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 […]
Can You Love Life And Be Fit and Healthy?
Are you living as the person you intend to be? Do your actions line up with your desires for the life you want to create? Often the answer is “No.” For instance, you may want with all your heart to be fit and lean, but you consistently overeat or blow off exercise. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. For the past couple of months, I’ve overeaten or made less than stellar choices on the weekends. While I am happy to say that the over-indulgences weren’t nearly what they would have been in the past, I still made the conscious choices to eat and drink more than is absolutely best for me. The good news is I’m continuing to make progress on my 18-week Transformation Challenge—I’m more flexible and am getting stronger, I’m seeing muscles develop, and my waist is a little slimmer—but the improvements have definitely slowed. So the questions I’ve been asking myself for the past couple of days are, “Who do I intend to be and what do I need to do to Be that person?” One limiting belief I recognized is the feeling that I have to be either or. For instance, either I am fit and lean, Or I enjoy myself with family and friends on the weekends. Is it possible to be fit and lean And enjoy myself with friends and family? Switching that Or to And feels much more powerful to me. It’s giving myself permission to more fully be the person I want to be—and still meet my goals. The key now is to find that balance that lets me speed up my progress And still enjoy my friends and family when I get to […]
What Did You Expect?
Whatever you’re thinking about is literally like planning a future event. When you’re worrying, you are planning. When you’re appreciating you are planning…What are you planning? Abraham as interpreted by Esther Hicks “Miracles are happening, seen and unseen.” This is the mantra that has been going through my head all weekend. And I absolutely believe it to the tips of my toes. Every time I was critical of my body or discouraged that my physical progress in my 18-week Transformation Challenge isn’t further along, I said it. Every time I thought about the future and doubted, I said it. Every time I caught myself concerned or worried, I said it. Because this is my life I’m creating. If I want things to be different, then my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs have to be different first. When you think about the Foundation Principle that “Like Energy Attracts Like Energy,” also known as the Law of Attraction, it makes sense that if you’re doubting, worrying, or being critical of yourself or others you’re attracting more of that same energy back to you. In other words, you’re creating more things about which to doubt, worry, or be critical. A quick way to check what you’re thinking, and therefore creating, is to examine what you expect. Do you expect things to work out—or not? Do you expect life to go your way—or not? Do you expect things to be easy—or not? You’re getting more of what you expect. All-That-Is (God, the Universe, Source Energy, Higher Coach—whatever works for you) absolutely wants you to have every good thing you desire, but you have to open the vibrational-door wide enough to receive it. You’re opening that door when you’re experiencing positive […]
Keeping Yourself on Track When You Have Been Less Than Perfect
My eating has been less than perfect this week. It hasn’t been horrible, but it hasn’t been spot on, either. What I love reflecting on is that in the fairly recent past, not being perfect would have meant giving up altogether. My thinking would have been along the lines of, “I’ve blown it,” followed by a lot of really harsh self-criticism that would have resulted in regaining the weight I had just lost. That old negative, catabolic assault on my mind, body, and spirit felt terrible! It truly was verbal abuse inflicted on myself. I’m so glad I don’t do that anymore! But this morning, I became aware of a slight undercurrent of catabolic thoughts and feelings (guilt) resulting from a few higher calorie food choices. Since I am aware of it, I’m going to address it right here and right now. The main thing I want to remind myself is that optimal wellness is about taking care of me for the long-run. While I have set some goals for an 18-week transformation challenge, my wellness goals will not end there. I do not have to be perfect to meet my short and long-term goals. What matters most is that I am making progress, and I am definitely doing that. Yesterday is done. Forget about it. Focus on the choices I am making today. Yes, this weekend will be challenging being with my folks, traveling, and it being my husband’s birthday, but I have the skills and determination to make the best possible choices—and still allow myself to have a good time and truly appreciate what I am eating. As Tony Horton says, “I will do my best and forget the rest.” And I am […]
What’s That You’re Eating?
As part of the 18-week Transformation Mastery challenge that I’m doing, I have taken my eating to the next level with lots of fresh vegetables, quality proteins and carbohydrates, and almost no processed foods. Heck, I’ve even replaced my coffee and half-and-half with ginger green tea. This feels like a life-style change rather than a diet. While I will of course have occasional treats, I like the way I feel after drinking a protein shake with spinach and kale. I like honoring my body with nutritious foods. But getting to how I am eating today has been a process. I didn’t jump from eating large quantities of cheese and crackers before dinner to thinking kale was the best super-food ever. In fact, if you had told me even six months ago that I would be drinking anything green and liking it, I would have been skeptical. If you had told me two years ago, I would have said there is absolutely no way! One of the mistakes people make on the road to optimal wellness is taking on a temporary “diet.” The mindset is something along the lines of, “I will cut out all the foods I love and suffer through losing weight and as soon as I meet my goal, I will resume my old eating habits.” This is why dieting doesn’t work. Sure you’ll lose the weight, but as soon as you go back to your old way of eating, the pounds pack back on. It wasn’t until my health and wellness became a bigger priority than how I looked in a pair of jeans that the healthy eating plan I took on to lose weight became more of a way of life. […]
What’s Holding You Back?
One of the benefits of taking on a new challenge is the opportunity to identify and clean-up limiting beliefs and other blocks to your success that absolutely will come up. The quickest way to ferret these blocks out is to pay attention to negative emotions. When I identified a whiff of discouragement, I knew this was a fabulous opportunity to identify and shift some limiting thoughts, feelings, and beliefs so that they will better support me in achieving my goals, rather than hold me in place. I am in week two of an 18-week challenge for Transformation Mastery. When I decided to take on this challenge, not only did I set the goal to release 10 pounds of fat and increase my nutrition and fitness level, but I also wanted to let go of lingering fear or limiting beliefs about what I can and cannot do. My only surprise was that they showed up so quickly! After a week-and-a-half of eating cleaner than I ever have before, and going after a new high-intensity workout program, I was shocked yesterday when I pulled on my jeans and they were tight. Sure enough, when I stepped on the scale, I was up a pound-and-a-half. The first thing I did was go into troubleshooting mode and look at what I’ve been eating. What I found was plenty of fruits and vegetables, lean meats and other quality protein, and complex carbohydrates. I had already replaced one cup of coffee a day with a cup of ginger-green tea, and was working on letting go of the second cup so that I would be half-and-half free. Other than adding an apple and a few strawberries here and there, I couldn’t see […]
Let Go of Perfection
Opps! I completely forgot to do my ab workout yesterday. It wasn’t until I was writing down my workout this morning that I wondered where abs fit in. Right! I was supposed to do it yesterday. The good news? I do not have to be perfect to meet my goals for the Transformation Mastery Challenge I’m doing. In fact, this provides me with the opportunity to overcome obstacles and persevere. But it wasn’t too many years ago, that had I slipped up like this, I might have given up—either working out altogether or just blowing off the rest of my workouts for the week. My thinking may have been along the lines of, “Well I messed this week up. I’ll just have to start fresh on Monday.” I’m not alone in having had that “All or nothing,” thinking. This is one of those thought patterns that trips people up again and again. Typical “All or nothing” thinking includes: I have to do my diet perfectly, or I’ve failed. I have to do my exercise perfectly, or there’s no point in continuing. I have to see weight loss every day, or there’s no way I’m going to meet my goals. I know I have something coming up this week where I won’t be perfect, so I might as well not even try. When you bring this kind of thinking out into the light-of-day, it’s a little easier to see how invalid it is. But as long as you leave your thoughts unexamined, you may struggle and not understand what’s getting in your way. You can challenge this kind of inaccurate thinking with questions like: ‘What evidence is there that this thought might not be true?’ “What […]
Transformation Mastery Challenge: Wins for Week One
Week one of my 18-week challenge for Transformation Mastery is complete! Here are my wins for the week: Win! Got in six 60-minute plus high-intensity workouts and set a baseline from which to improve Win! Met my goal of eating five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day, and made good choices when I had to stray from my meal plan due to the unexpected. Win! Except for a planned free meal Saturday evening with friends, I kept my eating healthy while on a weekend road trip. Win! Checked in with my accountability group six times and offered support and encouragement to others. On to week two! Meals and workouts planned, and exercise is complete for today. Want to take on your own Transformation Challenge? Check out Transformation.com for information and support.
Making Joy a Part of Your Return on Investment
I am in the first week of an 18-week challenge for Transformation Mastery. While I have set specific, inspiring goals to work towards, my focus and excitement is on right now. We do not change our lives by jumping from where we are to where we want to be. We change it moment-by-moment and decision-by-decision. Right now is when I need to be motivated. Right now is when I need to be engaged and making good decisions. Right now is when I need to be having fun! Because while it will feel good to meet my goals, that feeling will be fleeting, and it will be so much more satisfying if I have enjoyed the process all along the way. Just think of it as return on investment. I can put all this time and energy into this process and get a nice but short-term return on the feeling of joy I get from meeting my goals, or I can get a huge return on that investment by feeling joy as much as possible all along the way. An added bonus is that the accumulated joy will actually help me meet my goals. Enjoying the process includes making a conscious choice to look for and celebrate what I am doing well, learn from and let go of what I can do better, and celebrate where I am right now and the opportunities I have for growth. This means I have a choice about how I look at my first week of a high-intensity and extremely demanding exercise program. I can struggle through the workouts the first time and get discouraged, and maybe even give up, or I can struggle through the workouts and celebrate the […]
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