Exercise and Weight Loss ~ It's a Math Problem

We spent a couple of emotional weeks looking at the things we're responsible for and then coping skills. It's always good for the soul to throw in a little logic after spending time on our emotions! Our Math assignment did just that!

Sometimes math can be hard too. The simple fact that our bodies need a certain amount of calories to maintain weight can be a difficult truth to accept. The amount of calories we burn compared to the amount we take in, is the story problem.

As we look back to the generations before us, there is a big difference between the amount of calories expended in a day compared to now. That's where the problem lies. Our lives have become more automated and we still want to consume the same amount of calories as the people generations before us did. That's where weight gain comes in!

It takes 3500 calories to lose or gain a pound. We are either saving up calories to add a pound on our bodies, or we are working to have a deficit of 3500 calories to lose a pound off our bodies. It truly is a math problem.

Lesson #5 talked about exercise and the ability to turn up our bodies thermostats to have a speedier metabolism. Keeping close track of all calories consumed and working to burn more calories by being active is the goal!

With so many unknowns in our world today...it's somehow comforting to know that weight loss really is a math problem!

Knowing your maintenance calories and becoming aware of the calories in food is the first step to maintaining your goal weight for life! It truly is a math problem!

Always encouraging you,
Letha

Coping Skills~Feeling Your Way Through Life

This week we looked at the importance of having healthy coping skills to be truly healthy; body soul and spirit!

We took a look at the coping skills that our society uses. Drinking, drugs, shopping, and over eating to name a few. Coping; wrestling or grappling with difficulties and acting to over come them. As we looked closer at our societies list, we realized that we are not coping at all...we're avoiding. Avoiding the pain of the past and present. Instead of overcoming and healing our issues and pain, we are numbing them.

At The Healthy Weigh, we are convinced that unless a person acquires a healthy list of coping skills and begins to use them to heal past and present wounds, they will have temporary success at best.

The feeling wheel was introduced this week as a great tool to identify feelings and begin to process them. For many of us, we are a bit handicapped when it comes to expressing our feelings. We were taught to feel; mad, glad or sad. Identifying our true feelings is the first step to being able to process what's really going on inside of us. We recommend that you keep your feeling wheel on the inside of a journal so that you can refer to it as often as necessary while you're journaling. It wouldn't be such a bad idea to put it on the fridge so that the whole family could benefit from it!

It takes courage to forge ahead and begin to use real coping skills. What I know is that a mind that is healthy, and emotions that are healed will effect a physical body more than any diet ever could!

Always encouraging you.
Letha

What's In Your Back Pack~ Controlling What You Can

This week I introduced my favorite lesson on the CD series. I learned about "Back Packs" about 10 years ago, and it was life changing for me.
Learning to control what you can and let go of things you can't control is not only freeing, it's smart!

At first look, clients wonder what "back packs" have to do with weight loss. It doesn't take long to begin to understand the concept. The more you understand about self-control, personal responsibility and emotional ownership, the easier it is to make choices for yourself regarding your weight loss program and your health.

As we begin to look at the 12 things we are responsible for, in control of, and are to take ownership of, I have to laugh at the test we've all been put through lately...something that is completely out of our control; the weather! Living in the Northwest is an opportunity to carry your own weather around inside of you. We can't control the weather, but we can control our attitudes!

Over the years I've seen clients, friends and family, using all their time, and energy on things out side of their control. Those things appear to get bigger and bigger, because we have no control over them, and we appear to get smaller and smaller. The things that we DO have control of...the 12 things in our back pack are the ONLY things that will help us become the women and men we were intended to be. Strong, healthy and full of love.

We looked at the difference between feeling responsible TO others and feeling responsible FOR others. I encourage you to look at the chart on the back of this important control guide and work to become a person who is responsible TO others.

This is a lesson that you will want to share with your children, your spouses and everyone you spend time with. I pray that it will be as life changing for you as it was and is for me.


Always encouraging you,
Letha

Change Your Thinking~Change Your Life!

Last week we learned that in order to change your actions permanently, you have to change your belief system. This week, we're focusing on your thought life.

I tackled 4 things on week #2 of my CD series:

Motivation
Goals and Rewards
Positive Thinking
Mental Conditioning

Wouldn't you agree that losing weight and keeping it off for life is one of the hardest things you've ever done?...so the questions is, how do you prepared for that? This week we are focusing on necessary steps to be successful at not only starting this weight loss journey, but reaching your destination as well!

Motivation:
As I sit with clients week after week, I see a common theme with clients who are not losing weight. They have lost their motivation. Knowing WHY you want to lose weight and keeping those reasons in the fore front of your mind is critical for weight loss success. There are many ways to keep motivation high. What ever those ways are for you, keep doing them! We all have different motives as to why we want to lose weight...the key is to keep motivation alive! Motivation is in the doing! What can you do this week to elevate your motivation?

Goals and Rewards:
Setting goals and rewarding yourself are proven methods in changing your beliefs permanently. Everything we do, we do out of our need to seek pleasure or avoid pain, the problem is,our society believes that over eating is pleasure and eating in moderation is painful. When I've asked clients to speak out words connected to over eating. I hear; guilt, shame, poor health, pain, and tears. When they speak words connected to eating in moderation I hear; happiness, peace, health, clothes fit, and confidence. That is the truth...we just don't believe it!
Linking pleasure(rewards) to your new healthy life style and pain to your old unhealthy habits will begin to change your belief system and help you keep this weight off.
Rewards are a must!

Positive Thinking:
You won't catch me in a conversation with someone about permanent change, without hearing me talk about our thought life! Choosing positive thoughts will promote positive actions! How we think about ourselves has EVERYTHING to do with losing weight and keeping it off. The good news is that we have a choice every minute of every day about our thoughts. This little girl has it figured out...we could learn a thing or two from her.
Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rKOkZFkg

Mental Conditioning:
This is the first week of your mental conditioning exercises. No great accomplishments have happened without first the visions of them! The subconscious mind is powerful. What ever you force into it on a regular basis, it believes. Adding this piece to your Healthy Weigh program could be a key to your success.

Great effort goes into great accomplishments. I encourage you to spend time this week on your thinking...it will change your life!


Always encouraging you.
Letha

Changing Your Beliefs ~ The Key to Permanent Weight Loss

This week at the "ROAD TRIP" Team Challenge we began our 6 week look/listen of my CD series and the processing homework that goes along with it. I am excited about introducing the six personal control guides to you one week at a time. A lot of great classes, workshops and support groups have happen at The Healthy Weigh, but it's your personal reflection that makes the difference in your weight loss journey!

Beginning this weight loss journey by looking backwards is crucial. The beliefs we have regarding ourselves, our relationship with food and so many other things, determine our success with losing weight and more importantly keeping it off. The key to changing in the present is understanding our past.

Sometimes we resist looking at our past because we are afraid that in some way we will be dishonoring our parents. The search for truth, never requires that we dishonor those who raise us. In fact, distorting our memory of those early years through either denial or idealizing is what really dishonors the past, because it makes the past unreal. We must become fearless in our search for the truth, knowing that the truth, truly does set us free. The search for truth is never an excuse to blame or to confront-it's our search, and it's purpose lies within us.

If you've started this journey with us, I want to encourage you to go for it! Don't back away! You'll come away 6 weeks from now with great insight and a positive attitude towards your future.

Being set free is an awesome thing. I hope you'll take the road that leads there.

Email me with questions or thoughts...I'd love to hear from you. You can also comment to this blog. I encourage that as well. letha@healthyweigh.com

Until next week.
Always encouraging you.
Letha

I Do My BEST On The Weekends!

The weekend is here, the sun is going to shine(positive thinking), spring is upon us...how prepared are you to follow your nutritional plan all weekend long? Have you given any thought to the days ahead and planned your strategy?

Weekends pose different problems than week days. During the week, we have routine and it makes it "routine" to follow program. It seems that we are better prepared with program foods during the week too, out of necessity with our busy schedules.

The weekend rolls around and we have no routine to speak of, and we've run out of the good program foods! That means trouble!

There are a few easy things you can do to make your weekend days as successful or even more successful than the week days.

1. Preplan a menu for the weekend on Thursday night (with contingencies.)

Put the menu up on your fridge to remind yourself that you DO have a plan for the weekend. It helps to have it written down so you are not making so many emotional decisions about what you "feel" like eating.

2. Stop on your way home on Friday night to stock up on the very BEST program foods.

The weekend is the time when we can take more time to make a beautiful breakfast or even a special dinner. Buy the best ingredients and look forward to your meals instead of eating what's left over from the week!

3. Use the extra time to be more active.

If you have time to walk out the front door...do it! Take time on the weekend to go for a walk, a hike or a bike ride with your family. You can burn more calories on the weekend!

4. Above all else (you guessed it) think rightly about the weekend.

Your attitude about weekend foods and weekend activity will make ALL the difference in your success! Try repeating out loud many times a day..."I do my best on the program, on the weekends." See what that does for your thought life!

Your determination to turn hard weekends into opportunities for more weight loss will make a great difference in your weight loss success.

Plan ahead,go shopping and think rightly, then have a terrific on program weekend!

Always encouraging you.
Letha

...But Do They Keep The Weight Off?

As I have been sharing information this week about our outstanding weight loss program, and encouraging new clients to participate in it, I have been asked this question many times over .."But are your clients keeping their weight off?"

I'd love to answer that question here this morning.

I have spent 30 years helping people lose weight. I have watched MANY weight loss programs come and go, some that I believed in more than others. I have watched people lose weight and I have welcomed them back to the program when they have gained their weight back.

After years of experience, I have come to this important conclusion...How you lose weight has little to do with how or why you gain weight back. Losing weight means that you cut calories and ate or consumed less than your body needed to maintain your weight. Gaining it back means you consumed more calories than your body needed to maintain it's self. It's really that simple!

I've also had enough experience to know that how you lose weight has a lot to do with the probability of you making permanent changes because THAT'S how you keep weight off!

The probability of you following a cabbage soup diet for the rest of your life is not real great! The chances that you will continue to eat a healthy balanced diet with all the food groups is very probable. So HOW you chose to lose weight has more to do with the changes that you are making than it does with the temporary DIET that you are following.

More important than the diet you chose to lose weight, is the thinking that you chose to lose weight! Your thoughts will always dictate your actions! So, if you have followed a diet...any diet, and have not changed your thinking about food, about health, about your worthiness to care for yourself, chances are, your unhealthy thinking will cause you to act in a way that will put weight back on.

I am a firm believer that being at GOAL weight is another big key to permanent weight loss. When you are stepping on the scale to monitor your weight, and you've never been happy with the weight you see, you will lack the motivation to stay there. On the other hand, when you step on the scale and see your goal, there will be a different level of motivation to help you keep your weight off for life!

The Healthy Weigh nutritional plan is by far the best weight loss plan I have ever seen. Losing weight on our plan, is guaranteed! Keeping it off, depends on you!

Are you willing to accept the truth about the amount of calories it takes to maintain your body at goal weight? Are you willing to make permanent changes in your thinking so that food is fuel for your body and not your drug of choice? If you can answer yes to these questions, you will keep your weight off for life!

I am proud to offer a program that deals with permanent changes on every level. Permanent change is where it's at...and a lot of that is going on at The Healthy Weigh!

Always encouraging you,
Letha