Emotions

Question from Misty on the FB page: Just curious for those of you when you started the HCG diet/drops does it really matter what you eat for your 500 calerie a day? or is it okay just to stray a bit? someone told me 4 pieces of melba toast to me that is a waste of 200 caleries. Can the 200 caleries be consumed elsewere or do you have to stick to the 2 fruit 2 vegi 2 meat and 4 melba toast???



When I first started HCG, I completely stuck with the plan that I was given by my nutritionist, Tami. I did *everything* to the T, dotted my i's and so forth.

I have since discovered that there are more "plans" out there for following HCG than I have pairs of socks. All of them work for someone, but not all of them will work for YOU or ME.

The biggest take-away that I've learned from following HCG and what to do if I have a question is to listen to my own body. The advice coming from others is what works for their bodies and that's the only advice they can give. But, ultimately, the outlined plan they follow may not work for your body. You just have to listen to it and fiddle with the best outcomes!

But the listening part is the absolute most important thing you can do. It also seems to be the hardest thing each of us needs to learn, too. In fact, the listening part is more about your emotions, rather than your stomach and we all want to avoid actually feeling what we really feel.
I was just looking at the books I have here at home & that I've got set as ones I recommend in the Less of Me store. Four out of 11 books are about emotions and feelings.

Nearly TWENTY-FIVE percent! Look for yourself: http://astore.amazon.com/lessofme-20?node=7&page=1

What's remarkable to me is that we need to be reminded that giving attention to that which we keep running from will ultimately set us into balance - the point we're all striving for - having a healthy happy body, freedom of guilt at eating that "bad" food.

There's two key words there in that last paragraph: Balance & Freedom.

To get those things into our lives for really, though, we must step forward and recall the emotions that set us out of balance. When we work through those emotions, we also work through the driving force of why we're out of balance with food. Until that happens, no matter how great the diet is, it will ultimately fail - even HCG.

Emotions

Someone wrote in to ask:

How do you keep from comparing yourself to others. This is a total mental issue. I really want to lose my weight but I want to work out after Phase 2 and be healthy. I just feel like if I don't do as good as others, then why bother!! You have been so amazing and have come so far so I just wondered if you ever had big troubles with this and how you overcame them? So, I know it's a mental thing and I probably need to just not worry about it.

I also wanted to tell you though that your mindset about knowing your body and not being so anal about "protocol" has been HUGE help for me in the last few days. If I feel like I need to mix my vegies I do it...no big deal! :)

Thanks for being so awesome and supportive.


Here's what I replied:

Comparing yourself to others is the result of years and years of media (tv, magazines, etc) and social training. It's emotional. The root of it is generally that some where as you were growing up, you bought into the "fact" that you're not good enough being yourself. You learned that [you think] you have to be better than or as good as someone else to be a "valid person" or even just to be loved.

A wise lady said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." It was Eleanor Roosevelt. She said a lot of things like that, too. It must have been her basic message to the world that whatever media or "other people" have to say, what really matters is what you feel is right. In fact, she's the one who said, "Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't."

How do YOU feel about where you are? If you feel great then you need to just tell the onlookers that it's your body and you're happy, so they should be happy with you. Only you can give the power to others to make you feel one way or another. Ultimately, they don't live in your body. They live in theirs. It's up to you to decide what's right and what's wrong with your body.

Bodies, feelings, and emotions are a lot like religion to me. All are very personal, all can be contraversial. All must be defended at some point. And all of them have to be about your choices. They can't be left to someone else telling you what end is up. You have to decide that for yourself. I wouldn't want anyone else deciding what path I'm going to take in this life that will decide how/when/if I get to my happily ever after life. I refuse to allow anyone else to decide what my emotions are going to be. They're my feelings and, even if they're innappropriate, I have the right to feel them. My body is the same way. It's *mine* and I have the right to experience it in *my* own way.

For myself, my "ideal" weight, based on what the gov't puts out, is around 140#. Personally, I think I'll look like an absolute skeleton there and refuse to go below 160. (That amount of fat on my body, btw, puts me in the "obese" category still. lol.) When I get close to that number, I'll be closely monitoring how I FEEL in my own skin. It may be that my magic number, where I'm most comfortable is closer to 175. Ultimately, though, the point is that I want to be happy, healthy, and honor my body and self.

After all, if *I* won't honor what my body tells me is right, I'd still be out of balance & off-center.

My Mom doesn't want to go below 170. It puts her about a size 14, where she's very comfortable. She feels strong there and enjoys how she looks, feels, and is emotionally "perfect" around that size. She feels lovable there. She feels confident, secure, and GOOD at that size/weight. For someone else, that would be too high, but it's not about someone else. It's about her experience in her body and about honoring her emotions and feelings.

What you're up against is real and you need to examine where it came from, then relive it as much as you can and reprogram that instant so you can release it and do what's right for you, your body, and your emotions rather than what someone else has done or tells you.

As far as my mindset about not being anal about protocol goes, the object is to get to "Less of Me" any way we can. I do try to stay close to protocol, but I'm certainly not going to beat myself up over mixing veggies or anything else outside of it. As long as I'm seeing "Less of Me" in the mirror, does it really matter if I ate some onions and tomatoes with my lettuce? lol. Some days, you just need a little more wiggle room. Some days, you need to feel like you're getting spoiled so you can stay on protocol over the long term. :) Knowing my body is more important than blindly following what a doctor set up ages ago, who doesn't know about the quality of food today, who didn't design the protocol for women to begin with, and who's no longer with us to adjust the diet to take those things into account.

That's up to us now.

So, whatever works for me and I see "Less of Me" in the mirror and clothes, I'll let everyone else know what I did (and that it's not necessarily "on" protocol), as well as the results I got from it. :)

I hope that helps out!

Thanks,

~Jay

Mental blocks for waiting to start HCG

A mental block related to fear of failing to stick to it this next time? Failing is not a negative thing, Barbara! It's an option to learn from what you did that gave you what you didn't want to have. That's all it is. A learning opportunity. You have more in your toolset now than you did during the holidays AND you've recognized that you need to honor yourself, too. (Else you'd not be able to see that you even have the mental block.)

If you were to get everything you needed, then wait for youself to tell you you're ready - you'd win! :)

Hypnosis - think it'll help?

There's gobs of weight release stuff out in the world and all of it has you focus on the one thing that you want gone. It's my personal belief that what you focus on is what you get most of.

With that in mind, I want to share a couple of tools that I use to focus on what I want rather than what I don't want. You know what I want, right? I think it's the same thing you want right now. To be happy, healthy, and excited about my life! HCG is a critical piece of that puzzle: Health.

But health isn't only about the body. It's about the mind and spirit, too. The mind and the spirit are actually what creates the form you have (body), so it's only appropriate that we go looking there first for the root issues to resolve.

I use meditation, yoga, self-hypnosis, quantum touch, qi gong, reiki, and EFT to get in touch with the mind and the spirit. The happier I am there, the happier my whole life seems to be. Of all those, hypnosis is the easiest to give someone else because Wendi (wendi.com) already has a few videos up covering a few of the topics I want to touch on.

So, I plan to share a tool with you each day clear until Turkey Day... We'll start with:

Release Negative Anchors

Wendi asks, "Feeling bad? Maybe it is because you have triggers that make you feel bad and have anchored your emotions into them. Change it!"

P3, Day 11: Anti-Climax

You know, I got on the scale the morning and I am right back to the lowest weight I got to. It's like a magnet. That's what I'm supposed to be doing - being stable - but I find that after all the excitement of big losses during Phase 2, I feel like it's an anti-climactic moment in time.

I'll be at this weight until Jan 2, 2010, when I start the second round. The cool part about that round is that I'll have company! Mom and (I think) my Aunt will be joining me. Of course, they're already little skinny Minnies compared to me. Hehehe.

I actually planned this long lull between rounds so I could "test" the maintaining promise in the Protocol. I should be celebrating that I'm stabilizing, but I find that I'm mourning the fact that I'm not losing any more.

What an emotional state to be in! UGH!

The grass is always greener...

*******

Of course, the grass is always greenest where you water it. I better start watering on my side of the fence. :)