One Thing That Will Make You Succeed In Your Weight Loss

You want to lose weight and just get fit; yet we live in a world where, thanks to the internet, we are bombarded with books, e-books, articles, fitness magazines all selling us their answer to weight loss and fitness. High carb low fat . . no it's low carb high protein . . no it's anything you like but in moderation . . no it's shakes. Fruit is the answer, fruit is bad . . anyone else's head spinning yet? 

Billions of people buy into the pills, potions and quick fixes. Heads up for you people, there is no such thing as a quick fix, unless of course you put the word 'temporary' in front of it. This article is a short and sweet answer to your question "How do I lose weight and get fit forever?" Pour yourself a large glass of cool water, sit back and learn the 1 thing you really need to know. 

WHO IS YOUR STORY ABOUT?

OK, one day you looked at yourself and decide, to pop yourself onto a pair of scales and see how thing are doing . . you screamed/cried/shouted at them, then dragged your bedraggled ego and self image into a room and made up your mind to change things. You may have looked at toned/muscular types on the internet and thought 
"I want to have a body like him/her" 

 NEWSFLASH!! 

You are not going to have a body like theirs because you are not them. You are you. So the very first thing you have done is tell yourself you are someone else! You have right then and their told yourself the only way you are going to look good is by looking like someone who is not you! Ego 0 - Advertising 1 

THINGS TO DO, THINGS TO DO . . 

Right, your mind is made up. You have now plumped your ego/self worth into a positive little ball of energy and you are going to get this shizz done! Let me take a wild swing of a guess at what some of the things on your list may be: 

1. Get up earlier 
2. Drink more water 
3. Exercise at least 2 - 3 times a day 
4. Join a gym
5. Learn yoga 
6. Cut out fats, sugar, fried food, bread, caffeine, sweets, alcohol, fizzy drinks, cakes & pastries 
7. Eat more fruit and vegetables 
8. Go to the gym 8. Do a fitness class 
9. Buy a fitness DVD 
10. Start weight training 

. . .  You may have other things on this list, but I think you get the gist. Is this right so far? WOWZERS, your motivation must be in the sky right now . . go you . . right?

LET ME LOOK INTO MY CHRYSTAL BALL AND PREDICT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT . . . 

Day 1: You made your list, and day one came along  . . you were flying!  You joined a gym, signed yourself up for a couple of classes, went home, made a salad and you are feeling good about yourself.

Day 2:  You are a little hungry, but hey, isn't that to be expected you are cutting down here.  Off to the gym with you. Still feeling good.

Day 4 - 5:  You are absolutely knackered.  You can't figure out why you are in such a bad mood and actually feel a little sad.  Your day at work has been a day from hell and you are late getting home.  You missed your class and, lets face it, you just can't be bothered to go to the gym . . hey you'll go tomorrow.

Day 14:  By now you have had at least 1 - 2 mad binge nights as the craving for bread/something fatty/sugar was driving you round the bend.  You started so well going to the classes but now you are finding it difficult to get the time to go and you are increasingly finding fault with the people in the classes, the way they are taught and how everyone in the gym itself are all doing better than you.

End of the month scenario.  You are now maybe even a little heavier, more depressed and have a little less money.

THE BIG REVEAL

Do you want to know why all of this has been so awful?  Why you have craved so much that depression felt like it was setting in.  Why your list slowly started falling to pieces?

Are you ready for the answer?

Strap yourself in for the big reveal . . as here it is.

You were only meant to start with ONE thing.  Yup . . it really is that simple.

The mistake we all make is to try and do it all at once.  This is a life changing thing you are doing, you can not possibly fix years of body misuse in one week/month/even year.

So, snuffle into your comfy chair and take heart.  It is ALL doable, just not all at once.

What you have to do is start with one thing and stick with it for at least 21 days.  So start with something easy like drinking at least 2 liters of water a day.  Doesn't matter how you do it sips through out the day, 250 ml bottles on the hour for eight hours . . whatever.

Once you have got this as a habit, once you notice that getting up in a morning and checking you have your supply for the day is a natural thing to do then move on to the next thing.

Your New Exercise Plan for the Next Month.  

Find ONE form of exercise to learn and do 15 - 20 minutes high intensity intervals every day for 21 days to a month.  Be it rowing, running, pushups, squats, whatever . . every day set a certain time (for some reason first thing and 7pm are always good times for me) and ensure you do your exercise.  Nothing fancy, not hop skip, jump, pullup pushup blah blah, just something simple that you can do consistently.

THE FOOD, OHHH THE FOOD!

Changing what you eat may be the most challenging part of any fitness goal.  Again use the ONE thing rule to start.  Try by cutting out processed sugar (cooked sugars), nothing else, just processed sugar.  Sure cut down your portions of other things if you can but your main aim is cutting out processed sugar.  Again do this for 1 month. 

It may not be easy, but at least you are only dealing with ONE craving.  To stop yourself going insane you can still eat oranges, apples, melon, strawberries etc, natural fruit sugars are NOT processed!

Then the next month, cut out wheat (nasty bloaty, gut annoying stuff that it is) and so on and so forth.

  

WHICH DIET IS THE BEST

I could sit and give you hundreds of links to various sites that claim their way is the best way.  The very simple truth of it is, if you find a way of eating that suits your life, that you can stick with, that helps you lose weight, lower your cholesterol levels, gives you energy and revitalisation and doesn't leave you clawing the walls, THAT is the right one!

Some people absolutely thrive on the 80/10/10 diet and say it is the only way to exist

Others thrive on the Paleo lifestyle and say THAT is the only way to live

The only diet that is good for you is one that you can make into a lifestyle choice. 

A HEADS UP

Right, you have done your ONE thing.  You have made your healthy eating choice but something is just not working.  

A lot of people (millions) have intolerances and even though you have never had an allergic reaction to anything in your life, you body still may not be able to cope with certain foods.  This is far more prevalent the older we get so here are a three foods that your body has just learnt to hate:

• WHEAT
• GLUTEN
• PROCESSED SUGAR

If you are having real difficulty shedding the pounds, try the ONE method with each of these.  I pretty much guarantee that one of them will be the culprit for your struggles.

LAST BUT BY NO MEANS LEAST . . . 

So far we have covered 

Exercise 

Cravings

Diet

Over Planning

What else is there that can cause you to fail?

I have left the biggest ONE till last

YOUR MENTAL ATTITUDE

There is an old saying:

"WHETHER YOU THINK YOU CAN OR WHETHER YOU THINK YOU CAN'T, EITHER WAY YOU ARE RIGHT"

You have taken stock of most things by now, but one HUGE thing is still to be added to your repertoire to ensure you succeed.  This is so simple and yet the most missed piece of necessary advice..You have to believe you are succeeding, you have to believe you can do this as if you don't, you may as well quit whilst your behind.  

Your mind is the thing that says "let's exercise", you mind is the thing that says "let's eat clean" it is also ONLY YOUR mind that can tell you "this is too hard/I can't do this/I am failing/I'm never going to reach my goals . . . " and worst sentence your mind can possibly say "I GIVE UP!!"

OH NO YOU DON'T!! 

NOT ON MY WATCH!!

From this moment on you are going to tell yourself you CAN do this.  Sure you may go awry every now and again, we all do that!  You are going to get right back on track and start again, and again, and if need be again to infinity.  You are never going to give up.  Why?  Because it's simple 

Effort + belief = results

We are not looking at a 90 day transformation miracle, we are looking for a lifetime of getting fitter, healthier and happier!

Try different ways of training.  Learn as much as you can about nutrition (be warned the world of science has not made a definitive ONE way on this, but you have to make your choice) use your noggin, if it sounds like a pile of houey it generally is!  In general terms the simple meal of small amount of meat (obviously if you are vegan, veggie that is not necessary we all know all fruit and veggies contain enough proteins to go at), lots of greens/salad and fruit.  If you have a sugar craving, grab a couple of banana's.

Well, before this turns into a book I should finish.  I hope this opened your eyes and mind to how to be a complete success.  Any questions, just ask . . 

MY LAST SENTENCE . . . 

You can't fail, if you never give up

Are You In Control Or Are Your Demons Controlling You?

WHO CONTROLS YOU?

As I sat at my computer yesterday reading posts on the brain fart encyclopedia that is Facebook, I realised I was becoming very angry, wound up by what someone was typing about. I was getting really riled by their ignorance and how they were spouting bull to the nation, so . . I turned off my computer, went out with my dog and carried on being annoyed, to the point of having an imaginary sit down debate with the person.  As the evening wore on I went to do my meditation, only to have my mind fill with all the things 'I could have said/should have said'.

Demons in my head by akairisu deviantart

This morning I sat and thought to myself 'Cathi, you are an arse!'  Am I so arrogant that my opinions and beliefs are more valid than theirs? Has that person who you are slowly winding yourself up like coiled cobra about, had half a day of head turmoil thinking 'I bet this annoyed Cathi' . . no, they didn't. 

I allowed myself to find something annoying, I told my head to get into a real rumpus about it.  In other words I had a sleeping demon, who, rather than letting  her sleep, I prodded her with a pointy stick and woke her.  As we know anyone woken by being poiked with a pointy stick isn't going to wake up happy!

I allowed my ego a trip out, and by hell had I given her all the arms and ammunition to start a war in my own noggin.

As I sat and pondered this, I thought about all the posts I read that are annoyed with the government, annoyed by pop singers behaviour, annoyed by an argument from the past, annoyed by how someone trains, what diet someone is on, annoyed, angry, angry, negative, negative.  My question is

"How is this all serving me?  How is reading this stuff making my life better or my desires come to fruition?"

Answer:  it isn't.  I can not control other people's thoughts, emotions, actions, beliefs, doctrines, opinions and moreover why on earth would I want to?

I normally live a life of 'live and let live'.  One afternoon not living by MY OWN doctrine I totally stuffed up more than half a day of MY LIFE.  The person that typed it didn't do that, they are completely blameless in all this.  The only victim and perpetrator was me.

We, as a world, have a propensity to allow ourselves anger over peace.  Think about it.  How

many times have you become enraged at the words that have come out of someone else's mouth?  If I was walking  past you and sneered under my breath said "Jeesh, you are one hideous pig" . .how would you react?  Punch me? Shout at me?  Swear at me?  Spend AT LEAST half a day coming up with brilliant retorts in your head? Cry?  Look for a place that does plastic surgery? Or would you just carry on and not let it bother you?

Now ask yourself which way of reacting would make your life a healthier, happier, more positive place?  Dragging round a bag of anger or allowing others to be.

by DoiDuh

If you keep dragging round your bag of anger it is because you are not a peace with yourself.  You have not accepted yourself.  You have issues around certain parts of your being, whether it be your weight, your size, you features, your intelligence, your beliefs etc.  So many wars about religion, about land that people believe to be theirs.  If we all just took a deep breath, and started allowing people to be, what does it matter where a border is, why not completely dissolve all borders, allow anyone on this planet to go where ever they want?  If they want to believe that all carrots are gods and sacred, what business is it of yours to tell them otherwise?  I know, it's my Utopian dream, and so many people will already be putting up mind barriers, arguing how it can't be rather than smiling thinking 'that would be lovely'.

It is time for each and every one of us to learn self acceptance, to pay more attention to how WE behave, how WE think, what makes US happy and leave everyone else the fuck alone.  We all have sleeping demons, very few of us have managed to slay them and like anything within us, it is up to us to learn how we work, what makes us tick and figure out what is holding us back, then to don our coats of armour go out there and slay our demons.

How To Survive Divorce

How to survive divorce with your sanity intact and your happiness beast mode on, is the subject de jour (ooh hark at me and my french ways).

Well I have been there and done that so thought it only polite to share the "how to" bit.

THE BLAME GAME

The issue that first hits the stumps is the

"Who's fault is it"

No matter what you would love to say on this one, whether it be a cheating husband/wife, one half saying the other "just doesn't understand" the answer is very, very simple and the sooner you get this the quicker your happiness and life status quo will return.

THERE IS NO BLAME, PEOPLE JUST CHANGE!

Now, to the spurned lover this will sound incredibly harsh and even somewhat unfair, but it is, and always will be, the truth.

We as humans are ever evolving creatures, I shall put myself in the petri dish here for analysis.   I am a lover of this thing we call life, I enjoy it and think it there to be enjoyed, however my idea of enjoyment and my ex-husbands were quite different.  He loved playing on gaming devices, going to the pub and basically not being very near me.  I on the other hand am a tactile person and had a rosy picture in my head of family days out at the weekend, walking together, cycling together, getting fit together . . . . it took me 18 years to realise my dream would never come true.

The main turning point was realizing the vast chunk of my life had been spent in a pretty much exercise free zone.  Yes, I walked the dog and went pootling with my daughter's on the bike but never even realised our local swimming pool had a gym, and, even if I did would have considered it a Men Only zone.  Skip on a few years to 38 and suddenly I realise I am so unfit it is ridiculous and have spent way too much of my life wishing to be a different shape.  I start looking into fitness . . very cautiously you understand, this was an alien planet as far as I was concerned.  Skip to 39 I made a promise to myself to be fit for 40, this is when my whole world suddenly got turned on its head.  I trained hard, very hard, in retrospect TOO hard I lost ALL of my excess body weight, but in doing so a new passion had arisen, another crack in the ice of an already globally warmed iceberg in the marriage, I adored training, I was hooked.  I wanted more knowledge about it and here lay another issue for this was yet another passion that was NOT shared with my husband.  He was a construction worker and considered lugging plaster boards up and down the place good enough exercise for him.  So, the petri dish develops more globs in it as my changes kick in.  I am no more the happy little round house wife that cooks meals and hopes her hubby will be back before 8pm, I am now a very happy woman realising a passion and realising that her husband is not and never has been the man she actually wanted.  I realise I just don't love him.

Who is to blame here?  Me for wanting more out of life or him for not providing it?  Answer neither of us, we were just different beings with different needs and passions.  No one was to blame, life just happens and we have to deal with that.

 The man I married was not my soul mate, no matter how hard I tried to bully him into it.  As you can see we are both at fault as we were a) not living the life we truly wanted and even worse b) trying just to "tick along" as society says married people with children should stay together for the children's sake.  I say STUFF THAT!!

WE HAVE TO STAY TOGETHER FOR THE CHILDREN 

NO YOU DON'T!!

Ahh the ego such a pampered lover.  It tells both you and your partner the best thing you can do, even though your marriage/relationship is in tatters, is to stay together for children as this is what society dictates.  Yes, of course it is the best thing.  Just like if a child is growing up on the Gaza Strip it may as well stay there in times of non bombing and violence as that is what it is used to!  Sod moving the child to Barbados where there is a chance of peace, tranquility and somewhere to relax, readjust and focus on THEIR little lives.  Let's keep them in the purgatory of being pulled from one parent to the other, constantly seeing or hearing the two people they love rip each other to pieces and having to deal with all the whispered slurs from one, or boths parent about the other.  Let them have their whole childhood focussed, not on their study, their passions or their future but on your messed up relationship with each other . . . anybody seeing a problem yet?

The best thing for you is just the same as the best thing for your child.   MOVE ON.  Yes a divorce is hard on all parties involved there is just no getting around that, it hurts, but here is the readjustment point . . EVERYONE HEALS!  Your children will get through the mess quicker if they are not being used as weapons ie "I'll take the children away from you if you [insert random demand]".  Why not put on your big grown up pants and sit with your child and find out how they feel.  It is worth noting your ego may take the biggest kicking of its life at this point.  Let them tell you who they want to live with for now.

 . . . back to me, my children wanted to stay with their father because he had the big house and a better job.  Fair enough!  I got to see my youngest daughter a few times a week.  Don't get me wrong it hurt like a red hot knife through my soul, but, after precisely 3 months my eldest daughter had moved out to live on her own and my youngest daughter was pleading to live with me, which I grabbed with both hands it has to be said.  It turns out a big house and wallet don't provide the things they truly wanted.  I now live very happily in the smallest house you can imagine with my new partner (who really IS my soul mate) and my youngest daughter.  I never asked for a penny in child maintenance, told my solicitor I did not want any of my husbands earning, I even gave my husband the house we had built, (later found out he had not been paying the mortgage so had to sell it).  The point here is, your marriage is defunct, you have to move on for the sake of your sanity and, if you have children, for the sake of their future.  If you are using your partner's income as your own then it is time for you to stand on your own two feet or at least come to a FAIR decision, but, I guess that bit should be left to the solicitor. Remember the more money you get through the divorce the chances are the richer your solicitor will be!  If you are in the UK and using Legal Aid and get some settlement in the end from a sale of house or whatever, between the solicitor and Legal Aid they will rip as much of their losses back from you as they can in my case £7,000+!  

The moral of today's little literary outpouring is;

We have to learn to move on with our lives.  Stagnating in any situation that makes you unhappy will turn to depression, which in turn will end in illness, it is how our bodies and minds symphonically work.  Surely it is better to take responsibility for your own life, to live by design not by default, to stop waiting for others to pick up your slack and to realise the best money to have in your pocket is not that gleaned from someone else by a solicitor, but that you have made by yourself.  Divorce is as hard or as easy as you want it to be, the trick is not to push so hard at each other but learn to bend without breaking.  Life is full of lessons and we just have to be aware enough to realise they are being taught.

Right, I am off now to hug my soul mate and make my daughter (who has just passed her triple science exam with 100% allowing her to take it as her GCSE triple option, which in turn allows her to further her life into becoming a vet) her dinner before I cycle into town to teach a fitness class.

Be happy, lose the ego, love life.