's motd Sat Jan 23, 2010

[Guest guest]

SILENCE

Saturday, 23 January 2010

During my younger "chubby years," my mother would find diets in some of the magazines she read. And after looking it over, she'd clip the diet from the magazine and leave the plan beneath my pillow.

Whenever I found one of my mother's new diet plans under my pillow, I'd read it, think about it and get ready to make my big announcement. I'd rush through the house all excited. I'd start with my mother, "Hey, Mom! Thanks for the diet!" Then I'd find my father and my brother, Lenny. "Hey Dad and Lenny! Guess what? I'm starting a new diet today! And it's really gonna work this time. I'm gonna end up as skinny as Lenny!"When I arrived at school that same morning, the announcement would continue. "Sister Margaret! I've just started a new diet. Please say a prayer for me that it'll work!"But after just a few days, I'd usually end up going off the diet. And within a few short weeks, my mother would clip another diet from a magazine she was reading. And the process would begin all over again..."Mom, thanks for the Cabbage Soup Diet you cut out of your magazine for me. Oh, I just love cabbage, too!"

Of course you had to eat cabbage soup three times a day. And let's just say that within three days, I never wanted to even see a head of cabbage again! Oh, every time I went on some newfangled diet, and there were lots of times, I'd announce it to the world. Hey, I might as well have climbed on the rooftop of our house in the French Quarter and shouted..."I'm going on a new diet today and, this time...it's going to work!" (Yeah, right.)The only weight loss plan I ever stuck to in a healthy way was the one I was silent about. I mean I didn't tell a soul. The news was just in my soul and I took it one day at a time. And within a few weeks, people actually began to notice that...I was losing weight! (And boy, didn't that ever feel good!)

I think the "silent treatment" is one you should take under consideration for your own weight-loss plan. Hey, you don't need to announce to your family that you're going on another weight loss program. And you shouldn't tell your coworkers, either. (You've done that before.) Just keep the news between you, yourself and...you! And, in time, there will be a time where you'll open up and let people know about your new healthy lifestyle. Better yet, you won't even have to. They'll began to notice that you're losing weight!Ya' know, there're members at Slimmons who don't come to our weekly Project Me classes on Saturday mornings at 10:30. For whatever reasons, they don't want to sit there and talk about their stories. So for several people, I do it through E-mail and phone calls with just the two of us working on this project together. And I think, somewhere down the line, they will come to our Saturday morning meetings. (Or at least I hope they will.)So try this little silent technique for your weight-loss effort. And then when you're ready to share your story, you can fly out to Los Angeles and join us for a Project Me Class at Slimmons and tell us all about the great job you've been doing. Or you can join our Clubhouse and find unconditional love and support among all of our members right here.But for right now, I want you to remember that...Silence is golden!Love,