Is Your Weight Issue Controlling You? How to Add More Joy into Your Life with Small Changes

Is Your Weight Issue Controlling You? How to Add More Joy into Your Life
with Small Changes
Copyright (c) 2006 Pat Brill

When you look at yourself in the mirror, do you cringe, or
just cover up the mirror? You may hear the statistics,
know that you don't feel physically well by having this
extra weight, yet you aren't able to move forward to make
any changes. It feels overwhelming to handle both your
extra weight and the negative thoughts you have every time
you have to look at your body. What if you were to look
at the situation differently?

For most people the extra pounds came about slowly, year in
and year out, new pounds, less activity entered our lives.
We slowly changed our eating habits, exercised less, or
added more stress to our daily lives. By the way, research
is showing that stress adds pounds. With so many pounds to
shed, you just forget about doing anything as it feels too
daunting an effort. It's normal that when we feel
overwhelmed we tend to do nothing. So what needs to
change is the belief we have attached to our weight issue.

What you weigh is not who you really are, even if society
places a high premium on looking slim. You have
internalized that message either from parents, society, or
peers and you believe that you are not good enough because
you are overweight. There are a lot of overweight people
contributing in many great ways to society. They are
also mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, employees,
employers and the list goes on regarding the many potential
ways each of us add value to society. Yet you keep
coming back to your weight as an indication of your worth.

Overcoming the significant belief that you are valued less
because of your weight adds to the struggle of losing
weight. It's a habit that is fully imbedded into your
thinking patterns. How about you change the rules of the
"belief" game you have played for so long. I'm not
advocating that you don't lose weight, but more so, how you
feel about yourself is most important. You may still want
to lose weight but the process is different. Let's put
the actual pounds on hold and start looking at how you can
feel good about yourself. Follow the next steps and see
where you end up.

Do you want to lose or gain?

So you have a number in your head about the perfect body -
10, 30, 50, or 100 pounds less of you. You want to lose
them today…right! Lots of people state how many pounds
they need to lose in order to feel good about themselves.
Well 30 pounds could take some time and does that mean you
can't feel good about yourself? Instead of using poundage
to evaluate how you feel about yourself, how about you
replace that focus with a different goal – how much
self-love do you want to gain today in your life?

Self-Love is Important

Sounds hokey, doesn't it. Your are thinking, "Feeling
good about myself never helped me lose weight, so why
bother." That's only because, just repeating "I love
myself" doesn't make you feel better. Instead, adding
small changes in the choices you make around food can help
you build your self-love muscles.

How to Build Success into Your Life

If you make small changes in the way you deal with food,
you build success into your life. Success is important in
building your self-love muscles. In the present, every
day, you are in charge in deciding what success is.

Let's use an example; you want to lose 30 lbs. You could
select some type of diet and try to follow it until you
lose the 30 lbs. You may or may not gain the weight back.
Maybe you are successful for a short period of time, lose
some weight, and then slowly go back to your old habits.
Or you try the diet for one day, feel so deprived that your
normal eating habits will take over and you don't feel good
about yourself. Why not try something else?

What if you were to look at your eating habits and say, "I
can eat one less slice of bread at lunch." Very
specific…very small…yet very manageable to handle. Today,
you eat one less slice of bread. That is a small success
for you today. You decide to take 3-7 days eating one
less slice of bread, or cup of pasta or one less of
anything in your food day. At the end of this time period,
you will have less calories and more success in your life.
It's manageable, doesn't overwhelm you and is something
you can do.

Two Warnings!

First, your negative thoughts will pop up quickly stating,
"What a waste of time, one less slice of bread will do
nothing in losing 30 lbs." In a day, even if you were to
eat nothing, you still wouldn't lose 30 lbs. Don't let
your negative thinking take over as you build your
self-love muscles.

Second, I would recommend that you keep the small changes
you are making to yourself, or be very selective with whom
you choose to share what you are doing. Though people do
care for us, they also have their own issues and can add
more negativity to your life.

Why a Small Change?

You have to make sure your change is small because
otherwise your negative thinking will come in and take
over. If you act on small changes, they are quickly
incorporated into your life without a lot of resistance
from you. After 3-7 days, or when you feel ready, select
another food that you would reduce in a small way. Now you
will have one less slice of bread and maybe one less cookie
at night. Success is built in small steps.

At the End of the Day

I suggest you keep a success journal to capture your
activity for the day. Keep it simple or write to your
heart's content. The goal is to write down your successes
for the day: You can write: 1) ate one less slice of bread
and 2) felt really good about myself because I stuck to my
choice, or any other words that express how you experienced
success in your day. You can also add other successes
that have nothing to do with food. It's your success
journal.

How Do You Feel Now?

It sounds too simple to be true, yet this powerful
technique of making very small changes and writing in your
success journal can add success and self-love into your
life. Try it for 30 days, one day at a time, and evaluate
how you feel about yourself at the end of that time.

Remember small steps are wonderful and bring more energy
into your life. This is your personal journey in creating
more joy in your life.

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Pat Brill is co-founder of http://www.SilkBow.com which
supports Busy Moms with free gift ideas and helpful tips to
meet the challenges of motherhood. She is also co-founder
of http://www.WellnessArticles.net , a directory of
articles covering many areas of wellness. You can reach Pat
at pat@SilkBow.com.

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Exercise For Women

Unlike men, women have unique life reasons that can
interfere with exercise. These include the birth of a
child, marriage, single parenthood, a new job, divorce,
overworking, job stress and returning to school. Time is a
big consideration. After a day of work and childcare, most
women prefer to spend their leisure time in socializing
with family and friends, reading and watching television,
rather than rushing to the treadmill. Although some of the
above-mentioned factors are applicable to men, my
experience has shown that women tend to have a harder time
to manage exercise on a regular basis.

The benefits of exercise are significant, especially for
women. Regular exercise lowers estrogen levels, reduces
body fat, and produces a healthier body mass index (BMI).
All these factors significantly reduce the risk of breast
cancer. Also, women who perceive themselves as having more
energy, fewer emotional problems, less pain, fewer social
problems and lesser feelings of nervousness and depression
are more likely to start exercising. There is a unique
exercise and diet method for women that I have developed on
my own, and it has helped thousands of clients get results.

When starting an exercise program, it is important to
remember a few basic principles –

Get descriptions of exercises, with pictures. Ideally, you
want a routine you can print out, take to the gym or use at
home. It should include a start and end picture of
exercises, with a description of technique. Such exercise
charts are available in health clubs and can be found on
various websites. Always obtain a routine from a reliable
source and ask questions if you don't understand anything.
Perform all exercises in a controlled manner. Never
sacrifice control for speed. Breathing is also important.
Never hold your breath while exercising. Remember to inhale
as you lower a weight or relax and exhale as you raise a
weight or exert. In an abdominal crunch, for example, you
inhale when coming down and exhale while raising the head
and shoulders off the mat.

Don't do too much too soon. Don't do too much, and don't do
too little either. Every individual is different. This
means that walking up the stairs may be easy for one
individual, but strenuous for someone else. The best way to
recognize how hard you're working is to be aware of your
breathing pattern, heart rate and exertion levels.
Moderate-intensity activity is going to make you breathe
harder than light activity, make your heart beat faster and
likely make you sweat a little.

Understand the meaning of moderate. There is a simple way
to understand what's moderate for you. Light exercise does
not result in any noticeable effort. Reading the newspaper
is a good example. Light exercise results in noticeable
exertion and normal to slightly increased breathing.
Walking a dog can be considered light exercise for many
individuals. Moderate exercise is slightly vigorous.
Gardening, for example, may be associated with deeper
breathing to panting and sweating. Finally, hard exercise
involves vigorous exertion, gasping and heavy sweating.
Think of that aerobics class that's hard to get through!

Frequency is important! 3-4 days a week of moderate
exercise for 30-45 minutes each time. Researchers have
found that 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical
activity on most days of the week can reduce the risk of
developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure,
stroke, and colon cancer. It lessens feelings of depression
and anxiety, helps build bones and muscles, keeps joints
functioning well, and in older women minimizes the risk of
falling.

Making the time if it isn't there. You don't have to fit
your exercise all into one session or limit yourself to
only one exercise. For example, take a brisk 15-minute walk
during your coffee break and another post-dinner. Use a
bicycle for 15 to 20 minutes. It all adds up. You may find
that you can reach an hour a day of moderate-intensity
activity more easily than you thought.

If you have not done much exercise lately, start adding
physical activity to your life with some simple tips. Park
your car further from your destination and walk. Find a
group of friends to walk with on weekend mornings. Garden
or help in home repairs. Take the stairs instead of the
elevator or escalator. Use hand weights while walking.
Vacuum while watching television. Every little bit helps!

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For more information about exercise for women and to
register for free, full-color exercise routines, diet plans
and grocery lists, visit
http://www.best-weight-loss-programs.net/ . For free
bonuses and exercise for women, visit
http://www.toningforwomen.com/ . To train with Nitin, visit
http://www.phonefitnesstrainer.com/

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