Enough is Enough, Quit Dieting!

October 16, 2012 by Featured Author

Enough is enough – quit dieting!

Quit the diets!

Weight watchers, low-carb, vegetarian, detox, Beverly hills diet, cabbage soup diet, grapefruit diet, subway diet, Atkins diet and the list goes on and on.

What is a person that wants to lose weight supposed to do?

Everyone wants the easiest, quickest way to lose the weight. In our society today, we are accustomed to fast results on everything. We have fast food restaurants, fast access internet, up to the minute news and weather and smart phones with everything at your fingertips. So why not the same for you getting rid of that extra bulge around your middle?

I am sorry to inform you, it just doesn’t work that way!

You and I both know that it took some time and overeating to gain the weight, so common sense will tell you that it will take time and perseverance to lose it.

I don’t know about you but over the course of many years, I’ve tried many different types of diets. Some were vaguely successful and some were complete disasters. A few lasted a day or two while others for weeks. The one thing they all had in common is, as soon as I stopped the diet, the weight would magically re-appear.

So how did I lose 40 pounds and keep it off?

I quit dieting.

That’s how!

Below, I’ve listed a few pointers that helped me personally. I lost the weight that I had attempted to lose for years. Some of the following tips I’m sure you’ve heard before. Remember, everyone is different and may be facing some different circumstances, so make sure before beginning any type of lifestyle change – (notice I didn’t say diet) to consult with your physician first.

10 most helpful (healthy lifestyle) tips

1. Get motivated –

Whatever it takes…find something that will motivate, challenge or get you excited about your new healthy lifestyle! Your mindset has got to be in the right place before you can succeed. The motivation will carry you through those moments when you feel like caving in.

My personal tip – I was personally motivated by my “new look” that I had gotten from surgery that corrected a physical abnormality. See my story here. https://thistimeimeanit.com/goals/change-goals/overcoming-obstacles/point-view-overcoming-congential-coloboma/ This gave me the inspiration and fuel I needed to continue on.

2. Eliminate sugar, bread and caffeine.

These foods will make your calorie intake skyrocket. I don’t know about you but I love my snacks and bread. It was very hard to take them out of my life but I wanted to be healthy and look good more than I loved the food. From time to time…allow yourself to have a treat, just remember portion control. You will be surprised that after taking them out of your life, you will crave them less and less.

3. Physical activity.

You MUST move your body…somehow, somewhere, depending on your fitness level. You will need to push yourself past your comfort level each time, little by little at least three times a week. Some ideas for you to think about could be walking, swimming, tennis, dance class, hiking, sports. Just remember…your only limitation is your imagination!

My personal tip – What works for me is bike riding, I love it and I built up my stamina over a period of time. I also joined a zumba class because I love to dance. I’ve never been one to jog or run but the idea of an obstacle course intrigued me, I found a friend to join me in training for the barbarian challenge and it ended up being one of the biggest challenges of my life and I successfully accomplished it!

4. Stay busy.

Begin new projects or discover a new hobby. Do something that excites you, immerse yourself in things that you love to do!

My personal tip – I always loved art but never felt I was good enough. I began taking art classes even though it intimidated me, that is a good thing! Stretch your wings…and step outsideof the box. Do something that you don’t think you can do. I dived into some home projects that I had been putting off and began to write more.

5. Visualize your end result.

We humans have need to have a goal, something that seems real. Maybe an old photo of how you used to look, or a picture of how you want to look. Find inspirational quotes to put on your desk, refrigerator and mirror. Read inspiring stories of others weight loss journeys. Gather information on great new healthy recipes. You have a goal and it is attainable!

My personal tip – The day I lost enough weight the I noticed my clothes were getting to big was all I needed to inspire me to continue on!

6. Drink plenty of water

This is self explanatory.

My personal tip – I like to add some flavor by adding lemon.

7. Download a weight loss website or app on your smart phone.

This will give you moral support from others who are on the same journey as you are and you can also find great recipes, tips and tricks that will help you along the way.

My personal tip – I downloaded “loseit” app on my iPhone. I entered my daily calories and the calories I burned during exercise. I was able to see in chart form how I was doing on a day-to-day basis and it really helped!

8. Don’t starve yourself!

Eat healthy! lots of greens, veggies and lean meat. small portions and keep up with your daily caloric intake. Remember to burn those calories by moving that body!

9. Don’t eat after 7 p.m.

Plan to eat early in the evening. Don’t go to bed with food weighing down in your belly at night.

My personal tip – This was the hardest thing for me to overcome. I love to snack in the evenings while I am relaxing after a long day of work. To get past this, I stopped watching so much television and spent more time doing the projects that I wanted to do.. (See # 4 above).

10. Quit the diet but never quit the healthy lifestyle!

I mean it! If you crash into a brick wall with your new healthy lifestyle or if you get so down and out because you are not seeing any results from all of your hard work…this is when you HAVE to keep going. Tomorrow is a new day, a new opportunity and a new beginning to a new, beautiful healthy YOU!

You have lost the weight, what now?

Maintaining your new body can prove to be just as difficult as losing it. This is why it is so important to look at it as a lifestyle change. You have entered into a new way of eating and taking care of yourself. It is a maintenance plan but it is so worth it.

It took me a year to lose forty plus pounds and now I am in the maintenance phase. I weigh myself regularly to know what I need to do. I give myself a five-pound average up or down before I buckle down seriously. Don’t expect fast easy results but do expect long-lasting results.

I feel better than ever, my clothes fit better and it is actually FUN to go shopping and try on clothes now!

I hope my tips help you into finally accomplishing whatever your goal is in your new healthy lifestyle.

Are you on a weight loss journey now? What tips do you have? Please share!

About the Author: Sherry Cook currently works for Mobile Arc, a non-profit organization that supports individuals with developmental disabilities. She is wrapping up her memoirs and hopes to be in publishing soon. Her desire to tell her story has been nudging its way to the surface for many years. Having undergone personal challenges, living with monocular and low vision, while struggling to “fit in” with society’s version of what is normal. She understands all to well the difficulties life has to offer. Accepting yourself and learning how to overcome is her main platform for her energetic and touching motivational presentations. Her hobbies include painting with acrylics and working on home projects. Sherry can be reached at sherrycook8@gmail.com or http://sherrylcook.com

When You’re All Out of Excuses, You Might Enjoy It

October 10, 2012 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

“So, Scott,” she said, “What are you going to do to get more in shape?”

“I’ve been considering more exercise.”

“Do you still ride a bike?”

“Not since the accident. Besides,” I justified, “It’s still broken.”

“Wasn’t that accident a year ago?”

(Looking at my feet, mumbling), “Um, yes.”

“How long until you repair it?”

“Um, I don’t know. Soon? I guess…” (my voice trailed into silence)

“Okay, that’s going nowhere. Are you still doing yoga?”

“Not since my bike accident.”

“I don’t see the correlation, but if you’re not riding your bike or doing yoga, what are you doing?”

Reaching, reaching, reaching… “Walking!” I snapped back. “Yeah, right! I walk soooo much now! Wow! I’m a walkin’ fool.”

“Good for you! Is it helping?”

“Um, no, not really.” (I returned to starting at my feet and mumbling.)

“Why don’t you do something else?”

“I don’t like anything else.”

“Really?! Out of all the possibilities, you can’t think of one single thing you’d enjoy?”

Realizing how silly I sounded, I decided — per Mark Twain — ‘twas better to keep my mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.

They had me cornered; they were circling. [Read more…]

No More Excuses: How to Motivate Yourself to Lose Weight

October 4, 2012 by Featured Author

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
– Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin was onto something.

Have you ever met a successful person who was good at making excuses? I haven’t, either. Instead of wasting his time sitting around conjuring up good excuses, a successful person takes responsibility and does what he needs to do to achieve his goal. Simple as that.

If you want to lose weight, do it. Yes, it’s much easier to plop on the couch and crack open a bag of chips while cooking up a reason to skip another day at the gym instead of, well, going to the gym, but would you feel so great about yourself by the end of the day?

It’s easy to let your excuses discourage you from improving your body. It doesn’t have to be like that! Sometimes you just need a little push in the right direction, and what better way to do that than to debunk your lame excuses?

Excuse #1: I’m too busy.

Your life may be going 500 miles an hour, but there’s always a way to incorporate healthy behavior into your daily schedule. For example, the time spent waiting in a McDonald’s drive-through could be better spent preparing a quick healthy meal, like a cup of oatmeal or a bowl of salad. Exercise doesn’t always mean spending an hour at the gym. You can break up your exercise throughout the day or replace one of your activities with exercise (such as riding your bike to work instead of driving).

How to motivate yourself: Create a reward system. Every time you exercise or eat something healthy, give yourself a point. For every 100 points, treat yourself to something nice! Or, instead of a point, you can add a quarter to a jar and use the money to buy something you’ve had your eye on for a while.

Excuse #2: Being healthy is too expensive.

Organic food and gym memberships can be hard on the wallet, but there are plenty of other ways to eat well and work out on a shoestring budget. Did you know that you can get your daily intake of fruits and vegetables for an average price of $2 per day? That’s cheaper than a liter of soda! Buy frozen fruits and vegetables, whole grains in bulk, or prepare meals yourself instead of overpaying for already-made meals. Rent exercise videos from the library, jog around the park, or do physical labor around the house.

How to motivate yourself: Add a monetary value to everything you do or buy. This will help you go for the healthier option most of the time. A few examples include:

“Why should I buy this pack of soda when I can get water for free?”

“I’m watching cable T.V. This is costing me $50 per month. Maybe I should cancel cable and go hiking instead.”

“I spend $60 a week on gasoline, which adds up to $3,120 per year. Yearly bike maintenance costs a fraction of that.”

Excuse #3: It takes too long to lose weight.

Dieting and working out is a long and hard battle. Just because you don’t see instant results doesn’t mean it won’t happen eventually. Be patient, and keep it up. You just need to keep your eyes on the goal. You’ll get there someday.

How to motivate yourself: There are tons of ways to motivate yourself to keep going. You just need to monitor your progress and keep reminding yourself why you’re doing this. Take a photo of yourself on a weekly or monthly basis, and, whenever you feel like giving up, lay out the photos in chronological order. Just seeing yourself get thinner and thinner may be enough to motivate you to keep going. Also, you can take out an old thin photograph of yourself and put it up in a place where you will see it every day. It would also help to take an article of clothing you want to wear when you reach your ideal weight and hang it in a visible place.

Are you a talker or a doer?

Do you know someone who talks the talk but never walks the walk? Do you want to be that person? Visualize the way you want to be, and do something to turn into the new you!

About the Author: Dora Novak, author of this article, writes frequently about topics related to food or health. As a start she used low calorie protein bars when she found herself having troubles with motivation.

Need help losing weight? Visit our sister site, www.21DayHabitChange.com and you’re guaranteed to change one bad habit in 3 weeks or your money back. (Enter code “ScottSentMe” and save 60%)

My Dog Doesn’t Understand Why We’re Jogging

September 5, 2012 by Scott "Q" Marcus

Fret not; that thumping, rhythmic, heavy pulsing sound behind you is not the noise of Heaven and Earth colliding.

Rather, ‘tis the pounding of my sneakers as they hit the pavement while I jog. Yes, you read that correctly. I am now jogging. (Well, not this minute of course; it’s difficult to type while running.)

I had more excuses than a double bacon cheeseburger has calories to avoid huffing and puffing down the street. They ran the gamut from “I might pass out,” to “I’ll look silly.” (Of course the latter pre-supposes that I don’t naturally look “silly,” which might be up for debate.) Yet, recently, my walks have — at times — become my jogs.

What pray tell, you might ask, has caused this transformation on par with the changing of the earth’s axis?

I am the recipient of a neat-o, boss, whiz-bang, plaything that plugs into my computer called an accelerometer. As I understand, an accelerometer “knows” where it is in space. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t know it is in Eureka or Portland, but it is able to discern when it moves from one location to another, and at what velocity. Therefore, while it is on my person; should I go to and fro, hither and yon, nigh and far, or up and down; it measures that movement and speed. After an initial multi-day “assessment,” it computes my baseline activity level and sets up a 12-week challenge, gradually increasing my activity level. The result is I become more active, and hence, healthier — and hopefully thinner.

Each evening (as well as an obsessive number of times per day), I place it still on a flat surface to watch the ring of green LEDs glow. Should at least four of the six do so, I’m at 100% of my daily goal. Oh happy day! On the contrary, should I receive less than four, I better get moving.

At day’s end, I realized I forgot to check my progress.

[Read more…]

How to Stay Motivated & Keep Your Fitness Levels Up

August 14, 2012 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

by guest author Sean Byrne

For many years now I have been involved in developing and maintaining my fitness levels.

Ever since I was a young teen, I was out playing all sorts of sports activities, my favorite one being soccer. I absolutely loved playing sports and it was difficult for me to train my academic side as sports really did take over my life. But as I have gotten older, I have to say that things have changed for me slightly in the sense that the desire to remain focused and motivated has been challenging for me as time has drifted by. Life changes and circumstances too, so it’s important you realize this.

Staying motivated to remain fit has its challenges and I know a lot of people struggle with this too. This is the reason I decided to write this article, as I know people want to learn how others remain motivated to stay in shape and maintain their fitness levels. So after the New Years Eve resolutions begin to slide out of focus, what can we do to strengthen our desires again? Let’s take a look at what I do these days to stay on track.

Picture Your Perfect Body

My first reason on how I stay motivated is picturing the perfect figure I would like to achieve. What do I want to ultimately look like? I go and view magazines, go online to check out images of the type of body I want to achieve. When I do find a body I want to own, I then cut out or print off these images and blow them up into an A1 size image so I can nail them to my wall with a caption that says, “Look At You come the 31 of May 2012!!”. What this caption does is it gives me a time frame to work on. So I could be starting at the beginning of December, allowing myself six months to achieve this look. This is one of the ways I stay motivated, as every time I jump on my treadmill, or workout with my weights, I visually see my end goal and it makes me want to achieve this goal. By taking action, I know I am chipping away at receiving my end goal.

For Reasons Of Heath

The next point on how I stay motivated is for the reason of health. Almost every day I appreciate the fact that I am not cursed with some chronic disease, or the fact that I don’t have any medical condition to worry about. I know that eating healthy and doing my exercises a few times a week will do wonders for maintaining my health and reduce any risk of developing a sickness of whatever sort. I have conditioned myself, through repetitional thought to be thankful for my good health. This in turn keeps me motivated to eat the right foods and exercise on a regular basis.

Maintaining A Positive Frame of Mind

Perhaps one of my favorite reasons for staying motivated is the notion that once I start running on the treadmill, or lifting those weights, I am alleviating stress from my body, building up my self confidence and self-esteem and working towards a calmer state of being. I am addicted to this calmer state of being and I know that if I exercise intensity for 30 minutes at the beginning of the day, I will be in a much stronger, calmer frame of mind for the rest of the day. The desire to achieve this state of being motivates me to maintain my fitness levels and I usually have no problems taking action!

About the Author: As explained in the article, Sean enjoys developing and maintaining his fitness levels and has a few reasons for staying motivated on achieving his fitness goals. When he is not actively fit, he is maintaining and promoting his treadmill website. His site offers reviews and ratings on some of the top treadmills you can purchase online. Take a look at some of the top products in the market today and see which popular treadmill you’d like to purchase next.

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