Monday, June 19, 2006
I received an email from someone who says she wants to loose weight. She started last year on the BFFM path, saw results and then lost motivation. She asked me how it is I keep mine. (waving Hi Pat!)
I thought about it for a while last night. How do I remain on target? Gosh, how do you lose the target at all if you are honestly focused on it? I did not aim at a vague point and just hope to get there..where ever the "there" may be.
Everyday is an opportunity to hit or miss so everyday I can set a goal to hit my target. The human mind is an amazing tool; don't underestimate the power of your thoughts. Anthony Robbins talks about the science of "becoming". Some people will tout the phrase " fake it till ya make it". It is about being in a place mentally that you lead the body where you desire it to go.
What I am trying to say is; there is no magic here. I do not posses something everyone else does not. People who make transformations of their body, or financially or spiritually, none of them hold some key that the world is not permissible to view. it is in your reach, if you reach. You have to reach.....listen to me....you have to reach..not hold up your hand and wait for it to fall into your grasp, it won't happen like that.
Some tips:
Stop the crippling mind set of “I just can’t find my mojo” There is nothing to find, I am not sure why you think it was created elsewhere for you to scoop up. You make it, you create the motivation and fortitude.
Stop setting vague goals like “I want to lose weight” Well, how much weight? How can you work with a goal like that? Lose 4 pounds on a crash diet, BANG goal achieved. Close your eyes and picture who you want to be. Imagine in great detail the body image you want to have. Is it to wear a size smaller? Lose the fat off your thighs? Perhaps it is to wear a slinky black dress to a party and attract the eyes of every eligible man in the room? How will you get to that goal? How will you BECOME that goal?
Start planning: In order to reach this specific goal I need a time frame. I need an approach I can work with and a diet which I can work with. I have mapped all that out in my blog as well.
Check progress: Make sure you are charting progress. Sometimes we lose fat but not weight. We exchange fat numbers on the scale for pounds of muscle. We think all that work was for nothing and we lose focus. Take some measurements, squeeze into some smaller pants and keep trying them on…if you apply it all you will see the changes not reflected in the scale.
Get support. It is great to be held accountable to others and not just our own thoughts. Join a support forum and post your goals, your desires, your struggles….your triumphs. You can join our growing forum at www.yourfitnessjourney.com. We are all waiting to see you!!!
Again, remember there is no magic that you can’t seem to find. You create the motivation each and every day….read again the tips… begin your journey!!!
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Putting into a clear Perspective
When you picture losing weight you picture yourself looking good and healthy, perhaps wearing a perfect pair of jeans and turning heads. You go to bed with the full mind set to wake up with the sun and begin your new diet. You feel confident in your idea and you think that this is finally the answers you were looking for. Then, as the sun peeks thru your tightly closed window shades and beams of daytime penetrate your eyelids, you grumble, roll over and hit the snooze button. You know you wanted to work out first thing yet that new fabric softener in the pillow case seems to have you in a trance.
When you finally wake up you have no time to workout at all now. In fact you are running behind and have no time to eat breakfast either. You justify it by saying you will grab something healthy on the way in. Yeah, right. On the way in are traffic jams and red lights you can’t seem to get around. By the time you arrive at the office the donuts from the break room have beckoned you and you cave in. These set off a domino effect and you fall off the diet wagon before you even touched the snooze button; before you even began!
Self sabotage is followed by self abuse and the spiral continues and you never seem to get past the gate. You beat yourself up over and over at your presumed failure and allow yourself pity to consume you. You flip the channels on the TV and see fit thin people everywhere. Some are so eye catching your self talk mutters “God I would kill to look like that!! “ You would?? Funny, from where I am sitting you are killing yourself already and you certainly don’t look like that. So, let’s put it into perspective.
Somewhere in the world a person is lying in bed right now unable to sleep. They toss and turn and replay life over and over in their minds. No, not because they are planning a new diet or failed that day to reach the diet they had planned. Think outside that mindset. Perhaps they cannot sleep because their spouse was diagnosed that day with a terminal disease, or they found out their child will be born with a severe disability. Perhaps they cannot sleep because their soul is in turmoil over something that life gives us no control over at all. Where they are, there are no choices. You cannot will death to not happen to your family and loved ones; you can’t control car accidents and traumatic events which do plague people all over the planet daily. Yet here you sit beating yourself up because you some how could not manage to wake up early?
When you see that food which beckons you, why do you allow the excuse you had no control….or even the excuse you had little control since this “ x,y,z poison” is your weakness? Stop lying, you do have control of your choice to eat it….to over eat it and to sit in your Barcalounger all evening angry at yourself for again not keeping your word to yourself. You wallow and allow yourself the self pity and self destruction to feed into your mind set. Snap the hell out of it, somewhere there is a mother grieving, or a husband dying; families are splitting up all the time left and right and you think the 4 donuts in the break room are the destruction of man kind. HELLO!??!!?
Just put it into perspective and ask yourself why you think saying no to the lasagna your Aunt Marie made is somehow far more difficult than telling your wife you have cancer. Say no thank you, grab an apple and move on from that moment. Stop acting like making the right food choices or time to work out are so mind boggling and emotionally challenging that you would rather remain over weight and out of shape. There is no grey area of torture here, it is black and white. Donut or oatmeal…..hhmm, does not seem to be so life altering when you look at it in this perspective does it??
Make your plan, choose your moments wisely and be conscious of the self talk you offer yourself as an out. Be in the moment and aware of the moments. Don’t hit the snooze and abuse yourself later…jump out of bed in a run and take life on full force! This is your time to be in control, so BE IN CONTROL!!!
~ In loving Memory~
Seamus Charles who should be turning 6 yrs old, I love you baby boy.
When you picture losing weight you picture yourself looking good and healthy, perhaps wearing a perfect pair of jeans and turning heads. You go to bed with the full mind set to wake up with the sun and begin your new diet. You feel confident in your idea and you think that this is finally the answers you were looking for. Then, as the sun peeks thru your tightly closed window shades and beams of daytime penetrate your eyelids, you grumble, roll over and hit the snooze button. You know you wanted to work out first thing yet that new fabric softener in the pillow case seems to have you in a trance.
When you finally wake up you have no time to workout at all now. In fact you are running behind and have no time to eat breakfast either. You justify it by saying you will grab something healthy on the way in. Yeah, right. On the way in are traffic jams and red lights you can’t seem to get around. By the time you arrive at the office the donuts from the break room have beckoned you and you cave in. These set off a domino effect and you fall off the diet wagon before you even touched the snooze button; before you even began!
Self sabotage is followed by self abuse and the spiral continues and you never seem to get past the gate. You beat yourself up over and over at your presumed failure and allow yourself pity to consume you. You flip the channels on the TV and see fit thin people everywhere. Some are so eye catching your self talk mutters “God I would kill to look like that!! “ You would?? Funny, from where I am sitting you are killing yourself already and you certainly don’t look like that. So, let’s put it into perspective.
Somewhere in the world a person is lying in bed right now unable to sleep. They toss and turn and replay life over and over in their minds. No, not because they are planning a new diet or failed that day to reach the diet they had planned. Think outside that mindset. Perhaps they cannot sleep because their spouse was diagnosed that day with a terminal disease, or they found out their child will be born with a severe disability. Perhaps they cannot sleep because their soul is in turmoil over something that life gives us no control over at all. Where they are, there are no choices. You cannot will death to not happen to your family and loved ones; you can’t control car accidents and traumatic events which do plague people all over the planet daily. Yet here you sit beating yourself up because you some how could not manage to wake up early?
When you see that food which beckons you, why do you allow the excuse you had no control….or even the excuse you had little control since this “ x,y,z poison” is your weakness? Stop lying, you do have control of your choice to eat it….to over eat it and to sit in your Barcalounger all evening angry at yourself for again not keeping your word to yourself. You wallow and allow yourself the self pity and self destruction to feed into your mind set. Snap the hell out of it, somewhere there is a mother grieving, or a husband dying; families are splitting up all the time left and right and you think the 4 donuts in the break room are the destruction of man kind. HELLO!??!!?
Just put it into perspective and ask yourself why you think saying no to the lasagna your Aunt Marie made is somehow far more difficult than telling your wife you have cancer. Say no thank you, grab an apple and move on from that moment. Stop acting like making the right food choices or time to work out are so mind boggling and emotionally challenging that you would rather remain over weight and out of shape. There is no grey area of torture here, it is black and white. Donut or oatmeal…..hhmm, does not seem to be so life altering when you look at it in this perspective does it??
Make your plan, choose your moments wisely and be conscious of the self talk you offer yourself as an out. Be in the moment and aware of the moments. Don’t hit the snooze and abuse yourself later…jump out of bed in a run and take life on full force! This is your time to be in control, so BE IN CONTROL!!!
~ In loving Memory~
Seamus Charles who should be turning 6 yrs old, I love you baby boy.
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