Good evening, Chelyabinsk.
My name is Marina Maggi.
Today my topic is:
Slimmers haven’t a clue about the slim.
I have dedicated the greater part of my life
to recovery from acute food addiction.
In February 2013, my weight was already 92 kg.
Three years ago, I looked something like this.
Not the easiest time in my life.
I began each day promising myself
that today would be the day I changed my life.
But by lunchtime, the person who’d made that promise that morning had vanished.
By supper no trace of determination remained.
I sank into failure,
punished myself with a sense of guilt,
conclusions about myself …
This went on for about 10 years of my life …
every day.
Can you imagine?
I thought, “What’s wrong with me? Why isn’t it working?”
There really was something wrong with me.
The fact was that all this time I was a “slimmer”,
an absolutely typical slimmer
with an absolutely typical slimmer’s type of thinking and level of consciousness.
Even when I succeeded in losing weight through my efforts,
I always just remained a “slimmer”.
Today my topic is called:
“Slimmers haven’t a clue about the slim.”
And I would like to add:
“… that’s why you didn’t lose weight.”
So, let’s get started.
With a career of more than 16 years as a coach,
the last four years working closely with slimmers,
I find a very strong similarity among them.
And, where there’s similarity, systemacity is to be found.
I divide slimmers into three categories, depending on the level of excess weight.
The first: the indulgent. They’re 3-5 kg overweight.
The second: the suffering. They’re 10-15 kg and above overweight.
The third: sectarians. They are not overweight at all.
Before I continue, I want to say,
that all coincidences with actual people are pure coincidence.
To be clear, I do not mean it about you if you don’t think it applies to you.
So, “the indulgent”.
The indulgent, these are girls with excess weight of 3-5 kg.
Let’s just say they have no serious weight problem,
but they already sense uncomfortable changes at the microlevel.
Jeans don’t sit properly in places, the swimsuit doesn’t do up.
At the microlevel, they’re already uneasy, but are not yet doing anything about it.
They are not ready to take real action.
The indulgent like to talk a lot about losing weight,
love to put it into heads all around that they need to lose weight.
Sounds familiar?
I think men will understand me now,
if they have “indulgent” women.
Some are frankly given to hysterics,
others behave more delicately,
tearfully grimacing, portraying painful emotion.
In a word, those who whine a lot, and, ultimately, do nothing.
I’ll tell you about the games they play
by which they manipulate us and deceive themselves.
The indulgent do not feel pain from the excess weight itself.
They feel guilty because they see the problem
and do not do anything about it.
In order to somehow justify themselves,
they, at first, go on about it a lot, because it gives them a sense of action,
or an illusion of action towards a solution.
We often do this regardless of whether there’s a weight problem or not.
And the second: those who indulge and take on the role of a martyr,
they seem to suffer.
Why do they suffer?
Because martyrs in our society are always justified, always good.
With us, this is even found on a legislative level.
Repentance as a mitigating circumstance in determining guilt.
I just happen to have a legal education, at least it came in handy somewhere.
So, the indulgent.
On the one hand, they submittingly admit they do,
on the other, they’re OK.
They assuage themselves with: “It’s no problem,
one can continue to indulge and not lose weight.”
This is a visceral, manipulative game they play.
With this, they really irritate us, because we all have to listen to it.
The suffering are the second category.
The suffering are of the indulgent.
The principal difference from the first
is that it is a full blown problem with inescapable extra kilos.
The suffering are girls who will no longer be whining.
They will not say that they have put on weight and need to lose weight,
because they know that it will result in the response
“Yes, you need to lose weight,” or silence confirming their own view.
They already, most likely, have problems with self-esteem and confidence,
they do not like to go shopping.
Most likely, one of them has already lost a guy citing outright the problem.
They do not like to be photographed.
The suffering experience pain directly from the excess weight.
If the pain of the indulgent is a sense of guilt from inaction,
then the pain of the suffering is in the excess weight itself.
The suffering also fall into this category of slimmers.
The third category.
The indulgent or the suffering may well become familiar with effort,
and with the help of effort they manage to lose those extra kilos.
They become slimmer,
but go on to the next category: sectarian slimmers.
Sectarian slimmers are slim people.
Physiologically they have no weight problem.
The problem is that they still continue with their efforts.
They continue their efforts, they’re fixed on them.
They’re fixed on food, what they eat: when, at what time and how much?
They’re fixed on diet, nutrient values, diet compatibility, exercise:
when, at what time, before or after exercise?
They are not well balanced, they are pendulums.
They tend to periodically put on weight
in order to feel alive and then start to lose weight again.
Sectarians: why do I call them sectarians?
Because sectarians tend to create a religion around their body.
They are people who believe in effort,
who believe that the body is to be subjected to just such hard work.
This work is superhuman expenditure yielding a result.
Faith unites them in their effort.
I study physiology,
the theory of functional systems of Pyotr Kuzmich Anokhin.
And I want to talk about effort and willpower.
There are two concepts: willpower and effort.
Two different concepts, though many put an equals sign between them.
[Willpower ≠ effort]
Effort is not physiological, and today I’ll tell you what it’s fraught with.
Exercising on the energy of willpower is not dangerous in itself.
First, you know that you have the willpower
as well as strength in your biceps.
You know that without any outward display.
You can apply willpower towards a possibility
since one might say
that given the availability, there is some potential.
When movement is willpower driven,
you do not need recovery, deep rest.
Willpower does not create a fear of future steps,
of future accomplishments.
Effort is the opposite.
Effort: the etymology of the word implies a doubling of force, put simply.
You apply twice the force, you overstrain yourself.
Half of that force is spent suppressing internal resistance
which is all out of line with your natural physiology.
Only with the other half
do you seem to be progressing towards a possibility.
All physiology is based on the principles of balance.
If your system deviates from the norm, your system wants to restabilize itself:
to stabilize itself by balancing out deviations to the degree necessary.
In other words, for the deviations resulting from your effort –
and you deviate
because there is a discharge of energy and a recoil from it –
your system provides a balance, to wit a positive feeling.
So when you put effort into your body,
you expect a reward.
You add to what you demand of your body,
but the body is physiological and can give you nothing but the norm,
because the body or organism is like the Sun or the weather,
it is impossible to meet this demand,
it does not play with us in these demand games.
But we know how to get round this.
We need recompensation in some way for our efforts.
And what recompensation provides a positive feeling for us?
It’s hearing flattery and compliments about our bodies.
Vanity was not simply acknowledged as one of the most basic mortal sins:
its test is passed by few.
Sectarians are people who believe in effort,
and in order to balance deviation with positive feeling
they need to hear the voice of believers.
Their bodies are a totem,
a temple of worship, an altar of worship.
The indulgent and the suffering, their believers come every day
to the temple of Instagram
and put candles in the form of “likes”.
The sectarians themselves are deeply rooted in faith in their own bodies,
consider themselves to be special.
Believe me, I know trainers,
who see that they are really worshipped.
That’s not religion?
But all would be nothing, but for another law of physiology
about adaptation to an already existing deviation,
about adaptation to external stimulus,
according to which any deviation later becomes normal.
The system adapts and ceases to respond to the stimulus.
What does this mean for us:
it means that, in order for the system to react again to the next stimulus,
be aroused by the following stimulus,
the dose must be constantly raised, or sectarians cease to feel worship.
This means that they need the voices of new believers.
And the indulgent and the suffering,
they also restabilize with respect to the perception of the external stimulus,
and they will put a new candle in the form of a “like” just in case,
if a new sectarian action
demonstrates a skill beyond the previous one.
We drive ourselves into a system in which we constantly amplify deviations,
deviating even more from the norm.
So, we have three categories:
the indulgent,
the suffering
and the sectarians.
So, I’ve now told you about all three categories of slimmers.
Why are sectarians treated as slimmers?
Because despite the fact that it seems that physiologically
they do not have a weight problem,
they nevertheless, in their mindset, remain slimmers.
They eat much the same way …
In the picture, coaches who do not know how to impress their believing followers.
Here there is already overamplification.
Sectarians use ideas in the same way.
They preach effort,
monitor, forbid, place great expectations on bodies,
manipulate the rate of weight loss.
They often have breakdowns in their lives,
after which they have a sense of reversal, guilt, punish themselves,
draw conclusions about themselves.
The picture is identical: in terms of their mentality,
they are no different from the indulgent and the suffering.
Only, the sectarians have two further problems:
fear of loss of results
and fear of loss of surrogate pleasure from derived gains of vanity.
Observing the practice of slimmers for very many years,
being myself of the category,
I noticed,
slimmers forget how to be slim.
And they begin to act out the image of the slender,
follow their models, create models, the image of the slim.
Whom do they see before them?
An image of the sectarian slimmer
with overplayed ideas on healthy living and nutrition.
Right, after all, someone who creates a religion around her body
is always going to be rather imperious.
They need new followers, new believers, new candles in the form of “likes”.
They take banners, go outside,
and try to convert everyone to their faith.
And they are good at it.
Slimmers do react to these signals.
But, I remind you, I consider all three categories to to be those of slimmers.
And who are such “healthy, slender people”?
The fundamental difference between a healthy, slender person and a slimmer
is that healthy, slender people do not lose weight.
First, they don’t lose weight in their minds,
don’t lose weight in their thoughts.
So they succeed.
And if you get close to a healthy, slim person,
do you know what you find?
Nothing.
You will discover nothing.
They do not think about food,
do not think more about eating than about using the toilet,
don’t make a religion of their bodies,
photos of figures stripped for gym from all angles are also unlikely.
Addressed with hot compliments,
such people will most likely react with embarrassment,
genuinely not understanding why there’s such excitement about their body.
And it’s all just so.
The excitement forms in the minds of those for whom to have such a body
means work, effort, unearthly power of abstinence.
Slimmers, becoming thinner through effort,
crave for compensation for the lost calorie input.
These people write books about the difficult path of the Samurai
and film documentaries about themselves craving reward for their effort.
For a healthy, slim person, such a body
is completely natural, something given at birth.
They do not do anything special to maintain their bodies.
Healthy, slender people will not impose aggressive motivation
with posters about slimming,
because there is no gain from vanity.
They don’t get carried away with effort.
Healthy, slender people won’t call you a fat-ass
because they are not angry about fat people.
Fat people don’t annoy them.
They’ve no cause for anger with them.
Anger dwells in those whose lives centre on effort.
It is their own so special game.
The more they hate fat and the fuller body,
the easier it is for them not to give in and go that way themselves.
Healthy, slender people are, for the most part, calm,
at least not irritated by fat people.
There is one problem with healthy, slender people.
They do not pay any attention to themselves.
They, for the most part, have no special characteristics.
And I am here today, my talk devoted to this fact,
to shift your focus of attention from those who go with banners
to those who most often remain unnoticed.
Because you should orientate yourselves towards them,
no matter how strange it may sound.
Do not expect healthy, slender people to sound off about their inconspicuity.
It would be very strange. Nothing you’ll hear.
Healthy, slender people are inconspicuous.
And your task, your job,
is to pay attention to such people if you are worried about excess weight.
Pay attention to them and start watching them.
Who are they? How do they live?
What do they think about? How do they relate to food?
My sister became such a teacher for me.
I lived together with her for 30 years, and I didn’t notice that she was healthy.
I looked to obsessed coaches
who do not let go of motivational slogans,
but I realized who was really my motivation,
when I realized what result I wanted.
I wanted to be just as crazy,
or I wanted to be healthy, calm and slim?
When I realized this, I did not tell my sister about it.
I just started to watch her.
And you know, it changed everything.
I understood why I had not lost weight all that time.
I had generally gone the entirely wrong way about it.
You see, slim sectarians, after losing weight,
became even more fixed on the topic of food.
In their heads, there was ever more confusion about food.
With my sister this was not the case.
Not at all.
She did not think about food.
And it really shifted my thinking,
because I realized the direction I had to go in.
My direction had to be
to rid my head of nonsense in my approach to slimming.
Above all, no more nonsense.
This was the path I took,
but, on the other hand, it also became for me a strong test,
one of the strongest tests,
because I began to not understand how not to think about the white bear.
How not to think about food, when you already think about it?
It really was a very difficult task, believe me.
But it was she who changed my idea,
that’s why I’m currently working with slimmers
and helping them to renormalize away from food addiction.
Slimmers cannot imagine how a healthy, slender person thinks.
And your task is really to start watching
those who for the most part remain unnoticed, balanced and calm.
Start to observe the inconspicuous,
start watching those who are even-keeled towards food,
unworried.
I’m now starting to conclude,
and in closing I would like to address each of those categories
about which I spoke today.
Indulgent: stop spoiling yourself.
Playing with being overweight is a very dangerous game,
and recovery is a very time-consuming, long process.
Believe me, I speak as a person who is still recovering.
Noticing changes at the microlevel?
Take action.
Sign up at the gym, cut down portions.
Act, don’t whine, or you’ll inevitably end up in the sufferer category.
Sufferers, you can become subject to the hullabaloo of the sectarians,
and if you fall in with effort, then for sure you will end up among them.
You’ll develop ever more fixed ideas on food,
and you will become ever more confused about what to eat.
You will realize that this was a false way,
that you didn’t find there what you sought.
You are still not well balanced, not healthy.
You’ve not recovered, you’ve just moved into another category of illness.
Think about whether you need to make this detour?
After all, at its height, it’s the same, just removed from its normal location.
Sectarians, forgive me for such a comparison,
I know that among you there are many of my friends.
I hope they’ll not expose my critical remarks.
I’m a fitness coach and understand
that, in a sense, I spit into the well from which I myself drink.
But I just want this well to be cleaner.
I just want it to be less turbid.
Sectarians, you already have the main thing –
a slender body that is beautiful, that motivates and inspires.
You are already chosen as a benchmark for those who indulge and suffer.
You have power and influence.
So become a true example of the health and integrity of a living cell.
Healthy and slender people, my last appeal goes to you.
Most likely, you do not even know that you are healthy.
I personally know many healthy people who caught the weight loss bug
because those around them began to slim
and they decided that it was not normal to not think about eating so much.
I have good news for you.
You are perfectly fine.
You are healthy.
Remain an example to us all,
well balanced, calm.
We will quietly watch you and learn.
Thank you.
(Applause)
”
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