No Wonder My Pants Were Falling Off! (weight loss and more at the end of the Body Enlightenment System)

Whoa! Time to check in with my Learning to Eat blog because I have certainly been learning to eat! The BES ends tomorrow, and it has been an incredible month. It’s truly the beginning of permanent changes for so many wonderful people. For me personally it has meant a refining of what I eat and how to eat it, AND at the same time it has been full of emotional processing and release. While I’ve lost weight and inches, I have GROWN in the many important ways.

I’ll share the numbers with you first. I want to point out the completeness of the numbers and encourage any of you that are interested in weight loss (remember my primary goal is total health), to measure more than just weight. I’m glad that I have the scale that measures body fat as well. Even if it’s not the most accurate BF calculation possible, it still shows that even when the scale isn’t going down as fast as it seems it should that I am indeed loosing fat. Also I’m SO glad I started the month with taking measurements because now I have concrete numbers to look at about what is changing with my body. For those of you not inclined to take measurements, then simply looking at how your clothes fit can be a great guide as well … my measurements confirmed what my clothes had already been telling me – I was loosing inches off of my hips, butt, and belly!!! This is good because this is where all my fat went the last few years. J So, off it comes now!

Month of the BES (Body Enlightenment System) by the Numbers

• Weight lost: 7.2 pounds
• Percent Body Fat Lost: 2%
• Inches Lost: 11.75
• Clothing sizes change: -2 (from sizes 18/20 to sizes 12/14! … no more XL!)

Official Measurements on 11/30/08
Waist: 37 (-2)
Chest: 41 (same)
Hips: 43 (-3)
Right Thigh: 21.75 (-1.75)
Left Thigh: 21.5 (-2)
Right Arm: 13 (same)
Left Arm: 13 (-.5)
Belly 43 (-2.5)

Date	Weight	Body Fat %	Inches Total
May 2008	220
10/16/08	194.0	43.7
10/25/08	191.0	42.9
11/1/08	187.6	41.7	245
11/15/08	184	40.8
11/22/08	181.8	40.8
11/30/08	180.4	39.7	233.25
Loss to Date:	39.6	4%	11.75

But I have to tell you that the weight and inches that are coming off is truly only a fraction of what is happening. For me personally I am also gaining so much insight into my health in so many ways, and even more than that my emotions and spirit are evolving in ways that feel really good.

Abundance of greens and veggies!

So, if I was learning about raw foods, the importance of eating greens, and a alkaline diet before the BES program, what did BES do for me? Well, first there was a HUGE amount of support both personally and as part of a community. That support and sense of community was so helpful at this point because eating such a unique diet can be isolating, especially as the holidays approach. There was also a sense that someone would always be there to reach out to with questions or for support—someone that understood the process I was going through, and likely someone armed with information to help.

BES also has a fitness component and I’m sure that is why my bottom has begun to disappear. As I’ve both done my 20 minute minimum each day and also started integrated more activity throughout my day (squats, push ups, etc. throughout the day). And Tera makes the fitness component SO fun with fun names and challenges for everything. I feel I’ve made a breakthrough with fitness again because I realized yesterday, when I didn’t do my 20 minutes on the rebounder, that the day just didn’t seem quite right. I now know that I feel and do better when I start my day with that 20 minutes (or more) of heart-pumping activity.

And something I had no idea before starting the BES program is that it includes not only LOTS of encouraging affirmations, but also daily worksheets and a commitment to make changes. I found the daily worksheets were very empowering as they showed me daily all of the great choices I did make with meals and fitness, AND they gave me the opportunity to list the things I plan to do, check them off when I did them, and list what to improve on tomorrow.

The most powerful line on the sheet though is the one that lists one thing you could do today that you’ve been putting off. So each day I was encouraged to do something I had been putting off. For me, and especially this month, was HUGE. This alone could have transformed my life this month. It’s a process and there are still a couple of things left for me to list on that line this next week before I even have to think hard about what I might be putting off – but I have accomplished so much. And in the process I’ve let so much of the negative energy attached with procrastinating things! J (Praise God!)

A Wonderfully Savory Green Smoothie

And then there is the hardest thing to talk about – the emotional processes of the BES program. I think it should be called Total Person Enlightenment Program! And I learned how these things go together. I learned that processing emotions and digesting foods are two things that each take a LOT of energy. In fact that can take so much energy that your body often can’t do both things at once – this means you can effectively stop your emotional processing by eating – hmm stuffing our emotions quite literally! This also means that when you don’t eat as much, eat things that are easier to digest, or do a fast (we do water or juice fasts on BES for partial days) – well, then the emotions are free to flow! This can be overwhelmingly surprising for someone that thought the emotions were already dealt with! But no we have many layers of emotions and I think I’ll have to do much more fasting (and then praying/meditating) before I’ve peeled off all of the layers!

The BES program gave me the support I needed to go ahead and start feeling and processing some complicated emotions. Those that know me know that my daughter’s birth/death anniversary is November 10^th and November has been a really, really hard month for me for the last seven years … I went into this November with all positive affirmations and feeling really great. I thought I was just going to peacefully remember my sweet girl, but no my spirit, now free to emote away, had other ideas. So, for a few hours I was thinking maybe this was not the time to be doing the BES program, but then I realized that I maybe would not even have been able to access those emotions if it were not for the BES program. Now that is powerful!

Now that the program is over, but the evolution of me continues. I will be part of a continued coaching program with Tera from The Raw Divas, and I will continue to post on the Green Smoothie Blog, and I’m sure I’ll do another live session of BES in the future. Additionally, one of my post-BES goals is to stop ignoring this blog. J I’m going to get back to posting nearly every day simply about what I’m eating no matter how mundane it sounds to me. I want to do this for future reference for myself as well as so that everyone knows what I’m eating. I’ll also occasionally update my fitness activities, and hopefully do some really juicy posts all about vegetables and how I’m continuing to learn to eat!

Yours in health ~ Tami

P.S. Are you joining me on the 24 Day Green Smoothie Countdown to Christmas?