I’ve just moved into my new home in a different city, and I love it! I’m in a bigger city - more choices and more variety. And more health choices! Restaurants, grocery shopping, fitness centers… you name it, there are more options here.
The only problem is that I’m in a slump. I got out of my workout routine over the last couple of weeks with all of the moving craziness.
And I’ve been eating crap since January. Why?? I ask myself that every day.
Why am I still driving to get breakfast burritos instead of making myself a bowl of oatmeal in the mornings?
Why haven’t I joined a gym yet?
Why am I drinking Diet Cokes instead of water?
I think the answer is a combination of comfort and low self esteem. I would never call myself a person with low self esteem… I’ve worked for years on my inner confidence and the way I talk to myself.
But the truth is… I choose to let myself down day after day. I choose to deprive myself of nutrition and choose fatty sodium filled processed foods rather than whole nutritious food. And I do these things knowingly.
Could it be that the reason we women keep eating crap when we know we need nutrition is that we don’t think we deserve it?
I know - we’ve all heard that self-help stuff. And if you’re like me, you think that’s not it at all. But what is it then? If you are anything like me… it’s this undefinable feeling… this something you just can’t put your finger on.
You just do it - well, because. Because it’s easy and convenient and comfortable.
But when you KNOW those things are hurting you… making you gain weight… making you look FAT in your favorite clothes… and you do it ANYWAY… there’s a serious breakdown in how you treat yourself.
In how I treat MYSELF.
Today, right now… I forgive myself, first of all, for abusing my body and for not listening to my better judgment. This is a journey, and I will not be angry with myself for being on a journey.
But I also commit to choosing to be loving to myself. To make honest & supportive decisions for my body. I’m afraid to make this commitment in writing… what if I let myself down? But I will nonetheless. Because I know that there is something I can do more than I currently am. I can drink more water.
Or eat smaller portions of the processed crap I seem to be addicted to.
And I can say “NO” to that junk when I’m honest and brave and strong enough to do so.
And I can eat some whole fruits and vegetables for goodness sakes!
Heres to us - you & me - getting more loving and supportive with ourselves.
So, I just had a break down. Not a real obvious one… in fact, my “major” breakdowns are pretty internal. I look “fine” on the outside… but inside I’m FREAKING OUT. I can usually even pretend that everything’s fine… but I start noticing that I don’t WANT to do anything good for me.
You know what I’m talking about right? Like - all of the sudden you want to do anything that’s not healthy. ANYTHING. It seems to feel better… to eat crappy food. To skip a workout. To lounge on the couch eating junk food. It all just feels - right…. easy… comfortable. And when it happens to me - I KNOW there’s something going on with my emotions. I don’t feel happy. I feel like any second, I just might lose it!
Have you ever been there?? I’ll be honest - I’m so there - right now! I’m just having an emotional crisis, and it’s making me do all kinds of unhealthy things. I skipped my workout this morning… I had Diet Dr Pepper and a breakfast burrito for breakfast… I haven’t had a single drop of water yet today. Ugh. These are NOT healthy things to do… but I purposely, intentionally did all of them. And, still, even as I type this - I know I need to get some water… and I don’t want to!
This is what happens with us as women sometimes when our emotions overwhelm us. It’s sooo hard to see past the emotion and just delve into life doing what we know we need to do. It’s so much easier to “treat” the emotion by jumping into comfort food - depriving ourselves of anything healthy, like water & exercise - and just pretend like everything is fine.
Do you know what I think is happening when we go that route? I think we are telling ourselves - subconsciously of course - that we are not WORTH taking a good look at why we’re feeling down. We’re not WORTH healthy food or plenty of water. We’re not WORTH getting up and taking care of our bodies by exercising.
It’s so easy for us as women to put ourselves last. We take care of everyone else… we work so hard to make sure our families are taken care of… our friends know that we love them… our customers are happy. But we don’t treat ourselves the same way!
And worse yet… when we have a bad emotional day… instead of taking a good hard look at the emotion and really allowing ourselves to fully FEEL what we’re feeling… we pretend that we’re find and just avoid anything that could be good for us.
We STUFF ourselves with crap - whether it’s food that we know is toxic to our body and will make us gain weight… or TV shows that we’re watching not because we enjoy them, but because we just don’t want to THINK about what we’re feeling… or maybe (and this one is what I tend to do) it’s a mindless solitaire game on your (my!) cell phone that we play over and over again so we can just not think about anything.
And THEN - on top of ALL OF THAT - we beat ourselves up for it!!! We first ignore our emotions, and try to just avoid feeling them… then we abuse our bodies and minds to continue avoiding our emotions… and then we become our worst enemy and start feeling all kinds of guilt, and hopelessness, and defeat because of that place we find ourselves in.
You’ve heard that inner voice, haven’t you? “Ugh. You skipped your workout AGAIN. You know you’re not going to stick with it this time… you’re a failure, and you’re only pretending you can succeed this time.”
Those words that we fear to hear the most are the ones that pop up when we’re in this emotionally wrecked place. We hear all kinds of nasty, mean, brutal words… and we believe them. Because we’ve done everything to prove it right - we skipped workouts, ate crappy foods all day, and didn’t even WANT to do anything good for ourselves. Why wouldn’t we believe we’re failures when all the signs show us we are?
Today is one of those days for me. It’s only 12:13PM, and I’ve already made the WORST decisions for weight loss. I’ve NOT taken care of myself. And this has been going on for about a week. And about 30 minutes ago, I was ready to give up. I felt like such a FAILURE… a hopeless woman who couldn’t, after all, make this work.
I felt like such a fraud. How could I be a role model to other women trying to lose weight when I can’t even do it myself?
A good friend of mine asked me, “Who do you need to be right now to be a role model for women losing weight?”
My first thought was… “I need to be stronger. I need to be eating healthy, and getting over these emotions!”
Then it hit me. I don’t need to be stronger… I need to be HONEST. Other women need to see people like me… women who are committed to weight loss and an active, healthy lifestyle… freaking out and losing it. You need to see that I have bad days - weeks, even - and that it’s perfectly normal.
You need to see me battle these feelings of “I’m a failure” and come out on the other side knowing I’m not a failure - I’m a woman.
And guess what? That prompted me to write this post… and this dose of honesty has been incredibly healing for me. It’s okay, it’s normal, to have days when you bomb out and do everything wrong. That’s life - we hit blocks sometimes that make us do all the wrong things.
The KEY - the big thing to know - is that as soon as you are HONEST with yourself about what you’re feeling… and you don’t AVOID those emotions… you will begin to come out of the negative place you’re in.
Honesty is the number one key. Honesty with yourself. So if you’re having a bad day… close your eyes and really let yourself FEEL everything you’re feeling. Don’t hold back. Let the emotion flow. And once you’ve let yourself experience all of it… then take a deep breath, and give yourself permission to feel what you feel. It’s one moment, not a lifetime.
And then imagine other women who all want to lose weight - all around the world - who feel the same way you do. Women like me. Women who LOVE exercising. Thin women. Sexy women. Beautiful, enchanting, confident women who are all having a bad day and just want to pull the covers over their head and ignore the entire world.
And know that you’re in that group with all the rest of us. YOU are a beautiful, sexy, enchanting, confident woman. YOU are everything you want to be. And it’s okay to have a bad day. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Go get some water, take a deep breath, and just relax and experience your emotions. And never, ever forget what a beautiful person you are, and that the journey you are on includes some downhill emotions.
Skinny jeans don’t automatically wash away scary, negative emotions. It’s your job as a confident, healthy woman to let yourself FEEL all of those emotions, and call that “failure” voice out as a LIE. We would never talk to your best friend that way… and yet we talk that way to ourselves.
No MORE. Talk to yourself with loving, accepting words. Give yourself a BIG internal hug, let yourself cry, and encourage yourself.
You’re beautiful, and so am I. Thank you for letting me walk on this journey with you.
If you haven’t been living in a cave in the last month or so, you’ve heard about the salmonella outbreak in tomatoes. At least the FDA “thinks” that it might be tomatoes carrying the salmonella - according to a report I read this week, they weren’t even sure that tomatoes are the culprit.
When I first heard about the problem, I was initially annoyed - I mean, lettuce, then spinach, now tomatoes -and I’m sure I missed some of the problem foods. The FDA is always announcing one vegetable or another that is “unsafe” to eat.
And then when I heard that someone close to my hometown was infected from a tomato, I was scared.
“Maybe I should stop eating tomatoes!” I thought.
And then I did a little research. Turns out, salmonella is rarely fatal - only in infants, very young children, the elderly and people with weak immune systems can salmonella be fatal.
The FDA says that the rest of us, if infected, might have diarrhea, fever, and abdominal pains.
Hmm. That’s not quite the devastating illness that I thought was happening.
The bottom line is that we should be eating as close to home-grown vegetables as we possibly can. Buying at a Farmers Market, a grocery store that specializes in organic foods, or even the organic section of your traditional grocery store, is safer than buying tomatoes that are non-organic.
The reason is because non-organic tomatoes are treated with chemicals & pesticides, and the water used to nurture those tomatoes is extremely questionable.
But even if you can’t buy organic for whatever reason… take care of your body & your health enough so that if you get a little salmonella bacteria into your body, your immune system can handle it. That’s what our immune system is there for - to attack “enemy” bacteria and keep you from getting sick!
So eat healthy. Eat natural, unprocessed foods whenever and as often as possible. And when you do eat processed foods, get as close to natural as you can get. Buy whole grain pasta, bread, tortillas and flour.
Keep your immune system at its peak, and things like tomatoes or spinach or whatever the latest “scare” is won’t be quite so daunting.
Okay, I have to admit that I don’t particularly enjoy running. I mean, it’s a fantastic way to burn calories… and more importantly, it gets your lungs working, your heart rate up, and makes you sweat. It’s a generally great way to improve your overall health & boost your metabolism.
Another great benefit I experience when I run is an amazing emotional boost. Running is just something that is not natural to me - it is a challenge for me, and so when I accomplish my goal, I feel POWERFUL. I feel like I can take the world on and make things happen!
And of course there are all those natural endorphins that go pumping through my brain and body after a nice cardio session.
But that doesn’t change the fact… that I HATE running. It’s good for me… I love the benefits… but I don’t enjoy it.
So how do I make myself run, twice a week, on Tuesdays & Fridays, without fail? What makes me do it?
The first thing is that I have a plan, and I have a system. On Mondays, I work my biceps, triceps, and shoulders. On Tuesdays I run & work my abs. On Wednesdays I work my legs. On Thursdays I work my back, shoulders, triceps & biceps again. On Fridays, I run & work my abs again. On Sundays, I do an all over body circuit & stretch routine.
Each day has a purpose, and each day is part of a system. So if I skip one day… I “mess up” the system. I don’t give my arms the workout they need, or my back, or my heart and lungs, if I skip the run day. More importantly, if I skip one day, it’s sooo much easier to skip the next day… and the next… and the next… and before I know it, I’d be not exercising at all, wallowing in depression.
See, exercise for me is key to maintaining my emotional equilibrium. Exercise recenters my emotions and my mind. When I take my body through a healthy, balanced routine, I set the stage for my mind to follow.
But the real honest reason that I get up and run, even though I don’t like running, is that I have built a ritual out of it. Tomorrow morning, my alarm will go off, and I will jump out of bed. I’ll brush my teeth, put my hair up, put on deoderant, put on workout clothes - they will be easily accessible, of course. Then I’ll drink a bottle of water and get in my car to go to the gym. And once I’m there, well, I’m gonna work out, right? Right!
That’s the beginning of my morning ritual. I’m almost on autopilot. Get up, get dressed, get gone. And then I’m at the gym.
More on how to make the actual run enjoyable later… there are ways! At least to make it tolerable, anyway.
The one thing that is pretty consistent between the various popular methods of losing weight is the need to write down what you’re eating. I know, I know - I’ve been there and done that too, and it is a pain in the butt sometimes. But the truth is… the reason that so many programs ask you to keep a food journal is that it works.
Let me say that again - IT WORKS.
There is a certain level of accountability in writing down what you eat that automatically makes you THINK about what you’re putting into your body. And THINKING about what you eat is the absolute first step to losing weight.
But how can a busy girl keep a food journal without pulling her hair out?
I’ve done everything with food journals. I’ve written down exact portion sizes of foods, their exact calories, what time I ate them, what mood I was in before and after I ate… you name it, and I’ve journaled it.
But none of those complicated methods lasted very long. So this series of blog posts is designed to help you learn to keep an effective food journal.
First, you’ll need a small notebook. Something small enough that you can carry it to work and back home each day and it’s not a bother - perhaps something that fits in your purse.
Next, just do the obvious - write down what you eat, every meal, every time you eat. Although it’s great to have the notebook with you in the moment, I keep mine on my desk. When I get back from eating, I write down what I ate as soon as I sit down.
That’s the basic fundamental start to keeping a food journal - simply write down what you eat. I don’t write down the portion size, or the time, or my mood - but all of those things are extremely helpful indicators at certain times.
So if you’re trying to tackle a specific mood problem, keeping track of that is a good idea; but for now I just want you to get in the habit of noting down on paper what you eat every single time you eat.
You’ll automatically begin to make better choices with food, knowing you’ll be recording your food intake later. So go get the notebook, and start recording! Tomorrow I’ll be talking about other things to record in your journal, and what to do with what you see written there.
This is an interesting video… not quite sure yet what I think about it, but I definitely agree with the concept of fruits and vegetables being incrediby good for our bodies. And I found the body shapes interesting. What do you think about it?
For years, I’ve said “I don’t know how to cook,” or “I don’t cook.”
I mean, when my husband I were first married, I’d try my hand at the packaged meals like Hamburger Helper… and I didn’t really “mess them up”, but I didn’t enjoy cooking, and I didn’t enjoy the food enough to want to do it again.
So I developed a habit of eating out. Over the years, I’ve tried a few times to cook - fry some catfish here (it did NOT go well), bake some chicken there (umm… again, not so good)…. and you get the picture. I just “learned” that I can’t cook.
Until now. I bought a cookbook full of low fat, balanced meals that are EASY to prepare. Wow! I never thought I’d find that combination!
I tried my hand first at the chicken enchiladas… and surprise surprise! They were DELICIOUS, and I enjoyed the preparation and the cooking.
Tonight I made chicken parmesan. It was yummy! And I actually enjoyed preparing it, again. Somehow, knowing that all of that effort (not like it was alot… LOL) is going into a healthy, delicious meal that I can say I cooked MYSELF… is awesome!
Here’s a pic:
I’m still in shock that I can make a delicious entree - and a healthy one at that!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly been there. You put in the effort, you work hard, you change the food you eat, and you lose weight. The feelings of euphoria and success can go away so fast when you start gaining it back, can’t they?
It’s a shame that there are so many “lose weight fast” plans out there. The truth is, the faster you lose weight, the higher the probability that it will definitely come back. Think about it: if you cut out carbohydrates and lose a bunch of weight… chances are, you can’t live without carbs for the rest of your life… so you gain it back.
I know that’s what happened with me. I’ve lost weight using so many of the popular methods… and inevitably, it’s always come back. And each time it came back, it brought more weight along!
The reason we girls gain our weight back is because of the “diet” mentality. We think, “Oh, I don’t want to live without these foods forever, or exercise this way forever, but I can do it for a few months.” So we lose weight… and then once we revert back to old habits, of COURSE the weight comes back.
The key is to change the habits - how we eat, and how we move. When we change those habits, we’ll keep weight off long-term.
It makes sense to eat less when you want to lose weight, right? And most of us are pretty rushed in the morning, so it makes sense to cut out breakfast. It’s easy, we’re not that hungry anyway, and we skip some calories that way.
The problem with skipping breakfast is how your body reacts to it. Three things happen when you skip breakfast, and NONE of them are good for losing weight.
First, you get hungry about an hour later. That’s right - you’re hungry by 10, for sure. And most of us wait until at least 11 to eat lunch… so here we are, ready to go to lunch, stomach growling. And what looks good to us when our stomach is SCREAMING for food? Anything BIG. Lots of food. Preferably heavy, calorie-laden food like a burger & fries. It’s far better to eat a small breakfast before you get started in your day, so that a few hours later when it’s time to eat, you’re not starving. You make much, much better choices for weight loss when you’re a little hungry as opposed to famished.
The second thing that happens in our bodies when we skip breakfast is this: our brain knows that we haven’t had food in 9 hours or so… and it knows it’s time to eat. So when we skip breakfast, our brain sends a note to our fat storage that it’s going to be a while before we eat… so better hold onto some of that fat for future use. Our brain’s primary job is to serve our bodies, and it will do it’s job when it comes to not letting us starve. Our body doesn’t allow for missed meals - so it holds onto fat storage to make up for missed meals. Odd, isn’t it, that by eating you actually give your body permission to release fat?
And the third thing that happens when we skip breakfast is that we unintenionally slow down our metabolism. When we eat, our various body functions digest and metabolize the food. The energy that powers all of that processing is called our “metabolism”. So when we start our day off by eating breakfast, we kick our metabolism into gear and start our day off by burning calories to process and digest our food. Our metabolism, once it’s kick started, goes on auto pilot, looking for the next set of food to process and digest and metabolize. If we don’t give it that food, our metabolism dips back down, taking all of its calorie burning energy with it.
So don’t skip breakfast. Use that time in the morning to make a healthy choice. Use that time to take a few deep breaths, enjoy a smart breakfast, and start your day off the right way. It’s the #1 most under-utilized way women sabotage their weight loss efforts.
