Life Changing Journey

I started following Paul McKenna’s plan for awhile…and although I kinda stopped for awhile for I-don’t-know-why, it’s always been back of my mind. Although I can’t afford his DVD and I was not able to watch all of his show on TLC, I found all the information on his website, www.mckenna.com. I posted the information on here, as I am going to read them again and follow them and hopefully it will help some of the visitors on here too.

Excerpt from www.mckenna.com

1. If it’s appropriate, close your eyes and think of someone who loves or deeply appreciates you. Remember how they look, and imagine they are standing in front of you now.

2. Gently step out of your body and into the body of the person who loves you. See through their eyes, hear through their ears, and feel the love and good feelings they have as you look at yourself. Really notice in detail what it is that they love and appreciate about you. Recognize and acknowledge those amazing qualities that perhaps you hadn’t appreciated about yourself until now.

3. Step back into your own body and take a few moments to enjoy those good feelings of knowing that you are loved and appreciated exactly as you are.

You can keep that inner feeling with you for hours and hours and re-run this exercise whenever you want to boost it. The more you do it, the easier it becomes, and eventually it becomes almost automatic to love and feel loved.

THE FRIENDLY MIRROR - INTRODUCTION

Everyone receives compliments and praise from time to time. Sometimes they may seem trivial, like ‘Hey, you’re looking great’ or ‘You look sharp today’. At other times they may seem quite significant, like ‘You are so sexy’, or ‘Do you know how much people respect you?’

Sincere, positive perceptions from others, which you might not have been able to see or fully appreciate from the point of view you had at the time, can be valuable in learning to appreciate your own qualities more fully and enhance your self-esteem now.

The next three techniques will help you to eliminate emotional hunger by enabling you to feel better and better about yourself every time you look in the mirror. Read through each technique several times until you know the steps and then go and do it. The entire process will take no more than ten minutes, and can be repeated as often as you choose.

Here are several techniques that will help you increase your self esteem and confidence right now. I have written out each step so you can read through them before you do them if you like.:

1. Think of somebody who you think likes what they see when they look at themselves. You don’t have to know this for a fact, but you suspect that when they look in the mirror they say nice things about themselves.
2. Imagine your model of beauty is standing in front of you. Imagine how they look, their posture, and as much as you can about them.
3. Next, close your eyes and imagine stepping in to them - right in to their body. Copy their body posture exactly and see through their eyes, hear through their ears and feel the confident happy feelings of self appreciation they have.
4. Take those good feelings and move them up to the top of your head and down to the tip of your toes, until you are totally covered in that good feeling.
5. Now, staying in touch with that good feeling, open your eyes and stare in to your eyes. DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR BODY - just keep staring in to your eyes for at least 2 minutes. This exercise re-calibrates the perceptual filter of your consciousness and allows your mind to see more clearly in the future.

When you get comfortable with part one, you can move on to part two:

1. Standing in front of a mirror with your eyes closed, recall a specific time when you were paid a compliment by someone you respect or trust. You don’t necessarily need to have believed the compliment at the time but you do need to trust the sincerity of the person who said it. Run through the experience all over again.
2. As you recall the compliment, and the sincerity of the person who said it, pay particular attention to your feelings of trust and regard for the other person.
3. When you feel that as strongly as possible, open your eyes, look in the mirror and really see what they saw. Allow yourself to see what someone else has seen and notice how that feels.
4. Finally, imagine taking a picture of yourself just like that. Imagine taking that picture right into your heart. Keep it there so that you can look at it whenever you want to remind yourself how good you can feel.

When you get comfortable with part two, you can move on to part three:

1. Each day, spend at least one minute looking at your body in the mirror. In an ideal world, you will do this without clothes, but if that doesn’t feel right at first, you may wear anything that reveals your basic shape.
2. Notice what thoughts come up, from ‘this is stupid’ to ‘God, I hate my thighs’ to ‘hmmm … not bad – not bad at all!’
3. Send love, approval and positive energy to the person in the mirror. Let them know that you’re on their side, and that your love for them is not dependent on the size of their thighs.

Remember to use these techniques every day and don’t be too surprised at how quickly you begin to notice the changes. For many people just moving from self-hate to a state of neutral self-acceptance is life-changing. Eventually, you will get all the way to love, and then the changes become even more dramatic.

As you begin actively to meet your own emotional needs, you will find your emotional hunger begins to diminish. As it does, eating only when you are truly hungry for food will become easier and more natural. You will become noticeably more confident and charismatic. Day by day, you’ll find yourself naturally doing things that you used to only dream of.

Excerpt from www.mckenna.com

**how do you tell the difference between a craving for chocolate and just wanting some like anyone else would from?

The difference between genuine physical hunger and emotional hunger or cravings is that physical hunger comes on gradually and emotional hunger is sudden. Also, if you feel that you’d rather like some chocolate, that’s very different to “I must have some chocolate now.” Likewise, if you can have one piece of chocolate and stop, that’s very different to a desire to demolish an entire bar. When you can look at chocolate and take it or leave it, you are truly in control. Use the craving buster technique or the emotional eating technique until you’re in a place where you’re more in charge than the chocolate.

If you are tempted to go and eat a snack, stop and ask yourself this  question:

Am I really hungry or do I just want to change the  way I feel?

If it turns out that what you actually want is a change in the way that you  feel, no amount of food will work as well as applying the two simple techniques  we are about to do.

1.  Clarify the emotion that you are finding uncomfortable.  Don’t be  distracted by thinking about WHY you are feeling it - just focus on the feeling  itself. Where in your body do you feel it? Are there certain situations, times,  places, or people with whom it tends to arise?
2.  Next, ask yourself what the feeling is about – what message does it  have for you? If you’re not sure, it’s OK to guess – whatever you guess will  inevitably come directly from your intuitive self.

3. Whatever the  message, let your unconscious mind know you’ve received it. If there is any  action to be taken, promise yourself you will take it as soon as possible –  ideally within the next 24 hours.

4. You’ll know you’ve correctly identified the emotion and its message when  the uncomfortable feeling begins to dissolve into the background and your  natural, confident sense of ease and well-being returns to the fore.

Here is technique to help you to overcome emotional hunger.

The Tapping Technique

1. I want you get the biggest desire for a food that you can right now. If you don’t have a big enough craving, put this technique to one side and come back to it when you’re really feeling it.

2. Focus on this craving for a moment, and when you’ve thought of that I’d like you to rate your desire for a food on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest. This is important, because in a moment we want to know how much you’ve reduced it.

3. On a scale of 1- 10, how strong is your craving? Remember, if you’re not really craving a bite (i.e. your craving is not at least a 7), come back to this technique later.

4. Now take two fingers of either hand and tap about ten times under your collarbone while you continue to think about eating.

5. Now tap under your eye ten times.

6. Now tap under your collarbone again.

7. Place your other hand in front of you and tap on the back of it between your ring finger and your little finger. Continue to think about your desire for food as you do this and each of the steps which follow:

Close your eyes and open them.
Keep your head still, keep tapping and look down to the right then down to the left.
Keep tapping and rotate your eyes round 360 degrees clockwise, and now 360 degrees anti-clockwise.

Remember to keep thinking about the food you were craving as you do this!

Now hum the first few lines of ‘Happy Birthday’ out loud.
Count out loud from 1 to 5.
Once again hum the first few lines of ‘Happy Birthday’ out loud.

8. Stop and check – on a scale from 1 to 10, what number is your craving at now?

If it hasn’t completely gone yet, just repeat this sequence again until it does.

1. Eat when you are hungry. (refer to the Hunger Scale below)

2. Eat what you want, not what you should.

3. Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful:

Put the knife and fork down whilst you are chewing your food and really enjoy it - savor the taste, and enjoy the wonderful textures and sensations as you thoroughly chew each mouthful of food at least 20 times!

4. Stop when full. (again, refer to the Hunger Scale below)

Hunger Scale.

First, decide how you’re feeling:

10: Nauseous. You are so full you feel nauseous.

9: Bloated. Very uncomfortably full. You need to loosen your clothes.

8: Stuffed. Uncomfortably full.

7: Full. A little bit uncomfortable.

6: Perfectly comfortable. You feel satisfied.

5: Comfortable. You’re more or less satisfied, but could eat a little more.

4: Slightly uncomfortable. You’re just beginning to feel signs of hunger.

3: Fairly hungry. Your stomach is rumbling.

2: Ravenous. Very uncomfortable. You feel irritable and unable to concentrate.

1: Physically faint. Weak and light-headed. Your stomach acid is churning.

Never go into the Redareas.

Generally, try to eat whenever you notice yourself between 3 and 4.

Put your fork down at 5 or 6 and wait until the next scheduled meal or snack.

If you’re trying to lose weight, stop at 5, the point at which you’re eating a little less than your body is burning.

First thing every morning have two tablespoons of lemon juice in

eight ounces of water. The water can be cold or hot or anywhere in between.

Of course, you sweeten it with an artificial sweetener. The citrus helps keep one from retaining fluids. “Minute Maid” frozen lemon juice (found in any grocery store’s frozen juice department) is the best as it had no preservatives or additives.

Following tip is from Jillian Michels:
Choose diuretic herbs, like dandelion seeds, green tea, sugar free cranberry juice.

Try eating a little celery, some asparagus, some cucumber, and put some lemon juice in water.

Also.. 60 ounces distilled water, 2 T lemon juice, 1 T sugar free cranberry juice, and 1 dandelion tea bag…drink in..every day for seven days.. (make sure to stay below 1500 of sodium)

Cutting out gum

Peppermint tea: good for diuretic and digestion

Yogurt (organic): add sobitol, crushed almond, cinnamon to Greek yogurt and make a good snack

Posted by Terri in MO in 3FC under TBL challenge forum “Black Team Challenge” Thread

Don’t Quit by Edgar Guest

Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint of the clouds of doub,
And when you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit -
It’s when things seem worst, you must not quit!

Well, My eating wasn’t that good today…but I did do 30 minutes of Cardio and sweat like a pig. It has been awhile since I’ve done the Cardio Party but I could tell I’m in better shape than before I started doing 30-Day Shred! Some movements in CP used to be difficult for me. Well, not difficult but I couldn’t do them because I was too out of breath. Not today. I did all of them and wasn’t too out of breath either. Thanks to 30-Day!

I had no fruit at home for the past 2 days, and no oatmeal. I finally went shopping ( I had to get b-day presents for my friend and my daughter’s friend ) and went to a grocery store. Grapes, strawberries, banana, and blueberries. Edamame, Tofu (0.99 special, couldn’t pass it!), Oatmeal, Greek yogurt (I tried to find them before but couldn’t and I found it today.. wasn’t as good as I thought but it was okay with some graham crackers and blueberries. I think it will be pretty good with some nuts, too), FF Yogurt, cheese block… As I was putting stuff at the register, I was looking through them again because the guy in front of me were looking at my stuff. I thought to myself, “Wow, my grocery looks like some health freak’s. Except the chips and dips for my bf and cheese for my DD.” I was very happy with myself I came home and got all the fruits clean, put them in ziplock bags and tupperware, freezed some of them and stuff… Which is also awesome. I used to buy groceries and just put them in the fridge, no clean up until it’s time to eat…and ending up throwing a lot away. Not anymore. Having them ready to eat helps me a lot to snack on them rather than snacking on my DD’s graham cracker. lol

Then went to graduation/b-day party of my friend. No alcohol. Just lots of water…but bad food. Oh well. I didn’t stuff myself, though, so that’s good, I guess.

I should hit the bed now…  

So my day didn’t start as I planned. I was going to do C25K but ended up working on stuff for work before going to picking up my daughter from the daycare. But I did get to go after I picked her up. Great! I got to go little further than the first time. Not by much, but at least it’s more. Then I had lunch and went and baked myself in the Sun. In the bikini.

I then wore a cute yellow shirt that I’ve been feeling very self-conscious wearing for a long time and now I’m not anymore. I wore it with a jean skirt. Same thing with the skirt. I didn’t wear the skirt last summer because of my elephant legs but today, I thought I actually looked good and my legs didn’t look so thick. Yay!
We went to this new Japanese restaurant right down the street to check out and guess what, it was owned by Korean family! It was a very nice place and I was pretty happy to find a nice sushi place right down the street too.

I also made some bean brownies and they are really good. I can’t even tell the difference! I know the calories are about the same as regular but at least it’s another way for me to get some fiber in.

I haven’t actually done the Hi-Def Sculpt yet but since it’s only 25 minute one, I’m gonna do it before going to sleep..which is now. If I feel like it, I may do 30-Day Shred, too, since it’s been 2 days now that I haven’t done it. I’m afraid if I don’t do it for too long, it’s going to be super difficult when I re-start.

Oh, and I got into an argument with my bf..again. Sigh. Whatever. I should put all the stress on the workout! I’m going now to workout. Just wanted to put the update on here.

**Edit: I just finished working out… and I did 25 minutes of Hi-Def Sculpt, 25 minutes of 30-Day Shred (I skipped the warm-up session since I did it right after the HDS), 10 minute of 10-Minute Solution for arm, and 10 minute of 10-Minute Solution Pilates for ab. So in total, I did 100 minutes of workout today! Wow! I don’t know..After HDS, I was just in the mood to keep going and going..and then remembered my flabby arm I saw earlier today in the car mirror so I went with the 10-Minute for arm and wanted to do some more ab workout bc I still have hard time with sit-ups on 30DS and I felt like I didn’t get enough ab workout… I’m so proud of myself.

30 minute C25K
25 minute Express version of Hi-Def Sculpt
25 minute 30 Day Shred
10 minute 10-Minute Solution Arm
10 imnute 10-Minute Solution Pilates Waist Slimmer

B: Oatmeal cookies
L: Chicken sausage with hotdog bug and grilled peppers
D: Sushi (oops but they were sooo good)
S: fruit