Tory

[Guest guest]

Oh my GOSH Sharon! You have to celebrate every single teeny tiny little accomplishment! It doesn't matter if no one else celebrates or if they even KNOW you're celebrating. The point is you take intentional effort to say "Sharon, you did a GREAT thing for yourself!"

But I know the main thing you're asking is how do you learn to love yourself. For me it was learning to accept myself as a fat woman and love and embrace WHO I was regardless of what I looked like. I read books like "Wake Up Mom, I'm Fat!" and "Fat?So!" and "Self Esteem at Any Size." These books help me put fat into perspective. It only holds us back if we choose to allow it to hold us back. It's hard to do this, but I just kept working at it.

The other thing I did that sounds SO simplistic, but works, is that I stopped ALL of the negative self talk. Seriously. If I started to let those thoughts creep in I would literally push them out. I would rephrase. If I looked in the mirror and started to think (like normal) "You look like crap" I immediately rephrased it to "You look beautiful! You're the best you you can be today!"

It took me about a year to get to the point where I truly had stopped the negative self talk and really believed in myself. During this time I didn't try to lose weight. It was, in fact, the furthest thing from my mind. I truly believe that THIS was the key. So that when I DID start Weight Watchers it was almost a gift to myself. I mean after all, if I love myself the way I say I do then I can't abuse my body. I remember one day thinking, "Tory, if you had a daughter you wouldn't let her eat the way you do and sit on the couch all evening. You would love her enough to push her out the door, feed her nutritious food, and help her be the best person she can be. She might not always like it, but as the person who loves her more than anyone, you would do what was BEST for her, not what was EASIEST."

So if I would do that for a child, I needed to love myself enough to do that for me.

See I think that might explain a little more my "there is no such thing as failure" attitude. It isn't always easy and it isn't always fun, but it is ALWAYS worth it.

So I would really encourage you, Sharon, to learn just who Sharon is. What is so special about her. What is beautiful about her? Trust me, standing in front of a mirror naked and forcing myself to say positive things about what I saw was hard. I'm so glad I did it, though. It was a changing moment in my life. I did that many many times and each time I believed it a little bit more. Don't worry if at first it feels like you're fooling yourself. Sometimes you just "fake it until you make it".

Got to head to work now! You can DO this!

-----Original Message-----From: sharon hill Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 11:28 PMTo: Serious-Weight-Watchers Subject: Re: TORY

Thanks Tory for the answers you gave. I appreciate the input.

7. Finally I believe in myself and I love myself. I know how vain that sounds,I don't think this sounds vain AT ALL! I think you have worked & obtained

the right to love yourself - - which, I think if I loved myself right now, I wouldn't be white knuckling it so hard. I have been up & down the scales all my life, I have lost over a 100 pounds 3 times before, only to put it back on again, again & again. I call doing this pretty stupid, really ignorant, but it was like I woke up one morning & all the weight was back & I didn't know how I got myself back to that point - again!

I have been doing a lot of reading, listening to Dr. Phil & Oprah, etc. & I am beginning to believe we have to LOVE ourselves before we can really obtain success & maintain it. I think in my past failures, I learned how to lose the weight, but I never learned to love ME!

I am so glad you said what you did about loving yourself. You hit me right smack dab on & this is something I am having to work at.

but that's okay because I know what I mean. I spent years thinking that I wasn't worth even attempting weight loss. After all, why bother? I was the ugly fat one in the family. That was my role. I had doomed myself to living within this "box" that defined me as smart...BUT: fat, physically sloppy, unfit, out of shape, clumsy, slovenly, out of control. WELL before I started WWErs I learned to love myself exactly as I was, flab and allWhat helped you learn to love yourself exactly as you were?. I think we all need to understand that we are beautiful, valuable people. Our weight does not add to our value,but in my warped mind, weight does add or detract

from my self value. Please share how you learned to love yourself, flab & all. I would be interested in hearing it. nor does it detract from it.

I have heard Dr. Phil make a statement similar to this many times, that each of

us must know we have self worth, fat, thin, wherever, but I have always let my weight dictate my self worth, or at least, as far as what I think of

myself. I am proud of my accomplishments related to weight loss and exercise, but not because of how I look. Rather because I set goals and I stuck to them. I know the effort I put in and when I have a victory, I celebrate it. The more I allow myself to take pride in my accomplishments, the easier it becomes to keep that momentum going. I never celebrated my weight losses, never even thought about celebrating. From now on though, when I have a victory, I am going to

start thinking of small ways I can celebrate 'myself'. This time around I am not losing weight for how I will look, but for how it will make me

feel differently about myself and so I can feel healthier. Sorry for making my message two-toned but I just read again where you said you learned to love yourself, flab & all & your message excited me, so I wanted my question to you to stand out! ha

Thanks for your sharing.

Sharon

Ultimate Weight Loss Challenge

I'm watching this on Tivo right now and I swear I am bawling like a freaking BABY! I am so proud of these people! Yes, they had support. Yes, they had someone behind them kicking their butts. Yes, they had the pressure of TV, but when it all came down to brass tacks it was ALL them. When you're standing at the fridge at midnight with that refrigerator light falling across your face it doesn't matter who is behind you or what external motivations are down the road...it's just you and the temptation and the ONLY one in control at that moment is you.

I am so darn proud of these people and I know how they feel. I know exactly how they feel! It doesn't matter what tangible gift Dr. Phil gives them, they gave themselves the BEST gift of all...a new lease on life!

~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'Tory Klementsen, MCP A+Career and Technology Educatorwww.teechur.comwww.msteechur.com-The successful person will do the things that the unsuccessful person will not.