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Monday, December 13, 2010

Monday December 13th 2010 - Bedtime Meditation

One of the audio files made available from the Gabriel Method is a bedtime meditation. I loaded it up onto my iPod and listen to it as I take my final bow for the night. Jon Gabriel speaks about relaxing and visualizing the next day's schedule and goals with positive reinforcements. The track is 22 minutes, but I have only made it through the first few minutes. Maybe 5 minutes if I'm anxious, but after that I am 'a snoozen.

I think I am able to be hypnotized easily is because I have a fairly deep focus. I really concentrate on the suggestions because I want it to work. If you felt uncomfortable or didn't want to be hypnotized I doubt that you would be able to relax enough. The meditation/hypnosis, whether in Paula's office or from the cd's, make me feel good. I awake with a positive attitude and my cravings for fatty foods have gone down dramatically.

I am easing into this struggle with realistic expectations. It has taken 45 years to build up all of these root cause issues. I doubt that they will go away overnight.

Maybe I wrote about this, but I have realized that there are some key issues that make me fat:

  • When I was in football in the sixth grade I got pushed around and beat up from practice and games. I desperately wanted to be bigger for survival purposes. The desire to be "football" large continued for three more years.
  • I was very sensitive to adult comments like my step-dad insisting that I had a Ubangi Butt (his way of saying I had a big butt). However, he started telling me this when I was very young and still as skinny as a lamp post. In addition, my loving aunts teased me about "filling" out. I was skinny until I got married at age 19. All of these comments were without merit, but they became very powerful negative reinforcements.
  • My uncle committed suicide when I was 14? I never thought it bothered me, but I found out through talking to Paula that it did have a huge impact on my young life.
  • I had a horrible diet when I started working at the warehouses. I over ate with the other warehouse workers and then go days without sleep and proper nutrition. I think the years of abuse messed up my metabolism.
  • I was heavy before my dad committed suicide in '93, but I really started to pack it on after that.
  • In 1998 to 2001 I presided over a dot com that I had co-founded. It couldn't have been more stressful. In 2001 we had grown to the point where we needed venture capital to continue and I lost my best presentation. The company went under and I had a major bipolar episode that landed me in the hospital(s).
  • After that I worried about survival more than I did food so I just ate everything until I was full. On top of that I was taking bipolar meds like Depekote that makes it incredibly difficult to lose weight. I also had a bout with rashes that required steroids which also made me gain weight.
  • Up to the point I had tried every fad diet under the sun. I had lost weight just to see it come back with reinforcements. 
  • Then I was told that I was sick with everything plus Leukemia. I started ballooning and then went into the hospital and just stopped eating. I starved myself for several months and lost 60 pounds or so.
  • Then I started gaining it all back plus reinforcements.
No one wants to be fat. It just happens. You let your guard down and gain tons of weight and then fight and starve to lose the weight. My body is programmed to be fat. I am now trying these alternative therapies to re-program myself to be normal. It may take a while to see the results, but I know that solving the root causes of my obesity is the key. If I can control my mind and body, I will lose the weight and keep it off.

3 comments:

  1. I am rooting for you! Our bipolar/weight loss journeys are very similar. The trigger for my protective coat of fat occurred when I was pre-kindergarden age. I was sexually abused by foster children that my father felt deeply he was helping (no, I never told him to this day and we are close). Ever since then, I have struggles with self esteem (I can't look in the mirror at myself). I have struggles with osteoarthritis in my knees and bulging disks in my lower back. I constantly battle the deceptions that my bipolar mind tells me in addition to using meds that cause weight gain in order to function. But, in spite of these weaknesses, we have survived and now we are going to overcome. I will do the Gabriel Method as well as a program called Shrink yourself. We can do it!

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  2. Here's some advice. Don't say I, my and me so much.

    Here is a statement of immutable scientific fact followed by a question. The most weight a sedentary woman can maintain on 2000 calories a day is 140 pounds. A man needs to eat 2500 calories to maintain 160 pounds

    Here's the question. Why didn't you just eat at that moderate level of calories and if you didn't know how much you should have been eating to maintain that weight why didn't you. In other words, why did you remain ignorant about the thing that was leading you to an early grave?

    When you give yourself an honest answer a lot of things will fall into place for you.

    You may be an expert on diets but you are not an expert on weight loss. Your profile is BS. Sorry to say that but it is. There is nothing you can do to cause your body to defy the laws of physics and making those claims is irrational.

    If you want to talk further take a look at my blog and contact my email and I will do for you what your shrink and MDs didn't. I'll help you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Studies have shown that using hypnotism for weight loss can have many benefits for patients who have not been able to control their appetite and avoid fatty foods on their own.

    ReplyDelete