ASK HELEN:
Q Lately, I have been going through a difficult time and I want to keep myself motivated, feeling happy and make sure I continue to eat healthy. Do you have any ideas?
A I always tell my clients, “Welcome to the human race.” Things are always happening in our lives. Some days you may feel, “Life is beautiful” and other times think, “I would love to live on a beautiful island by myself.”
Even in the best of times, we still have personal issues going on that can impact our daily lives. I have heard it said many times, “When your car won’t start either you can think, why does everything bad happen to me or just call someone to fix the car. We have choices!
The most important tool you can use during a difficult time is to keep taking care of yourself. Following are some of the tools and techniques my clients and I use during those times:
1. Eat healthy and in no way change anything regarding what you eat or when you eat. By following your eating routine will create a level of comfort for yourself.
2. Exercise daily. It has been proven that exercising increases your endorphins which makes you feel better.
3. Say a mantra, “I am safe and everything will be OK.” Reassuring yourself gives you a sense of safety.
4. Create a grateful list, identifying what you are grateful for. By writing them down it shows you that life is not so bad.
5. Call someone for support. Sometimes after talking about a situation, you find solutions to the challenge.
6. Take a mini-vacation. Plan to take at least 10 minutes a day to do something nice for yourself.
Bottom line: You are the director of your life even though circumstances happen. There are choices: either you can think constantly about what is happening, or take steps to change your outlook and still enjoy your life. I leave you with the following quote:
“God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”The Serenity Prayer
As always, I would love to hear what is happening in your life and the tools and techniques you are using to make your life better. Either leave a comment or send me an email at helen@loveyourselfcoaching.net.
Today is a new day on your journey of life. We have a choice either feeling sorry for ourselves for not losing weight or trying a new eating behavior. Our thoughts of losing weight can be like an old friend. The thought is always with us and never challenges us to try something different. Until you are ready to make a commitment that things will be different and have the courage to move in a new direction nothing changes.
The following quote from the book, “Time for Joy”, By Ruth Fishel and Bonny Van de Kamp, illustrates how walking through your fears enables you to live a vibrant life.
It takes great courage to go in new directions.
It takes great courage to try things that others around us have not tried.
One can have courage while one has fear.
Courage does not mean the absence of fear.
To open new doors, to take new steps while walking through our fear
takes the greatest courage of all.
Each new door opened gives us confidence to open the next door.
By trusting the goodness within us and going beyond the fear,
Life is an exciting, satisfying and fulfilling place to be.
As your coach I support you in taking small steps that will make you very strong while making changes in your life. I have found that working with my clients in identifying what is more important in their life than food and reconnecting with what really makes them happy enables them to lose weight and live a vibrant life.
I have a client, lets call her Terri, who originally hired me as a coach so she could lose weight. Instead of only focusing on the food we started exploring what really made her happy and fulfilled. During the coaching sessions, we created the following game she could play:
1. Explored different tools and techniques she felt comfortable implementing while changing her eating behavior.
2. Asked friends and family members what they thought her perfect job would be.
2. Explored the list of professions and narrowed them down to two or three.
3. Performed informational interviews with people in the different fields.
4. Decided she would like to pursue the field of travel.
5. Worked for a Travel Agent on Saturdays as a tour guide in the historic area of her town.
As Terri was pursuing her dream job she stopped focusing on the food, started eating healthy with quantity control, exercising and losing weight at the same time. Today Terri, is at goal weight, founder of a business that plans tours for different groups.
If your deepest desire is to get off the diet merry-go-round and into a vibrant life, I am here to support you. How vibrant do you want your life to be? I can be reached at helen@loveyourselfcoaching.net
