Posts Tagged ‘easy weight loss’

Now it is time to address the third tip to achieving successful weight loss. And this tip is:

It’s not enough to have a goal to lose some weight. You only need to think about the number of New Year Resolutions created each January to realize that setting a goal does not necessary create the type of commitment needed to follow thru and attain that goal.

That’s why it is important to truly consider what it is that you want and the reasons behind it. As Mark Twain said, “I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.”

So true….So let me ask you, do you truly know what you want? And why? Or is your goal a wish, a dream, a thought that you “should” have?
Creating specific outcome goals and writing them down is a system that almost every successful person has. So for us to use this same system, we need to write our outcome goal in a specific way.

I bet you’ve already guessed that you can’t get away with statements like “I want to lose weight” or “I’d like to be skinny”. Those are wishes.  Instead pick a specific goal like   “I am happy and grateful that I weigh 135 pounds at 6pm on December 31st”.  And your goal doesn’t have to be a one-liner. You can write down what you desire to achieve with your weight-loss? Write down the pant size you want to fit in to, the things you’ll be able to accomplish (like walking up six flights of steps with ease) at that weight. The more benefits you can envision coming to you as a result of reaching this goal, the more likely you are to reach it.

Notice that I wrote the goal as if it was already a reality? That’s important. Now visualize it, see it, hear it, smell it, feel it and believe it.
The second step to making a goal a reality is to create process goals in which to make the outcome goal come true. Process goals walk you through the journey, step-by-step toward your outcome goal. A process goal might be the choice to workout three times a week or to drink 64oz. of water every day. You can think of process goals as the weekly check-list you follow until you reach your outcome goal.

And remember what Brian Tracy says….”The minute you set a goal that is worthy of you, obstacles arr thrown in your path to make you the person you must become to be worthy of the goal.”

This is unfortunate (ok, it really sucks!!), but true. How often do you set a goal and then have multiple things move into your path that hinders your success? According to Tracy, those are simply character builders, obstacles that are thrown into your path that make you worthy of reaching your goal. Go into your goal process realizing that these obstacles will come and that you are bigger than they are. Birthday cake can be seen as an obstacle to reach your goal or can be seen as a character builder in which you learn to say “no thanks” with grace and ease. Just realize that obstacles in the form of celebrations, moms who try to feed you, spouses who might not want you to change are going to be there and plan your strategy to address them.

Begin to create your own personal goals. And remember that you can use this system to create goals in other areas of your life too. When you create specific, well framed and positive goals, you are much more likely to reach them

This week I  began a series of posts to increase your weight loss motivation. Today, let’s look at the second:

Watch What you Say and Think

You’ve probably heard the saying….”what you think about expands.” Although this is true for all areas of our life, it is particularly crucial to watch what you say and think when it comes to your health and diet.

Let’s begin with something simple. Have you ever said “I am having a really bad day”?

And guess what…..your prediction comes true….your day goes from bad to worse. This isn’t a coincidence.  When we get into this frame of mind, our thoughts can easily turn small molehills into huge, insurmountable mountains.

Yes, the way we frame these thoughts and words can really make a fundamental difference in the way we live our lives. Our thoughts and what we say can affect our day to day existence.

Just today, how many negative thoughts have you had about your willpower, your body, the way your look or feel? Have you said “I’m fat”, I don’t have will power” or “I’ll never be thin”? Each time you are negative about yourself (and really pay attention to how often this happens) you are closing off your subconscious to new ideas – you are effectively telling your subconscious that this is the way things will always be. You create self-fulfilling prophesies.

It doesn’t have to be like that.

There are plenty of studies that show that if you start to frame your thoughts in a positive manner, it can have a massive effect on your desired outcome.  You can do this by visualizing yourself at the exact weight that you want to be. Focus on how your life would be different at that weight, the things you would be able to do, how you would feel. Write those things down – something like “I am 140 pounds and enjoy a wonderful vibrant life where I buy clothes off the rack and am not embarrassed to try them on. I am able to easily climb stairs and can roll around on the floor with my children. I am excited to fly on a plane and have no concern about fitting into my seat”.  Jot down anything and everything that you can think of that will support your vision. Write this vision statement on 3 x 5 cards and place them around your office, home (especially the refrigerator) and car –places where you can see them everyday.

Even if at first you find it hard to believe the statement, read it anyway. Especially, read it to yourself in the mirror. Reading it a number of times every day will ensure that your subconscious will take note and not only influence, but support, your choices to make the statement a reality.

Need more support? One of my favorite people in the world is Dr. Joe Vitale and I’ve learned so much from the work he has created. If limiting beliefs are holding you back, I highly recommend his Awakening Course. Check it out, do the work and begin to strategically plan your life without the baggage of limiting beliefs.

Deciding to make the commitment to changing your lifestyle, lose weight and get healthy can sometimes feel like an overwhelming challenge. Often that challenge is multiplied when dieting has been a constant struggle and a history of weight loss and gain is in your past.

The exciting thing is that you can say goodbye to the past and start powerfully in your in your new commitment to health. Begin by implementing the following motivation tips which will give you new skills and slates in which to work from.

This first tip is one in a series of ways in which to finally take control of your life and health. Ready for the first? It’s really the easiest so let’s start there….

(1)    Bullet Proofing your Kitchen

All twelve step programs have the same first step – do you know what it is?

It’s admitting that you are powerless to give up the things you are addicted to, to acknowledge that you can’t resist them. And there are many things that people can become addicted to….it’s not just alcohol or drugs, but food as well.

When you finally admit this lack or power to resist food and/or the sugary beverages that you may also crave, it actually makes you more powerful, because you know that something has to be done and you are ready to take the next step.

And, come on, you already know what foods you have trouble with, so just get rid of those foods! Don’t have them around you and don’t bring them into your house. After all, if it is not there, you can’t eat it!

Bullet proof your kitchen by creating a microenvironment of health right in your house. If you know that ice cream is your weakness and that even one spoonful of ice cream will lead to eating the entire tub, then don’t keep any in the freezer– why tempt fate, or your willpower. In the struggle between Ben and Jerry’s and your willpower, your willpower will always lose. That’s because of your primitive limbic brain.

The limbic brain controls many unconscious chores for your body. Breathing in and out, blinking your eyes and flinch at a flying object all come from the instruction of this portion of your brain. The limbic brain is also responsible for your fight or flight response, your need to mate and yes…..your need to eat.

The problem is that when we were being biologically designed, fast food wasn’t on every corner and bags of calorie dense chemical cocktails couldn’t be wheeled in a cart to our car. Back then, food wasn’t plentiful and didn’t contain a great many calories. Back then, we had to work hard for our food and expended calories in hunting, gathering and preparing it. Today, sticking a hand out of the car window provides a calorie feast of non-food that our body doesn’t know how to process. But, the limbic brain doesn’t care….it urges us to eat what it sees…..and NOW. That’s why it is important to purge these nasty non-foods from your home environment, so your limbic brain doesn’t have anything to focus on.

If you live with other people, ask for their co-operation, or create an area of the kitchen that is your place and keep the rest of the kitchen off limits. And remember, the rest of your household doesn’t need to eat junk either. Be a good role model and urge the people you live with not only to support you, but to choose health from themselves as well.

Now that you’ve used this concept to make your kitchen a healthy environment, begin extending it to other parts of your life.  Bullet proof other areas of your life too by identifying “toxic situations” or “toxic friends” – those events or people who are not supporting your best life.

Did you already think of one? Now begin considering how you can bullet proof yourself from that person, limit your exposure or have the crucial conversation with them that is long past due.

Yes, when you admit you are powerless to resist, you are able to take action to create an environment that supports your goals and the commitments your have made to yourself. Why weight? Begin bullet proofing your kitchen and other areas of your life too.

Most people know and understand the power of the fight or flight response – that adrenaline jumping scare that raises your fists or high-tails you out of stressful situations. But, many don’t know that our body also is equipped with what Dr. Herbert Benson calls the Relaxation Response – a physiologic state of quietude,” aahhh, doesn’t that sound nice?

Why should you be aware of this? Because in our high stressed, anxiety ridden and tension induced world, regularly tapping into the relaxation response can prevent or at least compensate for, the damage that the fight or flight response creates.

Stress is a bully. It suppresses immune function, causes heart attack and stroke, weight gain and depression. It impairs memory and worsens sexual function. Yep, stress is an energy and vitality zapping disaster.

That is why it is vitally important to tap into your body’s Relaxation Response by practicing stress management techniques. By doing so, you increase your body’s nitric oxide levels which in turn relaxes your arteries and increases blood flow to all parts of your body.

And it’s easy!!

You can reduce your stress and increase your health by doing two things:

1.    Repeat a word, sound, phrase, prayer or muscular activity.
2.    Passively disregard everyday thoughts that inevitably come to mind and return to your repetition.

Sound familiar? That’s because it is….meditation!

Pick a focus word, short phrase or prayer. Many people simply say ooommmmm. Others use a word that is important to them – love, peace, home, God. You can even use a word that you need for that day: focus, communicate, forgiveness.

Then, Sit quietly in a comfortable position, close your eyes and relax your muscles progressively. Begin with your feet, move to calves, thighs, abdomen, shoulders, head and neck. Breathe slowly and naturally and as you exhale, say your focus word.

Other thoughts will try to crowd in. As they do, simply say oh well and return to your repetition. Continue this for 10-20 minutes.

When complete, sit for a few minutes in silence. Do this daily.

There…..can you feel your arteries relax already?

Last night, one of my most favorite people on the planet posted an amazing message to me on YouTube. Dr. Lisa Van Allen came into my life about 6 months ago and I’ll always remember our first conversation…. it was a conversation of resignation, where Lisa had been told by physicians that she needed to simply get used to the idea that she wouldn’t be able to lose weight, that she needed to simply get used to the idea that she would be tired, that she simply needed to get used to the idea that she would always be on medications. Although physicians had told her to get used to it, Dr. Lisa Van Allen is a rebel. And she decided to try a different way.

And she called me.

In that conversation we spoke about my meal replacement program, the anti-inflammatory benefits it brings the body. We spoke of how when our bodies are supported nutritionally, it feels safe enough to release weight. We spoke of how the meal replacements allow us to break our physical and psychological addiction to food.

And so it began.

Six months later, here is her testimonial. It made me cry. It’s not just about the weight, it’s about the hope and possibilities that having a healthy, energized and dynamic body brings to a person’s life. It’s the shift that is created in our minds when our bodies do as we request. A shift that then floats into other areas of our life.

It’s so amazingly cool to have been part of creating that shift for her. You’re welcome, Lisa. I’ve had as much fun on your health journey as you have. I’ve enjoyed getting you to dance, I’ve loved celebrating each and every milestone and I still laugh when I remember us jumping for joy when you realized your super cool boots fit again!  That was fun!!

Please watch her testimonial. Dr. Lisa Van Allen is a living testimony of how we don’t have to been boxed in by a diagnosis. You are an amazing woman, Lisa.

Want to get to know Lisa better? Visit her at www.vanallencoaching.com.

A Doctor was addressing a large audience in Tampa.

‘The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High fat diets can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water. But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have, or will, eat it. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?’

After several seconds of quiet, a 75-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said, ‘Wedding Cake?’

Go ahead…..laugh! Really loud!!

This is actually nothing that a lot of us didn’t at least suspect previously, but now, study after study are proving that your positive emotions actually play a larger role in your overall health than was previously known.  It may sound hard to believe, but you can actually laugh your way to fitness.  Don’t get me wrong – you can’t eat whatever you want and expect to lose weight just by listening to a few jokes.

What you can do, however, is make a concerted effort to improve your health by channeling laughter in the right way to help flood your body with positive chemicals (produced by your brain) that do make it easier to lose weight.  Imagine the positive benefits that can be achieved simply by loving life, enjoying a laugh, while eating right and getting some exercise.

And remember this…your body doesn’t know the difference between real laughter and fake. So right now, start fake laughing….go ahead….he he he ha ha ha…..think of something funny, like the time your sibling shot milk out their nose.  Are you feeling a little smile come to your lips?  Go ahead and widen it and he he he ha ha ha some more. When you begin to feel the smile come naturally, feel a shift in your energy and a clarity of your focus. Those are the yummy feel good hormones flooding thru your body. Now….that really is something to giggle about!!!

by Lynette Patterson, ICF Certified Life and Health Coach

When stress becomes long term and chronic, the net result is a metabolism-depressing and vitality-sappy disaster. Do you have a plan to manage stress?

Creating a Strategic Plan for your Life requires a look into all the area that affects your health. Study after study proves that stress makes you vulnerable to a host of physical and mental illness and generally has a negative impact on just about every part of your body. Stress:
• Suppresses your immune system
• Can cause a heart attack or stroke
• Increases your risk of many types of cancers
• Causes delays in wound healing
• Promotes inflammation
• Cause you to gain weight
• Impairs your memory
• Causes depression
• Increases risk of diabetes
• Deteriorates sexual function
• Ages you on the inside and outside

The Good News?

Managing health deteriorating stress is easy. By simply changing your eating patterns, adding some important nutrients and minerals to your diet and practicing stress management techniques, you can minimize the damage that stress creates. Losing weight can also reduce your stress, as being obese is a physical stressor too.

by Lynette Patterson, ICF Certified Life and Health Coach

When I heard those words, I couldn’t help but laugh. Coming from an intelligent male with many years of education under his belt, the earnestness of that comment was truly astounding. And, it got me to thinking….we do live in a world where eating a salad once a week is considered a very big deal.

On a daily basis, I have conversations with people who swear to me that they eat really well, make good food choices and simply don’t understand how the weight continues to creep on or refuses to creep off.  Inevitably, “eat really well” involves processed food they believed to be healthy or simply hadn’t factored in their calorie laden beverages (that’s not food, right?)

Studies show that Americans simply eat vegetables on a daily basis, with one exception – the potato, which is often fried or smothered in fat. Even lovely green vegetables are showing up battered on many a plate. Can’t count those either!

It’s not hard to get your veggies in for the day. For breakfast, sauté veggies with your omelet and snack of veggie strips throughout the day. Bring at least 3 cups of chopped vegetables in a baggie and make sure you eat them before the day is gone. Order a salad for lunch with low carb dressing. The salad acts as a fiber shoot and helps push the other food you eat out of your body sooner. Add spinach instead of iceburg lettuce to your sandwich.

See how easy it is to get in your servings?

And be sure to let me know how much better your feel, and look, once you begin adding veggies to your life. After all, that is the reason they were put on this earth, to give your body the nutrients it needs to be health!

It’s hard to stand back and watch someone that you care about, a beautiful, amazing human being speak themselves out of being healthy. The “it’s too hard”, “I have no time”, “I don’t like the way it tastes”, “I’m too busy” excuses that rob them of their health and years of life on this planet.

So often, I find that people believe it is diet and exercise that will help them achieve their weight loss goals.

They’re wrong.

Well….not entirely, but as important as diet and exercise is to good health, it is just as important to have a attitude that will support you getting there.

A healthy body begins with a healthy mind and the six inches between your ears is the first thing to get into shape. As important as it is to remove junk food from your kitchen, it’s just as important to remove the junk from your mind. You can have all the support systems in place with all the right tools but if you have a negative attitude or your self-esteem is in the toilet, you won’t create long-term success.
Ready to become unstuck?

Creating the right attitude is so vitally important because thought IS behavior. The power of the mind is complete….the way in which you think about yourself, your body and your life manifests into your reality. It’s so easy for negative thoughts to turn into lack of confidence, hopelessness, despair and depression. And to comfort yourself with your favorite soul food, sit on the couch and stay stuck. It’s so easy for our views of ourselves to become self-fulfilling prophecies.

There are many things you can do to course correct. You can:
•Meditate/pray/journal each morning, focusing on your daily goals. This gives purpose to your day.
•Each night, before you sleep, envision the ultimate you, the strong, healthy, happy, successful person that you dream yourself being.
•Be in gratitude. Before more is available to you, you must first be in gratitude of what you have. Be grateful for your body NOW. Be grateful for your health NOW. Be grateful for your life NOW.
•Keep track of your thoughts. For a few days, keep a journal with you and write down the negative thoughts that come to you. You may be surprised at how often they show up. And with that awareness, you can then begin to monitor them more closely and eventually begin to automatically substitute them with positive, life affirming thoughts until your unconscious disposition is more positively focused.

Each day, the average person has 80,000 thoughts…60% of which are negative. It’s not enough that these negative thought lead to anxiety and depression, Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) actually increase the stress hormones, including cortisol, which promotes fat storage (not fair, right?). So it makes sense to believe that eliminating, or at least reducing, these negative thoughts would create a difference in your health. But how?  So glad you asked!

Let’s begin by better understanding the ANTs. You know the ANTs are in your pants when they are:

• Automatic – you don’t decide to think them and they may have become such a habit that it is hard NOT to think them
• Negative – They make you feel bad about yourself. For example, “I’m useless, I’m lazy, I’m fat, I’ll never be good at it”.
• Believable – They simply feel real and they seem to be true. You even accept them as a fact in your life. “My metabolism is slow and I’ll always be overweight. My genes are like my moms and I’ll always be this shape.”

Luckily, you CAN neutralize negative thoughts by asking these questions when they appear:

1. Is it true?
2. Can I absolutely know it is true, what facts evidence this as true?
3. How does it make me feel?
4. Who would I be without this thought?

If you will take a few moments to examine these questions, you can often realize that the negative thoughts were simply random ideas that caught you off guard. Let’s use the example of weight to see how using these questions can neutralize ANTs for you.

Negative thought – “I don’t have enough willpower to be thin.”
Ask yourself…is it true? Have there been times when you demonstrated willpower? Have you passed by dessert or chose a healthier meal? If you did it once, it is possible to do it again. And if it is possible to do it again, you can do it a third time. So the negative thought isn’t true…you HAVE demonstrated willpower in the past.

What evidence is there? Can you, without a doubt, have a doctor locate your broken willpower? Where does it reside in you? Can you pet it? Poke it? Does it have a name? Of course not, it is simply a concept that you’ve bought into, with the conclusion that you don’t have any!!

How does it make you feel? Be careful with this one. On the outside, saying that you have no willpower can make you feel vulnerable and sad, as if this “thing” that is broken inside of you is out of your control. Digging deeper, placing blame on things outside of ourselves creates a sense of resignation and resignation can take a strong hold on you. It keeps you on the couch. Keeps you stuck.

Who would I be without this thought? If you didn’t have this negative thought holding onto you, who would you be? Would you be the thin, energetic person you were meant to be? And what part of the current you would have to be changed? Would you have to have crucial conversations with people around you, would you have to be brave and say no to requests, would you need to be more organized and plan your life by design, would you have to take the steering wheel of your life and drive your own path.?
When you start to get the hang of catching these thoughts, it’s a good idea to write them down. This can help you to look over the thoughts, understand where they come from and challenge them with the questions. Even if you don’t have time or in the right space to ask the questions in that moment, take the time later.
Determination is required to build resilience and it’s a discipline you can strengthen. You CAN eliminate the ANTs in your life. Manage them powerfully and create a new, and healthy, future for yourself!!!

And when you begin to eliminate these negative thought, you develop an uncommon common sense, a bone-deep faith in your belief in your ability to cope in any situation, faith that you can figure out what to do, figure out how to do it, pick up the pieces and move on.