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.

----------------------------------------------------
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!

----------------------------------------------------
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
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Trusting a New Weight Loss Diet

Trusting a New Weight Loss Diet
=======================
With all the gimmicks and dishonesty across the internet
today it is easy to understand why a person may be
skeptical when they find a new weight loss diet. So many
people say "Lose 50 lbs in a week" or "Lose Weight
Instantly". Some of us may have fallen for these gimmicks,
just hoping and praying that somehow they have created a
miracle solution to our weight problems. However, with some
new weight loss diets, we know one thing for sure, if we
could all lose fifty pounds in one week, no person in this
world would be overweight or obese.

Now, how can you tell if a new weight loss diet, is worth
your time, effort, or investment? While there is no sure
fire way to tell there are some things you want to look for
before you spend your hard-earned money on any new weight
loss diet.

First, look at their promises. Are they realistic? If the
program states that you can lose nine pounds every single
day, that should be an alarm right there. It is unhealthy
to lose that amount of weight on a daily basis and probably
almost impossible to boot. Now if the program promises that
you will lose nine pounds in two weeks or less, that is a
little more logical. I would be more apt to believe the
latter.

Then you want to look at their about us page, it may be
named differently, but essentially look for a page that
gives you information about the new weight loss diet. You
want to look for what their mission is, their pledge, and
make sure that you find some contact information. You want
to look for a way to contact them with any questions. At
the very least, you want the company name, address, email
address, and telephone number. A contact page would work as
well, as long as the other information is also provided.

You then want to look at all the features and options they
give you for the price. Is it worth it? Are you going to
get solid information about the new weight loss diet? What
information are they giving you? Is it new information or
is it something you can find anywhere you look? You want
the new weight loss diet to give you a satisfactory reason
as to why you should choose their program over all the
others in the market.

Lastly, look for some testimonials of REAL people who have
had success using their new weight loss diet. Telling real
testimonials from fake is fairly simple, you want to see
the first and last name, and some sort of identifying
feature such as business, website, where they are from.
Also look at the actual words, make sure that real people
write the testimonials.

----------------------------------------------------
You can get "How can you find the perfect weight loss
program for you in 5 days" a free 5-Part mini course here
http://www.weightlossprograms4you.com

How Adjusting The Way You Eat Can Help You Lose Weight

How Adjusting The Way You Eat Can Help You Lose Weight
===========================
If you want to lose weight without going on a diet per se,
there are a few eating habits that you can change. We live
in an economy today that is used to eating large portions
without the worry of health; that is until the appearance
becomes apparent. By altering the way you eat you can stay
healthy and at a comfortable weight without having to go on
a diet.

In our society it is acceptable and widely practiced to
overeat and stuff ourselves. The first thing you can do to
avoid overeating is stop before your stuffed. This is not
to say you should stop eating or eat small portions.
However, there is a difference between eating until your
full and eating until you can't move anymore. There is
nothing that says you have to clear your entire plate
before you can leave, so don't do it.

Another bad health diet that people get in the habit of is
eating food because it is there. Just because there is
food in the vicinity or because it is the time you normally
eat at doesn't mean you have to eat. You should be eating
when you're hungry, not whenever your pantry is full. One
way to save yourself the trouble is to not stock your
pantry with high calorie foods that are calling your name.
By filling your house with fruit and crackers you will be
eating healthy items.

Along the same lines of stopping before you're stuffed, you
should practice eating small portions. A great weight loss
tip is to cut your normal portions in half or a little less
than half. This will help you get in the habit of eating a
normal amount of calories for the day and not overeating.
This can be difficult to do when dining out, but you don't
have to eat the whole portion at the sitting. If you want
to lose weight, eat half of the dinner at the diner and
bring the rest home for later.

The last eating tip to help you lose weight is eating
slowly. Your digestive system acts as a messenger to your
brain by telling you when it has had enough. By eating
quickly you send your digestive system too many messages
all at once and it gets overloaded. The result is you eat
far more than you should because the digestive system could
not warn you. If you pace yourself you will notice when it
is time to stop, and to your surprise it may be a smaller
amount than you usually eat.

If you want to have a healthy diet there is more to it than
the eating habits listed above. The kinds of foods you
eat, physical activity, and nutritional shakes can all help
assist you as well. However, the first step to losing
weight is how you eat making all the tips listed above ever
so important to your health.

----------------------------------------------------
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How Much Sleep Do I Need?

How Much Sleep Do I Need?
=================
Let's face it.. sleep is necessary for life!

Better yet, sleep has an increased rate of anabolism (the
synthesis of cell structures), and a decreased rate of
catabolism (the breakdown of cell structures).

What this means to you is more muscle.

Have you heard the term, "You don't grow in the gym, you
grow out of the gym." Well sleep is part of that. It's
not just recovery but it's when your muscles repair
themselves.

:: Stages of Sleep ::

Currently, scientists divide sleep into two general types:
REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and NREM (non-REM).

And within those types, there are 5 defined stages of sleep
referred to as Stages 1 thru 5.

Did you know that Non-REM (Stage 1-4 sleep) accounts for
75-80% of total sleep time? it's also in those stages that
your body repairs itself and it's when the real growth
occurs.

:: Optimal Sleep Amounts ::

An American study linked life spans with sleep amount and
found that those who sleep 4 to 7 hours live the longest,
with those sleeping less than 4 or more than 9 hours living
shorter lives[1]. The National Sleep Foundation however
maintains that 8 hours of sleep is optimal, claiming
improved performance in tests, reduced risk of accidents
and a better immune system. It is important to mention this
does not apply to children and adolescents, particularly
children who require as much as 13 hours a night.

:: Importance of Optimal Sleep ::

First, some theories of sleep describe sleep as a dynamic
time of healing and growth for organisms. For example,
during stages 3 and 4, or slow-wave sleep, growth hormone
levels increase, and changes in immune function occur.

Non-REM sleep may be an anabolic state marked by
physiological processes of growth and rejuvenation of the
organism's immune, nervous, muscular, and skeletal systems.

But what happens if you don't get enough sleep?

:: Lack of Sleep ::

This is a list of potential problems associated with a lack
of sleep or sleep deprivation.

irritability hernia nausea Decreased ability for the immune
system to fight off sickness Weight gain increased blood
pressure Aching muscles Faster aging Slowed reaction time
dizziness

For all those reasons, you can see that getting enough
sleep is EXTREMELY important to your goals of muscle
building and fat loss. A lack of sleep can really put a
lid on your progress.

Short bouts of sleep deprivation probably won't stifle your
gains but long term sleep problems can certainly curtail
your progress.

While there is not single number that works for every
single person, generally 4-7 hours should be enough for
most people under most conditions to build muscle and burn
fat.

It's true that some people need more and some people need
less.

:: Sleep Tips for Getting the Rest You Need ::

Here's just a few tips for healthy and restful sleep.

Sleep only when sleepy - There's no reason to go to sleep
or attempt to sleep if you aren't tired.

If you cannot fall asleep within 20 minutes, get up until
you are tired and try again. Don't lie awake for hours.

Nap no more than 20 minutes and certainly not too late in
the day as it will interfere with going to sleep later.

Get up and go to bed at the same time every day. This
includes weekends. Establish a sleep routine and stick
with it.

Refrain from exercising 4 hours before your regular
bedtime. You can do morning workouts and late afternoon
but if you workout too close to bed time, you've
essentially just woken yourself up. It will be harder to
go to sleep quickly if you've just got your blood flowing.

Develop sleep rituals. Many parents try and calm their
children down 20 minutes or more before bed. This
establishes a relaxation time frame before sleeping.
Whatever you can do to relax before going to bed.

Only use your bed for sleeping.

Stay away from stimulates 4-6 hours before bed. That
includes alcohol, nicotine and caffeine.

Have a light snack before bed.

Take a hot bath 90 minutes before bed. Some studies have
shown that a drop in body temperature will leave you
feeling sleepy. The bath will warm you up and getting out
will cool you down. That drop can leave you feeling ready
to sleep and it's a relaxing ritual as well before heading
off to bed. A hot/warm shower will also do the trick.

Ensure your bed and bedroom are quiet and comfortable. This
means the place where you sleep is conducive to sleeping.

One sleep "secret" action you can take within 45 seconds of
opening your eyes in the morning, to instantly raise your
energy is to use sunlight to set your biological clock.
When light hits your skin, it starts to destroy melatonin.
The faster you can get rid of melatonin, the less groggy
you will feel upon waking. The first 15 seconds you can
either open up a window and get some sunlight or you can
look near a bright light if it's too dark outside. This
will help to wake you up quickly and get rid of that groggy
feeling you sometimes can feel.

Needless to say...

Sleep is extremely important to getting the most of our
your fitness program. There's several benefits to sleep
beyond the simple fact it's required for life. There's
long term effects of sleep deprivation that will interfere
with your goals.

Clearly when you sleep, your body is growing and repairing
form the workout you did to stimulate muscle growth. This
means it is critical to your overall progress.

:: Footnotes ::

1. Experts challenge study linking sleep, life span.
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/02/14/sleep.study/index.
html

----------------------------------------------------
Marc David is a bodybuilder and author of the, Beginner's
Guide to Fitness and Bodybuilding. You can get info on
Marc's e-book at: http://www.Beginning-Bodybuilding.com

To
get Marc's free e-zine, visit http://www.JustAskMarc.com