Editorial Note

Kay WLC for Niagara Region, Ontario and INT groups

Welcome to our First WLC Groups Newsletter! Wow - its been 3 months since this challenge has begun and great successes are being made all over the continent and the world! Congratulations to all who are taking steps to improve their health and living their life with more passion about themself!

A huge thanks goes out to Dr Phil for taking time to write this book "The Ultimate Weight Loss Solution - The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom. You stretched you arms out to help us and in turn, as moderators/managers/members of WLC groups we hope to do the same for others. To widen the circle of support and help decrease the overweight/obese statistics and make good friends in the process.
Thank You Dr. Phil
~"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." -Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

Group Members
Thank you for joining the groups you are in. Your input and support is so valuable to each and every one of us. I hope we can all make good use of our circle of support by being supportive and sharing in your group. If your group is quiet - spark a discussion or say hello and tell people how you are. IF your group is talkative, be a part of the conversation or start a new one. If your reading messages but, have never replied to one or only a few times, share your life. What better way to get support than to give it as well. Your voice is as important as everyone else's. You might be surprised at how some people can understand your individual situation. We all have one common goal and that is to lose weight and to be healthier. We are all in this together.
IF you feel like you have fell into a rut, tell your group. There is no better time than that to share and get support to help you through it. Here is a famous quote.
~"A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself." -Robert Burton ~
If you fall, come to your group and "stand on the shoulders" of your circle of support. Let your group help you through your tough times. Allow them to help you to visualize success. Each individual has their own journey to take, if your quiet, how will they know your needs and support you or how can they celebrate your success.

Your journey has just begun. For some it is a lengthy road and others a wee bit shorter. But all in all if we stick together and see one another through to the end, we shall all eventually be successful in weight loss.
~ "Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." -Dale Carnegie ~

Want to contribute? CLICK HERE to contribute to an upcoming monthly newsletter! This is your newsletter. Anyone can contribute!!! Group Members or leaders alike. Please share!

Holiday Motivator

December Inter Group Challenge!
During the month of December groups have been challenged to do one or both of the following:
Most minutes exercised
Most pounds Lost

Depending on the amount of group participants, these amounts will be averaged for your group total.
This challenge is meant to encourage you to strive for your personal best in December, to help you through the holidays and to see progress happening. It is about challenging yourself and seeing improvements in your own life in December. Let your group Moderator/Manager know if your interested in participating. If you are already exercising, then why not join! Just tell your group leader how many minutes your doing each day (the group leader might already have a database set up for you)

Members can participate in one or both challenges. Moderators are responible for tracking their members progress and entering their group totals in the Challenge databases.

The team with the highest overall average will receive a banner to place on their homepage. But no matter what, everyone is a true winner in this challenge!!!

This challenge runs from Dec 1 - Dec 31. Team leaders have until Jan 5 to get their group totals in to the WLC moderator group. Have fun, be healthy and be active!

Nebraska/Kansas Group
My name is Joe Cheray I am 31 yr old SAHM of a 3 yr old boy named Anthony.I live in Topeka Ks.
I have a weight loss support group named neksareawlc on yahoo.We got off a to a slow start but have increased membership to 15 in a little over a week.One thing that I still can't get over is that I have two ladies in my group that were neighbors and didn't even know it until they joined my group.
One thing that my members are finding usefull to them is my daily quotes and health tips.I also do a weekly self exploration exercise.
One common problem that we all can relate to is our various health ailments whether brought on by our continued negligence of our bodies or from plain natural circumstances.
I feel confident that we will work together as a group and that we will make a positive movement here in the heart of America
-Joe Cheray, owner, neksareawlc

Karen Neal Weight_Loss_Challenge

I have gotten such joy out of my group. I knew I was not alone in this journey and wanted to do what I could to help others take control of their weight and heath. It feels as if Dr. Phil and all the challengers around the world have started a revolution. My goals as moderator are to inspire, encourage, motivate, recognize, and guide. May our future generations learn from us and treat their bodies with the respect they deserve.

These are the States/Provinces
which are not yet represented
on the WLC Members website

Introducing Some of Our Team Leaders (moderators/managers)

On page 33 of "THE" book, the first question Dr. Phil asked was to specifically write what it is that I hope to achieve...the number of pounds I want to lose, or the desire to maintain my weight loss within a certain range once I lost it. My answer: I would like to throw away 116 pounds! I don't want to lose it! When I lose something, I need or want it back. This extra weight is NOT something that I anticipate missing or needing!! So, I am prepared to take the steps to throw my weight away and keep it away...FOREVER!! Melissa of the DrPhilPower Group in Santa Clarita, California	Melissa Moderator - CA
~To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground. - Steven R. Covey ~ ~Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not. - Henry Fielding~	Liz and husband Charles Moderator - Michigan
Sheri Liegh Welna	Sheri Ontario

Irene de Villiers Moderator - INT

I am now 260 lbs on my way to 195 lbs of 6 foot 3 woman. (Dr Phil was the first I found to have a weight chart for a woman that height, what a pleasure.)
I am thrilled to bits with this progress because I have Cushing's Syndrome and one is supposed to only be able to gain weight with that. When I first got it I gained 4 pounds a week, very scary. So let me back up and tell the story from the beginning:
Cushings involves production of huge quantities of the stress hormone cortisol, which among other things converts muscle to fat, and prevents burning of fat for energy. I thought I was doomed. As a child I got to 6 foot at age 11 and I had been referred to since as Telephone-pole, Stork, Long John, Hertzog-tower, and Stretch, never Irene. So for me to be 100 lbs overweight was "not me". It's a weird way to get people to use my real name!
I was also athlete fit, used to swimming a mile a day and riding bicycle races of 100 miles over mountain passes. Then suddenly I exploded with pounds of weight, loss of energy to the point that when I pushed myself I got congestive heart failure, and nobody could diagnose me - for years - to tell me why I was fat and lazy. The diagnosis is quite recent, but there are no safe medicines for Cushings. Surgery to remove my pituitary gland and adrenal glands (where the cortisol producing tumours usually are located) was a conventional option I would have declined anyway due to the life long after-effects but it was not offered as my savings were already all gone for the years looking for answers without success, and the test I needed was $15,000.00 and not approved by Medicaid.
Life all comes together for a reason however, and my life has been geared towards helping cats live longer healthier lives since I was seven, including more recently by the use of homeopathy. I have a qualification in veterinary homeopathy and am studying for the highest one before writing my book on cat health which will also explain homeopathy in proper scientific terms so as to remove all the silly mumbo jumbo things being said about it because people are not seeing the science of nature behind homeopathy, it seems to have fallen through the cracks. Why is this relevant?
Since Cushings will kill if there is no surgical tumour removal, I needed an alternative and homeopathy was it. Due to my studies I knew a great homeopath in New Zealand, who in May 2002 offered to help me and has done so tirelessly, out of the goodness of his big heart, and regardless of my financially embarrassed situation. Dr Joe Rozencwajg, MD and homeopath, has literally saved my life - by email from New Zealand. We "met" on a homeopathy list. My cortisol level thanks to Joe and homeopathy, is now about 107 where it was 277, on the way down towards the normal range of 10 to 40. Meantime the weight has stuck to me harder than iron filings stick to a magnet. If I could market that force I would get rich.
I tried everything I could think of diet wise over the past 3 years, and in fact did lose 14 lbs over 3 years before starting the challenge. Unfortunately I kept finding it again. And had to do re-runs. One of the things I did was to sign up for a diabetes cooking class. (Not because I have diabetes, though Cushing's does raise blood sugar). I did it because I wanted to find healthy ways to eat and not gain weight, and hopefully lose some. Finally I was doing my own cooking - weird for me, because as I tell my friends - I was born without cooking genes.
In fact my endocrinologist asked to shake my hand for the achievement of 14 lbs against the background of Cushings. I can't wait for the next visit to brag about another 18 lbs since DrPhil walked into the picture. We tall types are good eh!
I attribute this to several things. Mainly it is the approach of the Dr Phil weight loss challenge and the 7 keys. But more than that, I needed the incentive to try and the belief that it was possible - and it came from something Dr Phil said on a show one day - just a comment he threw out - that we are responsible for how we are *despite* any impediments such as weight loss resistance. I had never looked at it that way before. I had always thought - Well I have Cushing's so I am not responsible for looking like a cross between a giraffe and an elephant. (I was born in Africa.)
It was the first time I considered *myself* responsible despite having Cushings. And that is the real reason I got the book and got serious about 7 keys and started a weight loss group, especially one hoping to encourage others with weight loss resistance issues. It's a small but great group, DrPhil-FUN (Future Undeniable Narrowness).
I have had help from at least one other major source: Lectures by Dr Nicholas Perricone which I happened upon quite by "accident" (though I consider it divine intervention) opened my eyes. Dr Perricone explained what far reaching harmful effects cortisol has, not news to me as I have scoured research on it for years, but he also explained healthy ways to reduce cortisol. I stopped coffee cold turkey, I avoided herb teas with liquorice, I used green tea as my fluid of choice, I put salmon at the top of my shopping list, I eliminated all the white stuff (bread, pasta, rice, potato), I fought the muscle breakdown with more protein and I spent what pennies I could scrounge on specific supplements to do things like lower cortisol, lower blood sugar, increase fat burning, increase insulin sensitivity - essentially I use more chemical weapons than Bush ever found, in my anti-cortisol arsenal.
Dr Perricone is a dermatologist - but he has the oh so sensible approach that beauty comes from within, and that a healthy skin requires first, a healthy body. I have his book "The Perricone Prescription" not because I need to avoid wrinkles, but because I want to get healthy despite cortisol.
So imagine my pleased surprise when I read chapter 11 of Dr Phil's weight challenge book. I immediately wrote to my email list to "declare chapter eleven"! The supplements in chapter 11 were the same as Dr Perricone suggested, with even a few more good ideas. For me, that verified the validity of Dr Phil's in depth research with the best experts and *told* me that if anything could help me lose weight better, this could. I decided to believe it possible and try it, in that order.
So I am here with all the miracles in my life converging to get me healthy. It's the combination of Dr Joe, Dr Phil, Dr Perricone and no small amount of determination on my part and which I am finally giving myself permission to acknowledge! - that have got me onto this road of recovery. There are bumps in my road as I have a fully suppressed immune system and often have to take time out to get over pneumonia etc, but how ever often I fall, it's less than the times I'll get back up.
The support of other folks on the road is also a necessary aspect - key 7 - I live alone so it's a BIG aspect. As Dr Phil says we need ALL seven keys to get there. I think "I get it!" Now I just have to go the distance!
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc; AASCA; MCSSA; CVH.

Patrick - PhilinAZ

Patricks before pic

Current

I like walking near local golf courses. My wife, Joanne uses a gym for ladies called "Just for Women." We are moderators for the Arizona WLC Support Group.
Joanne

Joanne's Before

Current

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Ideas on Negative Feedback

This is something I had to work on very hard as i had a very low self esteem and always telling myself how fat I was and worthlessness etc... Now I am much better about keeping negative feedback out of my head. When ever I get a self defeating though pop up, I say woah, wait a minute, where did that come from and why did I think it? Having a bad day? Had a fight with family member? Am I letting external stimuli effect my internal feed back? And why?
Then I either write it down and then write something good next to it to replace the thought. Another way is to get 2 small boxes, like a cardboard recipe box. On one write "Positive Inspiration" and in it put scraps of paper with a positive thought or quote on them. The other box label "Negative feedback". When you have a self defeating/negative thought, write it down on scrape of paper, then tear it up and throw in box and visualize locking it away or burning up in flames.
Next, pull out a paper from the Positive Box and read it several times and then place back in for future use.
We are creatures of habit and you will find that as you reinforce ourselves, more and more, with positive thoughts we will be putting less and less in the Negative box. Have fun and decorate the boxes too.

Tara Keener
WLC Gulf Coast (Florida to Alabama)