Articles
Make Way for a Healthy Body
–
A Sane Approach
Motivation
– It's an Inside Job
What's Eating You?
–
The Problem with Emotional Eating
Exercise
– How Much is Enough?
Make Way For a
Healthy Body – A Sane Approach
Losing weight and increasing your health and well-being does
not have to be difficult. What can make the process
difficult is relying on dieting methods that have failed
most people in terms of losing the weight and keeping it off
permanently. Most diet plans do not help you address
and change the ways you might use food that have led to
excess weight. Many diet plans also encourage you to
restrict calories to the point that the metabolism slows
down. This means that your body stores more calories
as fat. If too many calories are restricted you feel
hungry and deprived. This is all a set-up for diet
failure.
There is, in fact, a better way. Here are a few tips
to creating permanent changes in your health and weight:
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Keep a food journal. This will keep you more
conscious and aware about what you eat. After
looking over a week’s worth of eating, highlight foods
that are high in fat and high in sugar. You may
choose to “tweak” or adjust your intake of these foods
in the coming week. For example, if you put a
tablespoon of butter on your oatmeal every morning you
could use half a tablespoon instead. Or if you
have a sugary coffee drink on the way to work every
morning you might substitute a plain coffee with milk
every other day instead. Over time, these kinds of
adjustments add up to pounds lost and without a sense of
deprivation. The change is easily achieved and
maintained indefinitely.
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Shift your focus from a number on the weight scale to a
focus on Health. Losing 10, 20, or 50 pounds is
not achievable today. Increasing your health is
achievable every day. In fact, every healthy snack
or meal you eat makes you that much healthier.
Getting healthier can be your doorway to a slimmer body.
When you simply make small changes over time that you can
live with the changes require less effort and are easily
integrated into your daily habits and lifestyle. The
changes are more likely to be sustainable and permanent.
Losing no more than one to two pounds a week helps you avoid
intense hunger that can lead to bingeing. Hunger is
not an enemy. It is simply your body’s signal that you
need some fuel.
Lastly, keep in mind that your body weight does not define
who you are. You are an individual with talents,
personality, and positive qualities. You are someone
who has set a goal to be healthier and you are taking steps
everyday to get there.
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Motivation – It’s an Inside Job
Sometimes the most difficult part of accomplishing something
is just getting yourself to begin, to take that first step.
Plenty of people want to begin a healthy eating program or a
fitness program but lack the motivation to get started.
The fact is everyone is motivated – in some direction.
The key is to shift your motivation to a direction that is
useful and that allows you to achieve your goals.
At times, external events help shift or increase motivation
to lose weight or exercise. Being told by your
physician that you need to lose weight because you are
developing diabetes or heart problems is an example.
Aside from these outside motivators, motivation is an inside
job. Think about how you motivate yourself. Do
you motivate yourself by thinking about all the rewards
you’ll get when you reach your goal? Or do you get
yourself to do something because of the negative results of
not doing it? The first method is called “Towards
Motivation”. The second method is called “Away From
Motivation” or, as I like to call it, the “Kick in the Butt
Motivation”. This type of motivation might sound
something like this: “If I don’t lose some weight I’ll keep
looking like this. I’ll have to buy a whole new set of
big clothes.” The focus is on the negative
consequences of not losing weight. Some are able to
use this type of motivation successfully in immediate, here
and now situations such as, “If I eat that éclair I’ll just
feel bad about myself afterwards.” This can be enough
incentive to change behavior.
“Towards Motivation” tends to be more effective because it
is encouraging and positive. It also works better for
long-term goals. “Towards Motivation” gets you to
focus on what you want and why you want it. It might
sound something like this, “If I eat healthier, low-fat food
and exercise I’ll have the energy to hike with my children
and we’ll have more quality time. I’ll feel so much
better.”
If you have trouble starting that healthy eating or fitness
program here is one way to shift your focus and increase
your motivation. Think about your personal goal,
whether it is to lose weight or start a fitness program.
Make a list of all the reasons you want to reach the goal.
What will reaching the goal do for you? Perhaps you
want to have a healthier body so you can live longer and
feel better. Or maybe losing some extra weight will
increase your self-esteem. Come up with lots of
reasons, large and small.
To make accomplishing your goal more real and compelling,
create a mental movie of you enjoying all the benefits and
rewards of having your goal. Observe what you look
like and how you move with ease. Also notice what
others say to you as they notice your healthier, fit body.
Add to that all the good feelings of reaching the goal.
Go ahead. Tantalize yourself! Why wait to
experience feeling good about your goal. Imagine what
it would be like to be there now. Use this vision of
yourself regularly to maintain your motivation.
The idea is to get clear with yourself about what you want
and then build a mountain of reasons for achieving your
goal. Make it so enticing that getting there is
positive and rewarding. Be your own personal coach,
your own motivational speaker for yourself. What you
think about your goal and how you envision the process can
determine your motivation and whether you get to the goal at
all.
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What’s Eating You? – The
Problem with Emotional Eating
We all know that Americans are getting fatter. Go to
any public place and you can see this clearly. Part of
the problem is in the abundance of foods that are available
24 hours a day. As Americans we are also much more
sedentary than were previous generations. Our
consumption of high fat foods coupled with minimal physical
activity contributes to storing excess fat and unhealthy
bodies. These factors do not explain all the increase
in American’s expanding waistlines. Plenty of people
who struggle with extra weight use food for purposes other
than nutrition and fueling the body. In these cases,
it is not about the food; it is about what eating does for
the person emotionally. For some, food can help to
stuff down unpleasant feelings, fill a void of loneliness,
and provide comfort. Food can also be used to deal
with boredom and stress. For all these situations, the
food fills a need, but only temporarily. Stuffed
feelings don’t go away; they are just stuck somewhere else,
unresolved. The eating does not address the reasons
for the negative emotions in the first place. The only
thing eating truly fixes is physical hunger and the need for
nutrition.
By the way, carrying extra weight on the body can serve a
purpose as well. An extra layer of fat can give a
sense of protection, be used to punish oneself, or to avoid
intimacy, among others. Extra weight can also be used
to project an image of inner strength, like “throwing your
weight around.”
Regardless how we might use food or weight, there is a high
price to be paid in terms of weight gain, self-esteem, and
emotional health. The real issues and problems behind
our negative emotions need to be addressed and resolved.
The first step in this process is to become aware of eating
habits and patterns. Do you eat when you are not
hungry? Do you tend to eat when angry, bored,
stressed, or when experiencing some other negative emotion?
After identifying the emotions that lead to overeating,
think about what you want the food to do for you. Are
you wanting the food to bring calm in the face of stress,
bring comfort, or help you feel good? What else could
you do that could change the way you feel? Some real
solutions might include talking with someone, taking a walk,
or finding something you like to do instead of eating.
If you think about it, there are lots of alternatives to
substitute for eating when you aren’t really hungry.
The bottom line is, whenever possible, deal directly with
the source of the problem. By resolving the source of
the problem you can eliminate the need to eat in order to
change the way you feel. You will be healthier,
emotionally and physically.
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Exercise – How Much Is Enough?
Do you ever get confused about what amount of exercise is
enough for good health? Research results appear fairly
regularly in the newspaper and in magazines telling us how
much exercise is optimal. The problem is that the
research results conflict with each other. One source
says that fifteen minutes of exercise is enough while
another source concludes that at least 30 minutes of
cardiovascular exercise, 5 times a week, is required.
No wonder there is confusion. While some people simply
don’t enjoy exercise, many have so little time in their work
day that adding exercise, whether it is 15 minutes or 50, is
a major challenge. So, what is the right amount of
exercise? Given that many Americans are fairly
sedentary, even a small amount of physical activity is a
positive step. For those who are not physically fit or
active starting a fitness program that adds 30 minutes of
exercise, five times a week could seem overwhelming,
difficult to sustain over time, and possibly unhealthy.
If you aren’t fit or active the first step is to obtain a
physical from your physician. Have an understanding of
any physical limitations as well as any concerns your
physician may have.
The second step is to set a reasonable goal. The key
to increasing and maintaining physical activity is to set a
goal that you know you can attain and then build from there.
Add exercise or activity that you know you’ll follow through
with and be successful.
Pick an activity that has, at the very least, the potential
of enjoyment for you. If you choose something you
don’t enjoy you are not likely to stick with it. Some
people need the structure and participation of a formal
aerobics class, while others prefer to exercise at home
using videotapes. For some, regularly walking with the
company of a friend makes the activity more enjoyable.
Each person can motivate the other. Apart from
structured “exercise”, physical activities like dancing,
hiking, housecleaning, and yard-work count towards
increasing heart-rate and fitness.
Pay attention to how you think about exercising. Do
you imagine yourself dragging through the activity or, in
general, think about it in negative ways? What you
imagine and think can determine how you feel. Consider
referring to exercise as “Play-time” or “My time for me”.
Focusing on all the benefits to being active can help as
well. It is more motivating to know that physical activity:
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Burns calories and fat
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Increases metabolism
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Helps you cope with stress by providing an outlet
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Helps to increase muscle, giving you a stronger, leaner
look
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Allows you to breathe more deeply, increasing
circulation and a greater feeling of energy
By
being more active you are doing something positive and
healthy for your body, your health, and your self-esteem.
Whether you exercise for 15 minutes or 50 minutes, twice a
week or five times a week, what is important is to do what
you enjoy and what you’ll maintain over time.
Here’s my motto:
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Start where you are
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Do what you can
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Honor yourself – mind, body,
emotions, and spirit
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Take small steps that you can live
with
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Keep in mind your future vision for
yourself
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Enjoy the ride
Top
Sue Stevenson, Ph.D.