More Re-Thinking - by Katy

Alrighty!  I've re-appeared!  But this last post from Heather rings a bell with me!   Frankly when I think about it, it's how I've always maintained my weight!  (before gaining past few yrs).  I would be busy and occupied, sure I'd be hungry and I'd eat...but 'food' and calories and worry about 'weight' was never on my radar!  And since I found myself too busy at certain times to snack or overeat, I rarely gained weight!  I would end up skipping the typical idea of when 'meal times' were supposed to be and just eat when hungry not because it was 'time'.  So in a manner of speaking I was fasting without giving it much thought.  Not starving myself, just delaying or omitting some of the 'regular' ideas of when or how much to eat.

I have to wonder how much of my mindset has contributed as much as hormones etc.  My 'thoughts' about 'being sedentary' with my current job of 4 yrs has weighed me down with that type of thinking - literally! 

I had read this recent article which just shows how our minds 'work' in so many situations similar to what I'm talking about!  Meaning my perception of my 'sitting all day' at work has not worked to my benefit with weight loss!  See what I mean:

A recent study by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer seems to challenge our basic assumptions about the relationship of the body and the mind.  Langer is a researcher who has published several important studies. In this study, she decided to look at whether our perception of how much exercise we are getting has any affect on how our bodies actually look.  To do this she studied hotel maids.  AS any casual observer of the hospitality industry knows, hotel maids spend the majority of their days lugging heavy equipment around endless hallways.  Basically, almost every moment of their working days is spent in some kind of physical activity.  

But Langer found that most of these women do not see themselves as physically active. She did a survey and found that 67 percent reported that they didn't exercise. More than one-third of those reported they didn't exercise AT ALL.  "Given that they are exercising all day long," Langer says, "that just seemed bizarre."  

What was even more bizarre, she says, was that, despite the fact that all of the women in her study far exceeded the US surgeon general's recommendation for daily exercise, the bodies of the women did not seem to benefit from their activity. 

Langer and her team measured the maids' body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, blood pressure, weight and body mass index.  They found all of these indicators matched the maids' perceived amount of exercise, rather than their actual amount of exercise.  

So Langer set about changing perceptions.  She divided 84 maids into two groups. With one group, researchers carefully went through each of the tasks they did each day, explaining how many calories those tasks burned.  They were informed that the activity already met the surgeon general's definition of an active lifestyle.  The other group was given no information at all.  

One month later, Langer and her team returned to take physical measurements of the women and were surprised by what they found.  In the group that had been educated, there was a decrease in their systolic blood pressure, weight and waist-to-hip ratio--and a 10 percent drop on blood pressure.  It appeared the mind has assisted in their changes.

Time to start re-arranging our beliefs?  I'm working on mine, so thank you Heather for giving me something to think about...or in this case, to remember! ☺