Archive of Meetings 3

I am archiving the first two years of meeting hand-outs. Here is the third installment!

Welcome to My Heart
From Beliefnet.com

Dear God,
Welcome to my heart,
Your home!
How honored I am to know
that Your Holy Spirit lives in me!
May this knowledge remind and inspire me
to treat my physical body with reverence--
not to worship it, but to worship You
and Your indwelling presence.
I offer my thoughts, my actions,
my words, and my attitudes--
all of me--to You.
Make me a living sacrifice,
a testament to the power to be found
only in You.
Amen.

Turn My Self-Interest Outward


Dear God,
How much I need Your help
to turn my self-interest outward.
My problem is too much food,
but for so many, the problem is just the opposite!
Forgive me, Lord, for my shortsightedness.
But thank you for the satisfaction that You promise I will experience through generous giving.
And thank You that, through me,
You are ready and willing to bless my world
with comfort and abundance.
Amen.

LOSING WEIGHT IS TOUGH
Ruth Woodhouse

Contrary to the claims of so many weight loss programs out to make a quick buck, there is no way to lose weight in record time - and keep it off in the long term.
You have to concentrate on everything you put in your mouth. After all, if food is your weakness you can't just give it up altogether like you might give up smoking or drinking alcohol. There's no escaping the fact that we do have to eat - and getting the amount of calories right as well as ensuring we get all our nutrition is a real balancing act. Unless you keep close tabs on everything that passes your lips you will have too many discouraging weeks where you don't lose weight - and even put some on. You might think you have been doing well - but the scales will tell a different story.
So you need some reliable aids to weight loss. One of them which can be enormously beneficial is a food diary. Anybody who has ever been faithful in keeping one will be sure to recommend it as something that really does help keep you on track.
First and foremost, it keeps you focused on your weight loss program. When you have a busy, demanding life, it does take some effort and discipline to regularly write down what you're eating. By doing so, you are more likely to remain "in gear". Otherwise it's all too easy to have little slips out of gear, when you coast along and unthinkingly put things in your mouth that you don't really need to. These lapses quickly undermine your efforts to lose weight that week - and at the very least slow down your weight loss. Worst of all, too many such lapses will inevitably cause discouragement that threatens your resolve. Eventually, after the lapses increase in length, you're likely to just give up - albeit without any actual decision to do so. It's the natural course of things if you aren't "on the ball".
When you're writing down what you eat in a diary you want it to show you're doing the right thing. You're not going to want to be putting a slice of mud cake on Monday's page, then a Big Mac and fries on Tuesday's, then half a block of chocolate on Wednesday's, etc. You will want it to have things like diet yogurt, a banana, green salad and a low fat cereal appearing far more often than any kind of sweet or high-fat treat. It's very much a psychological influence on your ongoing commitment.
It helps keep you honest too. If you're going to keep a food diary, you can't eat your child's leftovers and just forget about it or pretend those calories didn't count. You have to be honest or there's no point in the exercise. You can't fool yourself.
If you reach a plateau phase where the weight is just refusing to budge, a food diary could also give you a clue as to what the problem is. By looking back over what you have been eating in previous weeks, you may find something that's sabotaging your efforts - or some small way that you can reduce your calorie intake just enough to get things moving again. Or, on the other hand, you may find that you are not giving your metabolism enough to keep it chugging along.
A food diary will also serve as a reminder about such things as keeping up your water intake. You can put a tick for every glass of water you have in the day. In addition it helps you to check that you're eating the right number of serves of fruit, vegies, dairy, protein, cereals/grains and good fat each day. In other words it's a useful aid in your personal development of new eating habits and an overall healthy eating program that you can keep up in the long term. If you just cut calories and deprive yourself of your nutritional requirements it will take its toll on your health and won't result in a new lifestyle that you can live with permanently.
It can also give you ideas and reminders of meals to have again - or of quick snacks when you are under pressure. For example, while waiting for a meal to cook, you may be ravenously hungry and inclined to grab something you will later regret eating. Instead of following that impulse, you could flick through your food diary to remind yourself of something to snack on that's healthy and low in calories as well as quick and easy.
A food diary is an excellent tool for weight loss and a valuable record of your journey to a new, slimmer, healthier you. It can serve you well along the way and will then be a great keepsake of the pilgrimage that led you to freedom.

A Food Diary: The Cheapest Diet Aid
Daniella Di Nenno

Okay, so I'm sure you have those days where you say I'll just have a bite of this' or just a sliver of that.' We've all been there, and many of us act like those little bites don't count in our diet. In reality many of us put excess calories in our bodies that we forget about and sometimes we don't even realize what we've eaten. All those little bits and bites add up on your waistline, unless we keep track of every little thing we consume, we can sometimes make big diet no-no's without even realizing.
A food diary is a very effective way to keep tabs on your consumption, and even help you to eat less in general. All you need is a small notepad and a pen to carry with you and jot down every time you feel the urge to take a bite of anything. It also helps to write approximate caloric value beside each food that you list. Many times you'll crave a piece of chocolate and just as you're about to write it down you glance over your list and think, do I really need this? That is a great way to keep you from making small mistakes that can add up big time. By keeping a diary of your calorie intake, you can stay within your limits, and shed extra pounds just by neglecting the temptation of those last little bites.
A food diary is a great way of making you very conscious of all the little things that are adding up, and keeping you from your goals. It can aid anyone who is trying to lose weight, and stay within a diet that they are following. It's so simple to do and can really help make a difference in the amount of calories that you consume on a daily basis. So invest in a food diary and invest in your health and your body in 2008.


A food diary is one of the most useful tools for dieting.
Elizabeth Cook

Here are some points as to why this is true.
- First of all, you can see what you've eaten all day, keeping track of everything you can and can't have. This way you won't forget what you've eaten. You'll also see it written down so that it either makes you feel great (or guilty)!
- Are you getting your 'five a day'? With a food diary, you can see how much fruit and vegetables you have eaten. Sometimes it is hard to lose count, and may be you think you've had five, but really it was only three.
- With personal experience in dieting, a food diary has proved to be a very useful tool for me.
- Another benefit of a food diary is a second opinion. You can show your food diary to your dietitian, or even your friend to discuss how you could have lost more weight or where you've gone right or wrong that week. You can also work out which foods help you lose weight more.
- The most important quality to have when you're dieting is keeping your willpower. If you put on weight, and you feel like you have done everything right, check your food diary and seek a helping hand. If you really diagnose what you have eaten that week, then you can see where you went wrong. You need supportive and complimentary friends around you all the time to make weight loss successful. If you have negative friends, get rid of them right away! They'll only make your weight loss journey harder.
- A food diary can only help you, not hinder you, so don't be afraid to use one! Some people may feel that writing down what they have eaten is unnecessary because surely we can remember what we've eaten, right? Wrong. Can you really remember every single scrap of food you have eaten today? Along with the fat content? What about drinks, surely you've had a cup of tea or two? With milk? And sugar? I Thought so. Don't give up and don't give in, just give it a try, it works, believe in yourself. What have you got to lose?

How to Increase Your Metabolism
From wikihow.com


If you're trying to lose weight and think your metabolism might be the culprit, there are changes you can make to improve it. But with the commercialism surrounding "metabolism-enhancing" products, it can be hard to separate fact from fiction (or advertising) and pin down techniques that are scientifically proven to change one's metabolism.

STEPS
1. Understand what metabolism is. In the simplest terms, metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories. The rate differs significantly from person to person. You and your friend can have the same activity level, diet, and weight but still gain or lose weight at different rates based on differences in metabolism.
2. Determine what is influencing your metabolism. There are some factors that you can change, and some factors that you can't.
o Age - metabolism slows 5% per decade after age 40
o Sex - men generally burn calories faster than women
o Heredity - you can inherit your metabolic rate from previous generations
o Thyroid disorder - problems in the thyroid gland can slow or quicken metabolism but this is rare
o Proportion of lean body mass - metabolism increases with muscle mass
3. Calculate your resting metabolic rate (RMR). RMR is often used interchangeably with basal metabolic rate (BMR); although they are slightly different, estimating either is sufficient for the purpose of losing weight. To calculate your RMR, use the Mifflin-St Jeor equation (which is more reliable than the Harris-Benedict equation. There are also calculators online that can do this for you: http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php
o RMR = 9.99w + 6.25s - 4.92a + 166g-161
o w = weight in kilograms; if you know your weight in pounds, divide by 2.2 to get your weight in kilograms
o s = height in centimeters; if you know your height in inches, multiply by 2.54 to get your height in centimeters
o a = age in years
o g = gender = 1 for males, 0 for females
o Adjust your diet accordingly. Your RMR will tell you how many calories you need to maintain your body at rest. Your daily consumption to maintain your weight should be:
RMR x 1.15
o E.g. RMR = 2000, so the maintenance intake is 2000 x 1.15 = 2300
o To lose weight safely, consume no more than your maintenance intake but no less than your RMR.
o Count calories by recording what you eat and looking up how many calories each food item contains (either on the food packaging or in tables provided in books or online).
4. Eat small, frequent meals. Extending the time between meals makes your body go into "starvation mode", which means it'll hold onto as many calories as possible and store them as fat. This is why fasting and skipping meals will only make things worse. In addition to having four to six small meals per day eating healthy snacks will also increase metabolism.
5. Drink water. As with food, depriving your body of water can encourage it to "hoard" rather than "burn". In order to encourage your liver to focus on metabolism rather than water retention, make sure you drink an appropriate amount of water.
6. Boost metabolism temporarily with aerobic exercise. Different activities burn different quantities of calories, but the important thing is to raise your heart rate and sustain the activity for approximately 30 minutes.
7. Boost metabolism in the long run with weight training. Muscle burns more calories than fat (73 more calories per kilogram per day, to be exact) so the more muscle you build, the higher your resting metabolic rate (RMR). Every bit of muscle that you gain is like a little factory that burns calories for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is the only way to increase RMR, which accounts for 60 to 70 percent of the calories you burn daily.

TIPS
• There are no "fat-burning" foods. You might've heard that certain foods (like celery and grapefruit) increase metabolism, but it's just a myth. While some foods and drinks like red peppers and green tea have been studied for their potential metabolism-increasing properties, there is no conclusive evidence that whatever influence they have on metabolism is significant enough to result in weight loss.
• However, some believe that certain extremely low-calorie foods, such as celery, cause the body to burn more calories in the act of consumption than are absorbed by the body. Still, half an hour walking will burn many more calories than half an hour of chewing celery.


WARNINGS
• Avoid smoking as a weight-loss method. While nicotine is a metabolism booster and appetite suppressant, the health hazards far outweigh any benefits.
• Expect your metabolism to slow down as you lose weight. The more weight your body is carrying, the more calories your body has to burn in order to sustain itself, even at rest. When you begin restricting your calorie intake, you'll lose weight relatively easily because your body's high caloric needs are not being met. But after you begin to shed the weight, the body has less mass to carry and thus needs fewer calories. In order to continue losing weight, you will have to restrict your caloric intake even further in order to maintain a difference between what your body needs and what you are providing. Let's go through a hypothetical example:


o You are 200 lbs and your body needs 2500 calories a day to sustain itself.
o You cut down your caloric intake to 2000 calories.
o You lose 25 lbs. Now your body only needs 2250 calories to sustain itself because it's carrying less weight.
o If you continue with your 2000 calorie per day diet (the diet that helped you lose the first 25 lbs) you will still be losing, but at half the speed. In order to maintain a steady weight loss you will need to reduce your caloric intake further. However, it is at the utmost importance you do not try to consume fewer calories than your RMR!
o Another possible problem: If you continue with your 2000 calorie per day diet (the diet that helped you lose the first 25 lbs) you may actually gain weight back because of varying levels of exercise. Let's say you lose 50 lbs. on your 2000 calorie diet. Your sustaining calories might be 1800. You're actually consuming enough calories to gain weight, but how would that happen if you had stayed to your diet. This can happen when your exercise has burned through many calories. If you slowed on exercise at this point you would actually gain weight again. The point here is to recheck your RMR when you lose weight and compare it to your consumption.