Category Archives: Weight Loss

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON THE NING SITE ON JUNE 3, 2009 (I’m moving old posts from that site, which is closing down, to my WordPress blog):

I’ve successfully completed my first Shape Shifter’s Daily Diary (a three-month cycle … just enough to get a lot done, but not so much that goals seem so far into the future that we can’t connect with them) and, at the risk of sounding like a marketing pitch, I have to say that I’m completely impressed with how well it works. My initial goals were not only realized, but they were exceeded!

The first two goals—to have daily access to a car (we were a one-car family) and to make substantial progress on a novel that I had not even started at the time—are in the bag. Jeff now has his own ride (a super-fun Honda 600 Silverwing), and I’ve written 136 pages and am well into Act Two. I’m VERY happy with this accomplishment.

But the real triumph is my success over some awful health issues that caused an inability to exercise (read my past blogs, if you’re interested in details). I got to a point where I just wasn’t going to lose any more weight because my diet was as healthy and balanced as I can make it at my current level of knowledge and ability. Without burning calories, I was going nowhere, but exercising made me so ill that I did very little of it.

This is what I wrote on the first day of my Diary, under the “Primary Goal” heading:

“I’m concentrating on getting my health back on track. My goal is to be able to exercise and ENJOY doing it. I want to get in shape and be healthy once and for all.”

So I set my intent that I would finally find a health practitioner or two (turns out it was way more than that) who would be able to finally help me break through this brick wall. It took a lot of struggle and hard work, but I’m proud to say that I am now regularly exercising, three times a week, at Curves and am seeing a very visible difference in how I look and I am experiencing a palpable difference in how I feel.

It’s still hard to make myself leave the house and actually go do it, but once I’m there I do enjoy the workout and after a temporary feeling of having my ass kicked, I feel great the rest of the day and miss it on the days I don’t go. My energy levels are getting higher and my posture is improving. I’m in a good mood much more often and the almost constant state of anxiety I was dealing with is mellowing out. Plus, I’m looking younger and healthier. Yay!

Of course, since my preferred focus is on the body/mind/spirit aspect of all of this, I would be remiss if I didn’t include the fact that I’ve also broken through countless metaphysical barriers as well. As my weight has been decreasing (I’ve lost 13 pounds, and 10.5 inches) and my body is now toning, I’ve been dealing with lots more self-esteem issues and releasing lots of emotional baggage. Old karmic patterns are coming up, to be dealt with, and I’m finally ready to face and dissolve them. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m stronger as a result.

As I’m exercising, I’m breaking up and releasing old bullshit, stored in my body as fat. I wasn’t ready for this before, apparently. I hadn’t matured enough to be able to forgive and release the things I’m dealing with these days.

Interestingly, the one part of my body that hasn’t yet released any inches is my thighs. My thighs are naturally heavy anyway (genetics … what are ya gonna do?) but I could definitely stand to shave off a few inches. So I looked in my favorite body/mind book, Debbie Shapiro’s Healing Mind, Healing Body (find a link in the Recommended Reading forum post) and laughed out loud at what it said. It described EXACTLY the stuff that I’m working on right now. Dig this:

“Our legs express a level of groundedness or firmness, as well as the passage of life we have experienced and the direction we are now going in … Being nearest to the pelvis, the thighs tend to represent the more inner and personal aspect of moving. Issues here can be closely associate to sexuality, to expression, to being able to share ourselves and our movement with another. This is intimately connected to our sense of femininity or masculinity. Issues to do with our parents are also found here, as we have to move away from the parental energy as we grow and mature. Excess weight in this area is like a build-up of mental resistance to fully expressing or finding our own direction, and to being at peace with our sexual expression; it is a way of blocking off from really experiencing the depth of our feelings in this part of our bodymind.”

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but I recently asked my dear friend, psychic/astrologer Glenna Dietrich, to do a chart for me and one of the main things she kept pounding away at is how very ungrounded I am because of my chart and that it is vitally important for me to ground. I’ve been deliberately working on that (I’ll be blogging about that soon enough) So I was delighted when I read that the legs are all about grounding, and the thighs are about the things I’ve been putting on the back burner.

I’m pretty sure that by the time I’m done with my new Shape Shifter’s Daily Diary, I’ll be able to report a healthy loss of several inches of fat from my thighs.