Goal #6: Lose 100 pounds.
Whew! I feel overwhelmed!
Here is where I currently am, and where I want to be, and how I plan to get there. For clarity for myself, and in case anyone wants to join me!
I have been overweight all of my adult life. I have not been a yo-yo dieter. I have joined Weight Watchers three or four times, and tried various ‘on my own’ diets probably less than 15 times. (I’m 47.) Which does not mean that being overweight has not bothered me. On the contrary, I feel as though it defines me. Negatively.
But dieting hasn’t worked. I HATE hearing the mantra “No, don’t eat. No, don’t eat. No, don’t eat” as I live through my day. It consumes my mind and my time, and and yelling “NO!” at myself five thousand times a day leaves me feeling frustrated and rebellious. I need something I can live with, without an abundance of negative thinking. I think I have found a way.
I think the answer for me is to learn to eat only when I’m physically hungry, and find other ways to deal with the emotional type hunger. That sounds do-able! Or it at least sounds quantified!
I have chosen 4 books to guide me, and I am adopting things from each of them. They all deal, in some way, with the issues behind overeating, and they each give tools for learning how to eat for physical hunger only. This means not being overly hungry. No deprivation! It just takes a boat load of work! My fantasy is, and the promise is, that paying attention and learning the tools will become natural over time. I will work through each of these books. The first three (see below) at the same time. They seem to complement each other.
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna. This book comes with a hypnosis CD. It’s not the stage kind of hypnosis, it’s more like a relaxing talk to listen to. I have worked with this book before, and it works for me. It’s just . . . work.
If I’m So Smart, Why Can’t I Loose Weight? by 
Brooke Castillo. This is going to be my main book. I am choosing to go through it step by step, rather than reading all the way through it first. Maybe that will be easier. The first steps are: learning the Hunger Scale – how I experience it; diferentiating between physical hunger and emotional or just wanting-to-eat hunger; and journaling these so that I can fine tune them.
100 Days of Weight Loss – The Secret To Being Successful on Any Diet Plan by Linda Spangle. 
She offers one hundred small goals and activities to do in one hundred days. Listening To Your Body, Growing Stronger, Emotional Eating, and Triggers are some of the topics Spangle covers. I am going to use this book in conjunction with I Can Make You Thin, and If I’m So Smart, Why Can’t I Loose Weight?.
Coach Yourself Thin by I am going to go through this book after I have worked through the If I’m So Smart book.