From Fatness to Fitness

(image taken from:  fatburningtipsthatwork.com)

I had a conversation with my diet buddy this morning which was quite intriguing and triggers me to write this post.  Well, both of us have lost a considerable amount of weight over the past year, that friends whom we met would asked us how had we done it.  To be specific,  I had gone from overweight to ideal weight by shedding off 13 kilos in a period of about 6 months last year.  My diet buddy had gone from almost obese (I'm being kind) to near her ideal weight by shedding more than 22 kg and counting...in a period of 1 year.  When we see friends who were struggling with weight issues, we know that everybody can overcome this  because we have done it, and we are eager to share our own experience.  However, the most common question that people would ask us would be: "So, what supplements did you take?"  We all wish that there's a magical potion in a bottle that when we take it, it dissolves all of our misery...and not to mention fat.  Well, there's no such potion.  The only magic formula is us making the decision to start now, to make the changes needed for our lives to be healthier and better. 

There is a verse in the Quran that says, "God has given you shapes, and have made your shapes beautiful."  So, we only have ourselves to blame if we did not honor the Gift from God and allow our bodies to amass huge amount of fat and toxins.  We have to change ourselves internally in our hearts and our minds in order to see that change manifest on the outside.  To my diet buddy, it was accepting the fact that yes, she was obese, her matebolism was bit slower that others who can gobble a plate full of carbs and remain thin.  So, with that acceptance, she change her food choices, activities and habits which will be more suited towards achieving the kind of body she wants for herself.  And I'm telling you, she now look fabulous! And you can see she's glowing with pride and happiness.  The prime motivation for me is that I had come to a point that I was sick and tired, of being sick and tired with my bulging tummy, thighs that rubs each other when I walk and not to mention innocent comments of, "Wah...are you pregnant?"  So, I said to myself I would do anything!  I gave up sugar for 2 full months...and this is me, the sweet tooth hot choc and sugar donuts fanatic.  So, when friends whom I love and care about told me ohh...but I love sugar..., oh..but I had a c-section birth,...oh but I don't have time to excercise... I always encourage them politely.  But what I really wanted to tell them is, oh, c'mon...strip yourself and look in the mirror.  The reflection you see will find you the time to exercise, the humility to appreciate your fruits and veges and the strength to stave off sugar.  Just put in your mind how sweet it is to have the body you always wanted -- the one God have given you.  There's your magic potion, and it doesn't cost you a dime!

The 3 + 13 Steps to Riches

I'm writing this as a reminder to myself about the salient points of this book. The first edition of this book was first published in 1910, a year after that Wallace D. Wattles passed away.  A century later the book still change lives.  My own summary of the book entails that there are 3 steps to riches:

Step 1:  The first requisite to success is to become convinced that you can succeed.
Step 2:  Power-Consciousness

•  it is what you feel when you know that you can do a thing; you know HOW to do a thing. 
• Thus, you will approach the task in an absolutely successful frame of mind. 
• Your subconscious mind knows that you can. 

Step 3:  Make constructive use of what you have. 

• If you are only jumping half as far as you can, you will never fly. 
• It is law that by doing perfectly all that you can do now, you will become able to do later, things which you cannot do now. 
• If you put enough life into your business to more than fill it, the surplus will get you more business.

Intro:  Why be rich?  So that ..."You can render to God and humanity no greater service than to make the most of yourself."

1.  No thought of form can be impressed upon Original Susbstance without causing the creation of the form. 

• In essence: "What you think about, you bring about".

2.  Life is increasing. 

• It serves the purpose of the universe that your life experience an increase. 
• Be a creator, not a competitor.  
• You are going to get what you want but in a way that when you get it, every other man will have more than he has now. 
• You are advancing man, that you advance all who deal with you. 
• What I want for myself, I want for everybody.

3.  MUST give to every man more than you take away from him. 

• Give more in use value than you take from him in cash value.  Then, you are adding to the world with every business transaction.

4.  Be grateful: 

• The grateful mind is constantly fixed upon the best; therefore it tends to become the best; it takes the form or character of the best, and will receive the best. 
• Be grateful to all:  it will bring you into harmonious relations with the good in everything, and the good in everything will move towards you.
• The man who sincerely thank God for the things which as yet he owns only in imagination, has real faith.

 5.  Be clear and specific of what you want to do, to have or become. 

• Be definite and keep your mind towards it at all times. 
• All you need is to know what you want, and to want it badly enough so that it will stay in your thoughts.

6.  Have an invincible and unwavering faith that the thing is already yours; that it is at hand and you only to take posession of it.

• The answer to prayer is not according to your faith while you are talking, but according to your faith while you are working. 
• Think of all the things you have asked for in terms of actual present ownership.

7.  Use your will power only upon yourself. 

• Substance is more anxious to give you what you want than you are to get it.
• All charity only tends to perpetuate the wretchedness it aims to eradicate. 
• GET RICH:  that is the best way you can help the poor. 
• If you want to help the poor, demonstrate to them that they can become rich; prove it by getting rich yourself. 
• The poor does not need charity, they need inspiration. 

8.  Move forward, don't look back on your past troubles/poverty. 

• Put poverty behind you. 
• You can serve God and man in no more effective way than by getting rich; by the creative method.

9.  Must connect thought with personal action. 

• ACT NOW. 
• Have faith in your ability to meet any emergency when it arrives. 
• Act upon your present environment with all your heart, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. 
• But act without haste, worry or fear. 
• Go as fast as you can but never hurry.

10.  Be larger than your present place. 

• Do ALL you can do, where you are. 
• Make everyday a successful day. 
• Do, everyday, all that you can do that day and do each act in an efficient manner. 
• Use all you have and more will come to you. 

11.  Get into the right business -- in which you will use your strongest faculties.

• Go with the tide instead of swim against it. 
• It is true that you will do best in a business which you like and which is congenial to you. 
• Success, among others depend upon your posessing well-developed state faculties required for that business. 
• You CAN do what you WANT to do, and it is your RIGHT & PRIVILEGE.

12.  When an opportunity to be more than you are now is presented and you feel impelled towards it, TAKE IT. 

• It will be the first step towards a greater opportunity to be all that you want to be. 
• DO NOT wait for an opportunity to be all that you want it to be.

13.  Your riches will be in exact propotion to:

•  the definiteness of your vision,
• the fixity of your purpose,
• the steadiness of your faith
• and the depth of your gratitude.