Eleven Holiday WeightLoss Tips

1. Alcohol: Having alcoholic drinks before your meal often lead to overeating as well as "empty calories".
2. Who Are Your Friends? Identify eating companions who trigger you to overeat or emotionally eat. It may require you to find other social activities with these companions rather than sharing a meal. Ask them to join you shopping, hiking or seeing a holiday show.
3. Be Strong: Assertive behavior may be necessary with people who want you to eat for their sake or because "I made it just for you", "It's only a little piece" or "How often do you get to eat this food"? They may act offended, but remember it's your body and you are in charge. If nothing else works just tell them you are allergic to it!
4. Visualize: Before going out to a meal or a party, imagine yourself only eating what you determine is best and not being tempted by things that you shouldn't eat. If you will be going to a restaurant, practice in advance asking for a doggie-bag and taking half home. Seeing yourself doing this before hand will make the action easier. You then can enjoy the meal twice by having the leftovers again the next day!
5. Split it: When your food first arrives at the table, divide it in half. Make a conscious decision that after you eat half the food you will re-evaluate how you feel, wait five minutes and then decide if you want anymore.
6. Slow Down: If you slow down you will eat less because you will actually begin to notice you are full. Just stop and wait 1/2 a minute between bites.
7. Clear It Away: Have the waiter clear your plate as soon as you know you are through eating.
8. Think Thin: Visualize what a naturally thin person would do before you go to a restaurant, family gathering or party. Imagine yourself behaving in that way, such as socializing rather than eating, drinking club soda or a "lighter" choice cocktail, or helping make sure other people are having fun, rather than sitting in a comfy chair and devouring a full plate of food! When you re-program your brain as if you already think and act like a thin person, your body will follow.
9. Be Choosy: At holidays, weddings, parties and other social gatherings once you see what is on the buffet table, decide to choose five things you really like and eat only those. Prior to going out for the evening, remind yourself you will do this so you don't succumb to all the temptations!
10. Be A Friend: Notice how good it feels to go out with your friends and family and focus on the conversation and companionship as the main event, rather that the eating.
11. Lighten Up: If you know you will be at a party that evening, choose light, small, choices throughout the day. BUT- don't skip meals or you will be ravenous and have low will power when you get to the event.
If you apply these eleven tips this holiday season, you will leave your parties feeling light and energetic instead of stuffed full of food. You will start the New Year off from a position of power rather than from a place of weakness!
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http://www.diamondwellness.com

The Most Under-Rated Aspect of Weightloss

by: Kim Beardsmore
If I were asked, "what is the most difficult thing many people find to do when they start a weight-loss program?", I would have to say right near the top of the list is this - they don't drink enough water!
Few people realise at first just how essential water is to the success of their weight-loss program. In fact, the essential place of water in our diet extends to everyone - whether they want to lose weight, gain weight or stay the same weight! We all know we can't live without water, but just why is it so important? Well there are many reasons. Read on and discover why water can help your loss weight and why it is your essential life-force.
Apart from 60-70% of your body being composed of water, water has an extensive range of functions essential to life.
Assists digestion, absorption and assimilation of food. If you don't drink enough water you can't get the full benefit of nutrients in the food you eat.
Assists excretion of waste from bowel and kidneys. If you don't drink enough water you get constipated and put your kidneys under stress.
Regulates body temperature. If you don't drink enough water you compromise the evaporation process you skin uses to keep you cool.
Your blood is 92% water. This is your body's transport system distributing nutrients around the body.
Body secretions and digestive juices are almost entirely water.
Why should you drink water when you want to lose weight?
Water is a natural appetite suppressant . Do NOT underestimate the power of this statement. Lack of water can lead to over eating. You brain does not differentiate between hunger and thirst. So, when you think you are feeling hungry, your body may in fact be signalling to you that you are thirsty! If you are not consuming enough water each day and you feel hunger pains, chances are, your body really is crying out for water. In many instances people will find what they thought were hunger pangs were in fact, satisfied by water. Try it! You have nothing to lose, except some weight.
How do you know whether you are drinking enough water each day? Well the answer is not difficult. The average person needs around 6-8 large glasses every day.
Well then, how should you drink the 6-8 glasses per day? The aim is to drink water consistently. If you drink too much all at once or too fast, it will simply pass through you, with little or no benefit to your body.
If you are someone who enjoys the 'taste' of water, then perhaps you could fill a 1 litre empty soft drink container with water the drink through it twice during the day. Room temperature or cold water, even warm as some people like - whatever you prefer. Place it on the desk at work in front of you as a constant reminder to sip continuously throughout the day.
Other people find they need a water 'diet' to help them keep on track. So for you, here is a program easily followed to ensure you are well hydrated every single day.
When you wake up you will often be thirsty because your body loses water while you are sleeping through breathing and perspiration. Drink a large glass of water with a slice of lemon for zing.
Drink another glass of water with breakfast or a cup of herbal tea before setting off the day.
Mid morning - snack on a piece of juicy fruit such as orange, rockmelon, watermelon, cantaloupe, honey dew. Have a glass of water and perhaps try a dash of herbal aloe juice which is wonderfully soothing to the digestive system.
Lunch - think of soup or have a glass of water before your meal, or perhaps a herbal tea.
Mid afternoon - While you are preparing your evening meal, drink a glass of water and snack on some crunchy fresh vegetables.
Evening - Sip a glass of water before your meal with a dash of your favourite fruit juice for flavour.
After dinner - before bedtime drink your final glass of water and sleep well!
A few changes will happen when you start out with your water program. Obviously you may find that you need to 'spend a penny' more often. Why? Because you body isn't used to being well hydrated.
There is absolutely is no doubt about it. When you start drinking enough water regularly, there are great benefits. You may notice your skin significantly improve and even tired muscles will thank you. Many people find their energy is increased and constipation and headaches are reduced, as well as hunger pains.
Now here's the really exciting part…many people notice a reduction in weight and centimetres, as their body's water store become redundant and so decrease. If your diet has been one that did not provide you with adequate water, your body will have developed a pattern of storing water. It's part of the body's in-built survival mechanism - to store up the essential nutrients in short supply…just in case they aren't available in the future. So if you don't drink enough water, you are 'conditioning' your body to store water. And water is bulk and unwanted centimetres.
It's so simple...drink water! 6-8 large glasses a day.
How do you know if you are not getting enough water each day? This is a really important question because so many of us have deprived ourselves of water for years that we have become accustomed to doing without the full amount of water our body requires and we don't recognise the symptoms of thirst.
The most common symptom is headaches. A major function of water is to flush toxins from the body. Your brain is 75% water, so even being slightly dehydrated can cause headaches.
Poor concentration/fatigue. If you body can't get rid of the toxins it will struggle and you will feel less energetic as your body diverts energy to deal with the toxins.
Constipation. Your body will divert water to more essential functions and as a result your stools will be harder and more difficult to expel.
Reduced urine output or dark urine. Did you know that up to 200 litres of water is passed through your kidneys daily? Without a fresh supply of water for the kidneys to filter waste products out of the blood, your urine will become darker.
Furry tongue or bad breath. If you don't have enough water passing through the mouth to wash away food particles, bacteria can proliferate and result in that 'furry' feeling or bad breath.
Skin. Your skin should feel elastic. When you pinch the skin on the back of your hand it should snap back instantly.
Final thoughts. Caffeinated drinks cause the body to lose water. They are what's known as diuretics as they cause your body to dehydrate. You will do your body an enormous favour by cutting back. For every cup of coffee you drink you will need to drink another TWO glasses of water to counter the diuretic effect. Explore the world of herbal teas instead, you may be pleasantly surprised!
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Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety as long as you leave all links in place, please do not modify the content and include the author resource box as listed.
About The Author
Kim Beardsmore, B.Sc, MBA is a successful weight loss consultant. To see what you can do today to take control of your weight, visit her website at http://leanmachine.org/?refid=articlecity-23425


This article was posted on June 10, 2004

Weightloss Plan

by: Julie Hart

With so many diet and exercise programs out there it can be difficult to decide on the best weightloss plan to use. Choosing a weight reduction program is no easy task but you can make a reasonable selection if you consider your goals and your lifestyle before jumping into what you may think is the best weight loss plan for you. First of all you need to consider the core of your weight problem. Do you want to drop ten or twenty pounds? Are you fighting a life-long obesity problem? Is your weight associated with a recent pregnancy? Does depression or mood adversely affect your weight? In order to find the best weightloss program, it is crucial that you consider the source of your problem. Depression is a serious matter. Rather than trying to find the best weightloss strategies to use a person who is depressed is better suited to research his mood condition. This individual may find that once the depression is treated, the pounds melt away. Treating the depression itself is often the best weightloss plan available. A person who wants to drop some vanity pounds after giving birth would want to take a very different approach than someone who needs to lose a lot of weight that she has been carrying around for years and years. The best weightlosss program for one person may not be the best for another. The new mom could benefit from taking on a trendy six-week fat burning exercise program while the lifelong obese problem will need medical intervention. Speaking of medical intervention, make sure that you talk to your doctor about the best weightloss program for you. You can save a lot of time and effort by simply asking your physician about which program would be best for you. Your doctor can help you start off in the right direction. You doctor can also suggest whether you should start and exercise program. The best weightloss strategy for many individuals is to simply start a reasonable exercise routine. You may find that you don’t really need to diet as long as you increase your activity. Others would not benefit from the exercise approach. Some people are not healthy enough to engage in many exercise routines while others can injure themselves if they engage in rigorous activity. It is always a good idea to talk to your doctor about the best weightloss program for your needs and lifestyle.

About The Author
Julie Hart is a freelance writer and a regular contributer to Diet and Weight Loss at http://www.diet.ie. Her most recent article is on Weightloss Plan


This article was posted on September 13, 2006

Exercise For Weight Loss

By: Gabriel Adams
Proper, health exercise is an important part of any weight loss program. Do remember to consult your physician before starting an exercise program. You don't want to hurt yourself!Ideally, an exercise program will not only help you lose weight, but will help you build muscle and stamina. You also want to design a exercise program that is balanced and exercises each part of your body.Of course, if you are a member at your local gym, all you have to do is go to your gym, where you can easily do a complete body workout with just a few machines.If you don't have access to a gym, or you're like me and prefer to work out other ways, you'll want other exercise options.BikingBiking is an excellent exercise for losing weight, especially if you are not in good shape to start with. If you choose a relatively flat route and start out with short distances, you can start out very easily and work up to more strenuous rides. Be sure, though, that you are properly outfitted with an appropriate bike and equipment – visit your local bike shop for help and advice.SwimmingSwimming is another excellent exercise for losing weight. It is not hard on the body, but provides an excellent workout. Especially if you are a novice at swimming, you should swim in a pool with a lifeguard. If you don't know how to swim, check your yellow pages or ask around – you can get swimming lessons pretty cheaply most places.RunningRunning is a great way to lose weight and get in shape, but it is harder on your body than swimming or biking. If you need to lose weight, you should probably start out with one of the other exercises until you get into better shape. Keep in mind that running and biking both work the legs, but they do work different primary muscles.Don't wait – start and exercise program today to lose weight!
Article Source: http://www.thatarticleguy.com/articles
Visit the weight loss forum, a friendly online community for all matters related to weight loss.

How To Get Rid Of Love Handles With A Weight Loss Exercise Program

By: Steve Gee
Regular exercise is how to get rid of love handlesThe phrase "girl with love handles" is such a lovely description of a woman and I imagine someone with a nice shapely figure that has all the curves in all the right places. They would be a warm and cuddly person and it doesn't take too much imagination to see the reason why those extra folds of skin around the waistline are called love handles.But not everyone finds love handles that attractive and they do have a habit or turning very ugly if they are left to grow unhindered. They're also excess weight that isn't good for your overall health whichever sex you are. Yes men do get love handles too and frankly they are a lot less attractive on men than they are on women. So lets have a look at the best way to lose love handles.Just what is love handle fat?Before you start on a plan to eliminate love handles you need to understand what they are made of. Quite simply, they're fat, fat that your body has produced and stored as a result of eating more calories than you burn off with exercise. Love handle fat, and fat elsewhere in your body is how your body stores energy until it's needed. Your store of fat is a primitive mechanism that allowed your ancestors to survive when they might only have been fortunate enough to find food once every few days. The excess energy intake from a rare feast would be converted and stored as fat in the body then converted back into energy gradually until the next meal could be found.Unfortunately evolution hasn't kept pace with technology and your body still has this survival feature. Today you will eat meals at the very least once or twice a day and often much more frequent than this. Your primitive instinct of eating as much as you can whenever you can together with the opportunity you now have to eat as often as you like has given you a challenge to keep your body in shape. Your love handles are part of your store of energy. It just so happens that your body finds that your waistline and stomach is a very convenient to place to put it.You must exercise to get rid of love handlesLosing love handle fat is a matter of losing fat all over your body. You can't tell your body to lose fat in any specific place even if you exercise all the muscles in that area. What you will do is strengthen and build the muscle underneath the fat but the fat will still be there. Losing fat can be accomplished using a combination of good nutrition and regular exercise to make sure that you burn off more calories than you consume.If you only reduce your calorie intake then you will burn fat and lose weight but unfortunately you will also start to burn lean muscle and other body organs. You don't want to lose your lean body mass so you must compensate by increasing the amount of exercise that you take. Exercise breaks down your muscle and encourages it to rebuild itself bigger and better than it was before. This way you can burn the fat but maintain your muscle mass.Paying attention to the types of food that you eat as well as how much you eat can also be part of the solution how to get rid of love handles: Food to Help You Lose Weight
Article Source: http://www.thatarticleguy.com/articles

Lose weight and keep your weight down for life. Lose Weight And Stay Lean And Healthy Permanently Free weight loss report at healthfitness.this-info.com/weightloss Steve Gee

Are you Starving to Lose Weight?

It’s never too late to rethink on your diet plan and make fresh and realistic health resolutions. It is the right time to take stock of the situation. Ask yourself: Are we being fair to ourselves when we make these strict guidelines of diet and exercise? Most people recoil at the thought of dieting and exercising, especially on a cold winter morning. And for all those people who are fed up of diet dictums, the good news is that the best way to lose weight is not to diet or deprive yourself of all the good things in life. If this sounds too good to be true, wait till you try this:


Wellness - the latest buzzword to hit the health industry - is actually the best way forward. Most people who plan strict diets do it in the hope that after losing the extra kilos, they will look ravishing. But the truth is that lusterless sagging skin or loose abdominal muscles are not the result that people want. What we want is a happy, healthy, svelte figure munching an apple. But alas, that is not what we end up with very often. Therefore, after trying to lose weight for the nth time, it is now time to stop dieting forever and yet look slim.



Wellness is not only about losing weight, it is also about a positive mindset and transforming oneself into a holistically healthy person. This kind of a change in focus will not only result in weight loss but also give you great skin, good hair, a glowing persona and best of all, freedom from diets. Here is what the wellness and diet schedule entails:



o Understanding your food weaknesses and indulging in them two times a week.

o Maintaining a diet log book.

o Pick up a routine that you enjoy which is like an exercise: dancing, or walking the pet, floor exercises with music etc.

o Never deprive yourself. Always add new healthy habits to the current schedule, like having a yummy soup in the evening instead of tea and a scrumptious salad during lunch with olives, balsamic dressing and some greens and cheese cubes.

o Enjoy your meal. Many people who eat hurriedly always miss out on the flavors, do not feel satiated and end up compensating by overeating.

o And if all this does not convince you, count the number of times you have struggled through a diet program only to regain the weight with a few extra kilos.

o Looking at unhealthy habits and finding alternatives. For example, if you are prone to drinking too much of tea/coffee, substitute some for herbal teas which smell and taste good. If you eat too much of fried food, learn to make toasted snacks or baked snacks, and experiment with new roasted snacks.

o Do not starve or eat less. When we cut down on quantities, our emotional system retaliates, so the best option is to add healthy foods to the diet before cutting out on food suddenly.



Daisy Bone also writes on Genital Herpes Cure. More info: http://www.oral-genital-herpes-pictures.com/


Article Source: Article Submission Service

Does your weight loss plan include these 10 Essential Steps?

Be prepared to be less effective and waste your own time, if your weight loss programme does not contain these quick lose fat tricks.
by Winston Ng, Phenogy Health Advisor
1. Must have a Change in Lifestyle
Every effective weight loss programme will help clients change their lifestyle. This is absolutely critical to the long term success of the programme. Unfortunately, it is now fashionable to pop slimming pills or go for cellulite treatments to lose weight.
The results from such programmes will never be permanent because the person’s lifestyle would effortlessly put back all the weight. The very moment that these artificial programmes are halted, weight will come rushing back.
When a person changes his/ her lifestyle, the unhealthy food and weight gaining activities will be eliminated from their daily lives. Hence, an effective weight loss system MUST have an in-built mechanism that helps clients refine their lifestyle.
2. Must include a Water Drinking plan BEFORE Meals
Drinking at least a glass of water half an hour before meals is critical to weigh loss and maintenance of a healthy body. The water replenishes the fluids that will be used to make bicarbonate solution on the mucus membrane of our stomach lining. This protects the stomach from being burnt by its own acid fluid.
Similarly, a well hydrated body reduces the urge to drink unhealthy drinks which introduce more toxins to your body. Furthermore, the body does not need to excessively retain water, thus making the body fatter than necessary.
Lastly, a majority of people are chronically dehydrated though they seem to be leading normal lives. It is a common sight to see my clients reduce the amount they eat after they begin the water routine. Many people have lost the ability to differentiate between food hunger and water hunger. A systematic water plan will help them regain this lost touch.
3. Must include a systematic plan for reduction of sweetened and diuretic beverages.
Sweetened drinks are beverages like soda, cola, diet cola, tea, coffee and beer. The three major groups of substances that would impede and slow down your weight loss are caffeine, sugar and sugar substitutes.
Caffeine – This is a diuretic substance that drains your body of water. It is roughly estimated that you lose 33% more fluid from your body then the amount you drank. If you drink one cup of coffee, you would lose all the fluid from the coffee plus an extra 1/3 a cup. This makes you body desperate to retain whatever water it can. In the long run, your body’s instinctive reaction is to retain water, hence giving out the round water-filled appearance. Diuretic drinks are coffee, tea, most colas, most sodas and beer (though it technically has no caffeine, it is a diuretic).
Sugar – Besides the numerous health damaging effects of sugar on your body, it also adds useless calories to your diet. When sugar enters the body it is broken down into glucose and the calorie that is created is termed “empty calorie”. It has absolutely no vitamins or minerals, hence it does not do any good to your body besides adding calories.
Sugar substitutes – Sugar substitutes like Aspartame (sold as nutrasweet) and Splenda cause you to overeat sugars (including carbohydrates) because receptors in the tongue have been trained, through the years, to expect “sugar” when it tastes “sugar”. Products like nutrasweet always tout that you get the taste of 8 (figurative number) spoonfuls of sugar but only half the spoonful of calories. In theory this sounds great, however, our receptors in the tongue will stop glucose production in the body and expect to be able to take it from the incoming food. So now it is expecting 8 times worth of sugar calories! But the sugar only provides 1/16th of that. The body now hungers for more food since it has shut down glucose production. All “diet” drinks that claim to be sugar free and sweets that are sugar free contain either nutrasweet or splenda, you can confirm it on the labels.
4. A Muscle growth programme
You need a proper muscle growth plan if you ever want to stop spiralling back to your heavy weight. Programmes that are based on pills and nutrition tend to neglect or gloss over the muscle building plan. This is very dangerous because your muscle acts as a buffer for excess calories and helps maintain your weight and figure. Furthermore, there is no such thing as eating to build muscles as popularly believed. Muscles can only be built in the good old fashioned way – make it do work.
5. A programme that focuses on the growth of the aerobic Type 1 muscle fibres.
On the other extreme there are programmes that are excessively focused on going to the gym. That would mean they ask you to go twice or three times a week to the gym for weights. This is a waste of your time and probably they are building up Type II (a/b) muscles instead of Type 1 muscles fibres. This difference is important because Type II muscles are big and showy, but they require a lot of maintenance and have poor fat burning abilities. Type 1 muscle fibres hardly bulge but contain the highest amount of mitochondria, an essential enzyme in fat burning.
6. You must want to lose weight.
Most people assume that being involved in an activity means that they actually want to do it. Many people busy themselves finding the greatest miracle weight loss cure or trying out every fad but never really achieving anything. Subconsciously, they do not want to lose weight, but the appearance of busy effort allows them to gain affection or acceptance by loved ones, peers and their own inner selves!
7. A Nutrition plan that reflects personal individuality.
When we buy clothes, especially expensive ones, we always insist on having it tailored to our size. Sometimes, the sleeve may be too long but the chest perfect fit. That is why stores have many different labels to suit different body size and shapes. Similarly, the food we eat should also be tailored to our body, not just in terms of size (calories) but also in terms of design. Nutrition programmes need to first assess and categorise our body type or blood type or metabolic type (not limited to these categories), before any recommendations can be made.
8. The plan should never come with food restriction.
Yes the unbelievable! Most of my clients are shocked when I advise this to them. It is an accepted fact that all diets mean that you have to give up on your favourite foods. This is totally untrue and will in fact destroy the sustainability of the programme. We are creatures of greed; we always want what we cannot have. That is hardwired into us. Hence, the command not to eat a particular food will conversely create a greater demand for it. The correct technique should be learning to manage the urge, rather than suppressing it.
9. It must have a component that includes aerobic walking or jogging.
Ultimately, our body thrives to walk, jog and run, that is our basic function as human beings. For many overweight people, this function has been dormant and numbed for too long. Aerobic walking or jogging is essential to any weight loss programme because it gradually helps your body to adjust to the change in weight load as you slim down. Swimming or carrying weights in an aerobic fashion is not a substitute because the whole body is not engaged in the activity.
10. The programme MUST be sustainable relative to your daily workload and commitments.
You cannot and should not embark on a quad weekly (4 times a week) get slim course if you already have to juggle two jobs and a family. Firstly, it is absolutely impossible for you to sustain the hectic schedule in the long run. Secondly, it would create a phobia within you, framing your mindset that weight loss is a strenuous and painful event. A healthy lifestyle is a fun activity that should preferably involve your family and loved ones, the last thing you would ever want to do is to sign up for a programme that is too daunting to complete.
Some Useful Resources
The Benefits of Water (One of the best resources around) – http://www.watercure.com
A Fantastic Muscle Building Programme – http://www.precisiontraining.com
A Bloody Type Diet System – http://www.dadamo.com
A Metabolic Type Diet System – http://www.turnuptheheat.com
A Health & Weight Loss System that contains all 10 of these core points plus more – http://phenogy.com
* All links are provided as is. We do not gain from commissions nor will we be held legally responsible. It is just us sharing with you some great gems.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =The author, Winston Ng, is an avid peak performance coach and CEO of Phenogy Health Advisors Pte Ltd, based in Singapore. His Health Consultancy programmes are renowned worldwide for their efficiency, simplicity and independent unbiased advice. The Phenogy Health Concierge™ is unparalleled internationally in providing cutting edge Natural Health Alternatives to the busy individual who needs viable options to invasive surgery, dangerous synthetic pills and overpriced ineffective therapies!
They want you to experience their service before spending a single dime! Receive FREE Health Coaching and find out more about their E-Manuals and Consultancy Services! http://phenogy.com.
Winston Ng and his Coaches are contactable at enquiries@phenogy.com.

You cant lose weight if you listen to your family and friends

I bet you already know all the health benefits for keeping slim. You have probably tried every diet; the Atkins, the Southbeach, the metabolic, the fruit, the water or just plain starvation. In fact, you may even have gained extra weight. You know all the intellectual stuff about keeping healthy, exercising and eating consistently. But you are still as heavy as ever.
How is it that all those intellectual knowledge is not driving you towards weight loss?
This is because the human body is driven by passion and not intellectual knowledge. Knowledge teaches us techniques; passion dives us to make it happen.
In this situation, external circumstances are not conducive in igniting our passion for keeping healthy and slim.
If we have failed numerous times in our weight loss efforts, it may be time that we evaluate our external environment. That may be the cause of our failures.
Our family, partner and friends make up this external environment that we live in. It is not by malice that they want to sabotage our weight loss plans. It is rather their own innate fears that they wrestle with. They are like the mother who nearly drowned. Hence, she will never allow her child to go swimming.
Ultimately, they are not passionate about encouraging you to lose weight because they attach certain meaning and value to your weight.
It is good intentions but ultimately bad expressions.
Family
Families can affect personal diet plans when everyone in the family has a preference towards heavy weight.
Let us take for example that all your brothers and sisters (or fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts) are 200 pounds (100 kgs) and yet, seem to be having a whale of time in their life.
How motivated will you be to lose weight?
The Chinese Family
In the Chinese family, food is good and our parents insist that we eat as much as possible; chubbiness is a mark of fortune and blessing. To add to this conundrum, it is superstitiously believe that every plate has to be cleared up. Otherwise, you will get an ugly wife/ husband in future.
This, to me, sounds like the perfect setting to guilt-free weight gain.
The American Family
In a similar vein, most American family diets contain unhealthy fats and weight gain ingredients. You would feel obliged to eat a similar meal while at family functions to prevent being the centre of attention
I am sure that there are many other cultures that have unhealthy eating rituals and superstitions. Think about your own growing up experience – what are the values placed on food and the consumption of food. How does it affect your weight loss efforts at this moment?
Partners
Then, there are those other people called partners!
Our partner spends the most time with us, and their implicit, silent actions create a massive amount of pressure on us, regardless of the actual words they say.
An overweight partner who does not want to lose weight will definitely not help you ignite the passion that you need to lose weight. He/ she will have a comment for every exercise day and every healthy meal. Every action towards health may seem like a personal attack on him / her.
Friends
Lastly, we have our circle of friends. Friends can, of course, affect us in the usual manner of over-eating and cajoling us to follow suit.
However, the realm of friends has an added unique dimension. It is quite common to see overweight people group with slim friends.
Social dynamics dictate that friends of the same characteristics (especially physical) tend to polarise towards each other. Hence, the babes shop together and the hunks hang out together.
Nonetheless, groups that comprise both fat and slim individuals usually come together because of a different similarity. They associate because of their low levels of self esteem. Such friends do not want you to face up to your inadequacies, because it would make you different from them. Your insecurity is in your fat body and they would help you to maintain it.
The Crux of the Problem
Our concepts, meanings and values of health have been moulded through childhood years, then the teenage years and then far into the adulthood years. It is definitely not a new notion that popped out of yesterday. The lifestyle and size that we have today, is the product of years of cultivation.
It is not right to blame our family, partners or friends; they are just living life the way they know best.
Now that we know the value of being healthy, we should see our family, partners and friends as the main crux of our motivation to slim down.
We mould a better future for our lives so that we can be in the position to help them reshape theirs!
What do we do now?
Everyday, we are faced with these emotional challenges that need to be sorted out. Only then, can we see past the nearby obstacles and look further into the promising future.
We have to reflect if we are truly satisfied with our lives. Is our extra weight affecting us now and will it affect us in the future?
Do we believe that being fat will forever keep us in a perfect marriage?
Will we die before we see our children graduate?
Some obesity statistics to help us frame our mind:
Twice the risk of raised blood pressure.
Increased risk of heart problems
A weight gain of 11 – 18 pounds (approx 8kgs) increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 100%.
Obesity during pregnancy increases the risk of maternal high blood pressure by 1000%!
Middle aged fat people have the same reduced life expectancy as smokers.
Do we want to burden our family with the hefty financial obligations of heart surgery, costing no less than a $100,000?
Action Time
Take out a piece of paper, draw a line horizontally across the paper to divide it into 2.
Write down all the scenarios that would happen if you do NOT lose weight. Write it down as detailed and as many as possible.
Give yourself 2 minutes and write every single thing down.
Use specifics. Who will it affect if you fall ill? (Use your son’s name, e.g. John, or your husband, Tim, who has to pay for all your medical bills)
You can use the above statistics to help you.
...All done? GREAT!
Next, write in the bottom half – How you would like your life to be in 1 years time AFTER you have lost all your weight.
How much weight would you have lost?
Are you running around the garden with your children?
Is your wife/ husband “showing” you off to his friends?
Are the neighbourhood people giving you 2nd glances?
Do you wake up energetic and bounce off to your daily work routine?
Have you listed every beautiful image that you want in a year?
Same as above, be specific, use names, and let your pen write freely. Don’t think of how it will be done. Focus on what you want. Feel free to add some colours, draw some pictures.
...Your 2 minutes are up!
Great!
One additional thing to do, go to http://phenogy.com/model to be linked to a great service that allows you to build your future body shape that you want!
Print out this future shape and paste it right next to your description of life in 1 year!
The Final Bit
1. Now fold the paper in half and stick it up at a place where you can frequently see it. IT could be the toilet where you shower, or the fridge door, or the key hanger.
Keep the side with the bad stuff covered and your dream life facing you.
2. Every morning, look at it and recite, shout, declare out the great life you will have in a year!
For days that you feel lazy, flip over the other side, look at the messed up life you will have if you do not do something now!
… and Congratulations!
Congratulations that you have come this far and are prepared to radically shift your mindset. You are now on your way to a new life and to be strategically empowered to help your loved ones achieve theirs too!
Nonetheless, I would be lying to you if I said that mindset training ALONE will make you lose all your weight.
It is critical. It is the most important start.
However, you have to equip it with the right diet (does not mean you can never eat the fun stuff) and exercise (does not mean it has to be painful).
You would want a weight loss programme that is fun, so that you do not find it to be a chore.
You would want a system that is natural and have no side-effects.
You need a system that saves you time, so that it does not affect your current daily commitments.
You need a system that is sustainable, so that your life can be changed forever and not a passing fad.
If you already have health plans that meet all these key qualities, please go right ahead! I wish you all the best and do tell me how it turns out!
If you are still looking for a system that meets these hallmarks of fun, natural, quick and sustainable, you need to call up a Phenogy Health Coach right now! Have a chat with them and see how they can help you grab hold of that dream life in 1 year!
http://phenogy.com