Eat, Pray and Love

Eat, Pray and Love

Over the past 2 weeks I lost 3.3kg making my weight loss to date 4.3kg. I am so proud of myself.

On my 40^th birthday I made a speech articulating how “complete” my life is, not knowing my roller coaster of events, would soon follow.  One of the gifts I got was a book called Eat, Pray and Love.  For months after that I would reflect on the book and share the story with most people I know. This book really made my soul smile as Marcel would often say.

Then the movie came out and everybody that knows me well commented that my favourite, actress Julia Roberts, is featuring in the movie based on one of my favourite books. I watched this movie a few times and remember walking out of the movie with a friend, both of us sobbing.

My weight problem has been a problem for years. I don’t mind answering the question “since when are you overweight?”  I confidently answer since the birth of my eldest son.  It is the follow up question “How old is he?” that makes me feel uncomfortable.  I reluctantly answer 23 years old.

For 23 years I have been struggling with my weight. I know how my excess weight makes me feel emotionally and physically and yet I could not lose the weight permanently. Unintentionally I was taught that you celebrate life by eating. Our family gatherings revolve around eating. I would eat when I am happy, eat when I am sad, eat when I am excited, eat when I am under pressure and the list goes on and on. I realised just like some people are addicted to cigarettes, alcohol or drugs I could not go without food.  I saw food as a means of comfort and I chose to let it be. Occasionally it would bother me and I would go on one of my numerous crash diets. 

It was only when I grasped the essence of the book Eat, Pray and Love that I could make the mind shift.

Happiness is the Consequence of

Personal Effort

I discovered that my relationship with food is a direct reflection of my relationship with myself. I’ve come to realise that I will never succeed in any diet unless I make myself a priority and learn to be loyal to myself. I needed to heal the relationship with myself before I could heal my weight issue.

So here I am today choosing to make myself a priority and knowing that I have healed my relationship with myself. I wish I had known this years ago, it would have saved me so much pain but I believe this was the time I was meant to learn this lesson. I realise it will not be an easy journey but what I do know is that if I make prayer my priority in life and understand that my happiness relates directly to the amount of effort I am willing to put in it, all will go well. One of the most important choices I have made is to paint the canvass of my life in colours that makes me happy. Losing weight is one of the colours that will contribute to my happiness.

Dear God

Please help me begin anew,
to rebuild my temple
and restore my body.
May I learn to eat well.
Please send angles to help me.
May angels oversee my food and sit with me while I eat.
May food which I have so used to hurt me,
now become a blessing and a blessing only
in my life.
Amen
Marianne Williamson

   

Have a week filled with love, joy and gratitude. 

Melanie

Some of the quotes from the book

Eat, Love and Pray

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort.

You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it

and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it

You have to participate relentlessly in the

manifestations of your own blessings.

And once you have achieved a state of happiness,

you must never become lax about maintaining it.

You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward

into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”

  





“This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”

  

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz.

Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it.

Sit with it, for once in your life.

Welcome to the human experience.

But never again use another person's body or emotions

as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.”

    





 “To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.”

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back

the people in this world who sustain our lives.

In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender

before the miraculous scope of human generosity

and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sing,

for as long as we have voices.”

     

“You need to learn how to select your thoughts

just the same way you select your clothes every day.

This is a power you can cultivate.

If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind

That's the only thing you should be trying to control"

Have a week filled with lots of love, joy and gratitude.

Melanie