Weight loss obstacles

 A lot of times, there exists one ore in worse cases more, obstacles that keep you from achieving your weight loss goal. Failing in keeping yourself to a certain meal or exercise plan is due to some kind of disturbance in your life, because in most of the cases a person knows exactly what they should not eat in order to lose weight, but no matter this knowledge he or she is unable to stick to a healthy meal plant. It is just like, when you know that you should cross the street where is marked to avoid getting hit by a car, but you anyway cross in the wrong place, and although you’ve got hit already before, you keep crossing in the same place and keep yourself being hit again and again… it sounds stupid, but it is exactly what it happens with food. You know that it is too much or too sugary, unhealthy, full of fat or whatever, but anyway you keep ingesting.  So, you do not want to commit suicide and don’t want to die, but you throw yourself down from a 50 store building anyway… you wouldn’t do such a thing, would you? We can affirm that we do know that what we eat may be wrong, but we eat it anyway, and meanwhile we dream of having a slim body.

 So, what is making you do eat what you shouldn’t? Some may say that it’s the devil, but I don’t go for this version. I would put the question also in another way. What keeps your mind getting off the track, losing the goal from sight? The question have two sides, just like a coin: what makes you do things and what makes you don’t do things? A physical obstacle? It may be, but usually it is not a disability, or some bad person, or big green dragon that would have locked you up in a tower full of chocolates…no. Usually it is some kind of mental “background” issue that grabs your attention and makes you focus on the wrong things. And stopping eating in the right time requires a strong mental state, till it becomes a habit.

Why do we become week? What is the mental barrier that keeps you off the right track? The answer is very bad news for you: I have absolutely no idea, but you know why? Because I don’t know you and your life. One thing I do know though: the obstacle is there and it is there in your life. So, you are missing an item, but you are given a big sack where 100% you can find your item. You just have to look.  In this case what would you do? Obviously you would search the bag till you find your thing, because it is there. But because things don’t talk and walk, you have to search for it yourself in order to be in its possession.

Start to analyze your life:

 Is there someone or something with which you are not comfortable with?

 Is there a certain person, event, thing which causes you to be anxious?

 Ask yourself one thousand questions. Your brain works in fractions of second. It can ask those thousands of questions in no time. The only thing you have to take care of, is to answer every single one honestly. You will find what is bothering you. You will find it if you want to find it, if you are honest. Don’t judge. Just answer. And when you get your answer, don’t say without thinking, that it is something you can not change. Maybe you already know the disturbing factor. And may be, that you just locked it up in your closet, and put the label on it as: can’t be done, or can’t be changed.

 There is no such label as “insolvable”. God doesn’t have a big printing  company where such tags are made. There isn’t! This is something you “manufacture”.  And you do it so, not when the problem really inextricable is, but just when you don’t see the solution. Because there is, and probably not just one, but from reasons only by you known, you refuse to open your mind, to widen your vision. You may have fear in your heart. Change means steps towards new. And steps towards unknown need a brave heart. God made his wonder already. He gave you the most powerful weapon that exists in the world: your mind. Is his fault that you just refuse to use it for finding new ways?

 You have to eliminate the disturbing factor from your life, because it makes you unhealthy and keeps you away from achieving your dream.  This doesn’t mean that you have to divorce your husband who loves french-fries. No. It means that you have to find a way to make yourself to be strong enough not to eat of it, when he does or eat only a very small quantity, or to be indifferent and not want it at all. Or may be a lot more variations, which for your case, your life are suitable, but may not be for me or anybody else. But non of these will work if you don’t use your mind! Make it as they do in court. First hear the whole case. Be a good judge and grand-jury. You must not be unilateral and must not judge the case before you have seen every witness and had every hearing.  After it analyze and only after it make the judgment. 

 Preconceptions never got the world farther, only sat back. It will not do you any good either.

Set a date to weight loss?

 Often we put a term to our weight loss plan. We should get lean and beautiful till the first of June, for example. We’ll calculate the time…1 kg in every week…in three months, and we get a mathematically accurate result. And it should function.

 Than why do we fail so many times? Why do so many people fail than? Because although getting slim and rid of fat is a matter of mathematics, namely: you use more kcals than you consume. In theory every weight loss plan that is based somehow on reducing your calorie intake, should lead to results. The failure of the plan is due to the “metaphysical approach” of the problem. Making body changes of this kind may have at its base calculations, but we can never shut out the human factor, and namely us. Because we do have to deal with ourselves here and with our lives. We do have moods, that can occur due to a lot of factors: boyfriend left us, you go through a divorce, your period is coming, the weather gets worse, you have part of a long winter or too much rain, or lose a friend or relative, have problems at workplace, but you also may have part not just of bad things, but also have celebrations, like the marriage of your daughter, picnic with your friends, official dinner with clients and so on. No need for me to enumerate any further, because we all know how many causes overeating can have. But don’t make it count. If you get off the track and over eat for two weeks in a row and gain a pound instead of losing it, you may calculate again, that you will not be able to achieve the weight loss goal till your set date. And then what you do? You will probably start ingesting again, because it doesn’t matter anyway… because you calculated that till that damn first of June, you can’t make it now…

 What is there to do? Set the goal, not the date! If you never have set that first of June, than you could have got your dream figure till the first of July. Now, you won’t get it even till the second of October. Ignore events, wedding, party, holiday etc. You slip a little, whatever the reason, don’t worry, a week or two is not an eternity. Even a month is not an eternity. The so called “important-event” till which you wanted to look “perfect” went by? So what? You have a goal no matter the event. Yes it is welcomed if it happens everything as it was planned, but almost always gets something in the way, so not to get disturbed by different issues, take the events and enjoy them as they are, and make your fitness goal be a separate thing, don’t tie it to social events.  You do it for you, not for others. As long as you do it for others, you will not be able to dedicate yourself as deeply to it as you should to achieve success for the long term.

Persian poet quote

 “When someone beats a rug, the blows are not against the rug, but against the dust in it” Jalad ad-Din Rumi, Persian poet and mystic

 Eat always in a correct way. Do not over-hunger yourself and do not over-exercise. Respect your body, because only the fat is which you want to get rid of, not your entire body and also not your life or health!
Do not torture yourself!

Meal plan for health and silhouette

Before you start changing your eating habits or wrongly called "dieting" there are some points which you may take in consideration:

 Before you start you’ll have to sit down and meditate a little, think and understand that “dieting” is something stupid. In the moment you think about starting the diet, it probably means, that it is not just your imagination, but you really have some extra pounds to get rid of. So, that also means that you don’t count between the lucky few, to whom is very difficult to get fat…because there are also people like that…. So, if you were able to pile up those pounds once, you’ll be able to pile them up again. So why diet? You wanna look good the rest of your life or two weeks?

 “Dieting” doesn’t exist. The idea is not to hunger yourself a few weeks, in which your desire for all kinds of food items increases in such a measure, that you’ll transform yourself in a huge green scaled dragon, which at a certain point will decide to go after the beautiful princess from the palace and kidnap her. This story in your case transcripts itself, in you going and attacking the fridge and kidnaping everything that is inside. So, obviously it is not a great idea making the yogis and the Somali jealous. We will avoid to hunger ourselves and we will not let weeks pass by without eating some of our favorite food items. The point is not to eliminate them, but to regulate when we eat them, and how much we eat from them. 

The meal plan should have a balanced carbohydrate/protein/fat rapport. It is not important to consume every single day the same proportion of these, because we want to avoid our organism getting used to something, because in that case the fat loss goal may be pushed further away. Days may and must vary, because also we are not the same every day. Our mood can differ, our thinking, so our food need. 

 What it is also important is, getting used eating more times a day, accelerating your metabolism. High metabolism = more optimal calorie burning = long term weight loss. What we ingest, we consume, we don’t pile! We do not make a diet, we live this way and period! Also we do not expect huge results after one week. Think that one week is nothing compared to the years, you got that fat on yourself! You needed a long time to get fat, don’t expect to get lean in no-time! It will happen that is for sure, but not one week after another. When? This depends on every individual. Some are more receptive, some are less, but eventually we all see result. 

 Changes begin to happen after two weeks, and two weeks are really not a long time. When you are living “the normal way” two weeks fly away, you don’t even notice, so don’t. To get used our systems with new things takes a long time, we are the slave of our habits. We do have some stupid habits as well, and we stick to them no matter what. Actually not certain food items are the problem, (they may well exist, because there are a lot of things on this world that exist and we just don’t care about them), but our love towards our habits. For example chocolate by itself, is not a problem, the problem occurs only in the moment when you begin to relate eating it to happiness. Once your mind made this association, is like a mafia in your head, everything is related to everything, nothing is what it seems. But we learn all this in our childhood. When the grandma gives a cookie, if the kid does something right, than she plants the seeds in the child’s mind of associating sweets with laudation. Cookie = certificate of merit. You made something good? Than eat something “good”. You are sour? Than eat something sweet! Our parents educated us in this sense, but also they were victims of their parents, and so on. So the habit is not even only in your life, is related to our evolution, generation after generation. Breaking it is not easy, but also not impossible. Is sound scary, but losing a war can occur by underestimating the enemy!

 Have you ever seen something valuable that is easy to achieve for everyone? What everybody can have doesn’t count between major revelations, discoveries or successes. If everybody had Lamborghini, it wouldn’t mean such a big thing, would it?

 Just don’t expect that after you ingest junk food for thirty years, suddenly you’re going to start to sing “hallelujai!” in front of the altar of broccoli for instance… or in front of a plate of broccoli…

“I hate exercise”

 The exercise issue is pretty simple and has to be related to general life. If you don’t overdo something, you won’t end up hating it. For example if you are madly in love, but spend with your lover 24 hours a day together…every single day…there is a very high risk that in a short time you’ll get bored of him. If you want a long term relationship, than give room. Don’t make severe habits, don’t force and don’t overdo. If you suffocate someone, or someone “suffocates” you with his or her non-stop presence and demands, than sooner or later you will want to quit. How do you think that exercising is something completely different than any other relationship? You want to build up a long-term relationship with exercise but you don’t give room for “him”? As a respond, it will suffocate you. So, it won’t work.

 What is there to do? Don’t try to build Rome in a day. It took a long time to build…you know… A stone house persists, a tent is flown away by the first stronger wind. Make exercise your friend. Use it when you want, but not every morning and every evening. You are no athlete. A body can be very grateful even for a smaller effort. If you hate it, it will hate you too. If you are not a friend of exercise, it also will not want to be your friend. Start for example three times a week making 30 crunches on an exercise ball, and lifting your leg laterally also 30 times. It will take only a few minutes and can be performed while you are watching your favorite serial. If you force yourself a few times in the gym, the following will happen: if you survive the attempt without injuries, than you will develop a certain “hatred towards gym” state of mind, and when you think the next day at work, that you’ll have to go “there” again, you’ll start to feel nausea and fear. It’s like you would have an aggressive husband who would want to beat you up every single day.

 To exercise in the correct way, you will have to go happy to the gym, get used to it. If your plan says that you should do 9 exercises, 3-4 sets each, but you want only 5 exercises to perform and after that you don’t feel like it anymore, than go home, and return the other day and finish, or work on other parts of your body. You must avoid to get a “forced” feeling. Think that even to brush your teeth, you had to get used to in your childhood. This is a new habit you have to include step after step in your life. I hated to wash my teeth when I was little, although it is not something I am especially in love with now, but it is something I don’t question, just do. I don’t wonder every day if I will do it or not, I know that is good and keeps me healthy and I just simply perform it. With exercise it’s tricky. You can’t really ignore the “myself” factor here. You have to choose exercises and training plan that matches your needs, not just physically, but also mentally. Are you a choleric, sanguine or melancholic person? How do you live your life? Are you always on the run? Can never stay still or you are more a meditative, low-key individual? Did you ever thought of these or you just went a few times in the gym and wondered afterwards why you failed and didn’t want to go back there ever…?

 So, don’t ignore yourself! Read about yourself, see what type you are and according to that, what needs you have. A wrong choice can do a lot of harm, because may cause some mental injuries. You may develop fear and an uncomfortable feeling towards the gym, when you would want the contrary to happen. Think about your parents, if they wanted you to do something, or generally the parents when they want children to teach something, what do they do? Yes, the bad parent gets angry after the first unsuccessful attempts of the child and starts to shout. And what happens then? Suddenly the child starts to do it extremely well? No! It gets scared and maybe refuses to do it at all or does it with no pleasure. A good parent starts to play with the child. Also a good teacher plays at the beginning and doesn’t want to force the children to do this or that, but gives them lead! The good educator does this in a way that the child doesn’t even realize but learns anyway!

 Be your own parent! Be your own teacher! Lead yourself and don’t constrain! Love never develops from fear or compulsion. Flowers never bloom because you stand near the plant and shout at it, they bloom because the weather is good. Than make your weather good! Create the atmosphere where the sentiment of sympathy towards the gym or exercising can freely unfold!

Are we equal?

 Do we store fat in the same way? Do we all get easily fat, in the same time and with the same speed? Do we accumulate the fat tissue on the same places? Do we all get rid of the fat in the same way, during the same time? And I could continue with these questions. Only one thing is a fact, namely that everybody can get rid of the bulk. (I am talking about healthy individuals, not persons with hormonal disorders or illnesses which can intervene and obstruct any kind of slimming attempt) Now, the problem is, with which kind of effort, with what kind of fight can you win over your pounds? In how long time? These are collateral questions, however they are very decisive ones, because they determine most of the time the success of the thinning-attempt: if it goes easy and fast enough, than the chances that you are going to succeed with the thing are much higher than when it takes an eternity to get rid of two pounds. But even in the almost non-existent case of sticking to a torture-diet every single day with your every single meal for a few months, does your pounds shred as easily as your friends? Or your friends friend? Well, may be… but there is no guarantee to that. And why is that?

 Well, let’s start from the beginning, not considering food, or diet or whatever similar. We go general and think: are we born the same way? Does every child-birth take place in the same way, taking the same amount of time? No. Are we born in the same kind of families? One is born in an expensive private-hospital, the other in a dirty nursing from a third world country. One is born a princess in a rich western European country, having the main job all her life, actually not to do anything (making photos with elderly people and fate-stricken African kids doesn’t count, work of smiling at photo-making in the name of the poor or sick or some similar bullshit also doesn’t count, just to fool the people). Meanwhile the other is born in an ex-communist poor eastern European country as a child of a sewing-woman, who gets paid 200 dollars for a month of daily 10 hour work. Then I ask again: ARE WE EQUAL? The hell we are! If somebody thinks that “they” , the privileged ones, also have problems, I say, that is self-delusion. If you can not decide between a Mercedes and a Porsche, that can be frustrating…but if you can not decide between a butter and margarine, because you would like the butter, but it is twice as expensive as the margarine…than we are talking about two different kind of problems. The first is frustrating, may be, but if you are so damn poor, not to allow yourself a butter weekly, than you have a much bigger issue with your life as the guy with the Merc-Porsch problem, don’t you think?

 Some people are struggling between the butter and margarine all their life. Just as some people are struggling with fat all their life, when some others never even think about it, because the issue never occurs. Also it is much easier for rich people to get and stay fit. If you can hire a personal trainer, who will motivate you all day, exercise with you, prepare your meals, etc. than you must be really an impossible chick to be fat. My mother says sometimes…”Madonna has the same age as I and look how good she looks like….and how I look like” well yeah. It is easier for her than for my mother, who works and sits in an office 12 hours a day, after goes home stressed and tired, and no personal trainer is waiting for her…this is excuse, I know. But makes also the issue much more difficult. Are we than doomed? No way man! I read a very good saying somewhere: “If is important enough you’ll find a reason, otherwise you’ll find an excuse”. Well said…even sounds so motivating. At least for a few seconds, doesn’t it? J) the fight is not always the same. Sometimes it is longer and it is accompanied by more bloodshed, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t win it! You just have to be prepared. Don’t do like the Germans in the second World War, that they weren’t prepared enough for the Russian winter, so they lost… that is why we lose, because we start without preparation. The preparation has to be well done, afterwards like the troops of solders, they must get reinforcements all the time, otherwise they run out of ammunition. Also the first losses do not mean a loss of the whole war! So, dears, do not look in your neighbors garden. That is absolutely irrelevant. One of my friends told me, that she shred a lot of pounds making the “cabbage-soup” diet. Great, I said. And what do you do? She said, that she is eating only cabbage soup. And she told me proudly, that she can eat as much as she wants from the thing, and she loses weight anyway! Holy Manna… than I asked the obvious question: and till when are you eating that stuff? Till I shred all the pounds I planned, she said. Yeah. Cool, and after that? The moment you stop with this enormous aberration, your body lacking all the nutrients you refused for such a long time, and your brain, that always wants more, that it is necessary, will conspire against you and not take the pounds back, but pile them! Or you wanna do that forever? Eating nothing but cabbage soup all of your life? Well, you could try, because if you do that, probably you won’t live so long, so may even succeed eating only that for a lifetime… if your lifetime consists of 3 years from now, for example…

 I had a friend. When she gained weight, she put it mainly on her breasts, and everywhere else very-very little. I, instead, if I put on 22 pounds, 2 will end up from the waist up, and the other twenty from the waist down: tummy and buttock. Also shredding goes shitty as well. The two from up are the firsts to go than comes the big battle… but does that mean that now, when I found a way to live with the body type God gave me I look worse than her? No way, man. Do I have to take more care of what I eat? Yes. Do I have to insist more on the gluteus exercises than her? Yes. But I had a choice: complaining of the body I have, not doing anything and looking chubby or shutting up and doing something about it. 

So, stop crying and complaining! You are not the only one who has a “huge” problem. Deep down your soul you are shy and believe you can not do it. But it is wrong. Look at Obama, even he says that you can do it. And the guy must know something, after all not everybody becomes the president of the United States!

Overeating as comfort…STOP! Get a hobby!

 The most general cause of over-eating is that we use eating as a substitute for something. This can be boredom, sadness, lack of self-confidence, etc. This is very dangerous, and when we get used to it, it is a hard battle getting ourselves “unused” from it. It is like a drug, and in the moment you start using food as a drug, it will be as dangerous as any other substance we use for making ourselves happy. Food is no better or safer than alcohol or drugs. And giving up with it is much more difficult, because we can choose, let’s say not to smoke from tomorrow, or not to drink anymore and we can very well survive, but without eating we can not. How could somebody stop using cocaine if must … but not that portion, but a smaller? It sounds stupid, because it is stupid. Society doesn’t seem to give a damn. And the world economy, not that doesn’t give a damn, but the only thing that they do in a society where most of the people are becoming overweight is, to censor cigarette ads? So, you can not see cigarette ads on the television, but there is absolutely no problem making commercials about chocolate, or huge hamburgers or toxic beverages. It is like you forbid LSD, but promote amphetamine?! By the way… did you see a lot of commercials about broccoli? No, you didn’t, because that is not the thing some people get really rich of.

 

 The world is so constructed, that even if you wouldn’t go to the fridge, on the TV which probably goes in the background, while you may have other activities in the house, will appear all kinds of commercials about tasty biscuits, lickerish pizzas or whatever. Those stuffs remain in your mind, and the first minute you will get bored, they will come up and make you go to the store, buy it and eat it. It is a very serious business, for the people they are making it, but also for your health and shape. Nobody seems to want to forbid commercials about food during films or TV shows. So, you are a victim. It is almost beyond human to avoid junk food and over-eating all the time. And this is the reason, why we do not have a choice. We have to incorporate the “bad” stuff in our life and meals. You can say, yes, you will eliminate everything from tomorrow. But be honest. How long will it stay? May be there are so powerful people with such a strong will, that they can achieve this. Well done for them. I don’t count myself in their group. I also believe that we, normal people, who are not so strong all the time, in every hour of every day, we are more than those. I am also not addressing myself to them because I learned, that first I have to accept myself and work out a way for ME, something that makes me do things, and not to copy patterns that may have been good for somebody else. Learn to think! This is the most important thing. By thinking you will realize. Realization leads to knowing what the problem is, and when we already know the problem we can work our way up to accomplishment.

 When you realize that you are fat due to over feeding yourself because of boredom that is already a step. There is also a lot of things you can do not to be bored. You need something that grabs your interest enough, that you are no longer interested of eating. Something, what you do, when keep doing it makes you as happy as the process of ingesting food. Some of you already may have realized this, and may have even tried doing something. Something is not enough. You need an activity that captivates your interest, with other words, it captivates your mind. Because you already realized that when you are already 160 Lbs heavy, it is not your body that craves for more and more, but your mind… This activity should be a hobby. 

 

 Hobbies are in some way reflections of our mind, it reflects your mind and soul that is repressed of your job, life, society, etc. But finding a hobby is not easy at all. And only having ideas of hobbies is not enough. You may have a lot of interests, but when you start to do them, some fade away with time and you will wake up one day and realize, that the hobby you supposed to be doing every other day, didn’t take place since two weeks. Well, that can mean two things: 1. It didn’t grab your interest enough and doesn’t reflect your mind and didn’t match your personality or 2. You simply didn’t allow enough time to build itself up. It is very easy to think about the first one, but usually what happens is the second. Why? Because in the moment you think about something, when a certain activity comes into your mind, it tells that has something to do with your circle of interests. You may also have more hobbies. This is even better. Because it is sometimes boring getting occupied all the time with one certain thing. Don’t be misled by the fact that you don’t want to get busy with your theoretical hobby. This is also human. We get bored all the time of everything. You need more, don’t be stuck with only one. You may like sometimes to go for a long walk with your dog, sometimes you don’t, and when you don’t than you have to have something else that keeps you again busy and interfere in your minds plans making you eat again. And why eat? Because it is the easiest. And why we choose the easiest way? Because again we are humans and we evolved being clever, finding great easy ways of doing and achieving everything. This is not bad, actually it is good, for example we evolved a lot from the “cave-man” status and have internet now. You can be on any part of the world and read this, what I am writing thousands of miles away. You can have any interest. Internet makes it much easier to find out things about the certain interest of yours. The world is really one click away. Use it. Use the opportunities human evolution gives you, use the chances and the knowledge, don’t use only the “supermarket” as the top discovery of the homo sapiens. Also it can help you not just to find but even to build up a hobby or as many as you want. It can help you find activities that somehow are related to one another. For example, I am interested about losing weight and keeping myself fit, so I have a blog dedicated to that. I bought an expensive camera and make photos with it, and then I publish them on faceboook, twitter or my blog. Sometimes I want to make a certain kind of photo, so I have books about photography, I read and learn about using the camera properly. I have arthritis, so I read a lot on the net about it, document myself, how I can improve my condition. I do write articles that you read, I document all the time, so everything I write down is accurate information, and so on. I use my interests keeping me in the shape.

  I am convinced that this is a goal for life –keeping myself, my mind always busy- otherwise other thoughts will enter and lead me and I do not want that. But all this circle of interests didn’t occur by night. It took years and months to build it up and I am going to share my own story. See the article “making your weakness strength” !

Making your weakness strength

…or how to build up a hobby?

I am a tall person. I never engaged myself in any kind of sport activity in my childhood, but grew and grew. I was borne with two melted vertebras in the lumbar region, later I developed scoliosis and lordosis, afterwards arthrosis. I began to have severe pain in my lumbar region even at an early age, beginning around the age of 12. My parents didn’t know much about my condition, although they are great people, somehow accepted it, as something normal for tall people, they also suffering all the time from pain in the lower back. Well, she “inherited” they said, and with that the issue was closed. I have never been a fan of the gym, and being young also didn’t understand what was happening with me and didn’t occur to me, that with proper exercise it could go away or at least improve my condition significantly. And also it took me more than ten years to realize it. But no matter how long it took, the important thing is that the “revelation” came finally. But it wasn’t anything spectacular and realizing that I needed to stay fit and exercise was still a long way from introducing it into my life. And this “long way” I call building up a hobby. It is like when you plant a tree. It is still a long way till it grows big, has a lot of branches and leaves and till you can rest underneath it in the cool shadow and it is able to protect you from the rays of the sun. But when it is already grown, believe me, it can protect you from sun and rain, whatever it comes, but first you have to take care of it, to water it and wait.

 Nature does not hurry, this you’ll have to learn. Anything that grows fast, too fast it is not natural anymore, and what it is not natural it is never healthy and may last also short. You are a natural thing. You need time. Accord it to yourself. You have to acclimatize yourself having a hobby, you have to learn how to have an interest for something that may not be related necessarily of making money. It may be related to your health. This is way more important than anything. In my case it was my physical condition that triggered the change initially. My friends, class-mates had no idea what a back-pain was when I was already suffering from it. Sometimes I went partying with my friends, and while dancing, from a sudden move I got so severe back pain, that I could barely move. It made me really miserable. I had a weakness that nobody else in my entourage of my age had. So, for me it was not just about looking good, it was also about feeling good. Eventually I went to the doctor. Besides, that they told me the diagnosis, they weren’t much of a help. So, I began to document myself about the conditions I had. Read a lot, tried out a lot of things. With exercise I managed to improve the shape of my spine, because the stronger muscles make wonders with bones. This approach I had also with my arthrosis.  Made a lot of mistakes, by sometimes following training programs of fitness celebs which were absolutely not proper for me, but also made huge progresses deepening my interest in the conditions, processes and reactions of the human body, till I got to the point, when after a long and stressful day at work, I am not interested anymore in ingesting a big chocolate, but I have an eager to lay down a little and read some more, to search some more, and the other day in the morning to try out some new exercises that I found, or techniques, movements that I thought about the evening earlier. And this documenting activity relaxes me more than a piece of cake would. But as you see, meanwhile I got from school, to work, so it took some time… This is in a “nutshell”, but an example of the flow of things. The trigger and development of a hobby. The trigger was the weakness, of which I was able to make strength. Look in your own life. You surely have a need, a dream, or a weakness that needs strengthening.  When you recognize it you will have to insist on it.

 I don’t have just one hobby. I have more: photography, exploring Photoshop, collecting fashion dolls, laying on the grass in the mountains, watching old crime-serials, etc. Yes, I do collect fashion dolls, which are childhood dreams. This is the reason why I am saying: look in your life and recognize, remember the dreams you had. I grew up in a horrible eastern European communist country, we had no cartoons on the TV, no nice dolls and toys in the shops. I was dreaming of beautiful dolls when I was little…and now, as I am a grown up, I do order some time to time beautiful fashion dolls from over the sea. I look for them, I order them, I wait and receive. This makes me again very happy. So I have another substitute for food.

I worked hard, because I was weak, and became strong. Some are strong and gamble it away, and become weak.

You need or miss something psychically and you are replacing this need with something physical. Your body is a body. The soul, the mind makes it to be what it is, what actually you are. 

Fat and miserable?

 Before anybody says that fat people aren’t miserable, well… no, indeed, some of them pretend not to be. There are also a lot of attempts to present owerweight individuals as normal, sometimes even pretty. I saw photos on facebook of fat women, presented as “healthy” and womanly…or something like that. The only thing that grabed my attention was that they all were “treated” with a lot of photoshop, probably with the filter that makes ugly details, in our case for example cellulite, simply vanish. These women although obviously possessing a few layers of fat tissue, they look good. Their skin was satiny and “waveless”. Would that really be the case? Think about, when even skinny women, may have some muffin tops, some fat on the hip area, which may have cellulite. Because this may occur even if you have only a tiny amount, thin layer of fat under your skin. This thin layer can cause immediately the skin to become uneven and ugly. So, it is just self-evident, that when there is a huge amount of fat tissue under the skin, this loses its firmness, it silky, smooth look and becomes uneven, if the layers of fat, for example on the stomach area are big, than between the breasts and “belly” the skin becomes irritated and red, because of the permanent scrubbing between these two. Also the breasts become bigger, heavier, so the skin suffers keeping them, and appear purple and bluish veins on the sides. But when fatness is promoted, these details are never revealed. And these are problems, that even for people, who maybe would prefer to be owerweight represents a problem. Some may say, that they like more “rotundious” figures, but let’s be honest, here…who likes cellulite, irritated skin and veins??? I know a lot of people, but no one from my acquaintances do…

 But I can’t really imagine how can somebody really be happy with 5 layers of stomach, or if the only way to tell which one are ones breasts  is only a matter of order, and then you presume, that probably the upper bulge is the breast… Meaning you read this, you are probably a very normal human being that wants to do something about the fat-issue of yours and you passed the stage of denying the truth. This doesn’t mean you have to get depressed. Losers get depressed. Winners take action. Sorrow is piteous. Fight is hot. Achievement is the end-effect of a long fight. And there is no fight without ever getting hit. You can never achieve anything if you are all the time afraid of getting hit. The first hit is realizing what the problem is. If you identify the problem, it is your first huge step. Do not be sad, that you don’t have the answer, the solution yet. Be glad that you identified it. Remember that you will never ever find the cure, if you deny that you are sick at first place. You have to go to the mirror and realize, understand and actually visualize the problem. There is no more effective “hit” on yourself, and better way of understanding, that seeing something with your own eyes. Seeing yourself naked sitting on a chair. It is much worse than standing, believe me. Seeing the numbers on the scale. These all have a powerful effect on you. Without the “hit” you will never get up and do something. Denying is human and we all use it to protect ourselves of different happenings that would cause us suffering, but it is never good. It only pushes the achievement further away. It is never a great feeling realizing bad thing about ourselves but it is much worse keeping your had in the sand.

 So, no, you are not fat and miserable, but  fat and a fighter! Do not be afraid of words. Fat is a bad word? It offends you? Why? Think about it, that only those things upset us, hurt us the most, which other people say about us, and we feel deep down that they are true. If somebody say: you have blond hair, it does not upset you. If somebody says, you have smooth skin, it does not upset you. If somebody says, your leg is slim or your nail is long….are only enunciations. But what is somebody says, you have rare hair, or big ass? You see the difference? Even if it would be said with the same tonality, from the firsts you would not feel offended, but the latter would hurt you deep. This means you do care. If you care enough you’ll find a way, otherwise you will find only excuses. 

How to avoid late night overeating ?

 It is a known fact that the most critical meal concerning keeping or losing weight is dinner. A big dinner  is very dangerous, because after this last meal, you won’t probably be doing a lot of physical activity, but sitting, watching TV, or going to bed. As a result, most of the calories you ingested at your dinner will not be consumed, but stored. Not eating three hours before bedtime is a great rule, why is it so hard to avoid a big dinner than? The simple truth is that we are very hungry, that’s why, some may want to spoil themselves also with some sweets after it… what can be done about it, not to be so hungry, not to have those dangerous urges in the evening?

 We differentiate 2 situations:

        1.when we have the time to eat properly during the day

        2.when we don’t have the time or possibility to have meals during the day

 First of all, to avoid over-feeding ourselves in the evening is to have proper meals during the day: a normal breakfast that consists of some proteins, fats and healthy, complex carbs; a not too large lunch, also having the necessary nutrients, and two small snacks in between. These small snacks may consist of fruits, because they do have a sugar content and are filled with water, so this may result in diminishing the evening urge for sweets, because during the day you already fed your organism with enough vitamins and fructose (sugars) and because of their water content they fill you and give a sense of sated feeling. You may consume up to half a Kilogram of fruits a day. Do not be afraid of their sugar content because during the day you will use it anyway (for your brain and also for the muscle activity for which you will need energy for). So, with proper feeding even when you get home, you will not run in despair and attack the fridge, because your body has been given the proper nutrients, so it will not scream for food. Than in the evening you can have a stake with a salad, or omelet of egg whites with a big tasty tomato and you’ll be cool. As a desert you may eat a small orange, or a kiwi.

 The upper mentioned was a scenario which you should rely mostly. But we can not exclude cases, when we really don’t have the time to eat properly during the day. Because every one of us, me included, have jobs, and we all know that may occur situations, when we really don’t have any pause. We may have one meeting after another and somehow we manage to get home late in the evening without eating anything during the day. In such cases, we still should have a proper breakfast that would start our metabolism, and deliver our body the needed nutrients. And after it, comes our day, full with meetings or exams or whatever…it goes by and we do get home hungry like a wolf, let’s say at 20 o’clock. What can you do? There are again two possibilities: 1. You overcome your urge and have only a small snack size dinner consisting of lean meat and/or vegetables, without any other carbs may be simple or complex and no fats, consuming around 150 kcals and no way more than 200 kcals. 2. You can not overcome your urge and need to have that “full” feeling. This scenario may occur after the first one or without. If you thought that you can overcome your urge, tried to eat 150 kcals, but you are still craving for more: more food or sweets, you may do the following: eat. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

 Now, the question is, what should you eat? You may do an omelet of 5 egg-whites and make a salad of a big tomato and a cucumber, drop some olive oil and spices on it and eat. After it if you are still craving for something, for sweets let’s say, than take a big mug, put two tablespoons of chicory-caffeine free “coffee” in it with two tablespoons of stevia, fill it with till ¾ with water and the rest with some reduced fat milk (1,5 %), for a richer taste. This will result in a sweet drink that will really fill your stomach, take away that sense of hunger without pumping a lot of useless calories in your system. This you may do even without eating anything else earlier, depending on your mood and how strong you are in that particular moment. Because we all of us are sometimes strong and sometimes weak. No athlete, no business man or famous actress is all the time strong and confident and ambitious. It is important that you generally are, and for your weaknesses you can all the time find help. I’ve been through all these and here to help. Having prepared my 13 ounce cup…just in case…