Do you feel deprived? If you are like most people who are on crash diets, you feel deprived and what happens, right on schedule, you sabotage your diet. The reason why diets fail, in addition to you feeling powerless to control your lifestyle, is because diets are so restrictive. You might lose weight and then you gain it right back because you felt deprived for so long. Then you want to reward yourself. So, avoid feeling deprived by eating smaller amounts of what you want as opposed to huge amounts of everything. Then when you do, you feel much less deprived and much more in control. The idea is to change your lifestyle on a permanent basis, so eat in little bits as opposed to huge amounts at which point you will avoid feeling deprived.
Losing Weight – Sugar
Are you eating too much sugar? If you are like most Americans… you are. You are ingesting huge amounts of cookies, candy, ice cream, cakes, and on and on. Think about how much sugar you are ingesting. You are creating problems with potential diabetes. You are over weight and you are addicted to the sugar. So what do you do? Give yourself three weeks to detox from the sugar. It is very difficult at first because the cravings are huge. When you take three weeks and you stay away from the refined sugar you will begin to feel better and have more power. You will finally begin to lose weight. The whole notion is to off-load the addiction to sugar and when you do, you will have more control. Try it! Three weeks!
Losing Weight – Water
Most experts say that you need to drink about eight glasses of water a day. If you drink more water, you have by far better digestion, you are going to sleep better, you are going to flush your system better and you’re going to feel full. So, instead of over-eating, drink a large glass of water and you will feel less likely to want to over-eat. The idea is that if you spend more time drinking water, you’ll notice that you actually feel better, you lose weight sooner, and you are more alert and conscious. All the way around, it is better. So, take more water, eight a day and you will see more results.
Losing Weight – Recovery from Set-backs
If you’ve decided to improve your health, lose some weight, and get in shape you are going to have starts and stops. You are going to have trouble; you are going to fail… everyone does. When you fail, you quit. Get back in the saddle. So instead of just quitting, ask yourself, “What am I noticing? Did I over-stuff? What do I do now?” Think in terms of recovery as opposed to quitting. Most people set unreasonable goals for themselves then when they are unable to complete them they just quit. So if you think about recovery, you are going to get back in the saddle.
Losing Weight – Lying
Do you lie to yourself to justify and rationalize about everything when it comes to being over-weight? Do you say things like “I don’t over-eat.” You know you over-eat! You sneak it at night. “Well, these cookies are small. I think I’ll have about three dozen,” or “I can eat this now and I won’t eat dinner.” You know you are going to eat dinner. “I can eat more because it says “light” on it.” Oh, please! “I’m big boned.” When was the last time you checked how big your bones were? If you spend more time telling the truth, you’re going to have more power. It’s time to take more action as opposed to just rationalizing, when you do, you now are beginning to lose weight.
Love and Marriage
When you get married, you marry the “courtship behavior.” It’s insane to stop the very behavior you marry!
So, restore the courtship behavior and you strengthen your union together.
Dr. Mitchell Perry
Love and Marriage
Regardless of how happy and fulfilling your marriage or relationship is, inevitably you will encounter difficulties and disappointments along the way. Often times it is either because you have become emotionally malnourished, your relationship needs a tune-up, or perhaps the magic has faded. To rebuild a relationship that has gotten lost over the years, you need a clear, compelling picture of the relationship you want. Then you both must commit to creating and maintaining that partnership.
A relationship lives in words and action, much like a play. If your relationship has become its own version of a bad play, then to make a better play (relationship), you need to write and practice good scripts.
One way that you can create good marriage scripts is by figuring out what you and your partner want out of the relationship. In essence, it is time to “rewrite the screenplay.”
Start by having the following dialogue with your partner:
- What do you want me to know about you? What do you want/need from me? (Attention, time, listening, etc.)
- Here’s what I want you to know about me. Here’s what I need from you.
- How would you say our normal conversations work?
- What is our predictable screenplay?
- What are the road blocks to improving our marriage? (Self pity, score keeping, name calling, guilt trips, etc.)
- What are we going to do differently going forward?
Be sure to find out what your partner wants, and then give your partner what your partner wants. YOU MAKE THE FIRST MOVE!
Remember what your woman wants, and give it to her, because you did during courtship! Here is most likely what she wants:
- Listen to me and then listen some more (and look interested).
- Pay attention to me and BE with me… because “I am who I’m with.”
- Empathize and quit giving me advice (unless I ask for it).
- Hold me, cherish me, show me I’m the one! I must be the dominant source of your happiness.
Remember what your man wants, and give it to him, because you did during courtship! Here is most likely what he wants:
- Look good, lose the weight, and dress up, because how you look is critical to me.
- Pay attention to me and DO with me… because “I am what I do.”
- Sexual gymnastics (complete with howling at the moon!)
- Treat me like a king! I must be a big deal in your eyes.
Take these steps with your partner and see what happens. Re-scripting your relationship can only lead to a better understanding of yourself… and your partner.
Then pay the freight, take initiative, practice new habits and restore the courtship.
And, remember reinforce more than you criticize… 5 times more!
Relationship Killers – Defensiveness
Do you really want to be right or would you like to resolve the issue?
Losing Weight
Do you notice how often you’re reluctant to lose weight because it’s hard to picture yourself slim and healthy? Perhaps you’ve been overweight for so long that the idea of imagining yourself slim is just unthinkable. Start rehearsing in your mind what you would look like and how you would feel if you were slim. Imagine yourself slim and healthy and do it on a regular basis. What are you wearing? Who are you hanging around? What are you doing? The more you imagine and rehearse yourself being slim and healthy the more you are going to begin to believe that it’s actually possible. So, rehearse and duplicate and you will begin to see results.
Losing Weight – Medicating Yourself
When you eat you generally eat for one of three reasons:
- nutrition
- connection
- medication
When you are medicating, you know you are upset because something happened. Notice how often you eat when you are upset with the illusion that that’s going to help. Instead, do something other than medicating through eating… write a letter, clean the garage, or go take a walk. Simply do something other than medicating and you’ll begin to lose weight and have more control.
Balancing Your Life
So you are in midlife and you notice life goes by so fast!
What’s the point? What really matters anyway?
Answer: Touching people’s lives and getting your life touched.
Dr. Mitchell Perry
Balancing Your Life
Most people want to be happy and successful. Ask yourself what that would mean to you. When you think of being quite happy what images come to mind? In addition, what does being very successful look like? Furthermore, what’s the point?
HAPPINESS IS CLOSENESS. When you think about experiences in life in which you were really happy, there were probably people in your memory and you were happy in large part because you felt CLOSE to those people. The closer you feel to people you care about, the happier you are. So, one objective in life is to establish, build, and maintain some quality and nourishing CLOSENESS in your relationships. Closeness is usually found and developed in your personal life.
SUCCESS IS ACHIEVEMENT. When you think of times in your life when you felt quite successful, you probably thought of things you achieved. Creating a goal and achieving it builds a solid sense of identity, strength, and autonomy. Continually achieving goals builds confidence and purpose which develops the self and creates independence. So, another objective in life is to continually realize success by realizing ACHIEVEMENTS. Success is usually found in your professional life.
CREATING BALANCE. Some form of balance between both dimensions of personal and professional life is essential for optimum success and happiness. People who are highly professionally successful (always achieving) but always personally unhappy (estranged, isolated, unconnected from people) are unbalanced on the success side. They often end up driven and angry. They must start creating valuable CLOSENESS to fix it.
Likewise, people who are personally very happy (close with significant people) yet very professionally unsuccessful (unable / unwilling to achieve anything) are unbalanced on the happiness side. They usually end up dependent, clingy, and fearful. They must begin to ACHIEVE things to fix it.
DEVELOP MEANING. Fulfillment in life comes when there is clear and evident meaning to your existence. Write down your basic governing values. Contribute something to society as part of paying the rent for your time here. Commit to something larger than yourself and watch the development of grace. Life is really about touching lives and getting your life touched as a result.
Develop closeness, commit to achieving, and life becomes balanced.
Then contribute to society in some way with your time, resources, and grace. Meaning emerges and so does fulfillment.
Today’s Tickle
These are classified ads which were actually placed in U.K. newspapers:
FREE PUPPIES 1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor’s dog. ________________________________________________
FREE PUPPIES Mother is a Kennel Club registered German Shepherd.
Father is a Super Dog, able to leap tall fences in a single bound. _____________________________________________________________
JOINING NUDIST COLONY! Must sell washer and dryer £100. _____________________________________________________________
WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE . Worn once by mistake. Call Stephanie. ___________________________________________________________
And the WINNER is…
FOR SALE BY OWNER. Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, 45 volumes.
Excellent condition, £200 or best offer.
No longer needed, got married, wife knows everything.