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When I reflected on the crankiness that characterized my last blog, it occurred to me that for months I have been sunlight-deprived. I leave my house at 8:00 am and return just as darkness has descended, around 6:00 pm. In addition, I rarely leave the Hilton Head Health campus during the workday. Thus, my daily contact with the outside world and the warmth of the sun has been minimal since late fall.
Many of my coaching clients ask, “Should I weigh myself?” My standard answer is to ask a couple of questions: 1) Do you think you need to weigh? 2) What does the number on the scale mean to you?
Many people are terrified of the scale. I know, because I was one of the terrorized. There was a time in my life when my scale and I were on intimate terms. In fact, I even bought one that could talk. He had a rather pleasant voice (except when his batteries were low). When I stepped on him, he announced my weight and wished me a “nice day.”
I became obsessed with the man in the scale, like a bad boyfriend. My morning ritual involved lining him up just right (I knew which position on the tile would give me the lowest reading). After eliminating everything possible, including clothes, shoes and jewelry, even my elastic hair band, I would blow out the air in my lungs (surely all that air would weigh something…) and step, ever so lightly, onto the exact spot I knew would deliver the lowest reading. I had this down to a science.
It got worse. Over time, I began weighing myself at various times of the day, getting different numbers each time, of course, depending on my food and water intake, amount of exercise, time of month, etc. A low number often led to a binge, but a high number set off a panic attack, followed by some form of self-punishment—a few more hours sweating it out at the gym and/or a night of starvation.
The turning point for me was an illness that took months to diagnose and a year of recovery. You see, when we abuse our bodies, whether by over- or under-eating or exercising, it eventually comes back to bite us.
After a great deal of self-reflection and some work with a counselor, I eventually began to identify the thoughts, beliefs and attitudes that were driving me to obsess over the number on the scale. I now own a new scale, which, by the way, does not talk. I check in occasionally (about once a week) just to see how I’m doing. The number still varies, and I’m fine with that, because here’s what I’ve learned:
The number is just that: a number—a plain, stupid digital readout. It doesn’t say anything about who I am as a person. It’s there to help me. Like an air traffic controller, it gives me valuable information about my course, so, if necessary, I can make corrections.
If the thought of a daily or weekly weigh-in strikes terror in your heart, try looking at it as a simple reality check. Use the scale as a tool, and realize that it is only one way of measuring your progress. Glance at the number and say, “So what?” After all, it is not a judgment of your personal worth. It’s simply a way of knowing if you’re moving in the desired direction.
Super Bowl Sunday is almost here. It will be a day of intriguing match ups, Brady vs. Eli, Belichick vs. Coughlin and good (the Giants) vs. evil (the Patriots). Just kidding, I actually like both teams. But if you are like me and are attending a Super Bowl party, the most important matchup of the day may be beer, wings and pizza vs. motivation, commitment and resolve. The challenge will be great.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Americans will consume 100 million pounds of chicken wings, 43.2 million pounds of tortilla chips, 45.8 million pounds of potato chips, 13.3 million pounds of pretzels,71.4 million pounds of avocados, 4.4 million pizza pies, and 111 million gallons of beer on Super Bowl Sunday. So, is it possible to go to a Super Bowl party, have a good time and leave with your sense of control in tact? I think so, but it will take some planning. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
If, in spite of your efforts to make good choices, you go overboard, remember that it is one day and one day does not determine your chance for long term success. As you might remember from the Staying on Track seminar, when you slip the goal is to “recover quickly”. Don’t try to make up for extra Super Bowl calories by skipping lunch and dinner or exercising fanatically on Monday, simply return to your normal healthy routine.
Have a great time and please share with us any good tips and strategies that worked well for you.
Many Guests who visit Hilton Head Health have questions about their diet, especially if “going vegetarian” will help in losing weight more rapidly. Although there are some benefits to adapting a vegetarian diet, we believe that it should be something you consider as a lifestyle change and not necessarily a “diet.” Meat provides your body with protein and many other essential nutrients. Today, we have a special post from Kelly Milgie. You have probably seen Kelly’s shining face greeting you as walk through the doors of H3. As a vegetarian, Kelly would like to share how she decided to adopt a meatless diet and hopefully, give insight to those with questions about vegetarianism. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments for Kelly in the comments section of this post.
Growing up in Michigan, meat was a part of my everyday diet and it was not until I went away to college that I started to eat meat less often. This was mostly because for the first time in my life I had to fend for myself when it was meal time, instead of having my parents cook for me. By the end of my freshman year at Central Michigan University (CMU), I almost completely cut out red meat. I began to realize that I ate it out of convenience, not because I actually enjoyed the taste. When I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment my sophomore year, I had the opportunity to experiment a little bit more in the kitchen. I mostly cooked pasta and chicken since they were the easiest to prepare and fit best into my college student budget.
After graduating from CMU, I moved down to South Carolina and was introduced to seafood. Of course I ate it here and there while living inMichigan, but it was definitely not a part of my regular diet. I noticed I was eating more and more fish and less and less meat. It even got to the point where I would get what I called “meat overload”—if I had any type of meat for lunch, I would not want any meat in my dinner.
My granddaughter, Anna Leigh
A triggering event is an event, situation, or may even be a comment that makes you think about something differently. The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), a study that I refer to often, has been collecting data for the past 15 years about the habits and characteristics of those who have been successful at losing a lot of weight (50 – 70 lbs.), and kept it off for a long time (5 – 7 years). They found that a number of the people in their database had what they referred to as a “triggering event”, an event that made them think about their weight in a different way and made managing their weight, or getting healthy more important to them than it had been before. The triggering event could have been a bad medical report, seeing their reflection in store window or mirror from an angle they hadn’t seen before, being unable to do something because of their weight, seeing a close friend or family member have a serious health problem or anything that made losing and maintaining their weight more important to them than before this event.
One of my favorite examples of this from the NWCR was a young, single father of a 4-year-old daughter. The daughter had some friends over and they were playing and talking and the father over heard one of his daughter’s friends say “your daddy is really nice, but he sure is fat.” While he knew he was overweight, he had never heard anyone say it so bluntly—and he said to himself at that moment, she is right, I am fat, and I am the single father of a 4-year-old daughter. That day he hired a personal trainer, joined weight watchers and now many years later, he is fitter, leaner and much healthier than before. While he always knew he should do something about his weight, it took that comment to motivate him to act.
I had what I consider to be a triggering event on Wednesday January 11, at 12:58 pm. Anna Leigh Fraser came into the world and changed my world forever. Yes, I am now a grandfather (papa) to a healthy baby girl. I am a pretty healthy guy, who has lived a pretty healthy lifestyle, but things are different now. I am already finding myself thinking, I want to be there when she graduates, gets married and has kids herself ( I literally just shed a tear, I am not making this up). I have been a grandfather for about a week and I am already looking ahead to being a great grandparent. So as important as health has always been to me, it’s much more important now. As much as I try to practice what we preach, I have to be a better practitioner. You might have heard me say one of my favorite quotes, “habits are caught not taught,” now I have someone else to “catch” my habits. My favorite phrase,” unwise, better, best,” has new meaning to me. The point is, the stakes have changed, and they changed the minute is saw her for the first time. I know I will be more conscious of my health because of her.
It is important to point out that not all of the successful weight managers in the NWCR had a triggering event—in fact, most didn’t. Having a triggering event is not a requirement for or a prerequisite for success, nor does it make it any easier to succeed. But it does provide a rallying point; helps focus your attention, put perspective on why it’s important to keep working toward and achieving your health goals. If you have had such an event, use it to keep you focused. If you haven’t had one, don’t wait for it—look for other sources of motivation and inspiration; but be on the lookout, you never know when that potentially life changing triggering event will occur.
Last year I was very depressed about the way I looked and felt. I was around 70 lbs over weight and felt completely hopeless after trying and failing so many diet plans. I was obsessed with tv shows like The Biggest Loser and A&E’s Heavy. When Heavy started filming at Hilton Head Health, I kept saying to myself, Hilton Head’s just a few hours away. In April, I decided I was going to go spend a week there after school got out. So I booked my week in June and began to think that there was hope.
During my week there, I attended every informational class that was offered. I have worked out in gyms and taken various classes, so my primary concern was to get all of the accurate information I could get. This is where I learned about the H3@ Home Coaching program. I looked at that as a protection on my investment so that when I got home, when I had questions or problems, I would have someone to turn to. I was matched up with Amy Kelderhouse and we hit it off immediately.
How has H3@Home Coaching benefitted you?
When I got home, I did in fact have many questions and issues. I had a couple of injuries, sometimes challenges, and all kinds of general questions. Amy was always right there with fabulous solutions to every problem I encountered. With her guidance, I was walking 6 miles every day and planning good meals. I was having a horrible time with plantar fasciitis, which she gave me wonderful stretching exercises for. I remember telling her that during the third month of being at home, that everything hurts because I’m just old and tired. She reminded me of the book and class I had taken at Hilton Head Health called “Younger Next Year”. I had actually downloaded that book onto my iPad while I was in Hilton Head. I got it out and started reading it. Amy had been reminding me that I really needed to get my heart rate up while walking. Due to the plantar fasciitis, I just couldn’t walk any faster. But when reading the book, something clicked. I went out and bought a heart rate monitor and started riding my exercise bike. The first week I worked 20 minutes at the correct heart rate. I added 5 minutes each week until I had worked up to 45 minutes per day 6 days a week. The weight started falling off.
What successes can you attribute to wellness coaching and the continued at-home support?
I am now down a size in my clothing, have more energy and am feeling better in general. I plan my meals each Sunday for the week in order to eat correctly. My entire life has changed since attending Hilton Head Health and having Amy as my at home trainer. Previous to my visit, I was doing nothing. Now, I’m exercising 6 days a week without fail. Had I not had Amy, I don’t think I would’ve made it. The accountability along with the resources and help she gave me were/are invaluable. I am so incredibly grateful for having this opportunity.
Day 1: Make your list of New Year’s Resolutions based on S.M.A.R.T. Goals.
Day 2: Now what?
You may know that you want to start getting more active, eating better or lose a few pounds over the course of the year but sometimes it can be intimidating to start what can seem like such a daunting task. There’s always that fear that once you start, you could fail and what will that make you? Not a failure, but a student! You don’t know how to do something right until you do it wrong… and hey, you may get it wrong several times but that doesn’t make you a failure if you get right back up, learn from your mistakes and keep pushing.
Here are a few tips to get you started:
Habits of Successful Weight Managers
Why Diets Fail and How Coaching Can Help
Get Started TODAY! 10 Minute Workout!
You’ve been struggling with your weight for as long as you can remember and it’s a new year. This is usually when you head to Target for cute work-out clothes, then to the closest gym to enthusiastically join (of course the initiation fee will be waived). Lastly, you very deliberately find yourself in the grocery store stocking up on all the healthy foods needed for your new diet. All the while, you are filled with a combination of personal resolve and familiar doubt.
Yes, it has to happen. There is no way you can start another year overweight and out of shape. You tell yourself this time, this year, will be different. I’m ready! Or are you? Enter…the familiar doubt. Memories of all your past good intentions slither through your mind as you look down at your body with much dissatisfaction and negative judgment. Why would this time be any different? What if I can’t?
But you can. If I can, you can. I promise! I rang in the New Year with a sense of satisfaction knowing that January 1, 2012 was just another day. True, it might be the beginning of a New Year, but it’s still just another day. And for me, I know I can do almost anything for one day.
That is the way I approach my weight management. I don’t summon up future visions of me running a half marathon or sitting on the beaches of the French Riviera in a string bikini. I decide that just for today I will eat three clean meals and that I will give up desserts. Just for today I will not eat off of other people’s plates or in my car. Just for today I will eat at the kitchen table and not in front of the television. Just for today I won’t help myself to seconds and I will serve myself on an appetizer-sized plate. Just for today I will get on the treadmill for forty minutes. Just for today I will elevate the status of my food, eating it mindfully and with sincere gratitude.
I don’t worry about tomorrow or next month. All I need to do is right in front of me and when I do it for just one day, it leads me to tomorrow. If I concentrate on how much weight I have to lose or how truly out of shape I am, I feel overwhelmed. Even worse, I feel deprived and deprivation drives me back into the food.
One day at a time I take my health back. One day at a time, I live the healthy lifestyle that becomes a way of life. It’s not about forever because I am only guaranteed of today, and today I choose to respect the gift of this body.
At the stroke of midnight on December 31, over half of all Americans resolved to lose weight. While a few will succeed, statistics show that as many as 95 percent will be wearing the same pounds plus a few more this time next year. Why? Because they embark on a plan—usually a combination of diet and exercise—that is neither complete nor sustainable.
While good nutrition and regular exercise are obvious components, successful weight management is never just about the dinner table and the gym. It’s about the way we live—our actions and daily habits as they relate to work, play, stress, sleep, responsibilities, relationships and more.
Why diets fail and what to do instead
Many people are attracted to the promise of quick, easy weight loss through fad diets that restrict certain kinds of foods or prescribe specific food combinations. While you may lose weight initially on these diets, they’re not designed to be followed for a lifetime, nor are they healthy over the long term.
Most of us know what to eat. We’re not overweight because we lack information about healthy vs. unhealthy food. For a great majority of us, the problem lies in how much we eat and, more importantly, why. Everyone deals with food differently, and we overeat for different reasons. The first step toward change is to identify who or what leads you down that path.
Many people who struggle with their weight discover that overeating is a response to an emotion or feeling such as boredom, loneliness, sadness, frustration, exhaustion…or even joy and celebration. The good news is if you are using food to feed your feelings, that is simply behavior, and behavior can be changed.
How coaching can help
Achieving your weight-loss goal is a process that involves clarifying what you really want and why and then taking consistent actions to get there. Coaching provides the focus and structure to keep you on track. By exploring your motivators, strengths and available resources, your coach will help you find what works for you so that you can achieve your goals and live your healthiest and happiest life.
If you are one of those Americans who resolved to lose weight this year, why not make your resolution a reality? – Ditch the diet and discover a way of life!
One of the joys of yoga is the feeling of being free and light. I encourage you to cultivate that happiness by becoming aware of and grateful for the present moment. This Friday marks the last Friday Fitness of 2011 – so let’s celebrate our lives, our freedom and our light right now in this moment!
Below are three yoga poses – in each of the poses, I challenge you to bring attention to your limbs (in the Happiness Expression Challenge), as these are extensions of your heart. Allow your arms and hands to create and express your happiness in the current posture.
Crescent Pose /// Warrior III /// Chair Pose
Step by Step: Crescent Pose
1. Start in Downward-Facing Dog. Exhale and step your right foot forward between your hands, aligning your knee over the heel. Keep your left leg strong and firm.
2. Inhale and raise your torso upright. At the same time, sweep your arms wide to the sides and raise them overhead, palms facing each other.
3. Be careful not to overarch the lower back. Lengthen your tailbone toward the floor (tuck your tailbone under and pull your low core in). Reach back through your left heel to activate your left quad to help create an equal balance between both legs. Come into your right leg, (bend-lunge position) weight staying in the heel.
4. As you inhale grow taller through the torso. Be sure not to press the front ribs forward. Draw them down and into the torso. Lift the arms from the lower back ribs, reaching through your little fingers. Hold this pose for 30 seconds to a minute. Repeat the posture on the opposite side.
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/2492
***Happiness Expression Challenge: As you hold Crescent Lunge, instead of reaching your arms up, open your arms out by your side. Turn your palms upwards as if you were catching raindrops. You are nourishing your very own happiness. Be open and ready to receive the blessings of each moment. Smile…Let happiness in!
Step by Step: Warrior III
1. From the lunge (crescent lunge) position, stretch your arms forward, parallel to the floor and parallel to each other, palms facing each other. Exhale and press the head of the right thighbone back and press the heel actively into the floor. Synchronize the straightening of the front leg and the lifting of the back leg. As you lift the back leg, resist by pressing the tailbone into the pelvis.
2. Normally students come up into Warrior III by lunging the torso forward. This tends to shift the body weight onto the ball of the front foot and unbalance the position. Don’t allow the torso to swing forward as you move into position; instead, as you straighten the front knee, think of pressing the head of the thighbone back. This centers the femur in the hip joint, grounds the heel into the floor, and stabilizes the position.
3. The arms, torso and raised leg should be positioned relatively parallel to the floor. For many students the pelvis tends to tilt. Release the hip [of the raised leg] toward the floor until the two hip points are even and parallel to the floor. Energize the back leg and extend it strongly toward the wall behind you; reach just as actively in the opposite direction with the arms. Bring the head up slightly and look forward, but be sure not to compress the back of your neck.
4. Stay in this position for 30 seconds to a minute.
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/941
***Happiness Expression Challenge: When you transition into Warrior III, place your hands in prayer position at your chest. As you glance at your hands, be happy for your friends and loved ones – share your hearts energy and joy.
Step by Step: Chair Pose
1. From Warrior III, bring your extended leg down to meet the root leg as you pendulum back into an upright position (feet together). Inhale and raise your arms perpendicular to the floor.
2. Exhale and bend your knees, trying to take the thighs as nearly parallel to the floor as possible (squat position). Keep your weight back in your heels, hugging your legs in towards each other.
3. Firm your shoulder blades down, relaxing your shoulders and releasing the tension in your neck. Lengthen your spine with every inhalation and root deeper (sink into the squat) with every exhalation.
4. Stay for 30 seconds to a minute. To come out of this pose straighten your knees with an inhalation, lifting strongly through the arms. Exhale and release your arms to your sides, back into mountain pose.
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/493
***Happiness Expression Challenge: As you place your feet together in chair position, open your arms out wide to your sides and give the world and yourself a great big hug.
Go through this series of three movements on your right and then your left side. Feel free to improvise according to how you feel. Remember to be true to your physical needs and your hearts expressions!
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