This year I resolve to NOT go on a diet. This year I resolve to do exactly what I did last year, accept that I gain a little in the winter and lose it in the spring.

That's it! Well I joined a gym and I'll go and walk on their treadmill because it's not to my benefit to go all winter without physical activity though I prefer to get it out in nature. I've accepted that I just don't like walking in the frigid temperatures of Ontario so I will pay my membership, watch Glee on my iPod and move on.

There is no reason to panic. Sure many of us will have eaten too much in Christmas. Heck the skinny people have and they're not panicking! It'll come off with healthy eating and exercise, a positive attitude and time!

I have now maintained the same size for an entire year! I'm not skinny, I'm perfectly average and perfectly satisfied being perfectly average. I am not satisfied with feeling like crap(hence the gym).

So no New Years Resolutions to speak of here except a renewal of those I made at some point early last year!

I wrote a post on my other blog entitled New Years Revolutions! Pop over and take a peek! It can apply here as well as there!

Happy New Year everybody!



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Some call it binge eating, others call it compulsive eating, some call it emotional eating or food addiction. Whatever it is, I believe it is the single most common barrier to weight loss.

It is common knowledge that in order to lose weight you have to create a deficit of calories burned over calories eaten.

It is also common knowledge(and common sense) that you should create this deficit by eating high quality food and participating in activities that increase your energy output.

THAT is the secret of weight loss..all there is is right there.

So what is the barrier to weight loss? In my personal opinion it has to do with a distortion within our culture that has not created only an epidemic of obesity but even more serious, an epidemic of food disorders, or what I like to call disordered eating.

Much attention has been placed on anorexia and bulimia(as it should be) but the opposite is also disordered eating. I believe that most overweight and obese people have disordered eating as do many of the normal weighted people.

I believe THAT this is the problem.

What do I think caused this? I have come up with a list of contributing factors.

1. We were raised by children of, or children of the children of the depression. There was a shortage of food that scarred the psyche of an entire generation who became afraid of famine. Eat your dinner, clean your plate, starving children in China or Africa, look at how much your cousins eat. All of these message were instilled in us.

2. Our mother's attempts at dieting. We watched their disordered eating and absorbed their misplaced attempts to be slim.

3. The distortion of what is ideal beauty in our society...we all should be five foot ten with two silicone blobs on our chest weighing 102 lbs.

4. The diet industry. It is the single biggest contributor to the disordered eating we experience in our society.

5. The convenience industry. It has packed our food full of chemicals.

6. The junk food industry. It has labelled junk as food.

7. The combination of all of the above that imprinted false messages upon the collective psyche of the culture.

The cure? Reprogramming the messages.

Step one: No more dieting
Step two: No more dieting
Step three: No more dieting

Step four: Decide to do it.
Step five: Do not purchase anything from the diet industry again.
Step six : Throw out the scale..you do not have a weight problem, you have a eating problem.
Step seven: Do it.
Step eight: Do it.
Step nine: Do it.
Step ten: Keep doing it.

Tools: A note book and paper...you will need to get to know yourself, you will need to write some stuff down. This isn't a program, this is your life..you are going to find out what you love so you can keep doing it and do more of it, and what you can easily let go of. This includes food.

Access to the Internet..assuming if you are reading this that you have that.
An account at www.sparkepeople.com..focussing on lifestyle change, not weight loss!

You can purchase some recommended readings..these are books and tools I found informative and helpful in my journey. They are not from the diet industry.

I recommend The Biology of Believe by Dr. Bruce Lipton to understand how the brain works.
I recommend hypnosis.

I recommend an iPod if you can afford it. You can download many things for free, audio books, all sorts of things..as part of the change you will walk. A lot. And why not learn while you do that.

If you can't do not use that as an excuse not to do it. No more excuses

Hypnosis is a fantastic tool for rewiring the subconscious. I recommend Kym and Hypnotransformations. Go here!

I recommend Excuses Begone by Dr. Wayne Dyer.




My Writing Blog

Back on track? Is there such a thing? I've been trying to get to this blog but real life has been crazy lately. I'll give you a quick run down. My littlest kids came down with H1N1 about 6 weeks ago. Since that time they have battled illness of one kind or another, ear infections, pneumonia, stomach virus, bladder infections, strep throat. Yeah, it's been crazy!

I have a wonderful friend on Facebook and we share a lot of common beliefs about attitude and life and we got into a conversation about excuses. She posted that there is a correlation between compulsive eating and a cluttery house. I posted that my house was cluttery these days because it wasn't a priority with all the illness in the house. She replied something about "excuses."

This got me thinking. I've generally given up the "excuses" thing. Haven't I? I've stretched and broadened my scope of interest, worked on my overeating, worked on my writing, started news reporting, started a part time job. There is nothing that can stop me right?

Except sick children. When my children are sick all else comes second. The world stops for our home and I stay close. First of all, my husband works away and is home two days of the week, so it's me alone, with them. I am the one who has to go to the doctor(which has been once a week for 5 weeks now) and I'm the one up at night, administering medicine(sometimes forcefully because they both hate it) and I am exhausted and mentally and emotionally unable to keep up on anything else. The house gets messy, I get messy, it's not a fun time.

Excuses? Nope..damned good reasons I say. Who the heck cares about clutter? Who cares about weight? What's a pound or two when your children are miserable and sickly and need you? Whats a little mess and dirt? Why waste my time worrying about such trivial things as those are when I've got children who need me. The rest be damned, I'm cuddling my feverish baby and watching Max and Ruby with them!

And then I tried on my pants. They are loose. I've lost weight in the last 6 weeks. Not a lot but some. I've been crazy busy and while my diet hasn't been ideal I've not had time to snack on junk or think about food or eat for any reason other than hunger pangs. My cluttery house hasn't contributed to my emotional eating at all but some of that might be because I've been working on it for so long that I no longer identify as a compulsive eater. I am gaining a happy and healthy relationship with food that has nothing to do with losing weight.

The other day I picked up copies of my show. I watched myself on television which is not a flattering medium. I immediately thought, Oh my God I'm HUGE. Then I looked at the other reporters who are quite normal weighted in real life, small even, and saw that they looked bigger too. How distorted is that? But it was also enlightening! If they aren't as big as they appear on screen then I'm not either.

And my face, my hair, everything looked pretty good. It looked like me. I like the way I look now. Healthy, happy, eyes full of joy.

I still have no idea what I weigh..but I know I feel happy, I know I'll go to the gym again and work out regularly once the kids are well again and life settles down a bit. Someday I'll sleep. And tomorrow night I'm going to see my favourite band, Blue Rodeo alone. That'll settle things for a good long while.

My affirmation: I no longer make excuses, but I also don't stress over the reasons my life is cluttered and out of control occasionally. I am able to find peace in the clutter and know that this too shall pass.


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