Address Emotional Eating and Lose Weight

I know this may sound cliche (and maybe just too easy) but one thing I have always suggested for emotional eaters is to journal feelings. I suggest it because those who do it are much more successful  mastering their emotional eating! Negative feelings frequently occur because specific needs are not  being appropriately met. By making this self-realization a person can gain more control over any kind of emotional eating (stress, frustration, boredom, anger, etc.)

When you truly understand what you are feeling through writing  you might also also note any patterns that might occur. For example do you find you always eat when you are overwhelmed and stressed? How can you get your needs met better or how can you diffuse the stress in an appropriate way? Do you find that you always eat in specific situations with certain people? By exploring these things in a food diary and/or along with your feelings you can figure things out and take some steps to actively change your eating behaviors.

For more direction with emotional eating and writing you might try reading the Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size by Julia Cameron. She's got some  inspiring insights of what others have discovered and some specific writing techniques which ultimately helped them overcome emotional eating.

The bottom line is if you self-sabotage your dieting efforts because of any kind of emotional eating you need to address the feeling behind the eating regardless of how you find the correlation.

Success in Weight Loss is a Mindset

Wouldn’t it be great if you realized that the very obstacles you seem to face are merely created in your mind rather than being real? When you view something with self-doubt rather than the “I can” attitude full of faith and conviction you will succeed. So replace doubt and fear with a strong conviction of certainty and you will succeed. You give away your own power to the food rather than realizing your mind can be stronger. So no matter where you are in your weight loss, rethink it,  start today with a different strong life force of real faith of self encouragement, belief, and trust in yourself that this time you will make it.

But  just how do you do it? Face the challenges head on, step by step, day by day, challenge by challenge and get help if you need to. So even if the upcoming holidays seem so full of temptations  remember you really can be successful. Act as if failure really is impossible because it is if you believe that.

“Act as if failure is impossible, and your success will be assured. Wipe out every thought of your not achieving your objective, be brave and set no limits on the workings of your imaginations. Never be a prisoner of your past, Become the architect of your future…and you will see that nothing can stop you.”  - Author unknown

Conquer HalloweenTemptation

The other day I gave you some tips to get you through the challenging day of Halloween. These few tips will help you get the right attitude to follow through on them:

• Realize that you really do have discipline, willpower and self-control.  I know you have accomplished things in life that have required these qualities, right? Well, losing weight is not that different, you just have to channel your focus towards it.  Remember it’s really about attitude and your committed decision that controls discipline and willpower.  You don’t allow people to control you, so don’t allow food to control you either! Don’t give permission to let if affect how you feel. You have the power!
• Be grateful your life is not about your weight.  Put things in perspective. You have all the basics in life if not a few luxuries, something that billions of others cannot say. You have the power of choice which is something that you should cherish every waking moment. Once you are thankful for the things you do have in life, not having that ideal weight today won't matter as much. You may not be exactly where you want to be, but note there are others that aren’t even close to where you are.
• Need more? Read this for more attitude adjustment.

Happy Halloween! Focus on the holiday fun rather than the so-called treats. (It's not a treat if you feel bad for eating too much of it.)

Staying Motivated

With the holiday season almost here a client was worried about her motivation waning. She asked me for some motivating quotes to help keep her on track. Actually clients ask for this a lot. (I’ve been known to adopt a few for myself too.) She wants to put them in her food diary which incidentally is always  good for anyone to stay on track no matter what time of the year a person is dieting. (Food diaries are also proven to promote weight loss.)  I gave her a few of my favorite quotes which are:

• ”If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you got.” – author unknown
• “If you fail to plan you plan to fail.” – author unknown
• “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.” – author unknown
• “You must do the thing you think you can not do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
• "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments." - Jim Rohn

Readers let’s build on these. Please post some of your favorite quotes that keep you on track for Halloween this coming weekend and the months ahead.  Or just tell us what you do to stay motivated during tough times.

Think and Lose

For years I have been a fan of  rational emotive therapy which is basically a way of changing negative thinking patterns into motivating empowering statements that can change unwanted behavior. Recently I came across the following quote which gave me some food for thought along these lines:

“If you don’t change your (negative) thoughts your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?” – Dan Miller. Wow, who wants to stay stuck with excess weight forever?  By constantly stating these irrational negative thoughts this is  exactly what you are programming yourself for.

The idea here is that what we constantly think  about becomes our basic reality. Negative thoughts literally turn into negative behavior predicting potential unwanted behavior. Many dieters fall into negative thought patterns especially when  feeling discouraged, so here are some alternative ways of thinking:

• “I’ll never lose my weight, this is taking so long.” Instead say:  “It may take awhile but I’ll get to my goal, I just need to be patient. It took me awhile to gain it so it will take some time and effort to lose it."

• "I've already blown it today so I might as well eat whatever I want." Instead say: “I can still get back on track right now and balance my food out the rest of the day. Maybe I can even get some extra activity in too to compensate a little. And, I won't do any more damage for the day."

• “Dieting is so hard.” Instead say:  “Dieting is challenging but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible especially if I go on a healthy weight loss plan and get support when I need it.”

So release any belief that seems to have power over your thinking. You have the power to choose positive thoughts over negative ones!  Think (positive) and lose.

Exercise is All in your Head!

Many people simply find excuses not to move whether it be too busy, too tired, or too rainy. But according to the experts who actually tracked 200 new exercisers it all came down to “I think I can” attitude, (something I’ve been saying about weight loss and exercise long before the “studies”). Apparently those with the positive attitude were the 139% more active one year later compared with the less confident exercisers. This can-do attitude seems to be the biggest overall predictor for consistent activity! Researcher David M. Williams PhD states that planning ahead for potential challenges is the key. Commit now!

So, when your work schedule gets packed your plan is:________________.

When you are too tired you will:____________________________________.

When the weather is bad you will:__________________________________.

Do this now before the excuses pile up and remember exercise doesn’t have to be a full hour long to be effective. (Use this method to help you follow your food plan too when you are challenged!)

Who Do You Associate With?

Often times we choose to hang around with people who are a lot like us.

Typically, there's really nothing wrong or unusual about that except when we’re talking about trying to lose weight.

You see, if you’re trying to lose weight many of your friends may also be a little overweight and have''t yet decided to break the cycle. This becomes problematic when you're going out for dinner or drinks and everyone is used to you eating, drinking, and going along with the crowd.

So although I'm not telling you to dump your old friends I am recommending that you "take a break" from them for a few weeks while you're creating healthy lifestyle patterns. After a few weeks of cutting out all those cheat foods and exercising more you'll feel stronger about your decisions and will be able to better stand behind your new healthy choices when you're out.

Workout at Any Age

"No matter how old you are, increased physical activity is associated with decreased mortality and improved function." (quote from an Israeli study)

I have also seen this first hand and whole heartedly believe this statement to be true.

I work with clients in their 70's and 80's who defy the stereotypes that they should be "laying low" and "taking it easy." These people refuse to spend their days being inactive or pretending to feel old.

They understand that the more they act young the better their chances are they’ll feel and look younger as well. No one is discarding the fact that you may be experiencing a few more aches and pains than when you were younger, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t benefit from all exercise has to offer. Plus, you’ll enjoy some relief from the increased blood flow, range of motion, and higher energy levels following your workouts.

If you've written yourself as "too old to exercise," I ask you to ease back into it, find an appropriate program, and commit to it for at least 6 weeks. If you do that, I have no doubt you will find this decision to be one of the most rewarding you’ve ever made…

Israeli Study

The Death of Walking

When I saw this photo I knew instantly that I had to share it with all the ND readers… it's funny, sad, scary, and a little bizarre all at the same time.

Are we getting too caught up with the conveniences of modern day technology? At what point do we stop and say that although we have access to many scientific advances that allow us to move our bodies less and do less physical labor we don’t have to take advantage of all of them.

The “Segway Personal Transporter” is the perfect example of this. It seems that walking is now overrated when you can just hop on a motorized machine to take you from point A to B. Personally, I think the Segway is pretty cool, but I’m just not a fan of where the general direction of this type of technology is headed.

I’d just hate to imagine a future where we sit down on our commute to work, sit a desk for 9 hours, sit down on our commute home, sit down for dinner, sit in front of the TV, and then use a Segway for any other activities that would require walks over 5 minutes…

Motivation and Focus

How do keep motivated while you are trying to lose weight? If only we could bottle it and keep it for those times when we “lose” it.
I frequently hear, “I start out really well and then just lose my focus after a week or so,” or “I was doing well until I had a lot of stress at work and then lost my focus.” or “I always lose about ten or twenty pounds and then I lose my focus.”

So if focus is the problem how do you get it back?  There's hope, if  you can lose it then you can find it again!

Start with a list of your motivators. Don’t stop there, make those motivators become alive again and don’t just say "I just want to lose thirty pounds," Does that really motivate you? It simply does not elicit the underlying motivation behind it.  Exactly why do you want to lose thirty pounds? Dig those reasons out.
The following are some ways to really “focus” on how to rejuvenate your motivation with your thoughts:

• I will have more energy.  With that energy, I will do more outdoor activities again like water ski, go to the beach in a bathing suit and compete in volleyball again. I will play with my kids more and I will hike again.
• I will feel more confident in social situations. Maybe I will start dating again, get a better job, or join a class etc.
• I will be healthier. I will lower my blood pressure or cholesterol and just maybe live longer!

So take these reasons and think about them, often, every day and especially when you are feeling tempted or the next time you “lose your focus.” Revisit them with real heart and feeling.

Readers how do you regain your focus?