How I lost 100 pounds and stay sane with Attitude of Gratitude Alanon Slogans

 

Hello friends of this blog on how I lost 100 pounds without gastric bypass surgery or weight loss drugs. This month as part of my 2023 series of weight loss challenges I'm looking at Thanksgiving. Not the dinner so much as the act of being thankful. Part of how I lost 100 pounds was by working on the "Attitude of Gratitude diet" and Alanon slogans are very helpful there. One of my favorites is "Just for Today." 

To me, Just for today means that I try to live the best I can without worrying about how I'll do tomorrow. Alanon encourages us to ask for the strength Today to do what would panic and overwhelm us to envision keeping up for a lifetime. Because we don't have to do it for a lifetime. We've been given today and that's all we're expected to live. So how what does that have to do with obesity, being overweight, weight loss or weight in general? How does that relate to the "attitude of gratitude diet"? 

The Attitude of Gratitude diet isn't so much about what you eat as it is being thankful for being able to eat (walk, move, live, love, etc.) I'm thankful to God for giving me this day to live and also that I don't have to worry about tomorrow. I have to plan for it but they are just plans, ideas or goals if you will. I don't have to manage tomorrow's tasks today. 

We see in the show "My 600-lb Life" examples of people's lives who have been all but destroyed by trying to do it all, have it all and fix it all. Sure now we see them crippled by obesity. But they didn't start life like that. Now we see the people on "My 600-lb Life" whining, pouting and being endlessly selfish and ungrateful. But they weren't always like that. Many of the "My 600-lb Life" backstories involve abuse, neglect, shame, and a continual beating down. So they learned to weaponize eating and in turn obesity. 

I read a story about the, at the time, oldest man in the world, who was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. He was asked his favorite food to which he replied that he hadn't a favorite. He was just glad to be able to eat. I urge us all, no matter where we are: overweight, underweight or average, to consider going on an attitude of gratitude diet. To live just for today, being glad and thankful for what we have. I have found that this helps emotional health immensely, if not physical health and weight loss. 

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November Weight Loss Challenge: Thanksgiving Attitude of Gratitude diet

Hello friends of this blog on how I lost 100 pounds without gastric bypass or weight loss drugs. Each month in 2023, I've been issuing weight loss challenges and November is Thanksgiving Attitude of Gratitude Diet or how to lose weight with a "Fattitude" adjustment. 

I think it's fair to say that  at least in the US, many of us could use an attitude adjustment toward more positivity and less entitled negativity. The Covid 19 pandemic and the 2020 election were real eye-openers to our out of control entitlement, reactional and manufactured anger and hypocritical selfishness. Where those of us with differing ideologies got along fairly well before, now the masks are off, pun intended. The ridiculous (and illegal, I might add) "Let's Go Brandon" flags, anti-President Biden bumper stickers and T-shirts show the viral hate that's infected our nation. 

A deadly virus, Covid 19, has been weaponized and polarized by the far right deniers. Instead of social distancing and mask-wearing to prevent people dying (my husband and I almost did, and still have long Covid symptoms), they twisted it into a debate over "constitutional rights." Which, you'll pardon the former Civics teacher lecture, include first and foremost, the right to LIFE. 

So what does all this have to do with this blog? Everything. An attitude of negativity and ungratefulness leads to what I call an obesity mindset. An overweight, plus-sized narcissistic, gluttonous, "me first, last and always" self-absorption. And that, to the Culture of Death. In that obesity mindset, we will do anything to get what we want. We rewrite the narrative to tell ourselves we need and deserve it. It's our RIGHT to have it. And we stomp on anyone we deem to be in our way. 

We see examples of this on the gastric bypass reality show "My 600-lb Life." People with crippling obesity getting more and more overweight and dragging caregivers and family down with them. The entire world revolves around the "My 600-lb Life" patient with everyone dancing attendance, serving, waiting on, humoring, cleaning up after and enabling. 

So yes, "My 600-lb Life" is extreme. But that's just the point. It's the logical conclusion of selfishness and entitlement gone wild. This is not a hormone problem and a little overweight anymore. What may have started that way, has reached science fiction proportions. And why? Refusal to accept boundaries, self-discipline. A skewed sense of being above and beyond it all. If it feels good, do it. Which brings me full circle back to the Covid 19 pandemic. It stripped away illusion and revealed the level to which our self-centeredness has plunged us. We cared more about our RIGHT not to wear a mask than we did about protecting others. 

My challenge this November is less about weight loss and more a return (or beginning) to humility. I challenge us all to work at an attitude of gratitude. To really celebrate Life and Thanksgiving and each other. Vocation comes from the Latin "voco", to call. And we are all called, as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikh, Buddhist, pagan, by our deities or higher power, to love one another, as our higher power loves us. 

I think this month's weight loss challenge will be the most challenging because it goes to the inner core of why our lives and health get so out of control. Stay tuned for more on how I lost 100 pounds with "fattitude adjustments" like this. Thanks for joining.