Lose Weight Find Life

Give yourself a treat and enhance your shower by turning it into a spa.  To create a spa-like experience while taking your shower, put the stopper in to let water accumulate in the tub.  Add 1 or 2 drops of essential eucalyptus oil to the water.  The steam and aroma will be invigorating.

Alternatively, you can use your favorite aroma (lavender for calming) essential oil.  This is an inexpensive yet very nurturing way to give to yourself.  Enjoy!!

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach

Do NOT have weight loss surgery if:

1.  You’re looking for an easy way out.  Weight loss surgery is not an easy way out of obesity.  You are commiting to changing your life in the way you eat, level of activity, and overcoming the reasons that drive you to emotionally eat. 

2.  You aren’t willing to look at your life.  We did not become morbidly obese because we are hungry.  We have issues with food and eat for reasons other than physical hunger.  Success from weight loss surgery comes from embracing your own personal coping strategies for emotions and your life.

3.  You believe the answer to your weight and compulsive eating are finding just the right protein powder or protein shake recipe.  Weight loss surgery is not about the food.  True, immediately after you’ve had surgery it is about learning what choices to make and what works best for you and your body, and new digestion.  Once you’ve determined your food plan, the real work starts.  The real work consists in personal development and growth, along with creating a life that nurtures you without the aid and misuse of food.

4.  You don’t want to make changes in your behavior and life.  You have to change your habits to experience permanent weight loss.  You can’t expect to keep the same habits for different results.  If you want different results, you must do it differently.  If you hang on to the habits that make you heavy, you’ll stay heavy.  If you want to be successful in weight loss surgery, you need to ditch those old habits and create new healthy ones.  The healthy ones will cause you to lose weight, maintain the weight loss and not experience weight regain. 

5.  You expect the surgery to do all the work.  It won’t.  It is a great tool just as a hammer is in your toolbox.  Just as you must use the hammer, you have to use the tool of your weight loss procedure.  Weight loss surgery is not a cure.  It is a tool to restrict the amount of food you eat and, with some procedures, the types of food you can eat.  You must choose to use the tool.  Success in weight loss surgery is a choice.  A choice you make daily.

There are many journeys to weight loss success.  For me, weight loss surgery worked.  Weight loss surgery success is enhanced substantially with the use of a coach.  Coaching is a tool to increase your opportunities for post-op success.  If you’re willing to look at your life and nurture yourself and your life without the numbing escape of food, weight loss surgery is an excellent tool in overcoming morbid obesity and living your fullest life. 

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach

Just as we each have our own unique set of fingerprints, no two are alike….same with us as individuals.  There is nobody like you.  No one can be you better than you can.  That’s why it is so important to be yourself, to be true to yourself, to be somebody you can respect and value.  If you try to be someone else, there will be nobody being you.  You would rob your family, friends, even the cashier at the department store that you patronize from the real you.  Most importantly, you’d cheat yourself of being who you truly are.  Copies are meant for documents, not people!

You may have low self-esteem or be afraid to be who you are.  You believe you need to be invisible and mold yourself into what you perceive others want you to be.  It took me many years of fighting who I was and disliking the characteristics that make me who I am.  Real success in losing weight and weight maintenance is accepting who you are.  There may be things that you like less than others.  Appreciate the things that you do like about yourself.  Accept you just as you are because that is more than enough.

My very favorite quote is “This above all, to thine own self be true.” -William Shakespeare

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach

We all have the power to choose the life we want.  For every action there is a reaction.  For overeating, there are weight and health consequences; for eating healthfully, there are weight and health benefits galore. 

At any time, we can choose to change.  We all know people that have transformed their lives through the power of choice, and so can YOU!  It isn’t easy, but it is more than possible.  The potential lies within you.  All you have to do is tap into that potential, the power and make the choice.  We all know people who returned to school, started a business, that have trained and completed fitness events, who made a decision…the choice to live the life they truly wanted.  The potential is inside each of us.

Make choices that reflect the life you want.  The power is in you!

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach

As we celebrate our country’s independence tomorrow, celebrate your own.  From changing our lifestyle and our habits, we have changed our relationship with food.  Rather than being a slave and victim to food, we are now free and independent of the limitations of emotional eating.  You are free!!!  You are independent!! 

I look forward to celebrating Independence Day, our liberties, our freedom, and what it means personally to me.  I also look forward to celebrating my own personal Independence Day, my liberty from being a slave to food, my freedom from emotional eating, and what my life today means to me.  I encourage you to do the same.

Happy July 4th Independence Day.  Happy Your Own Personal Independence Day. 

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach

A good friend of mine pointed out that this year is half over!  Even though I know it is the beginning of July, half-way through the year, he reminded me to pause and reflect.  Wow, where did the time go?  It seems as though the holidays were a couple of years ago.

Thus far this year, I have achieved many of my goals.  I’m very proud and happy of some of my goals.  He also provided an opportunity to reflect on what I’ve accomplished.  He caused me to reflect on what I want to add to my accomplishments before the end of the year.  December 31st will be here before you know it.  Let’s make the rest of the year full of successes and celebrate on December 31!

What have you accomplished the first half of 2008?  What else is ahead for you to achieve?

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach

We all know that healthy habits are important and extend your life.   To have a true appreciation for the difference healthy habits make in your life, some statistics are listed below. 

Want some motivation to make changes in your life - check out the approximate number of years that you can add to your life.  By incorporating good habits that reduce risk factors that lead to coronary heart disease and premature death, you can live a longer life.  

* Avoid diabetes = 8 years
* Exercise regularly = 5-1/2 years
* Avoid hypertension = 5 years
* Don’t smoke = 3 years
* Maintain a healthy weight = 2 years

For merely incorporating a few healthy habits, you reap the rewards for many years.  

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach, Weight Loss Surgery Coach
 
(Data from the American Journal of Epidemiology)

Did you know that a motion major picture out right now is about emotional eating?  There is….it is Kung Fu Panda.  It is a very touching story that you can take at face value as a great animated film.  You will enjoy it.  Or, like me, you can be touched at the deep messages brilliantly woven into this story.  

I won’t give away too much about the movie for those of you that haven’t seen it.  I recommend it highly.  I will probably see it a few times, download it on my computer from iTunes and purchase the dvd for my sons when available.  Rather than the normal actors, it is a touching story about a loveable panda that goes through what we all do…..striving to be our best, living out our dreams rather than settle for what is expected from us, and deal with emotional eating rather than stuffing ourselves with peaches.

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach

“There’s nothing you can do about the past. But you can do a great deal about your future. You don’t have to be the same person you were yesterday. You can make changes in your life—absolutely startling changes—in a fairly short time. You can make changes you can’t even conceive of now, if you give yourself a chance.”  -Jim Rohn

Are you living in the past?  Thinking about the “what if’s” and “if only’s” in your life?  We can’t change the past but we make our today and our future by the choices we make today.  We all have regrets and wish that certain circumstances in our lives had been different.  Who we are today is a compilation of our experiences, circumstances, and choices that we made.  We did the best we could. 

Don’t beat yourself up for gaining weight or having food issues.  For whatever reason, it worked for us in the past.  However, today is ours  and we make the choice every day, every meal to do better and have more.  Compulsive overeating and food addiction was a behavior that helped us to get through.  Get through a difficult childhood, a traumatic event in our lives, or just to cope with our emotions.  Now, that behavior doesn’t work for you any longer and, frankly, you don’t need it. 

You can develop new coping strategies for emotional eating.  Turn to a trusted friend or family member, hire your own coach, see a psychologist….anyone that is devoted to you and overcome emotional overeating and develop healthy behaviors to replace emotional eating. 

Today is yours….what will you do with it?  Eat through it or live it to the fullest?

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach

WOW Moments are the things that you could or could not do before you lost weight.  Some examples are sitting in an airline seat without the necessity of an extender, wearing an item of clothing that you haven’t worn in years, or crossing your legs.  As you develop healthy habits to replace the old habits that made you heavy, you’ll have many WOW Moments.  Acknowledge and enjoy all of your WOW Moments that happen all the time.  By living now, today, you’ll be aware of all sorts of WOWs that you deserve.

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, Certified Life Coach
Weight Loss Surgery Coach