Learning to lose weight by making more loving choices
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Learning to lose weight by making more loving choices
I have been on a diet for most of my life, since I was 12. My dieting started around the time I found out that my Dad was having an affair.
The day I found out, he was catching a train to go to Sydney to meet the woman he was seeing. Mum had asked him not to go as she knew what was going on. I remember that she had on a white dress with tiny black spots, she had just had a hair cut and she looked beautiful, although she was carrying extra weight. I feel now that at this time something in my head connected being overweight with men having affairs. My twelve-year-old self thought it was her fault, and associated being overweight with pain and loss.
For the next 40 years I dieted. Each week I would start a diet on Monday and last until about Wednesday and then give up. I remember that the only thing I thought about was not eating, and the only thing I wanted to do was eat.
At the age of about 32 a friend and I went on a diet together, although I was 56 kilos then and definitely not overweight – in fact I was probably my perfect weight. From then on, until I was 52, I would continue watching my weight going up and down.
The more I watched my weight, the bigger I got.
I remember my body complaining all the time – my stomach would feel bloated and I looked pregnant. I was constantly constipated and suffered with irritable bowel syndrome. When I got up in the morning everything felt stiff and my left hip felt like I was on the way to a hip replacement. I felt like I had to slowly start moving each morning in order to get my body working, as if I needed my joints oiled.
At one stage, when I was about 50, I went to Weight Watchers, but I actually put on eight kilos over eight months as I was introduced to light snacks such as cake and biscuits, which I did not usually eat.
One night while my husband and I were watching TV we saw the finalists in the Weight Watchers annual competition on who had lost the most weight. My husband lovingly asked if I was on the same diet! We both laughed and I stopped going to Weight Watchers.
Around this time my husband and I went away for 3 months on a road trip. I had reached 76 kilos by then and I felt puffy, overweight and uncomfortable.
My children had given me an iPod for my birthday and they had loaded on it talks by Serge Benhayon, founder of Universal Medicine. I listened to these talks for a while each day as we were driving.
Serge talked about making loving choices in the way we live. So simple – yet it changed my life in every way. It was like a different way of living started to run through me. Every part of my life slowly became simpler ... no more ups and downs.
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I started to question what I was eating, and why I would want to eat something that made me feel yuck
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I started to look more closely at how I felt after I ate something, noticing if it bloated me or made me feel lethargic
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I started to read the ingredients on packages
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I chose not to eat gluten or dairy
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I stopped drinking coffee and alcohol
There was no dieting,
I was simply feeling what felt right for my body to eat
"The true definition of discipline is always when you put self-love first – once you know something works to sustain you in your inner-most, where the esoteric is, it is no longer a discipline but becomes part of your loving way."
Serge Benhayon Esoteric Teachings and Revelations, p 381
My weight slowly started to fall away. I didn’t get on the scales. If I made a choice that was not good my body would tell me and that was what I listened to – two years later I ended up at 56 kilos.
Now I am constantly listening to my body and it tells me if I need to adjust what I’m eating. What my body needs is forever changing and so are my choices.
What is the best diet for me?
Choosing what to eat is not about losing weight or following the latest diet, it is an individual process of self-discovery as your body tells you what food best suits you.
I am now 60 years of age and feel vital and full of energy. Since giving up gluten and dairy I have no stomach pains, constipation or stiff joints and no need for a hip replacement.
My body feels amazing and if someone were to ask me how old I am I have to stop and remember that I am 60, as I want to say 35, because that is how old I feel, only much better than I did at that age. I now have more energy than I have ever had, and I have an absolute love of my body and of me. I have grown into my skin and it fits me perfectly.
Now if people ask me how I lost so much weight I say that it was learning to love myself, and that from there it was easier to make more loving choices in what I ate and how I live.
Filed under
Self-love, Diets, Bloating, Emotions, Rejection
