How to Feed the Stomach

The following is from The Weigh Down Diet by Gwen Shamblin.

1. Wait anywhere from one to thirty-six hours on your first hunger, and then it will be approximately one to three times a day. Do not fear--you will love the energy you feel from this and the delight from being able to wait.


2. Hunger is a polite burning sensation, the feeling of a knot inside your stomach. If you have to bypass hunger due to work or social conflicts, the sensation will come back around in forty-five minutes. While it is normal to skip hunger once in a while, do not make it a habit. If you haven't felt hunger within thirty-six hours, eat a small meal and wait for hunger again. You should feel it soon. After your first attempt, do not keep waiting thirty-six hours. Continue to decrease your food daily until you feel stomach hunger. Do not be legalistic. We are working on reducing food intakes to normal amounts for your body.


3. Family meal time. If you are hungry before dinner, just bypass hunger. If you are full at normal mealtime because of an irregular eating schedule or because you tasted all your cooking--several times--then just drink a glass of non-caloric tea and talk to the family.


4. Drink non-caloric beverages to help the sugar levels drop normally so that you can get the hunger signal. Continual intake of sugar through drinks prevents you from sensing hunger.


5. Sip your drink between bites. Stop eating when you are satisfied.


6. Rate foods. Decide which foods you like best and eat those first, saving the least favorite until the end. Generally, leave desserts until last.


7. Wrap up leftovers. You can have them the next time you are hungry.


8. Use carryouts when eating out. Restaurants serve such large portions. Some foods, especially pastas, taste better the next day. Some just turn green in the fridge, and then you can easily throw them away!


9. Do not serve yourself a five-course meal just because a medication must be taken with food. Food needed with pills can be small amounts like one to three crackers. You do not need a banquet unless the physician orders that.


10. In the Weigh Down Workshop, expect your food consumption to decrease 1/2 to 2/3 of what you were eating as an overeater. As you progress, you may expect your desire eating, or desire for food, to decrease over time.

Spiritual Weight Control

"DROP 100 LBS WITHOUT DIETING: Arizona State researchers I.D. the mental habit that transforms body chemistry to melt fat super-fast!" So proclaims the cover of the latest issue of one of my favorite magazines, First For Women. I took a look at the article and found that the "mental habit" mentioned is prayer. The article refers the reader to a couple of web sites: First Place and Weigh Down. These are both organizations for weight loss based on Christian principles. While I am not specifically Christian, I figured it could be worthwhile to dig a little deeper and find out more about their approach. I checked with my local library system and found that they had a book by the founder of Weigh Down: The Weigh Down Diet by Gwen Shamblin. The beginning pages of the book speak of how we are born with two empty places in our bodies: our stomachs and our hearts. Problems arise when we try to satiate heart hunger with food. Love is for the heart, and food is for the stomach. And so begins that reading journey.

As I looked through resources relating to spirituality and weight loss, I was reminded of The Joy of Weight Loss on the Beliefnet site. When I looked for other items about weight loss on Beliefnet, I came across an article about mindful eating. How often do we grab something on the run and eat it unconsciously without really paying attention to what we are doing much less where the food came from or how it got to us? Another article on Beliefnet, Getting Fit for God, has some good ideas to work with as well.

I would like to glean good concepts from these readings about spiritual weight loss and put them together in a more generalized form. It isn't to secularize them but to separate them from specific religious references. I like the idea of calling on Higher Power to assist with goals and will definitely incorporate that into what I do.

I've had some odd cravings lately: I want unsweetened passion fruit iced tea, salmon, and plain yogurt. That sure beats my usual cravings for candy and cookies. Maybe mindfulness is beginning to work?

I've read enough of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle now to know that I will want it for my personal library so that I can refer to it often. It's actually helping me to make sense of A Course in Miracles.

Enlightenment: The End of Suffering

I am reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. On page 10, Mr. Tolle says that the Buddha's definition of enlightenment is the end of suffering. As I read this, I thought back to the time when my son was diagnosed with leukemia. If I suffered, it was only for a few days. After that, I came to the realization that this (the process of treatment) is what we are doing now, and I ceased to think about it. The way was smooth. I did not suffer. My son "had" the disease for only a very short time. As soon as treatment began (which was almost as soon as its discovery), he was "recovering from" the illness. The days passed, and we did what was needed. If there had been thinking, it had already been done. We were informed about the cues for action (fever) and the methods of treatment. We were told and we did. There was no thinking about it; it was simply assumed that we would do what was needed. Another thing I recall about it all: I did not engage in dreaming about what would happen when my son was cured. When it came to my son's recovery, I was in the NOW with it. The only thing of importance was what needed to be done right then. There was no difficulty or hardship or even fear. Situations and conditions in support of the recovery fell into place. I am amused when I hear people talk about the bravery of those touched by cancer. It isn't bravery that got us through it all; it was acceptance. We did not fight the disease because he did not "have" it. Recovery was assumed; we simply acted in support of that recovery. I should ask my son if he suffered. I don't think he did, at least not much. There were times when he did not want to take the pills or whatever else the nurses wanted him to do, but eventually I think he got it and realized that the way through it all was to just do. So I think I have had a glimpse of what it is to not suffer at a time when suffering is expected, and perhaps our way of dealing with the recovery was enlightened.

The image is the Ace of Water (Emotions) from the Osho Zen Tarot.

Searching

"Nobody CHOOSES dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody CHOOSES insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness... the conditioned mind is running your life."

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

I'm heading to the library to check out this book. Then I'm going to the bookstore to have a look at A New Earth : Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by the same author.

A bit later

I went to the library and the bookstore and found the books. I read a chapter from A New Earth. If Eckhart Tolle is correct, I have been overthinking my purpose, and that led to my discontent. According to him, one's primary purpose is to awaken. Anything we are doing in this world is external and secondary. As to one's external purpose, it is whatever one is doing in the moment. If I am writing this blog entry, then my purpose is to write the blog entry. If I am driving my car, then that is my purpose. External purposes are temporary rather than static. I will be reading The Power of Now in the next few days. Right now I need to shift my focus and purpose to a couple of commitments I made.

FYI: Eckhart Tolle's site

Life Purpose

That article about being in two places at once interested me, but it didn't make sense to me to be somewhere else unless I could enjoy being here where I'm at. Five years ago if you had asked me what my purpose was, I would have told you that it was to have another child. That dream has fallen apart and most likely won't happen. To date, I haven't identified anything new as being my purpose. And so the hunt is on: to find a purpose for living. I did a Google search on "life purpose". One of the sponsored links informed me that I could find it on ebay. Indeed. Well, I did find the book "The Purpose Driven Life" there. Maybe that's a clue worth looking up at the library. But I kept checking the links and found this one: How to Know What Your True Purpose in Life Is. I couldn't help but notice the references to right angles in this article, too. That got my attention, seeing as I had read earlier in the day how right angles can help us be in two places at once. But like I said, there's no point in being in two places at once if I'm not feeling good where I'm at. Ripples. Radiance. The new ID -- and likely a new perspective (but it isn't entirely new) -- came to me so quickly and automatically. Now to make it fit better. There's no point in being radiant if what I'm radiating isn't positive, so that's something to work on, too. I don't want to do it by being somewhere else or with anyone else. I want to do it where I'm at and who I'm with. If the second article is correct, purpose is an effect of working toward a goal. There must be motion. Radiance resulting from precession requires motion. So I must find a direction and move!