Words from Terry Doe

Terry Doe

OK, here's something I did very recently for Dogs Today magazine, and I think it contains some things worth thinking about. It's worked for me, I know that, so I hope you can find something useful in it. Most of the 'practical' advice is in the final third, but I've posted all of it because the rest sets the scene.
Hope you like it - I assure you every word is from the heart.

WEIGHT FOR IT …

Right, I said I’d do it and here I am doing just that. Except you haven’t the slightest clue what ‘it’ was or is, so I’m going to have to explain it all over again. Where were we? Oh yes, ‘it’. OK, settle back, put your feet up, and prepare to be involved in something literally life-changing, as I reveal all. Oh, and do try to stick with it, because it turns out to be dog-relevant in quite a few ways. Here goes.
Our story begins with me being far too fat a git for far too many years. I blame my sainted mother and Herself entirely for this, due to Herself continuing my mother’s tradition of feeding me more than enough for three greedy people. This indulgent state of affairs was compounded over the years by a family rule of wasting any food being a mortal sin. Thus, if it was presented on a plate, it had to be eaten or our next barbecue would be fuelled by the fires of Hell and damnation. So, not my fault at all, then.
Not only was I a too-fat git, I’d lost all grip of the work-life balance pole, and Morris was pretty much my only source of escape and exercise. Then Morris went and died and I threw myself ever deeper into my day job by means of compensation, and to fill the monstrous void my remarkable dog left in my life. Now, spool forward if you will to March of this year, which is when I reached the tipping-point where something had to be done.

A problem shared …
Pause your spooling for a moment as I reveal a previous problem. Last year, after jet-setting around most of the world for 30 years, I’d inexplicably developed a seriously inconvenient terror of flying. I’m obliged to travel abroad at least 10 times a year, and with this exciting lifestyle including a couple of visits to the U.S., driving there would be a bit of a problem. I needed sorting out and I went the hypnotherapy route.
After much research – I wouldn’t trust any old quack with a swinging watch to mess with my inner head – I found a chap who ticked all of my required boxes. His name is Stephen Rigby and he has a perfectly appointed practice in Woking, Surrey, a few miles from my home. He also conducts appointments at his home just outside Guildford, and that’s where I opted to be treated. I’m delighted to say that two visits to Stephen’s couch saw me soaring over to Arizona the very next week, and I’ve had not a single airborne jitter since.

Winning team
With such a significant win to our credit, it was natural that the Stephen/me partnership would be tasked to bring some order to my life, and get me back on a healthy track. The important term here is ‘partnership’, because that’s exactly what it is. Hypnotherapy can be wondrously effective, but it’s not a magical cure that relieves the patient of responsibility. Both partners have a job to do, and unless both do that job, the goal will not be reached. The truly amazing news is, once the tools needed for the job are made available, the rest can be unbelievably easy. Here’s how it all unfolds in the real world.
First, I’m living proof that hypnotherapy works, and there are thousands like me. As I write, I’ve lost over four stones (actually 56lbs, or 25.4 kilos, or 112 half-pound pats of butter), in four months, with another stone to go. My waist size is exactly what it was when I got married, and not a thing in my wardrobe fits me any more, only this time it’s in a good way.
Far more importantly, I feel better than I have for ten years, and I’m no longer working mad hours, week in, week out. My energy levels are annoyingly high for everyone else around me, and I use that energy to create healthy sweat on my new cross-trainer and mountain bike. If dear old Morris was alive, he’d be getting more mega-walks than even he could handle, and it’s a shame Pepe is such a geriatric, because he’d be clocking up some impressive leashmiles.

All change for Bettersville
All in all, my life has changed massively for the better, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. I’m not on a diet, because diets are temporary and ultimately useless. What I’ve done, is to genuinely change the way I run my life, because how I ran it before had taken me to somewhere I didn’t want to be. It’s so simple if you think about it. If living one way isn’t working out for you, you have to change the way you live. If that change is temporary and you revert to your former life, then you’ll end up back where you don’t want to be. So, the change has to be for the better, and it has to be permanent. See? If you’ve stuck with it this long, you’ll probably want to know the mechanics of it, and here they are coming right up.

How I did it
First, as explained, I went to a trusted hypnotherapist. We had a full and frank discussion, decided where my problems lay, and what, in an ideal world, I should do about them. We went for ‘regaining control’ as the overall target, with ‘becoming more healthy’ and ‘restoring the life/work balance’ as the means of achieving it. Then, Stephen hypnotised me, and reaffirmed what I needed to do to make it all happen. I won’t go into detail, because my hypno-prompts are specific to my situation, as yours would be to yours, but I’ll explain the result of the hypnotherapy in simple terms that even I can understand.
My two hypnotherapy sessions opened my mind to a new direction and gave me the tools with which to establish it. I did the rest, because I really wanted to take charge and live a better life. There was no willpower involved, no longing to stuff my face with food, and absolutely no desire to do any of the things that had taken me to somewhere I didn’t want to be.
Now, I know the ‘sin’ is not based on failing to clear my plate, it’s all about putting too much of the wrong food on it in the first place. So I no longer do that. It’s also about taking more time to eat each meal, rather than scoffing it like Morris used to attack his bowl of grub, so I can be getting on with things. Finally, I coined the phrase, ‘don’t go for a pudding, go for a walk’, which Stephen the hypnotherapist thought was all sorts of clever, and it works. Giving my body time to tell me it’s no longer hungry, is where it’s at for me these days, and I can honestly say that eating enough good food is worlds more satisfying than ramming down loads of scoff, simply because it’s there.

Lovin’ it!
Get this; I not only enjoy cooking things for myself, I even like shopping for the ingredients! Yes, the words ‘I like shopping’ have appeared in a sentence, written by me, about me. It’s a whole new world out there, folks. I’ve even bought myself a couple of wonderful gadgets, such as a ‘Nicer Dicer’ to chop up my salad veggies, a steamer to cook more vegetables and fish and a new spice rack to help me change the flavours of everything I cook.
My main new-life gadget, though, is a Cobb cooker. It’s a portable barbecue that does just about everything that a barbecue and an oven can, only better. Google Cobb Cooker and its wonders will be revealed unto you.
The upshot of all this, is that my eating now has no negatives at all. No guilt, no overload, no eating until it hurts and no weight penalty. Since I made the changes, I haven’t had a single anti-indigestion tablet, and my weekly visit to the bathroom scales makes me feel good, instead of pathetic. My life is fantastic right now, and even when the bad stuff comes I’ll be, literally, in far better shape to handle it.

Final thoughts
We are taught that being selfish is a bad thing. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s not true. Being totally selfish is what’s wrong, but thinking of yourself and what’s best for you is a wonderful thing to do. So do it. Devote enough of yourself to yourself, so that you can enjoy the sort of life every good person deserves. As further justification for being ‘selfish’, please believe that a healthy, happy, positive you will be far more able to help others, and far less likely to be a concern for anyone.
Be the best version of you it’s possible to be, and you’ll not only love life – you’ll even learn to love yourself, I promise.