Can You Just Flip a 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 summer!

TIME...we rarely take the time to get 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!

Another effective tool I use is the pain and pleasure list! I hope you have all used this "power 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?" "Why am I letting food be the boss of me?"

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 encouraging and pushing you,
Letha

Should We Celebrate More Often?

For the 8th time in the history of The Healthy Weigh, we are preparing for the Grand Finale of the Team Challenge! We have been on a 10 week "Road Trip" (the theme of this Team Challenge) and we'll be celebrating the success of our Road Trippers next Tuesday night at 6 PM! In some ways the 10 weeks have gone by rather slowly...in other ways, 10 weeks have passed in a blink of an eye! Kind of like life!

The new program that The Healthy Weigh has created, allows us the opportunity at the end of each 10 week challenge, to celebrate! We celebrate group weight loss records being broken, amazing individual achievement, and the powerful results of community support! The Grand Finale is a time to reflect on the previous 10 weeks and look ahead to the next!

It got me to thinking...What if we stopped to reflect and celebrate every 10 weeks?! What would happen if we were to take stock of the weeks we've lived and have a celebration of what we've accomplished? In our homes, at work, in our spiritual lives? What if we set 10 weeks goals and rewarded ourselves(had a grand finale)when we had accomplished the things we set out to do?

What if, at the end of ten weeks we saw that life hadn't changed... that we were still doing the same things and getting the same results? Would that reflection cause us to move?

Tuesday night will be outstanding! We have clients that have forged ahead and had extreme weight loss. We will celebrate with them and feel their enthusiasm that's contagious! We will also be celebrating those clients who started 10 weeks ago...and are still on the road trip. Even though weight loss hasn't been extreme, they will be enthusiastic too, because they have followed through for 10 weeks! They have worked through the tough times in life...but made a decision to keep going no matter what!! I've got a feeling that it's going to be a great night!!!

I'm hoping that we have a few attendees that show up Tuesday night because they need a little enthusiasm rubbed off on them. They might be looking back at the last 10 weeks and not feeling great about what's been accomplished! There's not a better place to be when you're feeling that way, than in a room full of people who are working hard and making it happen!

So mark your calendars...10 weeks out. Where will you be physically, emotionally and spiritually? What will you be celebrating at your "Grand Finale?" Record breaking changes or slow and steady progress?

If you've been wondering about our Team Challenge, I invite you to come Tuesday night and celebrate with us! 6 PM... the festivities begin! We'll be looking back with pride and looking ahead with excitement! Ten weeks... it happens in a blink of an eye!

Always encouraging you,
Letha

Face Your Stuff ~ Don't Stuff Your Face!

This mantra showed up on the back of a team's shirt at our Team Challenge last year! I love it! Yesterday it sprang up again in the dialog of our Team Challenge participants on their face book page. It got me thinking.

"Face your stuff, don't stuff your face." Such wise instruction with life changing results. I thought a lot about my Healthy Weigh clients yesterday, past and present, in regards to this instruction. I observe and hear about how our clients are choosing to NOT stuff their faces...which brings about excitement and weight loss. We celebrate the pounds coming off as clients are choosing a new way to eat. I've observed for 30 years now, that people can avoid overeating, change their actions and lose weight...they can chose to NOT stuff their faces. The bigger questions is...are they facing their stuff?

Are you "white knuckling" it through the weight loss program, or are you facing the deeper issues that caused you to put the weight on in the first place? I am ALL for a program that offers a easy, healthy, system to lose weight, but the program can't stop there or at best the weight loss will be temporary. Are you facing your stuff?

I've talked in the past about coping skills; the act of taking what's inside of you (pain, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, to name a few)and getting it out... processing the feelings instead of denying them. Sometimes I think that when a client doesn't go to food, doesn't USE food as their drug of choice, they feel like they are facing their stuff, when in reality, they have just avoided stuffing the pain down temporarily. Not stuffing your face is very important in this journey...but facing your stuff is the key to permanent weight loss!

Are you journaling your feelings? Are you talking to a friend or a counselor about the anxieties and pain in your life? Are you identifying what you're really feeling when you stand at the refrigerator looking for "something?" Are you facing your stuff?

What ever our drugs of choice are...food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, working too much, we can change our actions and quit using for a time, but unless we choose to face our stuff, we will, on auto pilot, return to the drug that makes us feel better.

My deepest desire as the owner of The Healthy Weigh, is to see my clients/friends, healthy from the inside out. I am proud to offer a nutritional plan that can't be beat, but I am much more passionate about helping people make permanent change that will affect every area of their lives.

Journey on my friends. Face your stuff! You'll be so glad you did!

Always encouraging you.
Letha

Body ~ Soul ~ Spirit...The Spiritual Perspective

This week we concluded our 6 week CD series by listening to and reviewing the last, and I believe, 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.

Whatever your faith background is, I hope that you are able to see the importance of submitting your will regarding your weight loss and your maintenance journey over to God, as you understand Him.

Always encouraging you,
Letha

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