Fit from Within
101 Simple Secrets to Change Your Body and Your Life
After growing up in a weight-conscious household (my father was a diet doctor and my mother worked in a "reducing salon"), I lost weight for the last time 23 years ago and found that maintaining a 60-pound weight loss is more about honesty and courage than about carbs and crunches. Fit From Within reveals precisely how you can stop battling food and the state of your thighs and start embracing life instead.
These 101 prescriptive essays are clear and compassionate. There is information to apply immediately and inspiration to go back to time and again as you trade watching your weight for living your life.
Table of Contents
1. Accept Yourself Today
2. Honor Who You Are
3. Include a Spiritual Component
4. As a Rule, Have Three Meals a Day
5. In the Beginning, Eat Out
6. Focus on Living a Quality Life
7. Give Up the Notion of "Blowing It"
8. Slow Down and Sit Down
9. Eat Like a Healthy Human Being
10. If It Doesn't Look Good, Don't Eat It
11. To Weigh Less, Weigh Less
12. Get Honest About What You Eat
13. Walk More
14. Refrain from Judging by Appearances
15. Write What You Eat, and Keep on Writing
16. Let Your Body Determine Its Right Size and Shape
17. Much of the Time, Order the Small Size
18. Stay Centered in Today
19. Take the Responsibility, Not the Blame
20. If You Have a Serious Problem, Take Serious Action
21. Eat Enough
22. Wear Clothes You Like in Your Current Size
23. Have Some Breakfast
24. Lighten Up
25. Get Up, Get Dressed, Get Going
26. See Yourself Right
27. Make Peace with the Past and Other People
28. Let Other People Do It Their Way
29. Give Thanks Before and After Meals
30. Care Less
31. Don't Let the Details Get You Down
32. Learn Where You Stand with Sugar
33. If You Eat Dessert, Share It
34. Alter Your Definition of Success
35. Do Whatever It Takes
36. Get Down and Dirty with Life
37. Join a Friendly Gym
38. Groom Yourself Like a Racehorse
39. Stand Up for Yourself
40. Think "Still Life"
41. Never Punish Yourself
42. Get a Support System
43. Learn to Cook, or to Cook Differently
44. Treat Yourself to Therapeutic Massage
45. Get All Six Tastes in Every Meal
46. Have Plenty of Healthy Food Around
47. Watch Naturally Thin People
48. Hire a Physician Who Respects You
49. Channel Your Sensitivity
50. Be Careful with Caffeine
51. Tap Into Your Courage
52. Stop Comparing
53. Be Willing to Change at the Desire Level
54. When People Notice You've Lost Weight, Change the Subject
55. Discover Yoga
56. Abstain from Weight Loss Gimmicks and the Infomercial Channel
57. Meditate
58. Make the Best Possible Choices from Those Available
59. Do This Straight
60. Deal with Your Stress
61. Shop the Produce Section First
62. Get Comfortable with Your Unclad Self
63. Give Your Senses Something to Do
64. Develop Your Mind and Your Talents
65. Beware of Dietary Fads and Fashions
66. Go Ahead and Have a Beautiful Face
67. Give Your Weight Less Credence
68. Beware of Saboteurs
69. Assess Your Modern Conveniences
70. Get Checked Out Physically
71. Learn to Wait
72. Get Plenty of Sleep
73. Allow for Sane Indulgences
74. Take Stitches in Time
75. Think and Speak Positively
76. Eschew Fast Food
77. Keep Things Simple
78. Sample Ethnic Cuisines
79. Create Amenable Circumstances
80. Laugh and Play
81. Take Vitamins
82. Leave Something on Your Plate
83. Understand Your Rhythms
84. Get Used to Sweating
85. Keep Yourself Comfortable
86. Pay Attention to Your Personal Superstitions
87. Visit an Art Museum
88. Take a Look at Other Imbalances
89. Listen to Your Body
90. Meet the "New 4 Food Groups"
91. Have a Predictable Lifestyle
92. Grow Something to Eat
93. Drink Water Until It Becomes Your Beverage of Choice
94. Safeguard Your Health
95. Be in This for the Long Haul
96. Become Flexible
97. Watch Out for "I'm a Whole New Me"
98. Be Kind to Yourself on Difficult Days
99. Develop an Attitude of Gratitude
100. Allow Yourself to Grow and Change
101. Just Keep Moving Forward
Read a Chapter - Take the Responsibility, Not the Blame.
Blame is demeaning; responsibility is empowering.
You are responsible for dealing with your food choices and your exercise habits, but having a weight problem is not your fault. We live in a culture that is stark-raving mad when it comes to food and body size. On the one hand, we're heir to a dietary norm replete with fast food, fried food, processed foods, and sugary snacks and beverages. This kind of eating could have given Mahatma Gandhi the physique of a Sumo wrestler. Conversely, the media implies that we're all supposed to be skinny. (And women are supposed to be skinny and simultaneously having large breasts-a combination that is, without either having surgery or nursing twins, as rare as the black-footed ferret.)
Do not blame yourself for failing to thrive in this schizophrenic milieu that presents every opportunity to be fat while shaming and belittling you for not being thin. The reason to stop blaming yourself is partly to make you feel better, but mostly it's to get you to take responsibility. If you blame yourself, you can get caught in the cycle of, "Oh, I'm such a mess. I just can't do this. What's wrong with me? I may as well stop the bakery."
If instead of taking the blame, you take responsibility, you put yourself on solid ground. In addition to being born into this queer culture, you may have been raised on less than optimal food. You may have experienced childhood traumas that caused you to retreat in Oreos and ice cream, and you're retreating there to this day. You may have gained weight after an illness or following a couple of back-to-back pregnancies. Or it may have crept up on your through years of sitting at a desk on the same floor as the vending machines. Whatever the particulars, you are not to blame, but if you refuse to take responsibility for the state you're in, you'll stay in it-or it will get worse.
Say these two sentences aloud, leaving some silence after each one. First: "I take responsibility for my life." Then: "It's all my fault." How did you feel after making the first statement? How about the second? This exercise alone should convince you to discard blame and accept responsibility at the outset. Blaming yourself-or even speaking words of blame to yourself-makes you weak; being responsible-even if you're just repeating a statement to that effect-makes you strong. Blame keeps you stuck in childhood; responsibility allows you to be an adult. Blame is demeaning; responsibility is empowering.
This change of attitude will play out in your life. Take the simple act of passing on dessert. In a blaming state of mind, you might think, "I wish I could have that piece of pie but I won't because I'm an ugly, fat pig and I don't deserve anything good." Think that way long enough and you'll eat a whole pie. Straight from the freezer.
Coming from a place of responsibility, you could say no to the pie, or choose fresh fruit instead, with the thought: "That was a nice dinner. It will feel good to go to bed without being so stuffed I'd wake up sluggish in the morning." Do you see the difference? In the first example, "no pie" is punitive. In the second, it's nurturing.
When you take responsibility, you also become more rational. Absurdities like overeating today because you'll diet tomorrow or next Monday show themselves for what they are. The idea that some eating "doesn't count," or that you'll "walk it off" with extra time on the treadmill, might come up, but when it does you'll see it as a throw-back to the way you used to think, a way that doesn't work any more.
You are not to blame. If you can't convince yourself of this, accept absolution from me. If I'm not official enough, go to a clergy person and get yourself formally forgiven for the sin of gluttony so you can go out and start fresh. Do whatever it takes for you, given who you are and the way you see the world, to stop blaming yourself so you can start changing yourself.