hypnosis for weight loss

A while back I was reading on the WW message boards and someone mentioned a weight loss hypnosis program with the comment: "what can it hurt?". Initially my reaction was something along the lines of "that silly girl, weight loss is gonna take more work than she thinks it will", and if what your looking for is a quick fix hypnosis not going to help. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to realise how hopeless people must feel when they don't have God to turn too, or have forgotten they can, or are not willing to. Because just like anything in life, there is a spiritual dynamic to weight loss too. We are spiritual beings, and we search for spiritual significance in everything we do. I think generally, people are aware of this again in our day. Which is why personally, I think there is potential danger in hypnosis for weight loss. Think about it this way, you are turning over control of your eating habits to an unknown entity, or spiritual reality. Its the spiritual equivilent of opening your front door to strangers. It can hurt. But more to the point - weight loss success will have more to do with learning to control yourself and your food habits than handing over control to someone else. Along these lines, there is a verse in the new testament where 'self-control' is listed among the fruits of the Holy Spirit of God. What this means is when I relinquish control of my life to God I don't become a puppet, because one of his purposes in my life is to help teach me and give me self-control. So, unlike hypnosis, turning to God the creator will not mean giving up control, but rather gaining it. And, you can know the God who you are turning to, he's done everything nessisary so we can approach him directly, so unlike hypnosis, you are not relating to an unknown spiritual reality, but a loving, caring Father. And there's one other advantage. If God created our bodies then he knows exactly how they run the best, so there is no one better to ask for weight loss advice.

settling in

Had a STS (stay the same) this week, well technically a loss of .1 but not like that counts. I'm actually not disapointed as I didn't put in a lot of effort. I was in control, and allowed some treats this week. I guess I slacked off a bit. The good thing to realise is that this is the amount of effort that I will need to put in in order to not regain weight once I reach my goal. It is still effort, and it takes conscious control not to gain, and even more to loose.

I wrote a bit of a metaphor for someone in an email this week comparing loosing weight to loosing an accent. Having experience in both I can confidently say that they are equally hard. And interesting they both carry heavy prejudice in the workplace and in society.

Putting in loss-type effort so far this week. Gonna be a good one!

got away with it

Well, I lost .2kg Got away with it, but barely, and I am not celebrating. I'm glad I didn't throw in the towel on the whole week. That was what I was tempted to do. Starting today I am planning to have a good week of tracking, and I'm going to water aerobics tonight. Thanks Effie for your encouragement! Your accountability kept me out of the chocolate last night :)

Ps. The picture is one of my recent favourites that a friend took :)

Nervous :S

Happy Anniversary to us! 8 years hubby and me, two kids and lots of great memories together. I now weigh what I think I would have weighed around our wedding. I don't really know, I used to avoid scales like they might kill me! And my wedding dress is back in Australia so can't even try that on right now. Friend of mine was looking at our wedding pictures recently and she said I'm now smaller than I was then, but I'm not sure.

So, we went out, and I had a seafood platter that was just seafood and veggies no sign of butter and sauce on the side only, so that should have been fairly points friendly. In Australia or Canada apparently I probably could have looked up a restraunt's online menu and worked out the actual points! No such thing here of course, but like I've said many times - that is never going to be my excuse. But I know I blew it on the appetisers Chicken wings? Stupid move, and I did have garlic bread :( Bad, Bad. It gets worse -

Canadian thanksgiving was this week. I used the small plates and only filled it once. But I did have pie too. And I didn't track ANY of it!! :( No idea of the damage. Trying to not go into that "this week is totally shot might as well stuff it!" mode, just trying to pull it together and finish off the week well.

My cheaters WI this morning though did not look promising. Any chance I can fix this by monday? Not likely because this weekend's schedule doesn't look like I'm going to be able to fit in any water aerobics.

Feeling nervous. I'll post monday and let you know the damage done and decide whether it was worth it.

broke 90kg!

Did my Monday morning WI this morning. I weigh in at home because I do online only. 89.7 very happy with that!

Little sad to say goodbye to one more point a day :( Guess I'll get used to it :(

Couple months after I started WW 18months ago, my husband asked my what goal was my personal goal because the 71 set by WW was just to hard to imagine. I told him 90kg. And that's where I am this morning - and this is not the end! I can actually picture 71 now and I know I have what it takes to get there!

Somehow I know I will have to read this myself in about a week when I'm feeling discouraged again, but having felt it and wrote it here helps :)

gain again :(

Yes, I did gain this week, and a lot!!! :( Monday morning weigh in was back up to 91.6!! Felt awful. Couple of things happened this week but it wasn't going over my points that got me. I think that last weeks huge loss was not actually real, just as I suspected after being sick my body fought back to an equalibrium. So some of that loss was not actual loss, and also some of this monday's gain was not actual gain either, just a bit bloated as I weighed in at 91.0 the next morning. Thank goodness for mid-week checks! It helps me understand that ups and downs from day to day as much as a kilo are just normal and part of this whole game. THe point is to keep going, changes are only visable in the long term, like monthly, but habits are formed in the daily. So on one hand I'd like to say I'm only going to weigh in once a month, but on the other hand I know that that won't keep me motivated daily. Weekly is probably the best balance.

African peanut fish stew 2.5 points plus rice

Had a guest tonight who teaches English here. He's from Cameroon and hasn't been there in over a year. So I decided to do something new. I got brave and looked up Cameroon's national dish online! I found a few recipes and some instructions, went to the market for ingredients ( had to substitute a few) and gave it a try. I thought it was very yummy, but I don't dare call it Ndole, that would be presumptious, so I'm calling it African peanut fish stew. And I was very pleased to find out it only worked out to 2.5 points per serve! (plus rice).

Boil the stalks and leaves of two turnips (the original is bitterleaf, but I don't know where to find that outside of Africa)
Fry an onion and garlic, and add 4 chopped tomatoes, add this into the soup mixture.
Grind up 80-100 g of salted roasted peanuts till they are kinda half chopped and pour in
half a hot pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Let this simmer for a while to build the flavours

Add 2 fish fillets chopped in bite sized pieces, and stop stirring so as to not break them up as they cook.

Serve over rice and garnish with dried banana slices and parsley.

The taste was so different! I always think of peanuts as a sweet item, but they were awesome in this stew. I let it boil down more than I should and so didn't have as much stock as would have been nice. Overall I loved it! I don't think our African guest was as impressed as I accidently led him up to think by telling him I had tried to make his country's national dish! but he seemed to enjoy it.