Have you ever got up and went…”I really don’t want to move today.”  Then thought no, I really have to get up and do something and then your mind and body has fought against you. Has that ever happened to you.

Certainly has happened to me…

The overriding oppression of your thoughts to have to do something has a trigger on your body.  The trigger could be a sudden pain in your body, lethargy… anything really, you just name it.  When you put on lots and lots of weight, it becomes mentally harder to overcome those triggers in your body.  Even when you first start exercising, you will feel pain in your muscles and body just because of the natural changes that occur in exercising your body but as overweight people we tell ourselves that what we have done is enough or we warn ourselves that this pain could lead to an injury so we pull back.  We literally self-sabotage ourselves.

For many years I have watched biggest loser and seen contestants literally stop and throw a tantrum because their own feelings and body have said they can’t do whats being asked of them, but in reality the opposite is true.  When we recognise that this is happening in our body and we can become aware of it…. some real changes in your life can come about.

Trying to oppress the feelings you have of not wanting to do something will work for a period however I have found that you can only do that for a short period of time and then the old habits come back with a vengance. Often the emotions will be so strong that you will digress into the old habits. 

How do we motivate ourselves … well the key in reality is to recognise when our body is sabotaging us.  Let’s say right now I say to you…. “I want you to get up from infront of your computer and go for a walk?”

What was your instant reaction? Was it…”Great Idea” or ” nah will do it later”.  Did you feel guilt?  Do you think you should and now you feel guilty?  All of these feelings are valid.

Now try this… are you aware of those feelings.  Take a moment to step out of your body and look back in.  What do you feel? What thoughts are happening?

Can you see and feel them…. if you can then you are now aware of them… you are not them.  This is really important because if you allow them to control how you feel then your outcome will be as it has before. Are those thoughts valid?

Chances are, that as you are becoming aware of what you are feeling, you might be thinking, “Hold on why can’t I get up and go for a walk?”  If you do, you are now the “I” and not your emotions. Using this knowledge, just let the emotions of you not wanting to do it be set aside, but importantly don’t suppress them. Let  your “I” awareness motivate you to get out and do it.

I have been playing with this for a little while and I have found that once I become aware and not let my emotions overide what I am really capable of, I can achieve so much more.  Yesterday, I used this on my weights in pump and did 20kg on the squats, back, chest and shoulders.  It was remarkable just what you can do.

I am finding the more that I move away from suppressing my emotions and just setting them aside, I have much more clarity in my life and I seem to be able to achieve so much more.  Not just in my fitness and training but in my day to day life, plus I am not eating as much so I am seeing results in my weight.  Go figure.

Well … today has been awesome, have been up and done pump plus completed a 6 km walk and then I will be back for another class this afternoon.  It has definetly been an awesome day.

I wrote yesterday to a good friend of mine, Edward.  In my letter I shared with him some of my thoughts on the failings of the whole self-help industry….. I realised as I awake  that most of the people in the industry are in fact asleep.  The whole approach to the industry is about one key thing ….. suppression.  As we suppress things, like our emotions, like our goals, our dreams, guess what happens…. they push back twice as hard, so whilst many people get short term results … they revert back to their old habits. Suppression simply doesn’t work…. it hasn’t worked for me so their has to be a missing piece.

Its something that I am truly exploring in my journey…. some really strange things are happening to the way I am feeling but seemingly what I am achieving.

Even in the journey of weightloss and the whole challenge thing… the whole approach to exercise is about pushing yourself.  I don’t prescribe that you don’t need to challenge yourself during training, because of course this is 100% true.  Without stress on your muscles your body won’t develop.

But what if we don’t need to push your mind …. what if through self-observation we recognise why we aren’t motivated, why our body is tricking us into believing that we can’t exercise and through that observation we can just simply override that feedback.

If we could simply do that, wouldn’t that make us…. unstoppable, unbeatable.

I tested this thought this morning…. I was shocked at how powerful the I, mind and body is.  Everybody knows that I have been unable to do Burpees since I was probably 14.  Whilst observing my thought processes, I challenged my mind by proposing the question …. “Why can’t you do a Burpee?”

The answer to the question astounded me…. “I was over weight… my muscles wouldn’t support me…..I wouldn’t be able to get back up, my stomach would get in the way.”  Wow what a depressing response.  I observed these thoughts and the emotions they brought up.  Whilst my mind responded with these answers, I could feel the tinge of pain in my lower back… How absolutely bizarre!

The “I” in me then set about, releasing all of these thoughts and emotions. I literally set aside these emotions and I actually did 10 proper burpees.  No pain…. fully correct… Down and then legs out and back and then back up. Not just down and one leg out, both at the one time.

I wonder how much we allow our emotions and thoughts kill off our goals.  I am starting to see that our approach to goals, success and more may actually be holding us back.  Maybe this is what all the great mystics have been trying to tell us.   This is truly an awakening.

I wonder what else I can really do…. what I have been holding back.

Looking at my goals… even the big ones… I see how I have been pushing against them.  From losing my weight to getting back into diving…. to having a child…. I have pushed against them…. instead of letting them go.  You know something…. my weight is dropping off easily at the moment.   Go figure, even though I have never had so much stress and pressure like never before… yet I I know its there but I am not allowing it to control me.

I feel a sense of peace……

I have been talking to a number of people who have done the 12 Week Challenge and reading up on the people who have done the Biggest Loser and I am amazed at some of the things being said.

Yesterday I read on TV Week how Margie the winner of biggest loser had as soon as she was weighed for the last time, rushed out to have a few pizzas and a beer and had probably put on a few kilos. (To read the article on TV Week – Click Here).

I have heard similar stories and read it on Facebook how many people have been out and had big meals, had more chocolate, drunk lots etc. Literally letting themselves be free of the  control of the challenge… so the question begs have they really  achieved a success or simply undertaken the work for a short term goal instead of a long term achievement.

The next thing question begs…. should we really care. Do we label that short term achievement a success or failure?

I have heard the calls of depression and disappointment on Facebook where people have said, “I am dissappointed I had a pizza” or “I feel bloated cause I ate that food”.  Those negative thoughts will then feed to more negative thoughts and that is the one challenge I believe none of the programs out there really deal with.

You know in the end, it doesn’t matter whether you succeed or fail.  They are only just labels.  The real problem is when we allow people to brainwash us into believing we have succeeded or failed.

I know when I went quiet and stopped writing, I heard people saying I failed and that I wasn’t successful and I was all talk.  Mmmm… what lovely things people say. Do you know something… what you think of me is none of my business. Your labels are worthless to me….what I think of me is all that matters cause in the end, this is my life!

The thing I have learned over my journey is that the more we try to suppress our emotions, the more we push back at them, the more they get stronger and push back.  If you are an emotional eater then that can be a really big struggle. I know myself over the last few weeks, I have been in a very stressful environment and the more I tried to suppress the emotions, the worse and stronger they became.

Don’t get me wrong…. I was able to suppress them for some time but boy oh boy, when they come out, you didn’t want to be around me. I overcame these challenges by becoming self-aware or through self-observation.

I literally just sat and looked at me as though I was outside of my body and looking at what was going on.  It was at that point I realised that I was not my emotions.  These emotions were not me, there is something else. That awareness helped me then to just let those emotions go and I found a sense of calm I haven’t felt ever before.

That awareness of my emotions is helping me to recognise whether I am eating to satisfy my emotional craving or for the purpose of nourishment.

I have also found that pushing against our emotions happens when you want to go to the gym. This is a really big challenge for me, cause I don’t like gyms. Never have, but this is my own personal label and fear.

For the last couple of days when I have come home to go to the gym, I have felt the draining emotions and felt tiredness implemented by my mind, which have implanted onto my psychy that I have really did not want to do anything.

However, I was able to recognise through my self-awareness and self-observation, that it was an emotional trick by my mind to stop me moving forward.  Our minds through years of brainwashing really don’t want us to be happy, because we are so happy in that misery.

I realised that whilst I didn’t want to be the weight i was, my body was in fact saying yes you are and thats why I was the weight I was.  Here is the interesting thing. From when I began losing weight I have never gone back to my original weight of 146.6 kg.  I believe alot of that is due to my awareness and recognising how deceptive your emotions can be.

Once you become aware that you are not your emotions or your labels,  it allows you become empowered to change your life.  You will become empowered to go to the gym to make a long term change.  Crazy isn’t it…. we have the power to change once we recognise who we are, “I”.

I got up this morning and I thought oh my god am I going to hurt.  Guess what…. I don’t?

Its like …. What The!

I really honestly thought I was going to hurt and the strange part is that it got me thinking about addicitions and what addictions really are.  Most people when you think about addiction, think about alcholism, drugs or something along those lines but in reality addictions are far more than that.

For me, I have an addiction to fear, criticism and failure …… When fear overcomes my body, I am an addict to it and I will literally do nothing and hide to avoid that fear. Pretty much in the same way that someone uses alcohol or drugs to get away from their pain or their fear.

That addiction to fear is what stops me from working out…. it stops me from eating well, I allow it to stop me from making me happy.  When I stop being happy, my body actually gets to a point where it will put on weight and take the spiral down.

When I first started writing my book, I was very public about what I was doing, I wanted the fanfare, I wanted people to watch me, I wanted the support and when the reverse happened, my addiction to fear took over.  People would  call it a weak mind but it has nothing to do with that.  It is really about the emotions and thought processes, its your egoic mind taking control and protecting you. Well protecting in a negative way.

Early in the peace when a number of people in the gym began to find out that I was writing this book they felt they could take ownership of it.  They began running around telling stories of how I was going to get into legal trouble and they would take it off me and they owned the material.  In fact the real thing was, it was a number of key people, exuding their own self-interest on the situation and because of my own addiction to fear I would hide.

I have come to the realisation that we all have our own self-interest and nobody does anything without their own self-interest in mind, even in charity.  But you know something, that is okay.  I am becoming so much more awake to the pressures that I endure and how I am  deal with them.  As my I is becoming so much more awake, I can do so much more…. I am becoming fearless. 

Especially in my training…. I realised for the last time that my addiction to fear is what has been holding me back in how hard I push myself in training, how hard I push myself in the office,  the way I deal with people.  Last night as I did my secret pump class,  I played with my mind. I did bigger weights and pushed harder than before and it hurt to start with but as the I became more aware, the pain subsided.

Like I wrote in my post last night, I really thought I was going to wake up in pain…. guess what…I don’t have any???? Not one little bit!

To really be awake…. I think you have to die first!  What an amazing concept! To die, to Live!

I honestly thought that the heading was really an epitome as to how I am feeling. Oh my god am I going to hurt tomorrow.  I have just completed a very secret Pump class with my Number 1 Instructor (Sorry Can’t share its a secret) and by god has she pushed my body.

I was trying out the new bar and it was a metal bar which nobody told me weighs between 5 and 10 kgs plus the 10 kgs weight.  Going to find out tomorrow exactly what the weight is, and I seriously hurt.  No injuries…. just simply fatigue.

I have today depl0yed all the skills I have learned in detaching emotions to the “I” and this helped me get in and do this training and you know something, I am so glad I did it.   I am really grateful for the support and I am so grateful that I am able to manage my mind to do this.

It was a challenge but I feel like I am on a massive high…. Love It!

I have been up this morning since 3 am.  The last couple of days has been incredibly stressful and that really impacts on your mental state and your ability to lose weight but also to keep focus and moving forward.  I guess what makes it more of a challenge is that I am here alone and trying to continue moving forward.

I guess in doing this myself I am really committing to making a solid change in my life. I didn’t walk this morning cause I was running late but I will be doing lots of weight training later today to make up for it. That is a committment but I am concerned that I am fighting against my own thought processes and that may scuttle my goals this afternoon.

I have realised today just how frustrating my own mind can be in this whole process.  My mind has been programmed to accept the bad, by my family, by business, people around me and that in trying to understand that good and bad swings like a pendulumn, my own mind just simply says no only the worst will come.  Your thinking mind says to you that only bad will happen.

I have been listening to Jesuit Anthony de Mello and I can just imagine sitting in his class and hearing him say I am an ass for feeling the way I am and that I need to be in touch with the I.  How true is that.

Today I do feel fearless…..as I become more aware of my emotions and I literally deprogram my thoughts and actions,  I have wanted to move forward to the more stress for environments, where as before I would have run away from.  Now I am intrigued to see whether I can deal with those situations.  Its almost as though I have a death wish or it could just be insanity.  I guess in the end … Who Knows and it really doesn’t matter.

What matters is that I can deal with it and I am not beating myself up for what I have been through…. that is such a positive step forward.

I am looking forward to my challenges more than ever…. I want to face them and conquer them (well let them go) so that I can get to the point of my goal of weighing just 99kg.   

As I am becoming more in touch with the “I”, it is allowing me to challenge my body with out my mind limiting it by seeing the pain.  Tonight I am going to see if I can increase my weights by using this technique.  I am really intrigued.

My food has been pretty good today and I will post some stuff up shortly.  One thing I do need to watch though is making sure I have breakfast. Didn’t do that this morning and I am paying for it.  Well other than that its all good.

Woke up this morning after a massive 9 hours of sleep. The last few weeks have been incredibly draining and my body just said… time for sleep.

In becoming more aware of I, one of the key exercises I have been practising over the last few weeks is to identify what are my feelings and just accept and be aware of these feelings.  What I have found in doing this is that I know why I eat, why I don’t eat and how to manage it.

Feelings can have a tendency to take over your body, but when you can become aware of those feelings, you become empowered to let them go and to manage them.  Managing your feelings and thoughts is crucial not just in weightloss but also in dealing with the stresses of the day.  Uncontrolled stresses can lead you to your addictions whether they be food, alcohol, clingingness, exercise or drugs. 

Once you can become aware of the stress in your body and your feelings, you can become awake and recognise that you are not those feelings and thoughts, that they are a creation within your body, but are not you. They are real but you can manage them so they do not control you and control the way you behave.  In fact when you can recognise this you will find your sense of happiness.

Over the last few weeks, I have had some of the toughest times and the internal stress and emotions have been enormous but once I became awake in that these emotions are there but are not who I am and are only in me and not who I am, I have been able to let them go. In fact they have just dissolved away…..

It has made it easier for me to come to terms with how I approach the transformation of my own body.  I wondered why my body wasn’t transforming with the exercise I was doing. Well in someways it was and the numbers I got were good but not what I wanted.  The reason was that I was trying to push against my weight and my emotions.  Each time I became stressed, it was an excuse to let things go back to the way they were.  The more I pushed against these emotions, the more they pushed back and so I went backwards, well to the way they have always been.

The more I look at what I was doing, the more I feel like an ass… in fact I feel stupid that I was letting these emotions dictate who I am.  I love becoming awake because what I am learning is that I am now able to challenge my body, my mind and who I am.

Emotions and feelings can be incredibly dangerous…. they can hold you back and make you hide away from the world.  By becoming aware of their toxic nature, you can then dissolve them away and recognise that they are in you and not who you are and for me this has made me such a more calm person but I am dealing a lot better with some of the biggest stresses in my life.

When I started this journey I never thought this would be where it would lead me.  I had an awesome day yesterday with my food and exercise.  Did lots of walking and completed 5.5 km plus ate really well. My weight this morning was sitting at 122.3 kg but I am happy with that.  It is heading in the right direction.

Over the last few weeks I have really been looking at why things fail, why they succeed and how I really feel about myself and “who am I”.  I have really begun to realise how asleep I have been in life.  In my own self-reflection and awareness, I have realised that so many people have brainwashed me into believing that I have to accept certain labels, i have to be a certain way, I have to look in a certain manner and I have to accept certain behavious. 

At the same time, I believed that I was going to have 100% support in my journey and that people would stand beside me no matter what…. what an ass I was to believe that. 

I have really come to realise that I am an ass to believe that a person would do anything without some self interest and that for me has been an eye opening awakening.  I guess everything we do whether it be helping someone or even charity is based on some self-interest.  Whether that self-interest is vanity or simply just feeling better about yourself.

This journey now is about  “I” and my own self-discovery.  My want to lose weight was very much due to the brainwashing the world has pushed in that you have to look in a certain way.  I know that I have pushed back on that very notion and I believe that is why I have found it such a struggle.  Maybe, just maybe until you know who you are, who your “I” is,  you can’t achieve your goals.  I am really looking forward to unlocking this new journey.

I was sitting in my office writing in my second journal and I realised that my core goals had changed. Many of my core goals now are really about my own self-discovery and dealing with the true underlying reasons why I overeat, why I got overweight, why I hate my body. This self-discovery could be the one thing that unlocks so much more than just weightloss.

Today my 5 core goals were:

1. Not to allow myself to fight with my mind
2. To accept that nobody will put my best interests first
3. To accept that it is okay to have food cravings
4. To accept that it is okay to feel stressed and to let them keep on moving
5. To learn to accept that the challenges I face in my mind will never go away
6. My life will never be perfect

Do you want to know something? By accepting these 5 core goals I have never felt happier and more content.  I have been listening to Anthony De Mello a Jesuit priest and one of the things he talks about is that in your journey to learn Who I am…. when you learn who I is, you will become fearless and no one can hurt you.   You become stronger and happier than ever before…. I think when you awake there maybe a truth to this.  Well only time will tell.

The good news today is that my weight is 121.9 kg and I have already done a three kilometre walk with another 3kms to go this afternoon. Plus am going to do some weights tonight.

I think I am getting the hang of the exercise today. I know it is only Day 4 but I have completed an extra session today. This morning I was up with my Personal Trainer (a.k.a The Naked Trainer) working on my upper body strength. She tells me she is going to torture my lower body on Thursday. That scares me in a big way.

The session was pretty good with Michelle. I did six lots of exercises with 20 reps for each exercise and then 4 rotations of the exercise.

Can’t remember the name of each exercise but we did have push ups, bicep curls, a bench press style exercise but on the fit ball and a few others. I really did work hard, and I also did my warm up on the treadmill.

When I came home from the session I was well and truly stuffed. The session started at 05:30am, so I snuck home for a nana nap before going into the office.

I am trying to power my motivation and to get my exercise powering on. I did today by 3pm at least…went for my usual 3.5 km walk that usually takes 50 mins. Did it in 30 minutes so it means I now have to up my exercise more….Oh Joy.

Anyways, off to Attack tonight and then onto a Nutrition talk for the 12 Week Challenge. Bring it all ON!