The ELEM-6 Diet, Part-5: Haven't Got a Prayer?

[Please excuse the rough-draft nature of this post. I'll come back to it in the next few days and clean it up. I just wanted to get it to you ASAP] --Allen

My dear still struggling friends. In the psychological /spiritual battle regarding weight, one needs every tool possible. For folks of faith, this means, among other things, prayer. Now don't go thinking (as us overweight folks so often do) that this will make things effortless or so easy one need not work very hard. No--prayer is not some spiritual magic diet pill that will enable you to lose weight while you sleep. Yet--yet, there is something to earnest prayer which connects us to God in a way which leads to victory when previous efforts--even valiant ones--have failed.

Let me tall you about how prayer was a significant element in my beginning to get real about losing weight. I work at my church and our ministry team holds a weekly staff meeting. Besides the church issues we discuss, staff members will often ask for prayer regarding someone or something in their area of ministry. Also, staff members will ask for prayer for a family member who is ill or for some other personal issue. I'm a fairly private person and do not readily share my personal problems and struggles. Last year though, in April or may, at one particular staff meeting, I felt like I should illicit the help of others with my struggle to lose weight (or, perhaps I should say, my lack of being willing to really struggle meaningfully about my weight). So when it came my turn to ask for prayers, I told them how much my excess weight bothered me and how I had failed time and again to control my eating. I confessed that it was an embarrassment to me and a further embarrassment to tell them this. At any rate, no one made a big deal of it or commented much. nonetheless, I now believe that my prayer request to my co-workers that day somehow played a vital role in my eventual success. For all I know, it was the prayers and faith of one of them which really made the difference--and not so much my own.

I should mention here that this happened a full six months before I began to get serious about my weight. However, having asked people to pray for me made me all the more aware that something had to happen and it needed to happen sooner rather than later. One great thing which came of my confession to my co-workers is that one of them, our church's youth leader, would pop into my office every week or two and ask me how my dieting was going. This made me feel guilty when I had to tell him I wasn't yet making much--or any--progress. I was walking a bit (EM), but had not begun to EL yet.

My suggestion: Either in person or perhaps by email, select a handful of people who care about you and tell them how frustrated you are with trying to lose weight. Tell them you know you really must find a way and need all the help you can get. Ask them to remember you in their prayers in this regard. If you are really brave, you might invite them to ask you form time to time how it's going.

O.K. I have now revealed you one of the secret strategies of the ELEM-6 diet which is not contained in the acronym. Perhaps I should have called it ELEM-6+P.

That's all for now. Keep checking back in the weeks ahead as I share more and get into some real detail about how I began in earnest and what that was like.

PS-- You CAN do this! You must, you can, you will!

--Allen

At Last, The ELEM-6 Diet Revealed, Part-1

So many people where I work and at my church (the same place) have asked me how I lost so much weight (80-pounds in 10 months) I decided to put it in some sort of formula fashion so anyone wanting to take the same path could have some pointers in doing so. One person especially is very anxious to know the secret to my weight loss. I am dedicating this series of articles to that person. I will write as if I were addressing that person directly. Feel free to listen in.

Before jumping right in to the particular weight loss "secrets" I "discovered" I need to say a few things about the subject of weight and dieting in general. First and foremost, there are no secrets to be discovered. That's the first thing you'll have to accept. But of course you already know this. You just need to drop all the wishful thinking. Sorry, no silver bullets. Don't search for any diet with a name or any "diet program". ELEM-6 is only a name I gave "my" diet--which is no diet at all--as a spoof on all the diets with have names: the Atkins Diet; the South Beach Diet; The Beverly Hills Diet--there must be a thousand or more of them out there. Those names are all about selling books. So here is the big ELEM-6 revelation in as brief a way as it can be said: Eat Less and Exercise More--Six days a week. There, that's all there is to it. I could just plink a period down at the end of that last sentence and conclude this article right there, but that would be a bit cruel--even kind of cold and heartless. I don;t want to do that. I have to much deep and genuine sympathy for those who struggle and agonize over their weight. I know, I have most of my life. I do need to say more, but but before I do, you need to accept the simple truth that you already know exactly how to lose weight. We all know it. We just hate the cold mathematical-like reality of it and we long for something that will fast-track us to wight loss with not much effort or, or, --OMG--hunger. This is exactly why I call ELEM-6 [I wish I could put that little Trade-Mark symbol right after it] "the diet no one is talking about".

Here is an important 2-part disclaimer: 1) I know many people are helped by finding a diet with a name on it or who pay to join a program or hire a trainer. When it comes to weight loss, I really am for "whatever works for you". Even though I make fun of some of these things, I understand that people trying to lose weight need to find that help wherever and however they can. I just think that those things can often be a way to avoid facing the water-in-the-face reality that, once really and fully accepted, can be the real beginning point for substantial and weight loss. To that last sentence I almost included a clause about maintaining your weight loss once you've achieved it, but then backed off because I've not done that yet. If and when I've stayed at my preferred weight for a couple of years then maybe I'll write about that. For now, I'll just tell you about how I went about losing it. 2) I know that a few people have some rare metabolism or thyroid condition which requires surgery or some kind of special treatment. If that's you, then these articles are not for you. If you suspect you have some such condition, here is my advice: Stop using that possibility as an excuse not to try to lose weight. Go to the doctor, take some tests, then come back here if--as I suspect--you don't have any rare metabolism condition. If you are like me you don't have a metabolism problem, you have an eating problem. And for heaven's sake, please. pul-eeze don't call it, or think of it, as a "eating disorder"! Yikes. Drop that term like a hot baked potato... Hmmm...with real butter and sour cream...and chives...oh, and bacon bits and cheese. Sorry about that. :-)

Well, there is your intro. I want you to think about this little (but big) hard-to-swallow pill I've set on the dinner plate here before you. Think about what it would mean to take an ELEM-6 pill first thing every morning for the next ten months. Think about this for a few days and then I will tell you more about just how I got started and how, perhaps, you can get going in the same direction. See you back at this blog spot in day or two.

--Allen