How to Solve Your Biggest Problem part 3

In part two I told you how setting a timer for 30 minutes to study my scriptures started to completely change my life.  Part three is the finale.  Here's where I really tackled the problem of losing weight and with God's grace, won the battle.   However (spoiler alert) the solution to this problem was not what I was expecting.  I believe what I learned can help you solve your biggest problem.

Transcript

We ended part 2 with Inspiration #3, focus on one inspired goal and on the brain train switching over to the positive side of the tracks.  

Let’s continue with that and discuss the fact that we have 12 to 60K thoughts a day, 80% of which are negative.  

Guess what percentage of women have negative thoughts about their body many times a day? 93%

Now if you put those two facts together, 93% of women are having up to 48 thousand negative thoughts including negative body thoughts every day.

Our Society has come to love thin and hate fat. Here’s a study that illustrates this:. 

 Subjects were shown drawings of a woman at a really thin 18.5%, then a normal 25% bmi, then a bigger 30% to chunky at 40% bmi and asked, “Would you feel comfortable hanging out with a person in the 30% bmi? Subjects responded that they would be uncomfortable being friends with the heavier women. We have an anti-fat bias, that means we hate fat. Would Jesus Christ fail to love someone because they were overweight? Oh, no. But somehow even those of us who are spiritually awakened, including those of us who follow Jesus Christ, not only despise and hate weight on people, we despise and hate ourselves. And that’s just not what our loving Savior would do. And it starts when we are really young. Historically, Barbie(™) was a really evil and destructive doll. Her body was so unrealistic, a 14-year-old girl looking in the mirror felt ashamed and hopeless because she didn’t look like Barbie. Mattel saw the error of their ways and finally started making a plump Barbie doll in 2016 with a little bit more realistic body and by that I mean real hips. But the damage has been done. In a recent study, the five-year-old girls were given all the various shaped dolls, but they showed preference for the unrealistically thin dolls. They wouldn’t play with the dolls with bigger bodies. Too little too late, Mattel! Totally unrealistic bodies are so pervasive with dolls and on screens it’s caused an epidemic of anti-fat bias which means we are hating others and hating ourselves.

Because my husband is a retired airline pilot, he’s obsessed with flying, and we’ve seen most of the movies with aircraft including Top Gun. So we went to the theater to see the most recent one, and when Maverick’s love interest, Jennifer Connolly came onto the screen she was so thin I wanted to stand up and yell, “Oh Nay Nay!. Can’t  you  see this woman is promoting anorexia! She belongs in a treatment center NOT on this screen as an example for us to emulate?”

But then I realized it’s a pervasive problem, women are too thin in most the movies

actress Emma Thomason called Hollywood evil for putting this pressure on women.  “Actresses who are into their 30s simply don’t eat,” she said. “There was a wonderful actress I was working with on Brideshead Revisited, and the producers said, ‘Will you lose some weight?’”

“And I said to them, ‘If you speak to her about this again on any level, I will leave this picture. You are never to do that.’ It’s evil what’s going on out there and it’s getting worse,” she added. Emma also said she was afraid to move to the USA because of the obsession with skinny. She said every time she thinks about going to LA she thinks, “I am too fat to go there.” (Mumford, G. The Guardian, Wed 29 Mar 2017 05.51 EDT)

How does social media affect our negative thinking? Psych Central says, “Social media platforms often feature images of people with seemingly perfect faces and bodies, often using filters and photo editing tools to enhance their appearance. This can create unrealistic beauty standards, leading to body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem in both women and men.” https://psychcentral.com/health/how-the-media-affects-body-image

Anti-fat bias and our body dissatisfaction leads to eating disorders and death. According to ANAD (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders), 9% of the U.S. population or 28.8 million Americans will have an eating disorder in their lifetime. There are 10,200 deaths each year from an eating disorder.    Guess what my clients think on their way to becoming anorexic? “People will only love me if I’m thinner.”

As a society, we’ve got to change our way of thinking. We have really accepted and now we promote the lie that the way to earn love and respect is to be really thin. That a woman’s most important quality is her appearance. We need a miracle.

Jesus is always the answer. And what’s the second greatest commandment? “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

So let me tell you something that has really worked with my clients who struggle with body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem. The scriptures say, don’t run faster than you have strength. That means when a bunch of negative thoughts start coming up, we have to drive that negative garbage out.

Look at how Jesus drives the garbage out of the temple in the Bible:

John 2:13-16 | How does that apply to me?
Jesus goes to the temple and sees that money changers are desecrating his Father’s house. They seem to think it’s okay to cheat humble people who just want to do good and be good by offering a sacrifice. They are exchanging money and cheating people.   | Our body is a temple. The world wants to desecrate our temple by thoughts that our appearance, our shape is everything, the most important aspect of our being, and thoughts that our minds and our spirits aren’t important. Or objectify us that looking sexy is the most important thing and only thing that’s important. We can get obsessed with the idea that our bodies aren’t good enough instead of being good and doing good.

Back to Jesus Christ in the Temple. He gets really angry. But this is righteous indignation. He braids small cords and he drives out the sheep, oxen, and upsets the tables, coins and weights go flying. | How does that applies to us? We have to get angry. We have to act in righteous indignation.
Jesus hands the doves in their cages, “Take these things hence.” Which means get this distraction, this garbage out of my face. My Fathers house is supposed to be sacred. You guys have made it a den of thieves. |  We have to drive out the evil thoughts. We have to get this garbage out of our minds. We are cleaning up our mind and making it sacred again. Sacred means “dedicated to a holy purpose.” We just want to do good and be good.

One easy way to get the garbage out, and rethink each negative thought, is to focus on just one healthy goal. Here’s an example of how one goal helped me push out the worries and the criticism of the world.

In my healthy eating and exercise journey, I felt  pretty discouraged when lots of things I’d tried yielded no long term results. I prayed for help for one inspired idea that would really work and I felt  impressed to start going to a certified trainer who had converted her garage into a gym. Now this was going to be difficult. In order to make it to work I  had to get up at 5:00 am and be there at 5:30. It was so early, and I felt gross at o dark thirty. 

In the beginning, I’m sweating and I’m straining. Osta Hoga said, “Oh, Nei Nei. Everrything burrns, everything hurrts, and I’m dyyyyyyying.”

Then my trainer escalated me to battle ropes, burpees, and the rowing machine.

Osta said, “Oh, Nei Nei! You can’t be Chris Hemsvorth; you’ll be Thor again for the next theveral days. You’re thinky and you’re thveaty.”

I would say, “No, Osta. Going to this gym is an inspiration from God. I am going to focus on just one healthy goal and right now, it's to go to the trainer and run the other days. Exercise is my happy place. Running is a healthy habit that’s stuck with me my entire adult life. It’s about focusing on one goal.”

Every day and in every media a whole bunch of body criticism and body shaming comes up, like, “Even though you go to the gym three days a week and run three days a week, you’re not skinny, so you’re not beautiful. You have a muffin top. You’re not good enough.”

I’d get a little mad. “You can take your skinny and shove it. Get thee behind m,e Satan!”  Training at the gym three days a week and running the other three is my one inspired goal. That’s what I’m focused on. This is all I’m willing to do right now. So I am good enough. 

And what about when the one inspired goal goes sideways? Slip ups? The holidays and parties and vacations?

First let's talk about the word “focus.” Focus does not mean perfect. It does not mean 100% of the time. That’s impossible. Did you know four out of five people will gain their weight back after they lose it?  All that work and all that sacrifice and they can’t maintain it. Sad huh?  

What did one person out of five do differently? In my research I found 6000 people who lost over 50 lbs. and were able to keep it off for more than three years. 

Let me tell you about this study that was published in the Journal of the Obesity Society.  Now I know that’s not a compelling name for most people to want to read the Journal of Obesity, but wait for it… wait for it. Researchers interviewed 6000 people who avoided putting weight back on following a successful Weight Watchers(™) dieting plan. These successful losers lost more than 50 pounds and kept it off for more than three years. In their study, they asked, “What’s your best advice to keep the weight off?”

Let's pause in our narrative to let this really sink in. These 6000 people actually kept it off for more than three years. That’s mind blowing. Lots of well-meaning trainers and weight loss coaches are just telling you what they think will work. These are about something that really does work, and this is it. This is a groundbreaking, monumental study because of the sample size and the results. I don’t know anywhere else that has these kinds of statistics on what really works.  

Okay, CA Polytechnic, you’ve got my attention with your study. I very much want to know, what motivations and strategies did they use, what lifestyle changes did they make? 

Study author Professor Suzanne Phelan said, “One of the most impressive findings was how weight-loss maintainers described perseverance in the face of setbacks. They saw setbacks as part of their successful journey.” 

So the secret is perseverance. 

What does perseverance even mean? It’s determination, grit, stubbornness, diligence, resolve, purpose, steadfastness, and persistence. For instance, when they slipped off the path of health, I’m sure they got discouraged and thought, “I’m such a failure.” But, quickly they reframed their thinking. They developed their grit and said, “Setbacks are inevitable.  They are just a part of my successful journey.”

They used that grit to persevere and get back on the path. So the best words of advice were, the secret sauce for sustained weight loss, was: 

Persevere

• Press forward
• Endure to the end
• Keep trying
• Never give up

“Focus on one inspired goal” helps you persevere, helps you develop toughness and resolve in conditions of hardship. “Focus on one inspired goal” means self-discipline even when you are not feeling motivated or passionate. 

It also helps with the thought “I’m never good enough.” If I think, “Well, I'm going to a trainer and I’ve gained more weight than before, so I'm a failure.”  I say to myself, “No, reject that thought. I throw it away. I felt impressed to go to this trainer and I’m working hard. I'm going to stick with this one inspired goal until I am ready for the next inspired goal. So I’m doing really well. I’m successful.”

It’s not that I stopped working hard. Focusing on one inspired goal is still challenging. But, I’m strong enough to stop eating after I am full. Sunday, someone handed  me a delicious gooey chocolate and coconut cookie. Instead of starting a choco feeding frenzy like it used to, I calmly wrapped it in a napkin and gave it to my husband. I feel peace inside and I love myself too much to put that tempting morsel, that particular poison into my body. I said, “There are much better ways to get happiness than eating chocolate.”  

Inspiration #4 The 3WL’s 

Question: I’ve struggled with negative thoughts, body shaming, body disgust, and hatred most of my life. Just exactly how is Jesus the Answer to that?” 

Answer: To help a person get their mind right, simply add the words of God or the scriptures to traditional cognitive behavior therapy to help stop thinking like the world and start thinking how God thinks..  

(CBT). CBT is the best of psychology. It’s been proven successful in hundreds of studies, especially in conjunction with therapy and medication. However, CBT isn’t the best of psychology, if you can’t even remember what CBT stands for. Then it’s just the worst of psychology because then I am confusing you with psychobabble. Let’s try calling it something more user-friendly. 

I call it the three WLs: Worries/Loss, Wisdom/Logic and Worth/Love. You ask yourself just three questions and you write or type the answers just as they come out. I had my client who struggles with the thin ideal and anorexic thoughts put this in her journal. On the left is: 

Worries/Loss: What are my painful thoughts about this problem? What is my  anxiety and grief? 
I’m going to be fat forever. I’m ugly, I’m weakI have no self-control. I’m worthless |

The Wisdom and Logic:  It’s a lie. I can be strong. I have a beautiful soul. The emphasis on the thin ideal is Satan trying to destroy women. Worthless is a lie. My worth doesn’t come from how I look, it comes from how I think and act and help others.
The Words and Love of God: | God looks on the heart. (1 Sam 16)
My Redeemer suffered so much for me He bled from every pore, my soul is of great worth (18:10-11)

I started to see an incredible difference in sessions with my clients of faith when we used the 3WL’s and focused on one inspired goal

Meaningful Inspiration #5  Feel Charity the Pure Love of Christ for myself and others

So I’m going along for two more years. I’m setting my timer for a 30-minute scripture study. After a while I start thinking about how in anorexia you get totally obsessed with counting calories. You get so wrapped up in your body you get extremely selfish. I’d like to go the opposite direction. I stopped counting calories. It’s taking up too much of my mental bandwidth. I want my brain to have space for helping and serving my others..  One morning I had an epiphany about this stubborn problem of losing weight.

It’s not the weight, it’s the hate.

It’s not the weight that’s the problem. It’s the self hatred. What would it be like to love myself purely, the way Jesus Christ loves me?

That helped me frame the problem differently. The goal wasn’t to lose weight anymore, the goal was to stop the hate and negative thinking.  

The goal is the second commandment. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Yep, love yourself like God loves you.

I need to retell this story and emphasize something different: 

Two years ago, I went to a ladies Victorian tea party with two of my daughters and my sister and her daughters. 

Unfortunately, my sister is  a size 4 and I’m a size 14. I love her and I hate her. Two years ago I thought, “It’s just painful. It's not fair, and she got to ride on a float in high school as a beauty queen. She pert near had a date every night at BYU. Though I’ve been exercising and dieting all my life, she’s genetically more like my mom, and I’m bigger like my dad’s side of the family.”

“And our daughters at the tea party are also slim and look so pretty in their clothes.” 

I felt intimidated and ashamed of my body.

I couldn’t help comparing myself. It was a miserable and embarrassing experience.

About six months ago, I was writing these podcasts and thinking.

 “I’ve got to control these negative thoughts.”  

 I absolutely refuse to let the negative thoughts stay. I snuff out those negative thoughts with the 3 WL’s.

This year I went to the Victorian tea party and I forgot to criticize myself!   

We held aloft our pinkies as we sipped out mint tea. 

I said, “Oh, Leslie, that’s simply a stunning hat. Is that the one you wore when you played the role of the duchess in Downton Abbey?”

She said, “Oh, this old thing? Yes! Honestly I have so many stunning hats, this one gets buried under the others.”

And I can crush the posh: “Dahling, please tell me, please tell me, about being an elementary school  principal. hHare you turning the wee ones from naughty to nice?”  

After the party, I sat in my car, pondering on why the day felt so happy. I didn’t think one single negative thought the whole afternoon.   

And I had not lost any weight. I set out to lose ten pounds a month. Boom, bang, done.  But,The Solution, the answer from God had come in a different way and it had taken 50 years longer than I expected.

The problem changed from losing the weight to losing the hate, losing Satans two big lies: 

Lie 1 That the most important aspect of a woman is her appearance, so I’m only lovable if I’m really thin.  And 

Lie 2: That I can snack on cheese and chocolate without consequences.  

Oh, that makes sense that the problem was really the lies not the weight. The Devil hates the Book of Mormon because it exposes his lies and tactics. D. Kelly Ogden and Andrew C. Skinner, Verse by Verse: The Book of Mormon, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2011), 1:242.

I had changed

At age 92, Russell M. Nelson had accomplished some really amazing things in this life, 7,000 heart surgeries, ten children, many years as an apostle of the Lord. He had decided to make a study of 2,200 references about the Savior. He was asked afterward what had changed. He said, “I am a different person.” 

I had gone to God in prayer with my problems and I had immersed myself in the Book of Mormon, and He had given me direction, helped me make better decisions, and where as I had been weak about worldly thoughts and negative thinking, and I had been weak about thinking I could eat junk, but now both those lies, both those negative thoughts were so weak they were a distant whisper. He had made me strong.  

I hadn’t been tempted by my cheater eater, Osta Hoga, for so long, I think she fell into a sugar deprivation coma.

I felt like a different person

God making weakness into strengths is called grace. Neil Andersen said the Book of Mormon is saturated with the life of Christ, his atonement and his grace.  It’s not that the name Jesus Christ is on each page. No, but problem solving such as Nephi trying to get the Plates of Brass, the Brother of Jared trying to cross the ocean, Ammon trying to tell a wild and furious people about the Savior, they all prayed for help with their challenge and got inspiration and then strengthening power of the atonement of Jesus Christ to to accomplish that inspiration. That is grace.:

Also, I wondered, am I feeling Charity? I had a sneaking suspicion, something miraculous had happened to me, and it was the greatest of all God’s spiritual gifts::  Charity (1 Cor 13)  

  Moroni 7:47 “But charity is the pure love of Christ.”

Instead of feeling stuck in comparisons, jealousy, and inferiority, I was feeling Charity, the Pure Love of Christ. Looking for the good in others and loving them the way Christ loves them. I was seeing my sister like Christ sees her. I was appreciating all the good things, her hard work, her unselfishness, her humor, her attention to others.

Instead of feeling stuck in low self esteem, I was feeling Charity, the Pure Love of Christ for myself. I was looking for the good, appreciating my hard work, my great goal of helping others with counseling and this podcast.

To get Charity, Moroni tells us: "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love.” (Moroni 7:48)

All the energy of heart. That’s not a little bit. That's everything I have. That’s 50 years of praying for help with this problem. I’m wondering if praying with all the energy of the heart is about receiving an idea from God and acting on it, then going back for another idea from God and acting on that. And my big inspirations that really changed things and helped me finally solve the problem in the last four years were: 

1. Apply the Book of Mormon to myself

2. 30 min of Book of Mormon study.  

3.  Switch the brain train by focusing on one inspired goal.

4. Use the 3WL’s so I could help myself and help my clients hear God’s voice instead of the voice of the world.  

How to Solve Your Biggest Problems?

Take that challenge to God, pray with all the energy of heart even if it takes years for the next inspiration, the next step. Through the enabling and strengthening power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, He will help you make better decisions, change that weakness into a strength. For with God, nothing is impossible.