It’s Monday. Does that mean you’ve hit the reset button on your diet—again? Are you beating yourself up for eating too much during the Super Bowl last night? Does missing a workout during the week actually mean you start over again on Monday? Often the women I work with dread Mondays. The first day of the week often represents a loss of freedom, a feeling of having to start over from scratch, the determination to beat yourself up mentally until you follow your diet and exercise program perfectly. Clearly this isn’t working. If it did, you would already have the body you want. Slow and Steady Wins the Race What if Monday was just a day to continue the great progress you have been making? What if when you missed a workout or ate more than you planned, you just got up right then and kept going? What if you focused on cheering your progress and barely noticed any stumbles? Can you feel how this shift in perspective would start to generate momentum that would actually help you meet your weight-loss goals? Even a subtle shift in your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs can inspire you to keep going and generate the positive energy you need to finally get the body you want. But the problem is you are so used to thinking these thoughts, how do you begin to shift them? Pay attention to your emotions. Are you feeling exhilarated and excited, or are you feeling dread, regret, or overwhelm? Positive emotions are your guidance that your thoughts and beliefs are supporting your actions. Negative emotions are indicating that you are tripping yourself up. Pay attention to your physical reactions. Are you filled with positive energy that is […]
Love Is Good for Your Health
If you will release all concern about how others feel about you, and focus only upon how you feel about them, you will unearth your core understanding of who-you-really-are, and you will discover what true freedom really is. —Abraham-Hicks May I share something deeply personal with you? I’ve been processing a lot of intense emotions the past couple of days. My intention with sharing this part of my story is that it may benefit you on some level. Maybe it will let you know that you are not alone, or that moving through and gaining a different perspective on challenging life experiences is possible. May you find this beneficial in some way. Last month, I wrote about my father, who died over Thanksgiving weekend. I had not had any connection with him since I was 15. He was emotionally and physically abusive, and I doubt that many people had any idea of the pain being inflicted on me, my mother, and brothers behind closed doors. It took him almost killing my mother one night for us to find the courage to leave him. Over the years, I had put a lot of intention around consciously forgiving him, and even came to feel strongly that there was nothing to forgive. While it was the absolute best decision I could have made to protect myself from any future physical and emotional harm that might have come from having direct contact with him, not forgiving him only hurt me. Looking back at his upbringing, I had come to understand how he had been broken as a child, and how that had led to his actions with us. I had come to value my childhood experiences as key […]
Change This Limiting Belief Getting in the Way of the Body You Want
Yesterday, a fabulous reader and friend sent me a comment saying she had shared this blog that I wrote last June with just about everyone in her family. As I prepare for tonight’s kickoff of the Love Your Way Slim Coaching Program, I thought it was worth sharing with the rest of you. Question: What does an 86-year-old woman doing an absolutely awesome gymnastic routine, a 74-year-old fitness instructor, and a 100-year-old running a marathon have that you don’t have? Answer: The belief that they can do it. Regardless if your goal is to lose 10 or 100 pounds, recover from an illness, or to climb a mountain, at the core of achieving anything is the belief that it is possible. One of the biggest limiting beliefs that we have as a society is that we decline with age. One way to test if this is true is to look and see if it is a Universal Truth—meaning it is true regardless of who, what, when, or how. The examples below clearly demonstrate that being in awesome physical shape is possible at any age. What happens as we age is that we change, but change does not mean decline unless that is how we define it. Our minds are powerful enough that if you expect to see decline, you will. And just about everyone believes in this decline and are using all the people who believe it to justify their belief. Imagine what would be different about your life if you looked for examples of people doing what you want as a reason to believe it can be rather than using everyone else as an excuse not to try? Another way to shift […]
How to Use Respect to Get the Body You Want
A former boss of mine had a sign on his door that read, “The floggings will continue until morale improves.” It was a joke, of course. But how often do we try to motivate ourselves with the whip of internal insults, slurs, and condemnations? Does telling yourself that you’re “ugly, fat, stupid, and lazy,” really make you want to get up and do your workout, or forgo the potato chips? This may be tough to hear, but if spoken aloud, your internal dialogue might be deemed verbal abuse. Sometimes this abuse can go on practically nonstop, every day. What do you think this does to your self-esteem and belief that you can achieve your wellness goals? Pushing through this line of thinking to create action takes incredible energy and strength, much like rolling a boulder up a hill. And while progress can be made, without changing your underlying thoughts, emotions, and beliefs, one moment of mental fatigue or flagging self-discipline may result in your watching that boulder roll right back down. The result is you not only regain all the weight you lost, but then some. Changing your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs about yourself, what you want, and your ability to achieve it helps break this cycle of self-punishment. It creates a boost of momentum that makes your push towards wellness a lot more fun and sustainable. A general rule of thumb is, “If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, it’s not appropriate to say to yourself.” Begin treating yourself with the respect you deserve. Focus on all the reasons you do want to move your body and eat healthy foods. Focus on all the things you are doing to move yourself forward. […]
Create the Body You Want From the Inside Out
I had a client yesterday who said she believed she was a terrible and horrible person. Youch. That is such a painful place to be. So I playfully asked if she had stolen any babies lately? Committed any murders? Robbed any banks? Of course not. Her worst “crimes” were that in the she’d hurt people’s feelings, had yelled at people, was bitchy sometimes, and wasn’t always productive. This is normal! No one is the person they want to be 100 percent of the time. I certainly haven’t been, and am sure I will fall short in the future. This doesn’t make you—or me—a “bad” person. One of my client’s biggest limiting beliefs is believing that they are less than—less valuable, less important, less smart, less beautiful, less worthy, etc., etc.—than everyone else. The Truth is, you have intrinsic value—no matter what you do or don’t do. To begin to see this, start with how you speak to yourself. What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror? What are your thoughts about yourself? How much praise is there compared to criticism? Would you speak to someone else the way you speak to yourself? How would they feel if you did? What if you said those things to a child? Would it nourish them, or make them cry? Often, what you say to yourself would get you arrested if you said it to a child. If it’s not OK to say to someone else, why is it OK to say to yourself? You are as unique as a snow flake. There is not anyone else in the world that has had the exact same experiences as you, or who sees the world in exactly […]
Turn Your New Year’s Resolution to Lose Weight into Reality!
Chances are, losing weight is on your list of New Year’s Resolutions—again! One of the reasons that New Year’s resolutions are often dead by February 1 is that unknowingly, people are focused on what they don’t want. For instance, you may be focused on being too fat, or that you aren’t thin enough, fit enough, or healthy enough. And even though you set the resolution to lose weight, get fit, and healthy, the majority of your thoughts and energy are still focused on the fact that you lack what your resolution is focused on. When you think about the foundation principle that Energy Attracts Like Energy (also known at the Law of Attraction), you can begin to see that thoughts are our mental capital to invest wherever we want, with the dividends being our future life-experiences. For instance, when you invest the majority of your mental capital on the fact that you don’t have the body you want, you are actually building the account that creates more life experiences where you are unhappy with your body. If you invest that mental capital in the belief that your body is already wonderful and is getting better and better, your account includes an increase in life experiences of an ever improving body. The challenge is, it’s often difficult to recognize where you are investing your thoughts. It seems like if you are focused on how much you want to be slim you should get the body you want. No wonder it is incredibly frustrating and discouraging to think you are getting the body you want only to continue to struggle with your weight. But your life experiences—and body—are always letting you know where you are investing most […]
Feel Holiday Abundance to Get the Body You Want
You are incredibly abundant. Even if you are lonely, have little or no money, are struggling with your body—you are abundant. You have an abundance of air to breathe, the abundance of love in your heart, the abundance of being alive in this moment. While money and gifts are certainly a part of abundance and should be appreciated, there is so much more of life with which to fill our trays. It’s all there waiting for us to look for and allow ourselves to see and receive. Perhaps you have an abundance of family and friends, or an abundance of time in which to reflect, or an abundance of beauty to admire. You may have an abundance of laughter and excitement, or an abundance of peace and quiet. You may have an abundance of parties and commitments, or an abundance of freedom to live and do as you wish. These are things that do not cost money and that nobody else can give you. They are there waiting for you to acknowledge—and thus receive. No matter where you are or what’s going on in your life today, look for and acknowledge your abundance. Feeling abundant is truly part of the magic of the holidays. When you feel abundant, the more abundance you are allowing into your life. It is the Law of Attraction in action. This is the foundation principle that “Energy Attracts Like Energy.” So when you acknowledge your abundance, focus on it, and feel it, the more abundance you are able to see and appreciate. The more abundant you feel. And a significant bonus from feeling abundant is it’s good for your body! Feeling abundant creates positive anabolic energy that releases endorphins, […]
5 Easy Tips to Make Creating Healthy Habits Fun!
Most people are not going to start a new eating or exercise program before January 2. But you can drastically increase the chances of fulfilling your New Year’s resolution to lose weight by creating new mental habits right now. And it can take as little as 5 minutes a day. Think about how much you get done when you are excited, eager, and looking forward to something. Now think about how hard it is to make progress when you are dreading something, don’t want to do it, resent it, etc. While you can move forward and get stuff done while you are feeling negative catabolic emotions, consciously shifting to positive anabolic thoughts before you begin a task is like putting on rocket boosters. Not only is your power to get things done greater, but it’s easier and more fun. Most of what makes releasing weight “hard” are your current mental habits. You have thoughts about how hard it is to lose weight that you have repeated for so long that you don’t even realize there’s another way to look at it. You have practiced dreading dieting. You have developed a mental rut on exercise that is not serving you. These are just some catabolic habits of thought you have going on. Thoughts are made of energy, not marble. They can be changed! Why do you want to go to the trouble of creating positive, life-building anabolic mental habits, you might ask? Because anabolic thoughts result in emotions that feel good. Those emotions make your heart sing. When you are feeling anabolic emotions, you know that things are always working out for you. When there’s a problem, you see the solution. You laugh more. You relax […]
The 3 Keys to My Personal Transformation
From August 1, 2008 to August 1, 2009, I went from wearing a size 8 and running and working out regularly to busting out of size 14 pants and not working out at all. After years of consistent exercise, I couldn’t believe I was starting over from scratch–again. I was really struggling with getting back on track. While I hated where I was, I just couldn’t seem to find the energy to pull myself out of bed in the morning and move. Three things were key to my turning around that situation. Accountability. Support is vital. Having a friend, coach, or group to turn to is huge! Progress not perfection. Counting every single thing you do during the day that could even be remotely considered part of a healthy lifestyle builds positive momentum. Mindset training. Shifting your thoughts from hating where you are to focusing on why you want to be fit, strong, and slim is the true secret to long-term weight-loss success. Here’s how I did it. My friend, Julia, was my first accountability partner and we checked in with each other every day to cheer each tiny success and reframe any “stumble.” (Thank you, Julia! I couldn’t have done it without you!) I set small, attainable goals for how much time I would move my body. Starting with a goal of just 10 minutes a day, I counted walking the dogs, vigorous vacuuming, and even a long walk across a parking lot to my car. I literally counted anything and everything that involved moving. A few weeks of meeting that minimal goal and I bumped it up to 20 minutes, and so on. And I wrote out all the reasons I wanted to be fit, […]
Isn’t Life Delicious?
DELICIOUS adj di-ˈli-shəs 1: affording great pleasure : delightful 2: appealing to one of the bodily senses especially of taste or smell Merriam-Webster Why do you eat? For very few people is it just to give their bodies the vital nutrients they need to sustain life. For women who struggle with their weight, eating is often their primary source of pleasure, comfort, satisfaction, and even experience of love. This is why diets cause such feelings of deprivation. Who wants to live a life void of pleasurable feelings? Certainly not me! And you don’t have to! All that’s happened is that over time—and for a variety of valid reasons—you have shut yourself off from sources of satisfaction, comfort, and love because they have also been sources of pain, dissatisfaction, and loneliness. The lover who broke your heart, the friend who betrayed you, the parent or boss who tried to control you sent you to the one obvious and consistent source of comfort—food. It was a totally normal reaction. Food is delicious. It’s pleasurable, satisfying, and comforting. And it’s easy. But it’s also betrayed you. It’s caused you to gain weight. It’s negatively impacted your health. It’s momentary comfort is completely outweighed by the overwhelming feelings of guilt and self-loathing that it now causes. It’s no longer giving you what you were seeking in the first place—those pleasurable feelings. It’s time to begin looking for these feelings in the only place they will be given consistently. From the only place you can truly count on them being there 100 percent of the time, no matter what you do, say, or be. Where you know you are absolutely loved and adored. The Source of pleasure, satisfaction, comfort, nourishment, and […]
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