I wanted to move mountains not become one. Gluttony is the only sin you can’t hide. It’s right out there, staring everybody in the face. A sin isn’t just an offense against someone else or something else, it’s every bit as much a sin against one’s self. If you can’t control your gluttony, then you’re a danger to yourself. Period. That doesn’t mean that fat people strike out against themselves instead of others. Aggression knows no fat boundaries as we saw in Ariel Sharon, former Prime Minister to Israel now deceased. Once regarded by me as the most violent man on the face of the earth – to others and himself – which means he was a danger to everybody. Out of control, eating a lamb a day, killing ten Palestinians a day, blowing up buildings, bombing schools, hospitals, libraries, bulldozing Palestinian homes to make way for Jewish colonies, taking people’s ability to survive and thrive away from them, uprooting their crops, bombing their police stations, ambulances. I could go on and on, but I won’t. It’s time to diet. I thought Ariel Sharon should lead those who aren’t starving in the world in losing weight. Perhaps if he had shifted his focus from destruction to discipline he would have found the peace he kept claiming he sought. Unfortunately he succumbed to his life style of excess and recklessness. Let him not be the example you seek to emulate in achieving your goals. No human is immune to reckless living.
Exercise isn’t going to make you lose weight unless you obsess on it, making it a second career – or full-time hobby. Toning, however, takes little time and effort, produces almost immediate results and makes you lose inches, making you look slimmer than you are, while you go about losing the excess fat baggage you carry around with you. You know it’s always there. Even in your sleep, every single second of your life your fat stays steady, like a friend you take with you as a companion wherever you go, whatever you do it’s there for you. You’ll feel a little vulnerable as you begin to shed that friend. You’ll wonder why you don’t feel more confident now that the fat is almost gone. You miss that power feeling the fat gave you. A crutch? It didn’t feel like a crutch. What then? A support. A massive support. A barrier – don’t mess with me. You can’t get too close, my troops surround me protecting me giving me the strength and courage and confidence to do what I really want to do. Lose that and who wouldn’t feel vulnerable.
You’ll get those power feelings back as you sculpt your body as you sculpted your life. That’s the real power that no diet can take from you. Your body is yours. The fat was on loan. You knew you’d have to give it up eventually. Waiting won’t help. You’ll just feel badly once you get it done that you waited so long. Well, maybe you needed to, but need is a loaded word. Ariel Sharon killed himself with his life style. You need to want to survive for you and only you. Okay use somebody else to get you started, then shift the focus back to you. You can bend your own rules. Really. You made them, now make an adjustment. If somebody holds you to something just because you said it, don’t let them prevent you from changing your mind. That prevention gives them too much power over you. That they want that power over you should sound off at least one of your alarms. You do have alarms you know. Every animal does.
You don’t need to go to a spa or to set aside a big block of time to tone. In fact, you don’t even have to change clothes. Business suit, dress, it doesn’t matter. Toning isn’t going to make you sweat a lot.
Cardiovascular exercise, an autonomic response common to all animals in this kingdom we share, inherent in who we all are, strengthens the networks of vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients via blood to all your tissues, most importantly the brain.
I designed a new, simple toning exercise. I get instant results in how I feel and look. I work from the middle out. I can’t do sit ups because of my injuries, so I take two pound weights (and I’ll progress to five maybe ten pounds), one in each hand hanging down in front of me, while standing, and bend slowly forward to the floor, stretching, then straighten back up. I do short rapid repetitions at all levels along the route from the floor to over my head with knees slightly bent, then with knees straightened but not locked – until my muscles burn and a little beyond, so that when I stop I can feel the energy release from those areas. That one exercise, that corresponds to the area of focus called the lifeline in yoga, strengthens all my body muscles, the entire front of me from head to toes and the entire back of me from head to toes and the entire sides of me. I then use a long pole to do stretching in all positions: front, back, side to side overhead. Then twist with the shoulders and whatever else I think to do with it: curls, behind back raising it toward shoulders to strengthen between blades and do it over and over again and instantly I convert this old jalopy of a body into a race car on cruise control – at least in my mind, and the mind is where it’s all happening.
Every day I do this. No pain involved, and I’m walking on air. Don’t anybody burst my bubble now and explain what’s happening as some dumb theory of ‘any exercise will do that’. Not for me it won’t. I’ve tried all the any’s and this does it. I can do it fully clothed, at home, in the office, while watching T.V. No stress, no strain, no sweat, no pain. And what I like about it is it’s all done standing up without access to a gym. And no exercise hangover. Wow. It’s something I enjoy doing. Whenever I think of doing it I have yet to feel dread. That’s warrior-style. To dread keeping toned is counterproductive to the warrior mindset. You don’t need to hate to do something in order for it to be effective for you. It’s like eating animal-free. Why suffer through tastebud punishment, when you can eat like royalty should be eating at half the cost? In addition to the survival advantage for those who prepare their own meals: no one can poison you, plus the strategies used to either follow instructions accurately or improvise, condition the brain for rapid action and reaction. The tastier the better. When you break from battle, a few o-o-hs and ah-h-hs and m-m-ms at meal time go along way toward soothing frayed nerves.
Some may inquire, why do we have to do battle, why can’t we live peacefully? Warriors love peace. That’s what a true warrior pursues – yet through non-violent means. Even if the entire world were at peace, we still would be battling the effects of the elements, disease, overpopulation, the need for food, medicine, clothing, shelter, schooling and jobs for all beings. And since disagreements will still arise in progressive democracies (not to be confused with dictator democracies that rule from a single mind with a veto), we need to prepare to do battle. Battle need not equate with violence unless you want it to. Why anyone would want it to and subsequently pursue that course of action is a mutation that is overdo for extinction. Extinction of a behavioral pattern can be induced by non-violent means.
You might think if you lose weight or exercise at someone else’s suggestion that they’ll take the credit when you become fit and trim. Not to worry. Nobody can do it for you. If someone could, they’d be the most popular and richest person on the planet. Similarly, nobody can motivate you, but you. All anyone can do is tell you what works for them and then you decide what works for you.
to be continued…
FAT-FREE CHEF™ 