by patbarone
I have fallen. Deeper. Into my body. Into love.
I had to be shown the way, finally. I had forgotten. How to love. How to hold. How to honor. And worship.
Some days, I am in love with everything and everyone and myself too. But, the days I do not love everything and everyone, I am intensely aware I am out of balance and need to get back in love.
Once you know how to love, you cannot stop. You cannot forget. You must have it again. Once you love yourself, you know you will love and love again and because you have to. (more…)
by patbarone
A friend of mine recently congratulated me on my Master Certified Coach credential. He’s a coach and knows the ICF (International Coach Federation) credential represents a high bar in the coaching profession. Less than 700 coaches have achieved the credential worldwide.
I responded by telling him “it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life” and he challenged me to write about the Ten Hardest Things I’ve Done in Life.
I love challenge. So, in no particular order, here they are:
1. I Gave Birth – Not much explanation needed here, if you are a woman. My experience giving birth to my son was traumatic, to say the least. If you are a man, compare this to war. Complications, emergency surgery with you awake, scapels, your life’s blood spewing out, rapidly, like a geyser. Then you begin a series of seizures, black out and see your husband’s face fade, thinking you are dead.
2. I Lost Weight Permanently – In order to do this , I had to say NO to our entire culture that promotes, supports and reinforces diet/regain to make money. I had to go against the grain, to say the least – I had to say “no” to my doctors, family, friends, the medical profession, therapists, and the diet industry.
3. I Buried My Little Sister – I have buried my parents, even my best friend. But my little sister was always in my life. I was the only person alive who knew her every day of her life. Sisterhood is a different sort of bond than any other. She was 37, the only thin person in our family. How was she thin in a family of addicted eaters? She drank diet coke and smoked cigarettes all day, avoiding eating. This ripped me apart, worse than those scapels in childbirth.
4. I Sent a Husband to War – Activated into the air force on 9.11, my husband was part of the Enduring Freedom campaign. Suddenly, any illusion of control in life was rendered. No one knows what will happen, and you’ve got every single task at home to handle, plus a small child who’s terrified.
5. I’ve Said Goodbye to Friends Who Didn’t Support Me – When I lived in a diminished place in life, I accumulated friends who liked me diminished. When I grew beyond that, they became judgmental and negative about my accomplishments. It was truly surprising to me, but they were not going where I was going in life. It was time to part ways. I thought I would have regrets; I have not. My friends today are a thousand times more supportive and these relationships are based on real connection.
6. I Left “Safety” for My True Work – I’ve had a lot of safe jobs in my life, but none of them fed me. When I decided to start my own business and help others lose weight permanently and fulfill their potential, it took a huge leap of faith and trust. It was scary, exhilarating, and ultimately very fulfilling to chart my own destiny. But, I’m a cowgirl from Texas and nobody’s the boss of me.
7. I Raised Myself to Adulthood – I could also call this “I raised myself out of addiction.” I didn’t have parents who were mature enough to raise me. One of them was an alcoholic, the other an addictive eater. I finally realized I had to raise myself to maturity; there was no one else to do it. Now, I think, who better for that task?
8. I Achieved my Master Certified Coach Credential – The ICF credential is coveted, because it is very hard to achieve. The bar is high, the testing process grueling. The passing rate is miniscule. Other coaches told me “It’s impassable. Don’t bother.” But I had amazing experiences with other Master Certified Coaches in my life and I knew the power of their excellence. I wanted to be that good for my clients.
9. I Found My Home – My body was always a revolving door. I rotated in and out of it, at will. Accepting it and supporting it, despite its many challenges, helped me understand love in a whole new way. Now, I see it is the only home I will ever have and I accept complete responsibility for it.
10. I Designed the enLIGHTen Your Life! Permanent Weight Loss Course – In order to do this, I had to take all the lessons I had learned and translate them into lessons, augmenting them with research and scientific data. I had to design them in a way that served class participants and “grew them” along the process of leaving diet mentality behind and truly taking charge of their lives and weight. It’s a work of art. People all over the world have taken the course and I’m very proud of it.
Has my life had challenges? Yes, I would say so. But, a friend of mine once remarked to me, “You’ve had such a tragic life.”
I was completely shocked. I don’t see it that way at all.
I have had a blessed and amazing life. I love my life and all life. I don’t judge the pain differently than the joy. We need both.
Every challenge gave me an amazing experience, a great lesson, a chance to show life who I am. I know there’s a lot in life I can’t control, and I don’t even try.
What interests me now is showing up, fully, every day.
by patbarone
The popular movie, The Hunger Games, is raking in the profits after capitalizing on the word-of-mouth from readers of the popular teen book and a boatload of publicity.
I wish I had come up with this name for the book I am writing. The Hunger Games – doesn’t it sound like a self-help book for pulling yourself out of food addiction?
Well, here are some REAL Hunger Games we play. Which one’s your favorite?
1. Diet/Avoid Food All Morning and Binge the Rest of the Day
This is the surest road to excess weight. I did it for years. I thought I was “saving up calories” for the rest of the day and exercising my willpower muscles, but I was creating more hunger and programming my body to store fat faster and more efficiently. I was also losing touch with what real hunger felt like and teaching my body I would not respond to its natural hunger cues.
2. Plan Days/Events/Activities Around Eating
OK, my bad on this one. It’s still my favorite example though. I used to choose an Overeaters Anonymous meeting because it was near one of my favorite restaurants. Since I was the one doing it, I can cop to it now. It’s so counter-intuitive, it’s amazing. Many of my clients tell me they hit goal weight in Weight Watchers and have already planned their “reward binge” or mapped out the directions to the nearest fast food restaurant. Yeah, it makes no sense, but it happens. A lot. It’s a sign nothing has changed.
Do you choose events or movies because you like a restaurant nearby? Does “being in the neighborhood” sound like a good excuse to hit a favorite type of food? Or do you say, “Who knows when I’ll get a chance to eat this again?” That’s not a real reason to eat, just a Hunger Game.
3. Eating as Entertainment (Food Focused or Foodcentric Lifestyle)
When you get together with friends, family or a partner, is your main focus eating? A movie is entertainment. A bike ride is activity. Eating is functional. It’s the gas station. Fuel. It can taste great and transport your taste buds, but if it’s your main source of entertainment, it’s time to branch out and see more of life.
4. Fear of Hunger
Many of my clients stash food in their cars, offices, gym lockers, computer cases and bedrooms so they will never be without a fix. What’s so scary about being hungry? Well, it’s usually not hunger we really fear, but the needs underneath. These needs, often subconscious and unexplored, are darker and usually created long ago, in childhood. However, it doesn’t matter if it’s unlikely to happen (running out of food or not being able to get to food in our society???), fear loves to run our behaviors.
5. I’ll Fix it Later
This is my favorite. We live under the illusion, reinforced by the diet industry, that choices today are unimportant because we have the ability to fix our weight later. Have that rich, fat-laden five course meal and promise to run every day next week to make up for it. Turn into the drive-thru – it’s OK because you’re going to the gym tonight.
This is simply untrue. Dieting rarely works, and reinforcing this negative belief (or LIE) of the “quick fix later” just makes it feel true. The truth is, once fat is processed, it’s more difficult to remove and resists dieting and excessive exercise. In fact, the longer you work out, the less fat you will burn every minute.
Understanding how the body works is the key to ending the Hunger Games in your life. Being consistently healthy is simpler and more effective than playing games too.
If you (or anyone you know) is ready to end the Hunger Games in life, share this post with them and check out my next enLIGHTen Your Life! class starting soon! Click here for information.
by patbarone
Today, I celebrate 12 years of sustained weight loss. If you are new to this blog, after years of yo-yo dieting, I set out to lose weight permanently. My initial weight loss of 74 pounds was an incredible journey for me, an education in life I never expected.
After losing that weight, I was determined to “keep” the results. I knew from my research that permanent weight loss is defined by the medical profession as weight loss sustained for 5 years and more. I also knew, sadly, it is very rarely achieved.
I had to keep learning and growing in order to maintain the weight loss. In the last two years, I’ve lost more weight. Today, I’m 92 lbs. lighter.
As I was thinking about this anniversary, it occurred to me that I got what I wanted. How many times can you say you got exactly what you wanted (and more) in life?
I don’t call it amazing anymore, because I know the work that was involved. It’s no miracle. I literally “grew myself up” out of food addiction. I found, for me, most addiction theories don’t work. To me, they just get a person addicted to a program, instead of freeing them from the addiction.
In essence, the entire medical and therapeutic community says, “You are damaged and will always be addicted. Here, be addicted to this, which we deem healthier, rather than that substance (food, alcohol, drug, sex).
That just didn’t work for me.
What I wanted was freedom. Freedom was a huge value and driver of my behavior. In fact, as a weight loss coach, it’s something I hear practically every day from a client, or two, or three.
“I just want to be free to eat what I want.”
It’s perhaps the most common derailer of the average diet, and why diets don’t work long-term. When I was in the throes of addiction, the minute anyone told me “you can’t eat that” or “at your weight, is that wise?”, you could be damned sure I was going to eat it! That’s the freedom value showing up.
Well, today, I am free. I’m free of the compulsivity of addiction, feeling as though my actions are occurring without my permission.
I am free of excess weight, which hindered my movement, my self-expression, my comfort in the world.
I’m free of a host of medical problems.
I’m free of my excess weight making, refusing or coloring decisions for me.
Once I grew up, I discovered huge gifts: Choice. Opportunities. Meaning. Connection. Self-esteem. Love.
And true freedom.
by patbarone
Working out at the gym today, I heard a personal trainer tell her client, “If you want to lose weight, you just gotta learn to deprive yourself!”
Oh, brother!
I used to be surprised when a “fitness professional” said stupid things. Now, I don’t even blink. (more…)
