It’s important to change our focus from obsessing about food or what we’re doing (things like how much more weight you have to lose, that your weight went up a couple pounds this week after losing the previous few weeks, what you think you can’t eat, and where you think you can’t go) and find positive things to focus on. These include things like hobbies and new activities, such as yoga, exercise classes, painting, a book club, garden club, you name it! Also, put the focus onto self-care. Get adequate rest and exercise your body, not to the brink of exhaustion, but in order to get into better shape and stay there. Address underlying medical, physical, and emotional issues; take time to pray, meditate, and be still. Breathe, write in a journal, enjoy the company of a good friend, play with children or animals, go out and live!
Stop focusing on what you can’t have and how miserable an experience you think it will be to get to where you want to go, and just get going!
I realized that, even after dealing with overeating and lack of exercise (definitely my two biggest issues), there are still lots of hours and minutes in each day when we aren’t eating or exercising. Typically, most people spend about an hour a day eating, which could be extended to include shopping for food, cooking, cleaning up, and even dining out in restaurants. Most people spend far less than an hour a day exercising. While diet and exercise are critical to losing weight and being healthy, there is so much more involved. The Restaurant Diet addressed the need to deal with underlying emotional issues that are often part of a weight problem.
The second edition of The Restaurant Diet takes the personal and spiritual components to a much deeper level, showing that my journey was about so much more than just finding a fun, tasty, creative way to lose weight. I will share concrete examples of how I am dealing with everyday life today and that the journey is so much more important than the destination! This goes against “diets” geared toward just losing weight, where all that matters is the end goal. We will never achieve perfection, so, as long as we live, we can and should strive to be better than we were the day before, to learn, to grow, to help, to teach, and to inspire. Living life by enjoying the richness of the moment is far more rewarding than focusing on simply achieving some result, where typically once you reach that place, it doesn’t seem all that great or worth the effort it took to get there. That is why I always say that I am a work in progress, and that losing a lot of weight isn’t the end game. In fact, losing weight and getting healthier is but one piece of a much larger picture.
Part I
A Spiritual Journey of Self-Discovery
Love Yourself!
After losing 150 pounds in a year, people thought something was wrong with me. Friends asked me if I had gastric bypass and didn’t tell anyone or if I was sick with some form of cancer! I was stunned by some of the comments and questions. Some of the same people who used to criticize me for being overweight or state the obvious, “Fred, you really need to do something about your weight,” were now questioning what I did. It’s like when an alcoholic stops drinking, his buddies at the bar no longer have any reason to hang out with him. If I hadn’t been working diligently with a therapist and support groups and been aware of the fact that I’m a whole lot more than this person others seemed to enjoy tearing down, I could have easily gone off the rails and fallen right into their trap of negativity.
While many people applaud a comeback story or someone’s success or good fortune, not everyone does. I enjoyed and got a form of “high” from the encouraging compliments from family, friends, and strangers who walked the same places I did during the time I was losing the weight, and saw a dramatic change over the months. The compliments were nice and were like being high-fived when you are running a marathon or race; a little extra encouragement really helps you push harder. Still, I had to learn not to focus on the compliments and to maintain my course for myself alone. I learned that where there were compliments, there was also criticism, gossip, and speculation. If you lose a lot of weight or make other major beneficial changes to your life, people who you may have considered friends or even some of your family will be there right on schedule to test you, question you, and maybe even put you down. Don’t let them! Building my self-esteem meant I was learning to be okay with myself and what others thought of me. Whether they applauded what I was doing or not was none of my business! As long as I was on the right path for me, I was the only one with the right to judge myself.
Ignore the Naysayers!
Life is full of negativity and naysayers. Part of why we are here on earth is to learn to deal with it. People have their own issues and reasons for pushing their opinions and crazy fears off onto anyone they come in contact with. Part of recovering and being confident in the person I was meant to be is learning to install a filter that weeds out things people say to me, to have their words go “in one ear and out the other,” or to not take their words seriously. They are just words. They are just someone’s opinion. Don’t let someone else’s fears hold you back and prevent you from living your life! Something like 80 percent of people will try to talk you out of doing something or come up with reasons why something won’t work. 20 percent will encourage you. Stick with that 20 percent. Look for people who are encouraging and inspiring—whether you are looking for support with your weight-loss goals or in any area of your life. You are only as good as the company you keep. End of story.
When it came time to get an agent and publish my first book, people told me I was crazy for practically giving up a successful legal career with a guaranteed comfortable income. Trading in a “legitimate” career for blogging, “playing around” on social media, giving what was back then an inordinate amount of “free” advice on weight loss to practically anyone who got in touch with me, freelance writing, and trying to get a book published, all while struggling to pay the bills made no sense to many people in my life. Imagine the kinds of things people said when I was asked to write a second edition. Don’t listen to anyone else when the good guidance inside of you is speaking. Pay attention to cues from within. Ideas that seem to come out of nowhere or things you dream of at night, write them down! They did not come from nowhere. They came directly from your subconscious, your soul, from universal intelligence or “The Other Side.” Honor these thoughts, and believe in them, more than you believe in the negative thoughts other members of the human race are putting into your head. Most people do not yet operate at a high level of consciousness, but everyone has the ability to do so.
Trust Your Intuition!
Start listening to and trusting yourself and your “gut” intuition. Gut intuition can be described as a feeling—either good or bad about something, someone, etc. I’m learning that if I get a bad or uneasy feeling about a particular course of action, I should listen to my gut. Same thing if I get good feelings, the kind that give me goosebumps. These sensations are extra-sensory and are picking up on things like energy that can’t be perceived with the five senses.
You Are Being Guided!
People often talk of a “sixth sense” or thank God or the universe for saving them from whatever. I was nearly hit in what would have likely been game-ending, high-speed, head-on collisions twice in the last ten years driving in Florida (don’t get me started). Both times I miraculously and by the grace of God was able to get out of the way of a car going the wrong way in my lane a second before plowing right into it at full speed. The first time, there was no shoulder, nothing but a steep embankment and a drainage canal off to my right, a line of cars moving the opposite direction to my left, and some wonderful Florida driver just sailing along in my lane, coming straight at me. I had no way out of near certain doom or at least the prospect of life-altering injuries if I managed to survive. If I had even two seconds to “think” about it, I probably would have frozen and not