Do you worry that it will take FOREVER to change your life?
Here’s the truth:
You can change something every day.
Achieving a deep and long-lasting transformation really doesn’t require unattainable goals. Small streams make a mighty river.
Diet gurus, TV commercials, tabloids, and beauty magazines often guarantee dramatic results in just a few weeks. But successfully and permanently losing weight within the space of, for example, 8 weeks (a typical period for quick weight-loss programs) pretty much requires that you have already been training and have been active most of your life.
What is absolutely possible is that you can, in 8-10 weeks, begin a process that will lead to lifelong health, including a real loss of weight.
The solution isn’t a crash diet or rigorous training plan that makes you fall to the ground. At best, you’ll burn out; at worst, you’ll hurt yourself. Besides, behaviors that have been ingrained for 30 years or more can’t be erased so quickly.
In the beginning, it’s enough to start with simple steps, a shift in attitude, and incremental changes in your diet and exercise.
One step in the right direction leads to another.
Eat right, exercise, and feel better, and you’ll find the motivation and energy to eat right, exercise, and feel better even more. And thus it continues, as you are actively engaged with your body and its well-being.
What step will you take today?
The Loud Fitness 10-Week Transformation program is coming up!
To get on the Priority Notification List, email info(at)loudfitness.com with the subject line “Priority”.
Sometimes it can be a challenge to get started with exercise. After a long workday, you might just want to plop down on the couch and take it easy. But it is in these situations that training is most important. You need to recharge your batteries.
There are tricks to use when lethargy strikes. I usually try to muster enough energy to lace up my training shoes. Once I’ve done that, and left the sofa behind, it’s easier to get going.
Some lines I use to motivate myself go like this:
I will feel more energetic as soon as I start to exercise
My thoughts will become clearer even though I’ve had a hard day
With new strength – mental as well as physical – I will come to see myself as capable and attractive
Test it yourself. Think up some bracing arguments to use after a long, dismal workday when everything feels tough.
There are a lot of ways we can feel blocked – mentally, emotionally, physically. Maybe you’re having trouble dealing with an event in your past or you’re feeling uncreative at work or you just can’t get started on that new, healthy lifestyle you keep promising yourself.
You can work and work and let your mind go around in circles, but sometimes it’s better to do “nothing.” Just as it’s important to give your body recovery time between workouts, it’s also essential to let your mind and soul recharge. I usually need both tons of sleep and alone time. Spending time with yourself is essential for living!
Here are a few things you can do to get “unstuck”:
Rest. Exhaustion can be a major contributor to that “stuck” feeling. Rest is so important; it cleanses the mind, recovers the body, and restores function. Take a power nap, luxuriate in a bath, or do anything that feels relaxing to you.
Breathe. Close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and feel how your body begins to reach a state of calm. Your thoughts may start to wander in all directions, but continue to breathe deeply, wind down, and try to shut out the flood of thought. Concentrate all your attention on your breathing. Then focus on an image – a beautiful flower, an experience in nature, the sky, the sun, or something else. When you feel yourself completely relaxed and calm, open your eyes and take a few deep breaths.
Take a walk. Just a simple, leisurely one. Go to the woods and sit down in nature to inhale the scents of your surroundings. In the big city, walk around your own neighborhood, but do it slowly and pay attention to little things you don’t usually notice.
Love is not only exciting but absolutely necessary, not to mention comforting! To give yourself Love might be very different from what you imagine it to be. When your body is sick and tired you need to give it an extra dose of Love.
You’re the only one who can limit yourself, and you’re also the only one who can give yourself permission to live better. You must Love yourself in order to get closer to your own happiness and joy. Love is joy!
Give yourself what you would like someone else to give you, in the form of healthy, tasty food and the time to do things you enjoy. Live your life, not anyone else’s. That way you can share all the good energy, strength, and Love you have created in you.
Some gifts to give yourself:
Cook at home instead of eating out
Eat foods that are vibrant and natural coming from Mother Earth
Reduce fast food and sugar
Eat good quality food – even chocolate!
Clear your stomach properly – detox a few times per year
Forget that soda is something you drink.
Add a squeeze of lemon to your water, or drop some fresh berries into mineral water
Meditate for a few minutes each day
Write a letter to yourself in which you apologize for not practicing self-love in so long. And forgive yourself.
Do something active! Every day! Stretch for 5 minutes, walk for 10, do a DVD workout at home if you can’t get to a gym. Turn on your favorite music and dance in the living room!
Maybe you will light that fire in your heart again, and simply through these little actions, give yourself permission to be your own priority, and then have so much to share with others.
Want to share how it feels? Leave a comment below.
Very early in life I realized that moving around and being active made me happy.
It was nothing anyone told me to do. My immigrant parents were busy going to the factory, working long shifts to be able to provide for their kids in a new country. Unfortunately, a lot of us immigrant kids were left to our own devices, without parental control and attention. So there was the street, or activities with other kids…
My first venture at age 5 or 6 was theatre jazz dancing. Along with my best friend Gunilla – who is a treasure of a person and still in my life to this day – I danced a piece called “The Peace Flower” … I was NOT very graceful, but I loved every second of what was going on.
A few years later I joined an organization called Mosa Pijade that offered Yugoslavian folklore, and thus began a 10-year journey into my own heritage. I connected with other kids throughout Sweden, and eventually competed in cultural dances all over Scandinavia. This experience dug itself so deep into my heart that thinking about it still brings tears to my eyes and an unexplainable warmth in my body.
Then there were the track and field competitions, and my “extra parents” (coaches) who really cared about my aptitude and enthusiasm for running and jumping. While I left an empty house in the Swedish projects, they always welcomed me with open arms. No wonder I excelled in hurdles, even though I was hands-down the clumsiest runner!
This was my THING!!! If I moved, I FELT love and I received LOVE and attention!
I believe it was this deep connection to the Thing that helped me stay away from trouble and silliness, and it has saved me my entire life. When anything turns dark, one of my most important lifelines is the act of Physical Movement.
When my beloved father was sick with cancer and died, my heart was feeling dead, but Movement got me through it, altering my brain chemistry to improve my mood.
When I moved away from my safe home in Sweden, with absolutely nothing, to the Big Unknown in America, the first thing I did here was to go to the gym and go running. I quickly got a job in the fitness industry because that is where I felt at home, even in this new unknown.
My success has, in retrospect, proven to me that I’m on the right path; there is something logical about this Moving and Feeling Good thing. I consider myself fortunate to have had these life experiences so that my passion for it spreads like rings on the water. Not because I say it, but because I live it!!
Very early in life I realized that moving around and being active made me happy.
