Champion of Change: Consistency

It is so nice to not need to detox this week. Since I was more or less on my plan over the holidays I only had about two days when I really felt like I just wanted to drink water and detox my system from sugar overload. And today, on the first Monday in January, I feel great. I lost weight (I know, crazy!) over the holidays, stayed active, and don't feel like I need to eat raw spinach and soup for a week to undo any nutritional damage. Nice!  Very nice!


And how did I do it? I was consistent. I ran almost every day, I logged each single bite of holiday goodies that I ate, and I drank gallons of water. I stuck to my plan! And trust me, I feel very indulged. I never thought I would say it, but I am actually tired of chocolate. LOL


Consistency is how goals sneak up on you. When you make being healthy an actual lifestyle, you end up on the first Monday in January feeling pretty darn good and realizing it wasn't that hard.


Consistency doesn't mean the same thing every day, it just means doing something towards your goal every day. 


Consistency doesn't mean being perfect every day, but it does mean making a mindful effort towards accomplishing your health goals. Every day.


I've been very consistent with using the word consistency in this blog because I want you to remember it today. :)  It's one of the first of my four Champions of Change.  Getting it is easy: just make goals that you can do on a consistent basis.  You want to know the best diet for you? The one you will follow forever. The best workout to blast fat? The one that you'll do every day.  When you execute on your plan every day, consistently, you'll see success.


There are a lot of ads and gimmicks out there right now promising that you can change your body without changing your life.  You can't. You have to make permanent lifestyle changes if you want a permanently changed life.  


Luckily, you can totally do that. Permanent isn't permanent if you can't do it every day. What can you consistently change?  Change it!

Welcome to the best year ever

Happy New Year!

We made it! 

It's 2011, the best year of our lives!  I can't wait to dig right in and see what's waiting for me.

I'm so completely excited about 2011 

I can hardly stand myself.

I started my New Year's Day with a nice run, and will end it with some of the stretches I learned in the functional movement screen that I did this week with Laurel Blackburn at Boot Camps to Go. I'll tell you more about that on Monday when we dive into talking about some of the fundamentals of starting healthy habits that will stick all year.  

Today, get out there and breathe some good, fresh air into your lungs!  Have a great day, a great workout, and a wonderful New Year's Day.


Ready or not, here we gooooooooo!

What's not in my suitcase

So yesterday I packed up my suitcase for 2011. I'm ready to go!  I've got all of my positive people, influences, data, and energy that I'll need next year. But there are some things that didn't make the cut.  Here's what I am leaving behind in 2010:

1. Competitiveness. I am competitive, and not always in a good way.  I want (and sometimes need) to feel like I am the best at everything, and if I suspect that someone is taking my title from me, I get stressed out and anxious.  There are times when being competitive has served me well and helped me achieve goals I wasn't sure I would reach, but I've felt this year like being so focused on being the absolute best has been a detriment to me. I've learned that sharing the spotlight is fun, and I've been warmed by the glow of others. It was weird at first but over time I've gotten more comfortable. I want to leave the nasty side of my competitive spirit in 2010.

2. Jealousy. When you compete, you're constantly sizing up the competition. And when they're better than you, well, jealousy is not far behind.  But I loathe feeling jealous and I want to stop. The intense feelings of happiness that I've experienced this year by taking a back seat has convinced me that there is no more room for jealousy in my suitcase. It's out.

3. Negative self-talk. Body image haunts so many women, and I'm one of them. It's hard sometimes to look in the mirror, see my imperfections, and not feel driven to change them.  But I'm learning that if I want my body to be a partner with me in wellness, I need to be nicer to it. I would never say to a friend what I have said to myself; why would my body want to work with me if I treat it like garbage?  So I am going to leave negative self-talk in 2010.

4. Doubt. I did things in 2010 that I wasn't sure I could do...and they were easy. I did my first triathlon, and I completed my first half-marathon.  Looking back, it seems silly to have doubted that I could achieve those things. I don't see a need for doubt in 2011.

I grew up in 2010. It was an amazing year of growth and the emotional transformation has been immense.  Saying goodbye to these things that used to be part of each day isn't just a symbolic exercise for me...it's a tear-jerking realization that as I snap closed my 2011 suitcase, I truly have everything I need and nothing - NOTHING - can stop me.

Goodbye 2010.  You were awesome.

But I have to go.

New Year Resolution Guide: The Suitcase

I've always wanted a suitcase like this!

So we talked a while ago about our metaphorical fanny pack (and how we were not going to fill it with cookies).  Now I want to upgrade our visual and talk about our 2011 suitcase. I think all of this is a sign that I need a vacation!

But anyway, I've got my 2011 suitcase open and ready to be filled with everything from 2010 that I want to bring with me into the new year.  And as you can imagine, not everything from 2010 will make the cut.  Here's what made it into my suitcase (and what got left in 2010).  And just FYI this is just about fitness stuff so if you're not on the list, don't freak out. I'm not tossing you.

1. My gym family. I love the people I workout with! They motivate me, make me laugh, indulge my motormouth, and prod me into working harder than I thought I could. They are definitely making it into my suitcase! 

2. My clients. Wellness coaching is one of the most rewarding things in my life and my clients teach me something new about the world every time I talk to them.  They make the cut!

3. My gadgets. Data drives progress, and I get a lot of value from my GoWearFit, my new Garmin, and iPod filled with GetFitPod running podcasts. I may look like a cyborg half the time, but I use them every day and they make the cut.

4. My wellness community. In 2010 I connected with a lot of wellness advocates and its been wonderful professionally and personally. I've created great friendships with people who inspire me every day, and that definitely makes it into the suitcase!

5. Last but definitely not least, my actual family. Trust me, life with me is not always (ever) easy, and the amount of patience, tolerance, humor, and love that I get from people who have no choice about having me in their lives is immense. I will need a lotta lotta more of that in 2011.

That's it. Oh, well, also a bunch of workout clothes and shoes and stuff.  But that's pretty much everything I am taking with me in 2011.  I'm leaving some significant things behind...I'll talk about those tomorrow.Yesterday was about positive thinking. I hope that you made your list of positive versus negative influences and figured out which ones you can change and which ones you want to ditch. Put the positive influences in your suitcase today!

See you soon! Have a healthy day!

New Year Resolution Guide: Love it or leave it!

Pssst...come here! I have a secret!  I have a sure-fire way to ensure that your 2011 fitness goals become reality.  Are you ready?

QUIT THINKING ABOUT THEM AND DO THEM.

Ah, easier said than done, right?  I know, I know. But I do have one tip that really will make a huge difference in your odds: being positive.  One of the most powerful things you can do for your wellness is to surround yourself with positive influences, people, thinking, music...you get it!  It's no secret - positive thinking breeds positive actions. It's amazing how much just smiling when you're feeling down can change your entire attitude.

But here's the thing - what if everything isn't positive? What if everything sucks? What if your family doesn't support you or you have to work all the time at a job you hate or you feel like all of that positive mumbo-jumbo is just a mask over legitimate things that legitmately suck?

In my opinion, you have two choices: love it or leave it.  I've done both. I've changed what I can change, and I've left what I can't. That doesn't mean I always love everything or its always my way or the highway. It just means that I decide to love it (accept it / focus on the positive about it / choose my battles) or leave it (change it / ignore it / toss it). 

So what if your family doesn't support your fitness goals? What if they don't think you can do it? Does that mean you toss your family? Not completely, of course, but you might have to "toss" the specific interactions with family members that degrade your goals.  If your family doesn't encourage you to exercise or eat well, find a group of people who do and talk to your family about other things.  When they see you accomplishing your goals, they'll come around. Don't let their temporary negative attitude hamper your progress.

Not everything can be loved, and not everything can be changed. And, positive thinking is not an excuse for ignoring actual problems.  But in my experience, when I've ditched the negative energy, people, places, and actions and replaced them with positive influences, I've absolutely soared towards success.  As you go through your day, make a mental list of behavior influences were positive versus negative. Then, decide which ones you can change and which ones you're going to leave in 2010.

I'm POSITIVE you can do it! :)

New Year Resolution Guide: Plan to be successful

One of my 2011 goals (a resolution if you will) is to get faster as a runner. I am doing a half marathon in February and want to do it in 2:10, faster than my 2:18 time from last October. That means I need to run an average of a 10-minute mile. Should be pretty easy, right? I average about 10:15 minutes per mile so I just need to pick it up a bit.


Then I want to get comfortably into a 9:30 mile. And finally I want to complete a half marathon in less than two hours. When I can do that, I'll consider training for a full distance marathon.


That's my SMART goal for running this year: consistently run a 9:30 mile by training for distance events and steadily increasing my speed at each event until I complete a half marathon in less than 2 hours.


Okay, so....I need a plan. "Pick it up a bit," as a training tool only works for about two blocks.  Luckily, my husband got me a Garmin for Christmas so when I've been running, I strap that puppy on and monitor my speed as I run. I learned Sunday that when I start daydreaming, I slow down to about 10:45.  When I snap out of it, 9:45 is easy. And when I'm at 9:26 I feel amazing. But I can't maintain it - that's where the conditioning part comes in. It should be an interesting process.


Here's your New Year's Resolution homework for today - make a plan. Set a goal, make a plan. Dissect your goal into the action steps you need to take - or get other people to take - to see it come to life. Write benchmarks on a calendar so you can visualize when things need to happen. Spend some time visualizing what obstacles may crop up and how you'll deal with them. Write it down, make a plan, and do at least one action from that plan right away.


2011 is going to be a great year!  You can plan on it. :)

New Year Resolution Guide: Just say no to gimmicks!

Happy New Year!  Well, almost. How about: Happy New Year Resolution Week!

The Christmas paper doesn't even make it into the fireplace before the weightloss  commercials start playing on television.  Even as I type this, I've heard "skinny jeans" and "little black dress," coming from the tube.  And as we sit surrounded by temptation and every creature comfort that we can buy, we figure that's the solution - on Monday, I'll join up and then it will all be taken care of.

Weight loss programs like Weight Watchers, NutriSystem, and Jenny Craig are great for teaching you the fundamentals and getting you into a healthy routine of portion control, being mindful of your eating, and accountability. Thousands of people have had great success with these programs, and if you put in the effort to learn what they're actually teaching you instead of robotically following the instructions, you can walk away with some great hands-on experience for weight maintenance that will serve you well. What I want you to beware of are the gimmicks - the pills, powders, "energy drinks," magnetic bracelets, supplements, and other scams out there that promise quick weight loss with no change to your lifestyle. 

If weight loss is a goal for 2011, sit down and have a heart to heart with yourself about what you're prepared to do to make that happen. You absolutely CAN do it on your own with some creative thinking and hard work. And if you choose to enroll in a commercial program to get started or get to your goal, ask yourself:

1. Is this program something I can do forever? Hint: you can't drink SlimFast forever.
2. Does this program give or teach me anything I don't already know?
3. What does this program offer that I can't get anywhere else?

If it isn't based in permanent lifestyle changes (balanced nutrition and exercise, not shakes), accountability, and real data, think again. And if it seems too good to be true...

well...

keep shopping. I'll have lots of info in the coming week on how to get started losing weight and being holistically healthy, so stay close.  In the meantime, go get a head start and exercise!

Good day!