Getting Past What Holds You Back with Baby Boomer Weight Loss Expert Scott 'Q' Marcus
You’re thinking of all the things that could go wrong and of all the obstacles you must overcome, none of which exist if you can focus on the immediate.
When you’re overwhelmed and you’re afraid you won’t be able to achieve your goal, focus on what you can do right this minute.
Make it small enough that you’ll actually do it. [Read more…]
“Competitive foods” do not wear uniforms and engage in sports; rather that’s government-speak for vending machine snacks and bake-sale goodies. This regulation sets standards for calories, fats, sugar, and sodium, and is attempting to push foods with whole grains, lowfat dairy, fruits, vegetables, or protein foods as their main ingredient. It does require that food and beverage items sold during the school day achieve certain standards, but also allows for special exemptions for the purpose of conducting infrequent school-sponsored fundraisers. What the law does not do is define “infrequent,” leaving that to the states to set their own limits.
First, it’s the ethical thing to do. Secondly, most of these fascinating freaky factoids are found via the World Wide Web and much data floating in cyberspace is, well quite frankly, ka-ka. So, in attempting to validate a statistic I heard, I discovered a few fascinating facts about these bodies in which we live.
Since I’m turning 60 soon, I found it fascinating that according to HowStuffWorks.com, by that age, 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women snore; with the average snort volume hovering around 60 decibels, about the same loudness as standard speech. Not to be outdone, some punch out more than 80 decibels while slumbering, about as loud as a pneumatic drill breaking concrete. Related fact: According to the Hearing Loss Association of America, one-third of all Americans has hearing loss by age 65, which now makes complete sense since we’re sleeping next to pneumatic drills eight hours a night.
After all, if it was easy, we’d all be dropping bad habits willy-nilly, wouldn’t we?
It becomes easier if, instead of looking at it like, “One moment I’m here. The next minute I have to be all the way over there,” we understand it more as a series of stages.
I’ll assume one has left the initial stage of denial, and decided to — for example — lose a few pounds; accepting that either forever gaining weight or making a change are his only options.
Here thoughts and feelings are extremely negative, perception being an excessive, laborious amount of work and discomfort for what appears to be a pipe dream result. Internal dialog is, “I will never be able to do that” with the obvious coda being, “…so why bother to try?”
In our example, the thought of sweaty, painful exercise; a starvation-level diet; anal-retentive tracking of calories; tasteless recipes; extensive shopping pattern adjustments; and – in general – being forever, always, never-ending conscious; triggers our synapses to scream, “No way! Can’t be done, ain’t gonna happen.” Crossing our arms, scowling, and firmly planting our feet, we refuse to budge.
Or so we think.
You see; the problem is that once consciousness has been raised it cannot never again be buried.
Having surveyed thousands of people about what is the biggest difficulty in keeping their weight under control, that which ranks highest is staying in control while traveling; not a shock I’m sure. However, for a few of us, it’s the opposite; I lose weight easier while on the road. So, although I usually don’t use this space as an “advice” or “how-to” column, since we are entering the “vacation and travel season;” I share my simple and easy techniques to avoid coming home with “extra baggage.” [Read more…]