Holiday Madness!!!

The Holidays are coming!

Fall is here!  I don’t know about you, but once October gets here, the days and weeks fly by and the holidays are here.  Which means that pretty soon, we’re going to start seeing holiday health advice.  Most of it centered on what not to do or doing things we don’t want to think about doing during the holidays.  Things like watching what we eat.  Ugh--no mac & cheese, no sweet potato pie, no cake, and preparing healthier versions of our favorite dishes.  Things like working out.  Who has time to work out when there are parties and events to attend? On top of the extra hours you work to make extra money for holidays, finish projects, or meet your year-end objectives. 

The holiday season is the time to relax and enjoy life, not the time to restrict or stress yourself out—at least that’s how I see it.  So my advice is to start now.  Start adopting healthy habits now and when the holidays get here, you’ll be less likely to abandon them completely.  You’ll be able to relax and enjoy the holidays without guilt.  And if you start practicing healthy habits now, a funny thing is going to happen.  You will naturally change how you enjoy the holidays without giving it a second thought.  You’ll find that eating less and maintaining your exercise schedule or level of activity will not be as much of a challenge.  By the way, when it comes to eating less it might feel weird at first and you might even force yourself to overeat because it’s what you’re used to doing.  I know because that’s what I did!  But after a while, that feeling will pass and you’ll sail through the holiday season with ease. 

That’s my advice to holiday health--start now! When the holiday season arrives, you’ll keep doing what you’re used to doing.  And hopefully, you’ll enjoy those new healthy habits because it’s so much easier to do what you enjoy versus imposing restrictions on yourself because it’s what you think you should do.  

Shirley

It's all about Me!!

Do you ever think, "who loves me?" I think we spend a great deal of time worrying about what others think of us. We go so far as to order our lives around what others think we should be or do. The clothes we wear, our hair style, what we eat is somehow influenced by what someone else thinks.

Well, what do you think??? How do you feel about you? Are you on a quest to lose weight because of how someone thinks you should look?  There is a saying that goes something like "charity starts at home". So I am saying start with how you feel about you.  Do you love you?  So what if you are over weight, so what if you have short hair and not long, so what if you are short and not tall. What matters is that when you look in the mirror you love the person you see. 

Once you acknowledge how you feel about yourself, everything else will fall into place. Remember it is not about what others think, but how you feel about you. When you look in the mirror your first thought should be "It's all about me".

Shirley 

Are you ready to Change!!!

I remember when I was a child and I thought that all adults were old. They all seem to be losing their teeth, hair and walking really slow.  They always seem to be in pain.  So of course that was what I though I would be like when I grew up. I realized however, that those adults from my childhood were not really old (maybe late forties or early fifties) but were  living with a lot of health issues. Not only were they living with these issues they had come to accept them as part of life.

I know that those in the health care field will tell you that most illnesses are hereditary. If your grandmother or mother had something you will most likely have it too and therefore pass it on to your children. This may be true, but I also think this way of thinking just makes us accept whatever happens to us. 

Let's try something different. I challenge you to break the cycle with change. Change how you cook your food. You don't have to give up the old recipes but change them a little. Try some salt free seasonings, you just might like it.  Instead of sitting at lunch go out for a walk. This will stretch those muscle that have grown stiff from sitting all morning. Getting older does not mean gaining weight and living in pain. It just means "getting older".

What changes will you make to break the cycle you inherited????

Shirley

Relax and Enjoy Life!

Why it is so hard for us to enjoy life as adults? Do you remember when you were a kid and how easy it was to laugh and have a good time?  When did we as adults forget to play? When did our lives  become extension of our jobs?   Something is wrong with the picture when you want to go to work because you are bored at home.

If you remember, when you were a child life was far from perfect, however you still managed to have fun.  You found joy in running outside, biking, roller skating and jumping rope. How could we forget the fun we had hoola hooping?

Tell me, what do you do now for fun? I know we have to work hard during the week because of our responsibilities.  But, on the weekend, think hard about having fun.  Instead of making plans to clean the house, plan to be outside, hiking, biking or just smelling the flowers. Read that book about absolute nothing (but will make you laugh),  watch a movie, call a friend and go to dinner. Just get in the habit of  putting something fun into your life.  Remember, we have one life to live,  so enjoy every moment because you can't get those moments back!!

Shirley

Guess What: It's Just Food!!!

It Just Food!!!

Do you remember the movie "Soul Food"? That movie brought back so many memories for me around food. The Sunday dinners our family used to have.  Eating until you couldn't move. Never leaving the table without have a second helping.  But it was not just Sunday, we ate like this every day. There was no such thing as fast food for dinner, my mother cooked every night.   So I grew up with a love for good food. I am guessing that many of you did as well.

Now with all the cooking shows on television, you too can be a gourmet cook. Fixing those wonderful meals like all the top chefs'. Making all those wonderful desserts (chocolate cake, cheese cake, muffins, cookies and the list goes on and on). But guess what? It gets better! Now there are restaurants, bakeries  and all kinds of places where you can get all this wonderful food without having to  make it yourself.

When I started having weight and health issues the first thing the doctor wanted to take away was all my wonderful food.  Because I could not imagine life without my chocolate cake, ice cream, cookies, fried chicken, fried fish,  mac & cheese and potato chips, my health issues just continued to get worse year after year.  Somehow I came to understand that  I didn't need chips, ice cream and chocolate to survive.  Rather than making food the most important thing in my life I kicked in down a few levels. Being here to enjoy my family and friends became my top priority.  I finalized realized: It's just food.

Shirley

Living in the NOW!

When you woke up this morning did you think about all the possibilities that lay before you. Did you think "today is the first day of the rest of my life"?  Maybe you just started to worry about all the things you did not get done yesterday.  Maybe you started that to do list for tomorrow and the rest of the week and wondered how you would get it all done. Living a healthier life involves more than getting your body in shape.  It also involves the right mind set, free from as much stress as possible.

Sometimes we forget that illnesses such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol often stem from living stressful lives.  Every commercial or ad tells us how we should look head to toe. How your hair, face, and body should look and how to achieve those goals. We hear this so often that we totally forget about feeding the mind and soul. Where is the ad about living in the now and enjoying it? Where is the ad about taking life one day at a time?  I am sure they are out there buried deep beneath the surface of how to  look good and  how to keep your body in shape. 

I suggest that when you wake up tomorrow you think "today is the first day of the rest of my life". With this as your mantra your possibilities are endless. Leave yesterday behind and focus on the positive for today.  We need to feed our mind, body and soul in order to be healthy.  So start living in the now and make today a positive statement for feeling good. 

Shirley

Relieving The Stress of Weight Loss

Weight loss has been a part of my life for the last 25 years. I have to say that I have tried almost every diet plan there is (I know I missed a few, but who is counting?).  Although the plans changed the one thing that remained the same was the level of stress attached to each one. First there's the husband or boyfriend who only remembers what you looked like when you met  in high school or college.  Then there are family and friends who only remember what you looked like prior to having children.  Then there is society who states that everyone should be a size 0 in order to have a fulfilling life. And last but not least, is your doctor who at the end of every appointment states: your numbers are good but you need to lose weight.

When you let people know that you are losing weight, then everything you eat  becomes suspect. If you are eating anything other than salad you are questioned: why are you having that cake or candy or ice cream ?  So you stay stressed out all the time.  Trying to get back to the high school or college size (for the husband or boyfriend); trying to get rid of the baby fat (for family and friends) and lastly trying to keep your doctor happy at your yearly appointment. So the end result is that you are so stressed and worried about the expectations of others that you don’t lose weight, but in fact gain more.

What I finally realized was that: my loss weight is all about me. No one else has a say  in when or how I go about it.  Once I cut out everyone's opinion and thoughts on what I should be doing or eating my stress level dropped to zero. I figured out why I wanted to lose weight, how I wanted to do it and found a plan that worked for me.   Now since I only have me to answer to, I am confident that I will continue to meet my weight loss goals and be happy achieving them.

Shirley

I Am NOT a Failure!

I have been trying to lose weight since I was 17 years old.  In case you’re wondering, I’m 43 yrs old, will be 44 later this year. I had some success, if you can call it that.  I didn’t call it success and this is why- - when I lost weight, it was never the full amount I was trying to lose.  And without exception, I always gained back the weight I lost and then some.  So no, I was not successful. In fact, I felt like a failure.  I thought I was a failure and that belief seeped into other areas of my life.  In a nutshell, this is what I thought:

“How can I be successful at anything if I can’t even lose weight?”

And then I tried to turn it into a positive thought:

“If I can lose this weight, then I can do anything”

HA!  I think that was even worse—what a setup!!!  Can you imagine the damage that either of those thoughts had on my confidence?   Not so much that you or even I would notice but just enough to keep me from going after big dreams and setting big goals. 

So what was my “aha” moment?  Well, every once in a while there was this quiet voice in the back of my mind telling me that “real failure is giving up”—and I finally started listening to it.  I told myself since I never gave up, I am not a failure. 

So, I kept trying, and trying, and trying until I found something that worked.  And I did! Better yet, I found a lifestyle worked.  I’ve been losing weight since December 2012 and I’m about 2/3 of the way to my goal.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?  More about my lifestyle changes in later posts but I’ll give you a hint—no pills, no special foods, no surgery. 

 

What thoughts are holding you back from moving forward in any area of your life?

 
Antoinette