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The other night I was sitting at home, doing some work when I began to stare at this big bag of chips across the table. And I’m saying to myself: “don’t even think of it, I’m doing great, eating ok, and I even went to the gym today- don’t ruin it.” At 9:00 at night that bag of chips is staring right at me and saying “come on… you’ll continue with your life-restraining diet tomorrow.” Back and forth and back and forth. I needed something to give me the strength to not get stuck into that “you’ll do tomorrow” mentality, which plagues us at so many points, and in so many areas, of life.

           

I reminded myself of a story that really helped and figured I would share (it’s from Class 8 of Mind Tapping). It’s the story of “NOW”; a story of my friend’s father who had a heart attack. I have a good friend whose father is in great shape. He is healthy and fit and not to mention a great dad and husband. In my book, he is an all-around All-Star. 

 

One day he woke up in the morning and felt some chest pains. He didn’t think much of it and went to work as usual. By noon he was really feeling lousy so he called his doctor who told him to come down to the office. The doctor took a few x-rays and came in the examining room and said “call your family and have them meet us in the hospital; you are having a heart attack.”

 

What!?!"

 

“You heard me”.

 

Frantic calls to now nervous family members ensued as his family descended upon a local hospital to find out that their father/husband/son was just taken in for quadruple bypass surgery.

 

After a few long hours, many tears and dozens of cell phone minutes, the doctor came into the waiting room to report that the operation was successful. “He is going to be just fine,” the doctor said.  He soon went home, recovered and went right back at work.

 

I was talking with my friend and asked how is his father was doing. He said “honestly, he's a changed man”.

 

“Really? How?”

 

He said “my father told me that as he was being wheeled into the operating room, the only thing he could think about was all the things that he wanted to do but didn't. All the calls he wanted to make, all the conversations he wanted to have, all the activities he wanted to do.. He had no advance warning that his life may be over without having done those things. When he recovered he made a conscious decision to live his life with 3 letters…N-O-W. He would start to live right NOW. Not tomorrow. Not next month. NOW.  He would not end his day without doing the things he felt was important for that day.

 

This idea of NOW is how we have to approach the goals we want to accomplish in life.  It is all too easy to push things off for another day, but pretty soon that becomes another week, or month or even year – you wake up one morning and you can’t believe how much time passed and how you lost focus of what you wanted to accomplish.  When you push your goals off because you think you’ll be able to focus on them just as easily at a later time -- you’re just fooling yourself.  As time goes by you either lose the drive and excitement you once had, you get further and further away from your goals because now those 10 pounds you wanted to lose became 15 or 20 pounds, and sometimes, you don’t even get another chance because the window of opportunity has closed and it can’t be reopened.  Seize your moments, live life to its fullest and don’t let yourself live with regrets and “what-ifs.”

 

I didn’t have that bag of chips because I knew it would set me back. I knew that the notion of “picking up the diet tomorrow” wasn’t going to get me the results I wanted.  NOW is the time when you have to cling to your goals and push forward, even if that’s at 9:00 at night.

A Motivational Tool to Lose Weight, Rebuild Relationships, Be Happier, Successful, Look and Feel Great
 

Still promising yourself that you need to will lose those extra pounds? Well, while the summer may be coming to an end, your time to look and feel great is just starting. This year make a commitment to have the best year ever. In your relationships, job, happiness and your body.  No more waiting to feel great. Start now. 

 
So, what’s the first thing we do when we want to lose weight? We search high and low for a diet plan, exercise program or gadget to buy, right? We exert all our energy and time into this product find some success and then the inspiration dwindles away shortly and slowly.
 

Here the problem? There is NOT ONE that works. They ALL work. And they all DON’T work! Thousands of products, ALL with plenty of “success stories” they share and more “failure stories” they don’t.  Why? Because it doesn’t matter what plan you choose –it’s not the program that gets you results, it’s something else….Your mind. It’s not what product you use it’s how you do it. The critical element to any kind of success, especially weight loss, is how strong your mind is.

           

To help attain keep you motivated and achieving your goals in all facets of life, Mind Tapping is offering you a ten part series which will teach you how to use your mind to achieve your inner greatness. Through tips, tools, exercises, an interactive website, and much more, Mind Tapping will give you all the intangibles to be where you want to be come next summer, semester, relationship, etc…

 

For your free trial of Mind Tapping, go to www.tapintoyourmind.com to watch the promo and select clips from each of the ten sessions. We promise not to let you down. Enjoy!

I have to say that nothing irritates me more than when I hear people making excuses for the reason why they don’t exercise or how comfortable certain people are hiding behind ridiculous myths that are holding them back from being fitter.

The reality is that even if you have a clean and healthy diet, you need to keep fit because the human body was NOT designed to be sedentary. We were created to move and be active and this life of home-office-home-office is preventing us from keeping our bodies mobile and agile as we age.

 

I hear excuses all the time and I decided to tackle a few of those common exercise myths in the hopes that facts will prevail over fiction when it comes to fitness.

 

1) “If I lift weights, I’ll end up looking like a man!” Wow, how many times have I heard that one from women? I usually ask them if they think I look or if I am shaped like a man. They immediately say no ... that I look very toned. I usually inform them that I’ve been lifting weights three times per week for up to one hour at a time since 2000 and there is nothing remotely man-like about my body.

 

2) “Lifting weights will make my legs and arms really big” – Unless you are trying to compete for a U.S. body builder titles, this is unlikely to ever happen. If you find that you are packing on the pounds when you start lifting weights, I would seriously look at your diet because a lot of people make the mistake of eating more when they start lifting weights because they feel they are burning more calories. The idea here is to eat better and since most people overeat anyways, you really don’t need to eat more, but rather to eat differently.

 

3) “I don’t have time for fitness, I don’t know how you do it” – Everyone I know who works out on a regular base and who is passionate about fitness has the same mind set “we put fitness first and everything else falls into place”. If you are committed to your fitness, then you will find at least 30-45 minutes three to four times per week to get active.

 

4) “I hate exercising” – When I hear a statement like that one, I always figure that this person has tried all the exercises known to mankind and detests them all. Yes, I’m being very sarcastic here because people usually make these kinds of statements after going to the gym for a few sessions and feeling soar and deciding that exercise is not for them. The reality is there are so many different sports and we were not all created to be runners or skiers or swimmers. You need to explore fitness and find an exercise you love. I know a few people who spend their entire summer playing Ultimate Frisbee because they love this outdoors group fitness activity.

 

5) “I hate sweating” – This is another one of those excuses I cannot related to because nothing gives me more of a sense of accomplishment than sweating a storm when I’m on a spinning bike. This week, I started karate as an adult and during my initiation training (it was a one-one-one class with an instructor), I was sweating so much that my t-shirt was completely wet and I was quite taken aback because I didn’t expect to work that hard during an initiation class, but the sense of satisfaction that came along with that was huge. Sweating is a great sense of accomplishment for professional and semi-professional athletes and it’s such a great way to ridding your body of toxins.

 

6) “Exercise bores me” – I love this one because it usually comes from people who would rather sit in front of the television for 5 hours during the evening or spend endless hours playing computer and video games. If you find an exercise that turns you on as much as some of the other things in your life that excites you, you will never (EVER) be bored by your workout because each new workout will become a way of surpassing yourself. I can assure you that once you start going pass what you thought your body can do it will become an incredible motivator to keep pushing your body further and there is nothing boring about that!

 

Since we no longer have to hunt for our food or farm our own crops (unless you are a farmer by profession), you really need to start making fitness a priority and ditch those poor excuses keeping you trapped in an overweight body! I hope this list of myths will help you see some of the mental cues that have been holding you back and I hope this will motivate you to go out there and find an exercise you love and want to practice often for the rest of your life.

This morning while walking 5 miles (go out and exercise!)  I read an interesting article by Dr. Richard Carmona – the 17th Surgeon General of the United States who served from 2002 – 2006. His premise in this article published in the January edition of Internal Medicine News (a magazine geared towards physicians) is that in order to fix the medical system in the United States a “cultural transformation” is required. The system has scores of billing codes to pay providers to make you better once you get sick, but there are few billing codes to help providers make a living if they want to keep you healthy.  He argues “that we need a paradigm shift that moves our nation to one that embraces health and wellness through appropriate prevention strategies, and builds an infrastructure that rewards health care providers who wants to keep our citizens healthy.” Dr. Carmona points out to two earth shattering statistics in this article:

 

1.Chronic disease accounts for 75% of our healthcare costs. Smoking, for instance, is the No 1 preventable cause of death. Cigarettes are the only product legally sold that, when used as directed, will kill you over time, yet we continue to sell them.

2.9 million children are overweight or obese in the United States, some of them with diabetes or hypertension. As these youngsters get older and manifest cardiovascular disease and cancer at an earlier age, the economic burden of obesity and its effect on quality of life will be significant.

Simply, to contain costs within the healthcare system, there needs to be a shift towards health, wellness and prevention. While healthcare providers must educate the public to this effect, Americans need to take responsibility for their actions.

 

I have always – whether right or wrong - been bothered by a patient who comes into my office with a condition that he/she brought upon him or herself. While all disease is multi-factorial and a person’s predicament can never be blamed solely on one factor, an individual who is overweight and as a result hypertensive or diabetic owes it to himself/ herself to change their life and begin the process of exercising and eating better. But it goes much deeper than that – this overweight individual also owes it to society to change his/her ways.

Get out and exercise, set a goal, buy a pedometer, meet with a nutritionist, attend a weight loss class. Make it happen – you’ll feel a thousand times better and you, your family and society will thank you.

I mean it, Drink MORE water. It helps clean your system out. I tend to drink at least a gallon of water a day. Maybe more, I get really thirsty after intense workouts. I also get extremely hungry after an intense workout, but I will cover that some other time.

 

There are many benefits to drinking water. One of the benefits for me is that it helps curb my hunger. There are times when I feel hungry although I just ate 30 minutes earlier. During those times I just down some green tea and I am fine. There are times when I seriously just want to binge, but then I open the fridge and the first thing I see is a huge jug of green tea. It?s like my liquid protector.

 

Another benefit is that I don?t feel dehydrated. I sweat a lot, A LOT! Getting water into my system helps keep me hydrated ahead of time. When I was in the military the drill instructors used to say, ? If you?re thirsty, it?s already too late. You?re body is dehydrated.? They used to urge us to drink from our canteens every 15 to 20 minutes, even if we weren?t thirsty. I try, keyword here is TRY, to employ this technique but the problem with me is that my kidneys process the water really fast. I urinate a lot.

 

Having water circulate through your system helps you clean out your body and kidneys. Have you ever noticed that when you don?t drink enough water that your urine is yellow and stinky? Well, I do. I make sure to always drink enough water so that my urine is clear and odorless. Although I really dislike having to urinate so often, it is a necessary evil. :) Some people think that the more water you drink, the more you will retain. That?s the total opposite of what happens.

 

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I just had to take a water/bathroom break. I had to use the bathroom and then decided to drink some water while I was up.
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Something else I have noticed is that when I drink decent amounts of water, my skin is clearer. My pores are cleaner and more open and I have less acne and blemishes. This isn?t something I particularly care about, but some folks may see it as a welcomed side effect.

 

Drinking an adequate amount of water is good for you, but be wary of drinking too much water. There have been cases in which some people have gotten water poisoning. Sounds weird right? Well, it?s true. A few years ago a lady died from over drinking during a radio station contest. She was trying to win a video game system for her kids. She was a single parent. It is important to try and spread out your waterdrinking and to not drink too much at one time. If you do, you may be drowning your body. That?s what happened to that poor lady.

 

Did you know that the human body can only last about a week without food and water? But it can last up to a month on only water? Crazy right? Now go drink more agua.

Trust me, if goals were that easy to set and stick to there wouldn’t be a billion dollar industry selling motivational material.

Goals are essential in every aspect of your life and they are never easy to stick to. Let’s face it, life will get in the way and our well intended goals can sometimes be swept under the rug the minute we feel overwhelmed in our everyday life.

I think setting and sticking to weight loss goals might be the hardest thing there is for so many people.
I know this is going to be a short pep-talk, but I’m hoping these 5 easy ways to keep your weight loss goals on track will help you!

1) Have a clear picture of where you want to go: Using the WeightView system is the best way to see how you would look 10-20-40 or 50 lbs lighter. If you can “see it”, then you can achieve it! Make sure you print your WeightView photo and stick it on your fridge, on your bathroom mirror and inside your wardrobe!

2) Have a vision board: You might want to create a vision board of all activities and things you think you’re not doing because you’ve not yet reached your ideal weight. Maybe you are dying to do a triathlon and feel you are too overweight. Along with your WeightView photo, make sure you have the photo of someone winning a race and paste your headshot on top on the photo. It will help you believe that it IS possible!

3) Add commentaries: You’ll want to add words to those photos, so maybe you’ll want to put a date under that photo of someone winning a race with a caption that could go along these lines: “I win my first 10 km run by November 15, 20XX!”. Remember that the more emotions you put into this, the easier you’ll create a strong connection with your goals. 

4) Make sure your goals are measurable: You want to create milestones for yourself. If your intention is to enter a triathlon competition, you’ll need to enter a 5 km run, then a 10 km run, then a 20 km run and then you’ll need to run a number of marathons along with swimming and biking. You’re never going to achieve all these in one month so you’ll want to set milestones. Get a calendar out or use your scheduling system on your computer.

5)  Tell a friend: If you have big weight loss goals, why not tell a friend that can hold you accountable? You’d be surprised how much support you’ll get AND you never know ... your friend might want to join you and take part of your weight loss challenge! When you feel accountable to someone for goals that you’ve set for yourself, you’ll do your best not to let yourself down or let that person down.

Here’s to your successful goals!

Summer is a season filled with opportunities for outdoor activities, fresh air and time spent relaxing with family and friends.  It is a time to feel good about yourself and how you look and feel.  Working on maintaining a positive mood and outlook is essential to enjoying summer to its fullest.  When you get ready for a day at the beach, instead of focusing on the bathing suit and how you look in it, focus on all of the positive changes that you are making and how you are taking steps to stay healthier.  Pack a bag with some fresh fruit and vegetables and leave the chips and soda at home.  Add a frisbee and a ball and you are prepared to enjoy your time with friends and family and feel good about your body and how you are taking care of it.  Your days of summer are only as good as you let them be…focus your energy on positive change.

I cannot tell you how annoyed I get when I see people talking on their mobile while eating or worst when they are drive while talking on their mobile AND eating at the same time. The other day, I saw a woman at the bus stop talking on her mobile phone while waiting for the bus. She was holding the phone between her ear and her shoulder and she was eating a plate of pasta. I was so shocked and I thought to myself “why”?

I know that we all live in a rush-rush mode and that it’s soooooo important to squeeze every possible second in the day and make it as productive as possible, but I can assure you that eating on the run while you are doing a couple of other things will only help keep you fat or make you fat!

Most North Americans see the family sit down dinner as something that only happens during special holidays, but in Europe, it would be considered extremely rude if you didn’t sit down at the dinner table with the rest of the family to eat. By sitting down at the dinner table with your family, you not only put yourself in a situation where you are able to focus on food, but you also make enjoying food a priority.
I can spend a lot of time convincing you that I’m right, but instead, I’ll show you via these 7 points why multi tasking is making you fat or keeping those pounds on:

1) When you multi task while you eat, you cannot focus on what you eat and therefore you often have no idea how much food you’ve ingested because you are not paying attention.

2) Multi tasking while eating requires a very specific type of food. Basically, it would be quite difficult for you to walk and have a conversation on your mobile while eating a salad! You’ll need both hands to eat your salad and manage those leafy greens, while a fatty burger or a fatty hot dog it perfect for the occasion. In other words, if you multi task while eating, you usually choose poor quality foods that you can easily hold in one hand.

3) You are completely sabotaging your digestive system by eating in a hurry while accomplishing a multitude of other tasks.

4) Multi tasking while you eat leads to some really poor table matters and I believe that it also sets a “I don’t really care” attitude in your mind which in my opinion really means that you don’t care what you’re eating, you don’t care if you are chewing in someone’s ear, you don’t care about the quality of food you choose and you really don’t care what goes into your body.

5) Because multi tasking requires a type of food that is cheap and fast it also means that it’s the type of food that won’t last in your stomach too long because it’s devoid of any nutrients and that means that you might feel the need to hunt down more low quality foods a few hours after having eaten in a rush to fill your empty stomach. 

6) Because you are multi tasking while you are eating, you are preventing your brain from paying attention and that means your brain has no idea when to send that signal to your stomach that says “I’m full, stop eating” and therefore you will eat far more if you are doing a few things at a time than you would if you took a 20 minutes break to relax, sit back and enjoy your meal.

7) Multi tasking puts your body into a rush mode and that’s also reflected in the speed at which you chew your food. If you stopped to eat a proper breakfast, lunch or dinner, you’d be able to slow down how fast you chew and you’d give your body time to take in the food and you obviously would give time for your brain to recognize that it’s time to put the fork down!

The message here is clear, if you want to remain fat, keep doing 10,000 things while you are eating. If you are serious about dropping the pounds, you can immediately start by being more attentive to not doing another activity while you eat and that will help your brain recognize you are full and you’ll be able to stop eating when your body no longer requires food. You can get caught up in loads of complicated diet tricks, or you can make a simple decision that cost nothing and that requires no training to do and in a few months you’ll quickly realize that you aren’t eating as much!

I’m always so shocked at how many foods contain sugar. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d never dream of drinking unsweetened cranberry juice, but I don’t understand why in the world I need sugar in my chips?
Liking sugar to the point of addiction is becoming a growing problem because soooooooooo many foods contain unnecessary sugar.

Think about it, why should you be drinking orange juice that contains added sugar? Oranges are already super sweet! The same applies to mustard or mayonnaise that contain sugar. Why? You usually use mustard or mayonnaise in savoury dishes and not in desserts (all right I’ll admit that some cake recipes do call for mayonnaise, so if you are going to add sugar anyways why have extra sugar in your mayonnaise to start off with?).

I’ve sat jaw-dropped in front of people who’ve added five or six packet of sugar in one cup of tea or coffee and I’m always amazed that they can actually drink that sugary beverage. There is loads of sugar in proceeded foods and in fast foods and so many people are enjoying a daily fest of sugar overload without necessarily being aware of it. So I beg the question, would you know if you were actually addicted to sugar? Would you be able to tell? 

Here are 4 Obvious Signs of Sugar Addiction: 

1. You are unable to stop eating processed foods or products that contain glucose, glucose syrup, corn syrup, golden syrup, dextrose, treacle, invert sugar or maltose.

2. It’s subtle, but you tend to look more aged, especially your skin, if you eat massive amounts of sugar in your daily diet. Basically, large amounts of sugar will contribute to the deterioration of your skin AND you can start noticing this as young as 25.

3. Like other addictions, withdrawal symptoms are likely to occur such as headaches when you have not had any sugar yet. Believe it or not, you do actually develop a physical dependency to sugar.

4. And the most obvious sign is craving sweet foods both psychologically and physically.

Being someone who writes about weight loss and healthy eating for a living, I cringe when I feel the need to to use the word 'lifestyle'. It's fast becoming an over-used, over-marketed term to describe how to successfully lose weight.

 

I know this. Yet, every time I need to describe the changes that must happen for one to successfully lose, I can't fight it. The word somehow finds it way to the paper. And as I proofread my own articles I visualize all of eye rolling that will happen when it gets read.

 

Don't deny it. You've done the pre-mentioned *eye roll*. Thinking to yourself "Ugh here's that LIFESTYLE thing again." But you don't want to change. You like to go out with friends, order pizza for the family on a Friday nights, and enjoy popcorn with butter at the movies. You also loathe the gym and have no time to exercise anyway. You LIKE your lifestyle. It fits you... probably better then your jeans.

 

If that's the case yet you'd still like to drop a few pounds, I'm here to tell ya that "lifestyle" is not a dirty word. It is possible to make small changes that will soon become good habits. That's really what the whole "change your lifestyle" thing is all about.

 

Think about it. Let's use a few of the examples I gave above.

 

You like to go out with friends

This isn't going to change. You want to go out. You need to go out. Some people may approach this problem while trying to lose weight by NOT going. They remove themselves from the situation. BAD idea! The "lifestyle" approach is to continue to go out but make it work with you goals. For example, ease up on the mudslides and replace them them a light beer or vodka and diet. Split an entrée with friends. Stick with broth-y soups and ease up on the bar food. It's possible to go out and have a good time just be mindful and conscious of the decisions you are making. That's a lifestyle change.
Pizza on Friday Night

Nothing is wrong with pizza. Again some people trying to lose will skip it all together. Then when they return to Friday Pizza night they wonder why the weight starts to creep back. The lifestyle approach would be to continue with pizza night but make it work for you. Go thin crust, ease up on the meats or try your hand at making your own. There's easy whole wheat dough recipes. You can even have fun and make pizza on fun things like tortillas or English muffins! Pizza night may become even more fun for your family.

Popcorn at the movies.

This is an easy one. Simply skip the butter. Seriously, you won't miss it and you'll save yourself tons of fat and calories while still getting a popcorn fix!

No time to exercise

This is my favorite as I was also an exercise hater with no time on my hands to hit a gym. Then I realized a walk after dinner to replace 1/2 hour of TV was really not that hard. You don't have to commit to a gym or running 10 miles a week. Simple make an effort to move a little more. That's a lifestyle change you won't regret. And you never know that walk may be the first step towards a new exersice addiction like it was for me.

So next time you read that "lifestyle" word. Don't look at it like a death threat against the things you enjoy most in life. Think of it as learning how to find a compromise between what you like to do and your new commitment to living just a little bit healthier. It really is the only way to find permanent weight loss success.