For Those Looking For Information

I've been having lots of traffic on my website lately and I know some of you have visited here as well. I wanted to let you know that I am available to answer questions or to discuss your personal goals with your health and weight. No obligation or sales pitch. My interest is to just be sure you have accurate info so you are equipped to make the best decision for yourself. Of course, I am also happy to assist in placing your order or making recommendations on which products would be the best fit for you.

Email me at pamturner@cambridgediet.org, or you can call or text me at 386-585-2528.

I look forward to working with you and hope you are excited about the changes you are about to experience!

Wow! I'm so delinquent!

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. We've had a lot going on here in our family and it's kept me on the road a lot. My daughter was diagnosed with a parotid tumor that had to come out. She had that surgery a little over 3 weeks ago. Maybe 4? Anyway, it turned out to be a rare form of cancer so there have been lots of day long trips to Gainsville where her doctor's and cancer center are and we are now preparing for her to have a couple of months of radiation. This is all so scary and we are doing our best to remain positive.

As far as my weight loss goes...I am still losing. I have still not weighed. I am back in the pool and in fact, just got out from getting my exercise. I've worked back up to 16 lengths. I'm not counting laps because I'm no where near where I was last year. My shoulder/elbow/wrist pain is finally abating after 6 months of misery and I'm working my way back.

I was surprised when I saw myself in the mirror in my swimsuit. I really haven't paid a lot of attention to how my weight loss is changing me and I was kind of amazed! This was one of those days that it suddenly showed a LOT. I must of crossed over in to a weight I haven't been at in a long time. It's kind of intriguing to have no idea what I weigh or how much I've lost.

Andy has lost about 35 pounds! He's completely lost his belly and all his pants are falling off. Time to go shopping!

We Are The Champions!

With the Olympics in full swing we are all impressed with the physical and mental strength of these exceptional athletes. They can seem super human, but we are all made out of the same stuff. The only difference is in the unwavering commitment and focus on a goal. We may not be aspiring to a gold medal and representing our country, but we are aspiring to something just as great in our own life and the lives of the people who love us. Committing to putting your health as your #1 priority can seem selfish when you have other people depending on you like family and friends, but in reality the most unselfish thing you could ever do for them is to be as healthy and happy as you can be. Just like being part of an Olympic team. If one member loses their drive, the whole team suffers. Don't let your team down! Start working towards your goal like it was your job!

Best Single Serve Blender (in my opinion)

I often get asked what kind of blender I use for mixing my Cambridge shakes. I have been using the same one for over 10 years now...well...not this exact same one, but I've bought the same one a few times . This is a blender that you can find at pretty much every home goods store or department store in their kitchen and dining departments. It may have a different brand name on it, but they are all exactly the same. I have found that Walmart has the best price so I always get mine there. It's usually around $29 and it will be the hardest working appliance in your kitchen if you are SSing. This thing obliterates ice cubes and gives you a wonderfully smooth thick shake! Find it here:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/24685825?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227018188708&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=40345209272&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=78310858232&veh=sem

How To Feel Motivated

First, put on a pair of High School pants.....

Ok, dumb joke. My apologies. But you know what? That is actually my goal for 2014. I graduated High School in 1976. Wait! Before you do the math, please keep in mind that I was more then a year younger then my classmates. That used to matter a lot when I was younger, but I guess not so mach anymore 38 years (gasp!) later. Anyway, back on the subject. Motivation.

When I was at my heaviest, my motivation was staying alive. Hovering somewhere in the 330's with a long list of serious health issues and chronic debilitating pain, each normal day to day activity, like getting up from my Lazy Boy chair to go to the bathroom, took supreme effort and caused mind blowing pain from grinding arthritis in my back, hips, knees, and ankles. I also had heel bone spurs and plantar faciitis so every step was like stepping on an explosive.  That first moment when I would get out of bed in the morning and stand up was so painful I would sometimes have to use my breathing exercises from childbirth to get through it. My high blood pressure, diabetes, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, asthma, and all the rest of my ailments were my reality and I felt completely hopeless to do anything about it.

When I found Cambridge again, my motivation to get started on it was off the charts! I knew from my experience with it 20 years before that it worked and I couldn't wait to get started. My weight loss experience was so dramatic, so life changing, so rewarding, that other then a challenging day here or there, I stuck to my diet like Velcro! I lost that first 120 pounds and felt like I had won the lottery! I wasn't at my goal weight according to the charts, but I was very comfortable where I was at and stayed there for a number of years. My next phase of weight loss was motivated by other life changes. I wanted to enter the dating world and I wanted to have skin removal surgery. For my best results I knew I needed to lose some more so I did and had the surgery. Best decision ever!

A few years later I found my prince and got married, about 2.5 years ago. I have a happy, healthy, active life and I should be content where I am at body wise, but there has been one nagging goal all along in my mind that has eluded me. My high school weight. I'm not sharing numbers because I don't know them. I'm not weighing. I found that the scale was my greatest tormentor and the cause of a lifetime of dieting failure so it's no longer a part of my world. So how will I know? Yes....those high school pants! They are a size 7  and that is in 1970's size which is a lot smaller then 2014's size 7's for some reason. My goal for this year is to get back to my ultimate weight (size) where I felt the best in my life.

My motivation is not as powerful. There is no life saving momentum this time, but I can see the prize and I want it! By shedding the remainder of this weight, I will be shedding the last of the emotions that put it on me. I am 55 and there is no other reason then a deep desire to return to my authentic self. This last amount of weight is attached to that despondent person I was long ago who suffered 2 bad marriages, single motherhood, debilitating health, and endless struggle. It's not attached to the woman I am today so it's gotta go!

Motivation can be a springboard to get you started, but unfortunately without constant attention it can fade and other emotions can crowd it out. If like me, you have lost your weight in stages, you can find it hard to get that energy and enthusiasm up again like you had your first time and may have some false starts and that can fill you with doubt. Your experience will be different this time so you need to approach it in a different way.  Journaling is a great way to keep your head in the game and remind yourself WHY you started. Write your truest feelings about what you want so that when the motivation fades or temptations are all around, you can go to your journal and give yourself a pep-talk with your own words and truth. With the same attention you would give to anything you value most, you can nurture your motivation and not lose sight of what you really want.

Eliminating Obstacles

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 04/18/14:
There are basically two things we are dealing with when it comes to doing this or any other diet. Thing one is the physical part of experiencing some hunger for a few days, maybe some fatigue or a headache. No biggie. It's not fun, but the way I figured it, I'd had my years of gluttony and excessive indulgences. It was time to pay the piper. Hunger has its limits.It's not terminal. It doesn't keep expanding in to an unbearable agony or anything. Plus, you are consuming Cambridge and other non caloric beverages so you're not completely on empty. Nothing terrible is happening. Hunger is a normal part of life for all creatures...although most of us rarely actually experience it in our food laden lives so when it happens...we freak!

Thing two is the mental stuff and that is where the greatest cause of failure (for lack of a better word) happens. When you are fat and feeling negative about yourself, not just in appearance, but in your very character due to a sense of no self control, there is an endless dialog running in your head reinforcing that opinion at the same time there is a library of justifications and excuses playing as to why you should give up and endlessly procrastinate. There are the outside influences as well that do a fine job of discouraging someone when they are on a diet, but ultimately it is our own thoughts that stimulate action. The body is not in control of any of this. It does not go on autopilot and start ransacking the pantry forcing you to eat. Other people do not hold you down and force feed you. Every single action a person takes begins as a single speck of a thought. One thought builds on another and before you know it, your body reacts chemically to the signals and starts producing adrenalin and stress hormones and you need something to smother it all out. For us...that is food.

To be successful you MUST get control of your thoughts and the self talk that leads you to caving in. Pay attention to it. It is not the smell of a co-workers lunch or your mamma's mac and cheese that will be your undoing. It is your willingness to allow the germ of a thought to abandon your diet for one more day or week, or to assimilate any negative ideas about your self worth that will take you out.

Create an environment that nurtures your efforts. Do not fall in to the trap of setting yourself up to fail so you have an excuse to do so. I'm convinced that having a scale as part of your weight loss experience is detrimental to your success. Maybe with other diets you need one to make sure you are not screwing up, but that's not an issue with Cambridge. Just have your 3 or 4 servings a day and let nature take its course. When you're skinny enough for your own comfort, you are done. You'll know when you get there. Scales are the reason most people abandon their diets. We are as hopelessly addicted to numbers on a scale as we are to our bad eating habits. We see a good number..we eat. We see a bad number..we eat. You can't win at this game. Eliminate it.

Do not allow others to implant negative thoughts about what you are doing in your head. It's no body's business but your own and you are perfectly justified in letting them know that. Put them in their place. You're not a fool and you know what you're doing. If they also have weight to lose they'll see your success and and either want to try to improve themselves too from your example,or they will try to sabotage you (for reasons coming up) or they will avoid you like the plague. When a person is not ready to help themselves, they don't want someone else around them getting their act together and shine a big old spotlight on their unaddressed weight problem. Friends, family, co-workers, even spouses can feel very threatened when someone in their life loses weight. They may not like losing their "eating buddy", or feel left behind or suddenly not good enough...so many emotions. It may not seem fair, but it is up to you to set their minds at ease and let them know this is something you are doing for yourself and in the case of a spouse, it's ok to let them know you are doing it for "us".

The main message is, the secrete to weight loss success is not in a can or a pill or a doctors operating room. It is between your own ears. Your thoughts made you fat, and your thoughts will be what gets you thin. No one gets fat because they were hungry. You change your thinking, and you change your life.

Welcome to 2014!

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 01/01/14:
Yes, another new year. Time is going so fast it seems. Do you have your goals set for 2014? I haven't put too much thought in to it yet, but I do know that I want to lose a few more pounds and get as lean as I can be. I haven't had a gym membership the past year and a half since we moved here to Florida. I have a beautiful pool, but it's unheated and yes, even here in sunny Florida it gets too cold to swim. You get about 6 months of the year before the water gets too cold. My goal is to need a new swim suit for summer because my old one will be too big!

This year had some challenges. My sister recently died. She was only 2,5 years older then me, (55) but she was diagnosed a couple of years ago (at the age I am now) with cardio pulmonary hypertension. She basically died of congestive heart failure. My mother died of congestive heart failure when she was only 62 and I also had congestive heart failure when I was only 26. So you can see there is definitely a genetic factor here I am determined to beat. Thankfully, I am currently in decent health, active and living as stress free of a life I can create. My Cambridge keeps me healthy and is my main tool for keeping a life time of obesity under control. I am so far away from the person I used to be 12 years ago. I understand that even though there may be genetic tendencies in my family, that doesn't mean I can't counteract them with a focused effort to eat and live healthy.

I hope that 2013 was kind to you, and if it wasn't, I hope 2014 will be all you hope for. I am not one for magical thinking, but people seem to be expressing a common sense that 2014 is going to be a great year. If we welcome it with that attitude, then we stand a much greater chance of it being so.

If you have weight to lose, don't wait another day. Go to my website at cambridgediet.org and order your product today. You will have it in your hands in less then 7 working days. You can take the time you spend waiting for it to clean out all the sugar and simple carbs in your diet to prepare your body for an easy transition to the diet. There is nothing else out there that can give you the results that Cambridge can!

How To Lose 100 Pounds Fast

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 03/18/12:
When I research the keywords that draw people to my site, this is the one most often used, "How to lose 100 pounds fast". There are two things to note here, one that being 100+ pounds overweight has become common all over the world and two.. that no one wants to endure the complicated process of trying to lose on a conventional food diet. Most diets can give you 1/2 to 2 pounds at most per week. If you are looking at 100 or more to lose you are also looking at a year or more to do it on a diet like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig . The slow rate of loss coupled with the amount of planning and preparing they require can be discouraging and ultimately the reason to quit. I speak from experience.

I started going to WW when I was 9 years old. I went all through my growing up years and in to adulthood. I would lose some weight, but never get to goal because it took so long, the meetings cost money and I hated the weigh-ins. Like most I employed some dieters tricks to see some loss on the scale. I would cheat throughout the week and then on weigh in day I wouldn't eat anything accept asparagus. Asparagus is a natural diuretic and could usually be good for a half pound or more on the scale of temporary loss. As soon as that meeting let out you would see all the people go across the street to a restaurant to go get ice cream ! In spite of their best efforts to teach everyone how to lose and keep it off, it was all a game for most of us. Get away with what you could and then starve for weigh in day. No lessons learned there. I am often told by prospective clients that the new WW doesn't work for them. Back in the day when they were very specific on what you ate it did work, but now there is too much freedom and it's too easy to make a mistake or cheat.

After a lifetime of dieting and gaining and dieting and gaining I have finally jumped off that track and have spent the past 11 years enjoying my freedom from obesity and food obsession. Had it not been for Cambridge I would still be in that trap...if I were still alive that is. It is likely I would be in a wheelchair by now from all the arthritis and the diabetes and heart disease I had suffered from for most of my late 20's, 30's and entering in to my 40's. I was almost there at the age of 42. Had I not lost the weight and regained my health I shudder to think what I would have gone through by now.

Everything that had plagued me for most of my life could be tracked back to lifestyle choices. That is the case for the majority of you reading this. If you caused it, you can correct it. If you make a mistake writing a letter, do you just say "Oh well, I had nothing to do with that so I guess there is nothing I can do to fix it"? Of course not! You delete or erase and correct it. The choices you have made in your life that have brought you to the point you are at right now are all within your power to change. Your body is designed to forgive the mistakes you make. If you cut your finger, does it not heal? If you break a bone or get a bruise or a sprain... pretty much anything you do to it... your body will make every effort to fix, repair, rebuild and restore to health and balance. In spite of its current challenges in dealing with your weight and the health problems that come with it, you haven't died. Keeping in mind that it is your body itself that has fought to stay alive and functioning, can you imagine what it can do if you begin supporting it in it's efforts? Wow!

Cambridge is not a magic snake oil in a can. It is not a cure for obesity. It has no power to prevent you from going back to your old habits as soon as you lose the weight, only you have that power. What it is, is a method for you to lose your weight at the fastest rate possible. What you will lose is fat and not muscle or bone or other lean tissues. This was documented in the 11 years of research that was done on the product. Typically when people lose weight rapidly through calorie deprivation on a crash type diet they are losing a good amount of things they don't want to lose. Surgical weight loss is a good example of this. These people lose their weight through malnutrition and malabsorption. A good amount of those pounds will be muscle and bone and there is the potential for organ damage etc. On Cambridge you are feeding your body better then you likely are now, but the low calories (keeping in mind that a cal is not a nutrient, but a way to measure how much energy is produced from the food) allow you to burn fat like crazy! It gives your body the chance to do what it does best...heal.

There are lots of ways to lose 100 pounds fast, but only one that I know of that is safe...Cambridge! I lost 94 pounds in 4.5 months and went on to lose a total of 120 11 years ago. I had no reason to think I was capable of accomplishing that in the beginning, but it didn't take long for me to realize that Cambridge was the tool and I had what it took to use it to build my new life. You do too.