Temporary Weight Loss?

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 04/13/14:
It's interesting how we think about weight loss. We go on a diet. We lose weight. We reach our goal (hopefully). We return to regular eating. We gain the weight again. We blame the diet for only being a temporary fix. 

Because of this pattern we think it's the failing of the weight loss plan we choose. That would be like blaming the effect for the cause. It's not logical thinking and it's not how things work. The only way a person gains weight is by over eating and under moving. There is no mystery. If a person returns to the eating habits and lifestyle that put the original pounds on, it will again...of course!

Weight loss plans do not cure obesity. Even weight loss surgery does not cure obesity. Obesity is not a disease that needs curing. It is a physical symptom of an emotional malfunction. If the emotional component is ignored, no diet in the world will grant permanent weight loss. Rather then looking at obesity as a temporary condition of a body and mind out of sync as we should, we tend to think of restoring our body to a healthy weight as temporary and in peril of reversal at any moment! That is faulty thinking.

It's a true fact that most people that manage to lose weight will gain weight again. They won't gain "back" the same fat they lost before. It no longer exists. It's not out there floating around just waiting for an opportunity to jump back on! However, people are perfectly capable of accumulating new fat if they go back to living a lifestyle that supports it. We need to stop thinking of our obese selves as our normal selves. Our normal self is at a healthy weight and fitness level. Up until now, lifestyle has prevented this normal. Our bodies try every minute of every day to restore normal. It's how we're made. The excess fat on our bodies is the intruder and needs to be eliminated and denied reentry!

Weight loss is only permanent when we accept the fact that the reason we were fat was completely due to how we think and feel about food. Obesity happens because of us. It does not happen to us.

There are 2 absolute things I know and I can promise are true.

#1. If you stick to Cambridge 100% you have the iron clad ability to get to your normal healthy weight.

#2. If you go back to eating as you did before, you will once again gain weight and may end up right back where you started.

With these 2 simple facts we have all the information we need to make our post Cambridge weight our new permanent normal and the knowledge of what (not) to do to ensure we don't gain weight again.

It may take some time for your brain to catch up to your body. I know mine did. But the mind and body are very much connected and by rebooting your emotional connection to food, clearing out all the old thinking and programming, you can then welcome in your new and improved belief of self.

Turning 55

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 03/14/14:
I had my birthday last month, Feb 18th to be exact. I guess it was one of those half way milestones, no longer early 50's, on my way to 60. I'm not sure how to feel about it. I have not had nearly the adventures I thought I would have had when I was young. So much of my early years were consumed (no pun intended) with parenting, food, my obesity, and poor health. Now I am healthy, but not in a financial place to do all the traveling etc I had hoped for. I guess you can't have everything, but as you get older you do become hyper aware of the time you have left on this planet and think a lot about whether you are spending it doing what you would like to be doing.

I had a lifelong dream of living by the beach. I do. I had a lifelong dream of finding and marrying someone that would love me unconditionally. I have. I had a goal of my Cambridge business being my retirement income. It is. Now this one may seem weird, but I love Disneyland and being a So Ca girl it was one of my favorite places. I dreamed of living close enough to be able to have a resident pass and go whenever I felt like it. Not being a fan of Anaheim I never made the move...but.... we now live in Fl about an hour and a quarter away from Disney World with resident passes in hand. Check! Life is good.

Years ago when my kids were young.. I was a single mom, we were on food stamps, I was disabled, and life was bleak living in a government subsidized apartment complex, I struggled constantly to keep us afloat and not let my kids know how desperate our situation was. I wanted them to have as normal of a childhood as I could provide as a single parent. I ran a licensed day care in our apartment and did the best I could. I was always aware of how well my childhood friends had done and how different our lives were. Even something as simple as having a car less then 20 years old, or taking a vacation, or even having a VCR was stuff I only dreamed about. Forget about ever owning my own home. For some reason my life had taken a detour and it was about survival, nothing else.

One day I sat and made a list of all the things I wished to achieve and acquire. It was crazy and out of reach, but I just wanted to see it all in writing. #1 was lose weight and get healthy and it went on to other things, ultimately ending with a house of my own. I taped it to the wall next to my bed and forgot about it. Most of the things on the list were simple, not extravagant, but still not in sight.

I remember a movie that was a favorite of mine and my kids. It was called "A Home Of Our Own" with Kathy Bates playing a widowed mother searching for a place she could raise her kids. There is a line that summed up how it was for us. One of her boys is looking in a store window at Christmas and his adult voice narrator said, "When I was a kid, everything you saw...was something you couldn't have". Yup. It was like that.

Anyway, it was some years later. We were still living in that apartment, but things had changed. I had lost my weight on Cambridge. In that experience I discovered I was so much stronger then I'd given myself credit for. I became a Distributor and had built a strong business in a very short time. One day my daughter came to me with a peice of paper. She showed it to me and said, "Mom...do you realize that you have achieved just about everything on this list?" I had forgotten about it and was shocked to see that she was right! The only 3 things remaining were to buy my own home, find love, and travel. 4 months later I bought my first home. A 2800 sq ft home on half an acre in central Ca with a ready made park like play ground in the back for my day care, 20 fruit trees and a place to move my beloved elderly Aunt in with us. It was all pretty incredible for my little family. That was almost 11 years ago. After 4 years I sold that home and made a nice profit, enough to buy a beautiful home on the river in Utah. We spent 6 happy years there, I eventually started dating and then met my husband. We've been married for 2 years now and moved across the country to where we are now, 6 miles from the most amazing beaches.

I guess my reason for this post, other then I was sitting here this morning counting my blessings and taking a moment to realize how fortunate I am, was to put it out there that no matter how your life is now, no matter how defeated you may feel at the moment, life can turn on a dime if you let it. It takes work and courage and a willingness to abandon old beliefs and habits and whatever has been holding you back, but you can accomplish great things if you put you mind and your shoulder to it and not let anything stop you. Making that list so many years ago when I had no reason to think any of it would ever become reality was that first tiny push to cracking the door of possibilities. I didn't need to believe at the time that any of it would happen, because I didn't! lol! I don't know why I taped it up rather then tear it up, but it was the beginning of the change for me. My life really began at 42 and by the time I was 50, I was finally feeling free to be the person I should have been all along.

Never underestimate your ability to change yourself or the circumstances of your life. We are so much more powerful then we believe ourselves to be. Some things in life happen to us, but most things happen because of us. Don't be afraid to take responsibility for the situation you're in because that just means you can change it.

So..turning 55? Well....that just means I have had one more year to celebrate my life that it took so long for me to discover.

Diary Of A Chubby Kid

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 01/16/14:
From about 13 years old on I starved myself. I had been a chubby kid all my life and once I got in Jr High the teasing was relentless. 7th and 8th grade were horrible, but that summer I started restricting calories and lost weight. My family was happy to see me losing and didn't seem to care how I was doing it. I got through 9th grade very hungry, but I was able to fit in and wear those hip huggers and tight clothing and yes, my beloved Dittos, a brand of pants very popular in the 70's. I still felt very fat compared to all my super lean friends. Being so tall, (5'9" ) I already felt like some kind of amazon.

I grew up in Southern California in the San Fernando Valley so it was very much an appearance consciousness culture and the beach was the place to be. I needed to be able to feel ok in a bikini to fit in with my friends. The summer before beginning high school I went on 800 calories or less a day. I didn't care what I ate, as long as it was under 800 for the day. A whole can of Franco American spaghetti has about 270 calories. I loved it. I would have a piece of white bread with it and call it dinner. That summer I dropped down to the size 6/7 and grew boobs and everything was looking GOOD! People were shocked when I showed up in High school. The problem was that I was starving every single day. I don't remember one day of high school that I wasn't faint with hunger. I left home in the morning starving, spent the day starving, and then picked at my dinner and went to bed starving. This was before anorexia was a thing, but I don't think I was anorexic. I just knew that the only way I could not be fat was to not eat. I had been on a diet my entire life so this was not far from normal for me.

I started getting sick a lot, then bruising and hair loss started. It worried my mom and dad enough to take me in to our old family doc to see what was wrong. He was forever testing me for diabetes as a kid and he thought for sure this time it would come back positive. It didn't and I didn't say anything about my diet. He congratulated me on my weight loss though! Oddly enough, I did eventually end up becoming diabetic.

It will always remain a mystery how in a family of 4 kids, 3 girls and one boy, that I was the only fat one. All of my siblings were stick thin. As children, we all ate the exact things in the same amount. My mom served us our meals and that was all she wrote. No seconds or in between snacking, nothing. We rarely had sweets or sugary drinks or chips and never ate out. I was the only active one too. I was a total tom boy and they all were couch potatoes. Honestly, I don't think I have a single memory of my brother ever being upright! lol!

I came to the earth this way. I was a chubby baby, (9lbs 3oz!) a chubby toddler, a chubby pre-teen, a starving teenager, and an obese adult. I never felt "normal". It took about 5 years after my weight loss with Cambridge to finally experience life without constantly thinking about my weight. It's not completely gone of course, but it's no longer in the forefront of my brain at all times. I know I will never be out of control again and that as long as I have Cambridge I can relax and live life, but that chubby kid is still in there. I should have a talk with her and let her know we are going to be ok.

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!

The New Bars Are Dreamy!

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 12/03/13:
I just got my first order of the new Cambridge Bars yesterday. I've been with this company for many years and have tried bars from all the various manufacturers we have had. The company has had to change manufacturers several times due to changes made by those companies and Cambridge's goal to keep the bar's high standard nutritional profile while still keeping the cost affordable for our customers. This new batch is a home run! They are to die for! If you have never tried the bars before, or you tried previous bars and were less then thrilled with them, you simply MUST try these. Honestly, I can't believe these taste so divine while still keeping to only 150 calories with 15 grams of protein. I like that the boxes only have 7 this time too. That way you can afford to buy a variety of flavors if you want. So, my recommendation is to go directly to my website at cambridgediet.org and place your order today. These will fly off the warehouse shelves and my guess is that they may sell out before the next run. The holiday season in full swing and treats and goodies will be coming at you from every direction. It is more important then ever that you have something to make you feel like you are not being deprived and these will do the trick. In fact, I bet everyone else will be jealous and want one too!

The World We Live In

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 09/29/13:
It's just a sad fact that for us here in the country, food is an obsession. More so now then ever before with social media recipe sharing, cable food channels on tv, even network cooking competitions are pretty much taking over programming. It's impossible to avoid all the food stimuli and we are no better then Pavlov's dogs. We see, hear, or smell food and we want to eat it. It doesn't matter if our body does not need calories or nutrition at that moment. We've been conditioned to eat pretty much whenever and whatever we want.

This work you are doing now, retraining yourself to say "no" to things you want but know you don't need, is building mental muscle for the rest of your life. You always have had the power and the right to turn down any substance that you feel is harmful for your body. Addicts of all kinds have to learn this, that you can't justify harming yourself to spare the feelings of others. One thing I have seen happen a lot over the years is when one person in a relationship or in a group of friends begins to take control of their weight and their health, the other/s will feel threatened or left behind or angry that their eating buddy has abandoned them. I've seen marriages end over one member of the couple losing weight. It also tends to force the other/s to see their own bad habits...no one likes that!lol!

Once you lose your weight all these same events and people will still be there knocking at your door. If you lose your weight and then go back to the behaviors and habits that got you obese, you will be obese again. The people in your social circle no doubt have their own health and weight issues and misery loves company as they say. It's going to be a project to become a new and improved version of yourself that has no problem saying no to anything or anyone that is detrimental to your health and well being. You'll know you've beaten it when you can say no and not feel sad about it, but feel powerful and strong and healthy. Others in your life will learn that you have chosen a new lifestyle that they will have to respect. You won't worry about hurting feelings or disappointing someone who is not interested in your best interest. Ideally, you will set a good example to others who may also want to find their way out of a bad lifestyle. They will see your glowing good health and happiness and want it too!

Taking a moment

Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 09/07/13:
As I sat here the past couple of hours responding to my daily morning emails for Cambridge I was harking back (that's a word I never get to use! lol!) to my previous life before losing my weight. It's been a while now, but because I had spend the majority of my life suffering from weight and food issues the memories are still clear. The one emotion that comes to the front when remembering that life is confusion. I was so completely incapable of managing my eating or understanding how to eat correctly. I had gone through a million different diets over the course of my life beginning in childhood, each one contradicted the last. By the time I reached my early 40's...and 340+ pounds...I was lost. Hopeless is the next emotion I remember. I had never lived a normal life. I had never put a single bite of food in my mouth without feeling guilty. I concluded that I could never be "normal", that obesity was my destiny and that like my mother, it would be what killed me.

When I look at my old before pictures I can see those emotions on my face. It's painful to see, but it reminds me of how grateful I am that I found my way free.

Take a moment today and think about all the pain and suffering your weight has caused you. What price have you paid for it? A house is built one nail at a time. Our weight is built one bite at a time. Never allow the thought to grow that "This one bad choice won't hurt or one more week of my life spent eating whatever I want won't matter". It does hurt and it does matter.

Today, I am remembering how grateful I am that my search is over. No more waiting for the next "miracle" diet or pill or surgery. I found my miracle and along the way I found the life I wanted. It took a lot of work and frustration and self analysis, but here I am, happy and healthy and experiencing the life I denied myself for so many years.