Anti-Rejection Drugs

A while ago, I watched a very inspiring video about a UCLA hand transplant.  (it is worth the watch!!)  The video talked about a lot of things but one (and probably the least important to that particular story) was the patient would be on anti-rejection medications for the rest of her life to keep her body from attacking the transplanted hand (because the body sees the hand as not part of itself and therefore not good for her).

Yesterday, I was thinking about how diabetes is such a HUGE and growing medical problem in the US and it occured to me -- our bodies are rejecting our lifestyle (sedentary with virtually unlimited eating opportunities).

Diabetes meds (although they are necessary and VITALLY important for those of us who need them) are kind of like the anti-rejection drugs of the hand patient in the video.  The difference between her and most of us, however, is that we can change our environment so our body doesn't reject it.

I find it interesting that we would consider it a more palatable option to take medications day in and day out rather than make changes that would bring us back into better health.  The transplant patient doesn't have a choice -- many of us do.

Our bodies are designed to be fairly forgiving -- but at some point, after years of taking in large amounts refined sugars and gigantic portions -- it just can't take it anymore and it goes on strike -- rejecting the lifestyle that caused the overload to our system.

From this perspective, the anti-rejection meds that the woman from California can take so she is able to put her daughter's hair in a pony tail again is a scientific and medical miracle of the first order.  Contrast that to the medications that allow us to live even as we continue to overload our system's ability to keep up seems like a very short sighted answer to a relatively simple (not to be confused with easy) problem.

My thought:  Eat less, move more, no excuses.

What is yours?

The Hard Part

What's the hard part of losing weight?  You've done it before....and you'll do it again, so you have the first hand experience.

Is it starting?  The diet, the exercise program, the new lifestyle.....  

Is it losing the first 10, 20, 100 pounds?

Is it maintaining the diet, exercise program, new lifestyle?

Or is it that the road seems to stretch infinitely far ahead and when we look up, we see hardship, deprivation, and continual work until the day we drop over or stop caring about weight?

My supposition is it is really the secret thought (read fear) that it will ALWAYS be work and it will NEVER be easy -- that is the hardest part.

No matter which part is the hard part -- notice that some of my suggestions (or the ones that pop into your head) aren't as hard for you (and might even be stuff you consider easy).

Can you do more of the easy ones and less of the hard ones?  Will that work to get you where you want to go?  Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

The Power of Beliefs

For a [person] to change or improve her reality and her state of health,  she first has to change her beliefs about what is possible.  This is a simple enough process.  But it requires discipline and persistence. --Christiane Northrup, M.D.

Simple -- but you need to follow through.

Yesterday, I posed the questions:

What if you only had 10 pounds to lose?

Would that change how you felt about losing weight?

Over the weekend, I have been reading Switch. The whole book is about change -- how to create it in ourselves or others, how to get it to stick...

One of the points the authors make over and over again is that changes must be small or people get overwhelmed. They like concrete starting points and a vision for how things are going to end up. But the steps in the middle (the actual change) must be small and incremental.

So what did you come up with? What if you had 10 pounds to lose and that was it. Would you be more confident in your abilities to complete this task in a timely manner?

Would you be less stressed about tackling the prospect?

If you have more than 10 pounds to lose, here is something to think about:

Clients that have a lot of weight to lose (whatever "a lots" is because it varies from person to person) have all lost 10 pounds in the past. They know, from experience, they can do that much. What if I renamed Mindful Eating to be the "The 10 Pound Tool".

To lose 10 pounds, you would use The Tool (reducing how much to eat by 9 bites per day). You would do this until you had lost the 10 pounds.

If you have 30 or 60 or 100 pounds to lose, you would use The Tool 3 or 6 or 10 times. Instead of tackling the whole amount, the weight loss is broken down into a series of smaller, do-able, attainable-in-the-short-term victories. Keep racking up the victories until you get where you want to go.

This has you completing your goal (10 pounds) pretty quickly. Clients feel successful after using The 10 Pound Tool the first time and they want to use it again. Once you've used The Tool once or twice, others might start noticing and commenting on how healthy you are looking. It provides positive feedback for your use of The Tool and next time The Tool is even easier to use.

You get to where are want to go by stringing a series of 10 Pound Tool successes together. How simple is that?

Candy dishes

With so many of us being overweight, why are there candy dishes out all over the place? Especially at work when distraction from what I am sick of doing comes, more often than not, in the form of food?

Why don't people have a big bowl of apples on their desk? Maybe this time of year, some do, but most of the time?

We don't need the candy -- put it away. Or only put it out on Fridays -- that way it is a real TREAT.

The Tyranny of the OR

I was recently reading the book Built to Last --successful habits of visionary companies by James Collins and Jerry Porras when I came across a section entitled "The Tyranny of the Or".

Their thoughts (being a book about successful businesses) is that successful businesses have shifted their perspective from:

They can have change OR stability.
They can be conservative OR bold.
They can have low cost OR high quality.
They can have creative autonomy OR consistency and control.

To: figuring out how to have "and" instead of "or"s

They can have change AND stability.
They can be conservative AND bold.
They can have low cost AND high quality/
They can have creative autonomy AND consistency and control.


Black and white thinking is easiest -- and since companies (successful or not) are just groups of people (successful or not), we can apply the same thinking to people, as well.

Have you figured out how you can liberate yourself from the tyranny of the OR?

Have you been able to:

Eat the food you love AND lose weight.
Eat when you are hungry AND be guilt-free.
Weigh whatever you weigh right now AND know you are making progress toward your weight goal.

When a person sees only one path or another, life can feel very difficult. Either you are doing what is "right" or what is "wrong". Diets are like this -- you are either "on" your diet or you are "off" your diet. If you fall off the wagon at lunch, chances are you will scrub the diet for the day and start again tomorrow ... or the next day...or next week...

When you reframe your thinking to add "AND"s into your thought process, you can open up how you choose to look at the world. Pancakes and syrup for breakfast doesn't mean you are "off" your diet. It means you decided to have pancakes and syrup for breakfast AND you will make a decision about lunch in a few hours.

Appreciate the Process

Last week I read the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. (can't say enough good things about this book -- nice, interesting, thought-provoking read)

At one point in the story, the main character meets the Alchemist and asked why he was successful in learning alchemy when so many other were not. The answer given is that the unsuccessful ones only wanted the rewards (gold and eternal life)that come at the end of the process -- they did not understand the true value came in living the pursuit.

This is a distinction worth thinking about.

Do you just want to lose weight? Or do you want to learn more about yourself --

How you handle stress.

How, perhaps, you have gained weight to hide from something else in your life.

How, maybe, you haven't been successful in losing and keeping weight off in the past because one of your "truths" is that you are a person who will always be overweight.

Wouldn't you like managing your weight to be as easy as breathing? It can be if you get to the root cause of the weight gain (trust me, the problem is not found in what you are eating. It is found in why you are eating like you do). Learn to appreciate the process of managing your weight and the weight loss will take care of itself.

Simple is different than Easy

How about this for a thought:

Losing weight is simple. Simple is different than easy.

Have you been taught it should be easy? But you know it's not -- if it was easy, we wouldn't be having these discussions. If we knew it was simple, we (the U.S.) wouldn't be spending $54 billion on diet "stuff" (food, books, gimmicks) this year.

The simple solution?

Start listening to your body. Don't get uncomfortably full -- ever. Even when something is tasting great -- stop eating sooner than you do now. You don't have to do it perfectly -- you just have to do it consistently. This isn't easy to learn -- but what is the alternative? Spending more money on complicated systems that don't work over the long-term? Losing weight on a specific diet and then gaining it all back over the next two years? That is not a solution.