You Are a Priority

Somehow, somewhere down the line, we  have been taught the message that spending a little time on yourself is "selfish".  I'm still not sure which genius came up with such an idiotic theory, but it seriously needs to end here.

I know too many women who put themselves last on the priority list.  They've spent their entire adult lives taking care of children, husbands, grandparents, parents and many are nurses who take care of patients all day, everyday, without the slightest hesitation to give 100% of their time and dedication, to do the best job they can.  

However, ask them to spend an hour on themselves, and watch the horror take place.  First, it seems as if I'm speaking a foreign language, I understand that these are new words, and new concepts, but I promise I am speaking English.  Then, it's every single excuse in the book of why they can't possibly spend that much time on themselves, they have too many "priorities" that need attention.  When the excuses run out, and my English words set in, the thought of dedicating time to themselves brings out the big daddy of all horrors.....Guilt!

Again, I'm not sure where this started, and I'm really puzzled about why we keep passing around, but I'm taking a stand, stepping up to the plate and shouting "your needs are a priority".  If you feel guilty about this, or need to blame someone, blame me!  I'm the mother of teenagers, so I'm used to it always being "my fault", it doesn't bother me.  I'll be the "bad guy" here if it gets you to put a value on yourself, your health and enjoying your life. 

I want you to value yourself, every day.  It's not selfish to want to look and feel good, get comfortable with that concept.  Focusing on your well being needs to be at the top of your to-do list because, if you don't put yourself on the list, if you don't believe that you are a priority, why would anybody else?   You are worth it, you do deserve it, you are important. I know you have responsibilities, just remember that being responsible, and caring for everyone, includes caring for yourself too.  To your health!!

Building Your Support Network

Why should you take the time to build a support network?  Simple.  There is power in numbers, and a great support group can pull you through some of your toughest struggles.  Also, they are a great tool in holding you accountable to ensure success.  The more people you have on your side, the easier living a healthy lifestyle becomes.  When you surround yourself with people of like interests, people striving for the same things, success is inevitable. 

I like to think of it as creating your "Board of Directors".  Your game plan is to incorporate a wide variety of friends and family who will support you, lend encouragement and provide fun along the way.   

Positions to be filled:

The "Encourager" for moral support.
The "Motivator" who gets everyone exercising with enthusiasm.
The "Informer" who provides the health and fitness information needed to create a healthy lifestyle.
The "Comic" who keeps the group entertained and laughing throughout the journey.
The "Accountant" who holds you accountable and focused on your goals.
The "Counselor" who is there to listen and encourage your efforts.
The "Chef" who is always looking for and sharing healthy recipes.

When you are just starting out and trying to develop a personal health and fitness plan, your Board of Directors will be instrumental to your success.  In the beginning, we all have slip ups along the way.  Let me rephrase that, throughout life, we all have slip ups along the way.  You're looking for a team of support that will lend their encouragement, without judgment, when minor set-backs occur. 

The key to success is consistency.  By consistently surrounding yourself with the best, you'll become your best achieving all of your health and fitness goals. 

Now get out the clip board and start interviewing! 

To your success! 

4 Basic "Law's of Nature" to Achieve a Strong Healthy Body

"Being aware of the actions you take and the choices you have control over -not inevitability's- gives you the power to effect change in your life." - Montel Williams

Let's face it, we all live by a set of rules and standards which, if followed correctly, creates a productive and safe living environment. Following rules allows us to flourish mentally, physically and financially where we are an asset to society, not a detriment. This is how the societal system works and the same can be said about your health.

If you follow the rules that your body has naturally set for you, you will flourish, not only mentally, but physically as well. However, when the body's natural rules are not followed, there is disharmony, depression and disease that naturally occurs. When living in agreement with nature, your body intuitively increases your immunity, increases your energy and naturally wards off depression and disease. Natures rules are not complex and consist of:

Eating whole, nutritious foods

Exercising your body and mind

Getting adequate amounts of rest and relaxation

Being accountable for the actions you take and the decisions you make

These really are simple rules yet we rebel against them daily, and in doing so, pay a heavy price...literally!! I am to encouraging you to live more naturally for 30 days. I believe that natures rules are the key to successful weight management and enjoying a healthy lifestyle. Let's get started, Trainer Girl Style!

Eating whole, nutritious food is rule #1: The foods you consume must work for your body instead of against it. Consume foods in their most natural form with very few added ingredients such as chicken, fish, fruits, vegetables, whole grains....basically anything that is not processed. The cold hard truth here is that YOU are the CEO of your body and YOU decide what goes into your mouth. Food, contrary to popular belief, does not have control over you. A little harsh reality???? Maybe. However, if efforts are not put into place now, I'm sure you'll agree that living with heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression and every other obesity related disease is truly the "harsh reality" and inevitably the future. Obesity, and it's related diseases, is an epidemic that can be controlled, YOU have the power so exercise it.

Speaking of, daily exercise is an absolute must which is why it's rule #2: Your body must be moved daily. Some rules are just not open to interpretation and this is one of them....not exercising is not an option. You eat everyday, you should move everyday. Studies have shown that exercise is an essential part of living a long healthy life and should be done daily for approximately 30 minutes. Studies have also shown that three 10 minute walks are as good as one 30 minute walk and seriously, don't tell me you don't have 10 minutes to do something great for yourself! Strength training should also be incorporated into your plan 2-3 times per week to increase metabolism, increase bone mass, reduce stress levels, increase energy levels and the best part, build muscle which melts fat! The key to making exercise a daily habit is to find something that you like to do. Helpful tip: When you exercise with friends you are more likely to stick to a program by encouraging & motivating each other and it's always more fun!

After that awesome work out, don't cheat your body out of a good nights sleep. Getting less than 7 hours of sleep puts you at an increase risk of depression, stroke, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and weight gain. You body naturally needs sleep so rule #3: Re-balance, re-energize and rebuild your body by getting adequate amounts of rest and relaxation. Sleeping should not be viewed as a luxury, but as a necessity. When you deprive your body of much needed sleep, your "hunger hormones" increase and you start craving high-carbohydrate snack foods. Consuming simple carbohydrate snacks literally blocks your fat burning hormones and increases your appetite for these unhealthy choices. Ladies, this is a vicious cycle but can easily be broken by simply getting enough sleep.

Lastly, it all boils down to #4: Holding ourselves accountable for the actions that we take and the decisions that we make. In order to create accountability, we must turn our daily choices into reality and stop kidding ourselves that "one more cookie won't matter" because it does. Everything matters and when you keep track of the foods you've eaten, your emotions (proud, upset, worried, hungry, sad, depressed, happy, celebrating a special occasion) and your daily exercise, this journal now gives you a world of insight and just the tool you need to succeed. This is your personal journal, your personal journey to success! There will be many success stories to celebrate along the way (which should be documented) as well as a few set-backs (which are to be expected). Creating this personal guide gives you the in-site needed as to exactly what is keeping you from achieving your weight and fitness goals. Once you know which issues seem to sabotage your efforts, you can come up with strategies to combat them which gives YOU the power over your own success. I also believe that a personal journal has the ability to become the best motivator in your support system....besides me of course!

The above natural rules are your key to success "Trainer Girl Style", I personally guarantee it!

Real Hunger vs. Emotional Hunger

Food can be viewed as one of the greatest pleasures in life, however, it can also leave you feeling guilty and depressed if you're not eating mindfully or for the right reasons.

There are two different types of hunger. Real hunger, which is a physiological symptom of being hungry, and emotional hunger, which is a psychological symptom of craving a food to soothe emotions that you are feeling. How can you tell the difference?

With real hunger, real physiological symptoms such as a grumbling in the stomach, lightheadedness (indicating low blood sugar), low energy level or a headache will be present. It is easy to relieve the symptoms of real hunger by simply eating. If you truly were experiencing "real hunger", you'll feel energized and satisfied after eating a healthy portion of nutritious food.

Emotional hunger is usually brought on by an environmental, or an internal trigger, when there are no indications or symptoms that we are physically hungry. Emotional eating can be triggered when you are feeling upset or stressed, which causes a physical craving to "soothe" your emotions. Emotional eating can also occur in happier situations when you're celebrating an occasion such as a wedding or birthday. These situations can also lead to over consuming food and making unhealthy food choices. After eating emotionally, you'll normally feel guilty, still experience cravings, feel miserable and still be hungry as no amount of food seems to satisfy your need.

While we can not avoid celebrations or stressful situations, we can learn how to cope with these triggers that can lead to excessive calorie consumption and unhealthy food choices. The first step in tackling emotional eating is to identify the trigger which is provoking the emotional need to eat. In order to understand the emotions behind these triggers, they need to be dissected and unraveled openly and honestly which is where the food journal once again comes into play.

The food journal is an extraordinary tool for writing your food choices, the triggers that caused an unhealthy food choice and the emotions tied to those choices. Once you've identified what actually causes your cravings, you can create strategies to cope by either adapting or avoiding the situation all together.

By adapting to an emotional trigger, you'll replace the identified trigger with a different activity or change the situation. An example would be the stress of time management and the lack of "me" time. Emotionally, you may feel like you're always last on the list, there's never any time for you to take care of yourself, you're just "eating on the run" so to speak at any drive-thru that comes across your path to refuel your stressed body. The first step in effective time management is to identify the priorities in the situation, and let me tell you, YOU are a priority and deserve better.

Now that we've established that YOU are the priority, it's time to focus on organizing your time so that eating fits into your schedule without causing more stress. A situation change would be to pack your own nutritious lunch or dinner in a cooler so it's ready when you are hungry physically, not emotionally. You are more apt to eat more healthfully when it's readily available to you instead of grabbing the first thing you see or running through the first fast food restaurant. Packing your own food gives you the control over what you are putting into your body and not leaving it up to "whatever is available" at the moment. This is both cost effective and time saving....seriously, if you honestly added up the time it takes to talk to a box, pay an outrageous amount of money at another box and have someone hand you so called "food" through another box I'm sure you would agree.

I am encouraging you to spend a little time wisely on yourself, for yourself, to come up with healthy alternatives to combat stressful situations or triggers before they occur. Here's a strategy that works for me, I go for a walk to clear my head instead of sticking my head into the refrigerator when I'm upset. There's nothing like the power of friendship to help you deal with stressful situations so give them a call instead of calling for a pizza. If your friends aren't supportive or aren't willing to help you cope with stressful situations, it's time to find new friends. Seriously, isn't this what friends are for? All I'm trying to say is by making YOURSELF the priority, and focusing on the positive things YOU can do in the situation, YOU will gain the power over triggers to conquer and destroy!!! Now let's talk strategy :)

Mindful Eating

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity."

- Amelia Earhart

The best way I know to establish a habit of "mindful eating" is to start with a Food Journal. I'm sure you're rolling your eyes and thinking "just one more thing to add to my never ending to do list!" which is why most people won't do this. Most people also wonder why they can't lose weight no matter what they try to do. Most people go on and off diets daily, they "cheat" a little one day and basically just write off the entire day thinking "I'll start again tomorrow." This also leads to feelings of guilt, shame and a constant question of "why can't I do this?" It's exhausting!

Creating a Food Journal will assist you in acknowledging exactly what and how much you are eating on a daily basis. It will also give you incite as to your triggers, barriers and obstacles that you face daily that make you turn to food even when you're not hungry. It will encourage you to eat mindfully because if you have to write down that you inhaled an entire bag of cookies while watching t.v., we've just identified that "mindfulness" was not in the equation and we've identified a trigger....the t.v. thus controlling your urge to binge.

By writing down your daily food intake, you also create a record of your food choices and whether you are getting enough protein, complex carbohydrates and good fats into your diet. This will also show if you are getting too much of one macro nutrient and not enough of the others. It's all about balance. Weight loss is simply expending more calories on a daily basis than you are taking in. Expending calories means exercise! Yes, you have to do it! It's non-negotiable....this is one rule that is not open to interpretation. 30 minutes a day does a body good!! Simple math!

I believe that getting healthy, strong and losing weight first starts in the mind. If you change your mind, you can change your life. Get in touch with your perception of your life and the things that you want to change. This journal is a awesome tool to create your goals and achieve them. You will be recording your progress, the goals you've met and throw in those compliments that you will be receiving! These things together will reinforce your commitment to yourself to create a lifetime of health and fitness.

How to do I start? First, get a notebook that will travel well without being inconvenient. If it's inconvenient, you know you won't write in it. It certainly doesn't have to be fancy, however, if you are more of the fashionista by all means fancy it up girl! You are creating a record of your lifestyle, it is an expression of you.

What to write? You will need to write every morsel that comes in contact with your lips. I mean if you lick it, bite it or taste it it gets written down. One M&M, you ate it, write it down! This is to encourage being mindful of all those extra calories we don't even realize that we are eating or drinking. How many times have you prepared your child's plate and tasted a bite of chicken, or heaven forbid, finished what they didn't. A little, or big, sip of a Slurpee must be written down. These calories count, don't fool yourself.

In addition to writing your food intake for the day, I would also encourage you to write if you actually were hungry, bored, or out at a party with friends etc. This will create a connection between your feelings and food which will help to identify your trigger's that set off an unhealthy eating pattern. I always say once you know what or who your enemy is, you have the power to defeat them! However, if you don't know who or what you are dealing with, it's impossible to get the upper hand. You are in this to win it! Know your triggers, obstacles and barriers because these are your enemies and once you become aware of these little "nightmares" you will be ready to conquer them! Conquer and defeat! YOU have this power!

Being held accountable for the decisions that we make, and the actions that we take is life! Everyday YOU have the power to decide how YOU will live that day. Yes, "things happen" but it is within YOUR power to decide how YOU are going to react. YOU have the power over food, it doesn't have the power over you and once you become mindful of your calories in vs. your calories out this weight loss thing becomes a breeze. YOU owe it to yourself to create a healthy life and to enjoy every single minute of it. Invest a little time and effort into yourself....YOU ARE WORTH IT!!!