Recently in The Spirit of Weight Loss Category

What's your mission in life? And how would it be better served if you were thinner and healthier? What gives you meaning and purpose? Just as a business benefits from creating a mission statement, so do we benefit from outlining our life's mission as clearly as possible. Feel free to edit and adjust it to get it just right - run it by people and come back to it over a few days. Once you have done that, consider how you could accomplish your goals if you were to take better care of yourself, or be liberated from being overweight.

--Norris Chumley

Think about serving others. By giving a little of yourself, you lighten your own burdens. Lending a helping hand can show you that you perhaps don't have it as bad as you think you do. Giving of yourself to others can teach you new ideas and ways for your own life.

Taking the time to get outside yourself into someone else's needs, can allow you some freedom for you, and that feeling of deep satisfaction knowing that you cared enough to share a little love and time. For that moment, your weight problems will vanish in service to others.

Today, I recommend you get outside of yourself for a little while, and think and write about how you can help others. Let yourself be a friend to someone else - elaborate on how you could assist a friend in need, or a stranger who has it worse than you.

Right here, right now - do a little strategic planning for some human service. Could you give an hour a week, volunteering somewhere you're needed? Is there a service program connected with your church, synagogue or temple that you could hook up with? Or perhaps just simply read to an elderly or young neighbor or family member.

--Norris Chumley

What would it feel like to be liberated from the fat? What would you do if you were totally at the right weight - just the perfect way according to you, your medical doctor, and God?

One central part of your life that wouldn't be less is that feeling of God's helping hand in your life. As your weight problems gets lighter, your relationship with God will only get stronger and more powerful - loving you and guiding you through every aspect of your life.

Write about the point of possibility, and your goal in losing weight and keeping it off this time, once and for all. Would your clothes fit better, and look better? How would your body feel - to be lighter and more agile? What would be different about your thoughts and emotions? Would you have a better self-image, and higher self-esteem?

--Norris Chumley

Do you feel ashamed of yourself for being overweight? Write about all the myriad feelings you may be experiencing around this idea of shame.

When I had a serious obesity problem, I was full of shame. On the outside, I acted like the happiest, funniest fat clown in the world. Inside, I was experiencing a spiritual meltdown. I felt so inferior to other people. I felt like the fat was all my own doing (as others had told me it was my fault). I felt sick. I had the dreadful shame of feeling like a freak, or at best a misfit. These were really hard feelings to live with, and in retrospect, I wasn't really living with them very well.

Do other people put you down and humiliate you because you're overweight? Believe me, I understand how it feels. Do you put yourself down, shaming yourself for the problem? I understand that, too. Right now, just between us and with God, let that shame go. Let it flow onto the page, and let it out. Then, if you like, if it helps, have a good cry about it, and ask God for help to begin your life anew.

--Norris Chumley

Let's work together on the feeling of being way too full, or stuffed.

Has it happened to you, that "your eyes were bigger than your stomach," and you took too much food for yourself, and ate the whole thing? It may have felt good going down, but then you felt bloated, stuffed, and even in pain from it.

Was there a time when you ate so much or drank so much it made you vomit? I can remember times like that, particularly at an all-you-can-eat buffet. As a matter of fact, every Sunday night when I was growing up my family went to a smorgasbord and I would go back to the buffet table and pile on food, helping after helping. I actually trained myself to stuff myself on a regular basis. There was almost no limit to how much I could eat, even though it made me feel awful every week. The weight just piled on me, like I piled food onto my plate and into my mouth.

Write about a time when you were stuffed to the point of discomfort or pain. Use that memory to intercede the next time you want to self-abuse by stuffing yourself.

--Norris Chumley

Remember the moment you first felt the presence of God or a Higher Power. How did the divine come into your awareness, and into your life? Once you take the time to write this down, meditate on this experience, allowing...

To encourage permanent weight loss and your best health, write about what you were like when you lost weight before, or when you gained weight? How did it feel to be heavier? How did it feel to be lighter and...

The Beatles sang, "I get by with a little help from my friends," and I know that's true. My friends mean so much to me, I would be lost without their care and interest in me, and me in them....

Today's exercise can help train you to eat less-- with God's help. Jot as many single words that describe how you felt the last time you ate too much. Do this quickly, just getting as many adjectives and nouns written...

For me, extra weight meant several things. On the positive side, as I am a big man by nature - over 6 feet tall, with big frame and bones, I naturally weigh a little more and that's good. When I...

When I was very fat, I often felt a disconnect between my mind and body. I felt like I was always "upstairs" in my brain and emotions, and out of touch (literally and figuratively) with my body. Consciously looking for...

Describe the games you played with friends as a child: riding bikes, playing ball, sledding, roller-skating, dancing. Use this occasion to re-experience the joy you had in movement, and with cherished childhood friends. What has changed? In short, write about...

Often, we live with regular pain or discomfort and just tolerate it day after day. I lived with lower back pain for years, and it just kept getting worse and worse. Ultimately it traveled down my right leg and caused...

What does your favorite food mean to you? Be personal and intimate, and really descriptive. What sensation and pleasure is it giving you? My addiction was ice cream. I just couldn't live without having at least a pint, or preferably...

Most people have a favorite food, one that they keep returning to throughout their lives. For some it's a comfort. For others it's an addiction. My favorite food was ice cream. I would eat lots of it, eventually developing an...

For today's journal, we're going to do something fun. Let's write about how you use your body. Yes, that's what I said - this is fun! Using your body, being active, and even exercising can be fun. If you're like...

Consider journaling about how your relationship with God has helped you (or not) with your weight concerns and problems. Take the time to explore your experiences and the feelings associated with them - and be totally honest - you may...

Is there a symbol for your spiritual beliefs that is meaningful for you? Express how you see God, Spirit, Higher Power, Jesus, (however you know the Divine Creator) and how this spiritual belief manifests in you and your life. If...

As I have written before, God is everything to me. I have God to thank not just for my life, but everything in it, too. Like an ever-present Father and Mother, I feel God in me and see Him in...

A helpful exercise for losing weight is to journal your eating patterns. Take a few moments to think about how you eat. Do you have three meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner? Or do you "graze," eating little amounts throughout the...

Are there specific times every day that you eat too much, and you know it but cannot control it? A lot of people who come to my workshops say that they overeat at night, after dinner, and before bed. Or...

When I was at the end of all hope and possibility; when I had tried every diet, exercise, weight loss pill and product I could get my hands on, with only disappointing short term luck and ultimate failure, I realized...

For some people, foods are symbols of love; the good times spent with family or friends, the happy, peaceful moments or celebrations where food was shared together. Do you remember a time when the food you ate was connected with...

On my sixth birthday, my parents gave me a birthday party and served German chocolate cake and peppermint ice cream. Yum! They also hired a local farmer to bring a pony to our backyard and we had pony rides for...

Having tried many diets and weight loss products over the years, with not many long-lasting results, I began to search for the deeper mystery of why I was overweight. I had a powerful craving to know why I often felt...

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Norris J. Chumley, M.A., M.Ph., was an overweight baby who eventually grew to be an overweight child and then an overweight adult. After years of battling bad eating habits and negative emotions, Chumley had a change...

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Norris J. Chumley, M.A., M.Ph., was an overweight baby who eventually grew to be an overweight child and then an overweight adult. After years of battling bad eating habits and negative emotions, Chumley had a change...

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Norris J. Chumley, M.A., M.Ph., was an overweight baby who eventually grew to be an overweight child and then an overweight adult. After years of battling bad eating habits and negative emotions, Chumley had a change...