Five negative Thoughts that impede your weight loss:

(From the Hello Healthy Blog on MFP - Carley Hauck)

I was recently teaching a workshop on the interaction of mindfulness, compassion and self-nurturing. This is a topic I love exploring, and what I have found to be true is what we feed our minds is directly linked to how we take care of ourselves. We can feed our minds with sweet and loving phrases or sour and critical thoughts. How we relate to our minds is directly linked to how we comfort ourselves—sometimes with food.

This is an exercise I invite my students and clients to practice. Identify five non-self-nurturing thoughts and five self-nurturing or loving thoughts. Here are some examples:

Non-Self-Nurturing:
1.I have no one in my life who truly loves me.
2.I will never lose the weight, so why try.
3.I am not smart.
4.My belly is too big and it will never change.
5.Nothing in my life ever goes right.

In a previous post, I spoke about how we have an average of 82,000 thoughts a day. That is a lot of thoughts, so how can those all be true? They can’t be. Are any of the thoughts above really true? NO. We are not our thoughts, and we can start talking back to the negative thoughts. Simply start by pulling out the negative weeds, and plant seeds of love and nurturance. It is spring after all.

Self-Nurturing Thoughts:
1.I am loved.
2.I love and accept myself as I am right now.
3.I am smart and have multiple intelligences.
4.My belly holds my power and intuitive center and I am grateful for it.
5.My life has ups and downs just like everyone, and I have enough right now.

When you read through the non-self-nurturing thoughts, how do you feel? Sad, angry, hopeless? Does that make you want to reach out for some comfort, like a big bowl of chocolate ice cream? That is a pretty normal reaction. We all want comfort when we are blasted with critical words.

How do you feel when you read through the self-nurturing thoughts? Empowered, happy, confident? YES!

The more we feed ourselves with loving and nurturing thoughts, the more we will believe them. Our thoughts affect our feelings, and thus impact our behaviors, so be mindful of inserting loving thoughts and you will, in turn, have loving behaviors.

For the next month, I am going to invite you to take a self-love challenge. Here are some tips below to get your started. Just pick one of these practices to try on once a day for the next four weeks. If you like what you are feeling, then keep going and make it a habit.

Be Your Own Best Friend

What does this look like? Love hanging out with yourself. I like to call these my loving-kindness days. I pick a day or even a night (if you can’t give yourself a whole day) and I just slow down. I don’t schedule anything and I just let myself see what I want to do. Sometimes I read a book, do home yoga practice, and maybe for dinner all I eat is yogurt and fruit. After a day like this, I always feel like my love bucket is full.

See Your Magnificence and Beauty

Embrace the amazing and unique person you are every day. Shine your light and show who you are. You can only be who you are; everyone else is already taken.

Love All of Yourself

This means saying phrases such as, “I love and accept myself as I am.” You are loving and accepting of your strengths and weaknesses, your pretty parts and not-so-attractive parts. Accept yourself as you are. Forgive yourself for actions that you took when you didn’t know any better. Compassion is the greatest motivator for real change.

Make Decisions Guided By Self-Love

Mantra: “I am taking really good care of myself.” If this is the thought that you feed throughout the day, then how do your actions support this? If I were taking really good care of myself, then I might still choose to eat French fries after a harder day at work, but I’d only eat a small portion and I’d also take a walk.

Surround Yourself with Loving People

When you start to show yourself more love, you may decide that you want and deserve more love from those around you, too.

A few years ago, I had this experience where I needed to shift out some friends from my inner circle to make room for new ones. I had some friends who were only capable of being there for the “good times,” but as we know, life is always changing and has many ups and downs. I wanted friends who could be loving, supportive and dependable, and wanted that from me, too. You may need to weed out some people in your life or put them in the outer circle so you can surround yourself with the most loving people.

I ran aross this blog in another menopausal group on MFP... I read the article itself twice.. (it follows the author's own blog below) and found it quite interesting...

Since we're all in the same boat, I'm curious as to the Hatter's thoughts on the article?


Menopausal Weight Gain War Zone
Posted on 9/10/2013 by Momma_Grizz

Disclaimer: I did not write the following - it is an excerpt from www.metaboliceffect.com. I am in no way an expert, only a woman who is fighting her way back to health. I finally found an article that I can understand on what causes menopausal weight gain - they have some good tips in there so I thought I would share. Plus, I need this close at hand. Yes, the site is selling a diet plan but what they have said below is also what my Personal Trainer has been telling me all along. After years of low cal dieting and with menopause, my cortisol is way too high causing an increase in belly fat. Now I can see it in writing and hopefully this will help teach this old dog (or grizz) some new tricks.......

And by reading this, I think I finally figured out what "Stop getting in the way of your dreams and change your self image perception" meant - My body is changing, I need to accept it, most importantly listen to it and change my plan of attack.... yup, I think after licking my wounds all day yesterday I'm back in this game!

Executive Summary: What I took away from this article and what I shall work into my lifestyle change:


Realize I am far more carbohydrate reactive and stress sensitive
Lower cortisol through relaxed walking every day

Weight train 3 times a week
Increase non-starchy vegetables intake
Cut back on starchy foods, grains and dairy
Cut back on sugary fruit

Increase lean protein
Build in restorative and relaxing activity into my life
And now the article (I've bolded and colored the text that I think are important for me) - it's long but I didn't want to mess with it and take out some words that may be important:

*********************************************************************************************

What causes weight gain at menopause? Why are the low calorie diets that worked in your younger years no longer effective? What changes can you make to your diet, exercise, and lifestyle regime to combat menopausal weight gain? This article explains the impact female hormones have on weight gain and fat loss and why menopause is such a difficult time for many women.

Estrogen & Progesterone

Estrogen and progesterone, while lower down on the fat burning totem poll compared to insulin and cortisol or thyroid and adrenaline, nevertheless do impact a woman’s fat burning metabolism. Estrogen is an insulin sensitizing hormone and a hormone that controls the negative impact of cortisol. Progesterone opposes the action of estrogen on insulin, but works together with estrogen in controlling the negative impact of cortisol.

Why is this important? Because insulin and cortisol are a bad hormonal combination for fat loss. These two hormones, when combined together in high amounts over long periods, push the female physiology towards storing fat when calories are high (as opposed to building muscle), and reduce the amount of fat burned when calories are low (burning muscle instead). This is a bad combination for any woman, but a menopausal woman is affected to a much greater extent.

Since insulin and cortisol may be the primary culprits in female belly fat storage, the transition into menopause often results in fat gain especially around the middle. <----this explains my Buddha belly!

The Fix?

Realize you are far more carbohydrate reactive and stress sensitive after menopause. Which means the carbohydrates you used to be able to eat that did not affect your waistline may now be too many and do just that. The stressful exercise and lack of sleep you could tolerate in your younger years, while still remaining lean, will now start to show itself on your waist.

To deal with these hormonal impacts, requires a far more insulin centric approach versus a caloric one. In other words, whereas a lower calorie diet may have been enough in your younger days, you now need a hormonal approach to body change.

What to eat?

Now you need to know that it is not just refined sugars that are the issue. You will need to start controlling all the foods that have potential insulin promoting action. This includes many foods that are regarded as “healthy”. Whole grain breads, sweet fruits, dairy foods, and starchy vegetables, which may have once been a central part of your lean diet, may now be working against you. Reducing these foods while simultaneously increasing low starch vegetables, low sweet fruits (berries, apples, and pears), and protein foods has to become your new solution to burning fat.

How to exercise?

Exercise too must be approached differently. Cortisol is produced during intense exercise and long duration exercise. This includes long duration jogging or running and high intensity interval training (HIIT), metabolic conditioning, or weight training. However, intense exercise that is short also raises growth promoting hormones like HGH and testosterone, and these hormones work with cortisol to burn fat and build, or at least maintain, muscle.

Long duration exercise works differently. It has a different hormonal impact, and it may exacerbate the negative effects of cortisol because it raises cortisol without the balancing action of the growth hormones. And raising cortisol this way during menopause, a time where the female physiology is far more susceptible to the negative impact of cortisol, can frequently cause more issues than it solves for weight gain. For this reason, shorter intense exercise is probably more beneficial compared to long duration moderate intensity exercise.

Cortisol can also be controlled and lowered nicely by relaxing activities. These include leisure walking (to be distinguished from power walking), restorative yoga (to be distinguished from intense yoga), Tai Chi, as well as massage, sauna, and other restorative non-exercise practices.

Why is this important?

All of this is important because the dominant message sent to menopausal women, from their nutritionists and doctors, as well as the mainstream press, runs completely counter to all we just covered. The message is to do more jogging and power walking, not less. They are instructed to eat more grains and dairy and less protein. And they are rarely told to lift weights or educated on the benefits of rest and recovery centered activities

Together, a lower insulin promoting diet and a smarter stress inducing exercising regime can make a huge difference. Remember, the menopausal physiology is more carbohydrate reactive (estrogen is no longer there to help offset insulin) and more stress sensitive (estrogen and progesterone are not there to dampen cortisol’s negative effect).

The changes to diet, exercise, and lifestyle can help combat menopause weight gain. Here are the changes we recommend:

Leisure walk daily 1 hour per day (it lowers cortisol). Preferably do it in a nature setting (it lowers cortisol even more).

Weight train intensely at least one time per week, preferably three. These sessions should be short. Shoot for less than 60 minutes or even better, less than 30. They work great along with walking too.

Drastically increase your non-starchy vegetable intake while cutting back on starchy foods, grains, and dairy (this does not mean not to eat these foods, just eat less). This blog helps you understand the best carbohydrates to eat.

Raise your protein intake with foods that are mostly protein (fish, chicken, etc) versus mostly starch or fat (beans and nuts have some protein but WAY more starch and fat). To help, consider a protein powder replacement shake 1 or two times per day.

Oh, vegetables and protein are more slowly digested, so if you notice increased gas, that is because your stomach HCL and pancreatic enzyme secretion can also fall with age (and stress). A shot of vinegar, or a nice green salad before meals will almost always solve this. When they don’t, an OTC enzyme preparation is great.

Build in restorative and relaxing activity into your life. A concept we call rest-based living. Sleep, nap, physical affection, laughter, massage (even self-massage like foam rolling), sauna, restorative yoga, and Tai Chi are all great.

Are you thinking supplements? Sure they can work, but not like the above recommendations. If you plan on taking supplements or hormones just realize that is a lot like trying to clean up a spill on your kitchen floor with a Dixie cup instead of a mop. It won’t do near the job you want it to.



Edited to add: here's the link to the actual blog by momma Grizz, in case anyone is interested in seeing other women's thoughts on it as well..

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Momma_Grizz/view/menopausal-weight-gain-war-zone-576021

susan - loved the article; I have been working on the breathing part.. saw a thing about the 4/7/8 breath technique.. inhale thru nose; hold for 7, exhale thru mouth for 8.. I've been using that a fair bit and find it does help! Usually use it on my lake walks so double bonus! Have already instituted the remove excessive stimulation part; I turn my phone OFF (yup ringer and all!) and leave it in the living room; but i'll never be able to achieve the sleep one; my circadium rhythm has been screwed up for years with the rotating shifts - and add in menopause? that ones a lost cause for me until retirement I fear lol... but love that the ideas are so simple and can incorporate as many as possible every day! thanks for posting!

valairia and OWR - I too am working on more protein, less grains (but not cutting them out completely) and just as an FYI my doc told me last year women often DON'T get enough protein after 50 and it's something we have to make sure we get enough of; however as she also has me on a cholesterol drug for the moment (even tho i'm at the normal range now she wants me a little lower cause of the diabetes) so I've been trying to find what non starchy forms of protein I can; so far have increased my intake of nuts - im not a big seed person but also have been drinking more milk... even skim has about 9gr of protein in it... and I will confess... I even bought a litre of chocolate milk as a treat LOL.... but it's an easy way to add some protein and calcium in to my day... as long as I don't resort to "cookies and milk" that is LOL!

I've been researching some easy protein lunches and stuff too for work... one I like is making kebabs; chunks of cooked chicken, roasted veg like mushrooms and peppers and onions; easy to eat at work too so hope to try making a couple of them in the next few days... would be interested in hearing what everyone else is doing protein upping wise; need the tips!

oh and OWR?? hell yes... I have found the carb heavy days kick start the hot flashes.... mind u so does coffee and wine lately lol.... but i'll suffer with those cause aint giving em up hahaha.

I got 2 wrong; which kinda surprised me; but one would have been the high blood pressure if I hadn't read vailara's response before taking the test LOL.. I would not have guessed that altho since my horrid discovery of just how much salt is in most bread a few years ago should have clued me in.... and I picked the sourdough cause my nutritionist tld me it was the best choice; but according to the test a whole grain pumpernickel is the best... sadly the only pumpernickel I usually eat is scooped out with spinach dip piled in it LOLOL..