"Let Nothing Stop You!"

I'm a Tower of Power fan, shows my age a bit, but I can't help thinking about one of my favorite songs this morning..."Ain't nothing stopping us now."

What's stopping YOU right now at this very moment from losing weight and looking the best you can?

We are looking at tools to keep motivation fresh and alive! Motivation has to be a priority if you want to achieve your goals. I've got another tool for you to pull out and use as you strive to reach your goal weight and live your best life.

4. Write down everything that's stopping you from reaching your weight loss goal and then beside each thing that's stopping you, make a plan to eliminate the problem.


You may write down:

"I don't have time to lose weight" and a solution to that problem would be to make time by spending 30 minutes exercising instead of watching TV or exercise for 30
minutes while watching TV.

"I eat too much and I can't control my cravings" and a solution to that would be to eat ALL the food on your nutritional plan every day to provide you with the nutrients you need to combat cravings.

"My head's just not into it" and a solution to that is to use the tools you have, and spend time on your head! Make the time to get alone with yourself and use the valuable tools you've received to change your thinking. You have complete control over your thoughts. Eliminate stinkin' thinkin'!


Write down whatever it is that is stopping you from losing weight and then eliminate it! You have a problem? You also have a solution! Let nothing stop you!

How bad do you want to be at goal weight? What's keeping you from having what you want? Use this tool and you'll be singing..."Ain't nothing stopping me now!"

Always encouraging you,
Letha

"Make a Bet With Yourself"

I'm not a betting woman, but this is a fun way to increase motivation! We are looking at 10 ways to keep motivation alive. We've looked at a couple of tools in the last two weeks, today we'll look at yet another fun way to kick up your motivation to lose weight!

3. Make a bet with yourself or someone else!

What would happen to your resolve if you walked into the next office at work with $100 bill and "bet" your co-worker that you will lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks? If you don't do it, they keep the money, when you accomplish the goal, they give it back!!
I can tell you what would happen...you'd do it!!

How inspired would you be if you told your children that you were going to walk every day for the next 60 days...if you didn't follow through they could dye your hair blue! (that one is a little outrageous, but I bet you'd follow through)

The more extreme the bet is or the more you have to lose, the greater chance you'll actually reach your weight loss goal and think about like this...

If there was a chance you could lose your house, your car and all your money if you did not lose 50 pounds in 10 months (which is a reasonable amount of time) then you'll probably end up losing 50 pounds in 7 months or less!

How outrageous can you be? What kind of "bet" will inspire you? Who would you make a bet with that would get you to make a DECISION once and for all?

You can start today. Bet someone today. Keep motivation alive, that's what people do who accomplish great things!!

Always encouraging you,
Letha

"If I Do" and "If I Don't"

It's all abut the motivation! So this week we are going to look at another tool to keep motivation alive! I believe strongly in using pain and pleasure to motivate us to change. This is another way to look at it, another way to think about it. Our second tool in our tool box;

2. Play the "If I Do" and the "If I don't game"


Here's how you play the "If I Do" and the "If I don't game."

You're going to take 2 sheets of paper and on the top of 1 sheet of paper you're going to write:

"These are all the GOOD things that will start happening to me tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or even 2,5, or 10 years from now if I DO take action now to lose weight."

Then you'll fill up that sheet with every single GOOD thing you can imagine that will happen in the near & distant future If You DO take action now to lose weight!

Spend time here. Be creative. Think of things about your physical, emotional and spiritual life that will be GOOD if you DO take action now to lose your weight. Don't forget to think about your family, your friends, your work. All the things that you are involved in will be affected by your weight loss!


Now take your second piece of paper and write:

"These are all the bad things that will start happening to me tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or even 2,5, or 10 years from now if I DON'T take action now to lose weight."

Then you'll fill up that sheet with every single BAD thing you can imagine that will happen in the near & distant future If you DON'T take action now to lose weight.

Spend time here. Be creative. Think of things about your physical, emotional and spiritual life that will be BAD if you DO NOT take action now to lose your weight. Don't forget to think about your family, your friends, your work. All the things that you are involved in will be affected by your choice to NOT lose weight.

This will be a powerful tool of motivation when you sit and "play this game," however the key to keeping motivation alive is to refer back to it often. Put it somewhere visible or keep it in a notebook or journal so that it is easy to refer to.

Keep adding these tools to your tool box and you are going to find that you are becoming an expert at motivation!

Always encouraging you,
Letha

"So That..."

It's all about the motivation! Motive; the inner drive that causes one to act.
We spend way too much time thinking about food when we are trying to lose weight...and way too little time thinking about why we want to lose weight; our motive for losing weight.

Our weight loss goals MUST inspire us. Motivation is SO important to being successful at weight loss and weight maintenance that I am going to spend the next 10 weeks on Motivation! One week at a time, focusing on one tool to add to your motivation tool box. Here we go:


1. Keep on saying "So That"

Ask yourself "Why do I want to lose weight?" and after you come up with a reason why... Just keep on saying SO THAT...

For example - Why Do you want to lose weight?

•I want to lose weight to look better SO THAT...
•I want to lose weight so I can feel more confident about myself SO THAT...
•I want to lose weight so I can look amazing at my high school reunion SO THAT...
•I want to lose weight to be a healthy wife and mother SO THAT...
•I want to lose weight to have better health SO THAT...

Can you see what's happening here?

The more times you say SO THAT, the more and more motivated you'll become to lose weight.

We connect somewhat to why we want to lose weight, but we don't make it personal enough to motivate us on a deep level. Motive... the inner drive that cause one to act.

Everyone should lose weight for their health. right?
Everyone should lose weight to feel more confident, right?
Everyone should lose weight and model health for their children, right?

But why you? Why should you do these things? Adding SO THAT at the end of your goal statements will make a difference and help you connect to why YOU should accomplish these things!

Try it this week...SO THAT...

One tool each week. Pick them up, use them, and lets see what you build by the end of these 10 weeks!

Always encouraging you.
Letha

The Amazing Race!

It's September! That means summer is coming to a close, children are headed back to school and parents are celebrating! It also means that life is going to have some routine again.

At The Healthy Weigh, it means that we are two weeks away from closing out our Summer Team Challenge, "EXTRAORDINARY LIFE" and getting geared up for our Fall Challenge, "THE AMAZING RACE." Our Summer Team Challenge has been extraordinary just like the theme. We are going to beat the weight loss record again and will have lost over 1500 pounds in just nine weigh-in's. We have records being broken, weight loss goals being met and more importantly, changed thinking all around! The Summer Team Challenge has lived up to it's name!

That brings us to the Fall! October 11th we will launch our 10th season of our exciting Team Challenge! When we introduced this new program back in the spring of 2009, we could not have imagined the success that was ahead of us. The Team Challenge has changed the way The Healthy Weigh helps people lose weight and keep it off. Because of the challenges we are experiencing greater client success than ever, and it just keeps getting better!

"THE AMAZING RACE" will be a powerful theme for the 10 week fall Challenge. We will have fun and lose a bunch of weight while we explore 'detours,' 'road blocks,' 'clues' and 'pit stops.' Our teams will rise to the occasion with this theme for sure.

Another exciting announcement about our 10th season is that we will have our first ever "alumni" team. This team will consist of clients who have completed the Team Challenge, gone through stabilization and are now at goal weight. This team will be a big group that will be competing for a separate prize. They will be focused on keeping their weight loss % the same or possibly a touch lower by the end of the 10 weeks. One thing our clients have learned at The Healthy Weigh is that having accountability is one of the most important things you can do to maintain your weight loss success. This group, sporting their alumni Healthy Weigh tee shirts, will not only be an inspiration to the clients losing weight, but will set a great example of what it takes to keep weight off. Our alumni know that the holiday months are a dangerous time for people trying to eat healthy and keep their weight off. The Team Challenge will be an excellent place for them to hold firm and move into January at or below their goal!

If you or someone you love is considering changing their life, re-writing their story, losing 20, 30 ,40 or more pounds by Christmas...The Healthy Weigh Team Challenge is a place to do that! We will be having six 30 minute "infomercials" to explain all the details of the Amazing Race Team Challenge. September 20, September 27th and October 4th we will share the details at 11:00 am and 7:00 pm. Come and find out more about what's happening at The Healthy Weigh... and bring a friend, they might be your partner on this Amazing Race!


Always encouraging you,
Letha

Interrupting Patterns!

We all have patterns, habits, routines that we are so caught up in, we don’t even know that we are doing them at times. We follow through with our patterns, our habits even when we want to be doing other things. We want to lose weight, but we have a pattern, a habit, of walking into our house and immediately grabbing something to eat.

We walk into our house, we walk to the pantry, we grab a bite to eat. It’s such a habit, it’s such a pattern that we automatically do it.

Interrupting patterns is a BIG deal and a crucial part of changing permanently. Sometimes interrupting patterns takes doing something outrageous. My husband and I had a talk last night about how we could outrageously interrupt that pattern, that habit that includes our pantry. He came up with an outrageous idea."Let’s put a sign in sheet on the pantry door." "You have to sign in and sign out every time you go in or out."

Now that’s outrageous,that would interrupt the pattern.
How outrageous are you willing to be to interrupt patterns?

Let’s say you have a pattern, a habit of stopping by a convenience store and getting a little something, just a little something that’s "not going to hurt your diet." What could you do to interrupt that pattern? Here’s an outrageous idea; burn a CD of a song, maybe the theme from Rocky, or Helen Reddy's, I am woman or Rudolf The Red Nose Reindeer, something outrageous! Every time you get in your car after work,you play that CD. Every time. You will laugh, It will scramble the pattern, you will think...and make a new choice.

Pattern interrupts: tools that you use to break that pattern. It can happen in so many different ways. Our clients at The Healthy Weigh work on a lot of them.

They have learned to link pain to their old life and pleasure to their new life. If you keep using leverage you’ll interrupt patterns. If you are outrageous enough about the pain that being overweight has caused you or will cause you, you will interrupt patterns.

Our clients have learned about positive affirmations, the truth that whatever we repeatedly say to our self on a regular disciplined manner our subconscious will accept reality. Positive affirmations, changing your self talk from negative to positive will interrupt old patterns. Old patterns of negative thinking.

Keeping a program journal interrupts patterns. You come from a place of eating mindlessly to bringing awareness to your eating patterns. Keeping a program journal, interrupts patterns in behavior! If you really keep it and write down EVERYTHING!

Visualizing your self at goal, living out a vital, active, free life,interrupts patterns.

Sometimes we’re so caught up in our patterns, our habits that they keep us from following through. We want to lose weight. We want to change, but our old patterns and habits take over. So we’ve got to interrupt our patterns. We’ve got to interrupt the old and replace it with new.

What are some of the patterns that have played over and over for you? Some of you might be thinking about daily patterns, habits that you repeatedly do. Others might be thinking about deep seated patters like "I lose weight, but I put it back on again." "I diet, but then I go back to eating the way I always have." I’m in smaller clothes but I end up wearing my bigger ones again." "I feel great eating this way, leaving alcohol alone, but I always slip back and start eating unhealthy and drinking again."

Here’s what it looks like to interrupt a pattern. You have a CD, it plays music. You play it over and over and over. It plays the same song, because the music inlay-ed within it’s pattern. What if one day you took out that CD and took a nail and scratched it, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I promise you,the next time you put that CD in the player to play that familiar music that has played over and over and over again,It wouldn’t play. That inlay-ed pattern has been interrupted for good.

Pattern interrupts, to be effective, need to be different than what you’ve done in the past. They need to be outrageous! The more outrageous you are, the more effective you’ll be. The more fun you make a pattern interrupt, the more likely you are to do it again and again.

Is there a habit that is getting in your way of reaching your goal weight or keeping it off? It's time to think of an outrageous pattern interrupt. How can you "take a nail" to a pattern or hait that is not getting you what you want, and scratch it up permanently?!

Be outrageous, have fun, and interrupt those patterns!

Always encouraging you,
Letha

Your Mind's Eye...what does it see?

Of all the work we've had our clients do over the years at The Healthy Weigh to have success at weight loss, imagery seems to be one of the most difficult tasks for them to accomplish. It takes time, it's not as easy to measure as some of the writing work, and we're "just not that in to it." Imagery is powerful!

A fascinating fact about your non-conscious mind is that it’s completely deductive in nature. In other words, it is fully capable of working backwards from the end to the means. You do not need to have the means or the “know how” to achieve a goal at the time you first set the goal, because if you “program” only the outcome (the goal) successfully into your “mental computer,” then your subconscious will take over and help you find the information and means and carry out the actions necessary to reach your desired end.

Although visualization is widely used today, even people who are familiar with it often don’t realize its versatility and many applications. Arguably the most frequent use of visualization is by athletes (as well as musicians and other performers) as a form of mental rehearsal. Research has shown that “practicing in your mind” is almost as effective as practicing physically, and that doing both - mental and physical practice - is more effective than either one alone.

A common and simple use of visualization in the fitness context is “goal visualization,” which is simply making mental images of yourself already having achieved your perfect goal weight or with the type of muscularity you desire (i.e., see yourself with the “body of your dreams”). However, visualization does not need to be limited only to mental rehearsal or seeing pictures of your dream body in your mind’s eye. The technique of visualization knows no bounds - because remember, you are working with your imagination.

One creative way you can use mental imagery is called “process visualization.” It works like this: Once you’ve set your goals, it’s fairly easy to come up with a list of daily habits, behaviors and action steps you’ll need to take to reach your goal. So write the action steps down and visualize them (the whole process, not just the end result). In your mind’s eye, see yourself food shopping and making the right choices, see yourself ordering healthy foods from restaurant menus, visualize yourself saying no to sodas and drinking water instead, and mentally project yourself going to the gym consistently and having killer workouts. Some people literally visualize their entire “perfect day” as they would want it to unfold. When you do this as vividly, emotionally and in as much detail as you can, you will be neurologically priming your brain to carry out those behaviors.

The more I read,the more excited I get about the benefits and the power of visualization. I’ve attached a handout for you below to help you get started if you have not already done so. Allow your mind’s eye to see who you are, who you are becoming.



Therapeutic imagery usually consists of a 20- to 25-minute session that begins with a relaxation exercise to help focus attention and "center" your mind. Very often it is done in combination with positive affirmations. These exercises aid in weight loss by allowing people to envision how manageable lowering their weight is and what they would look like.
During a typical session of imagery , you focus on a predetermined image designed to help you control excessive and unhealthy eating (active imagery) or you allow your mind to conjure up images that give you insight into your weight and fat (receptive imagery). Imagery can be explored on your own, with the help of a book or audiotape, or with a counselors guidance (guided imagery).
Martin L. Rossman, MD in an article "Imagery: Learning to Use the Mind's Eye," described how imagery works for healing:
Visual, auditory, and tactile imagery seem to arise from the brain's cerebral cortex, the seat of higher mental functions, such as language, thinking, and problem solving. (Imagery having to do with smell or emotional experiences may arise from more primitive brain centers.) When researchers have used a sophisticated technique called positron emission tomography (PET) to monitor the brain during imagery exercises, they have found that the same parts of the cerebral cortex are activated whether people imagine something or actually experience it. This suggests that picturing visual images activates the optic cortex, imagining that you are listening to music arouses the auditory cortex, and conjuring up tactile sensations stimulates the sensory cortex. Thus, vivid imagery can send a message from the cerebral cortex to the lower brain centers, including the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain. From there, the message is relayed to the endocrine system and the autonomic nervous system, which can affect a range of bodily functions, including heart rate, perspiration, and blood pressure.
To relax, for instance, you might visualize a restful beach scene. Then you could incorporate the surrounding images through your senses: Hear the waves. feel the breeze. Smell the salt air.
Keep your eyes closed while you take a few deep, easy breaths, and imagine yourself in the most peaceful, beautiful, serene place you can conjure up. Think of a time when you felt relaxed and peaceful- perhaps a walk in the park, a day on a sunny beach, or an evening at a concert-and focus intently on the sights, smells, and physical sensations associated with that event. Focus on this image for about five minutes.
Or you can start with the following imagery for seeing your way to weight-loss success.
Sit quietly and comfortably.
Once you are in position, start breathing deeply.
Close eyes. Keep it closed during your visualization. Keep your belly soft. Let that softness spread from your belly into your legs and upper body.
These exercises will relax you. Being relaxed helps you to concentrate on the images that you visualize. Now you are ready for some visualization for weight loss. Here is an exercise recommended by Gerald Epstein, M.D. author of " Healing Visualizations."


Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Picture yourself standing before a mirror, seeing a noticeably thinner you. Imagine entering the mirror and merging with that image, becoming that slimmer you. Feel your clothes hang more loosely on you.
Now separate yourself from the image and step out of the mirror, but keep your eyes on it. Open your eyes.
Each time you sit down to eat, take a minute or two to practice this exercise. It can help you eat more sensibly and reinforce your commitment to losing weight.
Seeing yourself losing weight programs the subconscious mind to do what you want. Imagine how your body will feel and what it will look like. See yourself wearing the kind of body-hugging outfits and doing the kinds of things-such as proudly walking across a crowded beach-that might not feel comfortable for you quite yet.
Here is a visualization recommended by Debbie Johnson, author of "Thinking Yourself Thin - The visualization technique that will make you lose weight without diet or exercise."
"I am walking on the beach, feeling slim and beautiful/ handsome. I feel people watching me as they notice how lean and lovely/ strong I am. I feel the warm sand move under my feet as I walk barefoot. The salty ocean air fills my nostrils. I breath deeply, loving the feeling of health and vigor. The waves roll in, their majestic sound enveloping me. I hear children playing and screaming with delight at finding shells or building castles. I am so happy to be alive in this moment and grateful for the new body I have. I feel more confident, healthy, vital, relaxed, and serene. I am at peace with my body and myself."

Keep forming these pleasant mental pictures, and you'll find yourself motivated to make them a reality.


I hope you'll take some time to see yourself at goal weight this beautiful weekend. See yourself where you want to be physically, spiritually and emotionally. Your mind...it's a powerful thing to waste!

Always encouraging you,
Letha