Tuesday 29 May 2012

27 years of wasted worry...


I woke up not so long ago with such a stressed feeling, something I have felt so many times it has sadly become natural for me to feel this way.  I knew something had to change.

About 18 months ago I found a book called Potatoes not Prozac, this was literally life changing for me… It is another weight loss program amongst many that I have tried had success and then failed yet again.  Now don’t get me wrong this time it was different, this book made me aware of something really important, I have an extreme sugar addiction.  I became really focused on an extreme sugar free life style and for 6 months I felt wonderful… It was for the first time in a long time, I was feeling mentally on top of things.  And there were so many stories on the news to collaborate how I was feeling.   

For example:  I wondered some days how I ended up with 4 children, when all I do is yell.  I realized that at 4 pm when the kids get home from school, I am yelling because at 2pm I had a big feed of sweet tea and fruit cake, I was crashing, but when I changed my snack to a sugar free one and added some complex carbohydrates to get me through to dinner, our house was like a different place between 4 and 7 pm… NO MORE YELLIING!!!

How simple was that.  And don’t mistake me, I don’t mean to replace sugar with artificial sweeteners; they have the same effect and the added bonus is they give you all sorts of other medical worries.

6 Months later we went on a holiday to Melbourne with the kids where I gave in to sugar (my favorite waffle place in Melbourne Central), the smell of that place is literally to hard for me to walk on by.  The rush was divine, but soon after I wanted more, what happened then became apparent to me that my addiction had taken hold of me.

It did not matter how much knowledge I have of food, diet’s, calories, sugar, even the horrible withdrawals I knew I would have, I was powerless to stop eating it again… I would go a few days’ even hours some times and my mind was back to thinking of what I would eat next.

In my state of ignorance before I knew of my sugar addiction I was obsessed with my weight but it was different, once I knew what my problem was and then could not fix it, it was depressing, all the knowledge in the world was not helping, it made it worse, the answers were so simple “Just cut a simple thing out and you will be fine”…

I felt such a failure; I had no will power to even be able to do something as simple as that.

Finally I went to the doctor, where I sat and cried out of sheer frustration and pain, “I feel such a failure” I explained, “for 27 years I have been aware of my weight or my body obsessions and it is literally driving me insane, I cant possibly take another day of being so self absorbed and consumed by me”.

Anyway, she looked at me with her big gentle eyes and she said “we can fix this”, I knew by the way she spoke, she truly meant it and I guess a problem shared is a problem halved, I just felt the world was lifted of my shoulders.

She began to tell me about a program called the John Gabriel method, she explained it is guilt free and with some counseling and a few simple steps your life could be changed.  I was so ready to jump on board, I think if she suggested for me to eat my toenail clippings for a month I would of, I just knew I needed help…

Anyway she prescribed a few simple things like Fish oil, stomach enzymes and a pro biotic. She explained this would get things started before the book arrived and my counseling began. 

I went to see the counselor 2 weeks later, she did a little probing and we both realized I was highly stressed and I realized stress manifests it’s self in different ways.  I was not depressed but I was totally on edge with life.  She explained about the John Gabriel Method, which she herself had used with success and on my drive home I knew I needed the book and the meditation cd as soon as possible.

I started that night; I felt Corny… It was something I had never done before meditating and even though I felt relaxed I was not properly into it… I had also made a conscious decision to turn of the TV in our bedroom that day and it has not been turned on since.

In this Meditation he says you may start to notice things only days after… I can honestly say I felt it 2 days later. I can’t explain to you what it is I feel. You can’t see it on the out side and I don’t know where it is in my body.  But I am different. 

I am visualizing the time I want to wake up, and I do with no alarm!  I am visualizing reading textbooks, and I am!  And I don’t like to read.   After weeks of visualizing and meditation for 20 minutes before I sleep, my dreams are vivid, my sleep is deep and I feel so refreshed when I wake, I cant ever remember feeling like this since I was a child.

I have been reading the John Gabriel Method book, which comes also on an audiotape if reading is not for you.  The book nearly brought me to tears; the things he says made SO much sense.  I guess the proof will be in the pudding, I may never actually lose weight, but you know I have not worried about what I have eaten in weeks, I ALMOST... feel beautiful the way I am and that is a massive enough change for me to be able to just say that.

The big rule is not to weigh yourself, not to diet, you need to add in live fresh food and protein in each meal, even if you eat it with ice cream and to take some supplements, to give your body back the nutrients that dieting has stripped it of for so many years.  Also the meditation… HOW SIMPLE IS THIS…

So guys I guess I will write another blog in a few months if there is any change, but today… My weight is insignificant to me, I feel great and I just want to keep meditating and reading what he has to say.  To anyone reading this blog who has worried about his or her own weight, I suggest you read the book, you may not lose weight (but most people I know who have done this program have) but you will feel revitalized and fresh ready to go…

This week I am visualizing "taking my kids to play group", something I have never done, so even if this program give me the energy to be a better mum and it gets me out of the house with the kids, it will have been a great tool “whilst I am loving my family”…

Just on a funny note:  In the back ground I can hear my 13 year old yelling at his 3 year old brother for something…  He says “you stupid little girl”… my 3 years calls back in a very professional but perplexed manner “I am not a girl, I don’t have a gina I got a willy”… maybe you had to be there lol…

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