"O Magazine, Dr. Phil And The
Heart-Breaking Story Of The Aging Elephant..."...And How
This Strange Connection Transformed A Fed Up Middle-Aged Woman From
"Blimp To Babe!"
Ever
looked at a circus
elephant anchored to the ground?
If you have, you
might notice that the elephant has a metal collar around its leg to
which is attached a small chain.
And the chain is
attached to a wooden peg driven into the ground.
Pretty
good protection?
Pretty
lousy, if you ask me. That 12000-pound elephant could very
easily
pick up its foot and with one fell swoop yank the peg out of the ground
and walk away. But the elephant doesn't.
Why?
I'll
explain.
When
that elephant was still a baby, that same collar, chain and peg were
used to hold the elephant in place. The constraint was
sufficient
to hold the baby elephant in place even if it wanted to break away.
And break away is indeed what the baby elephant tried to do.
So
every day while the baby was chained up, it would pull at the chain
and pull and pull until finally a cut appeared on it's leg exposing the
sore sensitive layers of deep skin tissue.
It hurt
to pull like
that and soon the baby elephant, realizing the effort was both futile
and painful, stopped trying to escape.
Elephants
Never Forget.
As
the baby elephant grew older, it never forgot that bad experience with
the chain and the peg.
And so whenever it
was anchored down in a spot, it would think, "Hey, it's impossible to break
away and besides, it hurts."
The adult
elephant had what is called an "assumed constraint."
And
all of us have the same problem to one degree or another.
You,
me, and an overweight middle-aged woman named Michelle that I came to
love through the most unlikely of sources. At least, get to
know me and you'd never figure me for a guy who'd be caught...
Opening
The Covers Of 'O Magazine.'
 But
there on that fateful day at the local library I guess I just
happened to be in the mood for
that "Treasury of Wisdom, Wit, Advice, Interviews, And Inspiration" you
know as O
Magazine.
I gotta hand it to Oprah... It
was really quite good, but that's just a personal opinion of which I'll
let you draw your own.
And as I flipped the pages at
a "breeze generating" speed my caught a glimpse of someone I
recognized.
A rather serious looking
gentleman, at least in this particular photo.
I'm
sure you've heard of him.
I mean, who hasn't heard
of em?
A
man responsible for so many changed lives. A man who gained
earned his
fame gracing the sets of the Oprah Winfrey show providing wise advice
on dating, relationships and you guessed it...
weight loss.
So there he was Philip C. Mcgraw - AKA
Dr. Phil with the following headline written in bold blue letters
"Even If You've Failed At Every
Diet, You Can Succeed Now."
And
as I started reading a question slowly began to bubble up in
my mind.
Why do so many people keep on dieting when
dieting doesn't work?
Could
it be yet another case of the aging elephant?
A
case that
begins with a much younger version of you with the joyous hopes of
achieving
the confidence eliciting, sexy, "void of all visible fat" body
that you desire, and
ends with the heartbreaking disappointment of yet another diet
failure 10, 20, even 30 years down the road.
And
if so, then how can you finally break free of this frustrating cycle,
lose all the weight you want and never gain any back?
As
I kept on reading there it was...
... the secret...
...
the answer to that very question.
Much to my
surprise, Dr. Phil, as so many experts do, was not going to rant and
rave about the latest and greatest diet. He was headed in the
opposite direction.
And I knew it the minute I read
it. How you ask? Because it was the secret I
discovered just three years ago while I to was struggling to lose my
flab.
Column 1, paragraph 2, page 13, The Best Of O
Magazine...
... "Get
out of your comfort zone and do something different. When you
do
you'll generate a new history that predicts a new future."
It
appeared that Dr. Phil held the same beliefs as me and so many
others... especially those who are older and wiser and have "been
around the dieting block."
That belief being that
dieting just doesn't work.
Sure enough, he convinced
me he did by his following confession: "Fifty
years of living the same way do not make it impossible to start living
differently. Even if you've failed at every diet you've
tried,
you're capable of succeeding now".
After
all, a wise man once said, It's foolish to keep doing the same
things and expect different results.
So
If Not Dieting, Then What?
How
do you break free of the dieting comfort-zone?
Of
the one thing that has become synonymous with losing weight?
Column
2, paragraph 2, page 13, The Best Of Oprah Magazine: "There
are certain actions common to almost every person who achieves weight
loss goals. These steps work because they have to do with
lifestyle and programming, not unreliable willpower."
As
I read that gem of an insight I thought... "Right on Dr. Phil!... But
wait a minute, what are these certain actions"?
The
funny thing is that I knew I didn't need to ask. At one point
in my life just three
years earlier I would have had to ask, but not now, not 30lbs lighter
and whole lot more confident in my body. I knew what those
actions where.
And as I curiously flipped the page
not quite ready to leave Dr. Phil behind...
... He
up and left - and I was all alone with...
A Fed Up Middle Aged Woman Named
Michelle.
Whether
her looks had anything to do with it I'll never know.
But
what I do know was that her personality seemed to reach right off the
page and pull me in.
Here's
a woman who had lied to herself for so long. Who had settled
for
something less than what she absolutely wanted. Allowing
"well
intended" comments from people to evolve into the excuses that were
now being used to chain her down.
To keep her from
what she really wanted.
And I never heard such eye
opening honesty as she courageously admitted...
"I'm no foe of the fat woman -
I'm just a reformed binge-aholic weary of the pat advice I get from
well-meaning people:"
-- "Love yourself as you are."
-- "Let go of your body hatred
and "embrace" the cottage cheese on your thighs."
-- "Tell yourself every morning
that you're a goddess."
"Trouble is that I can tell
myself whatever I want, the world around me sees something far
different."
You
don't here honesty like that very often. Honesty that
down-right
convicts you. Honesty that brings your excuses out into the
open
and forces you to choose between them and the truth.
Between
the
deceitful lies you've been led to believe your entire life and the
reality that you can break free any time you choose.
And
this is the greatest secret I
could ever share with anyone.
LOSE THE
LIES.
Before you
will ever lose any weight you must stop making excuses and start
speaking truth.
When I finally did that, everything
started to change. The disgusting flab that I once feared
began to fade away along with those unwanted memories of insecurity
that it created..
If you hope for a change, to lose
the weight once and for all, you must begin to tell the truth.
You must choose as Michelle did.
And
as I read her words I felt a small glimmer of hope begin to shine
brighter and brighter...
...the hope that others
would discover what we
have...
...the hope and excitement that's brought
about by the words Michelle spoke column 2, paragraph 2, page 14, The
Best of O Magazine:
"And
after 20 years of contending with the ticker tape of negativity that
streams through most every woman's brain each day, I'm finally ready to
tell myself the truth about it-and to take responsibility for ending
the hell ride."
The article goes on to
tell the amazing story of how Michelle lost 64 pounds in less than 6
months.
In her own words:
"I Went From Blimp To
Babe!"
Five
things.
Just five things are all it takes for you to
be able to say the same thing as Michelle did.
Five
things separate you from stripping away every last pound of flab and
finally being completely confident with the person starring back at you
in the mirror.
And if you've already chosen to do
what that heartbroken aging elephant couldn't.
If
you've come to the realization that life is passing you by and you're
ready to yank that peg out of the ground and break the chain of lies
that has kept you from finally losing the fat you've seen in the mirror
every single day.
Then you have accomplished the
most important of the five.
So what are the other
four.
In the words of Dr. Phil: "There
are certain actions common to almost every person who achieves weight
loss goals. These steps work
because they have to do with
lifestyle and programming, not unreliable willpower."
Click here
and I will show you these steps...
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Great post Jason!
Thanks Jason. This article was really touching. I am certain that I have "chains" that are holding me back from losing weight. Your post has given me ...
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