Listen

Listen, Your Body has the Answers...

Maybe a strange message to put on a blog which claims to itself have answers?

I’ve included this message because I, frankly, fell out with my body entirely. So many false starts, dashed hopes and so many years of deteriorating health, more weight gain meant that I gradually lost every scrap of faith I ever had that my body would respond positively. It was appalling.

I had tried every diet on the planet, I had followed every piece of advice and stuck to so many regimes. Despite this, the results just didn’t happen - the accelleration of the disease got worse and worse. Nothing worked, my body just didn’t respond.

Then I started to find the answers. Surprisingly, even after such a long period of illness (15 years by my reckoning) my body started to respond and make small improvements for the better, much more quickly than I hoped.

Bear in mind that I have then engaged in a long trial and error period - every piece of advice in this book has been long-fought, using my own self as the guinea-pig, and trying probably as many things which didn’t work or were detrimental as I have tried which did work and were beneficial.

Even on my body, the results are positive. Slowly and with many false starts I’ve regained the trust that should always have been there.

I know that many readers will have been through a lot of this themselves. Some may have given up hope of a solution. Some will undoubtedly have been told that there was no solution.

I know it can be done. I know there is a solution, and the body will tell you what’s working for you.

Fundamentally, as with all things in nature, the body wants to be well, it wants to be better, it wants to have balance, stability, normality.

It is not normal, or balanced or natural for a body to be so susceptible to outside stressors, to experience such drastic hormone imbalance or to carry excess weight.

Given the right conditions (or even just a fighting chance) the body will do everything in its power to restore itself - that’s what it is programmed to do.

If we take away those things which are causing the disruption, and replace with things which will promote balance, there is a logical conclusion: the body will improve.

Your body also has the ability to tell you what is wrong and to indicate what will fix it.

• if you’re tired, listen and get some sleep
• Eat by your own rules: don’t feel the need to finish a plateful of food which is far too much for you: just eat what you want and stop when you are full
• if you are hungry, eat, if you are not, don’t
• Eat the foods which you know are right for you - don't be put off by others who still have the outdated perception that protein and fat are bad for you
• if you try a new treatment, be especially vigilant: your body will tell you much more quickly than any doctor whether it’s the right one or not
• if your instinct tells you something isn’t right, listen and trust your intuition about what to do

Finally, go easy: don’t expect miracles. Your body can't write an essay to describe what’s wrong, listen on daily basis to what’s going on, document changes, celebrate small victories on the journey, analyse things that didn’t work, assess the reasons for success or failure and (whether good or bad) at least use them as a positive learning experience to advance you to the next stage of understanding and awareness.