Very Deep and Meanigful Post - Do Not Read If Allergic to D&M
G’Day Every Body
Heavenlylamb, thanks for the updates and new information regarding common foodstuffs.
The hunger enhancers are very important – I had no hunger at all while on the program and still do not experience hunger.
However, my consumption of instant coffee has increased whereas while I was on the program I made one percolator of coffee each day, and just had a glass of water and a ‘shot’ of black coffee from that amount and when it was gone I didn’t make any more.
Now, it is back to the old habits of switching on the kettle and although I am making only half a cup to limit the amount of milk, by the end of the day I have probably had eight to ten spoonfuls of instant coffee. Not good!
Regarding the use of sweeteners, I have never been a fan of artificial sweetener – this comes, in part, from during the 1960s when the original sweeteners had a definite link to bladder cancer. The more modern sweeteners leave a bitter aftertaste, but while on the program perhaps it is better to go ‘cold turkey’ and not use sweeteners at all. Considering that the food is all fresh, what is there to sweeten? And it just perpetuates the notion that we ‘need’ sweet things, when really we don’t.
It’s lovely to see some recipes, but I’m going to be a kill joy and remind everybody that unless the ingredients are on the Shopping List then do not use them eg white wine vinegar is not on the list, and neither is whole grain mustard nor fresh garlic.
Also remember that all fresh herbs must be weighed in with the vegetables for that meal. This includes parsley, grated ginger or anything fresh.
Want A Life bac, you must weigh all foods fresh. If you then freeze them, why have you weighed them again – just to see if the freezing has any affect?
Weigh to the exact weight, them freeze and forget. I used the frozen spinach portions (about 40 grams each) and defrosted them to see if there really was any ‘ice weight’ to be considered. There was none that I could discover, ditto frozen Brussels sprouts. For frozen vegetables you could defrost before weighing as suggested in the program, however with meats weigh fresh exactly as prescribed for you.
WARNING: From here on in this Post gets to be Deep and Meaningful. Parental Guidance is recommended for anyone under the age of 70 years!
Bam, as with all of us, we have many reasons for doing this and sometimes it is difficult to make change when it is ‘only for me’.
About 5,000 years ago the book of the I Ching (the Book of Changes) was written as human being desire things to be ‘different’ but hate ‘change’.
I wonder; you live at home with your parents and perhaps siblings. During the week everybody is busy and probably minding their own business. What part of the weekend to you find difficult? Are you embarrassed that being careful with the program draws other people’s attention to what you are doing – do they deliberately tempt you, mock you – or is it that ‘being on a diet’ simply puts you in the spotlight when you would rather not have any attention paid to you?
Where I used to work was a young lass, about 20, very obese. She had tried all sorts of programs, gone to Weight Watchers for nearly 18 months, etc. She developed sleep apnoea due to her obesity and had to sleep sitting up. She was starting to miss a lot of work because of extreme sleep deprivation, migraines, anxiety and general ill health. Her mother was much larger than she, and when she went home and told her mother about Cohen’s it was really quite threatening to the mother. So Mum said they couldn’t afford it and that the daughter would have to just ‘do the best she could’ to lose weight by herself.
Does your mother support you? Who else in the family is overweight or obese? What about the boyfriend? It is not enough to say you are doing this ‘for you’ if that statement doesn’t sit squarely with you.
When I had my shop, I did a lot of readings and also worked for five years on a 1900 line.
Two influences or factors came up over and over again as a root cause of trouble and problems in people’s lives.
One: Responsibility, and
Two: Loyalty.
We must understand the history of our society to see these factors in context.
One: Responsibility.
Most people will happily ‘take on’ responsibility for other people and their perceived problems. However, in many cases this is to avoid taking responsibility for ourselves.
We cast ourselves in the role of martyr – Oh, the children / our partner / our work – but we may do this to perpetuate the glamour of martyrdom if there is no other glamour in our lives.
Two: Loyalty.
Throughout history the peasants have been used a slave labour, cannon fodder and of no real consequence.
If we are of the working classes – and most of us are (if we don’t work we don’t eat!) – then this mentality is ingrained in us and trained into us from kindergarten onwards.
The Celtic Trilogy of Loyalties is very important, but most people try and balance this on two legs, not three.
The Three Loyalties are Loyalty to Country (this is what sends us off to die in foreign fields / work 80 hours per week for The Company), Loyalty to Family (this is why the hostess always eats the burnt chop / parents volunteer for committees / go to Family Birthdays even when the sight of your Grand Father makes you break out in a sweat rash) and Loyalty to Self.
Woo-haa! Loyalty to Self! Now, there’s a strange thought! Wouldn’t Loyalty to Self make me a Selfish person? No one would like me if I put myself on an equal footing with the other two Loyalties! If I lose weight because I want to – God will strike me dead because I am not allowed to ‘want’ anything. Hussy! How dare you ‘want’ to look good, feel healthy, be sexy! Shame on you.
So, although we may have intellectually decided that we ‘want’ to lose weight and have chosen a program which will deliver the goods – and yes, paid money for the privilege – why are we sabotaging ourselves by adding in an ‘extra’ 5 grams of meat (for Goodness sake – 5 grams! – weigh the darn stuff exactly or not at all), or finding the weekends ‘difficult’ or not being able to eat without sweeteners or thinking that a ‘dollop’ of pickles won’t matter when the program clearly states what can and what can’t be chosen from the shopping list?
It is very difficult to take responsibility for ourselves. It is excruciatingly painful to pay loyalty to ourself.
However, the capacity to be responsible and to be loyal does not exclude other people, but it must include us.
These are the habits of a lifetime. Until we take a really good look at what the word ‘want’ means to us, how we feel when we use the phrase ‘I want’, or if in fact do we dodge and weave around it, and use victim words instead ‘I have to’ or ‘I must’ or do we wait until we face a health crisis then, thank God, we can say ‘the Doctor told me I must lose weight’.
Change is scary stuff. We may lose some friends not because we lose weight, but because we change. We stop being a victim to our obesity and rise up to take control of the only thing we really can control – ourselves.
It is not hard to do, but it is absolutely terrifying to contemplate. Oh My God, I might get hungry! Oh My God I Can‘t Drink All That Water – I Might Need To Go To The Toilet – Oh My God an extra 5 grams / meat pie / pavlova with chocolate sprinkles / whatever won’t hurt, will it?
Nothing in life is to do with money and really, nothing to do with this program has anything to do with food.
We scapegoat the socially acceptable reasons for our failure to take responsibility and failure to give loyalty to ourselves. ‘One bite won’t hurt’ betrays ourselves more than eating the whole bag full ever could.
However, having said that, it is important to learn one more lesson:
Three: Learning to forgive. We are all learning right throughout life, until our last breath we are learning to live. Forgiving ourself is such a liberating and wonderful thing yet most of us will never do it. We must forgive ourself for not being perfect, for failing and being disloyal, but more importantly we must show compassion to our own self, help ourself up, dust ourself off, and start over again.
Whether it is losing weight, raising a family, being in a relationship, making a success of our career or building a fortune, having the faith in ourself that we can do it, that we have the ‘Midas Touch’ and that everything we do or attempt to do will be successful, comes not from some wishy-washy book but from a deep seated conviction that I am worth it.
I am worth taking responsibility for, I am worth being loyal to, I am worth forgiving and I am worth starting over.
Next time you look in the mirror, look past the rolls of fat – look deeply into your eyes, see your brain and your heart. See your fear, see your courage, see your hope. And most of all, see the love you have for yourself.
Give yourself a kiss – lean forward and kiss your self in the mirror. Tell yourself that you love you and will do everything you can to help you make a success of this program. Tell yourself that you really care about what happens to you, how proud you are of you, how much you admire your determination to achieve this goal.
If you cry, that’s good. When was the last time someone important to you told you these things? So tell them to yourself. You are the most important person in your life – you have to be. Without you, there is no life.
So love yourself and be proud of that love.
You really are worth it.
Lotsa love
Chelsea
I just leave it and eat it slightly under weight, the loss is mostly fluid and not much protein so it shouldnt make a big difference. Dare I suggest a couple of grams more for the other meal during the day so you total days protein is about right? Next time maybe just add an extra couple of grams before freezing. 