Tag Archives: Fun

How to Make Exercise Fun!

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Joy2“I hate exercise.”

That’s a sentiment that I hear often from my clients.

But when they dig a little deeper, we discover it’s actually not true.

Think back to when you were a little kid.

  • Did you love to run and play?
  • Do you remember the freedom you felt on the playground?
  • Do you remember a time when moving your body felt good? What were you doing? Maybe it was riding your bike? Roller skating? Dancing?

Somewhere along the way, you were forced to give up “play.”

Responsibility got in the way; maybe school or your studies, getting a job, or starting a family.

“Exercise” became something you “had to do” to lose weight. And being the responsible adult that you are, you may have picked responsible “exercise programs” that you didn’t enjoy. You forced yourself to do them. You took it like medicine because working out was “good for you.”

Is it any wonder many people think they hate exercise? Who would want to take nasty tasting cough syrup every day? Certainly not me, and probably not you.

What if you created a new “rule?” What if this “rule” was that moving your body should be fun.

Having your movement be fun doesn’t mean that it’s not effective. Depending on what your goals are,there are many ways to achieve the results you’re looking for—and have fun!

For instance, a fabulous reader told me yesterday that she’s gotten back into shape doing gymnastics and hula dancing!

In addition to the old standbys, like walking, running, weight-training, yoga, tai chi, and Pilates, I know women who are in great shape who have achieved their goals by doing everything from fire-dancing, to boxing, jump-roping to hula-hooping. And there are many more options.

I personally love dance walking and dance cardio on the treadmill! 

Experiment until you find the workout you really enjoy.

Picking something that you actually enjoy doing significantly increases your chances of releasing the weight–once and for all.

Think of it this way. If you are starting a workout program that you hate, are dreading and despise every moment while you are doing it, how long are you likely to sustain that program?

This is another example of how harnessing your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs and aligning them with your actions is like adding a rocket booster to your ability to achieve your goals.

Find the way that moving your body feels good!

Together we can do it!

Here are my inspirations.

Don’t Wait Until Next Year to Get the Body You Want!

Join the the Love Your Way Slim Coaching Program today!

This unique program transforms your mindset, integrates your core values and spiritual beliefs, and hones in on the most powerful actions you can take to make releasing the weight not only easy and satisfying—but fun! (Yes, it really is possible!)

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Program closes January 12, 2013. It won’t reopen until January 2014!

http://loveyourwayslim.com/coaching-program/

Wellness Tip of the Day

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Wellness Tip of the Day

The key to moving your body consistently is to make it fun! Picking a workout you actually enjoy increases your consistency–and success.

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My blog is moving! To keep following my posts after January 15, follow my new blog, at LoveYourWaySlim.com. I look forward to continuing the journey with you!

3 Easy Tips to Create a Slimmer You in 2013

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ScaleOver this holiday week, you may have found yourself eating, and eating, and eating!

And you may be beating yourself up about it.

But telling yourself how horrible you are truly is NOT helpful—and it could very well end up making you feel so bad about yourself that you unknowingly sabotage your future efforts to lose weight. 

It will probably go something like this:

You feel fat. You may even feel desperate to lose weight. Every time you feel how tight your clothes are, all you can think about is how much you hate your body.

You know you need to diet and exercise so that you can drop some weight, but it’s the end of the year, right? Why start now?

You make a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight. You decide that on January 2nd you are going to start dieting and exercising.

Between now and then you keep eating, and eating, and eating. You are trying to cram in every food you love to prepare for months of hunger and deprivation.

You feel bloated, headachy, and slightly sick.

And you hate yourself even more. You feel ashamed that you’ve let your weight get out of hand—again.

On January 2, you force yourself to work out and you start a diet that drastically cuts the amount of food you’ve been eating.

Each day gets harder and harder.

Maybe your diet lasts for a day or two, or for a week or two, or maybe you are even successful at meeting your goal.

And then you feel your control slip.

You just can’t maintain the rigid diet and exercise “rules” you’ve set in place. You’re tired of being hungry. Your tired of feeling deprived. Your tired of feeling like you aren’t fully living your life.

Before you know it, you’ve regained the weight you’ve lost—and then some.

This time next year, you find yourself putting “losing weight” at the top of your list of New Year’s resolutions—again.

It’s time to say, “ENOUGH!”

There is another way! And you don’t have to follow rigid rules, feel hungry and deprived to get the body you want. (Honestly!)

The first tip  is to ease up on the self-criticism.

This makes sense when you think about the the foundation principle that Energy Attracts Like Energy (also known at the Law of Attraction).

If you spend all your time thinking about the fact that you don’t have the body you want, you are actually creating more life experiences where you are unhappy with your body.

Begin using this Universal Law to work for you instead of against you! 

Start today by focusing on what you can appreciate about your body. By focusing on what is working and what you do like, you will create more opportunities to appreciate and love your body.

The second tip  is to ease up (just slightly!) on the food intake.

This is not the last time you will be able to eat your favorite foods. (I promise!) When you take off the pressure of “never being able to eat this again!” there is not the frenzy to shove everything in now before the “diet deadline.”

Eat what actually feels good. What you really want in this moment. What you can really savor.

There is more than enough. There is plenty. You can still eat your favorite foods AND lose weight. 

Taking the self-imposed pressure off means you will eat less, enjoy more, and start the year maybe not quite as heavy and physically hung-over as you would be otherwise.

You will feel better and have some momentum going on January 2, so beginning to implement some healthier eating doesn’t come as such a shock to your system.

The third tip is to take baby steps.

If going to the extreme of implementing rigid rules and drastically reduced calories is going to make you feel deprived and resentful—and ultimately send your efforts to create the body you want on the skids—then why go that route?

What if instead you committed to eating a little bit healthier today? Or getting in a 10 minute walktoday? And you celebrated what you did, instead of what you didn’t do? Would making that same commitment be a little easier tomorrow? What would your wellness journey look like next week? Next month? In six months?

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC – 531 BC)

What step are you willing to take on your wellness journey today?

When you just keep taking those small steps, it’s not too much time before you have achieved your New Year’s Resolution and have created the body—and lifestyle—you want!

Together we can do it!

I’m offering a FREE tele-class to help you revolutionize your weight-loss resolution (so it finally works)!

Transform Your New Year’s Resolution

to Lose Weight!

Make 2013 the Year

You Finally Get the Body You Want  

 

January 2, 2013, 8 p.m. USA Eastern

In this content-rich seminar you’ll discover:

  • The Top 5 Ways You are Unknowingly Sabotaging Your Efforts to Lose Weight
  • Why Your Weight is Still a Struggle for You and How to Break the Rebound Weight-gain Cycle Once and For All
  • The Surprising Power You Have to Successfully Lose Weight and Improve the Life of You and Your Family
  • 3 Easy Tips to Transform Your New Year’s Resolution and Turn it into a Reality
  • An Exciting NEW Opportunity to “Love Your Way Slim”
  • Plus Much More…

Simply register by filling out the form at loveyourwayslim.com/transformyourresolution/ and you’ll receive access to this free call.

 

Reclaim Your Feminine Power to Get the Body You Want

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dance walkWhen you exercise, do you love and adore your body? Are you having so much fun you wish you were doing your workout at other times during the day? Does moving your body help you tap you’re your sensuality and feminine power?

In this provocative TEDx talk, Sheila Kelley shares how tapping into your feminine power can help you in every part of your life—include getting the body you want.

The challenge is that all women have learned to be ashamed of your bodies.

Kelley shares that every woman has a “First Offense” that brought negative attention, judgment or shame to your body.

I vividly remember my “First Offense.”

When I was 5 years old, my father told me I needed to learn how to suck in my stomach.

Me blowing out the candles on my 5th birthday

Me blowing out the candles on my 5th birthday

Now at age 5, I wasn’t fat. But how I interpreted his comment was that he was telling me I was fat. He was telling me there was something wrong with my body.

I was a tomboy who always had scabs on my knees from falls and crashes on my bike. Shortly after that conversation with my father I remember for the first time being embarrassed at how my banged up knees looked and trying to pull my knee socks up as high as they would go to cover them up.

For the first time, I suffered from body shame.

From that moment on, I focused almost exclusively on my flaws, and what was wrong with me. And for most of my life, I struggled with my weight.

That was just the first offence. With every criticism or judgment we receive as we grow and mature, we close ourselves off from our feminine power.

This is why so many women “hide” behind unhealthy eating habits.

Kelley says 80 percent of women in America feel something is missing and they have no idea what it is.

That “it” is reclaiming your feminine essence and reclaiming your body.

Near the end of the talk, Kelley invites every woman to, “Step into the grandeur, the beauty, the gorgeousness, the sway, the curve, the power, the fire of your body, of your spirit, of your emotions.”

Reconnecting with your feminine power is an important step in getting the body you want.

Together we can do it!

15 Ways to See Your Body as Beautiful

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I used to hate my body.

Almost all of my thoughts about my body were negative—and harsh! I constantly told myself how ugly I was, how awful I looked compared to everyone else, how weak, soft, and poorly functioning my body was.

I focused almost exclusively on my body’s flaws.

And for years, I struggled with losing and regaining the same 30 pounds over and over again.

Oh, I knew how to diet and exercise, but I just couldn’t make the changes stick.

After 35 years of struggling with my weight, I knew there had to be another way.

So I tried something drastic.

I decided to change my thoughts.

It wasn’t until I started changing my thoughts that I started to see lasting changes in my body. Since 2009, I’ve lost 34 pounds–and best of all, I’ve kept it off!

Today, I love my body! 

I love my body and life more than I thought possible.

Before and After1

Believe it or not, your body reflects the thoughts you are thinking.

And you may be seriously underestimating the incredible power of your thoughts.

Reflect on the kinds of thoughts you think about your body—and life!—most of the time.

Are you primarily focused on how fabulous your body is, how hard it’s working on your behalf, how beautiful it is, how strong and fit it is, and how much you love it?

Or are you saying things like I used to say? Are you frustrated and angry at your body because it doesn’t look like you want it to look, or how you think it should look? Are you on the verge of giving up on ever getting the body you want?

When you look at your body, does it physically reflect your predominate thoughts?

Now think about the person whose body you admire most.

Got someone in mind?

What thoughts do you suppose they think most about their bodies? How do you think they feel most often when the look in the mirror? How much time do they spend appreciating what they have verses complaining about what they don’t?

“That’s different,” you might say. “They started off with a beautiful body.”

So did you.

Think back to when you were a kid. There was probably a time when you didn’t even think about your body. You just ran and played because it was fun! It felt good to move your body.

Now think about when you started being self-critical. For some of you, that might be when you were very young. For others, maybe it wasn’t until you were in your teens, 20s, or even 30s.

Chances are it started off really small.

I remember first being embarrassed about my body when I was just 5 years old. I was a tomboy who always had scabs on my knees from falls and crashes on my bike, and I vividly remember trying to pull my knee socks up as high as they would go to cover them up.

Covering up my body was something I did for a lot of years!

Whether you are aware of it or not, a thought must come first before you experience anything. Your thoughts truly are the foundation of every part of your life.

Thoughts also translate into actions. If you hate your body, how likely are you to eat nutritious foods? If you compare your body negatively to everyone else’s, how likely are you to join a gym and go workout? If you judge it as weak, sickly, or ill-functioning, what is the quality of your self-care?

If you want to create—and maintain—a beautiful body, the real key is to begin by shifting your thoughts.

Begin by deciding to choose more supportive thoughts about your body. Create a list of the parts of your body that work well, that are attractive, and that are working hard on your behalf.

Often when I ask a women to name one thing about her body she can appreciate, she comes up blank. She literally can’t name one thing.

So start with the basics. For instance:

  • Your heart is beating in and out and blood is pumping through your veins
  • Your lungs are taking in life-giving oxygen.
  • Your brain is functioning well enough for you to read these words.
  • Your body is taking in nutrients and fluids.
  • Your bones are supporting your body.
  • Your feet and legs are supporting your every step.
  • Your hands are helping you accomplish everything in your life.
  • Your hips are supporting you as you sit and read this.
  • Your spine is holding you upright.

How often do you acknowledge and appreciate these amazing things about your body?

Now choose one thing that you find attractive about your body.

Maybe it’s:

  • Your strong and capable hands.
  • The delicate curve of your lips or eyebrows.
  • The way your hair falls, it’s color, or texture.
  • The sensuous shape of your calves.
  • The amazing color and sparkle of your eyes.
  • How your smile lights up your face.

Of these 15 ways to see your body as beautiful, I bet more of them applied to you than you expected, right?

Start with what you can appreciate about your body. As you focus more on those things, you’ll automatically find more things to appreciate.

Soon you’ll be appreciating the extra distance you can walk, the beautiful muscles that are emerging in your legs, and how fabulous you look from behind in your new pair of jeans!

When you begin to focus on things about your body that are working well, that are how you want them to be, that are beautiful, the more your body will begin to reflect these new thoughts.

Your thoughts lead your life. Shift your thoughts consistently in the direction you want to go and your body—and life—will follow.

Together we can do it!

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My blog is moving to my new website LoveYourWaySlim.com. For the next month, I will post both here and there. To keep following my posts after January 15, you will need to follow my new blog. I look forward to continuing the journey with you!

Super Woman is in the Way of Getting the Body You Want

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powerpose-daquellamanera-2973850707This summer, one of my clients was giving herself a hard time because a week after moving to a new state and a few days after starting a new job, she wasn’t relaxed. In fact, she was downright stressed.

I call this the Super Woman Syndrome. This is the expectation that you can—and have to!—do everything while always being happy and relaxed.

How reasonable is that? Particularly if you are going through some pretty significant life changes?

Super Woman Syndrome seems to turn into an epidemic during the holidays.

All the shopping, decorating, socializing, cooking, sending out holiday cards—the list goes on and on. Or you may be trying to make everything perfect—for yourself or for others.

 It can leave you wiped out, particularly if you feel like you have to do it all yourself.

Super Woman Syndrome impacts your overall wellness—and how easily you are able to get the body you want. 

During the holidays, exercise and sleep—those good solutions for stress and fatigue—may take a back seat to chores and errands.

I know. 

Just to be totally open and authentic with you fabulous readers, I am experiencing Super Woman Syndrome right now, as well.

Oh, I have the holidays in hand, but my business is ramping up this week with the launch of my new website, LoveYourWaySlim.com, and a tele-class I’m giving for Impact ADHD, both happening on Thursday, as well as the January 7 launch of a new coaching program and the planning of a Love Your Way Slim Beach-side Retreat in April.

I am feeling the stress and my body is letting me know that my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are not supporting me as I step into this new level of business activity.

My body is reminding me to ramp up my own self-care.

So I thought this was an opportune time to remind myself–and share with you–some tips to help relieve stress and have more fun.

  • Ease up on yourself, particularly in the moment. Notice your reaction, but let go of the self-judgment as much as possible. Beating yourself up for your reaction—to any situation—is just adding negative fuel to the catabolic fire. It makes you feel worse and will prolong the stress.
  • Give yourself a little perspective. How much of your day do you feel stressed? Is it 100 percent of the time or were there just some significant moments of overwhelm that colored your perception of your day? Start paying attention to how many good moments you are having. Begin to track how much of the time things are going well, you are making progress, you are coping, you are feeling relief, satisfaction, gratitude, and even joy. You might be surprised that there are more of those positive anabolic moments than you thought.
  • Give yourself a break. Being is just as important as doing. Take a moment to slow down. Think about how important a task is before you make yourself do it when you are exhausted and really need a break. Will an unswept floor really crash your day tomorrow? Really?

It’s time to get Super Woman out of the way so that you can get the body–and life–that you want.

You are more than just this physical body going through the motions. Letting yourself relax and have some fun—and shifting your attitude so that you are having more fun doing what you are doing—will actually boost your energy level. 

This will help you maintain your wellness, get more done with much less stress, and show up more as the person you want to be.

Together we can do it!

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My blog is moving! On Thursday, I will be shifting my blog to my new website LoveYourWaySlim.com. For the next month, I will post both here and there. To keep following my posts after January 15, you will need to follow my new blog. I look forward to continuing the journey with you! 

5 Easy Tips to Make Creating Healthy Habits Fun!

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Calendar January 2 Transformation StartMost people are not going to start a new eating or exercise program before January 2.

But you can drastically increase the chances of fulfilling your New Year’s resolution to lose weight by creating new mental habits right now. 

And it can take as little as 5 minutes a day.

Think about how much you get done when you are excited, eager, and looking forward to something. Now think about how hard it is to make progress when you are dreading something, don’t want to do it, resent it, etc.

While you can move forward and get stuff done while you are feeling negative catabolic emotions, consciously shifting to positive anabolic thoughts before you begin a task is like putting on rocket boosters. 

Not only is your power to get things done greater, but it’s easier and more fun.

Most of what makes releasing weight “hard” are your current mental habits.

You have thoughts about how hard it is to lose weight that you have repeated for so long that you don’t even realize there’s another way to look at it. You have practiced dreading dieting. You have developed a mental rut on exercise that is not serving you.

These are just some catabolic habits of thought you have going on. Thoughts are made of energy, not marble. They can be changed! 

Why do you want to go to the trouble of creating positive, life-building anabolic mental habits, you might ask?

Because anabolic thoughts result in emotions that feel good.

Those emotions make your heart sing. When you are feeling anabolic emotions, you know that things are always working out for you. When there’s a problem, you see the solution. You laugh more. You relax more. You are happy to be alive. 

As a result, the actions you need to take feel easier.

  • Instead of hating to work out, you start to enjoy it.
  • You find you like the taste of fresh vegetables.
  • You easily make the decision to turn off the T.V. and go to bed so you will wake up rested and refreshed.
  • Water starts to taste good.

 It’s easy. It feels like the choice you want to make.

Progress not perfection

Start now to create these new mental habits and come January 2 you will be so ready to turn these thoughts into action that there will be no stopping you!

Here are 5 easy ways to begin creating new mental habits:

  • Make a list of how you want to feel come January 2.
  • Think about all the reasons Why you want to be fit, strong, and slim. (Go deeper than just looking good.)
  • Remember all the ways you enjoyed being active when you were a kid.
  • Slow down during meals and really appreciate your food and how it is building the body you want.
  • Appreciate the life giving aspects of the water you are drinking.

Doesn’t that feel good?

Now practice these thoughts every day.

Often people will use the excuse that they don’t have time to create new mental habits, particularly during the holidays.

Truly, you don’t have time not to!

By taking a few minutes now, you will more than make up with ease and efficiency when you do start your eating and exercise program.

A huge bonus is that the more you practice these new mental habits, the easier and more fun your life becomes.

What is one thing you can begin to do regularly to shift your mental habits? What difference does that make in creating the body—and life—you want come January 2nd?

Together we can do it!

Wellness Tip of the Weekend

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Wellness Tip of the Weekend: Creating new mental habits makes creating healthy physical habits easier and more fun. Practice appreciating, reinterpreting, and easing up.

More Blessed Than Many

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After a late night arrival and a week away from home, I am taking the opportunity to share a fabulous blog from Gina at Professions for PEACE.

Many years ago I took a course that had an instructor who advocated the concept of gratitude.

He shared how he began every day and ended every evening by listing all that he had to be thankful for. He told us how as soon as he woke, he’d begin listing in his mind all the things he felt thankful for. His wife sleeping beside him. The blanket over them. The mattress underneath. The roof overhead. And on and on, his list would multiply throughout the day.

He instructed that every day we write out a list of one hundred things to be thankful for. He’d enthuse, “It’s easy! That’s a short list, so let’s get going!”

If a student was going through a rough time and couldn’t think of anything to be thankful for, he would always begin talking about health.

He’d discuss giving thanks for our sense of sight, of hearing, of smell, taste and touch. He’d remind people to be thankful for having free mobility, and not needing a wheelchair or crutches.

Then he’d talk about being pain-free and remembering to not take that for granted.

He’d ask, “Do you suffer from painful indigestion? Headaches? Heartburn? Are you suffering right now…? No? Thank goodness. Then give thanks for that! Has your back ever gotten out of alignment and really hurt you? Yes? Is it hurting you now? No? Great! Write it down. Give thanks for that.” 

He was a passionate trainer and enjoyed getting people fired up about how much there is to be thankful for. Once we started our lists, the items would grow quickly. We would give thanks for the people that cared about us, as well as those that don’t—for they teach us to not worry about anyone who doesn’t like us.

We would give thanks for times of sickness or scarcity or heartbreak, for these times teach us to more fully appreciate our wellness and abundance and love.

I took that course over twenty years ago. I’ve grown older, and have been through experiences that I’d not wish on anyone. Yet no matter what has happened, no matter the hurts I’ve been through, I have found that this view of gratitude always holds true.

We simply cannot hold thoughts of gratitude and depression at the same time. If we are willing to truly open our eyes and see, we are always better off than someone out there. We always have something to be thankful for.

When we focus on how much we have to be grateful for, our burdens feel lighter. Our sense of humor returns. And most importantly for me, I feel a sense of wonder and joy everywhere I look. I actually feel closer to God. 

As the 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart put it so wisely, “If the only prayer you ever say in your life is ‘thank you’ that would suffice.”

Seek out things to be thankful for. Remembering this simple yet crucial concept will consistently lift your spirits and brighten your day.

It works for me!

Gina is a creative design junkie, neophyte web-head, optimist extraordinaire, sustainable gardening aficionado, gourmet comfort-food cook, undiscovered comic voice actor, pet whisperer, snail-mail enthusiast, collector of antique poetry, and proud proponent of the kindness of strangers.

Whew. But wait! There’s more!

She is a hopeful romantic and adores her beloved husband. She is incredibly proud of her two grown sons.

Along with this, she is a spiritual philosopher. She celebrates the precious common thread woven through all the world’s great religions that encourages us to Love. Her spiritual journey and goal of each day is to remember how loved she is and to share that love outwardly.

Check out her blog at http://professionsforpeace.com/