Okay – I’m fat. There, I admitted it.
Overweight. Not huge like some people, and not wobbling and jiggling but definitely lugging some extra rolls round my middle. Not good for the cardiovascular system.
How on earth I ever got to be this size, I do not know. But I am considerably larger than I was ten years ago.
Weight has always been a bit of an issue for me ever since I stopped smoking – how many years ago? Even when I was doing triathlon – training three hours a day – I was heavier than your average female. But I was healthy. A resting heart rate of 58 bpm. And I’ve continued to be active even since I stopped training. Have always used a bicycle for transportation – in Victoria, B.C., Montreal, P.Q., Budapest, Hungary and Barcelona, Spain – I went everywhere on a bicycle. It’s actually easier for me to cycle than to walk.
When my mother was here visiting last October I dropped pounds and inches. Went down a size and a half. We walked everywhere. Then over Xmas I gobbled mince pies and chocolate and piled on the pounds. But it wasn’t till I got on the scale at the doctor’s about six weeks ago that I realised just how much weight I had piled on! Then last week I once again fit into my jeans and skirts and got on the scales again, and sheesh – I had only lost 3 kilo in 6 weeks! But my size had dropped.
Unable to cycle due to the broken wrist, determined to get some exercise, last Tuesday I walked 7.5 miles, and today 6.5! Then last night checked out calories burned over distance walked, and was checking out my body mass and measured my wrist – the unbroken one – and realised I have a large frame. But still, my weight puts me in the danger zone. How can that be? I cycle everywhere! I am active….
But I eat. Today, after walking 6.5 miles I came home and wolfed down at least 1000, if not 1200 calories. Yes, I counted the first 750 then stopped. I’ve never counted calories. I always figured because I eat healthy – mostly – I could eat lots. Lots of fruit and vegetables, organic whole grain bread, organic whole wheat pasta, very little animal fat (vegetarian) so where was all this weight coming from?
It was when I realised I’d come home today and wolfed 1200 calories of healthy food that I realised ah ha – that’s why I’m overweight. It’s not WHAT I eat, it’s HOW MUCH!!!
Then tonight I realised when I got on the scales Monday, I had a CAST ON MY ARM! How much does that weigh? Maybe a kilo.
So today I checked out Marianne Williamson’s A Course in Weight Loss. I checked out the videos for the first three chapters on her web site and immediately went to Amazon. Perish the thought! Do not want to support Amazon who cut out Wikileaks!!!!!! I’ve never bought anything through Amazon, mostly for political reasons, and now with the Wikileaks scam, it’s even lower on my list. But I succumbed for Marianne’s book.
Marianne blew me away with her book A Woman’s Worth, and she blew me away with her little two-and-half minute videos on each chapter of her book. She hit the nail on the head. She always does. I don’t want to go where I know I must go to deal with over eating. But until now I wasn’t even able to say “I eat too much.” So maybe now I can read her book and do her exercises at a leisurely pace, rather than exercising like a madwoman three hours a day to chase away the excess calories I consume!
I’ll see if I can find a really fat picture to post and one of me when I was training, so we can have a before fat and after fat. Let’s see if I can drop these excess pounds and then I can post an after-after fat pic.
If you see me, please don’t mention this. I do not want any face-to-face discussions about my journey back to that 117 pounds I weighed after my first year of university. 117 pounds! Not likely. I’ll be happy to get back down to 154, which is where I was when I was at the peak of triathlon training.
Well, I am voluptuous, you know. I do carry female body parts that weigh more than your average female body parts, and I like those parts of me! And I’ve always carried those, even when weighing in at 154 and training three hours a day! But it’s the waistline I want to find, it’s in there – somewhere, buried beneath overly-generous love handles. I know it is. I just KNOW it’s there!
P.S. And that extra chin I have? I even had that when I was a kid. I remember starting to jut my head forward and stick my chin out when at 10 years old I realised I had a double chin – and I wasn’t fat. Then when I studied acting I had to learn how to hold my head properly – double chin or no double chin – and I used to walk around with a book on my head all the time. So I doubt we’ll see that vanish, though it might get smaller.
Alison Amazed 
Hi
I just wanted to say that I know how you feel! I have battled with my weight for my whole life and now I think I am finally ready to do something about it. It’s just staying inspired that’s the hard thing.
Good luck … I’m sure we’ll get where we want to be 🙂
Cheers,
Lisa
Well, I got on the scales at the doctors’ today and hey – I’ve dropped 6 kilo! SIX KILO in two and half weeks. All I did was reduce the amount of food I’ve been eating, and walking rather than cycling. Otherwise, no change in the diet.
Marianne Williamson’s profound words will be the KEY for many of us to “give it up” forever. I have had issues with food and the power it has had over me since I was 11 and my dad suddenly passed away. I felt powerless except when I ate whatever I wanted and felt I was in control. No grieving, or crying just eating. For years Marianne’s wisdom and Love have soothed and healed me. She has taught me, as she says in This book, “God is the source of your comfort.” “Love is your true healer and miracles occur naturally in the presence of Love.” A Course in Weight Loss is a profound concept where spirituality IS the difference. Marianne says,”Are you willing, even if for a moment, to consider the possibility that God can outwit your insanity?”
YES I AM! This book will be the KEY for so many people to root out fear and “turn on our light!”
I am so grateful for this astounding book! Marianne always shows us that LOVE is the answer.
I’m so thankful that I’m on the Earth at this time so I can be taught by her.
Thank you God! Thank you Marianne!
Hi Mary,
I’ve known about Marianne for many years and really enjoyed her book ‘A Woman’s Worth’. I find A course in Weight Loss very empowering.
Alison
I found this book inspiring. Every page had something significant to say, and the author came at the topic of weight loss from an entirely different perspective from anything on the market. We all know that thousands of books on weight loss have been published. We also know that none of them really seem to work over time. If any one of them did work, then the scientific community would have no choice but to pursue that particular concept with all out zeal and we would all beat a path to the door of the person who created the system.
Now having said that, it seems to me that Marianne Williamson has latched onto something, and its breathtaking in its scope and the promise it holds for the tens of millions of Americans who are just carrying around too much weight. The Foreword by Dean Ornish is worth its weight in gold. Make sure you read it. Dr. Ornish has been a world renowned heart specialist for more than 20 years and a very prominent author in his own right.
Ornish mentions in this section that for years he could not understand how people could be addicted to overeating, smoking, drinking, substance abuse, and other maladaptive behaviors. One day a patient said to him, why are you saying maladaptive, the behavior is totally adaptive to me, not maladpative to me. These behaviors get me though my day. I have 20 friends in that pack of cigarettes. You know you simply have to look at it from the user’s perspective. Another patient told him if he feels lonely, he eats. He coats his nerves with the food he consumes, it numbs his pain.
The Introduction is also a must read. It will set up the rest of the book for you. The third part of the book is “Embarking on the Journey”, and in this section Ms. Williamson goes through the thrust of her presentation, and that in the end, it is your belief and faith in God that will help you shed the weight that you have carried for so many years.
I want to give you a flavoring of what she has to say from different sections of the book and you will see for yourself how different this book is from all the rest on weight loss.
* Unless your subconscious mind is enrolled in your weight loss efforts, your soul will find a way to reconstitute the excess weight regardless of what you do.
* Root out your fear, and replace it with inestimable love.
* Addiction is when you can’t STOP.
* Freud felt that Intelligence will be used in the service of neurosis (an absolutely extraordianry statement)
* No matter how smart you are, or how much work you have done on yourself, you alone cannot outsmart the psychic force of compulsion and addiction
* God can outwit your insanity.
* The Great Lie is that food that is actually bad for you has the power to Comfort, Nurture, and Sustain you.
* Unhealthy eating is an act of Self-Hate. Overeating is a form of violence. You are taking up the Sword against yourself.
* You don’t have the human capacity to fix this problem. If you did, you would have done so already.
How the book is Organized?
After the Preface, Introduction, and Embarking on the Journey, comes 21 different short chapters. It seems that they are to be read one a day, and over and over again, until you internalize them. The author has gone through considerable efforts to name these chapters with highly appropriate powerful phrases. It works.
My personal favorites were:
Chapter 1) Tear Down the Wall
Chapter 2) Thin You, meet Not-Thin you
Chapter 5) Start a Lover Affair with Food
Chapter 7) Love your Body
Chapter 10) Consecrate Your Body
Chapter 17) Forgive Yourself and Others
Chapter 18) Honor the Powers
Chapter 21) The Body Brilliant
Summary:
We all know that to whatever extent we believe, that faith has the ability to move mountains, to effectuate profound change and make it permanent. Everything starts with belief. Nothing is manifested in reality until it is first a belief in the mind. Marianne Williamson has now taken these concepts and applied them to the world of weight loss, insisting that only a belief in a divine power, and then giving yourself over to a divine force is the only way to effectuate a true re-design of your body and your spirit.
Now having read the entire book and having tried to internalize it, I think she may just have something. Everything else has seemed to fail through the years for so many. Why not try a little old fashion faith in the divine power of God to help so many transcend and finally conquer a problem that has caused so much pain and agony. I gladly give this book five stars, and thank you for reading this review.
Richard C. Stoyeck
Richard,
Your review is comprehensive. I’ve not yet read the whole book.
By the way, Spam Guard marked both yours and Mary’s comments as Spam as they are merely your comments on the book rather than a comment on my post and suggest you did not read the post. I decided to let both comments through as they do offer the reader further insight into the book.
You may want to try to include some direct feedback on the original post – it’ll get you through the Spam guard!
Alison