Belle's Journey

[bellefrogette]

Bill Phillips 18 week Transformation workbook-week 1

Step 1:

LOOKING FORWARD 18 WEEKS

And now it’s time for a really fun part of this assignment. You need you to look forward to a point 18 weeks from now and envision what you want the results of your transformation to be.To help guide you here is a set of self-inquiries.
Heart and Soul

Looking forward, 18 weeks from now, three changes I will have made that show I’m more aligned with what’s important to me at a heart and soul level are:

Example:

• 1) I will be setting a healthy example for my whole family and we’ll all be getting healthier together.
• 2) By making the time to take care of myself, I will have more positive energy and strength to share with others.
• 3) I'll feel good about myself and my heart will be more joyful which will allow me to participate in life and have more fun with it all.

18 weeks, 4 months, so end of March 2011 , coming into spring. It’s a good period long but not too long, I can work with it and remain focused.


I definitely want to be a fit 138 lbs -9/10 Fit means I have been exercising consistently and strongly.

Although I am on CD it is not important that I have sole-sourced all my way there. It is important that I have kept an eye on my calories intake on the days I feel I do not want to take CD or on the days my body need something other than milk.

Actually I wish there was a way to have 4 protein drinks a day, which are not milk based. I feel instinctively that all this milk is not what my body wants. Ha if I had a maid I would have fresh vegetable juice 3 0r 4 times a day with a spoonful of spirulina or wheat grass and in the evening I would have a chicken or meat or fish broth but I would throw out the flesh. That would be a VLCD that I would pay major money for …at the end of the 18 weeks my body would be singing.


At the end of 18 weeks I would love to be off artificial sweeteners. I actually do feel they are neuro toxins and yet they are in everything, worse than sugar in a different way, most I can do now is reduce.

At the end of 18 weeks I would love to have had my apartment redecorated so that I can begin living a minimal life and have a really pared down but fabulous wardrobe

At the end of 18 weeks I want to be on a plane going back on a trip to America, slim now and in the mood for some serious clothes and beauty product shopping…

This is not week 1 though cos I am travelling on Wednesday and I do not even know what time my flight is, its like week 0, so the first week will begin in Seattle and I have not worked that out in my head yet, but I have this week to prep.

So as Bill phillip says I have need to have a GpS.

ok the vid is in dutch, but I get the message

[YOUTUBE]lNEI2xISqDM[/YOUTUBE]

 

[bellefrogette]

Actually I prefer shawns book ( he brother of Bill ) but shawn does not have a comprehensive website devoted to his method in the way his brother does .


But shawn talks good sense and to me addresess the inner path of strentgh training and fitness in a way that works for my sense of spirit

shawn on why preparation is so important


[YOUTUBE]IZH72M5r7H8[/YOUTUBE]

 

[bellefrogette]

But both brothers are serious eye candy:gimi:, I'll take either or both

 

[bellefrogette]

WFG-week 1.6

woke late, I have not packed , haven't even done my shopping and my flight is tomorrow some time, it would help to check the time....

Ok next question ( and this is one morning when I would have preferred to put a smiley on my blog and cry off writing)


6. In Women, Food and God, Geneen says your relationship to food is a doorway to your true nature, your deepest self. Do you believe you have a true nature and a higher self? Are you willing to use your relationship with food as the doorway to that?


I recall answering this question before when I was doing the workbook with someone. She dropped out, found the questions too probing, too confusing, and made 1001 excuses to me. I remember feeling disappointed in her, then realising that that the mistake had been mine in assuming that we were doing the workbook ‘together’. But her weight and issues were hers and mine were mine and we were each responsible to ourselves first. Sure the questions in the workbook are often awkward and God –centred, but that is something anyone can tweak to find the core question they want to ask themselves. But as with all things, one has to want it.

It also taught me that sometimes women have bought into the conditioning that leads to not to look below the surface and to make the food and eating’ the thing’. This questioning its current form uses food as that ‘thing’ which doesn’t work for me, so once again the question needs to be re written before I can answer it.

 

[bellefrogette]

I do not have a ‘relationship’ with food, nor do I want to have a ‘relationship’ with food. But I have had a ‘relationship’ with food that has been toxic…and it’s a relationship that was mind numbing in its mental repetitiveness and oppressiveness. Food became the thing. It became larger than life. Larger than strength, beauty, courage, beauty and creativity. So no I do not want to use food again as a doorway to anything.


I want food to be food .i.e nourishment in the moment and no more. Sure I want food and eating to be vibrant, immaculate and appropriate, essential to my vitality, but I refuse to put it on an altar, I refuse to give it special status, it cannot be ‘The Doorway’, though something else can. And something else will be, I will use something, something beautiful strong, courageous and tender and food, as wonderful as it can be, is not my symbol of choice. The doorway I am going to use and which I have always needed to use is Art. Art is my doorway and Art is my way.

 

[bellefrogette]

Do I believe I have a true nature and a higher self? Am I willing to use my relationship with food as the doorway to that?


I do not believe in or use the terminology of higher and lover self. I find it unnecessarily dualistic, but I feel how she uses the terminology is to point out that I am more than the self I think myself to be within physical reality, she is saying there is more to me than meets the eye, literally and metaphorically. I am more, bigger, stronger, more fabulous than I know or remember most of the time.

In the midst of compulsive eating I have forgotten, indeed the compulsive eating has been an expression of that forgetting, compulsive and emotional eating Infact was the expression of that pain of forgetting and getting lost in the carnival of appearances and limited thinking and mouse like living, being small, playing small, and not shining because those around me felt intimidated or jealous and not understanding what it meant to be me. Maybe because I was given this weak fragile timid version of what it means to be human and to be on earth

And I was told with a great deal of force and intensity that I was sinful, egotistical, untrustworthy and filled with competing desires and drives. All negative and all self-destructive and if there was to be any merit to me, it would need to be earnt, preferably though self-sacrifice and self-erasure. So of course I ate, who wouldn’t if they believed such an outrageous lie?

But as I wrote in the last part of my answer, Food is not the key or door way. Art is, being an artist is. Art is my key, my doorway, my path and everything becomes right as I walk through that doorway with that key.

 

[bellefrogette]

WFG-week 1.7

Chapter 1: About God

7.What is in Your Personal Space now ?

This is a strange question, so I am not sure which personal space she means?

So I’ll speak of the interior of my life….

I am off on holiday for 4 weeks and though I will still be signing in and writing, I am looking forward to the four weeks as a space where I can spend quality deep time with myself.

Desire. I have a deep desire in my interior space. A desire for quiet and introspection. I want peace and solitude. I also want to walk a lot. Indoor on the treadmill and outside.

One thing I want to do is really address the tools of the artist’s way. I already do the morning pages. The other tools are artists walk, artists date. I don’t so much need an artists date because I do and think art 25/7.or I might need it later. But walking as a constant over the 4 weeks I feel will be highly beneficial.

Contemplative walking maybe with my journal, stopping at each likely looking coffee shop, pausing a while and writing. That sounds like bliss.

 

[bellefrogette]

28 days of Bliss

So here I am in Seattle, with a fresh batch of Cd , my brand new scales and juicer. Actually today i had both ice cream and pizza today and I will say it had nothing to do with a binge, it was more to do with being in seattle and wanting something simple and uncambridge. Honestly I can't say i really enjoyed either. Still, I'll be back on CD on either Saturday or Sunday but mainly I'll still be under 1000 calories and eating big green salads.

Bella

 

[bellefrogette]

WFG-workbook-Chapter 2: Ending the War

Chapter 2: Ending the War
1. Author Geneen Roth begins the chapter telling her students that their relationships with
food are the greatest blessings in their lives. That they are not going to fix this relationship, but
should walk through the door and see what’s behind it. When you think about this—that what
you thought was a curse is actually a blessing—how do you respond? Do you feel like throwing
the book against the wall or feeding it to your dog, or does it make you curious about the
possibilities of using your relationship with food as an opening to the rest of your life?

2. What would it mean to see your relationship with food as the greatest blessing of your life?
What would need to change in your thinking? Your eating?

3. Geneen describes her struggle of gaining and losing 1,000 pounds, loathing herself and
becoming suicidal. She came to the realization that she had two choices—to stop dieting or to
kill herself. Ultimately, she writes, it’s about not fixing yourself. In Women, Food and God, she
urges readers to end the war with themselves and with food. How long have you been fighting
with yourself about your relationship with food? And…has fighting with yourself ever led to
truly changing yourself? Are you willing to stop the struggle? What do you think you’ll find?
How would giving up this fight make you feel?

4. Do you believe that engaging in the endless loops of gaining and losing weight keeps you
connected to your friends and family, who are also engaged in the diet-binge cycle?


5. On page 29, Geneen mentions the UCLA study on the effectiveness of dieting. Among those
who were followed for fewer than two years, 83 percent gained back more weight than they
had lost. If you were ill and the doctor suggested a cure that would make you worse, would you
follow it nonetheless? How does it affect you to see that diets are not a cure?



6. On pages 30–31, Geneen writes about a woman who focused on her desire to feel lean and
trim rather than feel the loss of the love of her life. She confessed that she “always” gets
abandoned, and in her mind being lean enough meant being strong enough to face the feelings
she does not want to experience. What have you always believed you will have if you finally
lose the weight? What power have you given away to being thin?


7. On page 32, Geneen writes that “women turn to food when they are not hungry because they
are hungry for something they can’t name.” A connection to the sacred, to what they find holy
in their lives. If you had to define what is sacred or holy in your life, what would that be? What
do you cherish most of all? Can you remember a time when you just the way you are, regardless
of your size, was enough

 

[bellefrogette]

WFG-workbook-Chapter 2: Ending the War

2: Ending the War

1. Author Geneen Roth begins the chapter telling her students that their relationships with food are the greatest blessings in their lives. That they are not going to fix this relationship, but should walk through the door and see what’s behind it. When you think about this—that what you thought was a curse is actually a blessing—how do you respond? Do you feel like throwing the book against the wall or feeding it to your dog, or does it make you curious about the possibilities of using your relationship with food as an opening to the rest of your life?

I suppose if ones life is all about food then it could be the greatest blessing in ones life.But I would say that the process of emotional eating and its visible after effects while not a blessing can certainly be important and useful, not to be dismissed lightly and viewed with curiosity.rather than walking through the door of the relationship with food I guess i can still ask what lies behind. This immediately takes me out of the mindset of diets, body, food and eating and asks what is really going on and why. I do not see what has been happening to me as a curse and so I do not need to see it as a blessing.The duality does not appeal to me. I do not want to use food as the opening to the rest of my life. It makes food and eating and weight loss and gain, way too important. But I can use all of that as the catalyst key that opens my life to myself.


one of the films I watched on the way over

 

[bellefrogette]

/3


good to be back in the groove, there is a hotbox bathhouse and sauna here, women only. Its rather zen and quite immaculate. it opens noon and closes at midnight.

what else ?

bought Marianne williamson's new book, there is another book I want by new year by Bob Greene, not out yet.

I need to get my wake up times sorted, I am still on London time and waking mid afternoon wondering what happened to my day,

 

[bellefrogette]

/-

Its 2 pm here--sigh, i really i am not a happy bunny.As for exercise, himself has socks and stuff over the treadmill-but iam going to do stuff about that today cos i need it.

The sauna I found was great but do i really want to go that far..its not far but it opens at noon and closes at midnight. Me, i like to hit a sauna first thing and noon is an odd time.

weight is coming off again but i do feel disoriented still and in a way I do not like- hence I have not filled my workbook questions.


On the plus side the coffee shops here open around 5.30 am and most have wifi acess.

I think its partly the humongous TV in the front room. in my place no TV , in his place the big daddy TV and I start watching all these programs which have nothing to do with me and mess up my bed time...sigh,moan ,sigh,

 

[bellefrogette]

WFG-workbook-2.2

Chapter 2: Ending the War

2. What would it mean to see your relationship with food as the greatest blessing of your life?
What would need to change in your thinking? Your eating?

I would be concerned if I were to see it as the greatest blessing because i would feel as if I was ignoring all the non food related areas of importance in my life and making my life once again, all about food, all about eating, all about this drive,,and not what lies behind and not all the other things which have great value for me.

to change my thinking and my feelings i would have to see food and eating as a very important catalyst, cipher or even key, but blessing is a term I use for something else .


But if i were to adopt 'blessing', or rather try it on for size, I would say that the area is a very intimate path to knowing myself, a very sensual, female, emotional path with many tender places and ways of knowing myself.


So being a good spot I'll sit with the notions sensing the arguments for and against , but still give it a test drive.

 

[bellefrogette]

[YOUTUBE]rcRkatSz9o4[/YOUTUBE]

 

[bellefrogette]

/-

the thing is, being here in Seattle I just do not have my creature comforts and the support i take for granted,including my neighbors cat.

so I had an idea.. how to turn a pumpkin into a coach aka how to use the resources I have here ...so i am joining weight-watchers for 3 weeks till I get back to London

that will give me 4 weigh ins and keep me on track cos its so easy to lose focus and the meetings will help as well. i went to a WW meeting in seattle the last time I was here - in summer and it was quite different from what i remember WW in london to be like-more psychology and NLP in the USA meetings,

Its not that I want to show off with dramatic weight loss each weigh in, nor am I going to talk about VLCD, I just need structure and some support in a not so strange land

 

[bellefrogette]

Odd though it may sound , I really feel that though i have been on holiday I have had no still time for myself..its been motion, all day everyday pretty much with one thing and another since I got here, all important stuff , but there has been an element of stress which has simply created a tension which has led to my wanting to eat-which has led to nibble nibble nibble ....which isn't what I want, but it is how things have had to be..i won't complain though I am complaining. well its late here or is that early ?


Bella, aka confused.

 

[bellefrogette]

my xmas pressie 10 vists to the hothouse in seattle- womens only spa hot tub and sauna hangout zone,what i am not used to is that everyone is Nekkid! except the receptionist.

 

[bellefrogette]

/1

OK so what has happened to my Holiday ? 1/3 gone 2/3 to go. i need down time rest time, reflection time and me time. Oh I have been doing all good things but I really want to chill out. I told my host this morning , ok Xmas is over and I really hope you don't mind but really really no more cooking..which signals me wanting toget back into my quiet spot. I have never been a big new year drinks and food person, so I do not feel obliged to join in those festivities or preparations.


main reason I have not been filling in my diary though is that I have been downloading stuff so that when I take my net book to the coffee shop I have loads of inspirational stuff on it to watch and listen to but it completely chocked up browsing, also i have been as lazy as a cow in a meadow munching grass, its been lovely.

All in all I have put on 1lb over the last few days. 0.8 of a lb but i always round up, keeps my graph easier to plot..so today I am off to WW downtown, that should assist me keep my focus till I leave the emerald city


Bella

 

[bellefrogette]

/3


went to WW,and I would have to say if WW- Uk was like this it would be worth going just for the pep talk which is a combination of power mode, NLP and some new agey pop psy talk...but what really suprised me is that WW USA have meal replacement shakes....next stop liquid diets..time to get back to filling in my journal pages.


Bella

 

[bellefrogette]

2011, the year of vitality and health, best wishes to all, lets make it happen.