So one thing I know at age 44, is that my body does not burn
calories like it did when I was 24. When I was 24, I simply could not put on
any weight. I was always around 8 percent body fat, and I hovered around
140lbs, standing 5’8.
I’m not saying this to boast. In fact, I was teased for
how skinny I was. To save my soul, I could not put on fat or muscle until I
turned 26. I was the skinny kid that everyone made fun of. Skinny isn't very
attractive, and it can be associated with being a weakling, something every male fears growing up.
So being on the other end of the weight issue, I can
empathize with people who are overweight, and the judgment they feel about
it. Yet as I write this, I am about 15
lbs over weight of where I would feel confident about my body. I can tell
you I've received a lot more respect from people being confident about my body when I
was in really good shape, than when I was skinny.
So here are some things I consider about weight issues:
Weight is a result, not a judgment.
Your present weight is simply a result of
what your body has been processing. This includes nutrition, exercise, stress,
hormones, thyroid, diseases, perspective, mental health and many more factors.
For the most part, I don’t think people
judge others for being overweight. After owning a recruiting firm for 20 years,
and seeing the hiring process from companies, I can tell you people judge
overweight people for the lack of control people have over their bodies.
Therefore, it’s the factors which contribute to weight gain which draws the
judgment, not the result. The judgment is often mistaken for being
overweight, which is false.
If you wanted that ideal body, you would have
that ideal body.
As with anything, if the desire is strong
enough, you will find a way. For example, when I would interview a Mother, I
would ask her the following question. “If you had no absolutely no money and
your children needed to eat, what would you do?” You had to hear what these
Women wouldn’t stop at to feed their kids. Like nothing! They would do what
they needed to do to feed their kids, because their desire was
higher than their circumstance. There really was no excuse in what they couldn’t
come up with to make sure they were good mothers. Similarly, if they valued their own lives like
their children, there would be no excuse for treating their bodies in the
manner which produced their weight issue. So if you have struggled with weight issues for extended periods of time, I would suggest your way isn't going to work. If you find a coach, or another approach from your way of thinking, you will change your results.
The
weight isn’t the confronting issue, the behavioural pattern is.
The weight is a direct result of the
choices your body is inputted with. Since you are in control of the choices in
which you input, your behavioural patterns are a reflection of the result. Some
choices are unconscious habits, and some are coping mechanisms. That being said, people do
things for 2 reasons:
1) To
get their desires met
2)
To escape the pain they are in
In other words, when you discover the
issues which trigger your negative behavioural patterns, your need to escape
the pain you are in won’t require the coping mechanism which then creates the
emotionally charged poor choices.
Blame
Blaming is the easiest way to not
confront the real issue, and it gives away all of your power as a human being.
For example, it’s easy to blame others for the stress which may cause you to
eat. But it’s more challenging to confront how you take stress on in the first
place, how to process it effectively instead of eating your way through the
problem in order to find happiness or safety. Happiness is never found at the
bottom of a bag of chips, or an ice cream carton.
Shame
Shame is the lowest resonating
human emotion. One level better is humiliation. The difference being that both
emotions can feel humiliated, but the difference is shame believes it was
deserved. When your own belief system believes the humiliation was deserved,
emotions can get caught in a downward spiral in an unrecoverable spin requiring
therapy and/or counselling. An authentic belief system of worthiness is vital
to avoid shame.
Where you carry your weight indicates what you
need to release
The body has muscle memory. Ask
any person who has lost weight, and gained it back. The weight comes back in
the same place. Where you carry your weight is indicative of what you need to
release in your life. When you freely release the mindset of why the body
thinks it needs the extra weight, good nutrition and exercise will attack the
cells in that particular part of the body to release it. For example, for Women carrying weight on
their mid section, the mindset is a lack of vulnerability. It’s a fear of being
attacked. Masculine energy stores the weight in that place because the individual believes they need it so they won't be bullied. Remove the belief system, and
you remove the issue.
You want to release weight, not lose weight.
Whatever you lose, you will
search for and find again. You don’t want to lose weight only to find it again.
Therefore, if you release the pattern, you will release the weight, and it
won’t come back. Losing weight and not releasing the patterns, means the
struggle with weight issues will become overwhelming, exhausting, and never
ending.
Weight has nothing to do with the weight.
Weight has everything to do with affirmations
and belief systems which work for you, not against you. Shifting the view of
weight, its judgments, excuses, and being defensive about it shifts your
energy to positive cells working inside of you in order to combat the negative
cells. If you feel good, you are likely to make good choices. Conversely, if
you feel badly, you are likely to make poor choices.
Don’t kid yourself, you are NOT happier being
heavier.
People who say they are happier
being heavy simply don’t want to look in the hard to reach areas of their lives
to do the work to be healthy. Your body is the only vessel you have on this
time around to carry you through life. If you feel happy about operating the
only vehicle you have in an abusive manner to the optimum operating style of
that vehicle, you are being self-destructive. That behaviour won’t ensure a
healthy life, and it will cause diseases and illnesses down the road.
Sure you might feel happier in the moment for eating that piece of cake, but it
doesn’t help you in the long run, and the coping mechanism will ensure it wins
again. When the coping mechanism wins, you lose.
Be Happy.
Being authentically happy is a
choice. Happy people make better choices than unhappy people. Unhappy people
need to regain their energy, so they resort to their learned coping mechanisms
and familiar patterns to get the results they have always gotten. Happy people
create energy with other people and their surroundings, which creates a feeling
of happiness and support. No need for coping mechanisms in this scenario, which
makes for better choices and healthier living.
I’m quite sure there were people
who stopped reading this article long ago because it was too confronting for
them. That’s certainly not my intention to shame or discourage anyone in their
personal battles. My intention is to use my experiences, sharing the insights
I have learned in the past 20 years interviewing people, and writing books.
If you would like to speak to me
more about your weight issues, or other issues holding you back, you can email
me at:
chuckbastie@gmail.com and I
will do my very best to get back to you.
