Today I taught an extensive class on how to stabilize and then maintain weight loss for life. Although I have gained tremendous knowledge about food, calories and nutrition over the past 29 years working in the weight loss industry, you'll rarely find me talking about those things in this blog. The amount of information available to the public about dieting is overwhelming and plentiful. If you have a question about food, calories and protein...you can get that question answered 100 different ways.
My experience has taught me this...it's a lot more about what's eating you...than what you're eating! As I sit with clients every week, I'm continually reminded of that.
Today I visited with clients who seem to be "bored with the food" on the Healthy Weigh weight loss diet, but with further examination discovered that discontentment was at the root of "needing" more or different food.
Being content isn't easy. If you've studied contentment at all you find it gets harder before it gets better. Contentment is being satisfied with what you have and where you are; a feeling of calm satisfaction. The problem with contentment is that we look for the circumstances to change, when being content is really learning to be satisfied with things just like they are.
The rub comes when we feel those feelings of discontentment and we don't know what to do with them. Food so often becomes the drug of choice to numb, avoid, or escape that uncomfortable feeling of discontentment.
The answer is ALWAYS to identify those feelings and then process them. That might look like journaling, talking to a friend or choosing gratitude for what you have and where you are right now.
Choose contentment this weekend. Challenge yourself to process feelings of discontent and be grateful. See if finding contentment in your present circumstances doesn't just make following your diet a little easier.
Join me and my Healthy Weigh friends on the water front this Saturday morning at 9 AM. We meet in front of Beaches restaurant and walk for about an hour. Bring a friend or a dog! Come,walk and enjoy the Northwest beauty. It'll be great.
Always encouraging you.
Letha
Jun 24, 2010
Jun 17, 2010
Body ~ Soul ~ Spirit, The Spiritual Perspective
This week we concluded our 6 week class by reviewing the last, and I believe, the most important Personal Control Guide. We looked at the spiritual perspective of weight loss.
We were created in three parts...body, soul and spirit. Our body, the physical part of us which relates to the material world. Our Soul, made up of our mind, will and emotions, our personalty you might say, which relates with people. And our spirit, the deepest place of who we are, which relates with God.
To live completely healthy lives, we need to submit our body to our soul, our soul to our spirit and our spirit to God.
The problem lies, when we have an unhealthy soul; a mind that is negative, a will that says, "I do what I want" and emotions that are wounded and have not been healed from past and present pain. You can imagine what a body would look like that comes under that kind of influence.
God makes our spirits new when we invite him in and surrender to him.
Our work, is the work of the soul; renewing the mind, submitting the will and healing the emotions.
I continue to see men and woman work so hard at dieting, losing weight and will power, all while their souls are ravaged. When we focus on the work of the soul; renewing, submitting and healing, the body comes under the influence of a healthy soul and this journey of weight loss gets a lot easier.
We continue at The Healthy Weigh to challenge you in areas of soul work. How many times have we talked to you about renewing your mind..saying no to the bad and yes to the good, and healing those emotions that are keeping you from an abundant life? It's all soul work, at The Healthy Weigh!
We have a society of excess! As we grow older and deny past pain, empty places begin to develop in our souls. We do a great job of trying to fill those empty place with things. Food, clothes, cars, houses, money, and busyness. Excess of anything, is about our emptiness. All those empty places are addictions waiting to happen.
The belief I have says this...many of our empty places can be closed up, healed, with God's help and our soul work, but many of those empty places are holes that only God can fill. He created us for relationship with him and until we surrender to Him, we will always be looking to "fill" those holes.
We had Church at The Healthy Weigh Thursday, no offering was taken, no choir sang, but I know that God was present and tenderly waiting to be invited in.
Always encouraging you,
Letha
We were created in three parts...body, soul and spirit. Our body, the physical part of us which relates to the material world. Our Soul, made up of our mind, will and emotions, our personalty you might say, which relates with people. And our spirit, the deepest place of who we are, which relates with God.
To live completely healthy lives, we need to submit our body to our soul, our soul to our spirit and our spirit to God.
The problem lies, when we have an unhealthy soul; a mind that is negative, a will that says, "I do what I want" and emotions that are wounded and have not been healed from past and present pain. You can imagine what a body would look like that comes under that kind of influence.
God makes our spirits new when we invite him in and surrender to him.
Our work, is the work of the soul; renewing the mind, submitting the will and healing the emotions.
I continue to see men and woman work so hard at dieting, losing weight and will power, all while their souls are ravaged. When we focus on the work of the soul; renewing, submitting and healing, the body comes under the influence of a healthy soul and this journey of weight loss gets a lot easier.
We continue at The Healthy Weigh to challenge you in areas of soul work. How many times have we talked to you about renewing your mind..saying no to the bad and yes to the good, and healing those emotions that are keeping you from an abundant life? It's all soul work, at The Healthy Weigh!
We have a society of excess! As we grow older and deny past pain, empty places begin to develop in our souls. We do a great job of trying to fill those empty place with things. Food, clothes, cars, houses, money, and busyness. Excess of anything, is about our emptiness. All those empty places are addictions waiting to happen.
The belief I have says this...many of our empty places can be closed up, healed, with God's help and our soul work, but many of those empty places are holes that only God can fill. He created us for relationship with him and until we surrender to Him, we will always be looking to "fill" those holes.
We had Church at The Healthy Weigh Thursday, no offering was taken, no choir sang, but I know that God was present and tenderly waiting to be invited in.
Always encouraging you,
Letha
Jun 11, 2010
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 workshop 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.
We 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!
I hope you'll join me next week at noon or Six on Thursday when I conclude this 6 week class schedule with Body Soul Spirit, the spiritual perspective.
Always encouraging you,
Letha
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.
We 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!
I hope you'll join me next week at noon or Six on Thursday when I conclude this 6 week class schedule with Body Soul Spirit, the spiritual perspective.
Always encouraging you,
Letha
Jun 4, 2010
Coping Skills ~ Feeling Your Way Through Life
Can you spell vulnerability? That was me, this week, teaching "Coping Skills ~ Feeling Your Way Through Life." It was a hard lesson for many clients to hear, so I loved it when one of our clients voiced this great word..." Hard doesn't mean bad." How true that was this week as 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!
We spent most of our time Thursday talking about forgiveness. I believe that unforgiveness robs us of more joy than any thing else in life. I shared a technique or tool to help clients begin to forgive the people, including themselves, that they need to, to heal those wounded places inside. Forgiveness only takes one person, so it definitely is a process that we all find right inside of our own back packs! It is your responsibility to do the work to heal the places that are keeping you from living the life you were intended to live.
I inspired courage Thursday...it takes a little bit 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!
I hope I will see many of you next week when we have a little math workshop...math will seem easy after Coping Skills! :-) Thursday, Noon or Six! Hope to see you there!
I love you all, I'm walking with you and want you to have your very best life.
Until next week.
Always encouraging you.
Letha
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!
We spent most of our time Thursday talking about forgiveness. I believe that unforgiveness robs us of more joy than any thing else in life. I shared a technique or tool to help clients begin to forgive the people, including themselves, that they need to, to heal those wounded places inside. Forgiveness only takes one person, so it definitely is a process that we all find right inside of our own back packs! It is your responsibility to do the work to heal the places that are keeping you from living the life you were intended to live.
I inspired courage Thursday...it takes a little bit 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!
I hope I will see many of you next week when we have a little math workshop...math will seem easy after Coping Skills! :-) Thursday, Noon or Six! Hope to see you there!
I love you all, I'm walking with you and want you to have your very best life.
Until next week.
Always encouraging you.
Letha
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