The title here is one of my three favorite bumper stickers. The others, for the record, are, “Keep honking–I’m Reloading!” and “In spite of the high cost of living, it remains popular!”

The voices in my head bumper sticker is special to me because there really is great truth in it. We all have voices in our heads, all the time, directing us this way and that, controlling our moods, our behavior, our opinion of ourself, the depth of our commitments, and even the effort we put into tasks at hand. In recovery groups, folks who have trouble keeping their thinking straight often refer to the “committee meeting going on in my head.” We are of course actually talking about strong thoughts, not real audible voices.

The key to being successful is to make sure the voice in your head is giving you a positive message. Let me give you an example. This afternoon I was doing an exercise on a revolving stair machine called a Stepmill. Don’t confuse the Stepmill with a stairmaster or an elliptical. A stepmill is as close to climbing real flights of stairs as you can get, and if you have the level cranked up at all, the exercise can get really brutal. I was going for 20 minutes, but aabout 8 minutes in, the voice in my head starts saying, “your back is killing you, why don’t you just get in 10 minutes and call it a day?” At ten minutes, it was saying, “you don’t really have time to do 20 minutes–you’re going to be late for dinner again!” Who was that voice exactly? It was my whiny, tired little self who had put in a really long day today, and who really was having back problems that didn’t make the exercise pleasant.

At 12 minutes, I had just about had it with this pathetic voice, so I reached back into my memory and stole a phrase from Porter Freeman and modified it slightly. I said to myself, out loud I think, “look, this is going down whether you like it or not, and I’m not quitting. They may have to carry me out of here, up those twenty steps, but I’m not quitting, so just SHUT UP!” I know how dumb that sounds, I really do, but guess what? The stupid whiny voice gave up, and by minute 15 the only voice in my head was saying, “keep it up, baby, you’re almost there!”

How do you control the voices in your head? Start by thinking positive thoughts BEFORE you go to an exercise session or into a particularly stressful day. My thoughts on a given day are focused in the morning by praying for the special needs of several people, by just thanking God for every gift, even those I really don’t want, and by asking for the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I also try to read and memorize positive things. One of those that made the difference for me today was Porter Freeman’s statement that he was either going to “do this or else they’ll find me dead in there” (referring to the health club where he worked out at 3:30 in the morning!)

Your negative voices hate success, so that’s another great way to shut them up–just by proving them wrong. Do the next right thing in front of you, no matter what that whiny voice is saying, and soon enough, it will die of neglect! God bless!

Just Say No!
by: Michael Harris,  first published  3/26/2007
 
Every single day of your Body for Life challenge, you will be presented with opportunities to change your plans. Seriously, every day you will receive invitations to dine, attend events, to stay after school, to haul someone somewhere, to sleep in, and any number of other things that have the power to change your routine for that day. How you respond to those invitations will dictate the course and the outcome of your challenge results. Your response will have to depend on two things:
1. How serious you are about getting serious challenge results;

2.And how serious the situation that arises is.

Let’s say that a “TEN” situation arises, an emergency jeopardizing the health or life of one of your children or another family member. Really, there IS no choice–you do the right thing and go, because you know that NOTHING is more important than that person and situation having your undivided attention.

Let’s say a “ONE” situation arises. Someone you couldn’t care less about asks you to go have a Latte and donut with them. That’s easy, too. You and your challenge deserve better than a flimsy event like that. You just kindly but firmly say “No thanks” and leave it at that.

The toughies are the “tweeners.” And the challenge is to stay faithful to your challenge without rupturing a relationship or inflicting pain on yourself or others. The gang is going out for a beer on Friday to wish someone well on their last day of work; or your boss asks you to stay an extra half hour to finish his report; and your workout was scheduled for that time. Can you respond to those requests and still get your workout in that day? If so, sure, go ahead with the “interruption.” If not, be ready to say, “I just can’t–I’m sorry.” And leave it at that.

I can almost hear you saying, “he doesn’t understand,” but I do. I do UNDERSTAND that you never want to tell anyone “No” and that this is a never ending invitation for others to take advantage of you. “No” is a complete sentence, and a complete response. You really must be able to sort out the toughies if you have any hope of succeeding without driving yourself crazy. What will happen if you don’t is that you’ll continually give in to situations that you shouldn’t and you’ll be so disgusted with yourself that when you finally say “No” to someone it will be so forceful that they’ll fear for their life! And if your firmness costs you a job or friendship, what the heck kind of a job or friendship did you really have anyway?

Look, if you need some help with courage here, just tell them that “I promised my Uncle Mike I’d do something for him tonight and he will really be disappointed with me if I don’t go through with it.”

Courage is like most other character traits. The more you use it, the easier it gets!

THE FOOD: Many people wonder if the diet is “really all that important” and regard exercise as the key to the whole transformation bit. But, that’s not true.  Adhering to the diet, and eating small and very healthy meals is the KEY.

Why? First of all, for most people, food has been used as a drug for a long time. They have literally been drugging their feelings with meal after meal of rich carbohydrates or fatty and sugary treats. So, good food not only helps the body to shed fat and build muscle at the same time (so long as you’re working out correctly) but it also helps restore your mind and emotions to a sane and steady state. People who have overeaten for a long time have literally been unable to  feel normal feelings and to deal with their problems, so they remain in an immature emotional state–just like drug addicts and alcoholics do. Normal blood sugar levels and insulin levels will allow you to literally begin to heal not only the flesh but the emotions and spirit as well.

SELF-IMPROVEMENT: The key to self-improvement in BFL is to improve yourself without growing selfish. You can go one of two ways once you begin to see BFL results. You can move to self-glorification or you can move to selfless helping of others. Choose selfless helping rather than self-glorification, because just as excess eating stunts the emotions, self-glorification stunts spiritual growth. Selfless helping promotes spiritual growth–literally demonstrating the truth of the age old proverb that it “is better to give than receive.”

While I’m on the topic of selfless helping, please don’t confuse giving false encouragement to people who are playing the victim role with truely helping others. People intent on playing victim don’t really want advice–they are trapped in their own pity party and and any help that would remove them from that situation will be quietly rejected by them. You are much better off spending your time with others who truly want to change.

BFL IS LIKE A VIRUS!: It spreads most easily by direct contact with others.

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This is a two part blog today. Please read Jamie’s story below, and then continue on to read my comments pertaining to the entire issue of doing BFL with an eating disorder.

Jamie was athletic as a teen, married at 19, and gained the customary 10 pounds. Marriage took her from her country home with her parents to the big city, where the fast pace, conflicts with family, an employer, and financial burdens led to an emotional breakdown that required hospitalization and heavy medications. The medications packed on another 10 pounds almost instantly and created an entirely new bunch of physical problems. Her emotional situation continued downhill as finances forced her and husband to move back to their old home town where a doctor took her off the strong medications. She developed Crohn’s disease and the medication from that plus having two children caused another significant weight gain she couldn’t shake. Various attempts to manipulate her food intake and to understand her inner problem went nowhere.  Eating became the major focus in her life.

One day, watching an Oprah Winfrey episode on why people stay fat, she decided maybe her reason for staying fat was the same as one of the people on the show, so that men would not hit on her. But deep down she knew that wasn’t the real issue, and she resolved to “go deeper” to figure this thing out.

While staying with her mother while her own house was being remodeled, Jamie finally figured it out–her mother had been overweight for much of her life, and Jamie was staying overweight so that her mother would have someone who she could identify with, someone who would understand her, and someone who would not leave her behind, as others had. As Jamie puts it: “If I lost weight, she wouldn’t be able to feel like she could talk to me anymore. I know it’s the reason, because I cry every single time I think about it — emotion fills me up and I feel guilty.”

Jamie realized the insanity of this reasoning and decided that for her sake and her mother’s as well, she had to lose the weight and break this crazy cycle, not leaving it to her daughter to break.

Jamie is doing much better these days and is managing an ongoing body for life challenge. These are Jamie’s closing thoughts: “Reasons to not finish will always come up whether they are realistic ones or not. I will always have a problem with this, but as long as I ask why… find the reason and work it around to be seen in a different light, then it will fade away. Many times, the desire to stay with my mom has overwhelmed me, but because I’ve already discovered the logic and truth of it — I can turn my thoughts to the solution I discovered and eliminate that moment of weakness.
There are times when life throws challenges at me and I think I’m just going to go crazy. In those times I remind myself, “Just get over it… you’ve already been there. It didn’t help, it just made things worse. There’s a better way to manage.” This is the best program out there. 1) I’m eating healthy, 2) There’s a free day, 3) Exercise is incorporated in it to make us stronger and help burn fat more efficiently. I have looked up many studies on why this type of program works specifically in burning fat and getting the body shaped. I believe in it. I know it will help me reach my goals — as long as I take care of the mental stuff along the way.”

Part 2:

Having read Jamie’s story, you will probably have one of two reactions. Either, “well, that was interesting, but I sure can’t identify with it,” or, “Oh my gosh, that kind of sounds like my crazy life!” Jamie’s story is an example of a person with an eating disorder, though not typical in all respects. For example, she overate regularly, but she did not do the bingeing and purging typical of a bulemic type of eating disorder. And, though she struggled with understanding why she continued to stay fat and get fatter, she did not engage in some desperate activities such as endless cardio, or extreme dieting.

But, like most people with eating disorders, Jamie had something in her past that was really driving the disease, and was unable to put a finger on it. She thought of various reasons and tried various methods of getting the fat off. She also struggled with up and down emotions, but nothing really became clear until she encountered her “problem” up close and personal. Now, with reality staring her in the face, she is able to cope with those irrational thoughts about her mother, and to successfully manage the rigors of a body for life challenge. Once she became aware of the “insanity” of her eating disorder, she began the first steps toward conquering it. (When I use the word insanity here, I’m not talking about psychosis, or being out of your mind, but of an irrational thought process that causes even more irrational behavior.)

So, if you or someone you know are one of the hundreds of people who are attracted to BFL each year because of the structure, hoping that the structure will allow you to get a handle on the eating disorder, you need to understand that it won’t work, not until you come face to face with the real reason that you overeat. You need to uncover what is really eating you. In some cases it is abusive behavior you endured, or lack of emotional attachment to one or both parents. Sometimes, it can be just plain feeling unloved. That sense often triggers thoughts that you can be loved if you obtain approval from certain others, or if you achieve certain goals. Ultimately, these attitudes all lead to fear, which leads to withdrawal (hiding) which leads to depression, which leads to uncontrolled eating. And the cycle starts all over again.

Want to break that cycle? Tune in tomorrow, and I’ll give you some ideas how. 

Here’s “tomorrow” on eating disorders!

“So, if you have an eating disorder or you are close to someone who does. What do you do now?

First of all, if you are a friend or family member, understand that you cannot change someone else’s behavior. You can provide some consequences and insight for the person if you don’t intend to continue the relationship as it currently is. Your best bet is to find a support group. There, you can learn to live a sane and stable life no matter what the other person does. That was the express purpose of the formation of Alanon family groups, and there are similar support groups for families with eating disorder tendencies. They can be located by getting in touch with your local Overeaters Anonymous chapter or by using the internet and searching for “support groups for eating disorder family”.

And if you are the one with the disease, you too need a support group. Contact Alanon or local eating disorder clinics for information. You also need to do what Jamie did, begin a search for what is really eating you. It takes time and hard work. This is not a “light bulb” type of moment usually. The mind has done a lot of hard work to bury the difficult stuff where you don’t encounter it every day, but until you get to it, understand it, and take certain steps to get rid of it, the bulemia or other unhealthy activity will continue as you deal with pain of your past.

There are several excellent workbooks or guides on understanding your eating disorder and its source. They are helpful if you work them! Search on the internet under “workbook for bulimics” and you will find summaries and purchase information on several excellent works. Most of these, if done with some prayerful thought and dead seriousness, will get you to the point where you can identify your disease contributors and take some steps to get free of the disease. If that does not work, then professional treatment may well be necessary.

Can you continue your challenge without danger while you try to work this out? I don’t see why not. The primary purpose of this series of blogs is to let you know that a challenge is not the cure for an eating disorder, but certainly attempting in a healthy way to transform the body is not inconsistent with getting well. I STRONGLY suggest, though, that your challenge adhere STRICTLY to the guidelines in the original book, so far as the types and times of exercise–including cardio. In other words, you are endangering your recovery by doing too much cardio if you have an eating problem. As far as free day, I know of several people who have reached peace with it by committing to one unstructured meal during the weekend. You know what your trigger foods are, so try to avoid them if at all possible.

You will die of an eating disorder only if you quit trying to defeat it. Yes, it’s terribly hard work but it is certainly better than the alternative. I love every day of my life now, but when I was in my own addiction–alcoholism–I hated life, and I hated myself. God bless you, and thanks for reading all this. ”

Oh, one long last thing! Here’s what Jamie had to say about the things I wrote: “Mike,
You have done a wonderful job expressing how big of a problem this is. It has been one of the hardest struggles of my life and I always have to watch what I am doing – because several times I have caught myself replacing one addiction with another and it blindsides me because I am thrilled I got over the first one. As long as I am aware of this, I have the upper hand. Everything you said is dead on. This is a bigger problem than a lot of people think. Yes, obesity is one of the top killers in our country, but many need to realize, it’s not a problem because there are bad food choices out there – it’s a problem (for some of us) because it is a “fix” to cover up something deeper. ”

I urge you to pay close attention to what she said, especially the part about exchanging one addiction for another. In recovery, we called that kind of behavior “changing deck chairs on the Titanic!”  The key is self-honesty, and the reward is self-assurance and peace!

 

 

“When Will You Get Back to Normal Again?”

Has your husband or wife or other family member asked you that already? If not, you are a blessed person, because most of us will get that question many times before we’re done with our challenge.See, those closest to you, even those who have been openly critical of how you have let yourself go, often feel threatened by your new Body for Life lifestyle. They don’t feel comfortable watching you spend so much time trying to get yourself back in shape. Why? Well, that topic is too complicated for a short blog, but I will simply let that go with this observation: Those who see another change often feel threatened because they either feel neglected, or they feel guilty about their own shortcomings in their health or SOME OTHER SIGNIFICANT DISCIPLINE in their life. It is far easier for them to criticize and try to sabotage your activity than it is to admit their own problems and to have to deal with them.

Assume with me for a minute that you believe what I wrote above to be true. Would it help to argue with your family member, or to be critical of where they might have fallen short? Not a bit. It will only escalate things into phrases such as, “WELL, YOU always……”

You know how these fights go–you’ve had them hundreds of times with this same person–only just over different things.

Here’s your solution. Simply lavish unconditional love on that person. Invite him to go with you on the BFL journey, but don’t wait around for him. AND DON’T remind them of their shortcomings in retaliation for how they hurt you. Believe me, if this is a guy, he doesn’t even really know how that stupid remark hurt you. And letting him have it will only make things worse. You will win them over by accepting and loving them exactly the way they are, no matter what they have said or done to you. Revenge has no place in a Body for Life lifestyle.

Back to that question for a minute. “When will you be normal again?” Actually, you are normal right this minute, and if you do it right, Body for LIFE will be your life. This represents the NEW you. It’s not just a diet that gets you to where you can start getting fat and out of shape again. It truly is a new lifestyle that will free you from many things–including lapsing back into old habits, and the need to get even with others.

So, how do you resist the need to get even? Pray for that person every single day, twice a day, to have the same blessings you want for yourself. And, before you open your mouth in spite, silently say the serenity prayer to yourself–something like “give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Silence will quickly appear to be the best option. And it gets easier every time you have to wrestle with it. Over time, when you no longer take the bait, your family member will stop casting it in your direction. Heck, he might even come work out with you one of these days!

Sowing and Reaping!

This is one of my favorite topics—talking about the absolute truth that you will reap what you sow. In its simplest form, if you plant wheat seed, you will harvest wheat.  If you plant carrot seeds, carrots will come up. That’s just how it works in the real world, and it also works that way in the spiritual world! For example, if you “sow” joy, you will get it back.  If you sow distrust and suspiciousness, you will get that back, too. If you sow enthusiasm, you will get enthusiasm back.   By “sow” I mean, of course, that you deal with others in those attitudes.   And all you have to do to sow joy, or enthusiasm or any other human attitude is to act that way. Not only will your acting that way enthuse or bring joy to others, but it will bring enthusiasm and joy to you, even if you didn’t feel like it originally. The great Dale Carnegie used to always say: “Act enthusiastic, and you’ll be enthusiastic!” It’s true.  He had another great saying that I love, and I hope it will encourage you to become more others-centered and less self-centered, to work the universal law of reciprocation instead of worrying about what you’re going to get yourself.  This is what he said: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you””   One last Dale Carnegie quote and then I’ll wrap this up. “Happiness doesn’t depend on external conditions. It’s governed by our mental attitude.” Friends, I learned all this stuff in 12 step recovery. It changed my life. I had to pay a huge price to get into recovery. I lost my self-respect, my wealth, and my health. Still, it was worth everything I learned. I offer you all this with my hope that you’ll take these things into your hearts, and that you won’t have to learn them like I did. Now, go get that workout in, and then go find somebody you can help without getting caught!

    “It’s not your fault!” screams the ad. It’s the one that urges you to get rid of your income tax liability if you owe more than $10,000, or to get all your credit card debts reduced, again assuming you have at least a certain amount of debt.  Of course, reality is that these agencies work on contingent fees and your case is not worth their time unless you’re in the ditch to the tune of at least ten grand or so.  Mortgage refinancers also tell you it’s not your fault that you’re in over your head because some greedy lender signed you up on a contract that requires you to pay them back with interest.  Well, I’m here to tell you that unless you admit you’re at fault, you have no hope of ever becoming a mature and responsible citizen again. On the guestbook, and everywhere for that matter, the BFL version of “it’s not your fault” is the confession that “I’m an emotional eater.” Well, earth-to-you-buddy, everyone on the planet is an “emotional eater!”  That’s why virtually every big moment is celebrated with some kind of a feast. There are wedding feasts, graduation receptions, funeral lunches, Christmas dinners, Thanksgiving celebrations, you name it! We are hard-wired to do some serious eating around various occasions of either joy or sadness. Breaking bread is part of that passage of life, whatever it is. Most self-styled “emotional eaters” actually mean that they are somehow made anxious by their family or friends or circumstances, and that they have to eat as a result–even to overeat. This is somehow seen as less of a sin than just admitting that we lack self-control. But, like our friends who ran up the huge debts, unless we get brutally honest with ourselves, we’ll never get free of  the grip of overeating. Every twelve step recovery group, including overeaters anonymous, begins with the self-admission/revelation that “we admitted we were powerless over _____ that our lives had become unmanageable.” And then, “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” These two powerful statements assume ownership of the problem, and set out the first part of a plan to take control of our lives again. When I was drinking alcoholically, I drank with resentment. I brooded and was angry. I was a self-pitying, sarcastic slob who drank because I was so full of fear I couldn’t face real life. Until I admitted what a coward I was, and that my unmanageable life was due to my own fear, anger and self-pity, I was unable to even see that I was my own worse problem.    When I made that admission of my powerlessness, and began to probe beneath the surfaces of my own denial, and to confess all those problems, I began to change into a happier person, a more confident person, and a person who no longer needed alcohol. Am I suggesting that “emotional eaters” are basket cases like alcoholics?  Not really. I doubt any of you are morally bankrupt like most alcoholics, but I’ll bet you’re not as happy as you’d like to be either. Nor are you truly free and joyous.   Tell yourself the truth. Tell others the truth. Once you do that, and once you admit that you overeat because you want to, then you’re on your way to getting hold of that problem.  And if you don’t tell the truth to yourself, then it truly IS YOUR FAULT!