The Yoyo Effect Recently, I mulled around an art fair, while I waited for a table in a nearby restaurant. I came across an artist who had beautifully crafted oak into yoyos. I picked one up and gleefully tossed it toward the floor. Many years had gone by since I had used a yoyo. Soon, I was able to make the yoyo “walk the dog” and “swing in the cradle” as I had done as a child. The yoyo is an object consisting of an axle connected to two disks and a piece of pull-string looped around the spool. The idea is to insert one finger into the slip knot and throw the yoyo with force toward the ground to spin it and to unwind the string, then allowing the force of the unraveling to draw the yoyo back to your hand with a quick pull upward. No amount of time passed before I realized that this yoyo was me. I had lost and gained this damn extra ten pounds now about fifteen times in the last year. I go from believing that nothing is more important than balance and health, to teetering on the idea that a little over-indulgence isn’t a bad thing. This lack of consistent belief is the cause of the yoyo effect. With as much as a flick of a wrist, I gather more food toward my mouth. With as little as a lift of my hand, I take the cycle back into my palm, where it stays for a little while, until I forget my purpose again. I’m a frigging yoyo getting dizzier by the day with my uncommitted ways. Yesterday I caught my mother eating leftovers from a Tupperware container just after dinner. I asked, “Why are you eating again so soon after supper?” Her response, “I didn’t want to put this little bit back in the refrigerator.” I responded wryly, without much compassion, “You might as well count on adding a pound by tomorrow morning, because that’s just about how much that extra food is going to add to your stomach.” Soon after that, as kind of a joke, I wrote a contract out for the entire family to sign. The contract was a resignation from the “Clean Plate Club.” She laughed as she hesitantly signed it. But since yesterday, both of us have lost a pound. None of us really want to resign from the club. We love to eat and particularly like eating snacks at night, which is the cause of most of our weight gain. I know I am rarely hungry when I go for that fifth piece of bittersweet dark chocolate. I am a food addict. I never used to be one. But I admit to you now that I have taken to using food to make me feel good occasionally. What I want to do is admit it, call myself out on it, and make a change before it gets worse. I am down five pounds off of my intended weight. Every day, when I look in the mirror at my stomach, I’m reminded that I don’t look like myself anymore. I teach my yoga class, and I’m supposed to be the model for the rest of the class. Therein lies the problem. I can’t seem to live up to the ideal, nor do I want to. Trust me, this isn’t a negative spiel about not being willing or able to do something about myself. This is simply a confession that sometimes we get helpless in our desire to make effective change in our life. No one is judging and no one really cares if I succeed either. But there are people who, if you asked, would encourage you to your best until you reached it. Then these same people might help you discover why you keep finding the worse case scenario and reaching toward it, instead of your highest self! There is a reason why I act the way I do. I was the fifth of six children from a low-income family. By the time Dad’s payday came around, we had been eating hot rock soup for three days, each of us having... If you want to read this blog or other blogs in the Contents, please go to my website below and click on the "Finding Authentic You" tab. Have a Great Day! Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at 615-400-2334 or bosebastian.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:49:32 +0000
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