Cleaning Out Emotional Baggage

I decided to turn on the TV in the wee hours the other night because I couldn't sleep. On the television was an old episode of Clean House, a show on the Style Network, where the hosts go into messy homes and help families take control of their lives by eliminating all the clutter while redecorating rooms.

While listening to this show, decorator Mark Brunetz said something like, he's learned that cleaning a house is more than just taking out the household clutter, it's about helping people grow emotionally, by getting them to let go of possessions that keep them stuck in the past.

Mark's words reminded me of the emotional baggage we carry about weight. Similar to a messy Clean House room, our daily thoughts are laddened with junk beliefs, feelings, fears, and apprehensions that hinder our weight loss success.

I'm fat, it's the way I've always been, and will always be!"

"I had a boyfriend that told me he wouldn't take me on his boat because he didn't want his friends to see me in a bathing suit."

"Everyone in my family has been overweight for generations, so it's no use my trying to lose weight."

"I'm uncomfortable in social situations because I don't know how to act. I've always been the one who sat in the back of the room."

"I hate myself because I'm fat."

"I work in an industry where everyone looks like barbie dolls. It makes me feel ugly because my being overweight really sticks out like a sore thumb."

Or as an anonymous poster said, "I'm very glad to know of the colon cleanse because what you describe in your "Scoop on Poop" entry on your blog, is all too familiar to me. I've tried everything to no avail. In my case, I think it is more emotionally connected. I think the reason I go so infrequently is because I suspect I'm afraid of letting go of emotional stuff. I somehow unconsciously hold on to the poop."

You might think I made up these statements; but no, they are true thoughts and incidents that have happened to me or others. This emotional baggage muddies the waters, clouds our reasoning, smashes self-esteem, and weighs us down. Living with all this junk-in-our-trunks weighs heavily upon our minds and makes it difficult to focus on what we really want, which is to be slim, happy and healthy.

Ever lose weight only to gain it back again? That's because no matter how serious we are mentally about losing weight, our emotional baggage triggers bad behaviors that knock us off course.

Similar to Clean House, we have to invest a little time and perhaps a little money on healing our emotional selves. Here's a few ideas:

1. Become aware of the thoughts about yourself: Are they your thoughts or statements put upon you by other people -- an abusive parent, mean boyfriend, or jealous friend? Separate what really belongs to someone else, and what you truly feel about yourself.
   
2. Toss out what's harming you, keep what's nurishing: Your body is a reflection of your inner thoughts, so as you toss out negative self-talk and restrictive beliefs, and stop buying into the media hype and opinions of others, your self-esteem will increase and so will your weight loss success.
   
3. Empty our emotional baggage: Set up an appointment with a counsellor or psychologist, get a life coach, take up yoga, set time aside to meditate. Take active steps toward finding out what your emotional baggage is and healing it.


4. Picture who you want to be: Like an architectual sketch to redecorated a room, you should visualize your new body image by hanging meaningful pictures in your home or placing images as backgrounds on your computer. My image represents a happy, positive, and slim me.


5. Make a plan and set goals: Draw up a written plan to help you get to your destination. Remember, no matter how rocky the road, being persistent is the key to success. Click on these links to see my Best Of Eating Plan and Goals.


6. Keep your emotional house clean: Finally, organize your emotional world to keep it clean. That might mean doing meditation on a regular basis, rejecting other peoples' trips laid on you, resolving feelings when they arise, and focusing on positive thoughts and feelings about yourself.

My philsophy is "You've got one life to live. So make the best of it!" Get started now cleaning out your internal baggage, redecorating your inner house, and taking care of the new you.

WHAT ARE EXAMPLES YOUR EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE?

Week 8 Check-In: What Objects Weigh

For the first time on this weight loss journey, I ended the week with a 1 lb weight gain. I'm now at a total loss of 18 lbs.

I think one of the key elements in losing weight is to re-evaluate periodically what you are eating, how you exercise, and your thoughts and feelings to see where improvements can be made. In my case, since my exercise has been sporadic, I signed up for a trainer and my first session is next Saturday.

Week 8 was good for me in an indirect way because I made a big realization that has raised my level of seriousness. Like my recent post Weight Moments: Realizing How Much We Really Weigh, I think we don't realize the heaviness of weight when it's on our bodies. It's when we separate the pounds that we get a true concept of what it means.

Below are a few objects along with their weights -- compare them to your own body to gain a perspective of what the pounds mean:





5 lb - Sack of Potatoes

10 lbs - Bowling Ball

20 lbs - Barbells

50 lbs - Large Dog

75 lbs - First Grade Child

100 lbs - Slim Adult

Weighty Moments: Realizing How Much We Really Weigh

first person accounts of food, body, or weight incidents


I was working at my law firm job today, when all of a sudden the fire alarm rang. A voice came over the airwaves, "A fire has been reported. Please leave the building in an orderly fashion. Do not use the elevators."

After checking our conference rooms for people because I'm a floor warden, I hurried down the stairs from our 5th floor suite. This was one situation where my daily stair climbing exercise came in handy.

Outside was a big red fire truck where the firemen were setting up a ladder to reach to the roof of our building. The scene looked very real but there was no smoke nor musky smell in the air. So, I walked over to a fireman and asked if this was a drill? He replied, "We are trying to make it look real. But yes, it's a test."

A little while later, the "all clear" was sounded and I decided to walk back up the stairs; except unlike my daily stair exercise, this time I was laddened with a very heavy purse. Up I climbed to each floor ... huffing and puffing all the way. And when I reached my suite, I was exhausted more than usual because I had to lug the extra weight.

When I got back to my desk, a little birdy went off in my head. I realized my purse probably weighed much less than the number of pounds I had already taken off. So when I got home, I weighed my purse and was surprised to learn it weighed 6.5 lbs. Three purses could have fit into the 19 lbs I've lost. An amount I now can't imagine that I ever carried on my body.

I think we get used to the weight we carry, and don't really realize how much we weigh and what a strain it puts on our bodies and everyday life. I realized it today.

Week 7 Check-In: Writing a Blog and My Scoop on Poop

Wow, I lost 3 lbs this week for a total of 19 lbs and 5¾ inches off my full-figured frame. I don't know about you but I've spent a lifetime trying to lose weight, and there's always a voice in my head that says, "You can't it!" But this time, I don't hear that ugly little voice, I hear the sweet tone of "Yes, I can lose all the extra weight!"

I must admit, writing a blog has been fabulous for staying on my journey. Writing about my experiences several times a week keeps me accountable for my actions. It's kind of like going to a Weight Watchers meeting and weighing-in and having your loss or increase announced to a room full of people. Public humiliation can be a good motivator to keep you on track.

Another benefit of penning a blog is it opens you up to new experiences because you always want to have interesting topics to write about. For me, so far, that's been stair climbing, learning about new websites/blogs, and taking a different approach to losing weight through my Best Of Eating Plan.

One of the reasons I've been so successful this week is poop. Yeah, I know it's a dirty subject that we don't talk about much. But, I've suffered from a lack of it as long as I can remember -- only having a bowel movement once a week, if I'm lucky.

When I was growing up in San Francisco, I remember riding the slow moving street car to and from work in the downtown area. Many times, I'd have to go to the bathroom while on the street car, but with no options available, I'd have to hold it until I got home. I've always thought perhaps those incidents trained my body to retain the poop?

Of course, I'm sure my love for junk food and lack of drinking enough water also played their roles in slowing down my poo factory. So on my journey to a lighter and healthier me, I've decided to improve my poop flow ... to unclogged the mucus, toxins and metabolic waste.

Some adjustments I've made is about two weeks ago, I started eating beans every day. At first, that meant adding black beans to a whole wheat flour tortilla with a little cheese for breakfast, now I spread it like butter on some Kashi stoneground grain crackers, or mix beans into my main meals like the stuff green peppers I had the other day that were delicious.

I've also tried several new products, like Activia yogurt with bifious regularis, which is fancy way of saying an organism that aids your digestive tract. But the real find was Super Colon Cleanse with Herbs & Acidophilus that I found at Trader Joes.

Over the years, I've tried all kinds of cleansers and fibers products, but none of them worked for me. However, this product does work -- and the movements are well formed, not liquidity like when you use laxatives. It contains buckthorn, senna, and psyllium husk and is manufactured by Health Plus. I highly recommend it.

I can honestly say the scoop on my poop is that my bowel movements are now more frequent -- once or twice a day -- and that has probably helped me to lose weight this week.

Review of Diettogo.com

Reviews are given 1-4 skinnies, based on the website's ability to cover the whole person regarding weight loss and health. This is an independent Review--I'm not being paid.

I don't know if you've ever heard of Diet-to-Go, but I thought I'd review their website to spread the word. As food programs go, they are pretty good.

Diet-to-Go is a diet food service that for the past 17 years has offered fresh, tasty, healthy, convenient and nutritionally balanced meal plans throughout the United States (including Hawaii and Alaska).

It's like having your own personal chef, one who prepares meals, and delivers them to your doorstep (in styrofoam freezers) or you can drive a short distance to one of their pick up centers in Washington DC, San Francisco, or Philadelphia. I happen to live in the San Francisco area, and my nearby pickup location was at a gym, which was open until 10:00 at night. So I'd drive to the gym after work, run to the front desk and pick up my food in a matter of minutes. Since the meals are FRESH, they arrive twice a week.

Diet-to-Go offers five weeks of menu plans in any of three categories of low-fat, low-carb, and vegetarian that come at two calorie levels (1200 and 1600 calories per day). I have been on their meal plans a couple times, and enjoyed the food immensely compared to frozen, freeze-dried meals offered by other programs.

My only problem with Diet-to-Go's food is that after a month on the program, I found myself getting bored with the menus. So I think the key is to use the built-in flexibility of their plan when selecting meals. You can order a full 3 meals-a-day, or break up into any combination like only breakfasts, only dinners, and more. For me, what worked best was to order lunches and dinners during the week, and take breakfasts and weekends off from their meal plan. They also allow you to substitute standard items with your favorites of their meals, for a small fee.

I found Diet-to-Go's prices reasonable. The company claims the average customer spends about $90 per week. If you've ever added up your weekly grocery bill, I'm sure you'll find the total comes out higher. And besides, you don't have to cook.

Diet-to-Go's website offers minimal advice from a dietician, gastro doctor, psychiatrist specializing in adult behavior, and a food writer called Dr. Bad Food. It has an area called My Personal Chef where you can track your weight loss progress and food orders. And they have a BMI calculator (body mass index).

While I'd rate the food and menu plan as 3½ skinnies, the website itself would receive 2½ skinnies for lacking interactivity with their customers (like a comment area, forums, or blogs) so I'm averaging the rating to 3.

Week 6 Check-In: Losing Weight is Not a Race, It's a Marathon

This week I'm at a 16 lb weight loss and proud of it! Another 1 lb gone, never to return again. Sure, I'd love to lose 5 lbs a week but reality is -- it's just too hard and unhealthy. I don't have the time and energy to devote to exercising daily and starving myself. So on my 100 lb journey, I'm taking it slow and fitting it into my lifestyle.

I haven't lost a whole dress size yet, but I'm starting to feel better in my clothes. Instead of being tight, they are getting roomy ... and I like it.

This week's zinger was I got sick. A bad cold or virus, who knows which, but I felt like hell. There was this kind of buzzing in my whole body that said, "I ain't well," the head was clogged like a sink and fluids drained from all the orifices. Then toward the later stages of the illness, it went into my lungs -- I had to prop myself up at night because of breathing difficulties, suffered a bad cough and sneezing, and talked like Miss Froggy.

The good news is I didn't feel much like eating, but I still didn't lose much weight, probably because of the counter-balancing lack of exercise.

It's times like this that you just have to plain old take care of yourself, like a good Mommy would. I nurtured myself by prying me away from my worldly commitments, taking a day off from work and weekend, snoozing in the day time to give my body a chance to heal, turning on a humidifier that blew in my face, slurping soups, taking meds and vitamins, and drinking lots of warm and cozy tea.

This experience reminded me that losing weight is not a race but a marathon where you have to pace yourself in order to complete the journey. This week was my rest stop. Hopefully next week, I'll start moving again with renewed vigor.

Water is Essential for Good Health and Weight Loss

Water is ranked by experts second only to oxygen, and is essential for life. The water you drink literally becomes you -- a human embryo is said to be 80%, a baby 74%, and an adult 55 to 75% water. Since such a large percentage of our bodies are water, we need lots of fresh water to stay healthy.

I've always heard we should drink at least 8 glasses of water a day; however, upon researching the subject, I came upon sources that said the best way to calculate how much you need is to "take your weight in pounds and divide it by two to get the number of ounces of water you should drink per day." For instance, if you were a 200 lbs person that would mean you'd have to drink 12½ eight-ounce glasses or about 5½ bottles; a 150 lbs person would drink 9½ glasses or 4 bottles of water.

Here's a few more tips about drinking water:

1. Drinking water can accelerate weight loss. In a German study at Berlin's Franz-Volhard Clinical Research Center, within 10 minutes of drinking 17 ounces of water, participants' rates of burning calories increased by 30% for both men and women, and this burn rate reached a maximum after about 30 to 40 minutes. It's felt this increase in metabolic rates is caused by the body's attempt to heat the ingested water. From Wedmd
2. "Water can decrease your appetite," said Mara Z. Vitolins, R.D., Dr. P.H., at the Center for Research on Human Nutrition and Chronic Disease Presentation. "It is hard to distinguish between being thirsty and being hungry, so try drinking water and waiting 20 to 30 minutes to see if you're still hungry." From Science Daily
3. Drinking water also may help you cut calories. Instead of drinking sodas, coffee, tea and other such beverages, replace these higher calorie drinks with plain water to significantly reduce calories. Some of these drinks also contain caffeine, which acts as a diuretic that causes you to lose fluids and become dehydrated. "By the time you feel thirsty, you already are dehydrated." From Science Daily
4. Your body loses water via the skin through perspiration, kidneys by urine, lungs by exhaled water vapor, and intestine by feces. So it's always important to replenish it to keep your energy up, weight down, muscles strong, joints supple, and digestive system smooth. From Everything Atkins

• Water:

1. regulates body temperature
2. makes up 83% of blood
3. removes waste
4. composes 75% of brain
5. helps carry nutrients and oxygen to cells
6. moistens oxygen for breathing
7. helps convert food to energy
8. protects and cushions vital organs
9. helps body absorb nutrients
10. accounts for 22% of bones
11. cushions joints
12. makes up 75% of muscles
13. makes up 90% of lungs

From Everything Atkins

Week 5 Check-In: Finishing the Food on Your Plate

Well, the scale only went down 1 lb this week for a total loss of 15 lbs, but I'm very happy. It seems, my modus operandi is to gain a few pounds over the weekend and then slowly lose it during the week. I think it's because during the work day you are in a "controlled food environment" where you can either eat what you brought or buy a quick meal on the lunch hour. But during evenings and weekends, there are many more free time temptations caused by cooking favorite meals for relatives, attending parties, going to events, and grocery shopping.

One event that caused a few temptations this week was when my daughter, Jennie and I went to see the roadshow of "So You Think You Can Dance." It was fabulous! Sitting in row 13 on the main floor, we saw all the best dance routines of Fox Broadcasting's Season 4 television program, including Bleeding Love with Chelsie and Mark, Imagine with Will and Katee, and the slamming door routine of Katie and Twitch. Here's a picture from the concert, taken by my daughter's cellphone camera.

Back to food ... of course rushing to the concert after work left little time for good food, so I made a special effort to stop at a Whole Foods store and pick up a healthy meal to eat for dinner. But at the concert, I did indulged in one glass of white wine and popcorn.

The popcorn only came in one size and that meant the container was definitely oversized. Luckily, Jennie helped me along by saying, after I'd eaten about half, "do you really want to finish that popcorn?" I stopped in the middle of my automatic eating, looked at the popcorn container and thought, "It really is a lot, and the popcorn actually looks old and stale." So I then said, "No" and threw the rest away.

You don't know what an achievement that is for me, first because popcorn is at the top of my "love" food chain, and second because I hardly ever allow myself to discard food.

I come from the generation where my parents used to badger me with "clean your plate, think of all the starving kids in China, Africa, or some other far away land." So it's emotionally hard for me to let go of a plate of food, but through my 100 lb journey and the help of loved ones, I'm getting better at it.

Weight Loss Tips: Fats, Breakfast, and More

Choose Lower Fat and Limit Sugar – Keep fat low to moderate between 27 to 78 grams of fat each day (about 6 to 15 teaspoons). Read labels looking for products that contain the least sugar. You can work toward lower fat by:
• selecting lean meat, fish or poultry and using meat substitutes such as dry beans;
• eating low-fat or nonfat dairy products; and
• limiting use of high-fat spreads, sauces and gravies.
From University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Breakfast – It really is the most important meal of the day. Don't leave home without eating something nutritious to get your metabolism perking and give you energy for the day ahead. It can be a banana, low-fat yogurt, cereal, last night's leftovers, etc. A small meal that contains both fiber and protein can keep you feeling satisfied until lunchtime. From MedicineNet.com.

Positive Self-Talk – Positive self-talk will allow you to identify aspects of yourself that you like and appreciate. When you focus on your likable traits and grow in appreciation of them you will have less time to belittle personal characteristics. Positive self-talk encourages positive thinking and positive actions. From University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Keep Cabinets Full of Healthy Food – Healthy foods should fill your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. Choose foods that are low in saturated and trans fats. Enjoy plenty of naturally fat-free, low-sodium fruits and vegetables. Choose healthy fats such as canola, olive, and vegetable oils. Eat foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, like walnuts, flaxseed, and salmon and other fatty fish. Choose low- and non-fat dairy products, as well as the leanest cuts of meat (round and loin) and skinless poultry. Beans, nuts, and whole grains round out the list of heart-healthy foods. From MedicineNet.com.

Think About What You're Eating – Do you ever find yourself saying something like "Nuts are fattening. I shouldn't have those almonds," only to choose something else altogether worse? Instead of taking advantage of the nutrients and protein they could offer, this thought leads you to label the almonds as "bad" because of their fat content. These thoughts just may lead you to say, "If I'm going to do it, I'll do it right!" Then you reach for that candy bar since it has just as much fat as the almonds! See the faulty logic here? Think through your food choices completely before you act upon them. From Weightloss.about.com.

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