The most success I ever had in those days (before realizing it was my mind that needed to change) was a variation of the low-carbohydrate diet.  I allowed myself to eat as much as i wanted, but restricted carbohydrates (non fiber) to 30 grams per day.  That’s about as many as are in an English muffin.  So I stopped eating things like bread (my favorite), rice, noodles, chips, and fruit juice, which are high in carbohydrates, but was unrestricted on anything else.  I lost about 25 pounds in 12 weeks, and there it mysteriously stopped.  After a couple of months stuck at 290, I gave it up.  

Now things are different.  I decided what needed to change was myself and the values I was living out.  What I valued was incompatible with losing weight.  I needed to value different things and look at life in a new way.  I have changed how I see the world, and my reasons for eating, and my life goals.  Willpower is involved, but since what I am trying to do is attractive, pursuing it comes more naturally. 

I changed several things, but one of the most important things I did was to promote weight control up my list of values, to one of the top spots.  Now, there is not much in my life that is more important than that.  After I made that decision and thought it through, it was clear to me that what I needed was a system that would last my lifetime.  I wasn’t at all interested in losing weight and then gaining it all back again.  So in effect I needed a new weight control lifestyle, and that meant I had to figure out a new way of thinking about food and eating.  The new lifestyle would have to be attractive and self reinforcing, so that it wouldn’t take willpower.  I talk about my lifestyle a lot on these posts.  Do you see why I like it?  My pictures are meant to capture this happy approach.  

And it’s not just food and eating.  Figuring out what you value is also very important for controlling money and spending!  I have been thinking about this and intend to write a few posts about financial control.  Financial control, to give a preview, is similar to weight control in that your values make all the difference.  If spending money makes you feel good and feel happy and important and loved, then how would you make yourself stop?  It would be like withholding happiness, love, and goodness from yourself.  A person with the habit of spending, like a person who is overeating and gaining weight, needs to discover new values to make any lasting change.  

Your values might be revealed this way:  “What kind of life do you want to have?  What would it take to get there?  How do you NOT want to end up?”  Try asking and answering those questions and you can start to articulate answers.  If you don’t like the answers, you can think about changing them.  

Positive values might include taking care of your family, taking responsibility for your life, saving for a rainy day, helping others, being a good parent, or a good partner.  I made a value out of weight control, but it clearly fits under the categories of taking care of my family and taking responsibility for my life.  

Do you see how it fits there?  

-The Doctor