An Attitude of Gratitude

The easiest way to develop an attitude of gratitude is to keep a Gratitude Journal. Write down all the things that you can be grateful for. You don't have to write an essay about it, just a few words are enough to get you started. What is there to be thankful for? Sometimes the simplest thing, like being alive and breathing...

Gratitude is a powerful force, because the more grateful you are for what you already have, the more you are likely to attract similar positive aspects into your life. You become tuned to the good in what is, instead of putting off your joy by wanting something different all the time. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but it's always out of reach too. Right now, you only have the grass on your side and even though it may seem less green, it can be just as tasty. Begin to live a truthful and fearless life, by opening yourself to the now, which is a gift and that is why we call it the "present".

To comfort someone who has problems, people sometimes say that every cloud has a sliver lining. It is always possible to extract something positive from a situation, now matter how unpleasant, difficult or painful it may seem. Grief is a natural process. Allow yourself to feel the pain, anger and disbelief until you are ready to move through to a point where you can accept new hopes and dreams.

Don't take things for granted. Even the smallest detail is worth that you take the time to notice it, to be aware of it and say "thank you". Go to your diary at the beginning and at the end of each day, and write gratitude lists. The act of being thankful is a small daily miracle that you can allow yourself to experience, and that will lead to more and more miracles. It makes you feel good It will grow into something substantial and meaningful to you. Eventually, with a tiny bit of patience, you will reap the bountiful rewards for this wonderful practice.

Painting: Mandala Colour Tree (unknown artist)

What to Consider When Embarking on a Weight Loss Journey!

Losing weight begins in the mind.

It’s a lifestyle change.

It’s a commitment to good health and quality of life, as well as increased life expectancy. Being overweight or obese may shorten your lifespan and make you prone to chronic diseases. Even though you can enjoy yourself while carrying extra weight, shedding it will change the way you participate in your own life and contribute to the lives of others. 

Once you’ve decided to embark on a weight loss journey, you will make a commitment to being healthy and addressing all your lifestyle issues, not just your extra weight. For instance, if you smoke or drink excessively, you will need to look at these habits and at ways of quitting them.

Look at your thought processes: do you see the glass as half full or half empty? Positive thinking is essential to your success, because it will help you overcome hurdles and plateaus, which you will inevitably encounter. It also alleviates stress - and stress is a number one factor for weight gain!

Commit yourself to losing weight slowly and gradually. Change your habits progressively. Drastic changes are spectacular, but they usually don’t last very long. Habits need time to become established and take root permanently.

Don’t be hard on yourself, and don’t expect to be perfect. No matter how much you psyche yourself up, you will never achieve perfection. There is no need to beat yourself up if you had a piece of cake. But you can keep making choices that are good for you, even though you know you may slip at times.

My new book, "The Magic of Sensible Dieting" will soon be out, and it will work like magic to get you back into shape if you follow the strategies I've devised for you. 

The new year is coming closer: it's a good time to make decisions. By following a few easy-to-understand principles, you can start eating sensibly and lose unwanted kilos!

With love,
Bella

What's the Most Important Thing When You Want to Lose Weight ?

Losing weight begins in the mind.

It’s a lifestyle change.

It’s a commitment to good health and quality of life, as well as increased life expectancy. Being overweight or obese may shorten your lifespan and make you prone to chronic diseases. Even though you can enjoy yourself while carrying extra weight, shedding it will change the way you participate in your own life and contribute to the lives of others. 

Once you’ve decided to embark on a weight loss journey, you will make a commitment to being healthy and addressing all your lifestyle issues, not just your extra weight. For instance, if you smoke or drink excessively, you will need to look at these habits and at ways of quitting them.

Look at your thought processes: do you see the glass as half full or half empty? Positive thinking is essential to your success, because it will help you overcome hurdles and plateaus, which you will inevitably encounter. It also alleviates stress - and stress is a number one factor for weight gain!

Commit yourself to losing weight slowly and gradually. Change your habits progressively. Drastic changes are spectacular, but they usually don’t last very long. Habits need time to become established and take root permanently.

Don’t be hard on yourself, and don’t expect to be perfect. No matter how much you psyche yourself up, you will never achieve perfection. There is no need to beat yourself up if you had a piece of cake. But you can keep making choices that are good for you, even though you know you may slip at times.

My new book, "The Magic of Sensible Dieting" will soon be out, and it will work like magic to get you back into shape if you follow the strategies I've devised for you. 

The new year is coming closer: it's a good time to make decisions. By following a few easy-to-understand principles, you can start eating sensibly and lose unwanted kilos!

With love,
Bella

Painting: "A Plate of Veggies" by Clina Polloni.

Most Important Thing When You Want to Lose Weight

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new." - Socrates.

What's the most important when you want to lose weight? 
- It’s not counting calories or creating a caloric deficit;

- It’s not eliminating fats and carbs from your diet;

- It's not eating ridiculously small portions;

- It’s not depriving yourself of all your favourite treats; 

- It’s not enduring hunger and cravings day after day;

- It’s not being discouraged because you need to lose sooo much weight and it’s going to be soooo hard;

- It’s not being discouraged because you only need to lose a few kilos but you know they’re the most difficult to shed;

- It's not being discouraged because you think you will regain all your weight once your diet is over;

- It’s not exercising like a lunatic until you pass out;

- It’s not stuffing yourself with vegetables until you despise the sight of them;

- It’s not having to eat fruit all the time instead of cake or candy;

- It’s not thinking you can’t do it because it’s too hard and you don’t like to suffer;

- It’s not thinking you can’t do it because you’ve got no willpower;

- It’s not looking at your past failed diets and predict that you will fail again, so there is no use trying;

- It’s not having to spend a lot of money on healthy food, and extra time shopping and cooking.

The most important aspect to consider when you want to lose weight is none of these! 
It's all about ATTITUDE. 
Your frame of mind will determine your long-term success. I will tell you more about it next week!

With all my love and warm thoughts of encouragement,

Bella

FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." - John 14:27.

"There is no fear in love: true love has no room for fear, because where fear is there is pain; and he who is not free from fear is not complete in love." John 4:18

An infant comes into this world with a trusting heart, full of love for those who care for him or her. As you keep living and get older, you lose the natural ability to instinctively expect good from others. Instead, you expect to be cheated, lied to, stolen from, disrespected and humiliated. You learn from your experiences, but you tend to cling to the negative ones, rather than emphasising the good ones. 

Fear is "False Evidence Appearing Real" because it doesn't have to be that way. You don't need to cultivate this bitterness and gnawing sense of foreboding that stems from unpleasant past occurrences. You can turn things around and have faith: there is guidance, and there is protection from Above. You can surrender to your life as it unfolds, instead of trying to control everything. You can trust your intuition to help you make the right choice, while letting go of the outcomes as there are no guarantees. 

If you don't take any risks, out of fear of doing something wrong, you'll never try anything new. To change your attitude and try new approaches, believe that they will make a difference in your life.

Today is the beginning of the rest of your life, and it doesn't matter what problems you have and what your circumstances are. It is how you react to challenges, and how you deal with issues that matters. In the end, only love is real. You can love your life, even though it may appear bleak to you at times. You can love the people in it, even though they may appear to be causing you grief. If you allow events and individuals to steal your joy from you, you will never experience lasting peace.

The PEACE Jesus talked about when he left his disciples was a lasting one, not just a momentary relief. He didn't talk about an emotional roller-coaster, about perpetually shifting moods, the kind of yo-yo attitude that you sometimes think is justifiable and acceptable. The peace Jesus talked about is permanent. It is His gift to us, a spiritual state of mind that cannot be altered by people or events. As love infuses everything, it becomes the origin of your thinking and colours your emotions throughout the day. Hope springs from it, with the certainty that all is well, and all will continue to be well, no matter what...

With all my love,

Bella

Painting: "Red Tree Landscape" by Rachel Bingaman

Why is it so Difficult to Lose Weight?

Dieting is not a piece of cake! Your body has ingrained habits, and so does your mind. 

You're used to carrying a certain amount of fat and when you try to lose it, alarm bells go off immediately: you feel ravenous, and your body goes into starvation mode. 

As you reduce your caloric intake, hoping to burn fat, your metabolism slows down, adjusting to the amount of fuel it is given. You might lose some weight initially, but then you quickly hit a "plateau": your weight stops moving. You get discouraged and give up your diet. You go back to your old eating pattern and a few weeks or months later, you regain all the weight you've so painfully lost. 

Psychologically, it's hard to change a pattern of behaviour. It takes a bit of work and persistence, and above all: time. You can't rush it, as you can't change overnight! Today you are the sum total of your habits, and you need to undo them one by one, peeling them away like the layers of an onion. 

Motivation is not always strong. It comes and goes, and on some days you feel enthusiastic about your goal, while on others, your determination weakens. You're tempted to give in to your cravings and can't resist the urge to have a chocolate bar of a piece of cake! Just because you didn't stick to your eating plan, you think you've failed. You decide to binge on the foods that you've denied yourself for the last few days or weeks. The next day, you feel awful and decide either to punish yourself by going on an even more restrictive diet, which will slow your metabolism even further, or give up your intention to lose weight altogether.  

Weight loss works if you're sensible about it. There is no instant recipe, and secret number one is to lose weight slowly and gradually. It doesn't matter how long it takes! 

Examine your excuses, e.g., "I don't have any willpower", or "I don't have time to exercise". Willpower begins with little things, like eating more fruit and vegetables instead of pies and biscuits. Or like getting up a few minutes earlier than usual to do a few stretches and prepare a nutritious breakfast.

Be patient and gentle with yourself! Secret number two is to be flexible. If you can't go to the gym, why not take a power walk for ten or twenty minutes? Wanting to do everything perfectly will set you up for failure, because no one can be perfect, and you'll slip up and make mistakes, no matter how hard you try to do things by the book.

You probably already know what you should eat, but you're confused about carbohydrates, fat and protein. I will explain how to balance these macronutrients in your diet for the best weight loss effect, and for maximum health and energy. You will never go hungry again, as you'll have plenty of satisfying food to eat! And you won't feel miserable and deprived...

Losing weight can be an exciting journey, if you're doing it right, and if you're playful about it.  My new book, "The Magic of Sensible Weight Loss" won't disappoint you. It may not be easy to lose weight, but you can achieve it in a rational way that appeals to your intelligence. I will give you all the tools to do this, and much more. The result will be magical!

With love,
Bella

"The Magic of Sensible Dieting: Healthy Weight Loss without Hunger and without Deprivation" will soon be available at Balboa Press and Amazon.com!

Open Yourself to the Light!

Water lilies symbolise beauty, purity and innocence. In Buddhism, the lotus is a symbol of enlightenment. The petals represent the different struggles you endure on your path to spiritual awakening. The centre of the flower represents the state of enlightenment. When there is a dark shadow during any experience, you can turn to the light, and you can do it consciously. You can choose to look at things with renewed hope.

"Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

Children are innocent and open to the light because they have no resistance within them. They don't dwell on the past. They put differences behind them as quickly as possible. Observe them at play, how they live fully in the present, how tolerant and forgiving they are. They don't bear grudges, and their primary concern is to create joy in the now. 

As you become a child again, you become like a water lily: your battles turn into petals. The darkness is overcome... And the Light of God triumphs as you let it into your heart, erasing all negative feelings. You finally leave behind bad memories and face a glorious present and future without hatred or prejudice. Love is all that matters, and as you open yourself to the Light, you open yourself to the power of Love.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14

With all my love to you,

now and always

Bella

Painting: "Water Lilies" by Eugeni Balakshin, 1962, Russia.