Happy
Wednesday everyone! Our morning started
off much more peaceful than yesterday.
There was no broken glass, smoothies on the floor or wet cat tails this
morning. After yesterday morning I appreciated
the relative peace and calm of this morning much more. Gee, I wonder why. LOL
For those of
you who are just joining us here is the recap of what we have accomplished so
far to remind us all of how much we have covered during the first 24 days of
January:
Day 1 –
Defined Success and What is/was Holding Us Back
Day 2 –
Determined our Purpose and Looked at PassionDay 3 – Listed Our Goals for January
Day 4 – Listed the Things We Have Needed to Work on for a While
Day 5 – Looked at Optimism vs. Pessimism and Fear vs. Intuition
Day 6 – Practiced Conscious Eating
Day 7 – Hara Hachi Bu
Day 8 – Taking the Stress Out of Meal Time
Day 9 – Acknowledgments
Day 10 – No Excuses, Do it Anyway
Day 11 – Is it True?
Day 12 – Have You Really Connected With Someone Today?
Day 13 – Motivation is a Decision
Day 14 - Successfully Navigating Dinner at an Unfamiliar Restaurant
Day 15 - What Do You Want, Have You Asked?
Day 16 – Treating Others as You Wish to be Treated
Day 17 – Food as a Budget
Day 18 – Silence Your Inner Critic
Day 19 – Replace I Have to With I Want to
Day 20 – Identifying Your Rituals
Day 21 – Face Your Fears
Day 22 – Give Up the Diet Mentality
Day 23 – The Meaning and/or Purpose of Food
Day 24 – Trigger Foods/Situations/People
·
They say things like “everyone in my family is
overweight, or being heavy is genetic it runs in my family” are common phrases
you will hear.
·
The list of things/changes they can’t do (or
aren’t willing to do) is longer than what they are willing to do.
·
More than a few people have told me that
diabetes runs in their family and they are destined to get it eventually.
·
The phrase I have heard more times that I can
remember is “I have tried everything to lose weight and nothing ever works for
me, I am a hopeless case.”
·
The idea that frightens me the most is when
someone says “I know a person who had weight loss surgery and lost a lot of
weight quickly, maybe I need to do that too.”
They say this as though surgery is less drastic than a strict diet.
1.
You have to believe (really believe) that you
can and will improve your situation.
2.
Be willing to make long term changes if you want
long term results.
I really hope that I am wrong about this, but I suspect that
my friend isn’t as committed to losing weight and getting healthy as he says
thinks. I would say that he is more
interested than committed. He is still
at the stage where he thinks that practicing “moderation” will get him where he
wants to be. Losing 50 pounds was enough
to convince him that consuming smaller portions of pizza, burgers and steak
works. However my friend still has more to lose and it isn’t coming off
now. Instead of being willing to try to
make additional changes he is clinging to what has worked so far even though it
has now stopped working. I don’t know
about you but when something I am doing stops working I look for something else
to try. I believe that life is too short
to be stuck in a place (or physical condition) where you aren’t happy and don’t
feel good.
Whenever we have a problem to resolve we need to approach it
as if it has a solution. If we think something can’t be solved (my weight is
genetic, I have tried everything, my husband or wife won’t go along with it, the
house is full of junk food for the kids, etc.) then guess what, the problem
can’t be solved. I know that I keep
talking about this in different ways but it is because I see or hear it every
day. People seem to be desperate to improve their health or their weight but
they don’t want to give up anything they “love” and they already know why their
changes won’t work (their genetics, etc.).
Let’s look at a different situation to see if that helps
this to make more sense. Imagine that
you are looking for a new job. You have
been diligently sending out resumes but you aren’t feeling very hopeful. When you do get an interview you tell
yourself that this will be like all the other interviews and that you won’t get
the job. Do you think you will do your best in the interview with that thought
in your mind? Our thoughts are powerful,
they can help us or they can hurt us.
Now imagine the same interview but the person goes in knowing that they
have all the skills and experience required to do the job. Can you see how that interview will go very
differently? Since thoughts are
powerful doesn’t it make more sense to use our thoughts to help us to attain
our goals?
Now you should have an image in your mind of what you want
your health and weight to look like. You
can see yourself living life as that new person. If you can stop and spend some
time thinking about it so that it becomes real for you. We will use this imagine next weekend when we
work on our vision boards. I want you to
come up with a personal slogan that you can use to direct your behavior. This slogan can be anything the only
requirement is that it is positive and makes you feel good. I will give you more ideas in the exercises
below.
I hope that you now see how you view the world and your
ability to make a difference in your life is very important. I have found that by focusing on what I can
do gives me hope and pushes me to be the best that I can every day.
Today’s
exercises are:
1.
As you go about your day pay attention to your
inner thoughts. Each day are you upbeat,
optimistic and ready to conquer the world? If you are CONGRATULATIONS! However if you have an inner voice that is
undermining you write down the negative thoughts as you have them.
The negative thought that always comes up for
me is “what if I fail?” Being perfect
was drilled into me as a child. Even
though I know being perfect isn’t possible it is still my knee jerk reaction to
any new situation or problem. But we all
know that demanding perfection causes fear and pushes people not to try. However now I also know this about myself so
I have built in responses for my inner voice that go like this: What if I do fail? Failure isn’t the end of the world. Failure
is a learning experience and it will teach me what to do differently in the
future. Ultimately I will only fail when
I stop trying.
Do you see how I try to turn the negative
voice into a positive reaction? Can you do the same thing with your negative
thoughts? Try to turn your negative
thoughts around. Write down your answers in your journal and refer to them when
you need to.
As more negative thoughts come up for you
write those down in your journal and find responses to turn them into positives
too. After you have done this for a
while it becomes automatic and you don’t even think about doing it, it seems to
happen without any conscious action on your part. Love that!
2.
Visualize your life as you want it to be. You can stay with the weight example that we
talked about today or you can focus on any other aspect of life. The important thing is that you picture all
the details of your new life. Below are
a series of question to help you see the details:
·
What do you look like in your perfect life?
Are you slimmer or maybe you are more fit? Do you dress the same? Do you carry
yourself differently with this new confidence?
·
How do you feel in your new life? What is your attitude toward challenges now?
·
What type of things do you do now? Have your leisure time activities
changed? Are you home less often? Maybe you are going to the Caribbean for a
winter vacation since you are comfortable showing ore skin. Really think about how life would change if
you were truly happy with whom you were.
·
Do you have the same job or career? Maybe you don’t like your current job but don’t
feel confident to change it. What would
you be doing if you loved yourself?
·
What do your relationships look like now? With this new confidence is your love life better?
3.
This is the fun part; we get to write our
personal slogan. This can be anything
positive the sky is the limit. Here are
some examples of empowering personal slogans:
·
I can do anything that I set my mind to.
·
I will make good choices for my health every
day.
·
Life is a learning experience and I plan to
absorb everything that comes my way.
·
Every day brings a new opportunity to grow and
change.
1.
Newsletters - Tuesday was a little hectic with
appointments that had to be rescheduled so I didn’t work on the newsletters
today.
2.
Body Bugg – I continue to wear my bugg and I
have gotten back into using it the way I had intended when I purchased it. Go me!
J
3.
Date with Dan – Dan and I have been going for a
walk each night after dinner. We are using this time to get away and talk as
well as to add some movement and fresh air to our day. Dan wants to get a little caught up at work
but then we will be getting back to our date plan during the week.
4.
Measuring
calorie dense food – I am making a little progress on this but I really need to
focus on it with every veggie meal to help my body absorb the fat soluble
vitamins.
5.
Working on my business – Monday spent some time
working on my other website. Knowing
that I will be sharing it with you on February 10th has definitely moved
it up on my priority list.
Accountability works for all of us, including me. ;-)
Random
Thoughts:
Acknowledgements:
·
Tuesday I was not in the mood to work on the
blog. It was very difficult to stay
focused and get it done. I used every excuse in the book to avoid the
computer. However I managed to get it
written and it felt good to live up to my commitments. Some days I just need to
push through and not let my “excuses” get the better of me.
·
Even though I was extremely busy I still managed
to accomplish all my critical tasks today and that was an accomplishment.
·
I love that as busy as our Tuesday was that Dan
and I still made time to go for a walk and to talk about our day and our plans
for the following day. I know so many couples who come home and turn on the television
and don’t talk. I love that even after
more than two decades Dan and I still want to connection with each other every
day. Go us! J
·
It was tough for me earlier this week when Dan
went back to work. I was worried that something would happen and that I wouldn’t
be there to help. I tend worry about my
hubby a little more than I need to.
However I am happy to report that everything has been fine and that I
was concerned for no reason. I love to
be wrong in situations like this.
Tuesday:
Breakfast for me was savory oatmeal.
Dinner was tofu lasagna.
Happy thoughts:
·
Sometimes I love being busy and other times I
want to be a slug. I was so busy on
Tuesday that I didn’t have time to think about much of anything. However once I sat down to reflect on my day
I realized that being busy means that I was productive and that is a very good thing.
·
The weather was gorgeous on Tuesday and we
actually reached 59 degrees. Who would
believe this is January weather? Spring
really is starting to feel like it is just around the corner.
·
I spent a few hours on the Robbins-Madanes
Training so far and it is definitely taking me out of my comfort zone but in a
good way. I am definitely enjoying the
challenge of looking at life differently.
·
I think it is so cute that my cats come to tell
me when the electric blanket in the bedroom turns itself off. My fur children really are little
geniuses. As Dan would say they really
have me trained don’t they? LOL
·
Speaking of fur children it was nice of mine don’t
to create morning chaos two days in a row.
Also one of the benefits of experiencing chaos is that when there is
peace you appreciate it so much more.
Gee, I wonder why? ;-)
Signing Out:
I admit I was skeptical about savoury oatmeal, but I just had a bowl of it for lunch with mushroom, fennel, spinach, pine nuts and paprika. Absolutely delicious! I am convinced.
ReplyDeleteEmily,
Delete*Yay* I was skeptical about savory oatmeal too and was shocked when I loved it. Good for you for being willing to give it a try. The flavor combination you added sounds delicious. :-)
Ali