is.

Over 90% of the people in the United States have a belief system with one deity. It could be as much as 92%. We also believe that this deity does not make mistakes. So, if we are in this category; we know that our lives are not mistakes, so we must forgive ourselves and celebrate our individual situations.

Less than 10% of the population in the United States is firmly rooted in the fact that we are strong, self-sufficient individuals who are part of the balance or order of nature that does not include a deity. This group could be smaller than 8%. (This group often does not list its participants because of the prejudice against it, so statistics are hard to confirm.) If we are in this group, we know we are good and worthwhile by the principles by which we live. Therefore we must forgive ourselves and celebrate our individual situations.

CONCLUSION

Those of us who are tolerant of our similarities must remind those who are not. It is difficult to bring these subjects to the attention of others because feelings run so strongly in each direction.

Prejudice of any kind is prejudice.  Some people frown upon people who eat a lot. Others think they are queens.  As we grow our spiritual library, we come to terms with how we see ourselves and how we see our sameness. Often times, unless we are experiencing the strife and misery that comes from prejudice, we find it hard to relate to it.

Here’s an example:

If I have grown up an extra, extra love size my whole life, I know what it’s like to be teased about my weight. I am so busy feeling bad about being teased that I do not realize that the teaser’s insecurity is causing the intolerant behavior.

I am grown up, I open a company, have 50 employees. No one has teased me in a long time. One of the people who has been hired has a twitch, which I continually joke about with the other workers. I only consider myself and never consider that the person with the twitch is always in earshot when I tease. She feels pain when I tell my jokes. Why am I doing the same behavior that people did to me? Don’t I remember how it feels? What feeling prompts this intolerance and insecurity on my part?

It’s all about BELIEF IN MYSELF. Poking fun at the twitcher buries the pain I felt when I was teased. It also makes me feel powerful now when people gather ’round and laugh at my jokes. What I don’t consider is that the employees may be gathering around and laughing because they feel sorry for my power tripping from pain. Others may be getting comic relief from someone else’s pain, also a common, but not admirable, human trait. Finally, most of the group is gathering because I am the boss, and it would be impolite not to gather.

SMALL BUT IMPORTANT ACTION STEPS

Here are some small daily action steps to go along with the SEEING HOMOGENEITY and FORGIVENESS, above. When we familiarize our mind to kindness, we become kind. On the other side, when we fuel our intolerance, our prejudice (toward ourselves and others) grows.

1)    Upon awakening every day, take 10 seconds to acknowledge that we are as wonderful as our heroes, our love interest, the person we most want to emulate and our role model. This builds self-confidence in a subtle but constant way.

2)    After the first 10 second exercise, take 10 seconds to acknowledge that there are no mistakes in the natural order of things. Therefore, we are exactly who we are supposed to be. This will build strength that we are a firm part of the world plan.

3)    As we are sitting up from our sleeping position, take 10 seconds to realize our good fortune, such as having the use of our limbs, having the use of our senses, having whatever we do have. Each of us will cherish something else, but this gratitude is important to experience. Gratitude brings humility which brings understanding and peace.

4)    Sometime during the week, even if it’s only once:
a.    Tell a joke to someone sad
b.    Give a homeless person a book
c.    Go to http://theanimalrescuesite.com and click a button to give a free bowl of food to an animal. (There are many sister sites here for other causes of your choice.)

The secret behind this action is that, as we are clicking our support for some outside cause, we are curbing our appetite for that very moment and making a difference to someone else. This type of action leads us to develop our character and become stronger to reach our goal in the food department. Both curbing our urge and building our character lead to the likelihood of our being a tolerant member of society.

5)    Once a day, we should look in the mirror at our lips smiling and know that we have just seen a very worthy human being.
Awareness of Homogeneity + Forgiveness = Urge Control + Peace, Inside and Out.

FEEDBACK

Please leave your comments below. We truly value all of them.

DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert and a dedicated mom. She is excited about discovering that the key to peace resembles the key to urge mechanics. She says,

“The key is examining ourselves. When we are willing to look at our urges, we can see our true selves in the mirror. With time, we can mold ourselves to be more in the direction that we wish. It may not be easy, and it will take time. In a lifetime journey, there can be no rush.”

TAI CHI: HOW TAI CHI CAN POSITION US TO CHANGE THE WORLD (Issue 25)

in honor of: World Tai Chi and Chi Kung Day 2012 – Apr. 28 – 10 am

by Diane Gold

This coming Saturday, April 28, is my birthday. Oh, wait. Broadcasting this fact is the very opposite of our message here: that of getting away from me, me, me. This article is about the power we have as developed individuals to make a difference on global issues.

Tai chi, chi kung and other mind/body training teach us self-cultivation. Alone, the training can make us remarkably well-tuned, aware and healthy. However, we may classify it as the “what’s in it for me” attitude if we don’t take it further. With continual training, the true goal of mind/body teachings – to inspire, cultivate and motivate change for humanity – is realized and embodied. When people dabble, they rarely learn this true purpose. So, let’s begin again.

Of interest to all is that World Tai Chi and Chi Kung Day, April 28, 2012, is a world event, the 14th annual. It is a coming together of tai chi and chi kung teachers, students and community members to do tai chi and chi kung and view lively demonstrations.

What’s bigger about it than just doing tai chi and chi kung as a group is how it can make change. Although it introduces people to tai chi and chi kung that can heal our bodies, minds and spirits; the real treasure that most people don’t get to, because they see it as an exercise program, is that the strength and understanding we get from the program gives us the power and the incentive to do good. If we stop at fixing our arthritis, our weight or our mental stability; the world is still better off because we are better human beings from the training. But, that is small scale. If, however, we take it to the next level, which comes with “time, experience and inner balance,” we will find it our duty to take humanitarian action to cause and be change.

Nicole Brochu, journalist at the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida, opens her coverage of World Tai Chi Day by saying,

“Think of it as the yoga version of a tandem flash mob.”

I like that image. Let this flamboyant vision not lead us away from the grand ultimate purpose of tai chi in 2012, which is not a display for publicity, a way to get a date, a way to be cool or marketing for consumerism; although all of these things may happen as a result of doing the training in a public place. The point is to spread peace, harmony and unity through exposing people to movement that changes mindset leading to global action. Change in mindset, as with any discipline, is a process.

Tai chi is a way of being. World Tai Chi and Chi Kung Day is an event to harness the harmony, compassion and balance of the tai chi way. What we do with the embodiment of harmony determines how and whether we will make a difference in the world. If we keep our tai chi-found bliss for ourselves, our opportunity to impact our world is minimized. We are still younger, more vibrant, happier people; but it has been scientifically shown that, if we give of ourselves, we get it back exponentially. And if we don’t, it may not grow.

When people do tai chi once, it’s rare that they gain enough wisdom and momentum from it to become landmarks of social change because of tai chi energy. With experience doing tai chi; commitment and understanding grow in a way where practitioners are more driven to help humanity. The rooting learned as a physical exercise transfers to personally ground the motivated leader.

Similarly, when we go on a weight loss program and gain wisdom through the success of action; we gain a spiritual connection with ourselves. When we choose to keep our stories to ourselves, meaning the “what’s in it for me” attitude; we have improved ourselves only. If we share what we have accomplished – our story, our knowledge – we help others.

Another example is that, when we attend a seminar, we become motivated to act. The internal motivation we get usually dissipates within 48 hours into non-action. It’s not that we are lazy lugs; it is because we need continued exposure for the motivation to stick and develop our minds. If we study the seminar subject for 3 hours every week for 52 weeks; we have an arsenal of knowledge that will stay with us.

THE CHANGE

When the physical work of tai chi causes us to become more tranquil, we have made the first change.

The second part is that we take this peace we have created and give it back to the world. This can be in a number of ways:

1)    Through being a positive influence in the world, which causes more positive energy to exist.

2)    Through being kind to others.

3)    Through mediating arguments in day-to-day life using the skills that personal balance supplies.

4)    Through teaching others how to live a harmonious existence.

5)    Through volunteering services or choosing a business that helps the world.

MAKING WORLD CHANGE

When someone has a belief system and talks about it, isn’t this a step toward change? Since we know marketing is everything, it depends upon how many people hear about the idea and its benefits.

Take any large religious group. The spread of a belief system caused changes in behavior. These changes cause mindset change. This mindset change causes global action.

Take any political system. The spread of support for a system causes change in behavior. These changes mindset change, which, in turn, cause political change.

Take tai chi. Its personal benefits help personal struggles. People minimize depression, arthritis, vertigo and anger, by doing tai chi. Without this help, people wouldn’t be available as thinking, acting, supporting, inspired individuals; they would be busy struggling. The tai chi causes biological changes. These changes cause spiritual development. This development takes us to pursue personal and global passions.

PASSION

People who do tai chi and chi kung, like many who are committed to other studies, are privileged. They can do meditation-on-demand (similar to Dish TV on demand) by accessing their own internal renewable energy. And there’s no monthly bill for the energy.

There is nothing more special than this ability to harness our own power, focus and noise buffering. We become tai chi, rather than doing it. Analogous, we go from waving hands and doing movement to becoming responsible to our world.

POPULARITY

Some of us are socially conscious leaders who have become popular. We have best-selling books, make appearances as motivational speakers and mentors. We engage the masses, command an audience and have built an access point to change the world. After all, isn’t changing the world, changing many minds at a time so that they take action and keep taking action until a goal is met? Without the popularity, we can be creative to make a global change, as long as we are heard.

If I do tai chi and teach 8 students, then 8 minds get changed. If these 8 students have 8 students, then 64 minds get changed. If these 64 have 8 students, then 512 minds get changed. If this group of 512 goes to 1 of the 300 World Tai Chi And Chi Kung Day events and mingles with the 512 students of each of 10 other teachers; that’s 5,632 minds at 300 events. That’s over a million changed minds, which is the power of community.

SOCIAL PROOF

In our consumeristic society, why do we hire celebrities to campaign for us? It is because listeners, buyers and joiners act because they see others acting. The concept of “social proof” is, oh, so common.

If the popular people are doing it, others will follow. If the obscure people are doing it, although it may be just as valid, others usually will look away.

Tai chi training teaches us to act based on ourselves. The knowledge of right and wrong leads to global action.

PHILOSOPHY

Because tai chi is a martial art, I will mention one tenets of a true martial artist. And that has to do with caring for humanity. Skills are honed for the betterment of the world. Martial artists train to fight for social justice, whatever brand it is, whether this means temperance and patience or assertion and mobilization. Their actions change the world.

CONCLUSION

We each change the world by the minute actions we take, by the minute thoughts we have, by our very connections to each other. We bring ourselves with us when we act. When we develop ourselves through going to an event such as World Tai Chi Day, taking a seminar or studying auto mechanics; we cultivate ourselves and bring that development with us. The more advanced we are, the higher the synergy created, the bigger the action that ensues. The more we work on change, the more change occurs.

ACTION STEP

Pick one goal related to a passion, and study it for 30 days, whether it’s saving the world or saving yourself. Write down what you have achieved in that short time and, somehow, keep going.

FEEDBACK & SIGN IN

Please leave your comments there or visit on Twitter @warriorsoweight. If you would like to read more like this,  go to warriorsofweight.com/go to get free report and regular free magazine.
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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music and stress expert and a dedicated mom. She believes we can all make a positive difference in the world. She says, “Some go about it from the inside out; others self-develop through fixing the world. Either way its done, we are all on the human mission. Decide whether you will get side-tracked.”

HOW IS PARENTING A CHALLENGING CHILD LIKE TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT? (Issue 20)

by V. Mark Durand, PhD

After decades of research and millions of dollars spent on diets, we now know the secret to losing weight—eat fewer [empty] calories and move more! Not exactly a major new headline, yet millions still struggle with this simple strategy. Why? Because our thoughts and emotions get in the way of making better choices (e.g., eating healthier foods, getting more exercise). Anxiety can cause you to lose your willpower and eat that chocolate cake. Stress and thoughts of your past failures make you once more skip that trip to the gym. Our new research is finding that some of the same obstacles that interfere with successful weight loss also face parents who are challenged by their child’s outbursts. Despite hours of parent training, many families simply are not able to follow through on the techniques they learn because of interfering thoughts and emotions.

Picture a child screaming in a supermarket for a candy bar. Now put yourself in the place of the child’s parent. What are you thinking or feeling? If you are like almost half of the families we serve, you might be thinking what a catastrophe this is. You are becoming anxious and feel that all eyes are on you. You might also be feeling judged as a bad parent and can’t wait for this to stop. And because this seems to happen so often no matter what you try, you think that your child is just not capable of behaving. Despite your better judgment you decide to give your child the candy because you know the tantrum will end. Negative thoughts about your skills as a parent and perhaps about your child’s ability to improve seem to get in the way of good parenting skills—sometimes “giving in” just to keep the peace.

In our 5-year study across two research sites in Florida (University of South Florida, St. Petersburg) and New York (SUNY at Albany), we recruited families who had a child with significant behavior problems (e.g., severe tantrums) and who self-reported being pessimistic about their abilities as a parent and their child’s ability to change. These parents would often make statements like,

“I feel that everything is out of control,”
or
“I get upset because I feel others are judging me as a parent.”

One group received 8 sessions of behavioral parent training which included finding out the reasons behind their child’s disruptions and showing them various methods for reducing these problems. A second randomly assigned group received the same 8 sessions of parent training with the addition of “optimism training” (adapted from the pioneering work of psychologist Martin Seligman).

Here we taught them to become aware of the interfering thoughts and taught them skills to either distract themselves (sometimes with humor) or perhaps substitute the negative thoughts with positive ones (“I have a plan for dealing with this tantrum and things will get better.”). They learned both how to help their child but also how to be more positive and hopeful in their application of these plans.

At an invited address at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association this summer in Washington, D.C., I presented the results of this study. First, it was encouraging to note that the children from families in both groups improved their behavior at home significantly after only 8 sessions with the parents. And the group that received the optimism training reported even larger improvements in their child’s behavior than the group that did not receive this form of cognitive behavior therapy. Interestingly though, when we looked at how the children were behaving at home through videos before, after and one year following treatment, the child from both groups were better behaved, but not significantly different. Why would the parents from the optimism training group report bigger improvements?

To answer this question “we went back to the video tape” and looked at what the parents were doing with their children to make them better behaved. What we found was shocking. In the families who only received parent training, we saw that they became experts at avoiding problems. For one mother whose son tantrummed at bedtime, she adapted the routine by lying down with him in bed and let him watch television until he fell asleep. He was much better at bedtime now, but this was not our goal. We wanted him to get to the point where he would go to bed and fall asleep on his own. She and other parents in this group just became better at avoiding problems—a process we call the “Concession Process.”

On the other hand, parents who received the optimism training did not concede to all of their child’s demands and persisted in getting their children to do things like put their toys away or get dressed without problems. Their optimism training helped them to keep it up and not concede.

This work points out how important it is to look closely at how our treatments actually work. An important goal in clinical research—much like what is done in medicine—is to find the active ingredients in the treatment. It may also teach us to talk to clients about these cognitive obstacles (“What were you thinking to yourself when this happened?”) to following through on our suggestions.

CONCLUSION BY DIANE GOLD

We sometimes think we are alone in our quest, whether it be parenting a difficult or diagnosed child, journeying to weight loss or climbing Mt. Everest. We are not alone. Because we are not alone and we share so many traits with others, we can learn from each other. We are best off using a system created by an expert to get there, be that a psychologist, a nutrition and fitness expert, a master mountaineer or ourselves, through trial, error and intuition. When we encounter a hurdle along the way, the system will help us through.

Although  many scientists now point out that calories from different sources provide different results in our body, no one disputes that healthy food and moving more are the keys to renewed health, happy weight and complementary behavior training.

From this article, we can see how breaking down the issue trains for success.
Because we all learn differently, a technique for one person may not work for another. However, one of Durand’s assets is in putting forth solutions that are surprisingly simple, yet so intense as to be used with ease in many areas.

FEEDBACK

We value your feedback. Please leave your comments or questions below this article.
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V. MARK DURAND, PhD, AUTHOR

Mark Durand is a world renowned psychologist and professor at University of South Florida known for his work with autism spectrum disorders. He has received seven figure federal grants to study this group. He is co-editor of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, is on various editorial boards, is a journal article reviewer, a long-distance runner and has been a consultant with the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education. Mark has authored three books, the newest of which is Optimistic Parenting. You can grab a copy at warriorsofweight.com in our resources section.

DIANE GOLD, PUBLISHER

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music pro and stress expert and a dedicated mom. She believes we can learn so much from each other’s experience. She says, “The more we see our similarities, the more we can understand each other and ourselves.”

TAI CHI FOR WEIGHT LOSS: PREPARING FOR YOUR JOURNEY WITH WEIGHT (Issue 18)

Think, for a minute about baking a cake without first mixing the flour and water in the bowl. The cake would end up to be a clumpy, texture-poor mess. Or imagine joining a fighting championship without every having watched or studied fighting. Or what if the doctor we entrusted our surgery to had no medical training and had never done an operation before?

All these situations lack necessary preparation. We would prepare ourselves before running off the cliff with our hang gliders, right? We practice penmanship so that other people can read what we write. We practice in the mirror before we read our essay in school. The same holds true for taking on a weight loss program that could totally empower our lives.

One of the greatest tools to put us in a state of readiness is tai chi. What is it, exactly? It’s a method of exercise that teaches us to be patient, prepared, precise and powerful at all times. It’s a mind/body program that gives us a place to begin. We build a foundation of understanding how to be stable on our journey, and time reinforces the lessons as long as we do a little movement.

We as mothers very much crave to understand what makes our daughters choose to crave foods that put weight on them. Most of us are a little concerned in what ways, if any, our parenting skills have contributed to this behavior in our daughters, out of guilt (rather a waste of time), out of wanting to be able to teach better behaviors and, most often, just to make our daughters feel happier. We would give up all our analytical curiosity and even our own brow beating in a heartbeat if we could snap our fingers and see our daughters instantly be joyous in their bodies, beaming from ear to ear.

In this article, we will pinpoint several skills that tai chi is famous for. Doing it to any extent will decrease appetite almost immediately in most people. This phenomenon has to do with focusing the attention on the tai chi work, alone, with no time to defocus the attention. This is, of course, a general consensus and can fluctuate by individual.

PATIENCE

Tai chi teaches patience. The movements are so much slower than almost any other physical system which means that, in order to learn it, we have to direct our bodies to slow down. Many systems, such as kung fu, baseball, tennis, require elements of speed.

Tai chi requires us to slow down and move like a wave in a giant ocean of water. If we imagine the lines in a profile of the ocean, we can see each line rolling into the next. This is analogous to each body system moving harmoniously with the other. Here is a graphic representation of this concept.

So, let’s take that first step. In tai chi, it’s easy, because we don’t have to do much preparing. We begin by standing still. We continue by doing circular motions. Both these activities make us feel good. In doing so, we become patient with the way we feel, act, think, look, are. What’s so cool about the tai chi is that it produces its own endorphin rush every time we do it as we are learning the slow and simple movements. As we become smoother and more flowing with the movements, we teach our body and mind to be more powerful, abundant and patient. The tai chi almost engulfs us in positive energy.

Doing tai chi is a perfect complement to the journey to weight loss because it is a physical tool that shapes, tones and chisels the body as it mentally establishes the patience we need to achieve our weight goals.

BALANCE

One of the lessons in most physical movement activities is the art of balance. Tai chi is no different and is known for elevating balance in the body and mind at the same time.

The tai chi approach starts with stilling the mind and body. The lack of demand for rapid movement is what makes tai chi a great partner for the struggles with weight. Although we don’t have to overexert ourselves to do tai chi, the system is adjustable so that we can increase our effort as we see fit. It is a surprisingly full workout, no matter how much effort we give it.

The balance work in tai chi achieves three things:
1)    It gets us to establish a balance base line so we can see where we are to see where we want to go,
2)    It gets us moving our bodies so that we can succeed right away,
3)    It calms our mind and alleviates stress.

An example of a balancing exercise we do in tai chi is this:

The trick is to stand with a straight back, with the shoulders over the hips. No matter what else we do with the body, we need to make sure we keep the back straight. What happens to most people in most disciplines is that they are not aware when they are tipping backwards or forwards. So, once we have gone through this exercise, it might be a great idea to do it looking in the mirror to make sure the back is straight.

BIG TIP ONE: Make an effort not to judge whether you are or are not able to keep balanced during this exercise. If you are stronger and more balanced tomorrow than you are today, you have a success story.

BIG TIP TWO: If you compare yourself to yourself, you will be better able to concentrate on yourself and get caught in fewer traps.

This is a less than one minute balance exercise.

 1)    Stand straight with legs as close together as possible.
2)    Stand with heels together, toes apart, or as close to this as possible.
3)    Raise the arms in front of the center of the chest as if holding a big tree trunk or pillar.
4)    The palms should be facing the center of the chest.
5)    There should be a small space between the L and R hands.
6)    Relax the shoulders.
7)    Bend the knees a tiny bit.
8)    Keeping the back straight, slowly lift the R knee as you point the toe down.
9)    Hold this position for the count of 1, 1000, 2, 2000, 3, 3000.
10)    Slowly lower the knee so that the feet are in the 2) position.
11)    Keep the 3), 4), 5) position without dropping the arms.
12)    Repeat 7), 8), 9), 10) with the L knee.
13)    Slowly place the arms at the sides and let them hang with relaxed shoulders.

If you like the exercise, please do it daily for two weeks and let us know that you did so that we can send you a special bonus gift for your efforts.

MINDSET

Probably the biggest advantage tai chi gives to people on a weight loss path is mindset. As mentioned above, we have to prepare ourselves for the road ahead. I guess it’s akin to getting antibiotic shots when we are going to travel abroad. I was just reading about a retreat in Costa Rica where I am considering taking a group. Without the right shots, our bodies would be vulnerable to certain conditions in the area.

Similarly, if our mind is not ready, we have much less of a chance to succeed at our goal. If we don’t peel the old paint off, we don’t get a smooth new layer.

Tai chi creates a new layer, a new outlook on everything. It’s not magic; it’s effective use of our body parts. Instead of zooming through exercise, tai chi movement allows for deliberate use of every body part. That way, we don’t work out the core one day, the legs one day, the upper body one day. We work everything together with every movement. Not to say it’s the greatest discovery for womankind, but tai chi is pretty powerful because its inventors utilized movement that integrated all the body systems at once.

(Interesting note: While taking a 5-minute break after writing the last paragraph, I read an article by one of the most successful abs marketers. One of his fitness people lists 3 things I just wrote about: not isolating muscle groups on workout, not using different muscles on different days and not comparing ourselves to others. Important concepts.)

CONCLUSION

Tai chi is a miraculous invention for weight loss. There is no rush; there is no competition; the system easily allows complete adjustment on a per-person and on an ongoing basis. It works every part of us in a way that impacts the health of our mind and body without requiring our bodies to go on a roller coaster ride of endowment and deprivation as many programs do.

Tai chi is based upon ancient principles of ebb and flow. It is one of the easiest ways to relax and the easiest exercises to begin doing. It builds the foundation necessary to start an endeavor with the clear and patient mind. The physical balance it teaches translates to the emotional balance needed for a successful weight loss program. It gets the body in shape by building long, lean muscle and strengthens the joints and tendons. For further tai chi information, email me at 1 [at] warriorsofweight [dot) com. For a special discount, just mention coupon code PATIENCE & WEIGHT LOSS.

FEEDBACK

Please leave your comments below or on Twitter @warriorsoweight.
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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music and stress expert and a dedicated mom. She believes that tai chi is important for the world. She says, “Five minutes of tai chi a day will make us powerful, compassionate, creative and healthy. Do it, at least, one time.”

THE O WORD AND HOW EDUCATION DEVELOPS SENSITIVITY IN SPEAKING ABOUT WEIGHT ISSUES (Issues 16)

by Diane Gold

This article is written about the concept of extra weight and obesity in hopes that we will consider kindness and education for health and for to be kind, not because of what’s in it for us, other than wisdom (unless we value having it), but because of what we can give if we have a greater understanding.

But, wait. We can use our selfish nature to benefit ourselves, if we only think back to that one embarrassing moment when it all fell apart. Let’s think about the time we had a bathroom accident during the school assembly and our thoughtless classmate sitting next to us yelled out loud and exposed us to the whole auditorium or if we think about the time someone in our family passed away and the kids down the road laughed about it and said they were glad the person died because she was ugly or, when I was young, there was only one girl in the whole elementary school whose parents were getting a divorce. Everyone was talking about her because we were unfamiliar with the concept, thus we were ignorant. Now, divorce is as common as marriage, so its stigma has gone away. But, in the 60s, divorce had a stigma and my classmate was ostracized with whispering, gossip and pointing. No one was thinking about this girl’s loss of the privilege of living with both her parents under one roof.

STATISTICS AND MEASUREMENT

One way we measure our weight is by using the Body Mass Index. A great way to measure what this index defines is to feel whether or not we can pinch much excess skin around our body.  If we can, we are probably carrying extra weight (which scientists have deemed is unhealthy for our organs, our body systems and emotionally), and we have just used a less clinical, simpler method of defining whether our body mass index is high. There are suggestions below as to what to do should we find this in ourselves. The result of this index is what people usually see when they look our way.

Technically, Body Mass Index is a measure of the body’s weight in relation to the body’s height. Overweight refers to people with a Body Mass Index between 25 and 30, 20% or more above one’s ideal weight. The O word refers to people with a Body Mass Index over 30. There is a BMI calculator at our main website  homepage on the right hand. It may be helpful for our goals. And it’s free to use.

According to the 2012 update of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, around 1 in 3 kids between 2 and 19 carry too much weight, 1 in 6 having a body mass over 30. Compared to comparisons from 1973-4, the 2012 figures are 5 times higher. Why have we in the United States increased our weight? Is it abundant life style? Is it food scarcity where we are forced to eat the wrong foods? Is it the thought of scarcity? Is it our consumption-driven society, where we care more about selling product that teaching the correct paradigm for healthy eating? Is it that the stigma of having extra weight has skyrocketed? This seems to be the case, and due to the growth in this population, we notice more people who distinctly buy larger sizes and more advertising to address these consumers. There is a small group of 1 in 12-15,000 kids born with Prader-Willi Syndrome, a disorder of chromosome 15, which presents as insatiable hunger for life, but this condition does not apply to most people with more weight.

PREJUDICE

Both those who are large and those who are thin seem to show prejudice toward those who are large. This may come from lack of education and lack of sensitivity, fear of a situation not fully understood and self-deprecation. In 2012, we in the United States are legally protected against race/ethnicity, color, national origin, sex, disability, veteran status, or age prejudice at work and at school. (This does not stop the sadness from bullying when people violate this code and the victim does nothing, as happens most of the time.)

Although we know it’s not “nice” to reject people because of their looks, we are human and have reactions. Usually, we no longer call people with developmental challenges anything but developmentally challenged. Usually, we no longer call little people anything else.  Usually, we, in the United States, no longer call African-Americans, colored. So why are we still using words not based on human kindness for people who have more to love (MTL) in the O word category?

According to Richard Conniff, a writer for Men’s Health Magazine,

“prejudice comes from ignorance, and learning about [this] problem may be the only way to solve it in our society and ourselves.”

EDUCATION AND ACTION STEPS

In order to educate others, we must understand ourselves. If we take a small amount of time, we may find some enjoyment in the knowledge that will come from the following mental workouts. Here are some action steps that may help us to understand external prejudice, prejudice toward ourselves, personal options, group options, educating others, helping others and ourselves.

1.    Take the time to understand why our bodies gain weight, meaning where does the craving that drives us to eat come from. Is it a lack of a particular hormone such as leptin, one of the proteins that helps regulate when we stop feeling hungry? Or are we sad because of a particularly recent loss? Or are we doing no physical movement but eating more than we were because we are not moving and have nothing else to do?

2.    Take the time to consider why we would have an unkind reaction to someone with extra weight (even if we, ourselves, are more than our ideal weight). How kind are we in other areas of our life? Are we being understanding in all things or do we have some prejudice of our own to reduce and remove?

3.    Take the time to study our own bodies and how we feel about food and with food. Through deeper understanding, we can make more informed decisions about how we want to live and how we want to proceed.

4.    Take the time to discover whether we have made a personal choice to be large or whether our biology needs monitoring and whether we are happy with and proud of our weight and why. This is a truthful meditation we can do with ourselves, with a coach or with a network of people doing the same thing.

5.    Take the time to learn about eating well and evaluate whether we need more education or assistance. There is always more to learn. And there are always people to help.

6.    Take the time to consider seeing a food advocate or joining a support network to help implement the actions we choose to take, for ourselves or to help others by sharing our discoveries.

UNDERSTANDING

Craving food is like any other urge. It is physiological, (1) sometimes set off by emotions which activate chemicals and (2) sometimes set off by chemicals which trigger emotions and reactions. We must become educated and sensitive to our situation, instead of taking the ostrich approach. What I mean is that we can feel great about ourselves with a little book knowledge and a little self-love. Knowledge truly gives us the power we need not to bury our heads in our pillow in hopelessness the same way as the ostrich in this graphic is burying his head in the sand. There is a prejudice about the ostrich from which this image comes. He does not bury his head in the sand. The male ostrich digs such a deep hole for the protection of the ostrich eggs [5-6 feet] that it looks as if his head is buried in the sand. It is not. To avoid making judgments without full awareness, we need to educate ourselves.

CONCLUSION

Clinically, there is no issue with the word obesity. Scientists, who look after the truth, do not judge the condition in research and don’t point fingers. They only study their subject. It is we non-professionals, even if we know about the burden of extra weight, first-hand, who put a social value on it, through lack of education or through irrational (as all emotions are) emotional reaction.

It is said that calling an extra weight person a name is the last socially acceptable form of prejudice. When we are kids, we claw up the pole of life and hurt those in our path, until we gain understanding and nurture compassion. As adults, we usually don’t tease each other for having cancer, for losing a limb, for having ADD or for being a different color. The operative word is usually. Yet, the trend of tolerance and sensitivity has yet to reach people who judge the community of around 75 million people whose BMI is over 30, and the derogatory words of the last century are still being used with ignorance.

It would seem that the current generation is more compassionate than the last four as it is more exposed to technological speed and fresh and uncensored truth, there are multi-national cultures in all major areas in the United States and it is clawing up a new ladder to adulthood where its generation members typically have a network of 1000 international friends as part of their every day life.

So, tolerance for difference is built in. It is up to all of us, especially the moms and the older generations, though, to take a look at our own humanity, acknowledge our own prejudices, make an effort to dump them in the corner garbage can or, at least, put them in the closet in front of our children until we can delete or temper them, educate ourselves and then go out and educate others as to what we have discovered about body weight and what we have learned about being sensitive to our fellow humans.

FEEDBACK

Please leave your comments below, use our contact us tab or on twitter us: @warriorsoweight.
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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu, fitness and meditation, a music and stress expert and a dedicated mom. She believes that doing slow, consistent physical work will build foundation of the mind that will maximize our happiness and health, even in the most difficult of times. She says, “As we are coming and going in our daily activities in life, we might as well exercise during the times we are transporting ourselves.”

I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR WEIGHT LOSS: 7 STEPS TO GET IT! (Issue 14)

by Diane Gold

In the past weeks, I have been hearing over and over again how people don’t have the time in their busy lives to work on their weight. I am going to talk about weight loss, but the same applies to weight gain of any kind. It also applies to many of life’s weights such as feeling sad, angry, bullied, alone or misunderstood.

Two weeks ago, I had a plumbing issue in my house. I became defocused because of it. I was fairly consumed about the hygiene of my house and whether the issue could be affordably resolved. Of course, I had to move rugs and furniture, clean floors multiple times and make multiple arrangements with plumbers. What I didn’t have to do was to choose to allow this issue to live in my head when I was not moving rugs, cleaning floors and talking to plumbers.

Part of what snapped me out of the plumbing crisis was the fact that my daughter, who lives near her vet medicine school, came down with the food-transmitted, week-long version of salmonella (intestinal bacteria) which included hospitalization. Thankfully, she is OK, and the plumbing pipes are fixed but too old to last long.

My systematic approach to time and creation management is in place most of the time. As we say in the martial world, we show our true selves in adversity, how balanced and prepared we are or are not.

I realized how fortunate I am that I follow my own program most of the 365 days a year for most years. It has brought me to want to share these seven steps that give us time for weight loss.

1)    GRATITUDE. The most important part of the day occurs as it begins. We get a chance to rejoice, to jump up and down with glee, to fill our hearts with warm happiness. Why? Because we awoke and have another shot at growing, creating something great, helping someone out and getting help ourselves.

This might sound like hype, but the alternative would be that we didn’t get the chance to get up and go. So, yeah, be happy about it. When we are happy, our focus is better and so is the way we use our time. This should take 5 seconds.
2)    SELF-RECOGNITION. Now that we have awakened, we can take 10 seconds to stretch and recognize how lucky everyone else is that we have arrived in the conscious world and are here to do something brilliant and creative, help someone or call on someone. It is our job to be productive, so we might as well recognize ourselves for it. When we root ourselves through self-recognition, our actions become streamlined and time economical.

3)    POWER WAKE UP (aka meditation or chi wake up). Once we stand up (or sit up in our wheel chair or sit up in bed if that’s how it is), let’s feel the power of our body. Let’s take 30 seconds just to stand (or sit or lie) and feel our blood supply coursing through our veins. This action will wake us, allow us to pump up without anything more. We get emotional power from physical power. Powering up daily will increase and sustain our power. When we feel powerful, we act at peak performance. When we are at our peak, we treat time as the preciously valuable dimension that it is.

4)    CHEERLEADING. As we are doing our morning routine, we should take 15 seconds to pick out our goal for the day. It could be to wash two loads of laundry, take the first step to doing our taxes, make 50 phone calls to tell people about our business, call the girl we talked to from last year’s gym class that we promised to call. Whatever it is, those 15 seconds will bring us to laser focused attention. We will commit ourselves to one task (this exercise is in addition to longer term goals, if we have them). This cheering ourselves on will methodically lead us down our path. We can use the cheering behavior for the rest of the day until we have reached our target.

Imagine we are on a treasure hunt, and we know we are close to finding the treasure. The time that we spend in looking for it is so energetic, proficient and precise because we are highly motivated to find the treasure. We are internally cheerleading. This enables decisive time economy and allows us to find more time for weight issues.

5)    REACH OUT TO ONE. No matter what kind of day we are having, no matter how busy we think we are, no matter where in life’s journey we are; we should take one minute out to reach out to someone and say hello. This could be on the bus to work or school, while putting the trash can outside, while going to the mini mart on the way to play volleyball. If we don’t know anyone we can call, if we work or school from home or if we can’t go out and don’t have anyone who lives with us; we can say hello to our neighbor or to the first person we see riding a bicycle near our front door. If no one rides by, we can call the phone company and ask about our bill. If we have an internet connection, we can reach out globally to half the world.

What does this have to do with time management? When we communicate with another person, our perspective modifies itself, often in a positive way. We realize we are an integral part of the world as we know it and that people have something to offer us and vice versa. With this realization, we can become more productive and motivated and can use our time more efficiently.  Then there is more time for weight loss.

6)    TOP OF THE AGENDA. When we want to do something, we usually schedule it in, right? Think about what happens when we feel like eating a particular food. Funny how we have no problem scheduling that in. Yet, when we want to remove some pounds from our stomach by doing some tai chi or fitness activity that would take less time than it would take to go get the food we craved, we don’t have (make) the time.
Looking from a different angle, when we see that our daughters are having weight issues, we bake a cake. Or we encourage them to make sure to have a big appetite when visiting grandma and grandpa. Or we think we are being generous when we decide to buy our daughters’ clothing when they are four sizes larger than they want to be. What are we thinking? Where’s our agenda then?
By keeping the weight loss goal (or weight gain goal or emotional weight goal) on our calendars, we keep it fresh in our minds. If it’s scheduled in, we have already made the time.  15 seconds.

7)    WRAP UP MEETING. When it is time for bed, let’s have a small 30-second meeting with ourselves. No matter what else is on the agenda, let’s review how we managed with the other six items in this plan. The program takes two minutes, 45 seconds a day. It should bring us one extra minute for each of these seven steps because we get stimulated after we eat good food, see good friends, succeed at creating something great, lose a pound. That totals seven minutes. Subtract two minutes, 45 seconds from seven and get four minutes, 15 seconds.
This meeting gives us more time because it keeps us accountable to ourselves for weight loss. It shows us how easy it is to make time through scheduling, focus and the positive effects of infrastructure. We begin to save time in other areas of our day, which we can add on to weight loss time.

CONCLUSION

When we carry extra weight, it consumes us. We wake up knowing it; we go to school and work knowing it; we go to sleep knowing it. Spending time on the idea of extra weight uses up our time in a way that doesn’t benefit us. When we take an organized approach to our objectives, whatever they are, we have less time to live in our negative, overweight thoughts. We might even have time for an exercise or two from the WarriorsOfWeight.com inbox magazine.

When our lives have so many things pulling at them that we think we are about to break AND we carry extra weight, it is almost too much. Tension from other weight issues often drives us to eat. It also tends to create a funnel-like image in our minds, not unlike a tornado, in which all the problems that ever were and ever will be are floating around above our heads clouding our thoughts.

Extra weight makes us feel bad; not like our looks; shorten our life span and the time we could be with our grandchildren. We choose to have time for ourselves. We choose to have time for our favorite people and food. We don’t find time for people we don’t like just as we think we are in control if we walk away from food we don’t like.

We can start now by picking one of the seven steps to do for a week. Once we complete one of the steps for seven straight days, we should continue to do it for another seven days and, at the same time, add another step.

Every two weeks, we should add another step until, in 13 weeks, we will have time for weight loss and we will have adjusted our minds to lose it.

FEEDBACK

Please leave your comments in the comment section below. Your experience and feedback can be very helpful to others in the community.
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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music and  stress expert and a dedicated mom. She believes that we are the masters of our fate as long as we get the chance to wake up successfully. She says, “If we put half the effort into advocating for ourselves as we do in caring for others, we’d spend lots of time on ourselves.”

Copyright © [2012] by [WarriorsOfWeight.com] – All Rights Reserved.
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Acupressure And Tapping: How They Can Help Your Weight (Issue 10)

by Hillary Talbott

There are many different [acupressure] points as well as many different patterns of disharmony that can lead to weight gain. It’s important to understand what your pattern of disharmony is that’s leading to the weight gain, if regular diet and exercise are not working.

In order to do this, locate your local acupuncture physician at AcuFinder.com.

Two common points that we’re going to discuss today, are Stomach-36 and Liver-3.

Now, Stomach-36 is a common point for regulating digestion. It has an auto regulating effect on the digestion, meaning that it can be used for things like diarrhea and constipation.

It tonifies digestion, whose deficiency can lead to weight gain. So, to find Stomach-36, we start by locating the two dimples under the knee, sometimes referred to as Calf’s Nose.

[Tonify means to increase energy, blood, chi in the area.]

It is approximately, one hand breadth below the lateral dimple. And it is also found by running your finger up the crest of the Tibia [lower leg bone in front] until it begins to curve out. Your finger will actually fall into a natural depression there.

So, applying firm pressure to Stomach-36 will help to tonify the digestive system, hopefully, leading to weight loss.

Another technique, known as tapping, is also effective here. You just want to tap on the point for about 30 seconds, at a time. Now, like all points, this point is found bilaterally on the body. So, you can find it on both legs. [Do it on both legs.]

Another point combination that is helpful for weight loss is Liver-3 and Kidney-1. These points are located on the foot. They’re particularly helpful when you find yourself eating out of frustration or stress. Which most of us happen to do, in this day and age.

So, to locate Liver-3, it is in the hollow, between the first and second metatarsal bones. And again, your finger will kind of fall into a dip here, just before the bones begin to close. Now, Kidney-1 is on the bottom of the foot, almost directly below Liver-3.

And pushing these two together, is very helpful for coursing Chi throughout the body, calming the mind and tonifying digestion. So, a gentle pressing technique is useful here. [Chi is vital life energy.]

And the tapping technique is very useful for calming a mind that just won’t quit  so that you can have better awareness and make good choices for yourself, as far as diet and exercise. I recommend doing this daily.

CONCLUSION BY DIANE GOLD

Hillary has given us some wonderful techniques to use for weight loss. They also stimulate our body’s energy, in general. Born from her successful experience with her own patients, the fact that she has shared them with us is a rare gift. We would ordinarily have to go to school or get acupuncture treatment to get this knowledge.

Such a small action as pressing or tapping can bring such a huge result. And these techniques  feel so good.

Caution:
When pressing or tapping, go about these actions gently. Take it easy until you know your strength. If you have any questions or you have any specific medical issues, please consult your medical professional first.

HILLARY TALBOTT, AUTHOR

Hillary Talbott, DOM, is an acupuncture physician and clinical herbalist in St. Petersburg, Florida. Her education in exercise physiology and health science education from University of Florida, led her to pharmaceutical hematology/oncology distribution work, a change of heart to Eastern Medicine and now, an emphasis on Women’s Health, through her professional degree in Oriental Medicine. See her full bio and contact info in our experts section on the main site here.

FEEDBACK

Feel free to comment below so that we can let Hillary know our results from pressing and tapping.  Comments are always welcomed and appreciated.

[youtube color1="00FFFF" color2="A9A9A9" autoplay="0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo6K0cYQTZ0[/youtube]

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Video Version Of This Material

LET’S MOVE: EVEN WHEN IT’S REALLY HARD (Issue 8)

by Diane Gold

When it’s hard to move because you weigh too much, so many enjoyable activities become dark, cumbersome burdens that have bad feelings attached to them. And we usually carry these feelings alone because other people might not feel the same way.

I remember when I was at NYU. There was a time that I was 30 pounds heavier than I am now. It was probably the ricotta cheese in my lacto-vegetarian diet or the melted cheese on the pasta and sitting and practicing piano and then eating, definitely.

I know that’s not a serious amount of weight compared to other people, but that was my burden and a lot of trouble for me. Every morning, I would sit up on my piece of foam (no bed in those days) and hold my gut to see how my weight was doing. Since that was the first place weight settled on me, I wanted to know how much excess I had immediately upon awakening. I would be able to calculate right away where I was, and, maybe, tiptoe over to the scale in my studio apartment and weigh in. I always knew that the day had a gray cloud over it when I woke up and had that gut, but I went about my day of getting my music therapy training, just the same.

It’s important to remember, as moms of overweight girls or as anyone who knows anyone in this situation, regular activities are not so regular to everyone. The simplest thing in our lives might be a monumental chore in another’s.

Picture our height as five foot six inches, we weight 120 pounds and are in decent overall health. We go to run across the street because we see a friend, we get into a car, jump rope, go dancing. None of these activities trouble us; each is part of a very average day.

Now, let’s picture we are that same five foot six inches, but our 230 pounds changes the way we move, the way we think, the way we feel physically and the way we look at our day. We aren’t going to be as happy to move around because there’s more of us to move, because people may look at us in judgment, because our balance is off. So, not only do we favor activities that don’t require moving, but we don’t have the same energetic will to be out and about and we don’t expend enough energy to balance what we eat. And we’d rather have a companion snack while we are sitting at the computer than go running.

Some of us really don’t like exercise. We’d rather read or write a book, play a game online or watch entertainment. Fond memories of Ma, who would rather have gone to a Broadway play or a ballet than go dancing, come to mind. She would always take a book over a sport, and she did. She did go for walks when she married my stepfather because walks were romantic.

She did one thing every morning that added value to her life. She always did her bed exercises: situps and a few stretches, every morning, from I’m not sure when to her last year of 83. This movement, though done in bed, made a huge difference in her quality of life and her health. She was never sick one day in her life until her last year, which was a mostly peaceful passing. (Shout out to Gertrude!)

Let’s get back to how easy it is to sit in one place and “go to school.” During high school, we may be (or will soon be) in “blended education,” where part of our public schooling is done in a face-to-face classroom, another part online, another part done through mobile events.

In all three settings, some students are very much connected with fellow students through electronic messaging, electronic tracking of friends’ physical whereabouts through standard phone apps that identify of their friends; others of us try to be invisible in school, hibernate in our homes, only showing our head when we have study groups or meetings by webcam, even while getting college degrees or running full time careers.

The blessing to the new learning is we don’t have to bother getting dressed to learn or to talk to people. We don’t have to travel, and we save time, money and energy by staying home. The down side, obviously, is two-fold. Our social skills do not have to develop. More than this and the all-time favorite for people who are uncomfortable in their own skin is they don’t have to MOVE.

The same is true with running a career from the home. Our interactions are very different from the face-to-face method, and we could lead our lives from home, never learning the nuances of actual social interaction.

When we are home, whether we are studying, working, creating, hiding or vegging out; we don’t get the natural exercise we get if we go out to school or work. We don’t pass the mailbox; we probably don’t pull our own weeds. We don’t hunt for our food – well, most of us don’t, in modern society. We don’t have to run for a bus or even get in our car. Our bodies literally stagnate.

We don’t have to move to shop. We push a button, for the most part, and go shopping from our chair or bed. We click a remote and get a video streamed to us. We can opt for a job where we do the work online, never see our co-workers or are a solopreneur, stay invisible and cut the need to move. Except that, to be in good health, we have to move.

So whether we don’t like exercise or it doesn’t like us, there are tons of ways we can slowly but surely, almost secretly from ourselves, without our knowing it, start to move when we do our daily life, even if we go from bed to shower to chair to video screening couch to chair and back to bed.

Even if we go from bed to the bathroom to the couch, if we add one little itsy, bitsy thing; we will happier, we will feel endorphins filling our body with life, we will be more vigorous, we will be more vital, our muscles will get toned, our blood will circulate more, our bones and tendons will become more pliable, our brain function will increase and we will move toward balancing our weight.

Here’s what to do:

1) Before you sit up in bed for the first time of the day, wiggle your toes 9X. If you like, do one foot at a time so that you can concentrate on the action. This will stimulate the brain and tell it to wake up and have a good day.

2) As you sit up in bed to get up, we sometimes stretch. So, lift the arms high over your head. Keep them up. Tip over to the L like a teapot. Then tip over to the R like a teapot, a few seconds on each side. This will wake up your digestive tract so you can eat.

3) When you are in the bathroom sitting on the throne (toilet seat), put your feet flat on the floor. Put your palms on your lower stomach and rock forward with the feet on the floor 9 X, without moving from the hips down. This will relax your lower intestine, good for the throne. It will also tighten your abs a teensy bit. Be careful not to break your toilet seat. If it is too fragile, you can do this one in the chair.

4) Every time you walk from the bathroom to the kitchen (or from the bathroom or kitchen to anywhere, if you like it), put your hands on your hips as if you are a model walking down a fashion runway. Straight back, regal walk, relaxed chin. This will make you feel good, will strengthen your back and solidify good posture.

5) When  you get to the kitchen; bend, cut, stir, mix, serve and eat with the same “runway” posture. This will remind you that you are regal. It also helps with digestion.

6) Sitting in your chair, with hands on your desk, computer keys or (if you are typing on your phone or not at all) hands on upper thighs, elbows against body, without moving hips or below; rotate L shoulder to the rear, then R shoulder to the rear, 9X, alternating (that’s L, R, L, R, L, R, L, R, L, R, L, R, L, R, L, R, L, R).  Good for moving your organs around and your sides.

That’s it.

Should you do these movements when you go out? Whichever of these help you and feel good to you are what you should do wherever you are. If you like the chair exercise and you’re at the mall, take a seat and do the exercise. It will take about 6 seconds. No one is watching you.

Or, if someone is looking, waving is always good. Then, get up and continue along your way. As a reminder, put a tiny sign on the wall near your feet in the bedroom, across from wherever you look in the bathroom, by the bathroom exit, in the kitchen, at your chair and, definitely, on your phone.

“TOE WIGGLES 10X”
“TEAPOT STRETCHES”
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“ROCK THE BACK 9X”
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“WALK THE RUNWAY”
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“PREPARE & EAT WITH STRAIGHT BACK”
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“SHOULDER TWISTS 9X”

CONCLUSION

There is so much media about the benefit of cumulative work, the story of how Aesop’s tortoise beat the hare through persistent work, how Aesop’s lion was saved by a wee mouse. In the same way, when we move a little on a consistent basis; we do so much to save our heart, our mind, our body and our social life. Do not worry, if you are not interested in trying one or all of these moves. Keep them in the back of your mind for a rainy day. The time will come.

Let me know if these exercises are enlivening should you try them. They may seem too small to bother with. However, after over thirty years of working in recreation, education and martial arts; I have seen how just taking one step gets you ready for the next.

FEEDBACK

Please leave your comments below. Email us at 1 [at] warriorsofweight [dot] com.
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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music pro and stress expert and a dedicated mom. She has dedicated her life to helping people reach out for their goals and realize their own vision. She says, “It takes only one step to change your entire life.”
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HOW TO BREAK A FOOD TRANCE (Issue 7)

by Sharon Livingston and Glenn Livingston

G: Hey, Sharico.

S: Hi, Sweetheart.

G: How are you, today?

S: I’m good. I was looking at the letters that we get. And we get like tons of letters every day. And I try to peruse them quickly to see what the themes are where people are just commenting. They’re not asking for response. They’re just talking about what’s going on with them. And a very typical theme is I’M OUT OF CONTROL. I can’t stop myself. I don’t know why I do it. I just put the stuff in my mouth.

Sometimes, they’re very cruel to themselves the way they describe it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and trying to think about how to help people with it. And what I’ve come to recognize is that that kind of eating is like being in a bad trance.

G: In a negative trance.

S: It’s a negative trance. Do you know what I mean by that?

G: I do.

S: So, talk about it from the way you experience it.

G: I have bought myself a pizza. And thought that I’m gonna have four slices. And I taste the first couple of bites. And then I go into a kind of an automaton routine. And then I look down, and almost all four of them are gone. And I don’t remember having slice number two, slice number three, or even the bites in between there. I don’t remember the experience. I’m very angry at myself for doing that. And because I wasn’t really there, I’m still hungry. And, so it keeps going.

S: You’re still wanting.

G: Right, not physically hungry, but still…

S: Feeling like you missed something.

G: Exactly. Like the aliens came and took Glenn away and just put on this food machine.

S: Yeah, we were talking about it as though it only happens with food that’s not so great for you. But, it could happen with a salad, too. Right?

G: Ya.

S: Like, I put the salad down, and I got involved in doing something like working on the computer or watching something on TV or getting in a conversation with someone. I felt like I needed another bite, and I looked down at my plate. It’s all gone. Like, where did it go?

And that’s one of the elements of trance. From the way were taught about hypnosis in school. There’s a sense of timelessness. Like time had stopped, and we don’t know how much time went by. Did you eat it in 5 minutes, did you eat it in 10 minutes. Did you eat it in 1 minute? I bet you couldn’t tell. And that’s one of the signs of being in a trance. There’s no sense of time.

G: Absolutely, true.

S: And also, because you were in this trance, instead of being there, you didn’t taste it. You didn’t feel the texture; you didn’t smell it; you didn’t experience yourself swallowing it. All of that has disappeared. It was as if you hadn’t eaten it. And you still are wanting.

G: It’s a horrendous thing because I’m still wanting, but I know that I shouldn’t have, and I’m feeling somewhat bloated. And feeling like I shouldn’t be wanting. And you just don’t know what to do. And, because that’s a painful realization, the easiest thing is to go right back into the trance.

S: Exactly. And, so then, more ends up on your plate, and it all disappears, and you repeat the process, trying to get the experience and never really having it.

G: So, what’s the solution?

S: Well, it’s a very simple one, actually. It’s to, at least, for when you are starting that particular food experience, is to be totally present.

I see you do it a lot, actually, where you’ll say,

“Honey, do you want to come and sit at the table while we have this food?”

Because  I’m very often quite willing to go and eat at the computer or eat in front of the TV. I know we both do that, but if I really want to savor my food and experience it, I’ll have a much better experience of satisfaction of having eaten it if I sit at the table, and I take a bite, I smell it, I kind of roll it around in my mouth a little bit, so I can savor the flavor.  I can get the texture, and maybe even just pause for a second with it in my mouth before I start to chew it so I can get the full experience of the food.

G: What do you think this has to do with our early table experiences? Eating at the table in my house was not very comfortable. It’s something that I learned that it’s really helpful to do as an adult and, actually, not all that long ago.

As a kid, there was a lot of competition at the table.  I didn’t always get along so well with my dad and my mom and my sister. The food wasn’t always so good. So I tended to have more peace all by myself. Yet, even if I am all by myself, my eating is much healthier when I take the time and sit at the table.

S: What happens is people aren’t paying attention to the food. They’re paying attention to everything else but the food.

I want to go over the anti-trance, mindful kind of eating experience…

G: Uh-huh.

S: Where you’re really paying attention to it. Recently, we hear a lot about mindful eating, and you’ll hear people talking about that. It’s something that’s been around for a very, very long time. And I remember going to a workshop when I was an older teenager where we were taught how to eat an orange. And really savor it. And it was the best orange I ever ate in my whole life. And so I’m gonna talk about that more in a moment. I’m also wanting to come back to what you’re saying ‘cause it’s a different thing about early eating experiences, and, you know, I’m one of five kids, and my grandmother lived with us, and we had a lot of people around me at the dinner table.

G:  So, you took the time to pay attention to your food, it would have been gone from your plate ‘cause someone else would have taken it, in my house.

S: Right. Your dad would have eaten it. I had to compete with my brothers. To this day, I’m a fast eater. Right?

G: Very fast. Ya.

S: It’s easier to have digestive problems if you’re gulping down your food.

G: Right.

S: If you take your time, which I rarely do, I have to really, really, really talk myself into doing that,  if I take my time, I’m more likely to digest it properly and have less of a chance of putting bubbles in my tummy or making myself uncomfortable.

G: How do you do that? Do you have a specific set of instructions to help us to do that?

S: Yeah. Going back to that orange exercise, I think everybody should do this. Do it with an orange. Do it with an apple.

G: Something that you have no ambivalence whatsoever about eating. You know it’s healthy for you and it’s totally on your plan.

S: An orange is a particularly wonderful thing to do or like a tangerine. Something that’s easy to peel. The first thing to do is to take a look at it. You want to experience this food with all your five senses. You’re going to take some time, maybe 20 minutes, to fully experience this orange, or an apple, whatever it is.

What you’re doing here is tuning your brain to pay attention to what you’re doing. So, when you have that orange and the first thing you do is you start to peel it. Isn’t this the most incredible thing anyway?  Like, whenever I’m in the kitchen and you decide you’re gonna to have an orange, and you start to peel the orange. Like, I want some. It just smells so good. So the very first thing is when you start to peel it. You know, you feel the little bit of spray that pops out from the peel. You feel it on your fingers. You bring it to your face. You’ll smell it very intensely, and that starts you appreciating the orange or the tangerine or whatever.

And then taking your time to peel it and take a wedge of it, and smell it, take a little bite, and just experience it in your mouth, fully, what’s the temperature of it, what’s the texture of it, what’s the taste of it, even before you start to bite and chew and then take your time chewing a section before you swallow it to make sure that you’ve gotten it to the right texture – what that feels like, and then fully feel the swallowing before you start with the next bite.

So take your time to go through as much of this orange or tangerine as you want to eat. Smell it, feel the texture, experience the sensation of it, how it is to chew it, how it is to swallow it, with every bite, the sweetness, the tartness. It’s gonna be a totally different orange than you’re used to eating because most of us take a couple of bites and just kind of swallow it without having chewed it very much. And then, you’ve inhaled this orange only having experienced a tiny bit of it.

G: That’s why I would imagine that if you do this a few times, that that experience starts to translate to what you are eating throughout the day without consciously doing that exercise.

S: But you can consciously do that exercise with every single thing you’re eating. And I don’t mean that you’re gonna spend 20 minutes with every thing. But, if you could slow yourself down enough to truly experience and taste the first bite, that kind of sets the tone for being mindful about eating it. I mean, you’re not gonna take the full 20 minutes for every food on your plate, but, you will be slowing yourself down, and you will be appreciating or not appreciating – you might find there are certain things you like more than others, and why am I even bothering eating this. Unless there is some real major reason why you have to, you really don’t have to.

The other thing is to pay attention to where you are when you are eating it.

And, if you’re forced into a situation where you have to be at your desk and eat, to take 10 minutes, that’s just 10 minutes, for whatever food you have in front of you. That’s the hardest thing to do is to slow ourselves down enough to pay attention to what we’re doing.

I know that even though most weight loss, and dietitian and nutritionist experts, would say the best thing is to eat at a table, totally dedicated. For you, that was a painful experience. Having dinner in front of the TV is very soothing sometimes because the TV is keeping you company.

Important is, still, to taste your food. It’s important to take one bite at a time. There are times when I’ve stuck things into my mouth because I want to get it down ‘cause I think I have to do something. That’s one of those times when the food really has disappeared. Like I’m trying to get it out of my hand so I can do something with that hand. And then I go to have another bite of it, and it’s gone.

I hate that. There are some other things you can do to slow yourself down. You always ask me, “Why do you get the chopsticks,” in the Chinese restaurant? ‘Cause it slows me down. That’s why I do that.

G: Interesting.

S: Another thing some people do is they eat with your non-dominant hand. So, if you’re right-handed, eat with your left hand. That will naturally slow you down.

G: That’s interesting.

S: If possible, try to avoid doing other things. Or, even if you’re in a conversation with other people, make sure that, in between talking with them, you’re actually looking at your food and bringing it to your mouth in a mindful kind of way like knowing that you’re doing it. I know that when I eat standing up, I’ve inhaled it. I have a better chance of slowing myself down if I’m sitting down.

So those are a few things. The other thing about that, and we all know this, if you eat something in under 20 minutes, your body doesn’t know that you ate it. It takes 20 minutes for you to register that you actually had the food. So, if you can take your time, and slow yourself down, put your fork down in between bites. Now if you’re eating an ice cream cone or handfuls of food, like snacks, you don’t have a fork to put down. But to make some space and pause between bites.

Anything that can serve as a pause breaks the trance.

G: Gotcha. Did you want to say anything else about the early table memories and how that influences people’s ability to eat mindfully and avoid going into the food trance?

S: I wasn’t thinking about it so much as a trance. It was an important consideration about what we learn when we are kids.

G: As you do this, you’ll probably have memories about what your table experience was.

S: Like we just did now.

G: Which is very interesting for you to look into.

S: Yeah. I hadn’t thought about it, that, wow, I better get that food down quickly or there won’t be any to have. To have three big brothers who were much bigger and, you know, much hungrier and all that testosterone and they were like a pack of moose who constantly had to eat, feed themselves. And there wasn’t much room for a little girl.  And then, of course, there was my grandmother who was just like this human eating machine. If it was on your plate and she thought you weren’t gonna eat it, it disappeared. So you had to eat it quickly; otherwise, it was gonna disappear.

G: Well, OK, sweetheart. The summary here is what?

S: Break the trance.
The other thing is that when you come out of that trance and you realize all that stuff is gone, like maybe the whole bag of potato chips is gone, or the whole bowl of popcorn is gone, or the whole bowl of cookies is gone. People coming out of a negative trance feel horrible. You know, when you’ve had a good hypnosis experience, you come out of it feeling refreshed and vibrant and awake.

G: But if you wake up from a one-night-stand, you feel like you don’t really respect yourself for what you did.

S: Exactly. And that’s how it feels when you’ve had a bad eating experience that you …

G: That you’ve compromised your value. When that happens, what you should do is …

S: Dedicate yourself to paying attention. All it is is a matter of paying attention. It doesn’t matter what you’re eating. Pay attention to it, and slow yourself down.

G: So you can always use the present moment to be healthy, and the way to do that is just pay attention. No matter what you had before. No matter how full you feel. No matter how long the trance was.

Thank you, Sweetheart.

S: That was great.

G: Yeah.

S: Thanks for listening. Now, to gain more confidence in your ability to enjoy guilt-free, stress-free eating with delicious food, please visit http://emotionaleatingrelief.com. Got it? That’s http://emotionaleatingrelief.com. Thanks.

AUDIO VERSION

How-To-Break-A-Food-Trance.mp3

SHARON LIVINGSTON, PHD

Sharon (S, in the transcript, above) holds a PhD in humanistic psychology from Kennedy Western University. She has interviewed over 5,000 people about emotional eating. In addition to her private coaching, she has done psychological research for companies like Weight Watchers, Atkins, Kraft and more and has published articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The American Bar Association Journal and many others. She is available, as above, at http://emotionaleatingrelief.com.

GLENN LIVINGSTON, PHD

Glenn (G, in the transcript, above) holds his PhD in clinical psychology from Yeshiva University. He has previously practiced as a marital and family counselor, seeing approximately 1,000 patients in nine years. He also consulted for many major corporations in emotional eating pertaining to advertising. You can reach Glenn through the same link as above.

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MEDITATION FOR WEIGHT LOSS (Issue 6)

by Diane Gold

Meditation for weight loss is a huge topic. You might be saying,

“It seems impossible that if I meditate, I will lose weight.”

“How can meditation help weight loss?”

“After all this time, all I have to do is meditate, and I will lose weight?”

The statement is quite powerful, as it is sincerely meaningful. Meditation is the act of focusing on “no thing” through a study of focusing attention on one thing. This article will look at meditation as a solution for many where “other” systems have had minimal success.

The obvious secret weapon that meditation offers is that it doesn’t require working out or body motion, often dreaded when we want or need to lose weight because we feel too uncomfortable to move or we’re dismal.  There’s no big effort to get it started. The only thing moving is internal, it only takes a minute and it makes you feel good.

So what is this meditation for weight loss? We have to recognize that, for every system of our body, there is some type of release valve, like on a pressure-cooker, radiator or properly operating oil rig. We, humans, have our own pressurized systems resulting in nerve pressure, blood pressure, intestinal pressure, bladder pressure, eye pressure, brain pressure and so on. The body has a specific way of relieving excess pressure, or we start to break.

The mind is a human system of conscious experience and intelligent thought. It, too, feels pressure and needs a relief valve or else. It is very hard work to spend a full 24-hour period without giving the mind a break, especially if the day includes worry, anxiety, poor self-esteem, frustration, stress. We all experience all of these emotions from time to time. However, weight losers who are having trouble doing it have these emotions while they also have the pressures of a day-job (corporate or independent), going to school or mothering. The exhaustion and stress caused by the weight issues is enough to make you want to do what?

Specific to our topic, I will say the word: “eat.” There, I said it. To let off steam as our release valve, we eat. For people with weight gain issues, the opposite is true, too. The strongest minds with “bad feeling overload” may end up with no appetite and become unhealthy because of it.

Here’s what we know about the mind, that fragile piece of real estate that we know so little about:

1)    we function more successfully without pressure
2)    we can train ourselves to focus to remove pressure
3)    we can choose to live in ways that can minimize pressure
4)    we can train ourselves to recognize the signs of pressure before it is there
5)    we can awaken deeper levels in ourselves

With that in mind, is it clear how meditation is connected to weight loss? When we meditate,

1)    we give ourselves a personal place of stillness
2)    we learn to stand still
3)    we learn to have a focus
4)    we allot time out
5)    we evolve

Imagine if every time we felt stress of some sort, we could do half a minute of meditation, and the stress would go away. Our emotional eating would reduce once we learned that a tiny taste of the meditative mind could give us a different perspective which could help reduce food cravings.

As we said before, meditation is focus. The more we practice, the more adept we become at having our mind follow the path we design for it, rather than having our mind follow its own, undirected whims. It is not simple to rein in the mind, but some ways are simpler than others.

When I was 21 years old, living in Washington Square Village, I followed a philosophy that included two-and-a-half hours of meditation a day. For 5 years, I sat in two prescribed positions on a daily basis. Did I meditate? The answer to this question requires understanding that meditation is not a physical action. The mind has to cooperate through being trained to do it.

My answer is that I almost never “meditated,” even though I spent 2.5 hours in meditation position. The method prescribed concentrated on more than one thing at a time, and my mind was easily distracted. To this day, as a positive result of that training, I teach a simple method where focusing on one thing is not impossible. No mantras, no looking at clouds, no techniques that can split the mind. We are scattered enough.

The trick to weight loss meditation is to change your reaction to the urge to eat or the urge to eat what you have decided you would prefer not to eat at the time. Where your reaction used to be to get instant gratification, be sad, be mad, be hasty; you can change your behavior by standing in meditation position for 30 seconds. This act may give you an opportunity to grab your mind away from that urge when you want to eat and it is not time to eat, or when you want your mind to lead you well, rather than comply without choice.

Here are steps to follow once a day for a month at the time of hunger, when you would like to postpone your eating, eat less, lower your urge level or simply change your perspective. This certainly will slow you down and give you a moment to be your own boss.

By the way, if this is not an impactful experience the first time, do it again. At least for two weeks. It might grow on you. You might start to be able to see another aspect of yourself. How much fun would that be!

1)    Stand with feet shoulder width apart.
2)    Bend the knees.
3)    Tuck the butt.
4)    Straighten the back.
5)    Lean forward 2 inches from the waist.
6)    Make sure arms are relaxed with palms at side of thigh, hanging.
7)    Take the left hand and semi-point the index finger from the relaxed position.
8)    Slowly, meditatively, draw a counterclockwise circle from the right side of the body to the left, 3X, 3/4 of an arms-length in front of you.
9)    Place arm back at the side, dropped arm position, no tension.
10)  Relax a second or two.
11)  Take the left hand and semi-pointing the index finger from the relaxed position
12)    Slowly, meditatively, draw a clockwise circle from the left side of the body to the right, 3X, 3/4 of an arms-length in front of you.
13)    Place arm back at the side, dropped arm position, no tension.
14)    Relax.

This meditation affects weight loss through the body’s working to pump the blood through the legs in the standing position. Most of the result comes from taking your focus away from other distractions, including food. You are undoing stress in yourself, so you will be better equipped to proceed and succeed at weight loss.

CONCLUSION

There are many ways to meditate, and there are a myriad of programs on weight loss. This particular combination of meditation for weight loss uses 30 plus years’ experience at stripping down to basics the act of meditation and the act of changing an urge. As with any meditation, it is very personal. There is no wrong. There is also no comparison chart for you to use. This is for you.

Your questions and comments are always welcome. Particularly for this article, if you would like to ask a personal question about your experience, please do.

YOUR FEEDBACK

Always feel free to share your stories by commenting below and by email at: 1 [at] warriorsofweight [dot] com.

DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music pro and stress expert and a dedicated mom. She says, “Any action changes our perspective. The simpler we make things in preparation, the easier they will be. The more we repeat the same action, the more we will understand it.”