Lose Weight Find Life

Is losing weight a hobby, part-time or a full-time commitment to you?  Is losing weight for you a wish without any action?

Yes, I’m questioning your commitment just as I question my own.  I question and check in with myself daily as to the level of my commitment to losing weight, maintaining my weight, and the choices I need to make.  Sometimes we talk the talk but we treat it as though we wished we could lose weight.  A wish is when you throw a penny into a fountain, shut your eyes and make a wish.  Talking and wishing are fun but they generally don’t produce results.  Action is what will produce results that you want.

Are your weight loss efforts a hobby?  Hobbies are fun and nice but we usually put them away until we have the time and motivation to do them.  We think about them, wish we had more time to devote to our hobby, and it is nice to know that hobby is there for us.  I love to scrapbook.  I love photography so it makes sense that I would love to scrapbook.  It is one of my favorite hobbies.  However, I don’t have a lot of time to spend scrapbooking.  Other friends that I have scrapbook many days each week.  I have boxes of photos, even more boxes of scrapbooking supplies, and great interest and intentions to make meaningful scrapbooks for my family and their families.  However, right now, not much action going on there so they sit in boxes.

Are your weight loss efforts the same as my scrapbooking?  You know you want to do it, you need to do it, and it is out there in your thoughts.  You’ll get to your weight loss efforts when you have the time and motivation to do it.  Are your weight loss goals in boxes the same way as my scrapbooking boxes?!  Meanwhile, a hobby remains a hobby that doesn’t demand your attention, focus or action.

Have you stepped up your weight loss efforts to a half-time role?  When convenient, you most of the time make choices to lose weight.  If you wake up in a bad mood, or the day unfolds not going your way, do you stay on track?  Do you eat to take the edge off your bad mood and lessen the emotion from having a difficult day?  Another scenario is that you are making healthy choices, losing weight, and exercising regularly and something comes up.  A friend invites you to buffet lunch or you’re at a meeting and everyone is eating donuts so you indulge as well.  You have plans to exercise and a better offer is made by a friend asking you to go for coffee after work.  You blow off the exercise and hang out with your friend as this is a habit that you’ve been doing when the opportunity arises.

If any of the above sound familiar, then you might be a half-time or part-timer in your weight loss goals.  When it works out, you’ll following your dietary and exercise routine.  However, if something else comes along (similar to a slight breeze in the air), you’ll indulge and blow off your efforts to lose weight.  Are you half committed or part committed?  If so, you’re going to achieve the same level of results.  What you put out is what you get back.

Of course, the ultimate success is when you are committed full-time to your weight loss goals and rarely get derailed.  Sure, you aren’t perfect but more times than not, you don’t veer off your course from being on track.  You operate on the mindset that there are no outer circumstances that can pull you off course to reach your goals.  You remain true to yourself and your commitment to lose weight and become healthy.

If you are frustrated or disappointed with your progress in losing weight, ask yourself if you are approaching it at the level of a hobby, half time or part time when it works out and is convenient, or are you full on committed full-time, more times than not dedicated to making your weight loss goals a reality?  Check your level of commitment regularly even daily.  Being aware of your approach in losing weight is important.  You can’t live your weight loss dreams as a hobby and expect to reach your goal weight.  If you want weight loss success, become a full-time participant in your goals.

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, CLC
Certified Life Coach, Weight Loss Surgery Coach
Certified Back On Track Facilitator

The New York Times published an article recently about the science behind exercise music.  The music that a casual stroll walking at 3 mph should listen to music between 115 and 118 beats per minute.  A power walker at 4.5 mph should listen to music between 137 and 139 beats per minute.  Interestingly, if you’re a rock fan, most rock songs don’t keep up with the tempo consistently for workout purposes.  Dance music is what is optimum.  A survey recently done by exercise walkers indicated their favorite song is the theme song to the movie Rocky!

How much do you walk per day?  How much activity do you get in compared to your television watching time?  Assess how far you walk in a day.  Also, on the same day, record how long you sit in a day.

Some of us can’t help how little we walk! The workplace has become so modernized that we rarely need to leave the hub that it our desk. Between the phone, e-mail, and inter-office mail deliveries, there’s not much walking going on in a typical day.  Want to know more exactly about your activity?  You can purchase a pedometer.  They are fun.  The optimum level of activity is 10,000 steps per day.  Keep track of your steps and compete with yourself to increase your steps each day or week.

Find ways to walk more by using simple tricks like parking further away or try to use the stairs all day at work (if you work on the 15th floor perhaps you could get off the elevator 2-3 floors early and walk up). Take breaks and walk around your office, walk over to a co-worker instead of sending an e-mail. Even if you take fifteen minuets of your lunch break to walk around the block you will be increasing your daily activity.  Every little bit helps.

A sedentary lifestyle is characterized by a lot of sitting or remaining inactive for most of the day (for example, in an office), with little or no exercise. It is believed to be a factor in obesity, and, as such, may contribute to other diseases, such as type II diabetes, heart disease, depression and even hemorrhoids. Lack of exercise causes muscle atrophy, i.e. shrinking and weakening of the muscles, which in turn increases susceptibility to physical injury.

People whine they don’t have time. But little things can add up. If you take a bus or train, get off early and walk a little, if the weather is nice. While watching TV, work out a little - or at least stretch. Do something in your a yard. Dance in your house! Maybe while doing the dusting, dance and move to some music while cleaning. Walk around the house while talking on the phone. Almost everyone has a cordless phone these days. Do you sit or multi-task while on the phone??

There are lots of little things you can do when you think about it. Over a period of time they will get you into the habit of choosing an active alternative to the every day things you do. And it can add up!
Staying at home watching your favorite TV show can be real disaster for your appearance - it is widely known. According to some studies one hour spent in front of TV will give you extra 200 calories, that could be burned. For an year this means about 10-12 extra pounds! This is a lot of extra weight!

For me, I have a small television in front of my treadmill.  As I walk on my treadmill, I turn the television on to closed captioning so I can read what is being said.  I also wear an iPod so I have double distractions!  Also, get up (no remote) and turn off the television.  Take a walk with your family for quality time.  Do an activity together as a family.

Exercise is a mindset.  Make it a way of life where you miss it if you don’t do it.  Activity equals weight loss and maintenance.  Exercise and activity are a way of life - a healthy, fit, and ideal weight life.

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, CLC
Certified Life Coach, Weight Loss Surgery Coach
Certified Back On Track Facilitator

What do you fear?  How real are those fears?  The most common fears are the fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, the fear of change and, surprisingly, the fear of success.

As real as these fears may seem, most of them are only imaginary and beliefs that you’ve created for yourself.   I like to refer to these scenarios as our stories. We have an amazing ability to make up stories and assumptions, and then to believe them as our reality and fabricate some F.E.A.R.: False Events Appearing Real.

Your mind, as wonderful as it is, has great difficulty in discerning between what’s real and what’s made up or imagined as a story. Your mind tends to perceive all your stories and imaginings as being real.  As children, we picked up adults and even other childrens’ beliefs, opinions, agendas for us and made them our experience and reality.  We carry those into our adulthood as our reality, who and what we are.  We don’t re-evaluate them and see if they truly fit us as we are today and even back then.

The primary functions of your mind are protection and survival.  Because of this, if your mind perceives a threat, it activates the fight or flight mechanism which prepares your body to go into battle or to flee. When you then feel the rush of the adrenaline flow through your body (triggered by the activation of this fight or flight mechanism), this just validates your perceived “story”: There must indeed be some threat. Often you end up pumped up and keyed up for no true reason because the threat was not real after all. This reaction—adrenaline and the fight or flight mechanism—also takes a huge toll on your body and your health. Prolonged exposure to excessive ongoing adrenaline releases will eventually tear down your immune system.

Whether or not you are aware of it, you will tend to believe your stories to be true. It then becomes easy to build one false story upon another. From there, you risk constructing an entire fear-based belief system and way of life—a life that’s very limiting and restrictive and founded on a couple of made-up rear-based stories.

But there is hope and another choice…F.E.A.R.: Face Everything And Rejoice.   This FEAR is important in combating and overcoming emotional overeating.

When you face your fears and confront them rather than letting your emotions and assumptions run wild in your mind, you’ll find much of what you used to fear was not nearly as threatening as you once believed it was. You can begin to dispel the stories and assumptions, and you’ll get freedom from all this old fear. The primary difference of Face Everything and Rejoice will change you from the inside out and allow you to feel less like a victim and more in control of your life and eating.  It is the realization that your old limiting beliefs are not based in your true reality and not who you are.

Moving from the destructive, limiting, mindless and highly reactive F.E.A.R. to the hopeful, mindful and more responsive F.E.A.R, and separating false fear from fact, is as simple as asking yourself two simple questions:

“Is it true?” and “Where’s the proof?”

When you begin to really look at, examine, and evaluate situations clearly, you’ll often find your initial reaction may have been more intense, emotionally-based and irrational (a story) than actual reality.  The key is to finding the pause and evaluating from a calm stance within yourself so you don’t turn to food.

Three other great questions to ask yourself when you start to feel fear are, “And then what?”, “What is the worst that could happen?” and “Can I handle that?” Ask and answer these questions and you’ll allow yourself to see things more clearly, which allows you to create a more grounded response that doesn’t include food. This response will allow you to make a choice which is always more empowering, rather than from some old, out-dated unconscious conditioning. The effect of this process is less head hunger and emotional eating.

When you respond this way, you’ll discover you can, and will, act in a much more adaptable manner. In other words, you’ll handle these situations by overriding the fight or flight mode, and create the intention for yourself that everything will be okay.

There is one affirming phrase I’d like to recommend to you above all the others:

I can handle this!  There’s nothing I can’t handle.

When you’re able to say this to yourself as a self-intervention (even if you don’t fully believe it), your mind starts to accept it. Remember, your mind may perceive some things as real whether or not they are. So, just as your mind accepts the negative, false fear-based stories it makes up as “real”, it will also tend to believe, even before you actually feel it to be true, the self-reassurance and confidence you instill merely because you think it and say it to yourself.

You might as well use this dynamic to your benefit and to your advantage. Once you’ve begun to formulate a different and more positive response, you may finally fully realize there is no threat at all.

You have a choice: The old F.E.A.R. or the new F.E.A.R. I know which one you desire and deserve, and I support you in creating a life of freedom through positive empowering responsiveness and self-intervention.

It is time you choose to rejoice!

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, CLC
Certified Life Coach, Weight Loss Surgery Coach
Certified Back On Track Facilitator

Do the stresses and problems that come up sometimes get to you?  I know they do for me sometimes.  As much as we would like to have problem-free lives, everyone experiences crises that test their coping skills. Many people turn to food in times of stress because it can provide a temporary distraction, replenish energy and induce a feeling of calm.  Unfortunately, eating in response to crisis usually results in weight gain, which creates its own cycle of depression and anxiety.  I know I’m not telling any of you anything you don’t already know. 

Because stress is often a common precursor to overeating it’s important to become a good healthy crisis manager.  Instead of having the label of  “I’m a STRESS EATER or I’m an EMOTIONAL OVEREATER”  How powerful would it be to create the label, “I’m a stress exerciser”  or “I”m an Emotional OverExerciser”  Yeah,  I know it’s a stretch, but I can tell you I’m slowly becoming a crisis EXERCISER.  Having to deal with my previous challenges these past couple of years I made a decision to keep an “emergency” pair of tennis shoes in my trunk and I’ve CHOSEN to use those emergency pair of tennis shoes on many occasion due to extreme stress and crisis.

So, where I used to pull into the nearest drive-through for some comfort foods, walk through the local convenience store for a smorgasbord of snacky, junk foods, now the lacing up of my shoes is slowly becoming a better comfort than ANY food ever could.

Success from weight loss surgery obviously happens as a result of our tool of the surgery.  However the real success happens in our choices - one choice at a time.  We choose to use our tool of the surgery.  Choose it as your partner in losing weight, maintaining your weight, and finding all the wonder of living your best life in fulfilling your goals and dreams.

Progress and CHANGE can happen.  One choice at a time!

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, CLC
Certified Life Coach, Weight Loss Surgery Coach
Back On Track Facilitator

I’m fat. I’m too skinny. I’d be happy if I were taller, shorter, had curly hair, straight hair, a smaller nose, bigger muscles, longer legs.

Do any of these statements sound familiar? Are you used to putting yourself down? If so, you’re not alone. As a weight loss surgery patient, you’re going through a ton of changes in your body. And as your body changes, so does your image of yourself. Lots of people have trouble adjusting, and this can affect their self-esteem.

Why Are Self-Esteem and Body Image Important?

Self-esteem is all about how much people value themselves, the pride they feel in themselves, and how worthwhile they feel. Self-esteem is the opinion and reputation you have of yourself. Self-esteem is important because feeling good about yourself can affect how you act. A person who has high self-esteem will make healthy choices in their food, fitness, and life in general, is more in control of his or her behavior, and will enjoy life more.

Body image is how a person feels about his or her own physical appearance. For many people, body image can be closely linked to self-esteem.

What Influences a Person’s Self-Esteem?

Transition from Overweight/Morbidly Obese to Losing Weight

Some of us struggle with self-esteem because after losing weight, the body goes through many changes. These changes, combined with a natural desire to feel accepted, mean it can be tempting for us to compare ourselves to others. We may compare ourselves to the people around us or to actors and celebs we see on TV, in movies, or in magazines. But it’s impossible to compare ourselves to others because the changes that come with losing weight are different for everyone.

Outside Influences

Family life can sometimes influence a person’s self-esteem. Some parents spend more time criticizing their children and the way they look than praising them. We carry this forward into our adulthood. This criticism may reduce a person’s ability to develop good self-esteem.

People may also experience negative comments about the way they look from others. Sometimes, by losing weight, it can threaten others’ image and role in the relationship with us.

Healthy Self-Esteem

If you have a positive body image, you probably like and accept yourself the way you are. This healthy attitude allows you to explore other aspects of your life, achieving your goals and reaching your dreams. Challenge yourself physically and mentally because developing these parts of yourself can help boost your self-esteem.

A positive, optimistic attitude can help people develop strong self-esteem. For example, saying, “Hey, I’m human,” instead of “Wow, I’m such a loser,” when you’ve made a mistake. Or not blaming others when things don’t go as expected.

Knowing what makes you happy and how to meet your goals can help you feel capable, strong, and in control of your life. A positive attitude and a healthy lifestyle (such as exercising and eating right) are a great combination for building good self-esteem.

Tips for Improving Your Body Image

Some people think they need to change how they look or act to feel good about themselves. But actually all you need to do is change the way you see your body and how you think about yourself.

The first thing to do is recognize that your body is your own, no matter what shape, size, or color it comes in. But it is no one’s business but your own what your body is like — ultimately, you have to be happy with yourself.

Next, identify which aspects of your appearance you can realistically change and which you can’t. Everyone (even the most perfect-seeming celebrities) have things about themselves that they can’t change and need to accept — like their height, for example, or their shoe size.

If there are things about yourself that you want to change and can (such as how fit you are), do this by making goals for yourself. For example, if you want to get fit, make a plan to exercise every day and eat nutritious foods. Then keep track of your progress until you reach your goal. Meeting a challenge you set for yourself is a fantastic way to boost self-esteem!

When you hear negative comments coming from within yourself, tell yourself to stop. Try building your self-esteem by giving yourself three compliments every day. While you’re at it, every evening list three things in your day that you feel good about and gave you pleasure. It can be anything from the way the sun felt on your face, the sound of your favorite band, or the way someone laughed at your jokes. By focusing on the good things you do and the positive aspects of your life, you can change how you feel about yourself.

As you fill your life with healthy self-esteem, your body image will adjust too. When your life is filled with positive things that you enjoy, bring you joy and are passionate about, you no longer will need to turn to emotional eating to fill that void in your life.

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, CLC
Certified Life Coach, Weight Loss Surgery Coach
Back on Track Facilitator