This audio Copyright 2006 by Gene Wilson and Talktoyourself.com

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15 percent of children are overweight or obese, a three fold jump from 1980

Being overweight is associated with 400,000 American deaths per year.

Being overweight increase the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes,
colon cancer, breast cancer, and endometrial cancer.

The Center For Disease Control reports that adult women are eating 335 more calories per day then they did in 1971. Adult men are eating an extra 168 calories a day.

1 pound of fat is about 3500 calories. An excess of 250 calories a day will
put on 26 pounds a year.

Being overweight or obese is a matter of taking in more calories then are used.

Most overweight and obese people are out of caloric balance,
but only by a tiny amount of calories per day. A 250 calorie deficit per day
will subtract 26 pounds a year.

What does 200 calories look like?

A calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

The effects of bariatric surgery can be undone by people snacking lightly,
but continuously throughout the day.

The United States, Russia, Thailand, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Germany
and the UK have the highest obesity rates.

France ( yes France ), Italy, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Pakistan, India, China, Colombia, Brazil and a handful of African countries have the lowest
obesity rates.

Proper serving size for fruit: the size of a baseball
Proper serving size for a burrito: the size of a bar of soap
Proper serving size for a steak: the size of a deck of cards
Proper serving size for pasta: the size of a computer mouse
Proper serving size for potatoes the size of a light bulb
Proper serving size for butter: the size of 1 die(dice sp?)
Proper serving size for cheese: the size of three dominoes

How Americans have come to take in more calories over the years:

1954 – Burger King hamburger: 2.8 oz 202 calories
2004 – Burger King hamburger: 4.3 oz 310 calories

1955- McDonald’s French Fries: 2.4 oz 210 calories
2004-McDonald’s French Fries : 7 0z 610 calories

1900-Hershey Bar: 2 oz 297 calories
2004-Hershey Bar: 7 oz 1000 calories

1916-coca cola: 6.7 fl oz 79 calories
2004-coca coal: 16 fl oz 194 calories

1950-movie popcorn: 3 cups 174 calories
2004-movie popcorn: 21 cups( buttered) 1,700 calories

How Americans have come to burn fewer calories over the years:

play a video game for 30 min 53 calories
play basketball 280 calories

ride a lawn mower for 30 min 88 calories
push a lawn mower for 30 min 193 calories

go to a car wash 35 calories
wash your car ( 30 min ) 104 calories

order take out food (1 min): 1 calorie
cook a meal ( 1/2 hour ) 70 calories

load a dishwasher for 10 min: 23 calories
wash dishes (30 min ) 80 calories

email a colleague( 1 min ): 2 calories
walk to a colleague’s desk ( 1 min ): 4 calories

ride an elevator for 2 min: 3 calories
take the stairs for 2 min: 19 calories

watch tv ( 30 min ) 35 calories
play cards ( 30 min ) 52 calories

( above based on a 150 pound human )

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Dan Gilbert talks about happiness. On TED/WNYC – New York Public Radio

Psychologist Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our “psychological immune system” lets us feel real, enduring happiness, he says, even when things don’t go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness “synthetic happiness,” and he says it’s “every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for.”

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If you want something in your life do something. Thought without action produces no change. Plans with no action create no change. Wishing with no action produces no change. Observing others with no action produces no change. Study and education with no action produces no change. Affirmations with no action produce no change. Therapy with no action produces no change. Spiritual seeking with no action produces no change.

A number of years ago I worked in Naples Florida with Fred Wass. It was while listening to one of his presentations that I first heard the term Mental Masturbation. The phrase described exactly the helpless and dis-empowered state of thought without action, the constant rumination without end, which produces only disappointment and pain.

Going to conferences, reading another book, going to another self help meeting, listening to the latest and greatest personal development speaker can have value. But without action there is no change. Creating an identity as a seeker of wellness without embracing the steps necessary to live in wellness is futile. At some moment in the journey of gathering knowledge and information action is required to actually live in health and wellness.

Why do people focus on the problem instead of the solution? People are comfortable with their story. Their story becomes their identity and then they cling to the identity, their story, with a ferocious tenacity, even though their lives and that story are desperate unpleasant experiences.

People fear the unknown. It sometimes seems better to live in the wasteland of despair than to risk the unknown which change may bring. This fear of change is common even when it is difficult to imagine worse circumstances in that person’s life. This fear is common even when life seems so desperate that the person is praying to whatever power exists in the universe for relief from the current situation.

How can a person change? A person can change by becoming willing to do something to positively change his or her life and then doing something. Perfection is not desired nor is it possible.

Live in the moment. Now is the only moment anyone ever lives in. It is possible to make plans for the future but each moment of live is lived in “now.”If it is not now it is either a memory or a future neither of which is “now.”

Be conscious of the thoughts that occur in your mind. Observe the automatic thoughts without judgment.

Steve Pavlina has also written an excellent article on the subject of Self-Help Junkies who are always doing research on the solution but who never take action at:
WWW.StevePavlina.com

The specific article is here:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/04/self-help-junkies/

Gene
A Traveler On The Journey!
www.talktoyourself.com

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The great Roman Empire and that of the Greeks where democracy is said to have been nourished and born are no more. Their legacy lives in this moment in the form of thoughts, beliefs and actions that result from those thoughts and beliefs in this moment.

Everything exists only in the now. For nations, empires and for people. Now is all we have and while we may use lessons learned it is in the now that we experience life.

Friendships are something many may wish to believe are everlasting and unchangeable. I believe even the best of friendships change and evolve. I believe that the best of friendships have cycles.

I say friendships like everything else, do not last forever. They change, grow, evolve and become different with time. Sometimes friends take a different path on their journey and seem not to be friends in the same way they once were friends. Sometimes these friends who for a time took a sperate path come together again as close friends and sometimes they do not.

I believe each person who comes into my life is there for a purpose as am I when I enter another’s life. Sometimes when that purpose is fulfilled the friends part for a time.

It has been my great good fortune to have had some wonderful friends in my life. I have never stopped caring about a friend when I or my friends have needed to move on to what ever is next in our lives.

Friendship is a form of love and for me love, real genuine love is about as close as anything gets to lasting forever. Real love and friendships never die.

Gene

A Traveler On The Journey!

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Without an understanding of what we want from life we get what happens without conscious choice. The unconscious thinking that is the habit and internal life of most people, create destiny as surely as a future created with great conscious thought and effort toward a desired goal.

How common is it to for one of our fellows to bemoan his or her fate at having no pleasure or satisfaction in life? When I hear this I almost always see a person who has lived life without a plan. I see people ignorant of the most basic understanding that men achieve what they think about, take action to achieve, and desire.

Without a goal it is human nature to take the path of least resistance. Without a challenge that has meaning to the individual whether it is family, friends, career or purpose, life becomes a series of meaningless distractions from the tedious, mundane grind of existence.

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” My own experience with unconscious thought and my observations of other travelers through life confirm to me that without examination and conscious thought life is less than satisfying. Socrates was right.

Think! Consciously think about hopes, desires, passions, dreams and take action. Create a life that has meaning.

Plan! Be aware of things that can be done to create in your life the things you desire.

Desire! Desire passionately striving for the goals you have identified.

Act! Take action in large and small ways to progress towards your goals.

Enjoy! Enjoy living a liberated life of conscious thought and conscious action.

The destination you seek is your choice.
Live your life with passion.

Gene
A traveler on the journey.

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In the early years of my conscious self discovery and self development journey I discovered the usefulness of recording positive, true scripts on audio cassette tapes and listening to them as I went about my day. I used this tool of recording sayings of many kinds from a large variety of sources to help me to develop the kind habits, actions and abilities I desired to possess.

I used this tool for a few years and discovered a book by Dr. Shad Helmstetter, Ph.D. titled The Self Talk Solution in which he puts forth the benefits of positive self talk as a way of overcoming and reframing negative internal messages into positive affirming self talk. In this book Dr. Helmstetter also extolled the miracle of technology available to all with a cassette recorder to make personalized tapes to play back periodically to help shift beliefs from limiting beliefs to more true, empowering beliefs.

Before reading his book and examining his other materials I was already using many of the techniques mentioned in his books. His presentation of the how and why self talk can be useful was a cogent and credible theory which I found useful.

I eventually attended a training group at the Self Talk Institute where he presented a version of his work to professionals for use with clients. I have used this method with many coaching and counseling clients alone and in conjunction with other techniques. It is frequently useful as a way of moving forward towards the goals my clients would like to achieve.

Today the easy and inexpensive availability of Compact Disc players, MP3 players, computers and other audio devices make self produced and professionally produced custom audio programs useful to the individual and to the professional working with clients.

I use audio programs in my work with clients today and continue to use audio programs for my own personal growth.

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Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.

I accept this statement as true. I also believe that there is more to achieving success than using the mind to think. Thinking is an important part of the processes of becoming that person we desire to become or having the success we desire.

At some time after first thinking acting is required. Without action all of our thinking remains a dream, a fantasy which partially satisfies a need but which never become real. Without action our thoughts and dreams become empty and meaningless.

Action can begin with the thought dream but only if it has the energy of belief that action is possible and that action is required in order to bring the dream to fruition.

How can thinking promote action? I wish, If only I had a car, money, friends, knowledge, someone to help me, etc. is not enough. A different thought process works better. I accept that action is required and I choose to act. Rather than waiting for my partner to make the bed or saying, please make the bed I can choose an action step of making the bed myself. I can choose the thoughts which occur in my thoughts and the emotions which I feel as a result of this action.

I could feel resentment and anger that my partner was not doing what I wanted and making the bed. Such thinking leads me to a place of resentment and no action. I find that when I am able to make the bed myself, feeling gratitude that the bed is now made the way I want it to be made I am happy. I feel joy.

The joy of productive conscious action is a habit which grows to encompass my entire being. I want the bed to be nice for myself. Then I discover the joy of making the bed and realize I am making the bed nice for my beloved and for my son. My joy expands to include them in my world of joy and service.

The above example is a true event from my life. Now my wife and my son also take joy in making the bed and they smile as we do this each time we wake in the morning. I smile with them and our circle of joy and empowerment expands and grows.

Authentic service to self and others is the action step I take today. I speak my truth as I understand it today. Thought with action works for me and I believe for most people willing to take action

Gene

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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

The fear of success is a theme which resonates with me. I know how to live small. I wish to live large and I tell myself, “Be careful, be very careful, do not fail! You are a fool to think you can achieve these things! What will happen to you, your sense of self and your reputation if/when your plan fails?”

Fear is the great destroyer of dreams and desires when it is accepted as truth. Fear when accepted as truth and used to remain frozen and unwilling to take the risks which might create the success personally and professionally that I desire.

I believe that life is a dynamic experience rather than a static experience when life is lived and experienced fully. Change brings fear and it also brings the possibility of happiness and fulfilled dreams. The poet once said, “It is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.” It is better to have pursued dreams, followed our bliss, as Joseph Campbell said and see where love of life will take us on this journey through the world than never to have really lived at all.

I hope for a happy journey! As Roy Rogers used to sing, “Happy Trails To You!”

Gene

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