Motivational Letters Archives – Dr. Bishop's Ottawa Weight Loss Center

22 11, 2020

Learning from Lapses

Doug Bishop2020-11-22T14:09:57-05:00November 22nd, 2020|Motivational Letters|

There was an excellent statement by Dr. Robert Schuller who said: “Success isn’t the opposite of failing. A runner may come in last, but if he beats his personal previous best record, he succeeds.” You see, many of us will consider ourselves failures at times because of subjects we failed at school, failing to make a team, previous “diet” failures etc. Failing means only that you were not as prepared as you could have been; so, keep trying because you are never a failure until you completely give up. A lot of my motivation comes from the efforts I see [...]

13 11, 2020

Choices

Doug Bishop2020-11-13T13:26:40-05:00November 13th, 2020|Motivational Letters|

The choice to have or not have snacks or extra portions of food, comes down to giving in to our pleasure receptors, or suffering the pain of denying those receptors. More often than not, the pleasure area of the brain wins. When I'm told "It’s hard", I couldn't agree more. It is not easy (especially during these long dark evenings) to stop ourselves from gravitating to the fridge or cupboards, looking for some sort of snack. Even as I type this, my emotional mind is thinking about snacks. Fortunately, I have a greater desire to try and finish this article [...]

6 11, 2020

Where is my Willpower?

Doug Bishop2020-11-06T12:13:50-05:00November 6th, 2020|Motivational Letters|

I was reading a good article by Melinda Watman in “Weight matters” magazine, and I was struck by how she wanted us to stop using the word ‘willpower’ and substitute it for what is really happening when we give into the temptation to eat when we aren’t hungry. Let’s start with this sentence: The study of willpower is fraught with controversy and conflicting research, with the consideration of whether or not willpower works for weight management. When it comes to willpower, there are likely some common questions floating in most of our minds: Does willpower exist? Do I have it? [...]

19 10, 2020

How Do I Get Motivated?

Doug Bishop2020-10-19T11:29:06-04:00October 19th, 2020|Motivational Letters|

There is a great quote by Anais Nin: "…and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." You see, there is no magic motivation pill to make us eat better, or exercise or de-stress. For most of us, it is exactly what Ms. Nin said; that we are uncomfortable where we are, and to stay there and do nothing is more difficult to our psyche than to work on changing habits which we know will create a sense of empowerment. Having said that, I also know, [...]

8 10, 2020

Helplessness or Optimism

Doug Bishop2020-10-08T15:11:05-04:00October 8th, 2020|Motivational Letters|

As I was tidying up the other day, I came across some old lecture notes from an Obesity Medicine conference we attended about 9 years ago. I remember feeling privileged to listen to a keynote lecture by Dr. Denis Waitley. He is a Psychologist, and at that time, was an advisor to the American Olympic team. His talk was on how we, as individuals, have choices: emotional choices. We can listen to the internal voice of helplessness or turn our minds towards optimism. He noted that it takes about 600 days for an athlete to develop a consistent habit of [...]

28 09, 2020

Work Towards your Metabolic Health

Doug Bishop2020-09-28T14:22:24-04:00September 28th, 2020|Motivational Letters|

I am hoping my role is to help people become healthier, and not just focused on the number on the scale; of course we become healthier as we lose weight, but we can also become healthier well before weight loss. What is metabolic health? It’s a combination of factors including: regular activity, proper sleep, decreasing stress and a nutritious diet. As we focus on each of these factors, our immune health (think COVID) improves, inflammation reduces, we lower triglycerides and increase good cholesterol, we lower blood pressure, reduce fat in the liver (a huge risk to our health), and in [...]

28 08, 2020

Move

Doug Bishop2020-08-28T11:54:31-04:00August 28th, 2020|Motivational Letters|

Since the beginning of COVID it has been interesting to observe behaviours in myself and others. When everything began, we searched for some sort of exercise and to just get some exposure to sun (knowing natural vitamin D improved our immune function.) For me, I would do some simple push-ups and burpees throughout the day, along with an indoor kayak machine. For others they might follow yoga or you tube exercise videos and ensure they got out for a ‘social distance’ walk. However, even as things open up, I find a lot of us have backed off somewhat in consistent [...]

14 08, 2020

Perspective and Self-Talk

Doug Bishop2020-08-14T12:52:17-04:00August 14th, 2020|Motivational Letters|

I wanted to go back to a letter I wrote many years ago, as I’ve noticed so many patients falling into the spiral of negative self-talk through the Covid-19 pandemic and all the nuanced issues are stemming from it. To elicit change and create motivation, we must first look at how we are speaking to ourselves. From there, we can work on shifting our perspective and acting on the things that are important to us. We are our own worst critics. We are at our worst when it comes to diets and exercise. One of the problems is that we [...]

31 07, 2020

The Evening Snack Struggle

Doug Bishop2020-07-31T13:53:15-04:00July 31st, 2020|Motivational Letters|

If there is one area of eating (or nibbling) that I could eradicate in all of us, it’s the mindless snacking we all seem to do in the evening. Mind you, I do meet the rare person who doesn’t have the urge to nibble while watching TV or reading a book. I’ve talked about my own struggles with this before, but it bears repeating. We all know that eating at this time is rarely out of hunger, it’s simply the desire to eat. The major issue, as you all know, is that these are extra calories (usually in the carbohydrate [...]

28 07, 2020

Keep Moving Forward

Doug Bishop2020-07-28T13:40:42-04:00July 28th, 2020|Motivational Letters|

We all find ourselves at a crossroad when it comes to ‘diets’: do we continue despite frustrations, or just give up and try something else (even if something else has worked short term in the past, only to result in weight regain). There must be a certain tenacity when it comes to a healthy way of living; whether it’s in regards exercise (or lack thereof), the quality and quantity of food, getting enough sleep, or learning strategies to manage stress. There will be days, or weeks, of really poor food choices. There could be many reasons: friends visiting, a partner [...]

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