For some of you, you just checked your BMI and you are surprised by what it says. So I guess now you understand how I felt when I checked my BMI and it said I was Obesity Type 1. Like being fat was not bad enough, I was now an Obese Type 1 title holder. Before I go any further, it is very important that you do the
homework before you proceed to the next chapter. You will only get the most out of this book if you follow through each chapter step by step.
Finding out I was obese really hurt! Tears streamed down my face. I wept and wailed! Then I asked myself, “Remi, how on earth did you get here? How did I arrive at this horrendous size? How did I travel from M to L to XXL without realising it? If you are fat, then you need to ask yourself the same question. Please
don’t say what most of us say. “I eat late, I like swallow, I like fast food, I don’t like salads.” That is not why you are fat. Well you are fat as a result of eating those! But that is not the primary reason. You need to ask yourself why you really eat what and how you eat, without any restraints.
I was big for most of my life. I was never slim for long and when I was, it was not deliberate. But when I was 11, I was round and I had high BP, yes at ELEVEN. My parents involved me in all forms of sports; I swam, played tennis, soccer and was even a caddy for my dad while he played golf. I have brothers and they had male friends who we played with and that helped.
Please don’t think that I woke up at age 11 and decided I wanted to be slim and that all these outdoor sports suddenly became appealing. That wasn’t the case at all! The doctor made sure to scare the hell out of me. He said if I kept up with my lifestyle I could die at any time. No child wants to hear about death. He said I could no longer eat pringles!!! That was a big deal for me at the time. So I was motivated to lose weight and was healthy until I was 15. Then I lost my dad.
Suddenly food became my only pacifier and I just kept using food to deal with all my problems from then on, yes…ALL. From little things like being upset about being stuck in traffic to a break up to even a headache! I felt inclined to eat as eating gradually became a habit, then an addiction, even when I was not hungry or dealing with any issues, I would eat. It was like my mouth had to be constantly moving or I would not be okay. I added more weight. It affected my health and ultimately my self-esteem. Who survives without a good self-esteem? And who is fat and has a good stable self-esteem? I tried severally to lose weight but only in my mind. Every day I said “I will start tomorrow” and every morning, I had an excuse to postpone. The few times I was able to overcome myself, I would diet for a day or two, sometimes even go on a fast (I looked forward to the church announcing fasts, for me it was not about the spiritual journey but an opportunity to lose a few kilograms). It would work briefly and then a few weeks later I would be back to square one and sometimes add a little extra! That is what happens when you deal with the fruits and not
the root issues. I kept focusing on exercise and eating right and not dealing with the most important thing – my mind! I had to honestly assess myself and accept that I had Food Addiction, was obese and that diet and exercise was going to be futile if I didn’t deal with the root cause. Only then was I able to come up with a more progressive way to solve my problems. Losing weight and staying slim became easier, I said easier not easy.
It was certainly not easy. Unlearning any habit and overcoming any addiction is not easy but once you can
understand yourself and your motivations, it is easier to control. One thing that really helped me was the act of questioning every thought. For instance, if I found myself eating out with friends and everyone was ordering steak and fries and I felt like eating all the juicy fatty stuff, I would stop to ask myself questions like:
“Why do you want to order steak?”
“Because everyone is ordering?”
“So what if everyone is ordering?”
“I feel like they would be enjoying their meals and I won’t.”
“What is enjoyment? Eating something that you will feel
bad about and that cancels your 4 – hour work?”
“When I reach my goal, won’t I feel a lot better about eating? Will this meal finish on earth by the time I reach my goal?”
By the time I was done asking myself all these questions, I would find myself ordering a healthy meal, feeling good about it and not being tempted to eat whatever the others were eating. I was no longer a slave to my feelings. I also had to deal with using food as a pacifier. Any time I faced a challenge and I want to eat something, I asked myself questions like this:
“Are you upset?”
“Hell yes!”
“Why…?”
“Because…”
“What will eating do for you?”
“Make me feel better.”
“For how long?”
“Briefly.”
“How would you feel after eating?”
“Bad.”
“So you will be dealing with the previous challenge and the
new guilt of eating?”
“Yes.”
“What else can you do right now, that will help you get over the challenge.”
“Reading about it and seeing how people deal with it, or call someone who has dealt with this.”
(Whatever the issue is, from dealing with a difficult boss to overcoming allergies, there are always more progressive ways of dealing with everything.)
“I still want to eat.”
“I’ll just drink water and have carrots, no cake and ice cream.”
“Deal.”
This is a typical scenario of what goes on in my head. It has really helped me. However, the habit of pausing and questioning my intentions was something that took a while to develop, what happened before was me asking the questions and not waiting to hear the answers. I would just eat anyway. But once you start, it gets easier and faster to pause, ask and eventually it runs on autopilot.
Don’t attempt to lose weight until you solve the root cause of your current predicament. Ask yourself today, how on earth did I get here?
HOME WORK
1. Ask yourself, how on earth did you get here? Write the event or events that took place and understand the feelings and why you have those feelings. When you sincerely ask and answer those questions you’ll realise that it really isn’t an issue, you are simply suffering from what I call ‘uninvestigated thoughts’. Imagine me adding weight because my father died. He was now in peace, resting and wishing his baby girl the very best and there I was almost 15 years after still reliving his burial, using one event in my life to ruin the rest of my life. So what event or events are you still clinging to? What memory from yesterday are you dragging into your today? Write it down!
2. Ask yourself, “How do I intend to deal with these issues hence forth?” Ensure that whatever it is you choose, it makes you feel better about yourself. Will new information make you feel better? Read! Will exercise make you feel better? Exercise!
Will meditation help? Eating healthy? Remember to pay attention to how you feel, you may not be excited about it, unfortunately some of us become addicted to being sad and feeling sorry for ourselves so when we do something that makes us feel good, we find a way to ruin that. The good news is, whatever challenges
we may face, it is within us to overcome them.
Fitmua 