Hi everyone!
Thanks for joining us as we continue with our guest blogger series on reducing sugar and focusing on healthy food and cooking. Today is a bit of an inspirational post by Greg Jacobson who will be sharing strategies for fitness and weight loss. Enjoy!
Fitness and Weight-loss Without Suffering
Let’s not hold ourselves back entirely from things we enjoy, but rather change the way we feel about the process. If we stop and look at our emotional eating process, it can easily go from craving to guilt and never enjoy any of it. Why do we make it so easy to feel bad about ourselves? We set big goals and have the best of intentions, but fall short, mentally abuse ourselves, and fall back into the same routine. We know what to do, but knowing isn’t enough, we have to actually do something and stick to it.
Here is where I teach you how to make it easy for yourself to win. Let’s change the meaning and method for achieving your fitness and weight goals. No more diets that don’t work, you must now make decisions that work for you, not against you. You start now. Not Monday or tomorrow or on the first of the month. You are going to set a realistic framework and stay inside the limits you set for yourself. A great place to start is ten percent less. A reduction of ten percent over time has a massive effect, but will not be missed today. If your goal is to eat healthier, do it! If you want to eat something that you know is unhealthy, do it! Celebrate that you know the difference, have chosen to enjoy eating it without guilt, and are doing it at least ten percent less than you would have in the past. This will keep the cycle of eating, fresh in your mind. And when you catch yourself eating more sugar than you feel you should, more fat, larger portions, or later than you feel is right for you, just stop and smile. You are doing it, you have control and you can take another bite or not because you are aware, you are winning.
I blew it, now what? You didn’t blow it at all. The key to success is learning from past failures how to constantly improve yourself over time. Health and fitness are cumulative. One day builds on the next. Set small goals and work on them happily. If your goal is weight loss for example, and you want to lose seven pounds in a week, are you a loser if it takes you two weeks? No way! So why would you say that to yourself? If your friend was using the ten percent method and ate fast food every day, but for the last month they chose a regular size meal instead of the large meal and they lost 5 pounds, would you encourage them for taking some kind of action and getting a positive result? You bet!
Today, be a better friend to yourself. Recognize the positive things you do that move you in the direction you want to go. If you catch yourself repeating old habits, just stop and move forward. Pat yourself on the back for these small victories. You’re a winner!
By Greg Jacobson: #1 Bestselling Author of ‘Think Yourself Happy’ www.HappilyAchieving.com