I woke up this morning to a gentle rain falling. My husband is out of town, and the animals are extra-loving and the house is quiet. So I took time to sleep-in, meditate, and relax. The past couple of weeks have been powerful and full of opportunities, and I’ve experienced a lot of change and growth. I also have a lot on my to-do list—much of it things I really want to do and all of it I want done right now. One of my biggest opportunities has been to practice what I preach about self-care. And a big part of self-care is listening to your body. It’s easy for me to get caught around the axil of being goal-driven, eating prescribed meals at certain times, and doing my planned intense exercise—no matter what. While that serves me most of the time, and I think is generally good practice, there are times when what my body (and mind!) really needs is a little kindness, to be treated gently, to be allowed to rest. After all, if you are driving your car under wet or difficult conditions, the solution for more control is to ease up on the gas pedal, not slam your foot down. When I don’t listen and ease up, my body will usually alert me to the need with increasing pain, which I’ve been experiencing in my knees and shoulder. If I continue to not listen, I’ll very likely wind up with an injury that will force me to rest. Having experienced this in the past, I’m working on being more mindful and listening to my body before it gets to that breaking point. This week, that’s looked like more sleep, easy and […]
Progress Not Perfection
My 18-week Transformation Challenge is complete and I am excited to report that I met—and even surpassed—almost all of my goals. And I’ll admit that the recovering perfectionist in me is a little disappointed that I wasn’t perfect. Good to know that I still (and will forever and always) have internal work to do! Progress not perfection! One of my main goals was to measure my success by how much I enjoyed the process. This was a huge win! The past 18 weeks have been phenomenal! I truly have met my goal of living a healthy, vibrant, and fulfilling life that is meaningful to myself and others. What this means is that I’m weaning myself off obsession and living life more fully and in balance. This is an important shift to make for long-term sustainability. Life is meant to be lived fully. Some other wins: Consistently improved my nutrition Recovered and significantly improved my fitness after my surgery in December (went from struggling to do 5 to 10 knee push ups at a pop to 20 to 30 knee push ups. Personal best was 255 knee push ups in a workout!) Weaned myself off all regular prescription drugs Reconnected with family Shifted negative catabolic energy around deadlines, money, and my body Meditated daily Achieved two coaching certifications Definitely let go of some limiting beliefs Lost 2 inches from my waist Lost 1 inch from my hips and each thigh Was able to get back into my size 4 shorts Lost 6 pounds Went from 24.6 to 21.5 body fat percentage Significant progress right? Where I fell short was that I didn’t meet my goal of getting down to 19 percent body fat or losing 10 […]
Three Tips for Living Lean
When a woman makes the decision to lose weight, often she wants the change effective immediately. It’s the mindset of, “I want to be a size 4 and I want it today.” This impatience is really being focused on the fact that you don’t have what you want, which means you are fighting the forces of the Universe and will struggle to lose weight. What does it really matter if it takes a little time to achieve your goal? It’s the pain factor, right? It’s looking in the mirror everyday and suffering from body shame. It’s feeling deprived as you turn down that piece of chocolate cake while everybody else digs in. It’s dreading the dressing room and trying on 50 swimsuits to find one that you might be willing to wear in public. It’s the risk of having your partner see you as unsex-worthy because of your sagging stomach. You want to just wave a magic wand and make it all go away. These thoughts are all symptoms of what has caused you to gain weight in the first place. At their heart is the fear of judgment and a lack of self-love. This is why so many diets and exercise programs fail. For lasting results, you have to change your core thoughts and beliefs along with eating healthy foods and moving your body. Here are three tips to let go of the thoughts that keep you from living lean. Focus on a body part you can appreciate. How often do you look in the mirror and criticize your stomach, butt, or thighs? When you catch yourself doing this, shift your attention to something you can compliment. Maybe it’s your hair, your ankles, or […]
What Did You Expect? Five Tips for Creating Success
How hard will you work to reach a goal if in your heart you don’t expect to achieve it? This is the simple but great challenge that all of our dreams face—expecting that you can do whatever it is that you want in the face of people pointing out the obstacles or inadequacies, previous personal experiences, and numerous examples of failure. In your heart and gut, you have to know that you can do it no matter what. And when you do fall into fear and doubt, you have to get back up and move towards that inner belief anyway. Doubt is the distance your mind must travel in order to be able to reach your goals. If it dictates your decisions, there will always be a part of you holding back, which means you will almost certainly fall short of the mark. But how do you mentally move from doubt to expectation? Slowly, gently, and one step at a time. Taking a flying leap of faith without the wings of inner knowing is often ill-advised, and can lead to false starts or worse, a crash landing. Here are five tips for crossing from doubt to expectation. Practice how it will feel. Imagine how it will feel to achieve your goal. Pick one word to describe that feeling. What are some other things that give you that feeling? Spend 10 to 15 minutes a day thinking about those things and feeling that feeling. Allowing yourself to experience the feeling of success as much as possible will confirm for your mind that the end result is attainable. Act as if. How would someone who has already achieved your goal think, feel, and act? Begin to act […]
Go For the Bigger Joy
“I’ll feel good if I eat that piece of chocolate cake.” Clients tell me all the time that their joy in life comes from eating. They think they’ll be bereft of happiness if they aren’t able to eat what they want, when they want. But how true is this? What I’ve found is that these kinds of short-term happiness jolts are more than outweighed by the guilt and negative self-talk that results. This makes sense when you think about the energy behind the thoughts. Negative catabolic thoughts and emotions release the stress hormone cortisol, adrenaline, and other chemicals that literally cannibalize your body. They break down your immune system, stress your heart, and impact your muscles. Over time, this catabolic energy can cause everything from painful trigger points in your shoulders, to inflammation, to heart attacks. It can even impact your metabolism making it easier to gain and harder to release weight. Positive anabolic thoughts and emotions allow your body to work for you down to the cellular level. Choosing a more constructive anabolic reaction releases endorphins and body supporting hormones that help your body heal, rebuild, and flow with physical energy. Just like thoughts can be anabolic or catabolic, food can be anabolic or catabolic, meaning it’s either supporting your body or it’s hindering it. And sometimes what we think about our food can make it more or less anabolic or catabolic. For instance, if you eat something “healthy” but you resent it and feel deprived, how anabolic is that going to be? If you eat something “bad” but feel totally satisfied and appreciative and content, how catabolic is that going to be? What if you feel guilty about eating that same food? The […]
An APPLE for Mental Wellness
Deadlines. I have some long-practiced negative catabolic energy around them that always seems to catch me by surprise. Yesterday I spent a lot of time and energy either berating myself to focus, which is a lot like slamming your foot down on the gas pedal of a car and then careening out of control, or taking my foot off the gas completely, which feels a lot better but doesn’t get you anywhere. The end result was that I made a little progress on an article I am writing, but I wasted a lot of time and mental energy that could have been better used. So today, my plan is to more gently and steadily push down on my mental gas pedal and actually get somewhere. The result will be improved mental and emotional wellness, which are key facets of optimal physical wellness. Just like the old saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” I’m going to apply my APPLE principle, which can be used anywhere you want change. Awareness—What is really going on? I think at the root of my deadline struggle is fear. Fear that I don’t know what in the heck I’m writing about (particularly if it is a technical subject, which describes just about all of the articles I write.) Fear that all the articles I’ve ever written were just flukes and now the game is up and I won’t be able to do it. Fear that I’m letting people down and negatively impacting others (sources, copy editor, and graphic designer), which comes true when I don’t meet my deadlines. And even fear that I’ll miss out on other things I really want to do, which of course comes true […]
Do You Believe That’s Possible?
On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know that how bad things may look right now means nothing. It’s how good you know they can look with God’s help that counts. Neale Donald Walsch Are you focused on the problem or are you focused on expanding your belief and knowing that everything is always working out for you? If you said, “Yes, but” or wanted to explain to me how things really aren’t working out for you, then you’re focused on the problem. And you are getting more of what you’re focused on. Achieving anything first begins with the belief that it is possible. If you don’t believe it, how hard are you going to work? How much are you willing to try before you give up? How much will you sabotage your own efforts to prove yourself right? One of the most famous examples of this is Thomas Edison. It would take him almost two years of failed attempts, new discoveries and prototypes before he would find success in creating the carbon filament light bulb. After Edison’s seven-hundredth unsuccessful attempt, he was asked by a New York Times reporter, “How does it feel to have failed 700 times?” He responded, “I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.” It is said he tried over 6,000 different carbonized plant fibers looking for a carbon filament for his light bulb. Do you think he would have continued undaunted if he didn’t believe that he would ultimately find the […]
What’s the Gift in Not Being Where You Want to Be?
Have you ever noticed when your self-judgment is part of a bigger pattern? You self-judgment could be about anything, but let’s just use weight as an example. For instance, you overeat, beat yourself up, and then feel so bad you overeat again. Or perhaps it’s getting on the scale every morning, and berating yourself because the number isn’t going down, or isn’t going down fast enough. Perhaps it’s looking at yourself in the mirror and only seeing the flaws. Perhaps it’s thinking that your body is somehow different from all the others on the planet and it’s impossible for you to lose weight. Those underlying thought patterns have probably been going on a long time. How well have they gotten you to where you want to go? What if breaking those patterns–and getting different results–begins with changing the underlying thoughts? One way to do that is to pay attention to when self-judgment is surfacing and ask yourself, “What is the opportunity for me here?” Perhaps the opportunity is to learn to better care for yourself so you have more to give to others. Perhaps the opportunity is to figure out Who you really want to be, and to grow into being that person. Perhaps the opportunity is to stop what you’re doing and make a different choice. Perhaps the opportunity is to start valuing yourself, Who you are, and the gifts you have for others. Perhaps the opportunity is to begin to accept the less-than-perfect aspects of yourself and to love yourself anyway. Self-judgment is always a signal that there is an opportunity for you, if you stop the action, quiet your mind, and look for the answers deep within. It can be scary and […]
What Do You Really Want?
The hardest part of a workout sometimes is actually getting started. This morning was one of those times for me. First the bed was nice and warm and I had not one, but two cats snuggled up next to me. And once I was up, the idea of sitting down to a nice cup of tea and Pinterest was appealing. While in the moment, staying in bed and playing on the computer were what I “wanted” to do, I have a bigger “want” that got me upstairs and working out. That want is to have a strong, lean, and powerful body that is functioning optimally and fully allows me to express my authentic best. If I had followed the immediate “want” of bed and/or gazing at beautiful pictures, the resulting good feeling would have been pretty short-lived. Guilt and self-criticism would have inevitably followed. A lot of my energy for the day would have been wasted on feeling bad about myself, and struggling to figure out when I might get my workout in—and possibly even more self-criticism if I wasn’t able to find a time to do it. That’s energy that I could use for more things that I “want” to do and that will make me feel good throughout my day. Doing what you “want” to do and what feels good then becomes a matter of looking at the bigger picture and what will have the biggest anabolic energetic return, or return on investment, if you will. This is the reason figuring out “why” you want to eat healthy foods and move your body is so important. Having a bigger “want” that trumps the momentary immediate “want” is what will get you to the […]
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