Change Your Thinking and You Can Change Your Health
As a Life Coach my business is positive change. I know that changing your life is big! You have to want it. It means lots of desire and determination. It means lots of extra attention to what you want. You have put the habit in place. To change the habit means to create new ways of doing and being. To remember to do something different than how you have been doing it, takes both a slower pace and structure, like notes to yourself or even messages set to specific alarm times or a wrist ban you can snap. It means a goal and a plan. You might think about how you have to be to reach your goal. What kind of behavior do you need to have? Who has done what you want to do? What did they do to reach the big goal? You might hire a life coach to help you create the changes you want and need. The professionally trained coach cuts to the chase and helps you come up with new ideas for how to create what you want, provides accountability, and brainstorming to bring out your creative ideas to help you get there step- by-step. I have found that you often reach your goal more much quickly too. Coaching really expedites YOUR results.
The big change I am personally focusing on this year is to lose the extra weight that has crept onto me over the last few years of sitting, sitting and more sitting. It is an extra twenty five pounds. I have had challenges with weight for a long time and it is not all due to increased social media time and sitting with clients for hours a day. I know there are plenty of thin people who spend a lot of time with sitting and computers.
It is time for me to get real. I have decided to finally come clean and share a little bit of my own story. Being overweight feels like my whole life, but in reality, it started when I was about eleven or twelve years old. When I hit puberty, I started feeling fat. When I look back at pictures from that time, I wasn’t. I was not thin, but I was not fat either. But, I felt chubby from that point on. Every summer I visited my grandmother, she put me on a diet. And I went home thinner. I realized she must have thought I was fat to put me on a diet each summer I visited her.
The year I got married and got pregnant, I became my inner vision of myself. Fat. I worked at a restaurant to help support my husband and myself as he finished his last year of college. I could eat anything I wanted and did. It was root beer floats, malts, mashed potatoes and gravy. As I added twenty five pounds to my frame within six months, I also became pregnant. There began my up and down battle with my weight and my self-image. I was never 148 pounds again. I went on the Scarsdale diet and passed out in a lobby one night when we were out to a play with friends. I starved myself. It seemed like the pounds went on as easy as breathing and was a huge struggle and challenge to take even one off.
Over the first eight years of marriage, I had five pregnancies and three losses of life. I think it messed with my head more than I knew at the time and messed with my body too. My husband did not like my extra weight. On a summer vacation with friends, we got into an argument and he called me a pig. I was devastated. I could not get over it. That was the beginning of the end of my marriage. I am talking about a long time of weight going up and down, some successes and many more failures. I wonder if I have lost a thousand pounds only to put more back on. I have tried so many diets, but never stuck with one to the very end, never to get it all off and maintain a healthy weight for a period of a couple of years or more. By going to a bariatric doctor, I came close the year I moved to San Diego. I was using lots of affirmations and power of intention along with medicine, and I did not eat after six pm. I did manage better for a few years as I created my new life and then IT, the pounds, started creeping back on. I have spent a fortune, no, maybe a couple fortunes, on diets, programs and doctors. I paid a local shrink $2,000 to sit on the beach with me for a day and go back into my past patterns and pains. That was 13 years ago. It is still my unconquered territory.
As a life coach I am an expert in helping people make changes in many areas of their life. I have helped many others reach the goal weight they want. I want to be a really good role model for those I inspire. It is part of my own integrity to walk my talk. My whole life is awesome, except in the weight area. I don’t want an except any more.
This year I decided it was either find my answer or look at lap band surgery. I have prayed for an answer that would work for me and not feel like deprivation, punishment and the feeling of dieting. I have read Savor, Mindful Eating, Mindful Life by Thich Nhat Hanh and Women Food and God, by Geneen Roth. I have watched others be successful at the Spiritual Center when I am active. I watched as Judi Federran who over the last two or three years reshaped her body and life with Beach Body and their exercise program. (You can find Judi on Facebook) I saw Jennifer Hudson go from a lady about my size into a sexy mamma! She looks fabulous. I felt proud for her. Each one of these people has provided big inspiration for me to be more loving to my body, to reach out for harmony, balance and wholeness. This body I live in is my body temple. The house of my Spirit. And I know to my core that my body needs to support me well for a few more decades.
Loving your ‘Self ‘is a good thing. It is not selfish or self indulgent. It is sacred and prepares you to love others. When you have a healthy self-image and love for your ‘Self’ you can really be love and give love. Looking good is great too! Be proud to be a hottie! It does not come without desire and hard work. When I grew up, focusing on your ‘Self’ was considered very selfish. Women were taught to focus on making our men happy and take care of the home, meals and children. We went from being super mom to Martha Stewart imitations and working women. That might have been great for my grandmother, but it was not great for the generations that followed her. Today’s life is surely not like an episode of the TV shoe, Mad Men. Good health is crucial to well being and quality of life. I know I have within me the wisdom, the strength, and the ability to follow through with my plan to attain my idea healthy weight.
I have been going to Weight Watchers for the last four months. I lost weight on all but two visits. I have now released 5% of my body weight and received three stars! It has been slow, steady and rewarding. It might take me a year or two to lose what I want to lose, but I am learning to eat healthful and nutritious food every few hours throughout the day. No more starving and swings in energy. No more fake food. No more pills. No more extremes. And the meetings supply really great coaching. Our leader is a cutie pie and a great example. Her personality, energy and positive attitude is great! Plus, she is loaded with great ideas as to what to eat to enjoy a great time out, to enjoy a picnic or to enjoy a great summer of healthy eating. She shares ideas on what and where to buy foods that qualify for the program and the points you can have. I have a points which I use for food . I have a daily limit on the points. It is having your own allotment points for each thing you can eat each day, but the choices are yours. You are spending your points as you choose for your foods. Most fruits and veggies are zero. The support in the group is awesome.
Next Saturday I walk my first 5 K at the Charger Stadium, Walk, Run for the Bolts. (See Active.com)
Part of having an extraordinary life is having great health for life. It is being in harmony with every part of your being. Part of having great health is taking care of you in a loving and kind manner. I pledge to be a kinder and gentler person with me. I pledge to encourage and reward my progress. I pledge to walk my talk. I pledge to love my body and to be really good to it. I pledge to not give up this time.
I want a life of amazement. I want to be free. I want to know I can do this and anything else I really set my mind and heart on. And I want that for you too.
I look forward to your comments.