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Stop wasting your time with weight-loss products and programs—what you really need is an attitude adjustment! Change your beliefs and practices to gain a self-image that you’re proud of. Enjoy how pride and the desire to take care of your beautiful body encourage a healthy lifestyle that will make you feel and look fabulous. Those pounds keep hanging around and your commitments to weight loss fail one by one. Reaching and maintaining your ideal weight can be a frustrating lose-lose battle, and it’s a battle of self-abuse that many people fight today. Just look at the innumerable books on the subject of fast weight loss, not to mention the ads in magazines and on TV for weight-loss programs and products. Americans are obsessed with weight—not only their own, but the weight of celebrities and colleagues alike. Why? Why is this area of self-image such an “issue” in today’s society? Is it because we are so image-conscious that we are constantly hoping to buy the next pant size down, or is it because we feel like our weight is out of our control? We need to reexamine our beliefs and practices concerning weight loss. It has become typical to “blame” the advertising industry or the movie industry and the beautiful but stick-skinny women they like to hire. But does blaming “them” help keep the number on the scale low? I have yet to see a supermodel force-feed anyone to eat that extra helping at dinner or that extra-big slice of cake. If your weight has fluctuated over the past few years, look back and notice when you began busting out of your “just-right pants” and when you fit perfectly in your “skinny jeans.” Bets have it that when you were at a healthy weight, you felt good about yourself, and your self-esteem was higher than at the other times. Perhaps things were going well at work, or you just met a new extra-special someone, or financial flow was good, and you were just plain enjoying life. Most likely, losing those extra pounds (or gaining, in some people’s case) gave you an extra boost which affected all aspects of life. The weight fell off; you got happy about it and felt more in control! However, when the pounds starting creeping back on, that new someone faded out of the picture, or your co-worker started complaining again, your commitment to weight loss waned. You indulged your low self-esteem by eating donuts again at breakfast. Whoa! Stop! Can someone say “endless cycle”? Now what would The Attitude Doc suggest is the cure to this spiral of chaos? Where would she tell you to first look to find a remedy to the ups and downs of life and pounds? Bingo. Get an attitude adjustment—discover what beliefs are making you feel the way you do, and then do something about it. So, instead of waiting for the pounds to fall down to feel good, why not focus on feeling good first? Maybe you’ve got five, 10, 20, or 120 lbs to go. Stop waiting for life to give you what you want, and enjoy it now, overweight or not. You’ll be surprised to see that it isn’t necessarily food or lack of exercise affecting your waistline, and it’s not your waistline that’s affecting your self-esteem. It’s your attitude: an attitude change will affect everything. Imagine for a moment that we lived in a different place and time where what women find attractive is a fuller figure. In fact, there have been places and times when fat was a luxury and was therefore envied. The robust woman was considered the most sensual rather than the least! At certain times in our culture, everyone wanted to eat as much as possible because everyone wanted to be fat, and all of the women in magazines were at least a size 14. An actress couldn’t get a job if she weighed under 150 lbs. How would you view your body in that light? Do you see how beliefs affect each and every one of us? If you believe that skinniness is beautiful, then you are buying into a belief that is taking away your beauty! If you believe that fatness is beautiful, you’re doing the same thing. Try believing you’re beautiful no matter what the weight. In other words, try accepting yourself, and focusing on your health, not what the scale says, to determine your self-esteem. Become your own body weight calculator. I guarantee you that when you start to accept yourself as you are, you won’t crave the milkshakes as much, and exercise will be a refreshing break in your day, rather than a chore. It all starts with attitude. |