We are, according to the annual report, “F as In Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2011” released on Thursday by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), fatter than ever!  (Click HERE for report and MAP!!! See how your State weighs-in.)

2/3 + 1/3 = Two-thirds of all adults and about one-third of all children and teenagers in the United States are classified as overweight or obese.

30% Higher = Adult obesity increased in 16 states during the past year and obesity rates climbed to 30% or more in 12 states.  They are: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

7 years + 34.4% = Mississippi holds the dubious distinction, once again – 7 years running, as having the highest adult obesity rate at 34.4%.  On the low end of the scale, Colorado weighs in as the only state in the country with an adult obesity rate under 20%, at 19.8%.   No state showed a decrease in its obesity rate, and four years ago, only one state – Mississippi had an obesity rate over 30%.

Clearing what we’re doing about ‘it,’ isn’t working!  Here follows a few tips on how to look at obesity with a fresh set of eyes, from a new perspective.

F as in Big FAT Paradigm Shift Needed – FAST! NOW! HURRY!

To those “in-charge,” who are implementing food and exercise programs, I’d like to say, you’ve got it all wrong.

Thus far, your approach to “weight loss” has only served to “Keep America Fat,” so much so that could be your slogan!

Here follows my top permanent fat removal tips in hopes that the tectonic plates in your collective minds will loosen, shift and lift, and you awake with clear view and a new perspective on ‘weight loss.

Fatten the Statistical Pie or Permanently Remove Fat:
Your Choice

1. Let’s move away from the usual weight loss dialogue, speak a new language, and I don’t mean French.
Your Words. As I mentioned above, permanent fat removal is different than losing weight. If you lose weight, you will find it.

Think about the word ‘loss.’ If we lose something, we search for it. We mourn it. We feel loss. We tend to hold on to things in fear of loss. And further who wants to lose their weight. Weight can equal substance, importance.
If the word ‘fat’ jars you, get over it. Let me ask you. Would you prefer to lose weight or permanently remove fat? Speaking of which, do patients say to their plastic surgeons, “I’d like to lose weight.” No, they say, “suck that fat outta’ me.”

More on words (or moron words): ‘Try’ to lose weight. If I say I’m going to try and make your dinner party, don’t set a place for me. When one tries, it is a way (weigh) out! As Yoda from Star Wars says, “Do or do not. There is no try.”

“I struggle” with my weight. You have just identified yourself with struggle. “Try” getting someone to give up their identity! That, my friends, is “difficult.” While I won’t say Permanent Fat Removal is easy, it’s as “difficult” or “hard” as you want to make it.

That’s just for starters (like the first course). Plenty more words floating out there that are used that do not support our permanent fat removal efforts. Words organize our reality and have more power than you might realize.

2. Add Laughter and Fun to Your Statistical Pie. “What IS she talking about? Laughter, fun, permanent fat removal?” Puzzled are you?

You are all so serious merious about the whole thing. Who’d want to jump on the proverbial bandwagon with you?
According to the legendary Bob Newhart, “Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with and then move on.” Humor and laughter also activate the will to live, lower stress, elevate mood, improve brain function, dissolve anger, burn calories and exercise muscles.

Isn’t that something that should be added to America’s Permanent Fat Removal recipe?

3. Permanent Fat Removal Is a HOLISTIC Event. What about the rest of the pie? You keep focusing on food and exercise as THE way to lose weight.

Like hello. Food and exercise are merely two slivers of the pie. Permanent Fat Removal encompasses all areas of life. It’s about how each and every part of our life affects our healthy lifestyle and how our healthy lifestyle affects each and every part of our life. Further, if one is lacking and lagging and troubled in their relationship, finance, career, spirituality, creativity, physical environment slices of life pie, how will they gather enough strength and fortitude to make meaningful lifestyle changes? Let’s focus on, talk about all of life as we permanently remove fat!

4. Permanent Fat Removal Is a Creative Process. People tell me that they are not creative. PEOPLE (Yes, I’m fired up and almost yelling – well, speaking in a strong and amplified manner)… PEOPLE create their lives. Whether we want to look at life squarely in the face and waist or not, we created our lives. Creativity is an essential part of the human experience. It helps us to create balance and order and a sense of control. And, I’d like to point out that those who have being ‘trying’ to get America to lose weight and get fit, are somehow creating the opposite.

5. Pushing Off the Proverbial Pool. Have you ever watched an Olympic swimmer push off the side of the pool? (How about Michael Phelps?) It is quite amazing, isn’t it? The thrust, the power, their determination is enormous. Often the strength of this one solitary push can propel the Olympian right straight the middle of the Olympic sized pool.

When we decide to go on a ‘diet,’ we essentially push off from the side of the pool of discontent. We gather a vast amount of energy from not liking ourselves, being disgusted, and ashamed of how we look. We don’t like ourselves. No, we sure don’t. Sometimes this energy takes us half way to our goal weight. Sometimes all the way … 10, 20, 30, 100, 200 pounds lost. Then what?

Unlike the Olympic swimmer who has a plan; who is moving toward her big win; who sees herself as a champion and knows with every cell and fiber of her being that she is the victor, we only know ourselves to be losers. We are basing this attempt on past attempts to lose, which have failed.

It is easy to get lost if you don’t know where you are going.
If we want to be victorious at the game of Permanent Fat Removal, then we need to focus on our compelling future. We need to know where we are going; what we want. We need to be moving toward something positive instead of expending enormous energy pushing away from negativity. Go with the flow of life. Negativity is like swimming with lead weights tied to your ankles.

6. Speaking of the often-dreaded “E” word. A good number of Americans do not exercise at all. “Can we please start croquet teams across America?” I ask, in an exasperated tone. Let’s just get people out of their homes, away from their televisions and computers and have some fun while doing it. Oh, NO! There’s that fun word again.

Do you think going to a gym and walking on a treadmill is fun for the majority of us? Like HELLO again. Croquet teams would be great! Jackets that say Kick in the Tush Club* (that’s a fun name) on them! Miniature golf and bowling are other possibilities. Think ‘getting out’ first. What fun and inspiring activities can we create that will get people out and having fun? Let’s talk about aerobics and exercise later (maybe). I’m not saying that exercise isn’t vital to one’s health. I’m just saying, let’s captivate imaginations, excite people, bring the energy up, and get people out and moving first.

*The Kick in the Tush Club is a club that I created. Members receive a weekly e-letter from Our Lady of Weight Loss via my website (www.ourladyofweightloss.com). Over 14,000 people across the nation signed-up for their weekly Kick. Truly, who couldn’t use a kick in the tush?

7. Permanent Fat Removal Is a Spiritual Event. It is about self-love, forgiveness, connecting to and manifesting your higher-self – a new self. It’s about taking care of yourself; being kind to yourself … being gentle and embracing self.

It’s not about saying self-deprecating things to self, heaping platters of guilt on oneself or feeling sad that you’re not a super-model, or even a model, or even a large-sized model for that fact. It’s about acceptance.

8. The Collective Fat Removal Consciousness. There’s a lot of industry and money floating out there that support ‘weight loss.’ Yes, they support your losing weight and finding it. The weight loss industry alone (diet programs and products) brings in more than $40 billion per year. Add in the pharmaceuticals, the food industry, and those who make those less-than-healthy ingredients for the food industry (i.e. high fructose corn syrup, enrich flour, et al.) and geeze louise, you’ve got the economy hanging itself by a fat rope. A new industry that makes more money has to be born.

9. The Fair Grounds. Please stop deep frying Twinkies. Please stop going out of your creative way to deep fry everything, sometimes double deep fried. Please stop putting caffeine in chips. Or crispy fried chicken skins in little colorful bags that say 90 calories per serving on the nutritional label (4 servings per bag). Why not just put the full calorie count? Why be so dubious? Play nice. Be fair!

10. The After Math. What will you do after you lose weight, aside from find it? A member of my Kick in the Tush Club wrote me and asked what I thought about gastric bypass surgery. I told her that this was her personal choice. And then I asked her what she was going to do after she lost the weight. How would her life be different? How might she feel to be half (the size) of what she was? What might look like, sound like? How might her experience of herself and her life change? What is it that she was really after? Her response was “Wow, no one has asked me any of those questions. I don’t know the answers. I need to think about those questions.” Yes, we all need to think past the weight loss, lest we find it. What will you do after you permanently remove your excess fat? And I’m not talking about your maintenance plan, wherein you get to eat an additional 100 calories per day, maybe 200.
Well, there you have it. My top ten list of ways we no longer have to wait to weigh less, how to permanently remove fat, have fun while doing same and create a paradigm shift.

Spread the word … NOT the icing!

Janice
wise * fun * utterly useful

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