Does the name Susan Boyle ring a bell? Or did you right then and there recognize her or are you already such a fan of her anyway even at the beginning? Either way, Susan Boyle deserves the recognition of being a truly inspirational person whether from the moving songs she sing or her effective weight loss.
Who is Susan Boyle?
Born to her 45 year old mother in April 1st 1961, Susan Boyle was thought to have a learning disability. She was even misdiagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. Because of these things and her appearance, she had been a victim of bullying as a child. Her father was a world war two veteran and a miner while her mom was a shorthand typist. She is the youngest among four brothers and five sisters.
Being interested in music, she went to singing lessons with Fred O’Neil as her vocal coach. She was into acting as well and consequently went to Edinburgh Acting School and participated in the large international festival Edinburgh Fringe. She has been very active throughout her life and even went to pilgrimages with her parish to the Knock Shrine and finally singing at Marian Basilica. Spirited as she has always been, she even auditioned to television show My Kind of People which was about Michael Barrymore travelling around the UK and allowed amateur performers sing.
Susan Boyle sang a song from Jesus Christ Superstar called I Don’t Know How to Love Him, and was treated rather not so nicely by the TV host. In order to honor the Millenium, Susan Boyle made a track called Music for Millenium Celebration, Sounds of West Lothian, for a charity CD which was produced by a West Lothian school. Among the songs recorded in the CD was Boyle’s version of Cry Me a River which did not only catch the attention of blogger and journalist Amber McNaught but moved her deeply. Because of this Boyle started to get discovered, and started appearing in the New York Post.
Determined, Boyle financed by herself the making of copies of her renditions to Cry Me a River, Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, and Killing Me Softly, to local and national TV, record companies, and talent competitions. Her efforts paid off as she keep winning local singing contests.
Where Did We See Her?
Finally, she joins Britain’s Got Talent – that is where she started to rise into prominence. Susan Boyle auditioned for BGT’s third series, and successfully made it in the preliminary audition in Glasgow. Her first appearance on Britain’s Got Talent in Clyde’s Auditorium, she professed her aspiration to be as successfully a professional singer as Elaine Paige. Perhaps everybody can recall her singing I Dreamed a Dream. That day, April 11, 2009 was the day the world knew the amazing talent Susan Boyle is! Even one of the judges, Amanda Holden, who is recognized by many as cold and disproving, was not an exemption in being amazed at Susan Boyle that day. And isn’t she lucky! Just as she looks up to Elaine Paige, the singer says that she would love to sing a duet with Boyle someday, and proceeded on to saying more wonderful remarks such as Boyle being exemplary for all dreamers. People speculated, that due to Boyle getting so much attention and admiration on her singing the Les Miserable song, more people were drawn and intrigued to watching the musical. Susan Boyle continued on from her initial auditions up to the semi finals singing Memory from another musical Cats. Despite being the people’s favorite, she placed second in the end.
Boyle and Her Condition
Besides the apparent craze about Susan Boyle’s fantastic talents, there has also been another trending concern among people – and that is about her mental wellbeing. Does she really have a disorder? Does she have special needs? Should people be making special care and special considerations for her? Especially after the finals where Boyle placed second instead of what most people expected to should have been first, Boyle got admitted into a private psychiatric clinic in London called The Priory. According to the television company Talkback Thames that after the finals, Susan appeared to be extremely stressed out. Of course such instance attracted so much attention with people wanting to know so much more. Even the Prime Minister back then, Gordon Brown wished Susan well. Gladly, the Press Complaints Commission or PCC reminded the media about the press code of conduct regarding privacy. So fortunately, Boyle has kept her personal life and health with peaceful respect. There was a scheduled Britain’s Got Talent tour as part of the winners contract, and Simon Cowell suggested for Boyle to just not take part so she can rest and recuperate well. However, Boyle stayed in the mental clinic for only 3 days and insisted into participating and ended up appearing in 20 out of the 24 tour dates! Despite the rumors about her condition, she appeared confident and enjoying in the BGT tours like a natural performer.
Why Did She Want to Lose Weight?
Despite her to be known for her talent in singing, there still was some pressure with regards to appearance. Susan Boyle told The Sunday Times, “I know what they were thinking, but why should it matter as long as I can sing? It’s not a beauty contest.” Sadly, despite the modernization of our time, increase in literacy, and the seemingly more open minded and understanding people has become, there is still a huge pressure on how one looks. However, this was not the reason she wanted to lose weight. Rather than aesthetics, her doctors decided on putting her on to a weight loss program after she was diagnosed to have type 2 diabetes.
What Did She Do to Lose Weight Effectively?
It may sound simple that her doctors advised her to firstly cut off sugar from her diet, secondly to workout, and third to take Garcinia Cambogia supplements but doing all of these actually requires hard work. Luckily, besides Susan Boyle being blessed with such a magical voice but she is apparently gifted with amazing perseverance and motivation as well.
- Sugar
How is sugar bad for health? You would think sugar is in candies, cakes, ice cream, or anything else that are obviously sweet. The thing is sugar is in many food and drinks and they are pretty addictive. You would think that sugar could only raise your blood sugar levels but the truth is sugar is more dangerous than it seemingly is. It causes chronic diseases other than diabetes such as obesity and heart problems. Sugar is very high in calories hence they can give an instant energy boost, however they lack any nutrients at all. With the calories it contain, the one who consumes it should use up the energy gotten from sugars but what happens is that people can easily eat so much calories from sugar and fail to expend the equivalent energy. Simply, unused calories get stored as fat. So too much sugar consumption naturally results into so much weight gain.
How to remove sugar in diet? Sugar is in so many food and beverages that you consume regularly. In order to avoid these sugary products, it is best to identify them. For you to lose weight successfully as Susan Boyle did, avoid the following:
- Sauces – sauce can actually have so much sugar as part of its ingredients. Therefore avoid using BBQ sauce, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, and the like
- Chocolate milk – don’t be fooled to think that chocolate milk is as good as regular milk. Nope it is drowning in sugar hence the sweet chocolatey taste
- Sports drinks – how do you think sports drink can quickly replenish lost energy? The answer is none other than high sugar contents.
- Fruit juice – you would think that you are doing yourself good drinking fruit juice. Nope, fruit juice is not the same as the actual fruit. It is laced with so many artificial ingredients and of course lots and lots of sugar.
- Flavored coffee – perhaps you have heard that coffee helps burn fat but that frappe topped with whip cream is instead gaining you weight instead of lose them.
- Breakfast cereals – cereals can be tricky. It looks as if you are eating something light but they are actually treacherously filled with so much sugar.
- Soda – you know you are only liking those beverages because the high sugar content got you hooked. Try avoiding them for some time and then drink them again. You will find how strange they actually taste.
- Salad dressing – so yeah you are eating salad which is really good because they are low on fat and calories but the high fat and high sugar content salad dressing is where you are unknowingly going wrong
- Cookies – just how tempting it is to munch on cookies. But yeah the next time you resort to them for snacks, absent minded eating, and the like, think again.
- Bread – just because you don’t eat rice does not mean you chose better with bread.
- Desserts – this is a given, those cakes, doughnuts, tarts, pies, and the like are the reason for your muffin top
How to continue to eat something sweet? If you avoid all those sugar laden food, can you even still eat anything at all? And what if you really crave for something sweet, what can you do? Life without sugar does not mean a stale life. You can still taste sweetness by using:
- Honey
- Agave nectar
- Maple syrup
- Coconut sugar
- Workout
What was Susan Boyle’s workout regimen? Susan said to not liking going to the gym so she revised her own way to move throughout the day. Anyway the main point of working out is that you are using energy up so no new fats are stored and that those stored energy in at would finally be put to use. Yeah think of fat as sad stored energy waiting to finally be useful. Anyone can do anything that can get their body moving as a form of workout.
It can be sports, housework, or like Susan Boyle’s technique, simply walking 2 miles everyday. You can apply that to your life. You can take your dog for a 2 mile walk everyday, or come to your office by foot or by bicycle. Or you can play with your kids or siblings a lot for an hour.
Other workout suggestions. Not everyone would enjoy a 2 mile walk. There are a lot of factors to consider with this style like if you have a clean and safe place to walk around, or that if you have time to walk this much everyday, or is it too sunny or snowing. So to those who are not about to copy Susan Boyle’s 2 mile walk for weight loss, can do something else such as simply running the treadmill at the gym or even in your own home’s equipments.
You can do body exercises. There are so many workout videos online now that you can copy. There are even very specific exercises and different kind of coaches – males, females, originally skinny, originally overweight, moms, aged, pregnant, and so on.
- Garcinia Cambogia
Another thing that helped Susan Boyle successfully lose weight was by taking garcinia cambogia supplements. These tamarind fruit contain hydroxycitric acid or HCA which helps accelerate the burning of fat and suppresses appetite. But of course, how can your body burn fat if you are not moving at all. So in order for this supplement to have something to assist with, you still need to workout and garcinia cambogia would help your body burn fats faster.
If Susan Boyle can do it, so can you. Just as her rendition of I Dreamed a Dream, you should be inspired to make your dreams of losing weight come true as well. Besides learning Boyle’s technique in losing weight, you can also learn perseverance, determination, confidence, and positive thinking from her.
