On a TV commercial soundbite, I heard a "diet expert" say to some poor soul hoping for inspiration "Gaining weight is easy and losing weight is hard." 

(By the way the expert was a young woman in her early 20s, who was tiny, and slender.  She had obviously studied all the books her college degree required, and was repeating what she had heard in class, but honestly didn't look like she had ever actually gained or lost a pound in her life.) 

When those words came out of her mouth I was dumbfounded.  How many times had I heard that exact phrase in my life?  More importantly how many times had I believed in and repeated that same phrase to myself?

However this time, it was like I was hearing the REAL truth of it for the very first time.  It was the first time I heard the negativity of it, the first time I heard the implied hopelessness of it, the first time I realized I had always accepted and unquestioned the "reality" of it.

How incredibly creative that statement is as we all believe it, and say it . . . "Gaining weight is easy and losing weight is hard".  And as we believe it and repeat it . . . it becomes embedded in our vibration and the words create exactly what we experience.

However, the thought that instantly struck me this time was "Why?" 

I mean why would it truly be easier for my physical body to store fat than it is for my physical body to burn it off?  If my body is an inspired physical expression of Source, and it has within it everything I need to survive and to thrive, which Abraham (Abraham-Hicks.com) teaches and I believe with all my heart, then why would one action be harder for my amazing body to perform than another?

What I realized instantly is that it's only true if I continue to belief in it's truth.  As long as I keep that thought active and repeated in my mind, it will be true in my life. 

And I will continue to create difficult weight loss and easy weight gain.

Then something even more amazing occurred to me . . . that has not been my experience! 

I've gained and I've lost hundreds of pounds in my life.  I've lost 5, 10, even 25 pounds here and there so many times I can no longer begin to count.  I've lost 50 to 60 pounds many, many times, and I can remember at least 4 or 5 times that I've lost anywhere from 75 pounds to more than 100. 

I have always put every ounce back on and then some . . .

So when I tell you that my experience has been different than "gaining is easy, losing is hard" . . . you can believe me.  I AM an "expert".

I would always get to a motivated place in my life due to a desire for a relationship with a particular man, with the amount of weight I lost directly dependent on how infatuated I was with that man.  I would be desperate to lose, feeling as if it was my only hope for happiness, and I would go on whatever diet was popular, or whichever one I had confidence in at the time.

When I really admit it, for me, the losing weight part was never hard.  It was different, it was big change and it took strong focus, but it wasn't what I consider hard.  Usually the motivation would carry me through the first couple of weeks.  That was enough (if I made it that long) regardless whatever diet I was on, to get myself into a rhythm, which as long as I didn't obsess over what I was denying myself . . . was easy.  It all depended on how strong my motivation was (how much I liked the guy), what diet plan I was following and how drastic the changes in my life were, but it generally wasn't hard at all. 

In fact, the easiest diet I was ever on was a popular fasting program I followed for about six months.  I drank only shakes I made from a powder I got from a doctor, who I saw monthly to monitor me and track my success.  I didn't have to even concern myself with food, it was the easiest thing I ever did from an eating/obsessing/thinking standpoint, and the pounds simply melted off me. 

That's why they use the term fasting to describe those shake based diets, because "fasting" is so strongly connected to "weight loss" in our minds already that half the battle is won with the first shake.  Sure enough I lost about 90 pounds in those six months, I didn't reach my goal, but I got as close to it as I had been in quite a while.  Of course once I started eating food again, I put it all back on and then some.  (I had to have my gall-bladder removed too, but that's another story.) 

Still, when I thought about it, I had to admit that losing the weight was not hard for me.  Even though I believed the commonly accepted gaining = easy, losing = hard theory, in fact I never felt like I was doing much of anything action wise.  Especially with the shake diet, I was just drinking shakes, instead of obsessing over what to eat and how much to eat and focusing on other aspects of my life.

It felt it was my body that did all the real work . . . my body burned the calories, it burned the stored fat and it slimmed itself.  I just went on with my life and noticed my clothes getting bigger.

From someone who always felt . . . strongly and deeply . . . that losing weight is hard, this is big stuff here, it's a huge revelation. 

When I think about it, the truth is every time I lost weight I felt great.  I felt powerful, I felt beautiful, I felt energetic and alive.  I have had so many weight loss experiences in my life and every one of them naturally brought with it the same pride, the same renewed self-respect, the same sense of accomplishment and the same sense of delightful expectation.  Until the motivation ended, and I fell off the cliff, my resolve faded and I started gaining it all back.

Which brings me to the opposite end of the scale (pun entirely intended) . . . the suggestion of gaining weight being easy.  Well I have to disagree with that too.  Gaining weight for me has always been a difficult, painful and stressful experience. 

Each of my gaining weight experiences brought with it the same shame, the same feeling of being a victim in my own life, the same loss of self-respect, the same labeling myself out of anger and hatred as a failure, the same return of hopelessness that I would ever be able to permanently change. 

I would eat more than I wanted and certainly more than my body needed, and each bite would be laced liberally with self-disgust, fear and guilt.  No I wouldn't say that gaining weight was easy . . . losing weight was a much easier process.

So that really blows the theory of my young expert . . . doesn't it?

When I realized that, I experienced such a feeling of freedom.  I never have to embrace the hopelessness of popular belief again.  I have a choice, I can accept that for me the truth is the reverse.  My truth is "Losing weight is easy and gaining weight is hard!" 

I get to choose what I believe and what I experience.  I get to know in my heart that my magnificent body is capable of creating any experience I want, and that my thinking and my beliefs are what determine if the experience I choose is hard for me or easy.

I get to choose . . . Ah, I adore that thought!

In choice and love,
Tigerlily

"Befriending your body is the only way we know of coming to understand that your body is resilient and that it knows what to do, and that it will be whatever you ask it to be. But you have to ask it to be that in a place of nonresistance. It's the most significant information that we have ever expressed relative to your physical body and food. You must love your body, and then lovingly give it the food. And when you love your body and lovingly give it the food, it matters not what food you give it."  Excerpted from the Abraham-Hicks workshop in Asheville, NC on Sunday, October 29th, 2000  (Abraham-Hicks.com)