You and all your friends are invited to a FREE Healthy Habits 7-Day Challenge starting Monday, August 11, 2014! The object of this healthy challenge is to implement healthy habits, get in a little exercise and have fun doing it! Anyone and everyone is invited. We'll meet in a private group here on Facebook. The challenge will be filled with supportive people who want to be healthy, vibrant people.
The foundation of my nutrition coaching program is to work with people one-on-one to develop healthy habits that will last a lifetime. My belief is that, for some people, it can be very overwhelming to try to fix everything at once. For those folks, I highly recommend working with me one-on-one. However, for some people it can be good to take a bit more of a running start. For those people I have developed this Healthy Habits 7-Day Challenge. But, anyone is welcome - those who like to start at a crawl or those who like to hit the ground running (or anyone in between). If you're considering nutrition coaching this FREE challenge will give you an overview of my program.
Each day I will introduce the Healthy Habit of the Day that you'll be working on. Also, we will have an exercise challenge (it won't be too hard, I promise!). And there will be encouraging words throughout the day. I’ll be there to support you all the way – as will your fellow challengers!
Click the link below to join the group!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/aug2014healthyhabits/
Can't wait to have you part of the group!! It's going to be FUN!
Over the past few days we’ve been discussing the importance of consistency when it comes to meeting our health goals (or any goal). On day two we talked about input/output – what we choose to feed our brains and how it can either help or harm our efforts. Yesterday, we discussed our associations – the people we spend time with. Do we spend time with people who are on a similar journey toward health (or are already healthy) or do we hang out with people who continually drag us into an unhealthy place? Today we discuss environment.
Darren Hardy says, in “The Compound Effect”, “The dream in your heart may be bigger than the environment in which you find yourself. Sometimes you have to get out of that environment to see that dream fulfilled.” This may be where you live, the restaurants you frequent, or even the gym you attend.
That last one might shock you but let’s consider the gym for a moment. Is your gym one in which people go primarily to socialize or is it one in which people go to exercise? I’ve been in both. There is nothing wrong with socializing or making friends at the gym. Hey, I’m glad you’re going to a gym – but make sure it’s one that meets your goals. And make sure it’s an environment where you are comfortable. Sometimes this isn’t the $10/month gym – it’s the $49/month gym.
What about your house? Is this a place you can succeed with your goals? Or is it filled with junk food? Or your office desk, do you have a candy bowl on your desk? If you have the candy bowl and you’re constantly taking a little bit every day – get rid of the candy bowl. Another environment which often derails us is the restaurants we visit. If you’re always choosing the place with great BBQ and those delicious little rolls over the place that has amazing, healthy salads, you’re going to the wrong place.
So choose your environments carefully. Make the places you hang out most work for you. If where you spend your time is causing you to not meet your goals and keep you in that unhealthy, overweight, sick and tired place it’s time to change.
So today, think about the places you find yourself in. Do they help you get healthier, thinner, more vibrant or do they keep you unhealthy!
Here’s to a day filled with healthy choices!
This week we have been discussing the importance of consistency and the impact it has on meeting our weight loss goals (or any life goal). Yesterday, we discussed input/output influences and how what we allow our brains to absorb can greatly impact the choices we make. Today, we’re going to talk about what might be a tough one….who we spend our time with.
In the “The Compound Effect,” by Darren Hardy, which was the springboard for this discussion, he asks the question, “Who’s Influencing You?” His mentor, Jim Rohn, a successful “business philosopher”, teaches that we are “the combined average of the five people we hang around most.” So ask yourself a few questions: Do the people I hang out with the most embody the type of person I want to be?; Do they take care of themselves the way I should take care of myself? Do they eat the way I should be eating? Do they care about their health?
If you have truly decided to lose weight and be a healthier person and you answered no to more than one of those questions…perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate who you spend the most of your time with. I’m not suggesting you dump your friends. But I am suggesting that if you truly want to be successful with your health goals it might be necessary to choose to spend less time with them. It’s like this – if you’ve decided to drink less how easy is that going to be if you’re going out with your “party friends” every weekend (and maybe even during the week)? Or maybe you’re trying to quit smoking? Are you going to be successful if you hang out with smokers? Probably not. Their influence is going to drag you down. You’ll end up deciding to have just that one drink or that you will just not smoke and next thing you know you’ve had three. It’s the same way with any other unhealthy habits. Unhealthy people don’t influence you to be healthy – they influence you to be unhealthy.
To wrap it up – if you want to be healthy and lose weight you have to hang out people who support you and live out the healthy lifestyle that you need to be successful.
Tomorrow we’ll discuss one more influence that can either help or hinder us: environment.
Have a great day!
As I wrote yesterday, I’ve been reading a great book by Darren Hardy titled, “The Compound Effect.” Consistency is imperative to our success in becoming the healthier, more vibrant people we wish to be. We cannot go infits and spurts and find the success we want. Today, I am going to begin a discussion on the influences/choices we make that work against our meeting the goals we have laid out for ourselves.
Input/output has a huge influence on us in so many ways. I’m betting that your first reaction to reading that is “She’s going to talk about what I eat.” Believe it or not, I’m not going to discuss food in this article at all. I’m going to discuss what you put in your mind. Our mind is one of the most powerful tools we have to either reaching our goals or falling short. Not just when it comes to weight loss but with ANY goal. How we spend our time feeding our minds can have a huge impact and we need to spend our time wisely.
Celebrity magazines can be one of the worst influencers out there. Yes, they can be fun, mindless reading. The bodies in those magazines are unrealistic, photo shopped, often times unhealthy bodies. When we spend time looking at them our brain adopts a warped pattern of thinking that they are normal, average people. The message isn’t in there at a conscious level – it’s completely unconscious. Our unconscious mind is as big an enemy as our conscious minds. Spend time reading magazines that benefit you in a positive way.
Every year the average American spends over 4 hours watching television. How many of you sit and mindlessly eat in front of the television? Now think about how many commercials you watch that are food or restaurant commercials? Don’t you think they influence your choice to get up and grab some food? Even if you don’t like whatever has been peddled to you during the commercial the “food center” of your brain is flicked on. Solve this by only watching television shows that have been recorded and then blaze through those commercials not allowing them to influence your mind and cause you to mindlessly eat. Bonus tip: if you still find yourself heading for the fridge, try doing a simple exercise like plank or squats during the commercial. Keep your body busy and out of the kitchen.
What we feed our brains is so important. Don’t spend time feeding your brain in ways that just harm your efforts to a healthier life. Tomorrow I will discuss what can be one of the biggest influencer towards meeting or not meeting our goals in life – who we spend our time with. Until then, put down the magazines and limit the television commercials that negatively influence you and derail you from meeting your goals.
I’ve been reading a book, “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy, and it has had a tremendous impact on my life. It has inspired me to write a 5-day piece on consistency and dealing with those things that influence you away from your weight loss goals.
Read on….
Weight loss often comes the same way water comes from an old fashion hand-pumped water well. It takes a bit of work to get the water really flowing. We stand there and pump and pump and pump and from the surface it looks like nothing is happening. No water. But something IS happening down below the surface that we cannot see. Pressure is building and we just need to have patience; keep pumping and the water will come.
Same thing goes for our weight loss efforts. Often times we improve our diets, start getting in a little exercise and on the surface, very little happens or, worse yet, nothing happens. The scale doesn’t budge much (or at all), the clothes don’t fit any loser, and we really don’t feel any better. This is where consistency comes in, we need to keep priming the pump – because improving our health and losing weight takes time, patience and consistency. It takes slow, steady, consistent work. We need to keep at it – keep doing those new healthy habits even when those results slow (or stop!) because underneath the surface big things are happening. We just need to trust and keep going. Consistency is the key. I know I sound like a broken record, don’t I?! But I want to really get that point across. Consistency is the key. We just can’t go in fits and starts and expect to see the results we’re hoping for.
Consistency, or “Sticktuitiveness” will get you where you want to be. You just have to trust your efforts are building toward a great pay off.
Tune in tomorrow for the first tip on dealing with the influences/choices that derail us from being consistent.
See you then!
Feel free to tag a friend(s) who you think might benefit from this series in the comments below!
Weight loss can be such a mental game. We eat because we're bored. We eat because we're mad. We eat because we're sad. We eat because we're hormonal. We eat because, because, because.... Our mind and emotions are a powerful force for either good or bad, success or failure.
I just came across this quote from The Compound Effect and it made me think about weight loss:
"Our brain is always trying to align our outer world with what we're seeing and expecting in our inner world. So when you instruct your brain to look for the things you want, you will begin to see them. In fact, the object of your desire has probably always existed around you, but your mind and eyes weren't open to see it."
What do you think would happen if we chose to continually tell ourselves we are capable of being the healthy, fit individual we want to be? We adopted a thought like the little train that said, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can"? Would we start to align ourselves with that thought? Perhaps we would start doing the things that allowed us to reach that goal. We'd drink a big glass of water and walk away from that cookie. We'd walk an extra 15 minutes. We'd push a little harder getting that heavy weight up on our bench presses. We’d go to an exercise class we’ve avoiding for so long because we felt awkward or weak.
So, today, I want you to CHOOSE to start believing you CAN achieve whatever health goals you've wanted for a long time. Write your goal on a paper and stick it to your refrigerator, your computer screen, and your bathroom mirror. Find others that will support you and maybe even join in with you. Having the right mindset and pairing that with being in a supportive environment can make all the difference.
So, starting believing you can today. Adopt the mindset “I can…I WILL.” If you’re struggling to find a supportive person in your world give me a call. 925-876-5891. I’ll help you find the right mindset, show you ways you can be successful and help you achieve your goals.
Is organic really better than conventionally grown?
Short answer: Yes. Emphatically, yes.
Longer answer:
Organic food is grown without the use of chemical pesticides. Because the pesticides are systemic to the food one cannot simply wash off all the pesticides. The chemicals are systemic to the food (all throughout).
Also, a recent study from Stanford University, along with a review of over 300 other studies by European scientists, show that organic foods have 48% lower amounts of cadmium which is a toxic metal which causes cancer.
And though I could go on for much longer about the benefits of organic food, I will leave you with just one last thought. The same study I mentioned above discovered that organically grown foods have 18-69% more antioxidants than conventional foods. And why is this important? Antioxidants protect your body from damage by free radicals. And damage from free radicals can lead to chronic disease including cancer, Alzheimer, and Parkinson's.
Can't afford to go all organic? You're not alone. Try switching over a few of the "dirtiest" fruits and veggies, which have the most amount of pesticides, over to organic.
Here they are:
Apples
Strawberries
Grapes
Celery
Peaches
Spinach
Sweet bell peppers
Nectarines (imported)
Cucumbers
Cherry tomatoes
Snap peas (imported)
Potatoes
Hot Peppers
Blueberries (domestic)
Want to read more about the benefits of organic foods? Check out this article by Dr. Mercola, a well known naturopathic physician.
http://tiny.cc/wbkrjx
If you struggle to fall asleep every night, try stretching before you get in bed. Check out this article from Fitness Magazine for what stretches might help you catch some Zzzzzz's. Sleep well!
http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/workout/express/10-minute/stretches-to-help-you-sleep/
We all know we should be eating our veggies, every day, with every meal, right? Well, if you didn't know that - now you do. But, here's a little peak into the science of it.
We will take broccoli, for instance. Broccoli has compounds called isiothiocyanates. The liver has specific genes which detoxify (get rid of) cancer-causing chemicals and other toxins. BUT - and here is where it gets really cool - these genes in our liver stay DORMANT, or inactive, until we enter isiothiocyanates into the equation. Those genes in our liver, which could do a whole heck of a lot of good, won't do anything for us unless we give our liver what it needs to turn on these genes. Broccoli "turns them on".
Another example is cooked tomatoes. This one is probably a bit more familiar to you due to advertising. Cooked tomatoes have a compound called lycopene. Lycopenes switch OFF genes in the prostate that increase risk of cancer. So, if men eat more cooked tomatoes, this gene gets turned on and their risk for prostate cancer decreases. Lycopene has also been shown to protect against cervical cancer.
Moral of the story: eat your vegetables. Your health depends on it.
What if I told you the ONLY way you could change your physique, lose weight, and be healthy was to completely overhaul your life by giving up every bad habit, start exercising daily and generally do everything "right" towards your health RIGHT NOW. No ramping up, no easing in - you just have to do it now. What would you say to this? You'd probably tell me I was crazy, right? No way, no how, you couldn't do it.
But isn't this the way most of us approach our health? We turn over a new leaf? We make a New Year's Resolution? We start that new diet program which restricts us from everything we love? And we try this for about 5 days (if we're lucky) and then we give up because it's just too dang hard. If anyone else in our world tried to overhaul every habit overnight we would think THEY were crazy. But, we will try to do it overnight.
So why do we do this to ourselves? I think it’s because we've been frustrated with our weight or lack of energy for years now and we're just tired of it. We just want results and we want them NOW. We want to feel better and we want to be skinnier and we want it all yesterday.
But we all know life doesn't work this way. Results take time. But, getting them really doesn't have to be as painful and arduous as an overnight, dump every bad habit process. You can change your life one step at a time.
When I work with clients, in either improving their fitness level or overall health, I take them one step, one habit at a time. Together we find one thing they can work on (something small but with a lot of payback) and focus on just one habit. Every day the only thing they try to change is one behavior. Sometimes it's a bad habit we replace with a good habit and sometimes it's simply starting a brand new one. Whatever it is, it's a small, sustainable change that will reap them big rewards in the long run (or even the short run). The next week, if they have been successful, and they usually have, they work on another habit. Remember it was a small change. Over time my clients change many habits and find themselves dramatically healthier, fitter and thinner.
So next time you’re thinking about working on your fitness, health, weight loss or any other aspect of your life try just choosing one habit you want to change and focus on just that one habit until you have it down. You’ll find that it’s much easier to find success in one habit rather than trying to do it all at once.
Need helping finding those habits? Give me a call. (925) 876-5891. I work with nutrition clients anywhere in the country. I’d love to be a part of your journey towards a healthier, happier, more vibrant life.
Having a cheat meal every once in a while is fine. But most of the time you should be asking yourself....
I find it very hard to consume an adequate amount of vegetables when my life is very busy. Being a full-time mom who is starting her own business and studying for a certification all at the same time makes my life feel a tad chaotic some days. In order to maintain my healthy eating habits I need to use a few strategies. This is especially true when it comes to veggie consumption.
I have two main strategies to make sure I keep eating enough vegetables. The first is blending vegetables in my protein shakes. I started this practice a number of years ago. At first the only thing I added in my shakes was spinach. And trust me when I say it really doesn't add much flavor. Cucumber can also be added without too much flavor. When I first started adding veggies I used a Magic Bullet. And it worked just fine for the easily blended spinach or other greens. Today, however, I add a lot of stuff to my shakes and my palate has adjusted to all the flavor "boosts". In fact, I CRAVE these shakes. I add all sorts of greens including kale, spinach, collards, and chard. I add small bits of beet, celery, cucumber, and carrots. Today I have a Vitamix and it was one of the best investments that I have ever made. Every smoothie is SMOOTH. (By the way, be sure to add fat into your smoothies. It has a lot of health benefits but the purpose here is for your body to absorb those antioxidants in the veggies (and fruit) more easily.)
My second strategy for increased/adequate veggie consumption is chopping up a huge batch of salad veggies and eating at least one salad every day. Today I chopped up cabbage, carrots, red bell pepper, cucumber, and celery. I've chopped enough for about 5 days. It doesn't take that much time to chop the vegetables. You can spend 30-45 minutes (depending on your knife skills) and you've got an easy meal for almost a week. I add avocado or nuts and a homemade salad dressing and I'm ready. Sometimes I also add precooked chicken strips that I get at Costco or some other protein. (True Story organic roasted chicken breast is delicious. And quick!)
Eating healthily does not have to be hard or laborious. Just find a few strategies that help you easily consume healthy foods. Veggie Up!
Struggling to get good sleep? I have struggled with sleep for many years and oh how it has reeked havoc on my life.
I've been working on going to bed as close to the same time each night as possible. I no longer allow myself to watch that extra show, read that extra chapter or put off going to bed in any other way. After putting this into practice my brain and body started to signal me that it's time to go to bed around 10pm. I get very sleepy (sometimes suddenly) and am able to fall asleep a lot faster and sleep through the night better (provided I pay attention to that sleepy signal and hit the sack). I also try to get up around the same time each morning.
So, try this: go to bed at the same time each night. For many reasons I won't go into here, 10pm is a good time to get some shut eye. I will note that getting up at the same time each day is also important but for now just work on going to bed at the same time each night and see how that goes. My bet is that you will begin to see positive patterns in your sleep by the end of the two weeks.
Sleep is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves. Make it a priority.
