Quote of the Day: “Health is the thing that makes you feel that now is the best time of the year“. ~Franklin P. Adams

To get back on track with sleep keep reading for 13 Tips to help you get the recommended 7-8 hours that you need.

• Avoid caffeine and nicotine. The stimulating effects of caffeine in coffee, colas, teas, and chocolate can take as long as 8 hours to wear off fully. Nicotine is also a stimulant.
• Have a good sleeping environment. Get rid of anything that might distract you from sleep, such as noises, bright lights, an uncomfortable bed, or a TV or computer in the bedroom. Also, keeping the temperature in your bedroom on the cool side can help you sleep better.
• Stick to a sleep schedule. Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day-even on the weekends.
• Avoid medicines that delay or disrupt your sleep, if possible. Some commonly prescribed heart, blood pressure, or asthma medications, as well as some over-the-counter herbal remedies for coughs, colds, or allergies, can disrupt sleep patterns.
• Exercise is great but not too late in the day. Avoid exercising closer than 5 or 6 hours before bedtime.
• Avoid alcoholic drinks before bed. A “nightcap” might help you get to sleep, but alcohol keeps you in the lights stages of sleep. You also tend to wake up in the middle of the night when the sedating effects have worn off.
• Don’t lie in bed awake. If you find yourself still awake after staying in bed for more than 20 minutes, get up and so some relaxing activity until you feel sleepy. The anxiety of not being able to sleep can make it harder to fall asleep.
• Avoid large meals and beverages late at night. A large meal can cause indigestion that interferes with sleep. Drinking too many fluids at night can cause you to awaken frequently to urinate.
• Don’t take naps after 3 p.m. Naps can boost your brain power, but late afternoon naps can make it harder to fall asleep at night. Also keep naps to under an hour.
• Relax before bed. Take time to unwind. A relaxing activity, such as reading or listening to music, should be part of your bedtime ritual.
• Have the right sunlight exposure. Daylight is key to regulating daily sleep patterns. Try to get outside in natural sunlight for at least 30 minutes each day.
• Take a hot bath before bed. The drop in body temperature after the bath may help you feel sleepy, and the bath can help relax you.
• See a doctor if you continue to have trouble sleeping. If you consistently find yourself feeling tired or not well rested during the day despite spending enough time in bed at night, you may have a sleep disorder. Your family doctor or a sleep specialist should be able to help you.

Questions for You:

• What tips do you have for getting enough sleep?
• How often do you get the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep?

Quote of the Day: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Create Your Daily “No Goal Zone”

We all need a mental break from thinking about our goals. Build into your schedule a No Goal Zone, which is a time each day where you aren’t focusing on anything related to your fitness and weight management goals. Whether it is reading a book for pleasure, spending time with friends or family, or even a relaxing bath, just make sure you are taking some time where you aren’t thinking about your goals.

Celebrate All of Your Success Moments

Make sure you are taking time to celebrate all of your accomplishments in your life, not just progress on the fitness and weight management front.  Reach that big deadline at work? Celebrate it! Find out that talk with your friend really helped them with their problem? Celebrate it! The dinner party you hosted went over really well with your guests? Celebrate it! Regardless of how big or small, take time to celebrate those moments.

Don’t Drop Your Hobbies

So you have increased the time you spend on exercising?  Awesome!  However, if you have given up all of the activities that you love doing that is a problem. Make sure you are still making time for the things you love to do. Find time still include them as well as some physical activity. If you aren’t making time for those things, eventually you will end up despising the lifestyle change you have made to reach your fitness goals and reverting back to old habits will eventually take over.

Stay Social

It can be real easy to start to socially isolate yourself when you are working on your fitness and weight management goals, but this can be really damaging to your emotional wellness. If you find that you are doing this it is time to get out there and start socializing. Find that your social network is challenging to your new lifestyle changes? Start adding new people to your social circle, ones that have a more active lifestyle.

Final Thoughts

Sure, focus is needed to reach your goals. Just make sure you aren’t sacrificing your emotional wellness in the pursuit of them. Strive to find balance and your journey will be a much healthier one for you.

Question for You:

• What tips do you have to help people find balance between their fitness & weight management goals and their emotional wellness?

Quote of the Day: Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. ~ Thomas Merton

When performing abdominal exercises, good form is crucial for maximum benefit. Here are 3 tips for ensuring your ab exercises are most effective:

1. Don’t rush. Be very slow and smooth with the ab exercises. Ideally, try to take 2-4 counts to come up and 2-4 counts to come down.
2. Concentrate, concentrate, and concentrate on those abdominal muscles. Visualize in your mind the contraction and working your muscles as you perform an exercise.
3. Before you begin, think about pulling your belly button in toward your spine. Now keep it in that position throughout the entire move. You may need to remind yourself periodically to keep this position.

It shouldn’t surprise you, if you have read about my journey, if I tell you that I am one of those people who lost this ability and it lead me down the unhealthy path to morbid obesity. It wasn’t until I began to put conscience effort in recognizing my true hunger that I was able to get on the path to better health when it came to my eating habits. Below you will three strategies that can help you start getting in touch with your true hunger.

Learn the Difference Between Psychological vs. Physical Hunger

The first step in learning to listen to your true hunger is recognizing the difference between psychological and physical hunger. For those out of touch with their true hunger, the two are hard to recognize.

Psychological Hunger: Is not caused by an actual, physical desire or need for food to survive. Psychological hunger is caused by a craving to eat either out of habit, because you see food around you, because you are feeling some type of emotion, or because you like the taste and/or you are associating eating as a fun activity. It is simply the desire to eat, accompanied by no physical proof that it is necessary at that moment.

Physical Hunger: Are physical feelings of emptiness in your stomach, rumbling accompanied by weakness. This is what I mean when I say true hunger.

Rate Your Hunger

Because recognizing true hunger (your physical hunger from your psychological hunger) can be difficult. Keeping a food journal where you list not only what you ate but you include a rating of your hunger level before and after eating can help give you a clearer picture. A rating scale I like to use is “The Hunger-Satiety Rating Scale” from Why Weight? A Guide to Ending Compulsive Eating by Geneen Roth.

Recognize Your Overeating Patterns

Once you have been keeping your food journal with your hunger rating you can start to see patterns of where you have stopped listening to your true hunger. These are times where you are eating past a level 6 on the scale above. For example, let’s say, you find that you are often putting off eating until you are at a level 1 or 2 and find that you tend to fed yourself all the way to a level 9 each time you do that. Or maybe you see that every night you choose to snack after dinner but you are at a level 6 when you start eating but you eat the snack anyway out of habit. It is noticing trends like the one above that can help you make adjustments to your current eating patterns so that you aren’t going overboard.

Questions for You:

• Why do you think we end up becoming out of touch with our true hunger?
• What tips do you have staying in touch with true hunger?

Quote of the Day: “Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.” ~ Nathaniel Emmons

Stressing Over Weight Loss Quiz

(Answer True or False for each statement)

1. I am prepared and able to do a considerable amount of physical activity on a daily basis, including planned exercise.
2. I have acknowledged the idea that I need to make permanent changes in my lifestyle to lose weight and keep it off permanently.
3. I will feel victorious only if reach my weight loss goal.
4. If my weight loss slows down or stalls, I typically lose my motivation and stop my program.
5. I know that it took time to gain weight, and I believe it is best to lose the weight slowly.
6. I am working on weight loss now because I really want to, not because someone else thinks I should.
7. I have taken a careful look at my eating and exercise habits, and I have a good idea of what I need to change and how I want to do it.
8. I have many demanding situations in my life right now, but I’m determined to be successful at weight loss.
9. If I can manage to lose the weight, I think many other troubles in my life will be solved.
10. I can lose weight successfully with no slip-ups.
11. I am ready, willing, and able to spend enough time each day planning and tracking my food intake and exercise.
12. When I am having trouble sticking to my plan, I usually get on the message boards or the phone and talk about it with other people.

Scoring the Quiz

Look at your answers to questions 1,2,5,6,7,11 and 12, and give yourself 1 point for every True answer, and 0 for every False. For questions 3,4,8,9, and 10, give yourself 1 point for every False answer, and 0 for every True. Add your total points up to get your score.

What Your Score Means

12-7 Points: Congratulations! Your expectations about weight loss are fairly realistic, and you are more likely to reach your goal. To decrease your stress about weight loss even further take a look at those you scored 0 on and explore ways you can gain perspective on them.

6-4 Points: You have some unrealistic expectations about weight loss, and these are likely causing you some unneeded stress. Take some time to evaluate which ones you scored 0 on and explore how you can gain some perspective on them.

Under 4 Points: Your expectations about weight loss are pretty unrealistic. You are adding much added stress to yourself because of this.  Take some time to evaluate which ones you scored 0 on and explore how you can gain some perspective on them. If you find you can’t gain more perspective, reach out for some help from a qualified professional such as your doctor, a therapist, etc.

Questions for You:

• Where you surprised by your score?
• What ways to you keep your expectations in check?

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Quote of the Day: “How we perceive a situation and how we react to it is the basis of our stress. If you focus on the negative in any situation, you can expect high stress levels. However, if you try and see the good in the situation, your stress levels will greatly diminish.” ~ Catherine Pulsife

The Lack of Commitment “I Can’t”

These are the “I Can’t” statements you tell yourself when you have desire to accomplish something but you haven’t truly committed to making it happen.  Maybe you have thought about working on it or even have but only halfheartedly, but you haven’t made it a priority.

The No Idea How to Start “I Can’t”

These are the ones where you have no idea how to get started. These ones exist because you lack the knowledge about the action steps needed.

The Failure in the Past “I Can’t”

These are the ones where you tried in the past but you just didn’t quite succeed. Now you fear that feeling of failure so you resign the task to be something you will never be able to accomplish.

Tips to Change from “I Can’t” to “I Couldn’t, but Now I Can”

• List the reasons you want to accomplish the task. Sometimes identifying why makes a world of difference.
• Break the task down into small action steps. Sometimes we overwhelm ourselves when the task seems too big.
• Make each action step as a short term goal and the “I Can’t” as your long term goal. Remember to make them SMART Goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Framed ).
• Look at failed attempts as moments to learn what you can change during your next attempt.
• Celebrate ALL moments where you make progress towards accomplishing the task. Come up with a way to reward yourself for making progress.
• Take the time to learn about what it would take to accomplish the task. Research, consult professionals, seek out those who have, etc.
• Seek out support.  Ask friends, family, online communities, etc. to help keep you accountable.

Questions for You:

• Which “I Can’t” statements are you holding yourself back with?
• What tips do you have for those who are caught in the trap?

Quote of the Day: “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.” ~ Ralph Waldo

Answer yes or no to the following questions.

1. Has your doctor ever said that you have a heart condition and that you should only do physical activity recommended by a doctor?

2. Do you feel pain in your chest when you do physical activity?

3. In the past month, have you had chest pain when you were not doing physical activity?

4. Do you lose your balance because of dizziness or do you ever lose consciousness?

5. Do you have a bone or joint problem (for example, back, knee, or hip) that could be made worse by a change in your physical activity?

6. Is your doctor currently prescribing drugs (for example, water pills) for your blood pressure or heart condition?

7. Do you know of any other reason why you should not do physical activity?

If you answer YES to any of the questions above, you must check in with your doctor and get cleared for exercise before you start. You can download or print a copy of the official PAR-Q form for your records, courtesy of the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) by clicking here.

Also, if you have any chronic medical conditions (such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or arthritis) or risk factors (such as smoking or being more than 20 pounds overweight), and have not talked about exercising with your doctor, you should do so before you start. Exercise is often an important part of the treatment for many of those conditions, but you may find you have some limitations or special needs that your doctor can highlight for you.

One last note, remember the golden rule of exercise safety.

Start slowly, and build up the intensity and duration of your exercise gradually.

Trying to make up for lost time, or go from a couch potato to training like an elite athlete overnight, is a prescription for problems.

Quote of the Day: “Better a thousand times careful than once dead.”  ~ Proverb

1. Make a No Junk Rule

Ok don’t freak out I’m not suggesting you make a rule about never having your favorite treat again! I’m a supporter of moderation when it comes to treats, but think limiting access to those treats is important to keeping consumption in check. The No Junk Rule just means you don’t buy junk food at the grocery store and keep it in your home. If your access to junk food in your home is eliminated, you are less likely to give into impulsive cravings.  You will have to put thought into your choice because you will have to leave the house to go get your treat.

2. Reduce the Added Sugars

Check your nutrition labels for the following:  Agave nectar, Brown sugar, Cane crystals, Cane sugar, Corn sweetener, Corn syrup, Crystalline fructose, Dextrose, Evaporated cane juice, Fructose, Fruit juice concentrates, Glucose, High-fructose corn syrup, Honey, Invert sugar, Lactose, Maltose, Malt syrup, Molasses, Raw sugar, Sucrose, Sugar, and Syrup. If you see any of those on your ingredients list then the product has added sugars.  Try looking for a comparable product that either doesn’t contain added sugars or the one with the least amount.

3. Reach for the Whole Grain Instead of Refined Products

Whole grain products contain more nutrition benefits then the refined versions. Look for whole grain versions of rice, bread, cereal, flour and pasta when shopping.  Check your ingredient lists for “whole” and make sure those whole grains appear among the first items in the list.  Try to choose items with at least 3 grams of dietary fiber per serving.

4. Prepare Your Own Food

Eating out regardless of the quality of restaurant almost always has far greater calories than food you would prepare yourself.  Also, because you aren’t preparing the food yourself, you don’t know the quality of the ingredients or the exact amounts.  Preparing your own food gives you complete control over the cooking method as well as the ingredients that are used.

5. Read Nutrition Labels and Ingredient Lists

By getting in the habit of reading the nutrition label and the ingredient list on food before buying it, you can make dramatic improvement s in the quality of your diet.  Not only will you be aware of the calorie content but you also will learn about the quality of those calories. Remember, knowledge is power, and when it comes to food knowing the nutritional profile that is on the nutrition label is the knowledge you must have.

Quote of the Day: “If we’re not willing to settle for junk living, we certainly shouldn’t settle for junk food.” ~ Sally Edwards

Take a look at your fitness and weight management goals for a moment. Ask yourself the following:

• Where did they come from?
• Are they from soul-searching, self-analysis, and thoughtful planning?
• Are they a reaction to pressures from other people or your perception of what society expects from you?
• Did you find them within yourself or from some external source?

The answers to these questions are important because they tell you if the person you are working towards being is who you really want to be or if you are trying to fit a mold that you haven’t chosen for yourself.  If you find that you are trying to fit a mold that you haven’t chosen for yourself you are more likely to get off track.

Here’s another way to look at each of your goals: do you really want it, or do you just think you should want it? It’s not easy to follow your own direction in life, but it is so important to you getting to where you really want to be.  It’s more possible than you may think. Question everything. Every goal in your life needs to justify why it’s there. If you can’t come up with a good reason that actually comes from your inner self, maybe it doesn’t belong.  Once you eliminate those that don’t belong you free up energy to focus on the goals that are worth the time and effort.

I have personally experienced getting off track because I was trying to reach goals that were not my own, so I know first hand how restructuring goals can make a world of difference. Once I eliminated goals that didn’t belong, I found it much easier to stay on track and really make progress.  Another important step I added is that I evaluate my goals every few months to make sure they still belong. As I progressed on my journey I found, that as my body changed, the goals I was working on needed to be adjusted to fit.

Quote of the day: “A well-aimed spear is worth three.” ~ Tad Williams