Fat Loss 4 Idiots

I know I have said somewhere on my blog that fat people bother me because the extra weight they carry, to me, signifies a lack of control over their lives. But contrary to what some people imagine, I am not at all against or discriminatory against fat people. In fact, a really good friend of mine from my schooling days has been obese all her life. But that has not stopped me from being a good friend to her! Even if I wished she was thinner (ie visibly more in charge of her life), it is the person she is inside that matters more to me.

Still, it was a wonderful day indeed when she called me and told me about this online program, Fat Loss 4 Idiots, which she has been on. She has been on a secret mission to lose all that extra weight and she was actually making it happen this time. The reason why she did not tell me about her plans was that she has tried multiple online programs such as Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, and she had failed. Not this time. And the proof was in the photos she sent me - she looked so much slimmer. She told me that she has lost 30 pounds in 30 days!


Amazing! I don't usually buy into all of these weight loss gimmicks - I believe in hard work and proper diet. But then again, I have been trying to lose my extra 5 pounds for ages by pounding away at the gym for 1 hour, three times a week, and not seeing any real difference. So my friend's recent photos of her slimmer self was the motivating factor.

I got myself into the program - and I recommend it! The site itself is cool - attractive colourful cartoons, and it explains things in an easy to understand manner reminiscent of the XX for Dummies book series. But there is nothing idiotic about the subject matter.


Actually, this program may be more beneficial to those of us trying to lose some weight rather than for the grossly overweight - the program targets 9 pounds in 11 days, and focuses on the food we eat rather than exercise. Those who have to lose a lot of weight should incorporate exercise routines as well, but that is not the focus here. Nevertheless, it does contain valuable information on food intake, which the grossly overweight could use. For the rest of us, sometimes it is changing what we eat rather than those extra hours at the gym that will help us lose that tough bit of extra pounds we need to.

Excerpt of the type of information proposed in the program:

"You are overweight for the most simple of reasons -- because you're eating the wrong foods, the wrong types of calories per meal, and you're also eating meals in the wrong patterns each day. Think closely about what we're about to tell you, since it's going to change the way you think about dieting. FOOD is more powerful than any prescription weight loss pills, because the FOOD that you eat can either make you THIN or FAT. You don't get fat because of a lack of exercising, that's a myth. You get fat because you don't eat the right foods at the right intervals each day. Also, the pattern that you choose to eat your meals each day is more powerful than any prescription weight loss pills. This is true because your body is like an "engine" and it only needs certain foods at certain intervals each day, and if you don't eat the right foods at the right times then it won't burn those calories -- and you'll wind up storing those calories as fat tissue. (Hint: You need to eat more than 3 times per day to lose weight, but we'll show you the details later).You have gotten overweight by eating the wrong foods, that much is a fact. And guess what? You can get SLIM by eating the RIGHT FOODS at the RIGHT INTERVALS each day. It's not really any more complicated than that, and the way to start losing weight has nothing to do with starving yourself or jogging ".

And I liked their list of Top Fat Burning Foods! Not bad at all :)

The Problem of Hoping and Waiting

You know the popular saying that says each day is a new beginning? I used to have a poster with that very saying emblazoned on it. I have probably lost the poster in one of my many moves. But I do think I live my life in such a fashion - telling myself that each day will herald a new beginning to a better, happier and more successful life. And when things are particularly bad, I may rant and rave during the day, but I still go to sleep hoping that the next day will better.


Frankly, the next day is never any better. I still wake up to confront the same old issues that I faced the night before, the weeks, months and even the years before. Slowly, the hope that the next day will be better diminshes. And I am left with an inner void because the voice that motivates me to hope is now muted.

But I cannot shut it out all the time. I do hear the voice occasionally, but I mostly choose avoid it because acknowledging the voice is painful. It is painful because the hopes the voice speaks of only serve to remind me what I am not, it reminds me of what I have not done, but mostly it reminds me that I am what and where I am because of myself.

I have come to realise that my hopes have been worth nothing actually because I never truly believed in them. And therein lies my problem. If I had believed in my hopes, I would have acted to achieve them. Not wait around hoping that it would happen spontaneously through no effort of my own.

As Alice Koller wrote in her book, An Unknown Woman, "I've arrived at this outermost edge of my life by my own actions. Where I am is thoroughly unacceptable. Therefore, I must stop doing what I've been doing".

I know I should not continue to wait for something to happen when I do not believe it ever will. Instead, I should work on the objectives and things that I actually believe and have faith in, the things I can control, affect and succeed in through my own efforts. And abandon those objectives and things I never will.

I am reading Alice Koller's autobiographical novel, An Unknown Woman. When she wrote it, she was a thirty something woman, who felt the urgent need to reassess her life. She secluded herself in a house in Nantucket with her dog as her sole companion. In her solitude, she wrote the book about her journey to discover who she was and who she wanted to be.

It is a remarkable book. Mabye because I am at a similar place as she was - that is, trying to find oneself.

Certain sections of the book stand out for their profound insights:

"Even when I choose some future good toward which these present minutes point, I won't let there be hours that I only tolerate. I won't ever again put up with unthinking habit or being bored, or ugliness in things or persons. I have nothing important to do, but I have no time to waste marking time. Each thing I touch or see or smell or taste or hear during my day must give me the sense of something good in the doing.

Nor are there things to wait for, except things that I myself set in motion now. Waiting? Why, the stupendous thing I used to wait for was something that was going to be done to me, or for me: to be initiated by someone else, independently of my choice. But there isn't a someone else to make things hapen to me: I'm the only person who can do what I decide needs to be done. And besides, there is no reason for anyone else to do anything at all for me, particularly something as glorious as that thing I expected.

So on two counts waiting is irrelevant. Nothing to wait for, because I'll initiate what happens to me. Nothing to wait for, because these minutes now passing are my life. They are the minutes in which my living is to be done. Whatever I do, I'll do in my own time, and I will do it."

No more waiting.

Time to move on.