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I was talking to a friend the other day and she was going on and on about how she is 50 pounds overweight, she’s the pickiest eater, she was raised that way because her family is all that way, she hates vegetables and most fruits, and after listening to her for sometime I just had to say whoa, stop. What are you talking about. It kind of made her stop and look at me in a funny way.

She wasn’t expecting me to be so abrupt. It looked like she was really in shock come to think of it. But then sometimes maybe we need to be shocked, we need to be shaken out of our old familiar way that isn’t working. Maybe somebody needs to come along and given her face and just tell us the truth they see and not just listening to our endless ranting and raving about how the old way is working. I wonder if I’d be willing to hear someone if they did that to me? Well I guess if I do it to someone else enough times maybe they’ll go back and get to see, but I hope I’m willing to listen because I think that would be a good thing[.

How is your willpower doing today? Maybe we got out of bed and the sun was shining and were feeling great, and we went to the kitchen and had a nice banana and a piece of toast and that filled me up and it felt good. So I headed off to work and I had an apple in my bag for lunch but ended up stopping on the way there at the familiar fast food outlet and tanked out on you know what.

The thing is, that I can have a good plan but when I’m on my way I somehow get distracted and I end up doing the thing I totally don’t want to do. One way to look at it could be that I’ve done it that way in the past. It may be a habit that I’m just not noticing. If it is then I can do something about that, maybe I could go to work a different way or change something in the thing that’s happening and do something different. In order for me to have willpower I have to give myself a way to do it. And the easiest way to do it is the one I want to choose. If I don’t like it I’m probably going to fail. I want to make it easy on myself and I’m the one that can do that.

The other night as the sun went down, the clouds started to change into the beautiful colors of sunset. There were reds, oranges, pinks, yellows, has light blues and grays. I can just see an artist having these colors in her palate and painting the most beautiful landscape and sunset on the canvas. It was indeed a beautiful evening, and it was a good night for a walk. So I went out for a walk and noticed as the sky turned dark cover star started to pop out and before the moon came up there were billions of stars just twinkling down on us. Life should be this beautiful all the time.

I suppose there’s several things that can get in the way of life being this beautiful. If we have a health issue, financial problem, a family problem or personal problem, then we may miss some of the beautiful things in life. If were overweight and we’ve been trying to change that part of our life, then I would see that even though the process may take some time, but there’s a beautiful sunset appearing just on the horizon, and it’s going to be a beautiful experience when it develops into its fullness. Life takes time to unfold, so be diligent in what you want, and allow patients to give you the time you need.

Keeping on the right side of the road is a good thing to do in the US. Everyone drives there and it makes getting somewhere so much easier than if everybody just did what they wanted. Rules and laws like this help things function better. Once I see the reason for it, then I can let it be ok, and I let my personal choice not be preempted by it.

If I want to get on a weight loss method, it may help to see the reasons that make sense to me, so I can trust it, and let my thoughts about it be positive and supportive. It I have some doubts; I will probably have a hard time sticking to it. When the going gets rough, I’ll probably get going too, but away from it. I won’t have the resolve to stick it out. So if I don’t know enough right now, learn more. If I doubt, find answers to that doubt and change it to resolve. If I am going to start something then I want to give myself all the help I can to succeed.

In the time of the ice age, there probably wasn’t much in the way of green veggies to be found. Maybe this is why things had such a hard time surviving back then. I mean what did they have to eat other than snow and other animals. Diet probably did a lot to change the things that made it through and for those that didn’t make it out of this hard era. Those that did make it had a big advantage when the ice retreated and things started to grow and develop again.

If we look at our person hard time, our ice age in a way, you know if we are trying to lose weight it seems there is little to eat. But today there are lots of green veggies and so the ice age weight loss era is a little more nutritionally balanced than the poor mammoths had it. Think of this period of loosing weight as a mini ice age in a way and that when we survive it, we will be much stronger and in a better position to compete with the rest of the wooly guys out there, whatever that means. But remember it is worth it, and it isn’t forever and soon the sun will come out and life will be different. A lot different and we’ll be smiling.

I was watching a bird sitting on the fence outside the other day. It was sitting there all alone and doing its thing. Then another bird flew over and landed next to it. The two birds seemed to enjoy each others company and they were there for quite awhile. I got to thinking about what is the difference when we are alone and when we are with someone. Each has its benefits and drawbacks.

If you have been trying to lose weight all by yourself and it hasn’t worked yet, then it might be that you need some more help. Help can come in many ways, but perhaps one of the easiest could be to just find another person or group of people to support the effort that is so far failing. Adding more stuff to the pot may enhance the flavor to where it is worth eating.

Boiling water and a carrot may be pretty bland, add a few spices and some other ingredients and we then want to eat the soup. Staying on a diet to lose weight may get so old and boring that we just aren’t interested anymore. Spice it up and add something that will make it full of flavor, make it worth staying on because it is fun and enjoyable again. Find a friend or offer to help someone else and together you will stir the pot a little and make it more appetizing.

I used to go to the carnival when I was a kid and there was always a person there who would guess your age and weight if you paid him. If he missed then you won a prize. I tried it a couple of times but he could guess me every time. My friend who was my height and looked just like me would always win because he weighed a lot less than he looked. I could never figure it out and the carnival guy didn’t see it either, but he was not normal.

I guess each of us is a unique individual and we have different genes and different things about us that make us who we are. So for one person to want to lose weight is different than another person wanting the same thing. If I do it my way and it works it may not work for work for someone else. It is just as probable that if I try your way it may not work for me. The only way I can be sure, to see if it works is to try it and watch what happens. The proof is in the pudding, I think that means the proof is in eating it and seeing for your self. Losing weight must somehow be like that too, when it works it works, when it doesn’t, well, it doesn’t.

If you are a science major and graduated with a degree in some exotic engineering or chemistry area then you may be familiar with thermogenic processes. Or on the other hand if you have been researching how to lose weight, you probably know that it means that the body has to use energy to digest food. The more energy, or calories, it takes to digest the food the less we have to worry about it going into storage in fat cells.

Thermogenic is a pretty cool word through isn’t it. I mean if I was to start talking to my friends and throw in a thermogenic here and thermogenic there, they would probably be impressed. Especially if I had just lost fifty pounds this last week. Well that’s not going to happen because the energy used to digest food is pretty small, although for things that we have a harder time digesting, like protein, we actually get less from it. Between 20 and 25 % of protein is not assimilated because it takes that much energy, calories to process it in our digestion system. So this could be one of the reasons why eating protein is less fattening that eating a double chocolate cake with frosting, duh.