Hey guys,
In last week’s ‘Shine Bright Like A Diamond’ article I include the following little ‘aside’:
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As a quick aside, I was reading an ad on facey yesterday for a certain, will remain nameless, meal replacement drink.
It said it was for people “who love life and love themselves”.
From my experience, most people who have dieted and yo-yo’d for years and lost and regained the weight and are trying the latest ‘quick fix’ generally hate themselves to some degree.
Thoughts?
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As I’d kind of hoped, I received various replies from a mixture of people I know and don’t.
If you’re interested these emails are read in over 20 countries by 300-500 people every day.
If you’ve been reading these articles for a while, you’ll know at RISE we’re big on ‘being real’.
Not hiding behind a sugar coated, always happy, everything’s great, Personal Trainer ‘persona’.
We don’t feel great all the time.
Life can be hard.
And we’ve worked with enough people over the years (12 years in two weeks for me) to know just how down a lot of people are / can be by the time we meet them.
The replies we received to the email really reminded us this.
And, more importantly, reminded us that what we’re doing is working.
The following is one particular email we received which I felt really described the situation perfectly.
BTW – any private stuff like this you send us will only be repeated with your consent and is kept anonymous.
Hi Jon
I like the thought of being a diamond 🙂
In regards to feeling shit about yourself and hating yourself it’s certainly something I can relate to.
You get yourself into a huge self harming cycle of hate and it borders on destructive. You eat the foods you ‘like’ (generally you’ve grown to ‘like’ them because some chemical or other has you craving them more and more), you have the few minutes of a high and satisfaction then you feel like shit again because you ate something that was rubbish for you and then you feel disappointed with yourself because you’ve given in and done it again.
So you look for a quick fix such as a weight loss plan or, a simple shake, or a gym session that promises results in ten minutes because you either feel so shit about yourself you don’t want to be seen in gym gear being the fatty on the treadmill or you have so little energy because you’ve eaten rubbish (or in reality it’s because you don’t really want to give up the rubbish because you’ve grown to ‘like’ to so much that if you can get away with doing as little as possible and still eating the same you do).
So ultimately you fail at it. You stop going to the gym or drinking stupid shakes and then you feel crap about yourself for quitting, all whilst still shoving that last piece of cake into your mouth because you need to get rid of the crap food before you start your diet again on Monday.
Then you see an advert for some magic pills that have amazing results so you think “oh I can eat exactly what I want and just take these and I’ll lose weight”. I.e. I don’t need to put any effort in. Two weeks down the line, pills not working, another fad hasn’t worked, depression deepens.
Then you see a magazine article saying it’s ok men love curvy women so you feel a little better about yourself. Then you hear that a size 16 is the average size in the UK and you think “cool that’s fine I’m normal” (what you don’t realise is it’s average because we’re in a obesity epidemic and it is NOT OK to be a size 16).
So you carry on eating crap, drinking sugary drinks, looking forward each day to wine o’clock to reward yourself for not having that 2nd chocolate bar at lunchtime and all the time you slowly slip into more of a depression with less and less energy looking for more and more excuses not go to the gym (it’s too expensive, I don’t have time, my gym gears in the wash) or eat healthily (it’s expensive, I don’t have time to cook proper meals, I’m not a big veg lover) and you then get more depressed by the excuses your making up for not doing anything.
So you think ok I’ll cheer myself up but I won’t reach for the chocolate bar (that makes me feel like shit) or a glass of wine (it’s a depressant) I’ll do something else and I’ll treat myself to some new clothes. Off you pop to the shops and it suddenly dawns on you that you’ve gone up another clothes size (or two). You’re now a size 20! SIZE 20! How the hell did that happen???? So you feel shit about yourself all over again and so what do you do . . . . you reach for the chocolate to cheer yourself up!!!!! WTF!!!!!!!!!
It is such an awful cycle that I wish I could snap people out of now I’ve done it myself. I honestly have never felt better in my life and it’s because I’ve stopped looking for excuses and started doing something about it. I’m still not happy with what I see in the mirror and in my eyes I’ll always be a fatty (will never have a toned stomach it’s been wrecked) but I’m ok with that and I hate myself a lot less that I used to. My relationship with food is better, I’m happy at work, I’m socialising more (was too ashamed to go out before) and my relationship is amazing.
I can’t thank you all enough for your help in getting me to this point. Still a couple of stone to go until I’m where I want to be but I’ve lost five stone now and never thought I’d get that far so two stone is more than achievable.
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It is a vicious circle.
A very easy to get into one.
And it can be a very hard one to get out of.
The hardest bit is getting started though.
Once you begin down the path, momentum kicks in.
Keeping it going gets easier and easier.
If you’re on the right path that it.
If you (or a friend) want to find out how we help direct our ninjas down this path and support them on their journey, we’re taking applications for places at our free briefing meetings (next Monday and Tuesday) at myrise.co.uk/apply until the end of the week or we run of places – whichever comes first.
If you’re already on your journey (with or without us), then keep going.
That little voice will keep telling you nasty things.
It never really stops (mine still tells me I’m doing a crap job as a father on a regular basis).
But it does quieten down.
You find it easier and easier to ignore it too.
And you learn to think less ‘black and white’.
And accept that, just because you’re not doing something perfectly, doesn’t mean you’re doing it terribly.
Because you’re not great at something doesn’t mean you’re crap at it.
Because you don’t love yourself, doesn’t mean you need to hate yourself.
And so on.
Keep going guys.
Much love,
Jon ‘Learn to love yourself’ Hall and Matt ‘Hating yourself less is a good start’ Nicholson
P.S. That link to apply for a place at the free ‘find out more’ briefing meeting is myrise.co.uk/apply
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