How Drug Addiction helps us understand Obestiy

This is an awesome read. Worth the $3.99 to rent it for 48 hours or purchase it at $10. This talks about how we can use what we know about drug addiction to aid is in the treatment of obesity. I have known this since I got sober almost 10 years ago as I am a recovering alcoholic/drug addict and food addiction is exactly the same, and quite literally does result in early mortality as well. If you are a wellness practitioner and still think obesity comes from too many calories in, too few calories out and laziness, please think again. It is not until we get rid of that thinking that we are truly able to help people!! http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/nn1452?utm_campaign=readcube_access&utm_source=nature.com&utm_medium=purchase_option&utm_content=template2

When you fall down, get your ass back up! Not tomorrow…today…NOW!

Which is harder to turn: a moped or a cruise ship? …That’s right people: a moped! Why am I asking this very strange question?

Well, let’s talk about a lapse in our healthy eating for a few moments shall we? If you are anything like me, for nearly my whole life I have used 1 “slip” in my eating as an excuse to get back on the crazy train shoving donuts, candy, and cakes down my throat like a lion. I am not condoning detours from our clean diet (I call it a diet but I do not mean some short term bullshit diet that you never plan to continue. I mean my lifelong healthy eating commitment), as for me I have no idea where those detours will end. Sometimes they are a short jog off the path and other times they include me driving off a damn cliff and digging myself into a whole that is very difficult to escape. (See the picture below. That’s me 2 years ago and today…2 years after having my child. I gained almost 100 pounds (yes you read that correctly 100 POUNDS) while pregnant due to binge eating. I don’t know when that binge started but I was eating away pain for many reason at that time in my life and continued to do so after the baby. My mom died when the baby was 3 months old and I left her dad when she was 10 months old…and that used to be my excuse. But that’s exactly what it is: an excuse. There’s never any valid reason for binge eating; it is simply an old habit, deeply ingrained, an addiction that runs my entire life when I choose to let it.

Maybe you aren’t like me. Maybe you can eat a donut here and there or a candy bar every once in a while. Well that’s fantastic: you’re what we call a “normie” and I envy you to an extent. Then there are those of us that are quite literally addicted to certain foods and when that food triggers something inside us, well, we never know where it will lead. As a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, sober for many years, I will tell you that it’s the exact same thing as a relapse to drinking or drug use…pretty powerful statement but totally true.

Ok so back to the question of the moped. When we pick up 1 donut, we’re still on the moped; we can turn that thing pretty easily. So turn that thing around and get back on the road! Too many of us use that one donut as an excuse: see I’ll NEVER be able to do this (that’s my favorite); I may as well just give up now; I already have one so what’s another 100? The list goes on and on you see, and pretty soon we’re trying to turn a damn cruise ship to get back on track. By that time, we are so low and guilt-riden, full of self-hatred, that it takes an act of god to make even the slightest movement toward health. Our self-esteem is shot to hell and although we want to change so badly, we reminisce about the days we were doing so well, we simply can’t seem to get a foothold again. I’ve been there more times than I’d like to remember, 100’s at least, if not 1000’s.

But let me be honest with you people: get off the fucking pity pot and stop playing the victim. That’s right, that’s exactly what we do when we begin whining and crying: oh poor me I’ll never be able to do this; oh poor me I’m just going to give up. That’s bullshit. Pick your ass back up and get back on the train. You choose how far you want to fall. Don’t allow a tiny slip to turn into a dive down Niagara Falls for god’s sake. There’s absolutely no reason for this kind of insanity, which is exactly what it is by the way. We do the same thing over and over and over even though we know it causes us nothing but pain, and I’m not even talking about what it does to our body and our mind.

Here’s the way to avoid having to get back on the horse…ready for it?? Don’t ever get off! BAM. There it is people, the answer to all of our problems. But if it were that simple, you wouldn’t need any help; we wouldn’t need each other. You certainly wouldn’t need a personal trainer, life coach, or friends to guide you along the way. For the vast majority of the population (myself included), we fall down, we get bruised, we hurt, and when we hurt enough, we make a change. And usually this repeats time and time again, until we finally say I don’t want to hurt anymore, I have enough bruises. I GIVE UP. And when we truly give up, when we surrender to the fact that we aren’t like everyone else, we can’t have just one, we have to stay on the path, well that people is when true freedom comes!

Wherever you are in your journey, you can, probably you MUST change. Your health depends on it of course. Unfortunately that’s not enough of a motivator for most of us. Really, your mind, your mental health, having any peace, depends on it even more I’d say. Stop bitching and being a victim and compaining it’s just too hard. You know what’s even harder? Staying stuck in a body and a mind that aren’t yours anymore, being controlled by food or our old habits. Don’t believe that it takes 21 days to make a new habit bullshit. I had a lifetime of binge eating and food addiction; 21 days is a damn good start but it doesn’t end there. Push on. When you fall, get up immediately, don’t play in the dirt and roll around in it. Then it just takes longer to dust yourself off.

You can do this people. I promise you can do it. No 1 can tell me it can’t be done because I have done it. But it is nearly impossible to do this alone. I have never been successful at it. 1 of the main reason I started vitness is becau   se I wanted to create a global community of wellness where people can build relationships with a personal trainer, yoga instructor, meditation leader, counselor and make the changes necessary to save our own lives. There are millions of people suffering in silence, at home in front of their computers yearning for help, but too afraid to reach out. Somehow meeting someone virtually to begin the journey seems less threatening. There’s no 1 else at gym watching, there’s no pressure or fear, it’s just you and your practitioner, beginning the journey toward a better life.

There is no quick fix. Those pictures, that change has come from hard ass work, painful and trying at times, falling down a lot but always getting back up. I was completely addicted to prescription diet pills many years ago; it was the smallest I’d ever been but I was so addicted and crazy that I rarely left my house. This change has come from nothing artificial, no gimmicks, and definitely no quick fixes. It  has been a slow process. I had no goal to lose 100 pounds in 3 years. To be honest, I also had no hope that I would ever be small again…but here I am. So don’t tell me there’s no hope and you can’t do it. There is always hope. You can do so much more than you think you can do; your body can and will change.

There is no tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. There is no next week, or I’ll start on Monday. All of those ideas simply prolong the misery. There is right now, right freakin now. Do something now. Be proactive. Take responsibility for your own life. We’re all in this thing together.Peace, love, and light. 1 love!