This Tuesday marked the 4th and final week of our Healthy Weigh University. It has been a fantastic 4 weeks starting with Dan Russell coaching us on persevering through life's tough times. Glenda helped us understand that managing our stress is vital to keeping our weight off and Nancy did a great job inspiring us to eat healthy beautiful foods this fall.
I was fully engaged as I closed out the series motivating our clients to take a close look at the story of their own lives. I did that by starting out the class imagining that we were all at our own funeral 3 years from today. We were given the chance Tuesday, to imagine what it would be like to hear from members of our family, close friends and co-workers as they spoke about us and our lives at our funerals.
Every life has a story, whether it is a story worth telling and talking about though, is up to you.
Four weeks ago you heard from Dan Russell. He talked about motivation. He inspired you to persevere. He had stories that were compelling. His stories were about being an over comer,pushing forward when things get tough.
We need those stories. We need to hear about great ones, in great places, over coming great obstacles. But maybe today you need a little motivation for the day to day things…not the Olympics, but maybe things that feel less glamorous but sometimes seem even harder to persevere through. Relationships, our work, weight loss programs, personal healing, raising kids, or letting them go...the list goes on.
All of us have a story don’t we? The question is, are we living out the life that we’ll be proud to end with?
If the answer is YES, then make sure to continue to find balance in your life. Always give love and receive love. Constantly look for ways to continue to grow, and never quit healing wounds from the past.
If the answer is NO, make some decisions to change that. Do a little editing of your own life and choose now to make the changes that will affect the story line of your life. Make your story a story worth telling.
Every life has a story, whether it is a story worth telling and talking about though, is up to you.
Always Encouraging you,
Letha
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 24, 2010
What does it take to flip the switch?
You know the switch I'm talking about. The one that when flipped, you are ON PROGRAM! You are fired up and nothing can break your resolve! You are excited, motivated and driven to follow the nutritional plan and see results. That switch!
I've spent time in the last 30 years discovering ways to flip that switch in my own life. Not only in regards to my eating habits, but in other areas of my life that require excellence as well! I've gotten really good at it!
There are really two things you need to invest in to flip the switch...time and emotions. Oh, I can hear the sighs right now! :-) You're always short on time...and you avoid those emotional moments really well!
Do you want to flip the switch? Do you wake up each morning and say "This day is going to be better" and by the time you lie down at night, you are discouraged with your self again? If you are willing to spend some time, and feel some feelings, you too can flip that switch and TODAY can be the start of a great fall season!
TIME...we rarely take the time to know ourselves. We race through this life, taking care of other people and obligations without the important connection with our selves! Can you stop at a coffee shop today and sit in a corner by yourself? Can you drive to a big parking lot and sit in your car on your lunch hour? Can you go to a room in your house that never gets used and spend some time there today? Get alone with yourself! Invest some time in YOU. Some of us are alone a lot...but are we alone, focused on ourselves? Flipping the switch requires time and focus on you!
EMOTIONS...I can promise you, if you have been eating off program, unable to follow through for even one day, you are stuffing your emotions! It's time to look at them and allow them to surface. The first question I ask my self is "Letha, What's up?" I ALWAYS get an answer! You will too. (that's why you're afraid to ask it) If you have a journal...start writing in it. If you have junk mail in the floor board of your car, that works too. Get something down on paper!
I will go to my resting place, believeing in the power of the pain and pleasure list! I hope you have all used this tool.
Make a list of the pain, over eating is causing you...go for it! Don't stop, get real, get painful...allow it to take you all the way to gaining ALL your weight back, feeling miserable, and overwhelmed with medical problems and personal pain that choosing food has caused you! Don't skip ahead fast...if you have an hour, spend at least 30 of it on this list! Don't forget to include family, children and spouses in this list. How has your overeating affected them. Your overeating has caused you to be irritated, mad at the world and not very fun...how's that working for you and your family? Your clothes don't fit, you feel frumpy, and you don't want to do much of anything! Your overeating is affecting EVERY area of your life!
Now...if you have done a good job on that list... it's time to move ahead...if you haven't, you are not really serious about flipping the switch.(or you're just scared)
This list is a lot more fun! This is the list that includes all the emotions that you feel when you are on program, eating healthy, and setting limits for yourself! Have fun, spend time on this list too. Don't forget to include your family, children and spouse also. How has eating healthy, feeling attractive and in control, made a difference in those relationships? How's your wardrobe? How much energy do you have? Are you fun? Do you laugh more? Do you take pride in how, you look and enjoy going out? Is EVERY area of your life affected by how you eat and what choices you are making? Don't stop short dreaming as you make this list. Allow the good feelings to overwhelm you and fill you with hope.
Look at those two lists...ask the all important question now. "Why am I living here...when I could be living here?"
If no tears are involved with this project...you might be dead!:-)
I've had clients tell me, "Ive done the pain and pleasure list thing and it doesn't work." I'm wondering have they REALLY done it. Have they really taken the time to look at the way their eating is affecting their life and the lives of all the people around them? Have they asked them selves, "Why am I letting food win?"
My friends...to lose weight and keep it off, you must be able to use pain as your friend. Flipping the switch when you are living on maintenance is crucial to you keeping your weight off for life.
I wish I had time to sit in your car with you...but I guess you wouldn't be alone then would you? Take time, allow your emotions to come forth...and flip the switch. Don't wait...today is the perfect day to change the direction of your life!
Always encouarging and pushing you,
Letha
I've spent time in the last 30 years discovering ways to flip that switch in my own life. Not only in regards to my eating habits, but in other areas of my life that require excellence as well! I've gotten really good at it!
There are really two things you need to invest in to flip the switch...time and emotions. Oh, I can hear the sighs right now! :-) You're always short on time...and you avoid those emotional moments really well!
Do you want to flip the switch? Do you wake up each morning and say "This day is going to be better" and by the time you lie down at night, you are discouraged with your self again? If you are willing to spend some time, and feel some feelings, you too can flip that switch and TODAY can be the start of a great fall season!
TIME...we rarely take the time to know ourselves. We race through this life, taking care of other people and obligations without the important connection with our selves! Can you stop at a coffee shop today and sit in a corner by yourself? Can you drive to a big parking lot and sit in your car on your lunch hour? Can you go to a room in your house that never gets used and spend some time there today? Get alone with yourself! Invest some time in YOU. Some of us are alone a lot...but are we alone, focused on ourselves? Flipping the switch requires time and focus on you!
EMOTIONS...I can promise you, if you have been eating off program, unable to follow through for even one day, you are stuffing your emotions! It's time to look at them and allow them to surface. The first question I ask my self is "Letha, What's up?" I ALWAYS get an answer! You will too. (that's why you're afraid to ask it) If you have a journal...start writing in it. If you have junk mail in the floor board of your car, that works too. Get something down on paper!
I will go to my resting place, believeing in the power of the pain and pleasure list! I hope you have all used this tool.
Make a list of the pain, over eating is causing you...go for it! Don't stop, get real, get painful...allow it to take you all the way to gaining ALL your weight back, feeling miserable, and overwhelmed with medical problems and personal pain that choosing food has caused you! Don't skip ahead fast...if you have an hour, spend at least 30 of it on this list! Don't forget to include family, children and spouses in this list. How has your overeating affected them. Your overeating has caused you to be irritated, mad at the world and not very fun...how's that working for you and your family? Your clothes don't fit, you feel frumpy, and you don't want to do much of anything! Your overeating is affecting EVERY area of your life!
Now...if you have done a good job on that list... it's time to move ahead...if you haven't, you are not really serious about flipping the switch.(or you're just scared)
This list is a lot more fun! This is the list that includes all the emotions that you feel when you are on program, eating healthy, and setting limits for yourself! Have fun, spend time on this list too. Don't forget to include your family, children and spouse also. How has eating healthy, feeling attractive and in control, made a difference in those relationships? How's your wardrobe? How much energy do you have? Are you fun? Do you laugh more? Do you take pride in how, you look and enjoy going out? Is EVERY area of your life affected by how you eat and what choices you are making? Don't stop short dreaming as you make this list. Allow the good feelings to overwhelm you and fill you with hope.
Look at those two lists...ask the all important question now. "Why am I living here...when I could be living here?"
If no tears are involved with this project...you might be dead!:-)
I've had clients tell me, "Ive done the pain and pleasure list thing and it doesn't work." I'm wondering have they REALLY done it. Have they really taken the time to look at the way their eating is affecting their life and the lives of all the people around them? Have they asked them selves, "Why am I letting food win?"
My friends...to lose weight and keep it off, you must be able to use pain as your friend. Flipping the switch when you are living on maintenance is crucial to you keeping your weight off for life.
I wish I had time to sit in your car with you...but I guess you wouldn't be alone then would you? Take time, allow your emotions to come forth...and flip the switch. Don't wait...today is the perfect day to change the direction of your life!
Always encouarging and pushing you,
Letha
Sep 17, 2010
Let's Summarize...
We've spent the last 5 weeks discussing a very important subject: Being fully engaged. Fully engaged in our own lives. It's not something that just happens, being fully engaged is something that we work for.
The ultimate measure of our lives is not how much time we spend on the planet, but rather how much energy we invest in the time that we have. The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and the quality of energy available to us is not.
To be fully engaged, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interests.
To recap...here are the four princples necessary to fully engage!
PRINCIPLE 1:
Full engagement requires drawing on four separate but related sources of energy; physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
PRINCIPLE 2:
Because energy capacity diminishes both with overuse and with under use, we must balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal.
PRINCIPLE 3:
To build capacity, we must push beyond our normal limits, training in the same systematic way that elite athletes do.
PRINCIPLE 4:
Positive energy rituals-highly specific routines for managing energy-are the key to full engagement and sustained high performance.
Being fully engaged is a wonderful place to live. To be fully alive in every area of life takes balance and a desire to do so. Days, weeks, months and years are wasted by many people, just going through the motions of life and surviving!
I hope that you have learned something in these last weeks and will dig a little deeper at experiencing this kind of life; a fully engaged life.
As you read this blog, I am in Italy on the Amalfi coast! I can promise you that I am fully engaged today. :-) I'm equally excited about returning home, refreshed and renewed as I think about you and look at the fall at The Healthy Weigh.
Until I see you again.
Always encouraging you.
Letha
The ultimate measure of our lives is not how much time we spend on the planet, but rather how much energy we invest in the time that we have. The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and the quality of energy available to us is not.
To be fully engaged, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interests.
To recap...here are the four princples necessary to fully engage!
PRINCIPLE 1:
Full engagement requires drawing on four separate but related sources of energy; physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
PRINCIPLE 2:
Because energy capacity diminishes both with overuse and with under use, we must balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal.
PRINCIPLE 3:
To build capacity, we must push beyond our normal limits, training in the same systematic way that elite athletes do.
PRINCIPLE 4:
Positive energy rituals-highly specific routines for managing energy-are the key to full engagement and sustained high performance.
Being fully engaged is a wonderful place to live. To be fully alive in every area of life takes balance and a desire to do so. Days, weeks, months and years are wasted by many people, just going through the motions of life and surviving!
I hope that you have learned something in these last weeks and will dig a little deeper at experiencing this kind of life; a fully engaged life.
As you read this blog, I am in Italy on the Amalfi coast! I can promise you that I am fully engaged today. :-) I'm equally excited about returning home, refreshed and renewed as I think about you and look at the fall at The Healthy Weigh.
Until I see you again.
Always encouraging you.
Letha
Sep 9, 2010
Are You Fully Engaged? Principle # 4
Continued from last week...
a reminder:
To be fully engaged, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interests.
The challenge of great life performance is to manage your energy more effectively in all dimensions to achieve your goals. Four key energy management principles drive this process. They lie at the heart of change, and they are critical for building the capacity to live a productive, fully engaged life.
So…to fully engage the following 4 energy management principles will be key:
This week we'll address Principle #4
PRINCIPLE 4:
Positive energy rituals-highly specific routines for managing energy-are the key to full engagement and sustained high performance.
Change is hard…we are creatures of habit. Most of what we do is automatic and non conscious. What we did yesterday is what we are likely to do today. The problem with most efforts at change is that conscious efforts can’t be sustained over long haul. Will and discipline are for more limited resources than most of us realize. If you have to think about something every time you do it, the likelihood is that you won’t keep doing it for very long.
A positive ritual is a behavior that becomes automatic over time-fueled by some deeply held value.
I use the word ritual purposefully to emphasize the notion of a carefully highly structured behavior. In contrast to will and discipline, which requires pushing yourself to a particular behavior, a ritual pulls at you.
Think of something as simple as brushing your teeth. It’s not something that you have to remind yourself to do. Brushing your teeth is something you feel consistently drawn to.
You do it largely on auto pilot, without much conscious effort.
The power of rituals is that they insure that we use as little conscious energy as possible where it is not absolutely necessary, leaving us free to focus the energy available to us in creative, enriching ways.
Look at any part of your life where you are successful…you have probably built routines around that action.
With your eating. Exercise, at work, in your home…the areas that you have routine, you are successful.
This week as you identify rituals in your every day life, consider more that you might add regarding your choices to eat healthy and live a fit lifestyle.
I'll close this topic out next Friday. It's been good sharing the power and importance of full engagement with you.
Working to be fully engaged and always encouraging you,
Letha
a reminder:
To be fully engaged, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interests.
The challenge of great life performance is to manage your energy more effectively in all dimensions to achieve your goals. Four key energy management principles drive this process. They lie at the heart of change, and they are critical for building the capacity to live a productive, fully engaged life.
So…to fully engage the following 4 energy management principles will be key:
This week we'll address Principle #4
PRINCIPLE 4:
Positive energy rituals-highly specific routines for managing energy-are the key to full engagement and sustained high performance.
Change is hard…we are creatures of habit. Most of what we do is automatic and non conscious. What we did yesterday is what we are likely to do today. The problem with most efforts at change is that conscious efforts can’t be sustained over long haul. Will and discipline are for more limited resources than most of us realize. If you have to think about something every time you do it, the likelihood is that you won’t keep doing it for very long.
A positive ritual is a behavior that becomes automatic over time-fueled by some deeply held value.
I use the word ritual purposefully to emphasize the notion of a carefully highly structured behavior. In contrast to will and discipline, which requires pushing yourself to a particular behavior, a ritual pulls at you.
Think of something as simple as brushing your teeth. It’s not something that you have to remind yourself to do. Brushing your teeth is something you feel consistently drawn to.
You do it largely on auto pilot, without much conscious effort.
The power of rituals is that they insure that we use as little conscious energy as possible where it is not absolutely necessary, leaving us free to focus the energy available to us in creative, enriching ways.
Look at any part of your life where you are successful…you have probably built routines around that action.
With your eating. Exercise, at work, in your home…the areas that you have routine, you are successful.
This week as you identify rituals in your every day life, consider more that you might add regarding your choices to eat healthy and live a fit lifestyle.
I'll close this topic out next Friday. It's been good sharing the power and importance of full engagement with you.
Working to be fully engaged and always encouraging you,
Letha
Sep 2, 2010
Are You Fully Engaged? Principle # 3
Continued from last week...
a reminder:
To be fully engaged, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interests.
The challenge of great life performance is to manage your energy more effectively in all dimensions to achieve your goals. Four key energy management principles drive this process. They lie at the heart of change, and they are critical for building the capacity to live a productive, fully engaged life.
So…to fully engage the following 4 energy management principles will be key:
This week we'll address Principle #3
PRINCIPLE 3:
To build capacity, we must push beyond our normal limits, training in the same systematic way that elite athletes do.
Stress is not an enemy in our lives, it is a key to growth. In order to build strength in a muscle we must systematically stress it, expending energy beyond normal levels. Doing so literally causes microscopic tears in the muscle fibers. At the end of a training session, functional capacity is diminished. But give the muscle 24 to 48 hours to recover and it grows stronger and better able to handle the next stimulus. While this training phenomenon had been applied to building physical strength, it is just as relevant to building “muscles“ in every area of our lives.
From empathy and patience, to focus and creativity, to integrity and commitment. What applies to the body, applies to all other dimensions in our lives.
We build emotional, mental and spiritual capacity in the same way that we build physical capacity.
We grow at all levels by expending energy beyond our ordinary limits and then recovering. Expose a muscle to ordinary demand and it won’t grow. With age it will actually lose strength. The limiting factor in building any “muscle” is that many of us back off at the slightest hint of discomfort. To meet increase demand in our lives, we must learn to systematically build and strengthen muscles wherever our capacity is insufficient. Any forms of stress that prompts discomfort has the potential to expand our capacity physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually so long as it’s followed but adequate recovery.
This week as you face stressful situations, demands on your emotional and personal life and are tested even spiritually, remember that discomfort in those areas brings about growth if you properly cope with them and then find time to recover and refresh yourself as well.
Next week we'll look at principle #4.
Until then I'm
Always encouraging you,
Letha
a reminder:
To be fully engaged, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interests.
The challenge of great life performance is to manage your energy more effectively in all dimensions to achieve your goals. Four key energy management principles drive this process. They lie at the heart of change, and they are critical for building the capacity to live a productive, fully engaged life.
So…to fully engage the following 4 energy management principles will be key:
This week we'll address Principle #3
PRINCIPLE 3:
To build capacity, we must push beyond our normal limits, training in the same systematic way that elite athletes do.
Stress is not an enemy in our lives, it is a key to growth. In order to build strength in a muscle we must systematically stress it, expending energy beyond normal levels. Doing so literally causes microscopic tears in the muscle fibers. At the end of a training session, functional capacity is diminished. But give the muscle 24 to 48 hours to recover and it grows stronger and better able to handle the next stimulus. While this training phenomenon had been applied to building physical strength, it is just as relevant to building “muscles“ in every area of our lives.
From empathy and patience, to focus and creativity, to integrity and commitment. What applies to the body, applies to all other dimensions in our lives.
We build emotional, mental and spiritual capacity in the same way that we build physical capacity.
We grow at all levels by expending energy beyond our ordinary limits and then recovering. Expose a muscle to ordinary demand and it won’t grow. With age it will actually lose strength. The limiting factor in building any “muscle” is that many of us back off at the slightest hint of discomfort. To meet increase demand in our lives, we must learn to systematically build and strengthen muscles wherever our capacity is insufficient. Any forms of stress that prompts discomfort has the potential to expand our capacity physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually so long as it’s followed but adequate recovery.
This week as you face stressful situations, demands on your emotional and personal life and are tested even spiritually, remember that discomfort in those areas brings about growth if you properly cope with them and then find time to recover and refresh yourself as well.
Next week we'll look at principle #4.
Until then I'm
Always encouraging you,
Letha
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