Vision Boards: Get out your glue!

Time to break out the scissors and glue!

Vision: it's what separates the wannabes from the "holy cow, look what I dids" in the world. I like being in the second category so I vision a lot.  I've shared with you the five attributes of a vision, and hope they've gotten you on the way to creating one of your own. Now it's time for a little arts and crafts: making your own vision board.


Don't roll your eyes!  Vision boards are seriously effective! Think about it - from the time we're children until way past when we should have started acting like adults, we doodle on paper about what we would rather be doing.  When I was a kid, I would doodle myself into nirvana,  where I was in total flow and living a life beyond my wildest expectations.  Now that I'm a bona-fide grown-up, that kind of behavior is actually helpful to my life, rather than back then when it mostly just landed me in my teacher's disapproving gaze.  Visioning was not part of the Louisiana public education system in 1986.


I truly 150% believe that we attract everything in our lives to us, either through positive or negative energy. It's true and I will fight you in the parking lot over it. But I'll admit, I was skeptical about how much of a difference going through the actual process of making a vision board would make until I did it and felt the power radiating from it.  Once you experience it, you'll never go back to just thinking about things again.


You can Google "make a vision board," and get all kinds of examples and instructions, and I encourage you to do that. But, making a vision board is really just transporting yourself back to the 5th grade and making a collage. It's really a very simple concept can can be incredibly relaxing, especially since by the end you're so pumped up about your life that you have energy for days.  


Here's what you'll need: a poster board, some glue sticks, scissors, a bunch of magazines, a bottle of water, and some alone time.  The water is just for drinking. Hydration is super important in this heat, yo.


1. First, center your mind, take some deep breaths, and relax.  Then, get to flipping. Depending on where you are with your vision, the process of looking for pictures that inspire you can take a few different paths.  Some people make a list of what they're looking for, and others just browse until something jumps out at them.  I'm a combination. I know what I'm looking for, but I'm not opposed to being surprised by what I'm attracted to.  KInd of like finding a husband.


2. Tear out every picture that you like, and then start organizing and prioritizing. This is crucial - you don't want to cast your net too wide. Remember, this will end up being a tool for focusing you energy later on, so be picky to avoid wasting your energy on something you aren't passionate about. The images, words, and symbols that you end up with should feel robust, but also be as specific as possible. If you have a goal of jumping over a hurdle, as I once did, look for a picture of someone clearing a hurdle that is as close to what your visualized experience will be. Organize however you'd like; this is your vision board, not your mother's. Forget about anyone else's dreams for you and get all self-centered about it!


3. Then, start pasting. This is the anxiety-ridden part for me because I am a perfectionist and don't want to regret where I glued something after it's there. Maybe I need to find a picture of some "get over it" and add that to my board. Anyway, vision boards don't have to be glued on a poster. They can be tacked to bulletin boards, taped to white boards, or stuck on with magnets. But I like the symbolism of glue; it feels more permanent and meaningful.


4. Once you're done, sit back and soak it in.  Let the emotion and magnitude of your vision wash over you. Seriously, I've shed a few tears over my vision board when I was actually able to feel the power of what I was going to set out to do. Place it somewhere prominent, where you will have an opportunity to meditate on it every day. 


The most important thing to remember is that making a vision board is a personal process so don't worry too much about following the rules. Just ensure that it is about you, it's specific to your dreams, and that it represents the vision you created for your life.


Spend some time this weekend flipping through magazines and seeing what attracts your attention. If you need help, let me know; I'm glad to do it! 


Have a wonderful day! Get out there and get healthy!

Wake Up and Start Dreaming!

 www.freedigitalphotos.net

Do you consider yourself to be a visionary person?  If you've ever spent time in the carpool pick-up line, daydreaming about a vacation or just time to walk around Target alone for an hour, you've taken the first step!  Dreaming, visualizing, and planning are all parts of reaching a fitness goal, but there are some distinct things you can do to make that daydreaming time count towards your future happiness.

I spend a lot of time visioning. In fact, I spend so much time looking ahead to the future that I often miss what is going on around me in the present. But, goal-setting and achievement is such a rush to me that often it's the chase that is more intriguing than the capture. And, it works for me. I achieve about 90% of what I set out to do, and convince myself that the other 10% wasn't that important after all. :) So, while I've been pregnant and pining for my extreme workouts of yore, I've been visioning: dreaming and scheming for where I want to be five or six months down the road.  Here's how to take those dreams and turn them into your reality.

A vision is more than just a daydream.  To count as a true vision, it needs to have a few important attributes. It needs to be:

1. Grounded - a vision should be built on a foundation of your strengths. Combine realistic expectations with a healthy dose of "hell yeah I can!" and you are on your way to a compelling vision.

2. Bold - a vision should be challening! While the foundation is based on your current strengths, what you build should be an expansion of that. Ask yourself, what else could I do?  How could I leverage this into something more?

3. Desired - let's be honest, when it comes to a lot of our fitness goals, you gotta want it. You have to really want it.  Especially when you're having a face-to-face showdown with a plate of (insert your trigger food here) at the office party. Put on your queen-for-a-day crown and decide what you want, what you really really want.

4. Palpable - the word "palpable" always equates to taste for me. You have to want it so bad, be able to see it happening so richly, and be so engrossed in that moment that you can taste, smell, hear, and feel your vision coming to life. As your wellness coach, btw, I can help you get there.

5. Participatory - community and accountability are huge factors for goal achievement, and involving multiple parties in your goal can make the difference. Tell everyone! Involve support networks!  And most of all, be proud of your vision.  Not everyone has one.

I'm a visual learner; tell me and I will listen, but show me and I will learn and, if so compelled, master. So, I reinforce my vision with a vision board.  Here are the components for creating and using one. I hope you find it is useful and rewarding as I do.

Like I said, not everyone has a truly functional vision for their lives and their health. Sure, we all daydream and think about someday.  But how many of us actually take the time to create a true vision? A truly life-changing vision?  If you'd like help creating yours, let me know. I am allll over it.

And in the meantime, I'll be acting on part of my personal wellness vision: getting out there and getting healthy!

Till next time....stay dreamy.

Great News About Your Health!

I have some great news!


Last week I attended a workshop on the seven benchmarks of creating an effective corporate wellness plan so I can try to make my office wellness program a little (okay a lot) more legit.  As the board president of a non-profit worksite wellness organization (check us out at Working Well, Inc), I kinda feel like the program I implement for my coworkers needs to be top-notch. So I went.


Two slides really stood out to me. To give credit where it is due, these are from a national worksite wellness organization called WELCOA: the Wellness Council of America. 
 Here's the first one. 

One of my favorite Daily Doses is encouraging people to be their own healthcare plan. When we think about what we can do to control health care costs, how much thought goes into changing our own behavior to make ourselves less expensive to insure? Take a look at how much of our health care costs are determined by high-risk lifestyle choices. Choices. Just to make that part clear. :)

And here's the second one.

So what's the good news?  Here you go: today, you can lift that burdensome yoke of excuses off of your shoulders and live free from them. You're free! Get out there and become your own health care. Get out there and get healthy!

And, oh yeah, if you're not sure where to start, I can help with that. :)

I hear about genetics a lot.  Hell, I've used genetics as an excuse for my own weight gain and slow metabolism, when in reality I became fat by eating too much and screwed up my metabolism with fad yo-yo dieting!  It's true that our bodies have a set point but it's not as much a role as we think.  The vast majority of what determines our health is our health behaviors. Again, our choices. Take a look at where genetics falls: 20%. And even more surprising, access to healthcare is only 10% of health determinants.  We blame genetics and lack of access to resources for a lot of what ails us, but in reality, the choices we make determine the majority of how well our bodies function.

Intentional Health: MY (long) Story

Most people assume that fitness comes naturally to me, and that I have always been fit. Not the case. An interest in fitness and a desire to be in a state of streamlined health has always been with me, but not the intentional actions that led to that goal.  


As a kid I always thought I was fat, which of course I was not. I would run with my dad, go on crazy diets, and do TV workouts in my living room to lose weight. It never really worked because I didn't have the nutritional habits to use as a foundation for my efforts, and I just didn't have any real weight to lose!  In college I got on the serious fitness kick spending every available moment lifting weights, running, and swimming, but my nutrition still wasn't there and again, I floundered.  It was frustrating and angering. Eventually, shortly after I got married, I gave up. I figured after that many years of working so hard to transform my body into my vision for myself, it just wasn't going to happen.  I actually conceded defeat. It was a divorce of sorts, because I truly loved fitness and exercise and how I felt when I was in that zone. But I felt betrayed by the lifestyle I had given so much of my energy to. I had loved it and it didn't love me back.  Fitness just wasn't that into me.


I don't remember how much time went by, but it wasn't long before I found myself about 40 lbs heavier. Then 10 more. Eventually I was a size 14, heading into a 16, and standing in a store trying to buy clothes and feeling completely defeated. This wasn't the life I wanted. I was tired, bitter, uncomfortable, and most of all I was living apart from my true self.  I had let anger and failure consume me to the point that I didn't even recognize myself; I knew things had to change. No, I had to change.  So I did.


Somehow I found a website called Cyberdiet.com, and I was engulfed in a community of women just like me. Once I decided to start intentionally changing my life it became easier to stay motivated but what really started to come out was my love for motivating. In fact, I got so much joy from helping and seeing others achieve their weight loss goals that not only did it fuel my own weight loss, it was the beginning of my path as a wellness coach.  People began to email and ask me to help them; other women reached out and asked me to be their coach and their source for accountability.  I also met one of my best friends, who has been a sincere blessing in my life.  As a result of my reaching out and intentionally changing my life, I was even featured in First for Women Magazine for my eventual weight loss of about 55 pounds. I thought I had done it - I lost the weight, reconnected with myself, and found a new life passion.  But there was so much more.


Oh, there was more!  I had barely scratched the surface of the power of intentional health. I didn't do anything magical to lose 55 pounds, just intentionally ate less and moved around more (that's not to say it was easy: it took three years because of yo-yoing, gaining some back, and learning some lessons the hard way).  The magic started when I realized that was just step one. I thought, if I could lose weight, keep it off, and motivate others to do the same, what else could I do?


I was a woman on a mission. I got a trainer who introduced me to clean eating and started fine-tuning. I was in great shape and really living in flow. Then, I got pregnant and gained 75 lbs. In January 2006 I took a deep breath and did it all again. I lost the weight again, I had the epiphany again, I learned the lessons again.  That's when I turned into Healthy Heather.  


I'm now a triathlete, half-marathoner, Ultimate Fitness Challenge finisher, Certified Personal Trainer, and just weeks away from earning my Certified Wellness Coach designation.  But I'm not living my dream. I'm living my reality: the reality I finally reached out and snatched back into my life because it was MINE dammit and I was sick of letting it sit on a shelf because I got my nose out of joint over life not being fair.  I didn't win the genetic lottery and wasn't born into a naturally lean and athletic body. I made one of my own, and it didn't happen by accident.


I did it on purpose. I did it intentionally.  You can too.


Now get out there and get healthy!

I'm Standing in an Interesting Spot

You've heard that phrase, "if you love something, set it free?"

Or what about how giving is better than receiving?

Or my favorite, from a t-shirt I had as a kid, "Love is like peanut butter - spread some around today."

Well, I believe all of them!  I'm a giver! 

There are a few things in life that I really love:

1. My family, and I am not just saying that because they read this or at least tell me they do
2. Pizza
3. Health and wellness

I share my awesome family (and sometimes threaten to give them away) with my friends all the time and so far no one has asked me to stop.

I begrudingly share my pizza, which is hard to do but important for portion control so I suck it up and do it anyway.

And when it comes to health and wellness, I am a firm believer that the more you give, the more you get.  I really can't put into words how insanely satisfied and happy I am when I can be part of someone reaching a wellness goal....there are no words.  That's why I've decided to earn my certification as a Wellness Coach.  I'm about halfway through my training and will sit for the exam in January.  Eeek!  Thanks to my wonderful mentor and friend Mary Barley for suggesting it to me and convincing me that I could do it. I can't wait to be legally qualified to mess with people's heads.

Anyway, I am getting to a really exciting (and nerve-wracking) part of my training: practice clients.  I've got a few people lined up who have volunteered to be my guinea pigs so I can practice what I have learned.  I don't know why I am so nervous, I coach people all the time and have done it for years.  But now that I actually, like, know stuff, it's different. 

ANYWAY!  The point of starting this blog entry today was not to tell you all that.  It was to capture this nervous feeling that I have that I am finally standing on the crest of a dream and about to jump off. 

I have a lotta lotta love for fitness, wellness, and people's crazy fitness and wellness goals, and I am going to spread some around today.  And tomorrow, and the next day.

And I just wanted to tell you that. :)

Introducing Erika

I am so so so so so proud of my wonderful friend and client, Erika, and am up on the rooftops shouting about her wild success as a clean eater.  Everyone who asks me about eating clean, every person who tells me they want my help getting healthy, and every friend who knows in their gut what to do but just hasn't worked up the gumption to do it....read Erika's story.  I've asked her to share it in her own words, which she has done beautifully (and I'm not just saying that because she says I am awesome, LOL).

Erika, over to you!

Take it from someone who’s been dieting in some form or another for more than 25 years: Heather Fuselier is the best lifestyle/wellness coach a woman (or man) could have, and if you’re willing to do the work, she will change your life. But first, she’ll shut down every excuse — and I mean every excuse — you have for not achieving your goals. That’s what she did for me. The result? At age 40, I’ve lost more than 73 pounds, and I’m 10.5 pounds away from my goal weight.



When I met Heather, I was carrying 224 pounds (an all-time high) on my 5’4” frame. I’d always been overweight, but I was now at a point where my joints and feet hurt constantly, and I was miserable. As a working mother then in my late 30s, I didn’t exactly have time, circumstances or even genetics on my side. I was ready to take responsibility my health and start changing my body, but I didn’t really know where to begin.

With her trademark combination of compassion and toughness, Heather helped me cut through the clutter of diet and fitness mythology (Just take the stairs!) and negative self-talk. First, she helped me clean up my eating and disabused me of the notion that nutritionally bankrupt food qualified as a “treat” or a “reward.”

Whenever I complained or felt deprived, Heather listened patiently, reassured me that the feeling would pass, and then asked me if I’d planned my workouts for the week. It’s not that she didn’t sympathize, because she knows from personal experience how hard it is to ignore the siren scent of waffle fries. But if I was seeking an enabler, I’d come to the wrong place.

When I moved on to complaining about the workouts, she reminded me that a) changing your body through regular, vigorous exercise is supposed to be challenging and that b) I would never regret completing a workout. I couldn’t run for a full minute 18 months ago. Thanks to Heather’s guidance and encouragement, I completed a 3K before my 40th birthday. Since then, I’ve completed a difficult-course 5K, and running has become my cardio of choice. I’m certainly not breaking any time or distance records, but as someone who always thought of running as something far beyond my capability, finishing a 30-minute run — and enjoying it — makes me feel like a gold medalist.

Losing weight hasn’t been the gimmicky, quick-and-easy process I always dreamed of. But even when I didn’t believe in myself, Heather did — and it made all the difference. I am thinner and in better shape than I was at 30. I no longer leave clothing stores in tears or avoid being photographed. Most of all, I like setting a good example for my kids, who now have two healthy, active parents.

When I began this journey in earnest, Heather promised me that the short-term discomfort of pushing myself would be worth it in the long run. She was right, and I can’t thank her enough.

— Erika D. Peterman

Heather's Note: Not only is Erika is a clean-eating wellness champ, she is also one of the hilarious and kicky women of Girls Gone Geek, a highly entertaining comic book blog, as well as the writer of I Don't Read My Blog Either, where she never fails to crack me up with her commentary on pop culture as she sees it. Check her out!