by patbarone
My two favorite things are change and commitment. It wasn’t always that way. In fact, I’m laughing out loud as I write those words.
Before I learned what it took to alter my weight permanently, change felt really scary and even threatening. I never committed to anything. Oh, I said it did, but I wasn’t reaching any of my goals, so now I know I wasn’t committed to anything.
In those days, I usually decided to diet in the evening, after eating too much all day, and, by 10 a.m., I’d have blown my diet. Every day began with hope and ended in regret.
I liked to gather all my willpower for the latest fad diet, then lose 10 lbs and regain 15.
I studied books, diets and nutrition advice, then wonder why they didn’t work long-term.
I used various food avoidance behaviors, sometimes going most of the day without food, then binging at night.
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by patbarone
Millions of people around the world are mourning the death of Steve Jobs, the entrepreneur whose ability to think outside the box pioneered a radical revolution in personal computing. Jobs’ company, Apple Inc., grew to iconic levels by inventing such devices as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
All of Apple’s groundbreaking inventions gave us new ways to connect, learn, grow and relate.
A number of his quotes have been circulating. I like this one:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by
dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise
of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the
courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you
truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
This sentence, in particular, stands out:
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by patbarone
Weight loss takes time. I’m often asked to define the best loss rate. My answer is: “The best rate is what your body and mind will allow. It will take as long as it takes YOU.”
There are natural restrictions on what your body will release in terms of weight. If you are careful to burn fat and nothing else (optimal because the body fights back when other elements of the body are threatened), you will release as much as your body can process. The process of burning fat is quite complicated, and doesn’t happen as efficiently as burning some butter on your stove – misunderstanding this is a big reason most people never achieve permanent weight loss.
Did you know that, if you could burn one pound of fat in a day (and you can’t), it would take
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by patbarone
This week has seen a lot of discussion about a new diet book which targets girls ages 6-12. After the initial outbreak of criticism, the author appeared on several talk shows defending his book as “empowering.” I spoke on the news about it Thursday.
I have to admit I’ve been wrestling with conflicting feelings about this. On one hand, I want to have the guy banned from Amazon and every other bookseller. His complete ignorance of the damaging and diminishing effect of diets on young women is simply deplorable.
On the other hand, we live in a country where we enjoy freedom of speech.
And yet, we have laws and policies that protect children from harm. And this is harmful.
To complicate matters further, as a blogger, do I speak up and risk giving him more exposure, or do I remain silent?
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by patbarone
We often have a picture in our heads of what successful weight loss looks like.
It might go like this:
New Diet + Short Period of Time = Skinny Me
We convince ourselves this is how it works and, when it doesn’t work, we blame ourselves. Or the diet. But usually ourselves – as if any diet EVER worked!
With a 99% fail rate and a 108% regain rate, diets are so not the way to go.
Once we realize this, some really big opportunities open up! As one of my clients recently said, “There really are 50 ways to leave your lover!”
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