Attitude...

I realized today that I talk a lot about having your "head in the game", being "in it to win it", having the right attitude to lose weight and change your life.  It occurred to me, however, that if a person has never really experienced this mindset, it might be hard to convey to them.  So let me take it to a very deep and personal level.

Don't Ask Me About Supplements

Not yet, anyway.  I am always very dismayed when I get this question by people new to a healthy lifestyle, because what I'm really being asked is, "I really don't want to do the work, SURELY you know of a magic pill?"

False Choices-Your First Hurdle

My favorite blogger in the whole world, Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project blog (and book of the same name), is a genius. She is the most thought-provoking, stimulating and succinct "self-help" writer alive, in my very humble opinion. She has never yet failed to write something, no matter how brief, that resonates with me. I'm not talking "Hmm, good point" resonate, I'm talking someone-struck-a-gong-in-my-chest resonate, and the thing that resonates most with me about her Happiness Project works is their Honesty. Everything she writes is imbued with it. Honesty. Clarity. Sincerity. Truth. There is a simple, touching beauty in Honesty like hers that cannot fail to reach people, and reach people she does. At their hearts, all people love and crave Honesty.

Today she wrote a blog post entitled "Eight Tips for Maintaining Friendships," and in it she discussed something she calls "false choices." Today I want to explore the definition of a false choice. It's extremely important to me that you all understand what a false choice is, because false choices are what got you stuck where you are today, and they're what are going to KEEP you here until you learn to recognize them and overcome them. False choices are your first hurdle.

As promised

I apologize for the lapse in posts; I had a bit of a personal crisis hit me last Thursday and have been unable to compose myself and resume living life until just now.  That may all sound dramatic but I assure you, it has been as though time stopped for me, and I mean that in the worst way possible. 

While I have no intention of getting into the crisis itself here, I have found that it has provided me with a much needed segue into the training programs I am about to suggest.  You see, the fact of the matter is, any well-rounded diet and exercise program will work for anyone.  I have been on a vast number of diets, all very different in appearances, and have had success, to a certain extent, with all of them.  I have also tried a few different exercise programs and had success, to a certain extent, with all of them.  There are only 3 true components to a good weight-loss program, no matter what any gimmick wants to tell or sell you:

Comfort Zones are neither Comfortable nor Zoned. Discuss.

Having broken out of so many of my own personal "comfort zones", I have lately begun to sincerely wonder whoever named these booby-traps comfort zones.  While we're in them, we may find them "familiar," but most of us would agree that some higher part of our consciousness does NOT find them COMFORTABLE.  In all reality, every time we're forced to think about what it is we're doing (or purposefully NOT doing), the fact is it makes us particularly UNcomfortable, fidgety even, and we look to change the mental channel we're on because we really don't want to be thinking about this.  Furthermore, a zone is more or less defined as "A [place] distinguished from adjacent parts by a distinctive feature or characteristic."  I don't know about all of you, but my experience with "comfort zones" is that the edges of said "zones" are nebulous, ever-shifting (usually widening in a way that, perversely, constricts us), and extremely DIFFICULT to define.  A more apropos metaphor might be quicksand.  You can't see them, even when you're right on top of one, you don't know you're in one until it's too late and you're already being sucked down, and every panicked movement you make only causes you to sink faster.  So you hold very still, and hope to stave off the inevitable suffocation for as long as possible.  Doesn't that sound more accurate?

Just One Step-Just Not Just Any Step

You've probably all heard the words, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," written by Confucius. And you've probably all heard variations on it.  "Every journey begins with a single step."  "The longest journey begins with a single step." Ad nauseum.  The problem is, like most great quotations that are pulled out of a context that will never be read by most people, this quote is missing vital information.  In this case, that information is, "Not Just Any Step."  Let me explain.

The Maiden Voyage

I've been thinking about blogging for a long time. I created this blogspot page ages ago, and never touched it. I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around what it was I really wanted to *say* with my blog. I didn't want it to become another boring, here-is-my-cute-kid blog, and I certainly didn't want it to become a Dear Diary. So it sat here, and I tried to ignore it, but the idea kept haunting me. Ironically, I was never much of a blog follower until recently, either. WHY I wanted to blog when I didn't even read the things, I will never understand. Some inner part of me had a message it wanted to send out-but first I had to find the message! I didn't know it yet, but the me I was becoming, on the inside, was trying to get out....  Then, early this year, I had a midlife crisis.  Ok, maybe it was a third-life crisis.  Regardless of how you want to chop the years up, I snapped.