Name Your Competing Priorities So many of you are successful in most areas of your life (college, kids, job, spouse, extended family, hobbies, volunteering), but have one area that still plagues you. Perhaps it is your weight. Why are you successful in these other areas? Because you have directed your resources toward these areas … but then you have perhaps neglected to use your resources for your wellness goals. WHAT RESOURCES? ~~ Time ~~ Money ~~ Energy ~~ Thoughts

Does it take resources to lose weight or establish other wellness habits? You bet it does:

It takes time to try new recipes. You spend money on gym memberships. You expend energy in your kitchen, and then there is all that thinking and planning when you are counting calories.

COMPETING PRIORITIES

So all of these very important things in your life have been competing for your resources.

Perhaps you are at a place in your life where you are ready to make weight loss (or some other wellness issue) a priority. That is where I meet most of my clients. They are successful in most areas of their life and believe they are ready to make dieting a priority.

But still they struggle.

Today I want you to reflect on FOUR QUESTIONS so that you can be fully prepared to spend the resources that are necessary for you to be successful at reaching your goals.

1. What are my competing priorities? (Where do I spend most of my time, money, energy, thoughts?)
2. Do I see how this weight loss (or other wellness goal) is as important as those priorities? Keep in mind that as your new habits are established it will take less of your resources to maintain your momentum. So ask yourself this question also:
3. At this time of my life am I willing to re-prioritize so that I can gain some momentum with my weight-loss/wellness goal?
4. If so, what part of my life am I willing to temporarily put on the back burner?

These are not simple questions to answer, and these questions must be reexamined regularly as you go through process of establishing a reasonable diet — because your life is not a straight line but a journey of twists and turns.

Bear in mind that you can’t squeeze in a goal of any magnitude without your whole life shifting. If you can not give your diet or wellness goal more priority than you have in the past, so that you can get momentum going, then deal in that reality. I don’t want to say that you have to accept a scaled down goal, but you will need to adjust your expectations. There is another adage… do what you’ve always done… you’ll get what you’ve always got. You don’t want that, so make an real effort to see where you can, at least temporarily, shift your priorities.

THE GOOD NEWS!!!

The good news is, that if you follow the path and make the effort, your diet will become habit — and as the habits are formed the actions will take fewer resources.

Even more wonderful is that your resources will actually increase. You will have more energy. More energy will result in more productive time. And you know the old adage. Time is money.

You may spend a lot of “thought resources” getting into the dieting process, but you will soon come to find out that that those “thought resources” are a whole heck of a lot more useful than your current wheel-spinning thoughts of regret and remorse.

I hope you’ll allow me to be part of your journey and that together we will witness 2010 being your best year ever.

Warmest Regards,
Sandra

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When people want to change their diet they think of how they can change what they are eating or how much they are eating. As a diet coach I listen first for why they are eating.

If you are a work-at- home mom, standing at the refrigerator looking for a treat because your kids are napping and you really want a little escape time yourself, but can’t leave the house – then suggesting carrots and celery isn’t going to cut it. That’s not really much of a treat or escape, is it?

I would challenge you to keep a journal of what or when you eat and to make a note next to the occasion of why you are eating. Try it just for one week. Start with questioning why you are having any food at that specific time. Then, if it seems relevant, note why you are having that particular food.

The first benefit of the exercise is simply to bring your food choices from a subconscious to a conscious level. As you become more aware of your underlying motives you may find it naturally easier to make different choices. With additional awareness you’ll be able to more effectively brainstorm for solutions to eat less calories or higher quality food; solutions that will truly work to satisfy the real cause of your of your hunger.

The obvious reasons that we eat are hunger and a need for energy/nutrition, but clearly there are many other reasons why we eat at any given time and place — and even more for why we choose a specific food to eat. Here are a few:

• hunger
• nutrition
• socializing
• physiological cravings
• boredom
• stress
• just a habit
• it’s time to eat
• pleasure/taste good/is fun
• loneliness/ food is a friend
• frustration
• pain relief when feeling sick
• procrastination
• tradition
• so as not to have to put it away
• so as not to waste it
• fatigue
• satisfy thirst
• reward
• triggered by smell
• triggered by place
• triggered by circumstances/memory
• entertainment

As you go through your week noting your “reasons why” you’ll become more mindful. It may then become easier to find opportunities to get your wants and needs met, without consuming needless calories or junk food that will not nourish you. There are times when that will be by making alternative food choices or opting for smaller portions. Other times you’ll be able to look for alternatives to eating altogether. Maybe you don’t need to feed your body but instead need to nourish your mind, soul and spirit.

Is food really the answer?

Many times we are trying to get our emotional needs met through food. Whether it chips or cookies, it seems that our own personal favorite combination of sugar and fat sends just the right neurotransmitters to just the right spot in the brain to help us feel better. But is it really a fix?

Instead of just going for the quick fix, perhaps it would be better to let the uncomfortable emotion surface. Feeling our feelings sometimes will inspire us to find real solutions for what ails us instead of just masking the feeling with food, only to have it resurface a short time later.

If you don’t know how to deal with those feelings, or don’t find a solution and want the relief of the brain chemicals, there are ways to get those feel-good chemicals flowing in your brain without overeating. Here are some solutions that I use to feel my feelings and get the endorphins flowing. As you are thinking of your own solutions, consider how you can use your other senses: touch, sight, smell, and hearing.

• Walk in the sunshine.
• Take a hot shower or soak my feet.
• Give myself a neck rub.
• Get a massage.
• Listen to mood lifting music.
• Light a candle and daydream while staring at it.
• Give myself a hand or foot massage with aromatic lotion.
• Call my sister.
• Visit a motivational website.
• Cry.
• Pray.
• Write a poem.
• Meditate on a beautiful painting.
• Do ten minutes of yoga or stretching.
• Take deep breaths.

Are you ready to find permanent solutions for overeating instead of just imposing diet rules? Then try this exercise of recording why you eat. You will find opportunities to learn a little more about what makes you tick and you also will give yourself the opportunity for true and lasting change.

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It is certainly a fact that as a society we are a dysfunctional mess with regard to our weight. I call my theory, as to what has caused and perpetuates this mess, being of the “crunch generation.”

Throughout human evolutional history our bodies have worked to become efficient fat-storing machines in order to prepare for long winters and famines. Ours is the first generation that is caught squarely between the efficiency that nature has achieved and a society where, as we live within the norms, that efficiency is diametrically opposed to what is good for us. Hence, “the crunch.”

Consider these examples.

1) We don’t have to lift a finger for our food. No gardening, no hunting, no gathering. Often, not one smidgen of physical energy has to be expended for food. If we didn’t schedule exercise into our day, many of us would go weeks doing nothing more than walking to the car. Yep, sedentary lifestyle is a term coined for us.

2) As a society, we are the first generation to live with such amazing abundance. Just think about the workplace. In your parents’ generation how many people faced daily donuts, weekly potlucks, miles of vending machines, breakfast meetings and royally served conferences?

3) Of course, there are poor and hungry people in our society too. But, the poor are often overweight also – and with a special set of challenging circumstances. Unless a person has the experience or education, and the time required, for extensive planning and preparation, it costs more to eat health food than to eat junk food. This was less true when the family garden and backyard livestock was the norm.

4) We have less and less time to prepare our own food. If you think this doesn’t make a difference, you have never worked in a restaurant and watched a chef slather toast with a two-inch brush dipped in melted butter.

5) We are hardwired to get comfort from food. After all, most of us received our first dose of love/food at our mother’s breast. While humans have probably always comforted themselves with food, there has never before been a constant onslaught of readily available, new and more exciting ways to consume sugar and fat.

6) We are an incredibly stressed society. Yes, to alleviate the stress, we could go for a walk, listen to birds, paint a picture, talk to a friend, soak in a bath or meditate. But these all take time – and if we are reluctantly adding them to our schedules, the extra line item on our calendars actually creates more stress for us. So instead, we find it is easier to turn to the instant fix of food — after all, we have to eat anyway, and (bonus!) we can multitask while we are eating.

7) Food is marketed like never before. If you watch much television you will soon be associating food with good times, feeling sexy and friendship. Food companies pay the big money for advertising because it works.

Yes, we are the “crunch generation.” These circumstances are being woven into the structure of our lives. The next generation will have the added burden of having been overweight as children.

The conditions of being of the “crunch generation” make eating healthy and maintaining a healthy weight difficult. It has created the need for most of us to be on a diet — if dieting means teaching ourselves to eat differently than the rest of society.

SOLUTION?

But it is challenging. So, don’t bother chastising yourself for not having kept off previously lost weight. Don’t trivialize any effort you may be making. Give yourself credit for every effort. You are bucking the trends of society and the laws of nature. Expect that you’ll have setbacks. Expect that you’ll need help and education. Get support. Take steps.

Society will change only as we, as individuals, make these changes to our lives. What is one small baby step, one micro-step that you can make toward each of the four solutions listed below?

It is up to us as individuals to be

1) less sedentary
2)  to not buy into the necessity of an overly fast-paced life
3)  to reconnect with our kitchens and learn to prepare healthy food
4)  and to turn off the television.

Join a Reasonable Diet Group to have complete access to all of the Reasonable Diet solutions and personal support from a Professional Motivation Expert / Diet and Wellness Coach.

http://www.reasonablediet.com/class.html

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