Thirteen Reasons for Taking a 10 Minute Min-Vacation Everyday

I am your Fairy Godmother and I am granting you an additional ten minutes a day. The only stipulation is that if you don’t use the 10 minutes everyday you will lose them.

1. Doing whatever You want for at least 10 minutes a day
2. Making a decision to be kind to YOU.
3. Time to relax.
4. Chance to make YOU feel important.
5. Time to escape from the world around you.
6. Renew your depleted energy.
7. Creating a special time for YOU.
8. Time to journal.
9. Opportunity to acknowledge yourself for your accomplishments.
10. Chance to just daydream.
11. Reason to pamper yourself.
12. Taking the time to just enjoy the moment.
13. Realizing you don’t have to take a trip to have a mini-vacation.

COMMITMENT, The Key to Success

According to the Encarta Dictionary the word “Commitment” means, “Loyalty, devotion or dedication, for example, to a cause, person or relationship.”

What I have heard over and over again and found for myself, is that having a COMMITMENT to living a healthier lifestyle is the key for success. By focusing on that commitment you will do anything in your power to succeed.

Every morning for years I would wake up and say “today would be different.” My plan was to eat three healthy meals a day and exercise. I would eat a plain bagel or a small muffin with regular coffee for breakfast. An hour latter I was still hungry and have another small muffin with coffee and before I knew it the day took off and I was eating all the time. Around 5:30pm I would start exercising to get rid of all the calories I had consumed. Then I would eat a healthy dinner and get into bed so I would not continue eating. This process continued day after day.

Then one day I went to a 12 Step Recovery Meeting and heard everyone telling my story. The next day I called someone in the program and made a COMMITMENT to change my eating habits for one day. That was over eight years ago.

What I found that by making that commitment to change my eating habits was the key to my recovery. Even though I am following a healthy eating plan that works for me, my strong Commitment to not eat anything outside my plan is the only thing that maintains my recovery from compulsive overeating.

Some of the tools I use to maintain my commitment everyday are as follows:

Each morning before I get out of bed give myself a big hug and ask my Higher Power for the willingness to stay on my eating plan just for today.
Call a friend and share with them what is going on in my life.
At the end of each day acknowledge myself for my accomplishments and lessons learned.

Would love to learn what tools you have learned to help you stay on your journey of healthy eating.

I know together we can fight this obesity problem. Please let me know if you are interested in joining a group whose commitment is to educate people about what steps they can take to stop focusing on the food all day and start living a healthier lifestyle.

Living In the Present Moment

‘Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.’ Tennessee Williams

Living in the moment was a very hard concept for me to learn. I was always thinking about the future and hoping that my life would get better. I remember that when I was a little girl thinking things would be better when I got older; then as time went on I kept thinking things would be better when I graduated from college and so on.

In 1983, I took the EST training, now known as Landmark Education. In the training I learned how important it was to live in the present moment and that only I am responsible for my life. Learning these two concepts and putting them into practice was another story. After reading self-help books, taking other trainings and sharing my ideas with other people, I learned many tools for practicing how to be in the moment and remembering that only I am responsible for my life. Some of the tools I use in practicing these concepts daily are as follows:

Living In the Present Moment

• Stop what I am doing and ask myself, “What is happening right now?”
• Think about what I am grateful for right now.
• Take a moment to look out my office window and watch the birds eating from the birdfeeders.
• Sit in a chair with my cats and listen to their purring and relax.

I Am Responsible for My Life

• Remind myself constantly that I have choices and am responsible for whatever action steps I take.
• Remembering I am Important and the only one who lives my life is me.
• Expressing my feelings so others know who I am and what my desires are.
• Taking care of myself by living a healthy lifestyle. Eating healthy, exercising, and doing something nice for myself everyday.

It is so important for me to learn from other people what tools and techniques they are using to stay in the moment and being responsible for their lives. By learning from each other we can create our best lives.

I would love to hear from you please send me your feedback and comments.

Diet Mentality

New Year’s Resolutions??????

I was on the treadmill Monday morning (January 1, 2007) and listening to the News. I heard them say the number one resolution this year was “wanting to lose weight.” They also said, “Approximately 70% of the men and 56% of women do not keep their resolutions.”

When I heard these statistics, I was wondering if there was a solution for changing the resolution and these numbers in future years. Wouldn’t it be a miracle if the number one resolution would be maintaining our healthy lifestyle by eating healthy and exercising and the statistics for keeping this resolution would be around 75% (let’s not be to optimistic.)

It is the New Year and on the computer, television, radio and newspapers all you hear and read about are diets. As far back as I can remember I was always trying new diets. The sad part was that I would lose the weight and then when I went off the diet I would always gain the weight back plus more pounds. This continued for many, many years until I lost 50 lbs. and then was afraid to eat.

This cycle continued for a few years until one day I went to a Recovery meeting and heard other people tell my story. That was 8 years ago and today I eat healthy, exercise and work on maintaining loving and supportive relationships.

As they say I have walked the talk and as a Recovery Coach, I have been helping people for the last five years find or create eating plans that work for them instead of dieting and thinking about food all the time.

Let’s work together to eradicate the dieting mentality and what a miracle it would be if people started following a healthy eating plan instead of wanting to just loose weight.

I would love to hear your ideas, feedback and comments. Please let me know if you are interested in working together to eradicate the diet mentality and have people start thinking about healthy eating exercising plans .