Got Willpower?

Willpower...It seems we all need more of it!  According to the American Psychological Association, Americans name lack of willpower as the number one reason they struggle to meet their goals. With that being the case, I thought I better be about it...finding more willpower that is. Not only finding more for myself, but teaching others how to do it too. That's what we'll be focusing on during the Spring Team Challenge 2013! WILLPOWER!

Scientific research has much to say about changing your thoughts, emotions, and habits.  I'm excited about  teaching some of these new strategies for self control. We're going to look at why we give in to temptation and how we can find the strength to resist. We're going to do a little willpower training!

One of the best ways to improve your self control is to see how and why you lose control. We've got to take a closer look at the traps that lead to willpower failures.  We are going to dispel some of the common misconceptions about self control and give you a new way to think about willpower challenges. My desire in the 10 week challenge is to empower clients to make real and lasting changes in their lives.

By the time this 10 week challenge is over, we're going to know when to use our will power...our won't power...and our want power!  Willpower is really about harnessing the three powers of I will, I won't, and I want, to help you achieve your goals.

As we head into our 16th Season of the Team Challenge, I'm as excited as ever about the amount of weight I know our clients will lose, the ways they will change their diets, and the information that I am prepared to teach them. I'm also looking forward to the fun community spirit of the group! We know how to lose weight. We know how to gain knowledge and wisdom. And we know how to have fun!

When I choose the theme of willpower for the Spring challenge, I knew that I'd better add a little excitement to the mix! So...we're calling on super heroes to help us out!  Captain Willpower for one!  I'm sure many other super heroes are going to show up as well!

My clients at the Healthy Weigh really do have a lot in common with the great super heroes!  They have a back story that makes them who they are today, they have overcome and found themselves living like warriors instead of victims, and they love making a difference in the lives of everyone around them! I don't think we could have thought of a better theme!

If you're not enrolled in the Spring Team Challenge yet, there's still time!

Tuesday, April 2nd at Noon and 6PM, I'll have 30 minute "infomercials" explaining the Team Challenge in detail.

Tuesday, April 9th at Noon and 6 PM is the Program Introduction Class for all participants of the Team Challenge explaining the nutritional plan in detail.

Tuesday, April 16 at Noon and 6 PM is the kick off and
first weigh in of the 10 week Spring Team Challenge!

If you need a little more willpower...a little more self control... join us! We'll find it together!!

Always encouraging you,
Letha

I Will Persist Without Exception ~ The Persistent Decision

So what's the difference in people? When faced with struggles, why is it that one person quits and another keeps going?

This week at The Healthy Weigh we received our last of the 7 DECISIONS from the archangel, Gabriel in a warehouse of all places!! In the warehouse, Gabriel asks David Ponder, "Does faith guide your everyday actions and emotions? Or does fear guide what you do?"

Andy Andrews, author of The Travelers Gift goes on to explain...

One or the other drives us, and both emotions are an expectation for an event that hasn't come to pass, or a belief in something that can't be seen or touched.  To have faith is to believe in the hopeful potential of what one has not seen, and the reward of faith is to have the potential manifest.
The emotional energy of faith is uplifting. Fear, in contrast, is also to believe in the dark potential of what one has not seen, and only the reward of fear...is more fear. The emotional energy of fear is life draining. Fear can be used as a catalyst for action or, by default, it impressions a person to a life of mediocrity.

A man of faith reaps perpetual reward, and a man of fear lives on the edge of insanity. Fear is a vapor, a myth, and if you think that fear is some kind of warning from above to keep you out of trouble, you can forget that.  There is no instance in the Bible that says fear is from God.  Fear disrupts you and keeps you from your goals, dreams and destiny. Fear and worry are interest paid in advance on something the many never come to pass.

It's interesting to notice that often it is the smartest people who are most susceptible to fear in the first place. Fear is imagination run amok. What you fear doesn't even exist, it is the miuse of the creative imagination God has placed in you. And in the lives of these creative, intelligent people, somehow fear jumps into the mix and shuts down any possibility of moving toward their goals and dreams. It stops everything. The word worry is derived from an Anglo-Saxon term, meaning "to strangle or "to choke off." Worry and fear choke off any creative flow or intelligent movement that people might have otherwise had.

Ignore fear. Cast it out of your life. There is no reward for fear. The reward is in faith and in seeing what you have believed come to pass.

"I will persist without exception. I am a person of great faith."

Always encouraging you,
Letha

I Will Greet This Day With a Forgiving Spirit ~ The Compassionate Decision

We spent some time with a compassionate man this week at the Team Challenge...Abraham Lincoln. His compassion changed the course of history.  He taught us about the gift of forgiveness.

In his classic book An Enemy Called Average, John Mason writes, "When faced with the decision to forgive, never make the excuse, 'But no one knows what that person did to me.'
"That may be true," he says, "but the question is, do you know what unforgiveness will do to you?"

What does unforgiveness do to us? Have you ever experienced the mental illusions that life has you cornered? Have you ever felt boxed in, discouraged, controlled by outside circumstances? Andy Andrews has determined over the years that there is generally someone you haven't forgiven or someone who you haven't asked for their forgiveness.  The persons name sticks in the back of your mind, as if subconsciously tapping you on the shoulder, diverting your focus from where it should be.

There is a story an old Indian man tells his grandson about a fight going on inside between two wolves. One wolf was evil and full of anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, and ego. The other wolf was a good wolf, full of forgiveness.
The grandson asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?" The old man simply replied, "The one I feed."

Most likely, as you read these words, there is a fight going on inside of you between those same two wolves. The fight is revealing itself to you as someone's name or a visual image of that face.  You can kill the wolf that contains all that anger, sorrow, regret, and resentment by embracing the good wolf and choosing forgiveness.

And then...there is one person you need to forgive that if you don't, your effectiveness as a wife, as a mother or father, as a friend or leader will suffer.  The key to bringing your dreams into reality is forgiveness, and specifically, forgiveness of this one person...that one person is you.

We have piled so much onto our own shoulders. There are many things we intended to do that we didn't do, so many promises we made but didn't keep, and so many goals we set that we didn't achieve. Over time they've piled up on us, and the weight can be crushing. You have to forgive yourself!

For many of us, our greatest enemies have been ourselves. Every mistake, every miscalculation, every stumble we make we replayed in our minds. When we disappoint ourselves, it sets in motion a continual cycle of disappointment.

Forgive yourself. Begin anew. The simple fact of forgiving yourself will change your life!

Forgiveness is a secret that is hidden in plain sight. it costs nothing and it's worth millions. It is available to everyone and used by few. If you harness the power of forgiveness, you will be sought after and regarded highly. And not coincidentally, you will also be forgiven by others! ~ A. Lincoln

Always encouraging you,
Letha

It's A Math Problem!

If you are an inactive person who weighs 200 pounds, every nutritional label in America is written for you! If not...they aren't!

I write this blog this morning anticipating spending time with my Healthy Weigh friends who are close to reaching their goal weight and are now learning what it takes to stay there. I'll be walking them through a process of stabilization; a 6 week process where you increase your calories week by week until you reach your calorie limit based on your goal weight.

Being highly effective people, we will begin with the end in mind, in this case goal weight. Each client will write down their ideal maintenance weight and then calculate their approximate calorie intake for that weight based on this chart.

Multiply your ideal maintenance weight by:

10 if you are inactive (sitting most of the day, no regular physical exercise)

11 if you are moderately active (sitting most of the day but do engage in physical exercise regularly or at least 3 to 4 times per week for 1/2 hour or more)

12 if you are active (standing and/ or walking most of the day and engage in regular physical exercise)

13 if you are very active (walking or involved in strenuous physical labor most of the day and engage in regular physical exercise)

That number is your approximate total calories to maintain your goal weight.

Now I know that there are many more complicated ways to estimate and discover your appropriate calorie intake for your goal weight...the truth is, you will find the same answer at the end of every story problem. I've done them!

So, you've done the math??? What's your number???

We'll have four or five men in our group. Only a couple of them will be able to eat 2000 calories to maintain their weight. Everyone else in the room  will range from 1250 calories to 1800. So why does every nutritional label in America say..."Based on a 2000 diet."? Good question! The only people that can and should be eating 2000 calories per day are men weighing close to 200 pounds, or a woman who weighs 155 and works in a job performing physical labor all day and then drops by the club to work out on the way home!

I've spent over 30 years helping people lose weight. I am proud to say that I administer one of the greatest weight loss programs available any where...but losing weight has never been the hard part. People knuckle down, eat less, move more, and then lose weight.

Keeping if off for life is the struggle. I believe that our nutritional labels aren't helping matters. It would make sense that most people in America would believe that they should eat 2000 calories...right? It says that on the back of every food label everywhere!!!

I read an article the other day in search of an answer to this problem. It said that 2000 calories per day was used as a standard because that is how many calories it would take to maintain the average American. Wow, how sad is that? What if our labels said "Based on a 1500 calorie diet?" What would the average American look like then?

I am a 120 pound 54 year old woman. I exercise 3 to 4 times a week for 1/2 or more. My maintenance calories are 1320. That's it...no more. No matter what a label says, I am responsible for consuming the amount of healthy calories that my body needs to maintain this healthy weight.

Do the math. Accept the truth. Be responsible. Reach your goal weight and keep it off for life...eating just the amount of calories that YOU need to maintain your ideal maintenance weight!

Always encouraging you...and hopefully enlightening you too,

Letha

Today I Choose to be Happy ~ The Joyful Decision

Anne Frank was our inspiration this week as we focused on happiness. Who would have thought that a 12 year old girl, living in fear for her life and having no creature comforts, would be the one to teach us about happiness. Even Anne Frank knew that happiness is a choice.


Andy Andrews, the author of The Travelers Gift, goes one more step with happiness, and talks about the magic of smiling! Andy says that our opportunities come from our associations. Our opportunities, our information and our knowledge are most likely to come from other people. If that's true (and it is...), then we must become people whom others want to be around.

People want to be around happy people, not moaners and groaners. Happy people get more opportunities because opportunities come from people, and people are attracted by happy people. Andy says, if you have to fake it initially, fake it! Nobody expects you to be happy every moment of every day. But you can choose to smile. Speak a little faster. Move. You will attract people and opportunities into your life when you become someone others want to be around.

Your smile is your calling card. It is the most potent weapon you have.  With your smile, you can forge bonds, break ice, and calm storms. Use your smile constantly. The power of who you are is revealed when you smile. Smiles are contagious. Smiles affect your biochemistry.

Here are a few quotes about smiles...see if they just don't make you smile!

People seldom notice your old clothes if you wear a smile ~ Lee Mildon

The shortest distance between two people is a smile ~ Author unknown

Today, give a stranger one of your smiles, it might be the only sunshine he sees all day. ~ H. Jackson Brown

Smile this weekend...see if it doesn't just make you feel happier...and draw people to you!

Always encouraging you,
Letha