More Change

Did You See It On The View?

I don’t ever watch The View, but yesterday’s morning channel surfing brought me to it just as they were announcing Sherri Shepherd’s Bathing Suit Body Reveal.

Sometime this spring Sherri, one of the co-hosts, expressed the desire to feel better about appearing in public in a bathing suit; a desire shared by many of us every spring.  Since she is a star on a television show, she was immediately placed in the care of a trainer, a nutritionist, a doctor, and a stylist to help her do just that. Most of us, mere mortals that we are, if we’re really lucky, get an exercise video and an invitation to a Weight Watcher’s session from a friend.

After several months of this intense attention – not to mention the time to follow all the wonderful advice Sherri was getting – this was the show-off moment. After trying on over 300 different suits, she walked on stage looking great! Not pencil thin, but properly proportioned for a real woman of her body type and age. As the audience applauded, she said I just wanted women to see that if they made good choices they could make a difference in their appearance on the beach. (Or, something really close to that.)

I was feeling pretty good especially since her doctor had said that she’d been taken off her diabetes medication because of her dietary discipline and THEN IT HAPPENED. The producer walked on stage wheeling a cart filled with food as Elisabeth Hasselbeck announced that they decided that she, Sherri, deserved a reward. You guessed it; the cart was filled with food. Not just food, but ribs, big hot dogs in big buns, a huge bowl of M&Ms, and other things that another cast member proudly announced over the cheers from the audience were all things she couldn’t eat for the last several months. As the segment came to an end the picture of Sherri eating a rib then licking her fingers lingered.

As someone who is poised to achieve lifetime weight loss status with Weight Watchers, I wanted to weep. Anyone who has done the weight loss dance will tell you that loosing the weight isn’t anywhere as difficult as keeping the weight off. Deciding to change isn’t the hard part – sustaining the new habit is. The I’ll just have a few bites, one cigarette, or put off writing this memo leads to as long as I ate that…, I’ll just finish this pack, and I’m already late so what’s the difference rationalizations follow quickly. Before you know it your behavior change (eat healthy, quit smoking, or stop procrastinating) isn’t changed any more. Unless you have a great support system, you soon find yourself back where you began with the need to start all over again.

In my mental re-run of the episode, I had everything the same except when the camera zoomed in on the cart of food – it was filled with cut veggies, fresh fruit and a heaping plate of Vita Top brownies with all of Sherri’s co-host and fitness entourage diving in to eat as enthusiastically as they had in the real episode. Had that happened, I’d actually be tempted to tune into The View on purpose!

But It's Not the Truth!

What's a person to do? Someone you love forwards an email. You read it with growing doubt that it's actually true. So you create a subject, enter it in Google, and start reading the resulting search links. You were right - it wasn't true, or maybe it was half true, or maybe it was true but really slanted to prove a point of view. Remember, it was sent by someone you love, who wants to believe it is true because that fits into their particular world view.

What would you do?

Changing people's minds is one of the toughest tasks I can think of. Changing the mind of a people you love is fraught with big-time dangers. All the links to Urban Legends, Snopes, Scambuster you can send won't do it if someone's mind is made up. Those sources will just become suspect and part of the bigger conspiracy and you'll be the one who sent it!

Which brings us to the worst part of the Internet. Pick a position, any position. Look for it on the world wide web. I'm betting you'll find a source that agrees with you. See, you were right. If you went to the library (remember those?) you might have a tougher time finding some data to back up your pet theory  - or that is, the pet theory forwarded to you by an acquaintance, a friend or a relative. You see those sources: books, magazines, and newspapers - went through an editorial process. Facts were checked, quotes confirmed, and references verified. Things on the Internet simply went through the fingers of someone versed in HTML.

So, there you are, reading that forward from that person you love a lot, and it's not exactly true. I ask again, what would you do? Please respond, I've got this email in my in box...

What's the Secret?

Thursday’s USA Today featured an article about the new, controversial - according to them, self-help book called The Secret. It hit No. 1 on their Best-Selling Booklist. Published in November, the book, a favorite of Oprah, Larry King, and Ellen DeGeneres, wants people to understand that the Law of Attraction governs getting what you want in life. As defined in Carol Memmott’s article this Law states, “If you think positively, you become a magnet that pulls everything you want to you.” The book has sold 1.2 million copies and a DVD released last March has sold 1.1 million. Not much of a secret any more!

I haven’t read the book nor have I decided if I will, but I do know one thing already. The tough part of this secret, like so many other self-help concepts, won’t be in the doing but in the believing. Unless a person can change their belief system to bring it in line with this so called secret, it will never work.

I believe in the Law of Attraction – some days more clearly than others. Unless I, like so many others, am willing to change my mind after reading the book - my $23.99 won’t be much of an investment.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Most of us aren’t willing to take a step until we’ve seen the whole staircase AND the certificate of inspection declaring it built to code.

I guess I’ll have to read Rhonda Byrne’s book after all and see if she includes my Law of Change. “If you want your life to be different, you’re going to have to change the way you think – day in and day out.”