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10 rules for weight obsession loss

By Tahlee on January 29, 2020 in Attitude Revolution, Do, Food, Mood, Tude

That’s it. I’ve had enough of intelligent, beautiful, masterful women and men getting duped by the diet industry.

People who would normally make very rational decisions, making the most outrageously illogical choices when it comes to their body and health, all in the name of weight loss. Sound familiar?

Well, it’s time to flip the bird to the diet industry. Here are 10 principles for you to lose the weight obsession and gain your life back:

1. Stop comparing

Stop it. Immediately. Stop comparing yourself to others (especially celebrities). Stop comparing your present self to your past self. Accept and embrace all of who you are in this moment.

2. Go on a media diet

The only diet that will ever bring you joy is a media diet. If you are constantly surrounded by unrealistic ideals of beauty that are enhanced by lighting, professional make-up, stacked genetics and then photoshopped to oblivion - of course you’re going to feel shit about yourself. Get rid of the magazines.

3. Ditch the diet industry

Every single product they have ever sold you (and ever will) is a sham! Keep your hard earned cash and spend it on something that will bring you actual happiness - a dance class, a meditation course, a holiday.

4. Get radicalised

Hell, get angry. Get outraged that these industries continually send you messages that you aren’t good enough in order to sell you false hope packaged as a solution. How dare they profit from your misery!

5. Ignore the siren call

How seductive is the promise of possibility? It’s estimated the diet industry is worth over $60 billion in the US alone. So they have a VERY keen interest in keeping you addicted to the idea that this next product or plan will be THE ONE. Despite the fact all the other products and plans have failed you. Yes, they failed you. Not the other way around. Remember that the next time you go to grab the next celebrity-endorsed-rapid-fat-loss-pill.

6. Accept the facts

The holy trinity of lasting weight loss are eating real food, exercising and rest. Of course, there are infinite individual approaches to that foundation - so find what works for you. Aside from specific illnesses that contribute to weight gain, these are the only 3 components to be concerned about. Everything else is white noise.

7. Throw away your scales

Scales can only give you information about your body’s mass (or your body in relation to gravity). It doesn’t tell you whether you can easily sprint for the bus, how long you can play with your children for, if your job gives you meaning and purpose, how kind and resilient you are, the number of loving relationships in your life, or how much fun you have laughing til your belly aches with your best friend. Measure those metrics instead.

8. Lose the “last 5 kilos”mentality

Have you ever noticed whenever you lose weight, it’s never enough? Plastered over nearly every health and fitness or women’s magazine are the words “Lose the last 5 kilos”. This mentality keeps you perpetually stuck in the diet cycle.

9. Be patient, consistent and kind

These three things will allow your body to settle into it’s natural weight and bring you untold happiness in the process. Every second you spend at war with your body is a second wasted. Choose fierce self love and extreme self care above all else.

10. Replace the obsession

Now that you’ve seamlessly integrated health and wellbeing into your life - what will you do with all that time, energy and cash you used to spend on obsessing over your weight? Find a cause worthy of your time and energy. This world desperately needs intelligent, caring, brilliant people like you to solve it’s multiple crises.

Do you know someone who could benefit from losing the weight loss obsession? Share these 10 rules with them. You could be doing them a huge favour.

UPDATE: You can have this blog post as an inspirational wall post - forever! Beautiful posters are now available. Printed on lovely stock and delivered straight to your door. Check out the Attitude Revolution store.

1. Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are

Learn how simply adopting a “power pose” for 2 minutes can change how powerful you feel. NB: This video is what inspired my Pinterest Board - What Self Love Feels Like

2. Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight

Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor studied her own stroke as it happened — and has become a powerful voice for brain recovery. A moving and inspiring video!

3. Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability

The birthplace of courage, compassion and connection is vulnerability. Poignant, funny and a MUST WATCH! Get her latest book, Daring Greatly, here.

4. Jane McGonigal: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life

Jane created a game called Superbetter that helps you boost resilience. Gain 7.5 mins of extra life just by watching this video. For realz!

5. Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days

Hooray! Proof in 2.5 mins that the 30 Day Feel Damn Fine Challenge works

6. Lissa Rankin: Is there scientific proof we can heal ourselves?

The answer is yes. You already knew that - but watch anyway as Lissa draws on some fantastic case studies.

7. Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.

“We protect that which we fall in love with”. True on a personal and global level. A meditative and poetic video. See more of Louie’s jaw dropping art here.

8. Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

An impassioned request to revolutionise the food industry! One of my fave celebrity chefs for this kind of work he does. Plus, ya gotta love a good revolution

9. Scott Dinsmore: How to find and do work you love

One of the original Attitude Revolution gurus, Scott’s passion is for you to Live your Legend and he shares 3 tips for how you can make that happen.

10. Andy Puddicombe: All it takes is 10 mindful minutes

If you thought meditation was all about sitting cross legged and burning incense, think again. There’s also juggling! Plus check out his amazing smartphone app, Headspace.

There you have it folks. I hope this has given you some inspiration and entertainment. If you have a favourite TED talk that isn’t listed here, please share in the comments below. I’m always on the look out for more

Getting back into exercise

By Tahlee on January 8, 2020 in Do

first-jog-in-AGES

It’s that time of year that everyone is setting resolutions, renewing gym memberships and recommitting to their health. Hooray! All wonderful things.

But along with these new beginnings, the feeling of a fresh start and a clean slate can come feelings of dread and shame. In fact, they’re quite common emotions to feel if you’ve been out of the exercise loop for a while.

Dread that the new exercise regime is going to suck (or worse - hurt. A LOT). Shame that you’re not as fit as you once were or that you’ve put weight on.

But as you would know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while - dread and shame are not good motivators for sustainable weight loss or fitness.

Some of you may know that for the last 6 months I’ve been solely focused on doing reformer Pilates to heal my lower back pain. I haven’t done anything else, no cardio apart from some gentle walking and no weights training.

Only in the last few weeks have I been able to add a few more exercises to my routine and last week I went for my first run in I don’t even know how long.

In this time I’ve picked up quite a few tips for getting back on the fitness wagon if you’ve fallen off for any reason (whether it’s pain, injury or an ongoing case of can’t-be-bothered-ded).

So before you race off for a 12km run to burn off the Xmas excess or are coming back from an injury, please heed these 5 tips for getting back into exercise.

1. Acceptance is vital for vitality

Sure, you may wish you’d never torn your hamstring leaving you hobbling around on crutches for 6 weeks. You may feel like a failure for letting your running routine slide over the holidays. Or you may miss the “good old days” when you could cut loose on the dancefloor for 12 hours straight and had the 6-pack to prove it.

But sitting in a mood of resentment and regret is never going to get you back into exercise. At worst, you’ll push yourself too hard to try to “make up for lost time” and end up overtraining, injuring yourself (again) and you’re back at square one.

Accepting a situation doesn’t mean you have to be over the moon about it, or that you’d don’t want to improve.

Acceptance means you gracefully honour your abilities in this present moment. - click to Tweet

And when you honour your abilities and live in the present, you can transform your mood and find joyful ways to move your body right now.

As Albert Einstein wisely said

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them”

2. Ease into it

You’re just setting yourself up for failure if you decide to go gung-ho. Don’t pick up your exercise regime from where you left off. Start where you can.

This may mean running more slowly, going less distance, doing intervals to build up endurance, lifting lighter weights, or working out for less time. Your intensity and duration should match your fitness levels here and now.

Leave your workout wanting more of that good stuff, instead of having to peel yourself off the floor and onto a physio’s table.

3. Celebrate the success

Every day you move your body in a joyful and sustainable way is cause for celebration. The more you do and the more you celebrate your efforts and achievements, the more inspired you’ll feel to do more.

Even if all you can do is a few gentle stretches, or a walk in the park - celebrate. Be joyful in this present moment however you can move now.

The exercise-achieve-celebrate is a wonderful life-affirming cycle to be on.

4. Forgive yourself

Did you try to whip yourself into shape? Binged? Overindulged? Overtrained? Put on weight? Put others’ needs constantly before yours? Dropped your self care routine? Feel unworthy, overwhelmed, down and out?

Breathe in. Breathe out. Forgive and release all those things. Because you’re back. You’re back in the present moment where you have the power to choose the best choices for you; to love yourself fully; and to start anew.

5. Focus on your Core Desired Feelings / Positively Desired Mood

The Desire Map talks about your Core Desired Feelings. The Tactical Mood Transformer talks about your Positively Desired Mood.

This is because when you know why you want to exercise, the aligned effort becomes effortless and you have an endless source of motivation. True story.

What about you most excellent comrade? Have you fallen off the fitness wagon recently? How do you motivate yourself to get back on? Do you have any New Year’s Resolutions?

30 day Feel Damn Fine challenge

By Tahlee on October 30, 2020 in Attitude Revolution, Do, Food, Mood, Tude

In my hometown we’re swiftly moving into summer, and all the usual BS around “Get your body beach ready!” abounds. To be honest, I’ve caught myself slipping into this mentality a bit too – thinking “Oh noes, summer is almost here, I better lose a few kilos”.

But rather than go on any kind of diet, exercise kick or cleanse to try to shed any extra weight, I thought I’d take on a challenge of a different nature.

A challenge that was filled with kindness, feeling good and positiveness.

And rather than keep it all to myself, I thought I’d share my challenge with you and invite you to join in.

It’s called the 30 Day Feel Damn Fine challenge – after my post “Mastery of Feeling Damn Fine Every Day” – and it will be a month filled with simple, joyful activities to help you feel on top of the damn world.

Take a few minutes to watch the video above where I’ll explain everything in a bit more detail. Then jump on over to the Facebook page to declare “Hell yes, I’m in!”

If you’re on Twitter and / or Instagram – tag your tweets and photos with #30xfeeldamnfine

Let’s build our tribe. Invite your friends to join in too. Let’s support, motivate + inspire one another to live our best life.

Here’s to feeling damn fine.

xxx

PS - a couple of quick notes about what this challenge is NOT.

It is not a challenge so you can lose weight.

It is not a challenge to add another thing to your to-do list. Choose small sustainable activities that you like to help combat daily stress.

It is not a challenge to feel guilty about. If you forget /become too overwhelmed to do your activities for a few days, just jump in again when you can.

Opening up + upping my game - how I want The Attitude Revolution to serve you

By Tahlee on October 9, 2020 in Attitude Revolution, Do, Food, Mood, Tude

It is with a fair amount of trepidation that I begin today’s post.

When I started The Attitude Revolution, I wanted to inspire and invoke a revolution of love. And I still do. [Please to read my initial manifesto]

But I’ve been struggling. With my eating, my emotions, and above all my purpose. This weekend, after some pretty painful soul searching, a large personal decision looming over my head, and reading Brené Brown’s latest book ‘Daring Greatly’, I realised I’ve been playing small.

Which is neither fair to you nor me.

So I want to open up and share my big, bright vision for The Attitude Revolution.

This site is not about weight loss, it’s about losing the weight obsession. So while I’ll occasionally talk about eating real food and exercise (which are important components of wellbeing), the intention is for you to truly fall in love with yourself and the body you’re in. Eating disorders come in many forms – not just the typical ones people think of such as anorexia + bulimia – and are considered serious mental health issues. They have a lot of shame + secrecy surrounding them; they create a great deal of suffering for those who have them; and sufferers often have “co-morbid” mental health issues (such as anxiety + depression). I know because I have suffered with all of the above. Self-love is one skill that can help overcome disordered eating. It’s a skill I want to practice and teach.

This site is about me as much as it is about you. I feel I have been called to serve my tribe and leave a positive impact on the world. However, I have to start helping the person closest to me. And that person is me. I’m not perfect, I haven’t completely released the weight obsession, I still occasionally binge, eat food that doesn’t bring me joy, overtrain, undertrain, feel body shame and despair. So the thoughts and tips I share here are to help me heal. If I can shed a light during my journey and help you through my lessons, then I’ll be overjoyed. Healing is a process not a destination.

This site is also bigger than me. As I said, I want to build and serve my tribe. I want to connect as far and wide as possible and build a posse with you, your family, your friends, and have Attitude Revolutionaries all over the world. I want to call on you to help me heal too and share our journeys together. I want you to share this site with those who you know it will help.

This site is also bigger than all of us. At the end of the day, self-love is only the first step on the journey of becoming wholehearted*. We then must create a ripple effect into our relationships, our communities and our planet. There are a myriad of serious problems facing our world today. Climate change, unsustainable resource use, abuse, animal cruelty, poverty, war. Grave and sometimes overwhelming environmental + social challenges that need your help. So this site is also about redirecting the energy + headspace that we previously dedicated to our weight obsession into finding meaning, purpose and impact. Solving real-world problems with courage, compassion and connection.

* Wholehearted is the name Brené Brown gives to people who have the courage to be imperfect; the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others; and who have connection as a result of authenticity ie to let go of who they think they should be in order to be who they are.

I have tears in my eyes as I write this, because of all the fears associated with opening up. All the usual stuff around “will people like it / accept me / judge me / mock me / ignore me”. And also because I know that I have to up my game. No more holding back or playing small, in my life or on this site.

I want to step it up and really create content that is meaningful and helpful to you, that helps you go and live your life of awesomeness. For you to cultivate joy and compassion so you can have delicious relationships, a satisfying career, a small ecological footprint and a positive legacy.

One day I hope that I will be able to dedicate all of my time to The Attitude Revolution, and that I’ll be able to sustain a living from it while we change the world.

But in the meantime, I hope that you’ll join me in stepping up and creating a big, bold, commitment to living and loving your authentic life.

So tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild + precious life? What would you dedicate your energy to once you’d released your weight obsession? And how can I help you along the way?