Author: Marjorie

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Create, Don’t Perpetuate

“There is a wide difference between the will to resist an activity and the decision to change it. He who changes an activity acts; whereas he who resists an activity, reacts. One creates, the other perpetuates.”

Neville Goddard

Believing the calorie in-calorie out myth isn’t easy to shake. Because I’m stubborn and like the crap I’ve been eating the past 50 years. Sugary foods, soda and breads comfort and satisfy more than hunger. Retraining my brain, my palate and behavior is a long and winding road.

What do I want more? A cookie or a hike in the woods? The answer is different depending on the day.

In his book The Obesity Code, Jason Fung, MD says “We obsess about caloric input into the system, but output is far more important.”

Calories do lots of things for our bodies, like:

  • Heat production
  • New protein production
  • New bone production
  • New muscle production
  • Cognition (brain)
  • Increased heart rate
  • Increased stroke volume (heart)
  • Exercise/physical exertion
  • Detoxification (liver)
  • Detoxification (kidney)
  • Digestion (pancreas and bowels)
  • Breathing (lungs)
  • Excretion (intestines and colon), and
  • Fat production

Whew! Apparently, restricting calories slows everything down. I might feel like I’m always cold – because my internal furnace has no juice. Or I’m not thinking straight – because my brain isn’t being fed. Maybe my heart rate slows down – to save energy. Fung says studies find “a 30 percent reduction in caloric intake resulted in a nearly identical 30 percent reduction in caloric expenditure.”

As I move into Dr. Fung’s chapters on the “Solution,” I’m mulling over some new information. What changes do I want to make? First, retrain my brain – and definitely goose my willingness to change.

Some key observations influencing me personally:

  • It’s okay to skip breakfast if you want – (yay! Never cared for it).
  • Do what grandma said: 1) cut down on sugar and starches; 2) stop snacking – (sob)
  • Ditch fructose “.. fructose seems particularly malevolent to human health” – (fruit in moderation)
  • Artificial sweeteners (incl: Stevia) raise insulin levels; they are bad – (noooo!)

Yeah; I know most of this stuff. Doing it – really changing my behavior is the booger bear; and the difference between creating a healthy future or perpetuating unnecessary struggle.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”

Alan Watts
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The Big Fat Lie

Why is it so hard to lose weight?

I believed I could make it happen eating fewer calories and increasing my exercise. The Calories In – Calories Out dance.

WRONG. WRONG. And WRONG

“Reducing Calories In works only if Calories Out remains stable. What we find instead is that a sudden reduction of Calories In causes a similar reduction in Calories Out, and no weight is lost as the body balances its energy budget.”

Jason Fung, MD The Obesity Code

After decades of behaviors based on my calorie reduction belief, I’m being re-educated. I had a nagging discontent with my approach – as I always seemed to hit a wall eventually. Documenting my food helped me be aware of my choices; and regular exercise benefits me in many ways. But at some point I stop trying. Probably because I hit a plateau that won’t budge. That stretch when even robust runs don’t make a difference.

In his book The Obesity Code; Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss, Jason Fung, MD explains many of the barriers and obstacles to what I believed and acted upon. And I’m not the only one.

We were all born into an era that pushed the calories in – calories out propaganda. We’ve been hoodwinked by society, the government and media to believe this hooey. There’s a grain of truth to most good cons. Yes, I can lose weight when I eat less and exercise more. But the story is only partly true; they leave off the part that it’s often a futile effort. If I don’t make the changes permanent, they don’t stick and I gain it all back, and then some!

It’s not the calories; how much we weigh is related to our insulin production and our body set-point.

Now let me get back to his revelations – and see what I can do to believe differently!

“Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.”

Sophia Loren
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Reactions Reveal Belief

Practicing Eckhart Tolle’s advice to “watch the thinker” as described in his book The Power of Now showed me how often my mind was overrun with trivia. It was enlightening to find my thoughts dominated by the refrain of a song or a scene from a sit-com. It took conscious, persistent work to retrain my mental habits. I still enjoy humming a favorite tune or thinking about some show’s witty or memorable dialog; just not incessantly.

This quote caught my attention because my current studies have me reflecting on my reactions as an indication of my beliefs. Watching my own reactions and finding the implied belief takes watching my thoughts to a different level. Of course, I started with my most uncomfortable and disagreeable reactions. Modifying them I thought was the best way to improve my life.

My beliefs supporting contrary, querulous and dismal responses weren’t too surprising. Common-sense and a little analytical thinking showed the limitation and absurdity of the beliefs that don’t serve me. Using a few practical techniques and tactics to re-direct my habits is moving me toward more pleasant perspectives.

This morning I was struck by my tendency to focus on dark impulses before turning to thoughts and beliefs that are joyful.

“.. what you see when you look at something depends not so much on what is there as on the assumption you make when you look.” – Neville Goddard

In The Power of Assumption’s chapter on Attitude, Neville Goddard counsels a woman frustrated by her contentious relationship with a coworker. Goddard asks about her mental conversations with her colleague; suggesting she most likely was having exchanges with him in her head that were critical and acrimonious. She admitted as much; saying she forcefully told him off every day on her way to work.

“.. others only echo that which we whisper to them in secret.”

“.. many people are mentally engrossed in conversation and few appear to be happy about it, but the very intensity of that feeling must lead them quickly to the unpleasant incident they themselves have mentally created and therefore must now encounter.”

Goddard explained that she could change this dynamic by imagining her conversations with him as pleasant and congenial. He encouraged her to hear the man praise her, and her responding with thanks. By doing this, methodically, with good intent, she reported a total turn-around with this relationship.

Giving attention to building my own joyful thought muscles I create that energy in my life. Momentum like this will improve my life more than simply pruning dead-end thoughts. Both are probably needed, but their order could be reversed.

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”

“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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Imagination – Desire, Intent, Action

“Man, through his imaginal activity, literally ‘calls into existence the things that do not exist’. .”

– Neville Goddard

Using my imagination to call into existence what I desire appeals to my sense of autonomy. Neville Goddard inspires me to use my imagination to influence and mold my reality. I can do this consciously, or allow my thoughts to unfold mechanically. If I choose to live habitually – unconscious of different choices, different paths; I may very well have a fine life. Or a horrible one if I wallow in a half empty glass. Making use of my imagination consciously can bring to life astonishing creations.

“The world moves with motiveless necessity. By this is meant that it has no motive of its own, but is under the necessity of manifesting your concept, the arrangement of your mind and your mind is always arranged in the image of all you believe and consented to as true.”

“Health, wealth, beauty and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind – that is, by your concept of yourself (and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true). What you consent to can only be discovered by an uncritical observation of your reactions to life. Your reactions reveal where you live psychologically; and where you live psychologically determines how you live in the outer visible world.”

My quest is to understand where I live psychologically and interrupt the habits that create an outer world that is anything less than desirable. Putting into practice Goddard’s teachings and techniques “consciously and deliberately” is fun, challenging and sometimes a rude awakening.

Fun, because I get to dwell on the things I want! Challenging, because I apparently want things that seem to be in direct opposition to each other. The rude awakening comes trying to reconcile my desires with what I believe to be true.

I want to be slim, trim and fit effortlessly — I believe I must eat right and exercise to reach my ideal. Why can’t I just eat a magic bean and *poof* my metabolism goes into hyper drive allowing me to sit on my ass and eat bon bons? Because I don’t believe in the magic metabolism bean. If you do – I’m jealous!

Goddard recommends we use the meditative state to envision the end result of what we desire.

“We must use our Imagination to achieve particular ends, even if the ends are all trivia.”

“Nothing stands between man and the fulfillment of his dream but facts: And facts are the creations of imagining. If man changes his imagining, he will change the facts.”

Meditation allows me to use my imagination to see things in my mind’s eye – things I believe CAN become true, even if they aren’t true in this moment. These imaginings are not magic beans. Goddard contends that “all transformation begins with an intense, burning desire to be transformed.” I must REALLY want to change from the inside out.

I must see myself doing / having that thing I want – feeling with “absolute fidelity” that I am that now. These desires earnestly lived in my imagination can manifest in my outer world.

Or; I can sit back and ride the wave of the life I was born into. Accept the cultural, societal and familial habits I grew up and grew old with. These customs and routines are comfortable; even the prickly and miserable practices. I know what to expect. Changing who I am can be scarier than simply riding the momentum of my life. But with imagination, desire and intent I can act and create magic.

“If the road which I have shown is very difficult, it yet can be discovered. And clearly it must be very hard if it is so rarely found. For how could it be that it is neglected by practically all, if salvation . . could be found without difficulty. But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.”

— Spinoza
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A Belief So Deep

Finding the roots of a fervently held belief isn’t easy. They’re stealthy. We’re fed values and opinions from the moment of our birth. Culture delivers norms and customs that drive our behaviors. If I parse a belief down can I find its origin? Is it so foundational other certainties are built on it? If I choose to modify a foundational belief, will my life fold like a house of cards?

These are questions that if examined deeply and honestly impact my self-concept, which my ego depends on for my identity.  But if I ignore them I could be just a collection of habits, repetitive acts, routines and duties.

Beliefs can be benign like: body weight goes up and down depending on how much I eat and how often I exercise. Personal experience, critical thinking and recognized health experts help establish evidence this belief relies on.

Some beliefs are trickier; like politics. Someone told me they belong to a particular political party because they’re fiscally conservative. They couldn’t easily substantiate their belief with accepted facts or personal experience, but were confident in their stance.

Faith can be a conviction that requires fealty not facts. The question I may want to ask myself; am I okay with the world reflected around me? That world has a direct correlation to what I believe. If I don’t like what I see, maybe a deep and honest look at things is warranted.

Reading the works of Neville Goddard has me reflecting on the concept I have of myself.

“. . we illuminate or darken our lives by the concepts we hold of ourselves.”

“Because life molds the outer world to reflect the inner arrangement of our minds, there is no way of bringing about the outer perfection we seek other than by the transformation of ourselves.”

“We can rely absolutely on the justice of this law to give us only that which is of the nature of ourselves.”

On an external level I know who I am. I understand many of my motivations, intentions and desires. Could I tell you where they came from? Perhaps. Maybe I could identify their origin, but unless I investigate how can I know if they’re true to me or a default product of my upbringing and environment?

Using the reflective mirror of my life allows me to scrutinize what I see, and if I don’t like it – dig deeper; determine what doesn’t serve me and consider making a change.

“A thought is harmless unless we believe it.  It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts that causes suffering.  Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring.  A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to.” – Byron Katie