Real People. Real Solutions. Real Quick
“Someday is not a day of the week.” ~Unknown
We all say, “Someday.”
Someday we will lose weight. Someday we will take control of our lives. Someday we will get healthier, stop smoking, exercise, eat more veggies, play with our kids, go to the beach, ride our bikes.
“Someday” will never come unless you make it.
Will you make today your “someday?” Or will you wait?
~Onward
The #1 New Year’s resolution? Probably to lose weight. January 1 always seems like a good time to start “fresh” and people, feeling bloated from ovedoing the Holidays, are desperately seeking a way to get those Holiday pounds off.
I, too, feel the bloat, so here are some of my previous blog posts on weight loss resolutions and staying with it. Time to read my own work, he he. Enjoy…and have a great, brand-spankin’ new year!
Sticking to Weight Loss Resolutions
Keeping Weight Loss Resolutions – The Beginning
Keeping Weight Loss Resolutions – Sticking With It
New Year’s Weight Loss Resolutions
Photo: ©Flickr Krissy Mayhew
“You’ve got to say, ‘I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it.’ It’s called perseverance.” ~Lee Iacocca
The secret to weight loss is summed up by this one quote above: You’ve got to want it badly enough. Period.
This Holiday season is the perfect time to see how badly you really want it. Instead of eating with abandoned at every Holiday function, ask yourself one simple little question before you reach for that extra serving: “How badly do I want it?” If you take more cookies than you should, then you’ve learned a valuable truth: You don’t want it badly enough. And there’s nothing wrong with that. When you are ready, when you really want it more than anything else, you will succeed. That’s what happened to me – and how I lost 80 pounds. I wanted to be healthy and fit…more than anything else.
Do you?
Onward.
~Helen
“It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not.” ~James Gordon
Weight loss success is all about “being ready.” How many times have you tried – and failed – to lose weight? The only reason you have not succeeded is that you didn’t want it bad enough. In other words, you weren’t ready to make the sacrifices it takes to do it. Don’t beat yourself up over it, though. We are often not ready to make necessary changes in our lives. Think about it for a moment: You didn’t change jobs, get married, get divorced, went back to college, started a new hobby…until you were ready. Some day you will be ready – really ready – to lose weight. And then you will succeed.
Onward.
~Helen
“I hate myself for loving you…”~Joan Jett
If you’re like me, sometimes you eat things you don’t even like.
Take Cheetos, for instance. I don’t like them. They taste like styrofoam and they make me puffy. And yet…when I am tired or stressed, I sometimes discover that my fingers are orange from eating my daughter’s Cheetos (Puffs).
The bummer with eating foods we don’t really like is that we waste calories on things that have nothing to do with pleasure or fun. If I am going to eat something fattening and pretty much useless, wouldn’t it be better to eat some expensive, delicious melt-in-my-mouth Belgian chocolate rather than Hershey’s (wax) chocolate?
In all reality, when I am “stress eating,” I am eating not for flavor or fun but to relieve some pressure in an overbooked and fatigued day.
I want salt, sugar, salt, sugar…and it doesn’t matter what form those ingredients come in. Just bring it.
I think the trick is for us to find other ways to relieve our stress and fatigue. In the past I have used exercise as a stress release and it works most excellently. Sleep is oftentimes out of the question, but what about yoga? Or reading a book, or watching a movie? Maybe snuggling with your child or significant other? Do these things really work, or are they poor substitutes for some good, old-fashioned carbs?
What do you think?
Onward….
~Helen
Photo Flickr ©vkareh
“Waiting for the end to come. Wishing I had strength to stand. This is not what I had planned. It’s out of my control.” ~Linkin Park
When I was a young girl my mother was always dieting. I grew up watching her go through the latest fads in diets: The low carb (or, eat all the bacon and eggs you want) diet, the grapefruit diet, the pineapple diet, the “diet pill” (amphetamine) non-diet and everything in between. My mother was not very overweight at all. In fact, she was what I would call “normal” for her time. But no matter how “normal” in weight they are, women diet. That is what we do. Weight loss trumps all.
Being surrounded by dieting for so long (and being a serial dieter myself with my own body image issues), I learned all about what to eat – and what not to eat – to lose weight. To put it simply, in the world of dieting all the foods that taste fabulous are bad you, and all the foods that do not tickle your taste buds are good for you. Don’t eat bread, don’t eat fat, don’t eat sugar, don’t eat fruit, don’t snack, don’t eat solid foods..we are surrounded by “dont’s.” So, why, then are we still fat?
Because there are no “do”s.
Continue reading ‘Why Diets Don’t Work: Goodbye to Atkins, 4 Hour Body and More’
“It’s gettin’ it’s gettin’ it’s gettin’ kinda heavy. I’ve got the power.” ~Snap
You find yourself sitting there, a box of cookies in your lap, an empty bag of chips at your feet, a gallon of ice cream half gone. And you wonder, “What happened to my desire to lose weight? What happened to me?”
You might ask yourself where you went wrong, how you cracked, or how you ended up on this eating binge. “Why didn’t I say no?” you question. “Why couldn’t I just walk away? Why wasn’t I stronger?”
The reason, simply and honestly, is that you didn’t want to be strong…because perhaps you no longer believe in your own strength.
Continue reading ‘You’ve Got the Power’
“Help, I’m alive…” ~Metric
There are times, a day or so after a really hard workout, when I really do feel like saying, “Help, I’m alive!” Because a) I need help to get out of bed or even just sit and b) I feel alive. Sometimes, though, after a killer session with – say – kettlebells, I wish I weren’t alive to feel the muscle soreness. That’s when simply lifting my arms or closing my legs becomes a challenge and my body laughs at me.
That level of muscle soreness (DOMS – or delayed onset muscle soreness) is rare if you’ve been working out for awhile, but when you first start an exercise program or change up your workout it’s a familiar feeling. Good pain, as we are prone to say.
Why is the pain good? Because of one simple thing: You know your muscles have been worked. Who cares about the science behind it or why we feel sore? Who cares if it really means anything? The true value of DOMS is how it makes us feel emotionally: we have done something for us, our bodies, and our minds. This one day, our muscles screaming with every movement, is a day that we have broken free of past patterns, defied the odds, and moved our bodies in a way they aren’t used to.
With every wince we are reminding ourselves that we are strong, determined and alive.
THAT is good pain.
May the DOMS be with you.
Onward and forward.
The new year is here. Did you make weight loss resolutions? Are you on track or have you been slipping? In my fitness column for LA’s the Place I outlined a simple way you can be successful with weight loss – by using one simple tool. Read the article below.
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There is one date that is magical for many people. It is filled with hope and idealistic dreams as new and unmarked as freshly fallen snow. The slate is wiped clean and empty as time starts anew, and anything feels possible. This special date? January 1, home of the New Year’s Resolution.
New Year’s resolutions are the conventional end to the Holiday season. Each year people all over the world party the old year out, with intentions of starting the new year with a bang of positive action. From quitting smoking and saving money to running a marathon, New Year’s Day marks a new beginning. But these new beginnings are often short-lived since four out of five people don’t keep their resolutions.
In fact, 30% don’t even make it to the end of January.
Continue reading ‘Sticking to New Years Weight Loss Resolutions’
If you’re reading this blog, you already know what I am talking about.
Overeating. Binging. Eating far too much, too fast. You know it’s bad for you. You know it’s unhealthy. You know it will often lead to more and more “bad” days until once again you can’t button your pants. After your eating spree you will wake up feeling bloated, fat, puffy, and sick. It’s the overeaters’ version of a hangover (the “foodover,”) at which point you ask yourself, “What was the point of that?”
Continue reading ‘Overeating when we know better’
