The Fashion Statement Diet

Lose Weight WITHOUT Changing What You Eat!

Emerging research suggests that the High Fashion Diet could be effective for weight loss (combined with a low calorie menu and exercise). Yes, you can lose weight simply by dressing with the appropriate amazing gadgets.  Or, How to Dress Like a Walking Emotional Guidance System… that is…as if you’ve said….I just give up…I’m never even going to try to think….ever.

Diet Plan:  There are a few purchases required here, but they’re each $19.99!… plus shipping and handling.  Oh, and lots of batteries.   Lots.

First, step into a pair of those Skechers Shape-up roller shoes (See previous Skechers post.).  These babies will take care of whipping your lower half into shape.

Second, strap one of those zapper belts that sends jolts into your abs so to make sure your amazing thigh and butt toning doesn’t get ahead of your tummy.

Certainly, you’ve bought two of those shaker tubes you hold in your hands…the ones that jiggle like crazy up and down and all you have to do is hang on baby… (I know, looks prit-tee pornographic to me….) Okay…put those down for now, you still need your hands.

Now, place the chin squasher torture instrument you bought off television that one time at three in the morning. You know, the one with a coil from a mattress that you place under your jaw.  Then you mash the spring down against your upper chest.  Ten minutes pushing that puppy down and you have a long slender neck and a few hard to explain bruises. 

Now, pick up those shaker tubes again.  You’re set…looking gadget fabulous. Roller shoes, zapper belt, chin squasher, and a tube wiggler in each hand.  Drive to Walmart, step out of your car, hit the on buttons on all your new-found miracle gadgets,  and walk around the perimeter in your new outfit.  This is the perfect weight loss program…unless you get arrested or run into someone from the office.

But Wait!  Just pay separate shipping and handling and you’ll receive the perfect accessory….one of those ball caps with a beer can and a flexible straw on either side.

You know what they say…. talk is cheap. 

No where is this truer than in psychobabble-land.  How easy the words…”It’s just your FEELINGS making you crazy….Not the real world… Not the FACTS.”  …roll off the tongue.

Oh, how glibly this truth can be spoken… If  you are not the person who is whacked out at the time.  If you are the Whacked Out One (the WOO), glib is a bit harder to muster.  In fact, the non-WOO could be in danger since their kind pointing out that we are not managing ourselves well … could just be enough for us to turn our WOO-ness toward the pointer-outer.

There was a time when I wasn’t quite sure anyone could really get a handle on strong emotions.   Several incidents convinced me that each of us has within us the power to manage anxiety better.  The first was the ”hot tea incident.”

Remember, just how well you are able to manage your anxiety around anxious people (the degree of FUSION, see recent posts for definition) depends partly on the nature of your relationship to the other.  In this case, the “other” was one of the first couples I saw for marriage counseling.  (Word to the wise… don’t be any psychologist’s third case.)  The nature of my relationship with the couple was… they were important because, like I said, they were my third case and messing up would register as “tragic.”

I seated the couple in a small room in the university health center which had next to it a snack room.  Only a pair of louvered doors separated the snack room from the consultation room, so that clients could clearly hear anything that occurred in the snack room.  Once the couple was comfortable, I went into the snack room to complete making myself a cup of hot tea.  I’d left the teapot boiling on the stove earlier.  I placed a teabag in a mug, brought the teapot over to the sink, and proceded to pour the boiling water into my cup.  Except I’d misjudged how much water was in the teapot, plus my hands were a bit shaky.  The result was that the boiling water raged out of the pot, roiling over my hand holding the cup.  We are talking really, really hot water.     And here’s the thing.  I did not so much as make a peep.  (Okay, if you’d been in the same room and could read lips, you could have picked out a couple of unfriendly pharases.)  In an ordinary situation in which it was not incredibly important for me to make a good impression, I would have screamed.  I would have let loose a few barn-learned epithets.  But I was quiet.  Something flipped in me then.  A knowledge I hadn’t had before.  I’d proved to myself that if a person wanted to badly enough, he or she could change an “automatic” reaction.  During the session, I quietly watched welts grow on my hand.

I re-mention the hot tea incident now, because understanding and dealing with FUSION, is tough sledding.  So tough that most people don’t even give it much of a go.  It’s easier to give other people responsibility for our feelings.  It’s easier to try to get other people to change.  (Not that this works, it’s just easier to focus on changing others than it is to focus on changing self.)  It’s easier to reach for short term anxiety binders-substances, shopping, relationship dependence, worry…

The “hot tea” incident proved there is hope.  Even those of us regular WOOs can manage our emotions better.  Even two percent is a huge gain.

I’m going to let this phrase and picture tell the story…. Along w ith the next entries…How do you want to spend your time and energy?

Sign the size of a bumper sticker on the rear of a gigantic gravel truck:
“Do not come within 200 feet of vehicle. Not responsible for windshield cracks.”
…Did I mention you can only read this notice if you close in to 10 feet?

Imagine in your head there is a steering wheel directing your life.  Your emotional Guidance System is one pair of hands trying to steer you.  That pair of hands is telling you what?  “Just get out this anxiety, don’t think of the future costs! Do whatever you have to do to get rid of anxiety now. The other set of hands, your Thinking Guidance System, has wider choices–but who has the strength to listen?

More needs to be said clarifying how the Emotional Guidance System (if this is new, go back a few posts) sneaks aboard, takes charge of our functioning, and keeps our life a mess. Now, some people mistake this statement as saying “emotions are bad.” Of course not. Feelings are some of the juiciest elements of life. Memories are made up of feelings. Sometimes our emotions give us motivation. Feelings make watching a basketball game fun. Unless our feelings “carry us away,” we get into a shouting match and end up in jail.

Feelings of love are wonderful, too. Unless, chasing “in love” feelings results in making our “special other” responsible for the way we feel. (”If you loved me you would ___”) Unless, slave to our “in love” feelings we end up not having much of a life. Unless our “love” cripples someone else’s functioning. Unless what we’re calling love- is neediness. “When is it Love and when is it Neediness?” is an upcoming entry.

Absurdity Break: What’s happened to reality? The National Geographic Channel is showing some explorer types deep in Africa. Makes sense. Except the narrator is doing voice over for the ”video” showing himself and his female companion on the trip. He now has dirt on his face and a wild look. The lady is stumbling, sure to not make it. Then the native helpers turn on them, one threating with a knife. The guy is saying how “it could be all over for them,” rushes to help the gal. There’s not enough food. The guy and the gal all alone in the jungle don’t know if… they will survive!… I’m so confused. Why doesn’t one of them ask one of the dozen camera men (maybe the one doing the zoom shots from overhead or the one doing closeups) or one the men on the lighting and costume truck FOR SOME HELP? The caterer’s maybe? Reality’s done this weird thing. Reality is staged. Reality is not reality. And this is the National Geographic Channel.

Back to emotions. There are four factors contributing to the likelihood that your Emotional Guidance System will be in charge of your actions.

1) Your physical functioning.

2) The events in your life, including history.

3) Your basic leveling of functioning.

4) The Emotional System of which you are a part.

Before we go on to the Thinking Guidance System, we need to get familiar with how these factors affect our actions.

  Fear, Part One. One way of treating certain cancers is by “planting” a device which emits medicine.  Think of it as a clicking machine buried deep in your being.  A masterpiece out of which beams rays that change the way your cells work.

This is the way fear works.  Fear changes your cells. . . Fear changes your muscles and your organs and YOUR BEHAVIOR.  Which is how I ended up sucking back hideous iced coffee when I could have been enjoying a frosty Coke.  This happened in the sixth grade  and as far as I can tell, it’s been downhill ever since. 

(Keep in mind, if mysteryshrink is just too tainted, and you need the illusion of a psychologist with an unblemished background, there’s always Dr. L on the radio.  Though she’s not a psychologist.  She a “moral advisor” who hasn’t and doesn’t make mistakes.) 

In the middle of my sixth grade year, my family moved.  That summer, I returned to old small town to meet up with my thirteen year old buddies.  We went to a movie then swung by the drugstoreand settled into a booth like we had “back in the day.”  Before I had a chance to figure out what was happening, my friends had all ordered ”coffee” without a flinch. 

Well, I didn’t drink coffee and it had never crossed my mind that I WAS SO BEHIND MY FRIENDS.  I panicked.  My “loser-hood” was about to become obvious since I hadn’t considered myself cool enough to order coffee and just the thought of the hot steaming beverage scared me.  (Don’t forget, there’s always Dr. L.)  I had to recover quickly, so I said the first sophisticated thing that came to my head.  “I’ll have iced coffee,” I said, with a slight tilt of my chin hinting that “iced” coffee was what my super-cool crowd   in the big city were into.

And, in order to avoid criticism, I sipped up every bitter molecule of that awful drink that only grew more disgusting with the half cup of sugar I dumped into it.

So, that’s what fear of criticism can do.  Maybe I learned something about how my EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM can take charge of my life. Maybe my honesty (read: willingness to reveal total weinniness) gives the rest of you guys some ideas. 

Or at least, we can pair that bitter iced coffee afternoon with what I heard a coach say about a recent loss.

“We’ll take it and use it.  The boys made some bad choices this afternoon.  We’ll do better.  Good choices come from Experience. Experience comes from bad choices.”

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Samples of appeals to the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM as piped in on television:

Dateline:  Kitchen in the real America. Recent high school graduate charges in to room.  Kid excitedly tells well-preserved seemingly adult parents: “Yea! I got accepted at Polytech!” Good news, you think, (like there’s a polytech and an Emerald City).  Now, what do you think the parents do as kid dashes out to make his big announcement to his friends?  Of course, the attractive Mom grasps super-attractive Dad’s hand and says, “Oh, honey, how will we afford to pay for this?”    Dad, apparently growing up under a rock, comes up with the PERFECT SOLUTION. Do you know what he says? I just know you do because it’s so logical.  It’s the first thing that popped into my mind.  He looks at proud, lovely Mom and decides to COLOR HIS HAIR SO HE CAN GET A BETTER JOB AND SONNY CAN GO TO POLYTECH.  Yep.

Now that’s bludgeoning of the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM that actually makes me feel more in charge.  Which ought to scare the hoochy out of you. 

Here’s a test.  If you are a grown man with a grown son and it does not occur to you to get a good job and make more money UNTIL YOUR SON HAS THE POLYTECH BREAKTHROUGH– you probably won’t be able to buy into the the idea of learning to use your THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM. 

If you find yourself staring into the bathroom mirror watching the black rinse dribble down your neck after you learn that Sonny boy has flunked out of school   and you ask yourself, “What was I thinking?” The good news is NO THINKING WAS INVOLVED in the dye-your-hair-and-make-your-son a proud graduate of Harvard scheme.  And, thus, there’s so much room for improvement. It’s like failing a test where you didn’t study.  Just think how well you can do now that you’ll have the notes.  I’m not ahead of you on this little journey.

Learning to laugh at our humaness is an important step in dumping ANXIETY on its rear.  Ha Ha.  Guess what Anxiety Grip I know so well.  HaHa.  DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF.

IT’S ALL SMALL STUFF.  Of course, this does not apply to those drivers I instructed earlier today on using their ##@ turn signals.  Yeah.  That was serious stuff.

  The purpose of this blog is to present some ideas on how in the heck any of us can work toward basing our decisions more on our BEST THINKING and less on OUR EMOTIONS.  Not that emotions aren’t lovely, sometimes they are.  But if we base important decisions in our lives on rushes of emotion, our lives will not go well.

Maintaining good relationships means not allowing our emotions to run the show.  Our emotions are demanding and simplistic. 

Maintaining a healthy body also means not allowing our emotions to run the show.  In some cases, even staying alive means operating out of BEST THINKING rather than raging emotions. 

The Mexico City bed incident.  It’s about two a.m. when I reach across the huge hotel bed for a drink of water on the nightstand.  I knock over the combo bottle of all the pills I’ve brought for the two week trip.  Tiny pills spray around the room, many going under the bed.   ”Phooey.”

Well, it’s too late to worry about these pills now.    Anyway, the lighting will be better in the morning.  Also, I had two glasses of wine with my late pizza and am really drowsy.  THESE ARE THOUGHTS.

But . . . I’m worried that I won’t find all the pills.  What if I don’t find my blood pressure medicine??  I’ll just get up now and search for the pills.  (Note, I am alone.  It’s easier to do stupid things when alone.)  I get up.  The bed is a platform that actually attaches to the wall so that the little pills went under where I can’t reach easily.  I should just wait until the morning when the light is better.  No, I can just pull the mattress out a little . . . oops, the mattress is locked into a box, too.  Oh well, if I can get on my hands and knees and force the mattress up on my back . . . Got it.    Oops.  Mattress slides sideways.  That’s okay, I’m holding off the springs with my knee.  Oops, now my ankle. Yikes!  Face on the carpet.  My nose takes a whack on the nightstand.  The entire boarded mattress crashes on my ankle.  Nose is bleeding.  I can’t move.  I’m trapped.  Well, I’m sure as hell not calling the front desk for help. 

We engage in the same process when we let our anxieties rule our behavior in a relationship.  We can’t wait.