's Message Sun 1/13/2008

[Guest guest]

's Daily Message SundayJanuary 13, 2008MY FORMULA

For over three decades now, I have shared my weight-loss formula with you. And that formula is E=MC Squared, no wait...I`m sorry, that one`s not mine! My formula is to eat smaller portions, move your buns and love yourself! Hey, even Einstein would have to agree with that formula to lose weight!

I bring this up because I received an E-mail this week from a lady who had seen me on the Today show. She`d heard me talking about my weight-loss formula on the show and wrote me to ask, , how does one begin to love themselves?

Her question got me thinking. See, there was a time I did not love myself so much at all. In fact, it was more like I hated myself!

I didn`t like the way I looked in the mirror. I didn`t like the fact that my father had to take to the Husky department of the stores along Canal Street in New Orleans to get me new clothes. I didn`t like the way people looked at me. I didn`t like some of the things people said to me or about me. I didn`t like going to school because of the way they treated the fat kid, that is me at school. Boy, at such an early age, there sure were a lot of things I didn`t like about myself or my life, huh?

I guess you could say I had "sour-power." All I seemed to do was feel sorry for myself and rummage around my brain looking for more negative things to feed those sour thoughts in my mind!

But one day I was so miserable that I had a nice long talk with myself. I thought about the good parts of my life. I considered how lucky I was to have such terrific parents and a sweet brother. I thought about some of the nice things people said about me. I thought about some of my teachers at school who were very kind to me. I thought about how terrific it was to live in a cozy home and to have food on the table every day. I discovered that I liked so many things about my life and, sure enough, I started liking myself, too!

Oh sure, I had my slip-ups and became negative again, at times. When I became desperate about my weight then starved myself to lose it, I began hating myself again. I began thinking about the negative things in my life all over again which led me to not like myself as much. That`s where the danger is.

If you really want to begin loving yourself, then you have to do what I did and still do. You have to search your soul for those happy moments if you want to learn to love yourself enough to reach your weight-loss goal. When you don`t love yourself enough, then you probably won`t exercise enough and you won`t eat healthy, either. And you know as well as I do that you`ve got to do both to lose the weight.

When you don`t like yourself, you end up with no goals or dreams to look forward to. When you don`t like yourself, well, you just don't give a darn about you. (And that`s no good!) That`s why, in my formula, loving yourself must always come first!

So today, count your likes and not your dislikes about yourself. All of your likes will not come overnight. You have to work on them daily beginning with the minute you wake up in the morning.

Tonight, before you go to bed, make a list of the things you like most about yourself. And when you get up in the morning, start your day by reading that list and keep those wonderful things you like about yourself in your head all day long.

Those things will teach you to love you. Believe me, my formula works!

Love,