OPRAH, PLEASE
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!
Being refined and organized but alot of it is here (I need to add a few implementation things - if you want that soon, just email me and I'll wrap it up sooner. It is about implementing some of the things that work in helping to managing ourselves around the limitations of human nature, especially as discussed in the pieces in Habits, Willpower, Discipline, Self-Control Contents/Links.
A LETTER TO OPRAH:
And I want you to live long and prosper, for your own happiness AND also, very much, for the overall benefit you provide for all mankind.
I am concerned, very concerned, that you are selling yourself down the river, giving away much of what your life could be - though it seems ludicrous to ask you to contribute even more (but that will be at no "cost" to you and with a "net benefit" back to you).
I am concerned that the toxic effects of being very overweight will massively pull you down.
I do not judge you at all, for I hold you, truly, as a wonderful, wonderful being - and as a hero, in the true sense of the word.
Somehow, you've managed to justify "giving up the batttle". Somehow, as we all have done in some ways, you have succumbed to the idea that the need for comfort or presumed energy from food is something over which you have no power - which couldn't be further from the truth, though it does take persistence to reinstall what works.
SEEKING SPIRITUAL BALANCE, BUT THE WRONG WAY?
I do not mean the following in a pejorative (judgmental) sense, but in a "what works" context.
You are spiritual and seeking spiritual balance, yet your relationship with food is not at a high spiritual level.
If you use it to "feel good" or "peaceful", then you are using ineffective strategies that are misusing food - and it will kill you - which is what I am afraid of. I want you to live as long as possible, for you to be happy AND for the overall benefit of all mankind.
PURE THOUGHTLESS HABIT?
But I suspect most of it is pure, thoughtless habit, probably coupled to feeling bad about your weight and your seeming inability to manage it - which further erodes your "willpower", as discussed in that section..
In order to be successful in "discipline" and effectiveness, one must follow that which has been proven to lead to achieving that. Know, please, that this is beyond "willpower."
Here is a piece of what works, creating rules (guidelines, paths):
1. You've got to have rules, or theprimitive stupid brain will run things.
2. Some possible rules:
When you need peace or to calm down, stop and do deep breathing
Only have pre-set portions set up for you to eat with your only decision having to be how to fill your quota for the day of 5 300 calories meals. Each meal has to be determined to be satisfying and sustaining enough to last until the next meal. Then that is all you do.
Never have anything unhealthy available in the house or anything you carry with you.
Of course, exercise.
It's just a matter of bad habitsand and inappropriate ways of filling needs, a dearth of alternatives that are workable and implementable (doable).
GETTING RID OF MYSTERIOUS FORCES WITHIN
Whenever we, as human beings, seek to explain the unexplained with other than fact and logic, we produce unworkable beliefs, as discussed in The Believing Brain.
We humans make up fictional characters or entities inside ourselves - and then we give them mysterious power. "I just can't change this, as my inner child is hungry for comfort." That's one of a myriad set of examples that are pure bullbleep! One is just giving away his own power to some outside force that is actually non-existent except in our imagination. It is simply based on false beliefs.
You've got to stop making up mysterious fictional characters and return to dealing with reality, facts, and logic (which includes paying attention to Intuition but not misusing it).
For instance, if someone knows that the fat cells have certain receptors that encourage "storing away" energy and that there are certain causes of that process, one can simply intervene in the "causal chain" to avoid getting the bad results. An excellent explanation exists in the piece called Understanding The Stressors Of The Body.
BEING AWARE OF, PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING
I know for myself I had the misbelief that if I ate something with sugar in it that I would feel better.
And, of course, I did, but only for a bit of time. Then I would crash or come down further over about 30 minutes and be worse off. And then I needed another "hit" to solve that problem, continuing in the addiction cycle.
But when I questioned whether I was actually feeling better, using my higher brain, I discovered that it was a downer overall. I discovered that I wouldn't really feel better if I ate more of something than I needed. I began to tell myself that the potato chip would only do me harm - and that it was not "for me", as I had studied what damage it would do, NOT because of everybody's assertion that it was harmful. I had to know it for myself.
Essentially, I had to learn what was necessary and realize when I had not quite learned it, as it is only truly learned when one has actually applied the knowiledge to actually achieve the results - which is the true test of sufficient knowing. When a person does not accomplish a result, that person usually faults oneself inappropriately, assuming the problem is the person, where it is actually just the lack of truly sufficient knowing, as "partial knowing" will not "get you there" (to the right result). Read Why There Is No Fault.
I applied something that I learned on the Oprah Show: that the craving would pass and last no longer than 12 minutes. So I did what the great meditators recommend: to just "be with" the discomfort, to let it be, until it passes. (And I felt so much better about myself having succeeded at this, and doing the "right thing".)
MORE WISDOM ON EATING PROPERLY
__ Learn and understand the process of the body's weight maintenance system
__ Use a partner, very preferably a professional one.
__ Cut the stress early, so you're not desperat for "relief"!
__ Do dieting comfortably, not heroically.
__ Pre-preportion, only. (Including your snacks.) Then only decide how many to eat, knowing the net calories for each (you keep a list, maybe on your My Weight Management Dashboard.
__ Rules to follow, religiously (the religion of health): no refined foods, no refined sugar, fixed eating times (do them regularly at that time), complete rest and rejuvenation (spreadsheet of...)
__ A set standard and a really, really, really clear why, written out
__ A healthy "desperation snack" available
__ Use The Pause, including deep breathing for a bit, then what do I want (have a place to go to where you've listed those.)
__ Never eat when I am not hungry.
__ Never eat when I am bored.
OPRAH QUOTES (OF HER OR ON HER PROGRAMS)
There's no goodness in my life except for food right here, right now,'" she says.
"You're basically eating because you've given up on something, some part of yourself."
You think that, 'I am so small that the pain is going to overwhelm me,' but really the truth is you've already experienced that pain," Oprah says.
"Yes, you have, and what food does at that point is it doubles your pain, rather than make it go away," Geneen says. "You're still in pain about what you were in pain about before you ate, but now you've added a whole level of more discomfort which is: 'Oh, I can't believe I ate this. What's wrong with me? Am I ever going to get my life together? Is it ever going to get better?' Then you're feeling like a failure on top of the discomfort you were feeling before."
Oprah says that in reading Women, Food, and God, she has learned that a woman's relationship with food is directly related to how close she is to the source. "That's really what this (Geneen Roth's) book is about," she says. "The issue isn't really the food. It is about your disconnection from that which is real which we call God."
We use it as a drug.
"I went back to what you had said in the book,” she says. “What I'm really feeling is every time I have ever been beaten by my grandmother. ... What I recognize as I'm stuffing myself with the lettuce is I still have that feeling of if I don't do what pleased the other person, then somehow that person has the power to annihilate me." [This is overcomplicating the issue and it adds in mystical crap which is not true. There is no "force" opposing you. It is a bunch of bullbleep.]
Conquering issues with weight starts with learning to love yourself, Geneen says
She hasn't fluctuated in weight or dieted since attending one of Geneen's seminars. "What mostly clicked was recognizing that going to the food wasn't working and that what I was looking for wasn't in the food. So what I was trying to get rid of and what I was trying to not feel, it didn't help to be eating over it," Jennifer says. "The other thing that clicked was that there was a whole lot of pain there to look at. I needed to look at some of the layers, recognizing some of the beliefs that were keeping me at the weight where I was." Those beliefs, Jennifer says, were that she wasn't good enough, that nobody liked her and that nobody would accept her the way she was. [And, we don't need to add all these mysterious forces and explanations, nor do we need to solve them in order to lose weight. We just to realize that in the moment, we are feeling that we "need" "something", but really what we need is to "calm down", which means we need to simply "pause and breathe" and relax... That's it!
Simple.]
We somehow believe that if we hate ourselves enough, if we shame ourselves enough, we'll end up thin, happy, peaceful people," she says. "Somehow if I torture myself enough, I'll end up feeling great about myself and about my life, as if hatred leads to love and torture leads to contentment." [This is total bullbleep with no logic and no facts, just a diversion. The person most likely could benefit from realizing that she no longer needs to believe in punishiment as a motivator, though it is a common cultural belief. Read Living The Punitive Way - The Road To Hell.]
"...That I can feel my feelings and be with them separately and I can nourish my body with what it wants and trust it."
[And the benefits of it must be clear: Why I want to be at a very healthy weight, and what the price is. We tend to be vague, with no sense of future consequences, no clarity. And, of course, we need to clear that up, to write out the facts and to declare what is, in fact, to be ruled out, as mere bullbleep!]
According to Oprah, food became her addiction and a cure to all her frustrations. She felt well whenever she was able to eat what she wanted and how much she wanted.
But what we end up with is frequent memory loss, dull eyes and no energy.
Are you willing to accept that, plus suffering, dying early and not feeling good about yourself and just plain not feeling as good as you could feel???!!!!!!
____________________________________________________________
Miscellaneous notes possibly included later, only for me:
No prejudice as I know we all do the best we can and sometimes we just lack the sufficient knowing to implement. I can sympathize with the effort and difficuluty because I've experienced it. But it need not be alot of effort nor be unproductive and unmaintainable...
Sick and tired of being fat and miserable.
276 never diet again
understand the real reason you are fat
Dieting leads to self-hatred and self-loathing, making you feel crazy about yourself [if it is done in a context of "i hate this" or an "away from" value
