Men suffer with their body image much the same as a woman does. There is a media type of perfection that men are influenced by that includes thin, tall, dark men. Most men don't put the same pressure on themselves to reach that perfection or fit in, but men who have “moobs” don't feel masculine or desired by women. Gynecomastia is breast development in males. It can happen at any age, but it is usually due to weight gain with adult males. Fat is deposited over the pectoral muscles, and this can make men appear to have breasts or moobs. There are diseases that can cause this development, so it is important that you go to your doctor if you have pain or other symptoms. With obesity being so common, it is becoming more and more likely you know someone with moobs.

The clothing industry has realized it can make money from peoples' insecurities. They now have shirts made of spandex for men to hold their moobs in. They also have a mature cut with shirts for men with moobs. Clothing industries have always had these clothing sensitivities for women. However, with a high divorce rate and more middle aged men dating, they are becoming more aware that guys, too, suffer with body image. What woman doesn't have a pair of spandex, or transparent line panties, or bras that promote cleavage? Why should it be any different for men? No matter how technical the clothing industry becomes with holding us in or pushing us out, if you are in an intimate relationship, someone eventually has to see your body. Any part of your body that gravity can affect, it will. The latest statistics project that by the year 2015 75% of Americans will be overweight. Can you imagine the moobs and sagging we will see in both men and women?

Here are some tips you can begin today if you feel badly about your weight or if you are growing “moobs” due to obesity:

1. Go to your primary care doctor. This is important because weight gain can be caused by many things. Although weight gain is the primary reason for moobs in adult men, it could be something else.
2. Get engaged in an exercise and nutritional program. Your local Y may be a good place to start. Some physicians have nutritionists on their staff; changing how and why you eat is a great place to begin.
3. Buy clothing to disguise your moobs and stomach. Women have been buying support clothing for a long time. Guys may feel less masculine when purchasing a t-shirt made of spandex, but if you are on the dating scene or just feel bad about your body, a clothing article can help you feel more confident.
4. When you are with your spouse, make it more about the time together than going to a new restaurant. Maybe instead of a full course dinner, you could try appetizers. You will save money, and the time you may have spent eating can be spent going for a walk or talking with your spouse.
5. If you aren't married, engaged or in the dating scene, remember the first thing that impresses people is your appearance. If you lack confidence regarding your body, walk around slumped over, or try to hold back, your first impression will not be favorable. It is much better to stand up straight, look your date in the eyes, and be transparent. Tell her/him you are working on a healthy lifestyle and portray to that person that you are determined to make changes. Women want a “take charge” guy. Taking charge of yourself and being healthy is a turn on. Women would most likely overlook your moobs.

Being judged is never fair, especially when that judgment is primarily made up of visual cues. How a person feels about their flaws may accentuate the flaws. Try to begin a lifestyle that will eliminate the flaw and derive confidence from your ability to follow through. Confidence is visual. Also, most of us have been drawn to people who weren't especially attractive, but their confidence made us want to be with them.

There was a recent article in the New York Times and the Houston Chronicle about longevity being linked to waist size. The study was from the American Cancer Society which tracked the health of more than 100,000 people over nine years. Having a large waist size doubled the risk of dying from any cause compared to those with smaller waists. This finding occurred whether the person was normal weight, overweight, or obese. The researchers reported a particularly striking finding for women. They noted that the association between waist size and mortality risk was strongest for women who were normal weight. The take home message was watch your waist as well as your weight. The size of waist that was most noted was 47 inches or larger for men and 42 inches or larger for women. The waist is measured just above the navel, not underneath your tummy.

Most people are more able to lose weight if they adapt a total lifestyle change and have an exercise buddy. That's one of the reasons couples can be so successful if they work together to help each other become more active and eat healthy. Women use food to manage emotions such as anger, boredom, loneliness, and anxiety more than men do. Therefore, if women can talk to their partner about how they are feeling, many times this alone will help them curb their munching. Men have more tendencies toward drinking and watching TV than women. If women are able to encourage their partner to go for a walk or a bike ride with them, this helps him cut calories and become healthier. Working together can also lead to a closer connection with each other. You have a shared vision; rather than worry about your partner sabotaging you, they are going to be motivating you.

Before you begin, it is important to understand a few basics about men's and women's bodies in relationship to losing weight:

1. Men lose faster. They have more muscle mass, faster metabolism and more water. Therefore, the same exercise and diet will be reflected differently on the scales. Women lose slower, and the body fluctuates more due to menstruation as well as our higher fat content.
2. Women get hungrier than men with strenuous exercise. Women's bodies are designed to give birth, so what we burn we feel the need to restore.
3. Both men and women can be addicted to trigger foods, but it is more common with women. If your partner understands this, you can ban specific foods from your home.

How to begin a couple's exercise program:

1. Choose an exercise you both want to do. It should be done at a level that you can continue to talk to each other, thus enhancing your emotional connection, as well improving your cardiovascular health.
2. Choose the number of times each week you will engage in this activity and the time. If you are a morning person and your partner is an evening person, maybe you can go together on the weekends and separately during the week.
3. Don't compare your weight loss with your partner. What is important is you are encouraging each other. Congratulate each other more on their clothing size as they lose weight and how they appear. Are they more energetic? Do they seem happier? These are the things to notice.
4. Take turns cooking healthy. Make dinners at home special. This will save you money as well as save you unwanted calories.
5. If you feel a binge coming on, alert your partner that you need additional support to stay on track. Many times just telling someone else will stop the binge in its track.
6. Supervise yourself only. Don't become the sergeant to your spouse. The goal is to get healthier and whittle away the waist, not your marriage.
7. Prepare for more intimacy. Women especially desire sex more when they feel better about their bodies. Sometimes losing one or two inches from her waist can turn a woman into a sex goddess.
8. Be consistent. It takes about 30 days to make a behavior a habit. Everyone has the money and means to live a healthier lifestyle.
9. With weight loss, as with everything else, you get better results when you encourage rather than shame.
10. The more couples engage in activities, the happier they report their marriage. The more couples share a vision, the happier they report being. Losing weight with your partner achieves both of these.

Dr. Jacobs, who piloted the study, believes there is clear evidence that eating better and exercising more will reduce waist size and burn off belly fat. He goes on to say that, “Even a modest reduction in waist size, an inch or two, could be quite helpful.” If you begin exercising as a couple today, by Thanksgiving you may love your new waist size more than a Butterball Turkey.

Moms are the backbone of our families, and if they are unable to stop their own anger and unable to say no, they risk a heightened risk of hypertension, diabetes, and raising children with a lowered sense of self. How does this happen? Moms who don't take time out for meditation, relaxation, and simple pampering routines become stressed with schedules, worries, and their relationships, which manifest in their health. These same moms forget the importance of exercise and begin to gain weight. This weight gain leads to diseases, such as diabetes and arthritis, which cripples their ability to exercise and participate further in life. Soon they become too tired to join her children at the park, or uncomfortable attending events with their husbands where people may notice their weight, and become depressed because they feel like they are no longer worthwhile.

We begin seeing the effects on children of mom's inability to say “no” because she is so busy saying "yes" to everyone else's demands that the only one hearing “no” is her child. Her children simply note that mom is no longer available to them. Children personalize everything and begin to think they are not worthy of mom's attention. This leads to the child's poor sense of self. Moms who are stressed with too much to do don't talk well about themselves either. The child is constantly hearing mom berate herself for her thunder thighs, big belly, etc...The child personalizes these statements too.

Tips for learning to say "NO" to everyone else and "yes" to you:

1. Practice meditation/prayer, or quiet time every day.
2. Take a 10 minute walk three times a day.
3. Before taking on a new task, ask yourself...who will this benefit? If you or your families are not on the list, say "NO." If you must add something to soften it, say "NO, I am taking time out for myself and my family."
4. Get pampered with something you like at least once a week.
5. Schedule a time when it is just you and your child...all phones and computers off.
6. Hug your partner at least once a day.
7. Have a chore chart and only do the chores you are listed to do. Appoint a manager of household chores (don't volunteer).

To raise healthier families, moms need to care for themselves and not feel guilty. Much of the conflict in a family is caused by undue stress mom feels about not having time for herself and her inability to say “No.” Dads can help by pitching in with chores and focusing on the marriage more. Moms who are in good marriages have a tendency to stress less and handle daily demands with healthier coping skills. The best ways to teach your children to manage stress well is to teach them by modeling appropriate self-care tips. Taking time out for you will help your child understand that giving back and nourishing our own body and spirit is as important as busying ourselves by taking care of others.

I have a friend who constantly looks at herself in any and all mirrors. She is not conceited or even what I would call vain. In fact, this friend is one of my most beautiful friends but she doesn't see that in the mirror. She complains constantly of growing older, getting more saggy skin, and how she would like to have a surgeon give her a body lift and face lift. One day when she was looking at her reflection as we sat down to lunch I hinted that maybe she should quit her obsession with looking at mirrors. I suggested it may be the mirror that was the real culprit to her lack of confidence with her looks. She turned to me with her eyes wide as she took that in. She had never thought about this concept. Apparently she looked to the mirror as a constant valuator of all she detested about her looks. She turned to the mirror to make sure nothing had gotten worse than the last time she checked.

My friend regards “looks” like many women I know. Women know too much about the influence of their looks. We know from numerous studies that beauty determines much of our life. We understand that attractive children are more popular with classmates and teachers than unattractive children. We understand that in a court of law the more attractive you are the less guilty you may be found. In all areas of life the more attractive the person the more that same person is thought of as good, intelligent, and popular. We become obsessed with how we look. Women are also much more critical about who is and who is not attractive.
Men are much healthier than women in the assessment of their own attractiveness. Men look in a mirror and judge themselves as better looking than they actually are. Women look in the mirror and see the Ugly Step Mother. In fact, women who look in the mirror excessively are most likely not looking for vanity reasons, but due to insecurity. Where is this coming from, or why is it getting worse? We look to the media to project our blame. The media is no doubt part of the problem. They show thin women who are made up or digitally altered to look so beautiful that we can never match it in real life. Our standards of beauty have become narrower and much less flexible. Whenever you lose the flexibility in what is beautiful, and who is beautiful you create an image that everyone must try to fit into. Pictures of what is accepted as beautiful are on billboards, TV, Internet, and magazines. We see them so much we begin to think of these images as the norm. We, along with our families and friends, don't fit these images so we judge them and ourselves as inferior. We also become susceptible to what the ads are promoting, or commercials are saying in regards to how we can become beautiful. Weight loss ads, skin care commercials, and surgical enhancements are all part of this. The more critical we become regarding our looks the more vulnerable we become to these ads.

In a recent survey, 80% of women who were asked to rate themselves in a mirror did not like what they saw. That is a sobering 8 out of 10 women. Lesbian women and African American women were less harsh with their judgment. These two groups had a more flexible image of what determines beauty. The white Caucasian women were the most inflexible with their judgment. More than any other group, they seemed to have a definite concept of beauty and most of them could not measure up. Their main criticism was aimed at their bodies, especially their stomachs, hips, and thighs. Does this mean we are doomed to continue this cycle to our daughters for generations to come? If not, what can we do today to stop the body hate for the next generation?

 

1. Try to limit looking in the mirror to once or twice a day.
2. Watch your “self talk.” What you say to yourself becomes who you are, and what you say to yourself is what your children hear and will later say to themselves.
3. When you see a reflection of yourself, rather than judge it harshly, remind yourself that you actually look better than what you are thinking (I am borrowing from the men here).
4. Stop all weight loss diets and adopt a lifestyle that involves movement every day.
5. Focus on your relationships rather than your looks.
6. Getting a massage or pampering your body is a way to nurture it and does much more than an expensive face cream ever will.
7. To secure a relationship with your partner, put your focus on enjoying each other with intimacy and sex more than trying to look better (when you are connected with intimacy and sex, how you look becomes less important).
8. Stay away from magazines or websites that promote an inflexible standard of beauty.
9. Stay away from friends that focus on their outer beauty rather than what they can do to benefit other's lives.
10. Be honest with your partner if their behavior or words make you feel judged or unattractive. Most likely, they were insensitive to what they said and how it may have affected you.

 

Aging is difficult for everyone to some extent. Aging is especially difficult for women who have focused most of their attention on their looks rather than their interests. Begin today finding new interests, and ways you can give back and make someone else's life better. The best cure for insecurity with one's looks is having confidence that what you do is valued and needed by others. You don't have to be “HOT” or "ATTRACTIVE" to be a beautiful person.

I read, with interest, the story about Donna Simpson who is already weighing in at 600 pounds and wants to gain to 1,000 pounds to achieve her goal of being the fattest woman in the world for the Guinness World Record (she already holds the title for being the fattest mother after giving birth in 2007). Ms. Simpson is consuming 12,000 calories per day (normal caloric intake for a woman her age is 1,500 to 2,000 calories per day), and taking her toll on taxpayer dollars, as she can only walk 20 feet and has other health issues. How does she make her money? Perhaps this is the sickest part. She has a website where men pay to watch her eat. Ms. Simpson has a boyfriend who encourages this behavior, and he weighs in at a slight 150 pounds. When asked why he does this he reports, “I know where she is and I love to watch her eat.” Her boyfriend suffers from insecurity and control issues among other things.

This story is extreme and it saddens me, but it happens on a smaller scale with overweight patients I counsel about their eating behaviors and lifestyles. Many of my patients report that their weight loss attempts are being sabotaged by their spouses. How could someone who harps at you to lose weight and tells you they don't desire you when you are overweight, be the main contributor to your weight problem? It happens over time, and it happens because even though you are overweight and your partner may not like it, they derive a sense of security with you not changing. There is also a fear that as you lose weight you may become more sexually appealing, and your spouse may worry that you will cheat. Your spouse may not like their own body, and if you change yours they may become threatened that you won't desire them. There are many reasons your spouse may want to cook you dinner with extra butter, or discourage you from going to the gym, and possibly withdraw love if you become too thin. The important aspect of sabotage is to become aware it is happening and not get drawn into it. Sabotage may look like this:

 

• Your partner may begin to tell you that you look sick or pale when you lose weight. They may focus on your health and try to make you feel panic or concern.
• They may begin to say in front of you to friends, “My wife or husband has abandoned me.” Or they may say, “My husband/wife won't eat with me anymore, and they have changed since they lost weight.” This is the tactic of love being equal to food and may contribute to the weight problem you are struggling with currently. Love has nothing to do with food. One is fuel, one is an emotion.
• They may make a special meal for you, full of fat and not on your meal plan, and then pout if you don't eat it. This is a control issue, it is best to acknowledge the effort that went into making it, and suggest you take the meal or “special cake” to work for your friends to see what a thoughtful spouse you have.

 

The best way to thwart sabotaging behavior from your spouse is to sit down with them and talk to them openly and honestly before you begin the lifestyle change. Tell them you are unhappy at your current weight, that you are concerned about your health, and with the appearance of your body. Tell them you need their support and help with this transition, because you love them and you want to stay healthy to be a better partner to them. Then have a list of suggestions to give them that will help you stay on track with your lifestyle changes. You may need to reassure them that no matter how you look you will always love them most. Even secure partners need to hear this once in awhile.

Suggestions for the partner of someone trying to lose weight and to change their lifestyle:

 

• Offer to take a walk or go to the gym with your partner. This means a lot. The gym can become the place the two of you go to get away from the kids, and it can become your “date night.”
• If you become frightened with your partner's success, just say it. Tell them you are feeling jealous. They will understand, and most likely it will flatter them, and they will love you more for your honesty.
• When you go to the grocery store do not bring home your partner's trigger foods. Instead, save that money in a jar. Tell your partner that as soon as they lose the weight they want, the two of you will go on a vacation. Tell them the money came from what was usually used on junk food.

Losing weight and making changes with your lifestyle is extremely difficult. It can be made twice as difficult with a sabotaging spouse or twice as easy with a supportive spouse. Make sure you discover which of those you are married to. It is never too late to change.

There are many women who are in their late thirties and forties who would like to find someone with whom to have a relationship and get married. Some of these women are accomplished, bright, and pretty, and as they tell me they cannot find someone, I am flabbergasted. I meet great men all the time.  It only takes one man to get married, so what is the problem? Well, the longer you talk to these women one thing becomes very clear. Many of them are looking for Mr. Perfect. Before I go any further let me define what I mean by Mr. Perfect.  I am not saying that you should not be picky. I am saying that before you judge you should be very honest with yourself. What do you have to offer? What are your weaknesses? What are your strengths? If you are looking for someone with ambition, are you really looking for someone who will work so you can stay home? If you decide not to date someone because he is too short, is his height more of value to you than his heart?

I recently read a book titled “Marry him: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough” by Lori Gottlieb. The author (who is 42 years old and has a child from a sperm donor) now realizes she wants a husband with whom to share her life. She talks about all of the good enough men (who look great now) she knew in her twenties and thirties that she let go of due to some minor defect (height, weight, what they did for a living). She now sees them with their wives and children and she feels envy for the wife. She didn’t realize the importance of having a husband, and before she knew it she was forty.

When this author was asked why she and other women who ended up unmarried at forty didn’t marry she replied that she thought she was resistant to compromise. She said she felt entitled to having a Mr. Right that looked a certain way, had a certain job, and was able to express romantic gestures in a certain way. Yes, you are entitled to that thinking. However, that thinking is going to leave you very much alone.  People don’t come with microchips that you can program. They come to us scarred, and sensitive to emotions we may not understand. They may present to us as good looking at first, but that can change quickly when we see them act cruelly to us or to someone else. 

If you are alone and want to be married by the end of the year there are several ideas you may want to consider.

1. What makes you someone that someone else would want to marry?
2. What can you tolerate in another, and what can’t you tolerate in another person? If there are things you cannot tolerate, try to get that list below 2 or 3 characteristics.
3. What areas of your life are you unwilling to share? The shorter that list, the better also.  Many times people will answer that question without complete honesty. Be aware, others feel vibes of those areas even if you aren’t able to admit them.

Marriage is not perfect, and the only reason to get married is because you find someone you want to share your life with. There is no better way to understand you than to be married. It will show you every selfish, cruel bone you have in your body. It also has an incredible way of showing you every ounce of compassion and tolerance you have in your heart. To be married to Mr. Good Enough is preferable for me because what growth would there be for me if I were married to Mr. Perfect?

I work at the Methodist Weight Management program. It is not uncommon for women to tell me they became morbidly obese after they got married. In fact many women will recite that they were thin until the birth of their first baby. They are frustrated and do not understand what happened. Many of these women feel guilty because they believe it is the way they eat or not enough exercise. Certainly behavior changes do contribute to weight gain, but maybe it has more to do with the couple and what they are doing together that leads to weight gain for the wife?

Annette J. Dobson, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Queensland in Australia reported that adjusting for other variables on average a woman who weighs 140 pounds who has a partner whether she lives with him or is married to him gains up to 20lbs in ten years if she has a baby, 15 pounds if there is no baby and no partner she gains only 11 pounds.  The number of women with a baby but no partner was too small of a sample size to draw statistically significant conclusions (link to the NY Times Article).

Scientists cannot come up with a reason to believe that having a partner would cause metabolic changes so they are lead to believe that the weight gain among the childless women with partners must be caused by behavioral changes. The weight gain seemed to be steady during the whole 10 year study so whatever behaviors they were changing just kept getting more constant.

This study was done with 6,000 Australian women over a ten year period which ended in 2006. It was difficult studying such a large group over that period of time. By the end of the study more than half of the women had college degrees and about three quarters had partners and half had had at least one baby. Almost all the weight gain happened with the first baby, while subsequent births had little effect. Also by the end of the study there were fewer smokers and risky drinkers than at the beginning. There were fewer women exercising and less of them were working outside the home. But even after adjusting for all of these factors and more, the difference in weight gain among women with and without babies and among women with and without partners remained. This study included only women but the researchers cited one earlier study that showed an increase in obesity among men who had children, adding evidence that behavior changes occur to both partners. Healthy and unhealthy lifestyles affect both men and women.

How to prevent or minimize weight gain as a couple:

1. Get into an exercise program and do it every day (consistency is the key). Don’t focus on the amount of time; try to take mini intense workouts. Walking very fast for 10 minutes is better than walking slow for 20. No time to exercise? Fit walking in whenever you can.
2. When you go out to eat, watch portions. If your husband weighs 200 pounds and is 6 feet and you are 5 feet 2 inches and weigh 140 you should not be eating the same amount of food he does. Cut down half of the portion the restaurant brings you.
3. As much as possible do not eat after 7 p.m. in the evening.
4. Have sex frequently. I don’t know why it works, but it does for burning calories. It also will help with your body image which will help you control your appetite.
5. Pamper yourself with things other than food. Most of what I do at my job is to teach people alternative behaviors to relieve stress that don’t include food.

As couples become comfortable in a relationship they may develop the attitude that they don’t need to stay slim anymore. This is not only untrue but it is dangerous. Most diseases are worsened or precipitated by weight gain. Instead of using food as a measure of comfort couples would be wise to use a new measure such as hugs, snuggling, or massages. In the New Year make it a goal to find a new activity you can do as a couple that doesn’t involve eating.

New Year resolutions are made because we are ready for a change. We all have areas in our lives we want to improve, knowing the changes would make us healthier and happier. First, you must decide what you want in your life; get clarity (80% of being successful is being clear about what you want) on your ideal life. See it and create a mental picture of who you would be. There are several questions you need to ask yourself before making a resolution:

1. What do you want to change in your life and why? (The fewer things you want to change, the better. Start with one and build from there).
2. Are you making a resolution for yourself or are you pleasing someone else? Resolutions that are successful are done because you want them to work for you.
3. If you are making a resolution for yourself because it affects others, can you count on them to support you? For example, let’s say you want to lose weight so you can be more active in your kids’ lives. This is a great resolution, but make sure your kids are in on it so they can help by being supportive.
4. Do you have a network of support people who will help you stay on track with your resolution? If your diet is the area you are going to work on, do you have friends who can share healthy recipes? Are your friends willing to engage in different activities with you rather than going out to dinner? Will your friends be able to help motivate you to get back on track when you have fallen off?

Now, after this part of your work is done and you are clear, it is time to begin the change. The tips provided below will help you be the person you envision becoming:

• The first thing you must do is decide why the behavior you are trying to change needs to be changed. You must make a commitment that it will end today. Let’s say you are a smoker. Today you must decide you can no longer live your life as a smoker.
• Next, choose a behavior you can engage in instead of the unhealthy one. For example, do you yell at your kids? A new behavior to replace this with would be whispering at them when you are angry. You may also see that they listen better to whispering instead of yelling or screaming.
• Many of the behaviors we are trying to eliminate are the ones we do during social gatherings. Change the atmosphere and you will help change the cues that make you want to do the destructive behaviors. Drinking, smoking, and over-eating are some of these destructive behaviors. Maybe meet for a walk with friends, or go to a movie, or meet at a coffee house. You can still socialize, but you won’t be as likely to sabotage your healthier behavior.
• Each day, write down the behavior you chose for the day and how you were successful or unsuccessful. It is important that your new behavior continues for at least 30 days so you can become more and more familiar with it. New behaviors are difficult until they feel “natural.”
• Make sure you reward yourself each time you choose a successful, healthy alternative behavior. In a small way, you are learning to “re-parent” yourself by setting a goal and rewarding yourself after you achieve success.

Being successful with making New Year’s resolutions permanent is 99.99999 percent dependent on how bad you want it. Want it, begin it, continue it, and you are it!!!

“I wanna spread the news

That if it feels this good getting used

Oh, you just keep on using me

Until you use me up”

—Lyrics by Bill Withers

My mother gave birth to nine children. She taught school and I always knew her as a teacher—I remember much of my childhood was spent asking her questions. She was forty when she had me and I was number six. She most likely was exhausted most of my childhood years. Perhaps that is why when I would ask her what she wanted from life she would simply say, “I want to be used”. This seemed strange and even a bit crazy. When I was a teen and then a young adult, I wanted just the opposite. In fact most people avoid being used. They feel taken advantage of or humiliated. They don’t want to be judged as foolish or stupid in business transactions or social events and being used seems like both.

I am beginning to understand what my mother meant when she said she wanted to be used. She wanted her life to mean something to others. She wasn’t sure how she could give back, so she felt if someone used her information, education, or position that it was her way of giving back. It is a very humble position, but also a very strong one. No one could take anything away from her because she offered it freely. She was generous to a fault and, yet, we always had enough. Her ability to be used also made her very popular. She was an excellent listener and had the wonderful gift of being accepting when people confided in her. People use to “pop” in to visit her on Sunday afternoons and I remember how resentful I would be that these people did not call before coming. They knew they didn’t have too; she would be there and make them feel welcomed. They loved coming to our house and they would stay for hours. My mother was living what she wanted.

People come into my office alone and unhappy. They have worked so arduously against being taken advantage of that they ended up building a wall around themselves and created a barrier others cannot penetrate. I have realized that my work with them is re-training them to be “used” by others. It appears my mother’s goal for her life is also an affective treatment for feeling bored, lonely, or disengaged with life. It is important to note, however, that by being used my mother never let herself be abused. The two are very different. My mother gave of her time, spirit, and energy, but she did not let someone hurt her or make her feel less of herself.

How to give back or feel useful in life:

1. Plant a garden or nurture something. Taking care of something makes us realize our value and teaches us the concept that if we weren’t there this plant, animal, or person would not be as loved.

2. Begin to listen to people. Listen with your eyes so you will know when they need a hug or just a kind word. We all need to hear that we are special and that there are things about us that no one else has.

3. Make it more about someone else besides you. When you see something that someone else would love or hear a song that someone else likes make sure you told them what you saw or heard and why it made you think of them.

When my mother died I was not there. I grieved about not being able to hug her and tell her how much I loved her before she died. The undertaker was getting ready to close the casket and said to me, “every part of your mother was used”. I couldn’t believe it. How had he known that she lived her life for this purpose? I was at that moment convinced that even as a soul she was being used.

MJo

The government and every advertiser understand that we are all afraid. You know this because you watch TV and I read the newspaper; most of the stories and commercials are centered on our fears. Our fears are growing old, losing our children to drugs or alcohol, losing our job, or maybe being sick and having no medical coverage. Our fears of getting obese and losing our sense of esteem. So many fears and all of us, every single one of us are being affected. I see my own, I see yours, and so I write this as a reminder to myself and you that we DO NOT have to be controlled by our fears.

Most of what we fear never happens. When it does, it is the "tape" we tell ourselves that scares us most. We say "If that ever happened I would kill myself or shoot someone". This is "crazy talk" and although we don't mean it, we say it, and it scares us. A lot of my work is teaching patients how to "re-tape" their own fears. Below are some examples to get you started. You can chose any topic and walk yourself through a plan. The best way to overcome fear is to have a plan or a tape that you can recite. This is my personal tape and it works well if you can recite it frequently: "No matter what happens, I will deal with it".

Sample Fears

• Being without a man. This sounds trivial but many women fear this. They tell themselves that they will never have a husband and children and will grow old with no one to care for them. They know it is not rational but they are still terrified.

Overcoming this fear:

First write down exactly what you are afraid of (eating alone, shopping alone, sleeping alone, etc...). Now begin to focus on doing those things you have said you are afraid of. Go shopping alone and enjoy it (add whatever you need to in order to make it fun). Eat alone (go to a fancy restaurant and enjoy each bite, look great when you go). The idea is to practice these things you are afraid of and overcome them. Not all at once.

Next begin to re-think being single. What have you told yourself about being single? If you made it negative, begin to look at the positive aspects (no abuse, no divorce, watching what you want) and always think of how you can get your fears conquered in a healthy way. If you don't like to eat alone, invite someone to go with you. Or have a party. If you want children, baby sit for your friends; make someone happy by reading at a school or volunteer for a boys and girls club.

• Gaining weight

Overcome this fear:

Write down exactly what you are afraid of (your eating is out of control, you will not be able to date, you won't be able to walk, you will be teased). Now begin to focus on doing the things you are afraid of. When you eat, take more control by having smaller plates, eating at home instead of fast foods, plan what you are going to eat. Have "cheat food" (carrots and celery) available at all times. Begin to go out on evenings. Put yourself out there—join on line dating, go dancing. Begin to walk and WALK EVERY DAY. What do you notice when you walk? Think of "come backs" when/if people do tease you. Write them down. Practice with delivery. Be assured that you are taking care of yourself. You are being your own advocate.

Next, begin to re-think what you have told yourself about being overweight. What words have you called yourself or heard people say to overweight people? What did your parents say to you when you were overweight? Write them down and get them out of your head and on to paper. Don't lose weight for others, lose weight for yourself. Don't focus on a size, but on an activity you want to be able to participate in once you lose weight. How can you help yourself or others going through the same struggle or fear? Participate in support groups, volunteer for a Children's Obese Camp, join or organize a "walkers group". Get active.

The key is to write the fear down and then come up with at least 5 things you can do for each of those fears to alleviate them in a healthy way (this usually means serving/helping others with the management of your fear).

Fear thrives on inactivity and talking about your fear. It cannot thrive on writing down elements of the fear nor can it thrive if you become active. Chose a fear, and begin to act on it today!

MJo