Season's Greetings

Hello everyone,
I hope the holiday season is treating you well. This is a great week to reflect on 2009 and look ahead to 2010. Both can be fun and help you continue on your path to success.

How to Make Your New Year’s Resolution Successful

As we turn the calendars to a new year, there are often many things on our minds. One of those things may be your New Year’s resolution. Let’s take a minute to talk about the resolution. It has gotten a bad reputation as something that “won’t work” or is “destined to fail”, but it is still important to set goals for the coming year.
Goals are the best way for you to recover from the holiday season gone by. What’s the difference between a goal and a resolution? Great question, a resolution is a grand declaration or something that you decided to do on December 31st.

A traditional resolution takes about as much time to think about as it does to announce. And the typical resolution is also forgotten just as quickly. Goals on the other hand are a plan. Notice it’s not goal, but goals. It takes a series of goals to make up a plan. If you want to make a change that lasts a year, you need to break it up into steps. Each step is a goal in itself and will bring you to the next level. As you progress through each of these levels, you should be well on your way to the overall goal.

Think about your goals as a road map. When you are on a trip and question if you are going the right direction, you can always look back at your map. If you are off track, simply look at the map and find the best way to get back on. Without the map, not only do you not know where you are going, but you also don’t know if you are on track or not. By setting goals and having a plan, you can be sure that you are going the direction you want to be going.

What is the best plan? For starters, it should be something you really want to accomplish. Take your resolution and break it down into smaller steps. Start with something small and realistic. When you have mastered that step, it’s on to the next. With each step you take, not only are you moving toward your goal, you are creating new habits.

Need support? Email your plan and your coach can help you stay on track.
Coach@ByrdWellnessConcepts.com

Act Like You’re in a Bathing Suit

I was at a social gathering with a friend of mine when she gave me a great idea. I want to thank and cite Amy as the one who came up with this theory. Amy is not in the industry, which actually made me feel even better about the theory because it shows how it translates to real life. This theory came from a real person that holds great value in her health and wants others to do the same.

It is difficult to value health when you feel like you don’t have it. Many people I talk to feel this way and don’t see a way out. Amy’s theory can actually help you feel like you can make changes. It is not just something for those that need to find health, but also for those that need to maintain the health they already have.

It’s also difficult to value health when you refuse to focus on it. The theory that I’m talking about is about keeping health in the forefront. It is about making sure that your health is on your mind and stays part of your day to day life. When you do that, you will live a healthy life.

Picture this:

You are out at the beach with a big group of friends. The sun is shining and the weather is perfect. Maybe you are in Florida or even Hawaii. Maybe you are just at the lake during the summer time. No matter where you are, they key is that it is bathing suit season. You are in and out of the water because you need to cool off and feel comfortable in the summer heat. All of your friends are enjoying themselves as they do the same.

Now it’s lunch time…

Everyone grabs some food and sits down at a picnic table to eat lunch. As you all eat together, you remain in the sun right on the beach. What are you eating? How much of it are you eating? If you are sitting there in your bathing suit, I will guess that you don’t want to be too full. You don’t want to feel heavy and bloated as you sit there in your bathing suit.

There is now way to hide. You are forced to look at yourself. You are forced to look at each other. You are exposed to the world. Every inch and every pound is right there. It is right there for you to see and it is right there for everyone else to see.

One thing that can influence what you eat and how you think is the reality of right now. Right now, if you can see yourself for what you look like, how you feel and what your body is now, you will make decisions that will keep that on your mind.

We have all heard the phrase: “I’m not worried about that now.” Or “Someday I will change that.” These statements of procrastination are all too common. Why are they so common? Likely because we really believe that there isn’t a problem now. When you put on your big sweater and stay inside over the winter, you don’t notice weight gain. The longer you go without looking in the mirror (really looking!) the longer you can go without seeing the weight.

For most people, it IS being added. The average person in the US gains about a pound every year. Some gain more, while others actually lose weight. Despite the national trend, I know that there are many people that are living healthy and will continue to do so.

What do these people do that others don’t? They look at their current state, compare it to their desired state and they do what it takes to bring them together. In order to look at their current state they have to take a look in the mirror. It has to be an honest look at where they are. Think about it again: you are standing in front of the mirror in your bathing suit. What do you see? Is it what you want to see? What decisions are you going to make right now to make sure that eventually, you will see what you want to see when you stand here?

These questions are not always easy to ask. But that is the point. It’s not always easy to stand in front of the mirror in your bathing suit. Easy is not always the best option. Easy does not always get you where you want to go. Health itself is not always easy. Some of the things you do to live healthy may take a little more time or effort, but they do get you where you want to go.

Remember that wherever you want to go, you have to start somewhere. No matter where you want to go, you can only start where you are. In order to know where you are, you have to look in the mirror. When you sit down to eat lunch, dinner or any other meal, think about where you are and where you want to go. Is the food you are going to eat helping you get there? What choice can you make to help yourself?

Amy’s theory that we would all make better choices if we wore bathing suits every day makes sense to me. If you could see everything, wouldn’t you eat lighter? I would. In fact, I do. During my conversation with Amy, I thought back to all the times I have been to a beach, lake or pool. On those days I never over ate. Why? Because I was sitting there with my shirt off and didn’t want to feel like I was stuffed.

If we walked around like that every day, we would assess your current state. You would have to because it would be on display for you and everyone else. Next time you eat, drink or debate exercise, simply apply the bathing suit test: What would you do if you were wearing a bathing suit?

Complaints Don't Solve Problems

It is easy to complain, it is more difficult to act. I see this played out in politics all the time. It’s an old classic: someone has an issue so they complain about it. Someone else fixes the issue by acting on it and they still get complaints because it wasn’t done right. Well, those people that acted deserve thanks. They deserve to be treated as if they solved a problem. Most likely they did solve a problem.

No matter what your view is, you can clearly see that they did more than the complainers. You can see that they have put themselves in a position to be praised for their efforts. At least they should be given a break right? Right? Watching how our society is operating now, I’m not so sure that we actually see it this way.

At this point, we are willing to put fourth more effort to complain about a problem than we are to try and fix it. Think about it, we’ve all turned on the radio or television to listen to opinions. We’ve all seen the headlines and heard from the experts as they tell us what is wrong with the world. Everyone has a complaint.
Unfortunately, complaints don’t solve problems.

Maybe that was my first mistake- turning on the television. I noticed long ago that the media was showcasing, if not looking for negativity. We are shown 9 negative stories for every positive story. I don’t have the exact figures on the ration, so don’t complain. Actually, I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to help me get it right, so feel free to share any stats here.

Stats or no stats, it is clear that there is a lot of negative reporting. Some say that this is simply a reflection of what is going on in the world. They say: “the world is a negative place, so that is what we are reporting.” I can see where they are coming from…if they are watching television all day.

What I can’t see is why we continue to spend so much energy on the negative. Maybe we are actually spending less energy being negative because it is just so easy to do. Think about it, all you have to do is agree with your complaining neighbor or join in on the conversation about how bad things are with your coworkers. There is a negative conversation taking place everywhere we turn.

It may actually take more energy to get away from them or turn them into positive conversations. Have you tried it? I would be a hypocrite if I simply complained about the complainers without offering a solution.

The solution: don’t participate. It’s that simple. It seems more difficult, but it really isn’t. There is always a choice when you are thinking or talking about something. There is a positive and a negative road in front of you at all times. All you have to do is listen to your own voice and choose not to go down that road.

What does this have to do with health? Well, that is a good question considering that we’re 500 words in we haven’t even touched on health yet. (Thanks for sticking with me, by the way) Health is what got me thinking about positive and negative. It was actually a complaining person that brought this conversation on.

It started with a participant that was unhappy. What they were originally unhappy with, I don’t know. We never got far enough into the conversation to discuss any actual causes or reasons. I simply got to hear what was wrong with me and my program. I found this odd because I usually only hear good things. Not that everything is perfect, but there is a reason that I do this for a living. Most of my conversations are about how people have made great changes and are feeling good.

You can imagine my shock when I heard the following.

As I’m talking to this person that is telling me about what they don’t like, they shared this with me:

They were unhappy with the help that I was giving them
They didn’t see the value of participating and didn’t want to do it anymore
They would still stay signed up, but not participate for a discount on their healthcare
They were not reaching their goals

I tried not to take these comments too personally, but I did not take them lightly. Negative feedback is a very serious issue and I want to take it in so I can improve. My goal is help you reach your goals, so I need to be doing things as well as I can in order to do that. This feedback was something that I thought would help me do that, so I welcomed it and continued the conversation.

As the conversation continued, the complaining participant told me the above issues they had. My first instinct was to listen to their objections and empathize with their position. Before I try to find a solution, I need to acknowledge what their complaints are. Once I have all of that information and am certain that they feel they’ve been heard, I can hopefully offer a solution.

That is where I came to realize that this person was simply complaining and needed someone to complain to. Their first issue (the help I was giving) was addressed by them accusing me of not giving them specific feedback on their goals. They failed to send me any information on their goals between our last conversations. How can I help you with something that I don’t know about? In other words, how can you get what you want if you don’t take the necessary steps?

The conversation continued and they shared how they didn’t see the value and didn’t want to participate. They would however, stay in the program to receive their discount on health insurance. To clarify, I don’t want to do anything to actually improve my health or bring down my medical expenses, but I want to pay less for the coverage.

The final complaint was really the first complaint and reason for this conversation in the first place. This person was not reaching their goals. They had not stuck with the action plan that they decided would help make the changes that they wanted to make. They needed help, which is what I am here for, but they didn’t share their challenges with me. Instead they complained about the program.

Sound familiar? A problem arises, they choose to complain about said problem and go as far as blaming someone else for it? Now hopefully you can see how this relates to health. Again, it is easier to complain about the system than it is to participate in the system and make it work for you.

In this case, there weren’t even changes to be made with the system. This person was not complaining about how things worked. They were complaining about how they were not getting what they wanted. When in fact, they were getting what they put into the program. They were receiving the same service as everyone else and all they had to do was participate and all of their problems would’ve been solved. Unfortunately, there was no action taken. There was only a complaint. What have we learned about complaints? They don’t solve problems!

I still take this very seriously. I am not making light of anyone’s health challenges, nor am I bad-mouthing anyone for having trouble reaching their goals. I continue to support this person and they will continue to remain nameless despite us discussing their situation. They are still in my program and we are working through this. The key word with our program now is WORK. The root of this entire problem was not reaching goals. The initial reaction was to complain, but now that we are back where we need to be, the real solution has revealed itself: we have to fix the problem.

If the problem is “I’m not reaching my goals”, which is how they later explained it to me, the solution is to go back and change the plan so you can start reaching your goals. The solution is not to quit and blame someone else. That doesn’t work in any area of life. We all tried that as kids: “he hit me first”, ok, that may be true, but you chose to react by hitting him back. Now you have a problem and you have to deal with the consequences.

What are you going to do to fix it? You can complain and say “it’s not fair” or you can deal with it, learn from the experience and handle it differently next time. Only then, will you avoid the punishment. By choosing a different action, you get a different result. If we choose the same action (complaining, blaming, quitting), we get the same results: failure, disappointment and more complaints!

I learned a valuable lesson from this situation. Your health is just that: YOUR health. I have talked and written about that for a long time, but this reinforced it. If you want it to improve, there is one person that can make it happen: YOU. You are the only one that can set your goals and take the steps to reach them. I can help, your friends and family can help, but YOU are the one in control. No one else can take credit for your success, but that also means that no one else can take the blame for your failure.

As a society we have a lot to learn about this concept. Our health problems are a glaring indication of that. We need to do more than voice an opinion or make a negative comment to fix the problem. My program is not designed to create magic results with no effort. Our healthcare system is not designed to create magic cures with no prevention needed. If it was, I’d be a gazillionaire and we wouldn’t be in this mess with a broken healthcare system. We each need to take responsibility for our actions if we want the results we say we want.

That may have sounded like a complaint. Maybe it was a complaint. It is a justified complaint because it is only a fraction of the energy that I am expending. I am expending my energy trying to change the way the system works. I am trying to change the way each and every one of us works. I focus on this day in and day out. I focus on ways to help you live a healthier and happier life.

Because I put so much energy into helping people, it hurts when they don’t appreciate it. It did hurt a lot to get negative feedback. But, what hurt more in this situation was the fact that it wasn’t really feedback. It was just a complaint. As I’ve illustrated in this article, complaints don’t solve problems.

So what can you do? You can participate. You can get in the game and make the changes that you want to see made. You can choose not to participate in negative conversations. You can even choose to feel good and be happy. All you have to do is act. Stop complaining and act. If you just complain, you know what will happen: nothing but more complaints.

Whose goals are you reaching?

In a conversation with a client this week I was reminded of the importance of goals. We talk about goals all the time. I don’t know if I’ve ever written an article that didn’t mention goals. Setting goals is clearly important and we will continue to discuss them. This conversation took things a step further though.

Setting goals is still the key to achieving success. I haven’t had too many people argue that. What often gets over looked is the goal itself. When people don’t reach goals they look for reasons. It is easy to just pick a goal that sounds good and commit to reaching it. What is difficult it reaching goals that are not your own. Setting goals that are not yours make it difficult to stay motivated and reach them.

Example: My friend has been running marathons for the past few years. He trains for most of the year and runs one marathon each year.

It would be very easy for me to look at his routine and say: I can to do that. “I
can do that” is one thing, but “I want to do that” or “I am going to do that” are very different things. I already run regularly. My distance is not far off from some of the training runs to prep for a marathon. I considered adopting this training plan and entering a marathon, but ultimately decided against it.

I still run. The distances and times are not going to prepare me for a marathon, but that is ok. I’m not training for a marathon. I am running because I like running. I am running because my dogs like running and we can all use the exercise. I’m not saying that I will never run a marathon. I’m just saying that my routine is not to get myself ready for a marathon.

Just like I made the decision to run on the days and at the distance that I enjoy, my client was able to do the same. She wasn’t deciding to run a marathon or not, but she was deciding exactly what she wanted to be doing.

That is the key. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to start going to the gym to walk on the treadmill or if she was going to simply walk outside. It wasn’t easy for her to make up her mind. There were pros and cons to doing both. The key for her was to think about what she wanted to do. I could’ve weighed in with my opinion, but then she would be doing my routine. If she does my routine, how does she reach her goals? She doesn’t. She needs to do her routine in order to reach her goals.

And you need to do your routine in order to reach your goals. No matter what results you are looking for, they have to be the results that you want. Only when the actions that will lead you to those results are the actions you want to be taking, will you reach these goals. This works because they are your goals.

Minor Details, Major Impact

Many things we do on a day to day basis are done without thinking. We do them so often that they become automatic. This is how we form habits. It’s that simple: when you do something enough times, it becomes part of your routine.

These habits become engrained in the routine and we no longer have to think about them. Often they are big, significant actions that take some time such as showering, shaving or even going to the gym. These habits, while they can become automatic, still take some planning and time to accomplish. They are important, so we put in the effort needed in order to make them part of the routine.

I want to talk about the less significant details in our routines. These activities don’t take as much time and often don’t even require a conscious thought to get done. While the little habits may get forgotten, they still get done. Why do they still get done? They still get done because they are every bit as important as the bigger things, they simply aren’t as big.

What habits fall into this category? The first things that come to mind are putting on your seat belt or brushing your teeth. Neither of these habits takes much time. They don’t require a lot of effort. In fact, you may not even think about doing them at all, but you still do them. You do them every day.

Why do you just brush your teeth first thing in the morning? Why do you put your seatbelt on before you take off in your car? You do both because they are important. They both make a significant impact on your day and even your life.

Health has a major impact on your life too. You don’t have a life without health. The life you do have is not the one you want if your health is poor. For that reason, we spend time discussing options for keeping health where you want it…up and good.

If we don’t keep our health up, we know the consequences. I guess knowing the consequence just isn’t enough when it comes to our health. We continue to ignore advice and refuse to care for ourselves despite knowing what is best for us. This doesn’t make sense to me as we clearly get it in other areas.

It is enough when it comes to wearing our seatbelts. We know that we could end up seriously injured or dead if we don’t wear them. No one wants that. So we wear our seatbelts. We also honor the connection with brushing our teeth and the consequences of not doing it. We don’t want to walk around with green, rotting teeth and breath that arrives before we do. So we brush our teeth.

The key to living healthy is to honor the connection between habits and the consequences they bring. It is always about action and results. Actions yield results. If we want certain results, we need to get in the habit of certain actions. It is that simple.

It is my mission to have everyone saying the following: “I don’t want to feel like crap every day, so I will take care of my health.” Or “I want to feel better, so I will change my diet and exercise.” Even these statements sound simple and obvious when you see them in writing.

What isn’t so simple is the fact that little actions can lead to big results. Just like the simple act of putting on a seatbelt can save your life, other minor details can have major impact on your life. I suppose that means that the real key to living healthy is more than just action and results.

Or maybe it’s less. Less meaning the size and significance of the action can be minor while the impact or result can be major. When you put it that way, it actually makes it feel simpler. Tying this into your health routine is a great way to start moving in the right direction. Sometimes it can feel like you aren’t doing anything significant by making one little choice. Sometimes it can feel like the little things don’t matter. Despite this feeling, they do matter. Every action has a result, no matter how significant (or insignificant) it feels.

As much as it can feel like they don’t mean anything. Just remember that each little thing you do can have a big impact. If you know that (and think about it regularly) it will be easier to keep going. It is easy to forget the little things and their impact, but it will help you succeed. As you continue to do the little things or minor details, you will make them part of your regular routine.

As you know, the actions will lead to results. The more you continue the action, the more you continue to see the results. Even if the actions are small and feel like minor details, they can still have big results and a major impact.

Do you have an example of a minor detail that has had a major impact in your life? Share your comments and help others see how they can progress too!

Holiday Survival: Model to Help You Enjoy the Holidays

The holidays are here. For many of us this can be a season of stress. It’s a shame that we have to look at such a fun and festive season as stressful, but when you are trying to manage your health, it can quickly feel that way.

The average person puts on a pound at Thanksgiving alone. The scary part is that they don’t take it off during the rest of the year. That’s right, the average person gains a pound every year. That doesn’t sound like much, but where does that put you in 5 years…10 years…20 years? You can do that math and see that it puts you somewhere you don’t want to be.

So how do we cope with “stress season”? I call it the PLAY model. The PLAY model is the key to getting through the “stress season”. By focusing on these steps, you can actually enjoy the coming months!

The PLAY Model

Planning

Planning your events and obligations can make it more manageable. Many of us try to be everywhere and do everything. Before committing to going everywhere or doing everything, take a look at when and where things are taking place. Often, by making some decisions or even just minding the order of your events, you can make life much easier on yourself. Plus, once you know you plan on going to an event, you can make adjustments to the rest of your week or day to make sure that you aren’t overwhelmed.

Listing

Once you’ve decided which events you will attend, list them or put them on your
calendar. Seeing them in an organized (planned) way can feel less overwhelming. Armed with the list of your obligations, you are better equipped to handle the season. Have you ever felt like you were never done? Or you always had another place to be? If you put together a schedule and stick with it, you won’t feel this way. In fact, just seeing the events can help you feel more in control. And when you are in control, everything is easier.

Attending

This seems odd, I know, but by attending is the next step. It sounds automatic to be there, but this is taking it to another level. By attending, I mean truly being present the events. When you are consciously and making an effort to enjoy yourself will remind you of why you are going in the first place. Some people like to list all of the positives of attending events before they go in order to focus on the positives. This can help you stick with diet goals by enjoying a conversation instead of going back for more pie.

You

It’s all about you. This should probably be the first step, but that would ruin my
acronym. YOU can decide what is realistic and what’s not. As you look at your goals, you can decide what you want to do. Making sure you stick to your plan through busy times will help you stay energetic and feeling good. If you are feeling good and taking the time for yourself, you will be able to prevent unnecessary stress from ruining your holiday season.

Stay tuned for the next step in the process. It's called The STAY Model and it can help you keep your routine on track during and after the holidays.

Have a Happy and Healthy Thankgiving!

You Only Get One Body

Your body has to last your whole life. I recently met with someone that gave me this great analogy. I really like analogies that help you picture your health in a logical way. This particular analogy made me think and helped me go into more detail on how we can take better care of ourselves:

Picture yourself buying a car. It’s your first car and you get to select the car of your choice. You choose the make, model, color and every detail down to the cup holders.

Now, picture that you are trying to make this car last the rest of your driving career. It will be the only car that you own and it is up to you to make it last as long as you can.

Think about it. How well are you going to take care of this car? Are you going to keep your car in to shape? Are you going to get the required maintenance done? I’ll bet that you are going to do all of the above. In fact, most of us do this on cars that we don’t have to make last more than a few years.

If it is so natural to maintain our cars, why don’t we treat our bodies the same way? After all, your body has to last the rest of your life. No matter how long (or short) it is your body as to last your whole life. Let’s take a look at some scenarios that sound ridiculous, but most of us are still doing (or not doing).
Fuel grade

When you buy your car, you look at the type of fuel that it needs. You fill it with gasoline every time, because that is what it needs. You wouldn’t put some cheap blend of gas made at an unauthorized station or in someone’s garage. If you did, you know that your car wouldn’t run well. Even if the person who sold it to you said that it would only hurt performance a little or you that it would be cheaper more convenient to use this fuel, you would not do that to your car.
Scheduled Maintenance

When your car is due for an oil change, you don’t hesitate to take it in to get that done. When you hear a strange noise it doesn’t have to go on for long before you take the car in for maintenance. Why are you so quick to mind these signals? Not because you want to spend more money at the mechanics, but because you know that by not tending to this maintenance, you will incur much bigger expenses when they lead to larger problems. Not only are the expenses greater, but it’s just not good for the car.

I don’t understand why we don’t treat our bodies this way. We know that when we put sub-par food in our bodies that we are causing damage. Granted, poor nutrition doesn’t cause issues instantly, but think about the difference between feeling energized and feeling sluggish on a typical day. The sad part is that most of us don’t remember what it feels like to be energized since the sluggish days have become the norm.

As for the maintenance, we know that exercise is what the body needs to perform as it should. We would never choose not to change the oil in our car because we didn’t have time or because we are tired. We would think about the alternative (problems and expenses) and do what we know is the smart thing to do.

I hope this analogy sheds a new light on how we care for our bodies. To be honest, I like these analogies because they help me picture my own health in a logical way. Most of my conversations are due to my own thinking and vice versa. If it makes sense to me and helps me keep things moving in the right direction, hopefully it can do the same for you. I think we can all use any chance to simplify things for us.

I also hope that we can all take a good look in the mirror and start caring for ourselves. We are constantly abusing our bodies through lack of sleep, poor nutrition and inactivity to name a few. For some reason, it is easier to care for our cars that it is to care for ourselves. We spend more time and money on vehicle maintenance yet virtually none on self-maintenance.

This will eventually catch up to each one of us. In fact, the effects are happening now, many of us just choose to make excuses or ignore them altogether. Next time you have a choice (which is every day) remember that your body has to last your whole life.

Uncertainty got you worried? Certainty could be worse for you.

Being a business owner, I have to stay up on the economy. It is important for me to know the latest concerns in the business community as they affect my business as well as my clients and partners. One common theme over the past few years has been uncertainty. The financial collapse and housing market woes lead to many other problems for us. Most of these problems have led us to feel uncertain about what to expect in the coming weeks, months and years.

As I work with individuals, I see more uncertainty. The state of our healthcare system is uncertain. We don’t know what will happen. There are debates, threats and even ultimatums flying around from Washington all the way to our living rooms. We know that there is change on its way, but we don’t know what that change will be.

While uncertainty can feel uncomfortable, I know another feeling that is far more difficult to deal with. It’s called certainty. Now, certainty seems like it should be comfortable and safe. We think that certainty is automatically good considering the negative feelings associated with uncertainty.

But this is not always the case. What about when problems are certain? How do we handle certainty when we know that it is a bad thing? That is where the exception comes into play. I talk to people about their health every day. As we discuss their goals and challenges, I continue to see the fear of uncertainty come into play. While I understand the concerns and often have some of the same concerns myself, I have trouble with a plan of action that seeks certainty and only certainty.

Why do I have trouble with this? I have trouble because certainty doesn’t mean it’s a positive outcome. In fact, I have seen a frightening trend toward certainty. There is a great deal of uncertainty that we are trying to avoid. The problem is, there are many certainties that are even worse.

When it comes to people and their health, there is one thing that is very certain. Health is declining and costs are rising. Healthcare has become very expensive in the US. Healthcare is used more and more every day. We continue spend more now than we ever have before. What’s worse, the costs continue to increase so we keep breaking our own records. We are hitting record highs for spending and record lows for overall health.

With this trend, you would think we would look for some uncertainty to help avoid this. It would be logical for us to start looking for new ways to live healthy, change the way we do things and create a NEW certainty.

My programs do this. My clients and their employees are already thinking this way. I wish I could say that we are all thinking this way. Unfortunately, the majority of people are still doing things the old way. Letting their health happen to them and depending on the doctor to fix things when they go wrong is the old way, but it is all too common. The process is certain and of course the results are certain. The old way yields the same old results- poor health and less happiness.

It is my mission to help businesses and employees create a new process that yields new results- better health and more joy as you control your own life. I know that it is uncertain in the beginning, but it’s all worth it when you avoid the problems that we know come along with the old process. That is the alternative when you seek certainty and only certainty. Problems are the only certainty when you don’t take charge of your health.

Halloween Candy Quiz

Halloween Candy Quiz

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Free to Be Healthy

I was watching TV on a Sunday morning when I ran across a show that caught my attention. This show was a news show on a network channel and has been on the air for a number of years. The show rotates topics of national interest and this particular show was right up my alley.

They were discussing the obesity epidemic in America. Much like we discuss each week, they covered many aspects of the problem and even tried to offer solutions. As I watched it was easy to see not only the significance of our current situation, but also how we have gotten into it in the first place.

That is where I started to become alarmed. It is one thing to be an individual that has struggled to reach goals. I deal with that every day. As a health coach, I deal with people trying to lose weight, quit smoking and every goal you can think of that falls within those categories.

What I have realized over the years is that I’m not just dealing with each person. I am dealing with a national problem. Sure, I’m only working with one person at a time or a small group of people at most, but we all live in a society that has continued to create our own epidemic.

Health has become more elusive as a healthy lifestyle has been supported less over the years. It is cheaper and easier to eat the food that has the least amount of nutritional value. It is easy to be inactive and will only get easier as we continue to find new ways to make things more automated. We have gotten to the point where the leading causes of death are things that we are causing ourselves.

The show wasn’t simply painting a negative picture of our culture. It was actually explaining how we developed the economy with needs that lead us down this path. There were some very interesting aspects of our situation that really made me think. The most interesting part is that we are both the cause and the effect of the changes that have taken place.

Technology has played a big role. With more automation, we are able to get more done by doing less work. As that has become the expectation, we began to demand more work from each person to keep up with this high-output expectation. Industries that were more service oriented began to do the same with hours, demanding more time from each employee. As time became scarce, a new way of eating became the norm- fast food.

Now that we have less time, food comes to us much more quickly and we are able to stay on track with the busy schedule. Marketing and Advertising took this to another level. We were shown hundreds of options and how they would make our lives easier and more pleasurable. It became nearly impossible to avoid the messages of all these products.

Our waistlines and medical check-ups began to show this quickly. As we all know, the quickest, most impulse-driven choices aren’t always the best for us. This has been clear for some time and we are really seeing the consequences.

There were a few figures discussed on the show that really jumped out at me. One of them is the fact that smoking and obesity are now the top two causes of preventable death. That means that cigarettes and French-fries are killing more people each year than guns and car accidents. It is not surprising when you think about the fact that heart disease is now the leading cause of death in both men and women.

Those are medical figures that may or may not hit home for you. I must admit, they don’t always hit home for me either. I can appreciate the significance of the numbers, but when I look in the mirror, I’m not thinking about my risk for heart disease. Even when I am working out, I’m not “lowering my morbidity”. I’m thinking about feeling good. I’m simply living healthy.

Feeling good and living healthy are easier said than done, however. As I have discovered by talking to thousands of people about their health and how they could improve it, I have learned that knowing something and doing it are completely different things. There is even a difference between wanting to do something and doing it. That is where the most shocking figure came from as I watched this show.
A recent poll revealed that 60% of people want to lose weight. This number seems high until I thought about the obesity rate in our country. Over 60% of all Americans are overweight, so it makes sense that they would want to lose weight. So what are they doing about it? There lies the biggest issue. Of those 60% of people who want to lose weight, only 30% of them is actually trying.

That number just shocks me. Every time I see it, say it, write it or even think it, I can’t believe that there are so many people that want to do something but are not doing it. What is stopping them? What is keeping them from doing what they want to do? Are we not in America? Is this not the land of Freedom?

I still think it is. I think we are living free. There are still problems with this freedom. As the show illustrated the economic changes resulting from the changes and in turn causing more changes, we are being shown many options. The problem is that the options that we are choosing are not always the best for us. That is old news. I don’t need to tell you what is good or bad, healthy or unhealthy.

I just want us to start asking ourselves the question: who is making choices for me? Are you making choices for yourself or is the advertising world making them for you. We have an amazing gift in our freedom. The problem is we are not using it to help ourselves. How else, would we be able to assert the fact that we want to do something, but still not do it.

What is even more interesting is the fact that a whole new industry came out of this shift. The health and fitness industry is huge and continues to grow. Despite our declining health, we spend billions every year on weight loss products. Does that make sense? We are paying to be less healthy.

I’m glad the industry became a reality, or I wouldn’t have a platform to run my business. It is important that we have products and services to help people live healthy lives. I think the problem still lies in our choices. It’s not just how much we are spending, it is what we are spending it on. What is valuable and what is not?

Every day in America we put forth a great deal of effort to not put forth an effort. The new tricks and schemes that promise to bring us results just leave us in a worse position than we started from. When you try something and it doesn’t work, that is very discouraging. It now becomes even more difficult to try something else. Eventually most Americans just stop altogether and become one of the 30% that wants to lose weight but “can’t”.

What do we need to do? We need to start using our freedom to help ourselves. The choices we make have to be for us and not for the sake of time or convenience. If you want to be sick, tired and die a miserable death at a young age, by all means, do that. But I don’t think that any of us want that. We want to be healthy. We want to enjoy life. What is more enjoyable, the above circumstance or getting up 20 minutes earlier and exercising?

Change may seem difficult. It may even be difficult for you to get started. I get that. I’m not saying it should be automatic. What I am saying is: use the freedom you have to choose what you want. Not just short-term things like: I’m tired this minute so I want to eat chips on the couch. I’m talking long-term like: I want to feel good each day, so I am going to do things that help me feel good each day.

When it’s in writing it sounds much more black and white. That is why I wrote this article. After watching a show that illustrated so many of our issues and how we got into them, I really felt that I needed to put these thoughts on paper. Now that I read them myself, it makes it much clearer that my clients are dealing with their own issues, but they are also dealing with our cultural issues. That culture starts at the national level and trickles all the way down through every structured group along the way, such as communities, workplaces, schools and families.

I realize now that we need to start building healthy environments, not just by providing healthy options. We need to take it a step further and help people understand what they want. What choices they have and how they can make it work for them. After all, we all want to be healthy, right? So what is stopping us from being healthy? The environment may provide choices that are not ideal for us, but we are all making those choices every day. Let’s start thinking about them a little more carefully and we will all be better off.

True Reform

There are three areas that need clarification: Healthcare, Health Insurance and Health. These three terms are often used interchangeably, but they are very different from one another. Despite the recent conversations around all of these areas, the focus has been quite uneven. We all know what these terms mean. I just thought it was time for a refresher:

Health: our state of being in good condition, what we all want and need to live the
lives we want

Healthcare: the service that takes care of us and keeps us in this condition or
brings us back to the condition of health

Health insurance: the coverage that insures us access to such care

The reason these three areas keep coming up in conversation is the fact that they are all sources of great pain. In the US today, we are spending a lot of resources trying to fix a broken system. We have seen problems and have started to work on solutions. This is a good thing, but I think we should spend a little more time in one of the categories before we think we have a fix for the other two.

Don’t get me wrong. I agree that there are some system issues that can be improved. I’m glad we are working on solutions, but I have one major problem with the current conversation: none of the proposed solutions address health as a way to fix healthcare or health insurance.

So which category is being neglected? The same category that has led us down our current path: Health. There is a reason the word health is in the title of the other two categories. Health is the root of the problems we are dealing with.

What is the problem exactly? Well, for starters, going back to the definitions above: healthcare is there to provide us with medical tools and service to maintain our health. Health insurance is simply in place to provide coverage so that we can pay for such service when we need it.

Why do we need healthcare or the coverage to pay for it? Because our health is not what is should be. Clearly, we only use healthcare and health insurance to improve our health. When there is a problem with health, we use healthcare. Health insurance helps us pay for that care. The end goal is to bring back or keep health. That is why we see the doctor. The hospitals, clinics, specialists and all healthcare professionals are in place to keep us healthy or to care for us when we are not.

We can talk about the system and how care costs too much. We can conclude that with rising cost of care, insurance will also be high. This makes perfect sense. However, we fail to mention that health is at the root of it all.

Why should health be included in the solution to healthcare or health insurance? Because, we have more control over our own health than we have over a complex system like healthcare or health insurance. Our health (or lack of care for it) is what
broke our system in the first place.

Now, this isn’t all bad. In fact it can be a good thing if you can look it from my perspective.
Think about this as a reform plan:

- Everyone takes care of their health and proactively keeps themselves in good
condition

- We need less care for chronic conditions and other preventable diseases
while doctors can offer preventative options rather than reactive techniques
that act as band aids for wounds caused by lifestyle abuse.

- The system will not be overrun with procedures and medications

- Premiums that you and I pay for our insurance coverage is more than enough
to cover the amount of care we need. The money we pay for this for this
care becomes cheaper, causing the insurance rates to come down with them

The most beautiful thing of all is the fact that by improving our health, we are fixing the system. That is the only way healthcare reform will work. Health reform has to take place first. It has to become the responsibility and continue to be a priority for us all.

Any other solution involving care and insurance will break just like our current system if we don’t add health to the equation. No matter how efficient, low-cost or state-of-the-art a new system is, if we continue to overuse, abuse and depend on it to fix years of misuse and neglect (of the system and ourselves), it will fail. The system will break and it will fail.

I know that we all want to be healthy. I also know that we want to feel secure in the quality of care we receive and we want all of this at a reasonable cost. I believe that no one should be without access to care. I also believe that no one should lose their house because of medical bills. No matter what your ideal solution looks like, I think we can all agree that as a world power, we should be healthy and well-taken care of.

While many if these issues are being debated in the care or insurance setting. We must remember one thing: Our health is the biggest factor in this equation. Health is the root of it all. The worst part of this: we are the biggest factor in our own health, which means we are the reason that reform is needed. The best part about this: we are the biggest factor in our own health, which means we are the biggest factor in health reform. That’s right; you are the key to solving the national healthcare crisis. By solving (or hopefully simply avoiding) your own personal health crisis, you are preventing the nation’s health crisis.

I’ve heard from doctors who have stepped up as healthcare advocates. I’ve heard from and work with insurance brokers who continue to be insurance advocates. Both of these groups have come together in many ways across our great nation. The work they are doing is making a difference and will help us move forward.

We’ve got advocates for healthcare and for health insurance, but there is still something missing. Who is an advocate for health? I consider myself a health advocate. I fully accept my responsibility to not only care for my own health, but also to help others maintain a healthy lifestyle.

By doing this we are avoiding many costs and burdens on our system as we prevent chronic diseases. We are avoiding the expense and complications of surgeries and medications. We are even showing the next generation a new way to manage health, healthcare and health insurance.

I can’t do this alone. I will continue to give it everything I’ve got, but I need others to do the same. Each and every one of us has control. You have the solution to the healthcare crisis. The solution is solving the health crisis. That is not a solution that needs to come from Washington. It is not a solution that you’ll find at your doctor’s office or hospital.

The solution is you. By managing your own health, you will solve the problem. Health, healthcare and health insurance come up in the same conversation and are often even used interchangeably. The most important lesson for us all is that we they are not the same. While all three of the areas we’ve discussed are related and are key components to the system. We need remember the root of the system is health - Your health.

Excuses

There is no shortage of excuses in this world. For every task, there is an excuse for not being able to get it done. It is easy to find them and easy to use them in our everyday lives. Excuses are so easy, that for many, they become the first reaction.

We’ve all been in this situation:

You are in a meeting and someone says: “We are going to need each of you to put in X hours to complete project Y.” As you look around the room, you can see the looks on everyone’s face. You can even hear people start to react with words and gestures.
It almost becomes easier to go along with the doubters than it is to try and accomplish the task.

This was a group setting, so it is more obvious when there are others to share in the reaction. What many people don’t realize is that we do this in our own minds too.

Think about this situation:

You wake up in the morning and think about all of the things you would like to accomplish and before you even start planning, you find yourself running through the list of reasons you can’t do them. For example: “I would like to go for a run today…but, I have to go to work, pick up the kids, go to the store”…not to mention all the other things that seem to pop into your mind at this moment.”

Why do we do this? I think we do this because it’s easier than taking the steps to accomplish the goals. You saw how everyone in the room reacted. You also heard all of the thoughts that ran through your head when you decided you wanted to do something. Those voices and words are very loud.

It is easy to listen to them. Why don’t we listen to the voices that say “Yes, I can do that.” Or “This may take some effort, but I think that I can do it.” If we listen to those voices, we can accomplish the goals we set out to accomplish.

Imagine how much better our lives would be if we had that mindset. We would succeed at one thing after another and that would become the habit. When we form habits, things seem easy to us. That is why, mentally, we think it is easier to give up beforehand, but in reality, it’s only easier because we are in the habit of doing it. We don’t have to think about making excuses. It just comes naturally and therefore, we just continue to do it.

As I help people make changes in their lives, excuses become more and more obvious. It has helped me see the situation more clearly. This situation, that we are all dealing with, has caused some major problems in our lives. It has gotten to the point where many people actually spend more time and energy thinking of reasons why they can’t do something than we would spend just doing it.

The key to living a healthy, successful life is to do. If we don’t do, we don’t accomplish. If we don’t accomplish, we don’t succeed. Excused make it easy for us not to do. In our minds, they excuse us from the expectations. The only problem is that we only realize this excuse in the moment that we decide not to move forward. And every time we do this, it becomes more and more acceptable in our minds to keep doing it.

That is the excuse cycle. Health and everything else in life is easier when we are able to do what we want to do. When we let excuses get in the way, we disappoint ourselves and we lose. When we set goals and take action…you guessed it, we win!

Moving to Live, Living to Move

Do you end up sitting for most of the day? Most of us do, so you are not alone. Are you looking for ways to add activity to your day? While most of us don’t get enough activity, you still may be in the minority if you are trying to do more. That may seem like a cynical view, but it comes from watching our society find more ways to do less activity. Not that we want to be unhealthy, but it is often easier to go along with the times. As we get more technologically advanced (some would say dependent), our activity seems to become less of a priority.

This actually makes sense the more I think about it. Let’s think back to the turn of the century. In 1900, the average American was doing physical labor in order to earn a living. Now we spend time in automated, sedentary environments. The technology has brought many good things to our culture, so I don’t want to be negative about it. Actually, technology has allowed us to work out in many ways that were not possible before. Plus, now we know so much more about the body, the exercise we do and how it affects us.

So why are we less active now? I think it’s because we didn’t ever have to “exercise” in the sense that we do now. We were active because it was part of our life. If we weren’t active, we didn’t eat. That sounds like the ultimate motivation to me. Not that we don’t have good reasons to exercise now, but when your life depends on it, you will likely do what it takes.

That is the mentality we need to be taking today. It may be a different scenario, but our lives still depend on being active. It’s simple: if we are not active we will not survive. Clearly, it is a much longer process than it was back when we needed to be active to get food. Now we need to be active to burn the extra food that we choose to eat day in and day out.

Activity was part of everyone’s life 100 years ago. It should be that way today as well. You can do it by changing the way you look at exercise. Walking to the mail box, carrying your recycling bin, raking leaves…all of this is activity. By doing more if it, you get more benefits. You don’t have to be sweating in the gym to be getting activity.

Think about it. What if you needed to eat healthy foods and move your body in order to survive? In all reality, this is true. Sure you can survive on fast food and a sedentary lifestyle. I don’t know about you, but just surviving is not enough for me. In order to thrive, we need to care for ourselves. If we don’t, life will be rough.

We all want our bodies to be healthy. Why not do what it takes to be healthy? Why not take care of ourselves? It is as simple as it used to be, we just made it more complicated. It certainly doesn’t have to be complicated. Eat healthy foods and move your body. We’ve known this all along. Somewhere along the line we lost track of how simple it really is. I think it’s time we get back to the basics. We will all feel better and live better lives.

Kids: Why not teach them to live healthy?

In my last post we discussed weight loss and how looking at it as living healthy rather than losing weight makes it easier to get started. It also makes it easier to stick with it, which is even more important. One thing that I have been thinking about since that article is the obesity epidemic among our nation’s children.

Nearly 1 in 3 kids is obese or overweight. This is tragic! It’s bad enough that adults are so inactive, but now kids are living similar lifestyles. Put fast food and 21st century portion sizes on top of that and it is no wonder kids are following in the footsteps of American adults.

As we discussed weight loss vs. healthy living, the kids came to mind. I have heard parents say, “They don’t need to worry about what they eat”, or “They don’t need the exercise, look how skinny they are”. This is exactly the mentality that has gotten
us into trouble. We think of nutrition and exercise only as ways to lose weight.

We forget about all the other benefits. What’s worse, is that many kids never learn the benefits of living healthy and they go down the same path as their parents. Once they decide that “they need to lose weight” they try to change a lifelong set of habits and often struggle.

What we need to do is show our kids the benefits of living healthy and start them on that path right away. If we do that we won’t need to worry about weight loss. Kids will not gain the weight they are gaining now and there won’t be a need for a drastic change in lifestyle when they are older.

Imagine all of the diseases we will be preventing if this shift takes place! We are already reaching a point where kids are dealing with what were previously adult diseases. Diabetes is one example, but there are many more out there that we could simply eliminate. Forget about managing or living with them, we can simply get rid of the disease.

Weight Loss vs. Healthy Living

Did you know that weight loss is a new phenomenon? We are the first generation to deal with even being overweight. We have taken it many steps further by building an entire industry around the losing weight. Being part of that industry for years, I don’t have anything bad to say about what we are trying to do. My only issue is with the way we are trying to do it.

Just the term weight loss strikes me as the wrong place to start. I understand that many of us have reached a point where we are overweight and want to lose that weight, but there is so much more. We make it seem that diet and exercise are only for those who need to lose weight. What about the people that have not yet become overweight? Do they not need diet and exercise?

I think we should be focused more on prevention and healthy lifestyle. That changes the entire feel of exercise. If you are presented with an option to live healthy and prevent countless diseases, it is more positive than weight loss. People would be more likely to not only start living healthy, but continue to do it if they weren’t focused solely on losing weight.

So what do we do? Well, that is a great question. The industry seems to be doing quite well selling us the new products, machines and systems. There is a new one every few months that swears to be the best. What’s even better is that we are continually told that it will be easier than “those other things you’ve tried”. What happens when they are not easy? We quit. Add that product to the list of failed attempts at losing weight. Now we’ll wait for the next big thing to come out. We won’t have to wait long.

I’m not an equipment salesman, nor do I recommend any particular plan. I’m not here to debate what works and what doesn’t. I am here to help change the way you look at exercise and nutrition. If you continue to look at it as losing weight, all you will do is focus on the weight you have now, try to find a quick way to reduce it and fail when you realize that this “great plan” doesn’t fit into your routine. Now it will be even more difficult to restart the next plan because you feel defeated. The add told you that this is THE way and it’s SO easy. It doesn’t feel good when something is “easy” and still doesn’t work for you, does it?

What if we looked at our health as an ongoing, lifelong routine that can be changed and improved at will? Wouldn’t life be easier if we just set goals, thought about what we needed to do to reach them and started on our way? I think so. I don’t think we would be worried about losing weight. We wouldn’t be trying to undo years of bad habits in one day, nor would we feel failure for not sticking with an outrageous diet we saw on television.

The beauty of healthy living is that you are not restricted to one way of doing things. You choose what you are going to do and you do it. There is no failure, there is only adjustments. For those that have mastered this lifestyle, it really is easy. It may take time to build into your life, but once you do, it never goes away. Parts of it may go away, if you choose to change your plan, but again, it’s all up to you.

As a health coach, I help people change their mindset. We go from “I want to lose weight” to “I want to live healthy and this is what I am going to do.” It sounds simple…and it is when you really think about it. We’ve overcomplicated a lot of things. Health is one of them. We’ve known for centuries that eating proper portions and staying active led to a longer healthier life. It’s no different today. We may have more options to choose from or more complications, but the bottom line is: You can live healthy if you want to. Stop thinking about weight loss and start living healthy. Weight is only a product of our habits. Change the habits and the mindset and you will change your results.

Measuring Success

Weight is one way to measure progress toward your diet and exercise goals. The problem is, it is only one way to measure. There are many other ways to measure progress and it is very healthy to do so. It is easy to get caught up in the concern of weight, after all, we call the entire area weight loss, weight control or management and other terms that focus strictly on that one number. My focus with clients is to stop thinking about that one number and start thinking about all the other important factors that are changing as you make progress.
Let’s take a look at some of these other factors that you can use to measure your progress instead of worrying only about weight:

1. How good you feel

This is the easiest, fastest way to check to see how you are doing. How you feel after a workout, when you get up in the morning or when you are doing something in your day to day routine is a great measurement of how you are progressing. Energy level, stamina and even mood are good ways to measure. Many people notice that after a short time, they have more energy and feel more confident. And that’s not even touching on the physical fitness that they have realized which makes movements easier than they were before.

2. How your clothes fit

The biggest problem with getting caught up in the weight number is that we are making progress, but in a different way. Muscle is more dense than fat. When we lose fat and gain muscle, often we are becoming leaner (what we want!) while our weight stays the same or even increases slightly. If we are only focused on weight, we miss the victory here as our clothes fit better and we are decreasing in size. I tell clients that when you walk around in public, you don’t have a number on your chest showing your weight. You only have your body and it’s shape. The better you look, the better you feel. The weight is only a number that you see. No one else knows what it is. They only see your shape today.

3. Exercise capacity

Part of our first option (feeling good) is gaining capacity for exercise that you didn’t have before. As you get started on a routine, you may notice that you get tired at a certain point. As you continue to do this routine, you will get stronger and be able to go for a longer period and keep a higher intensity level. Since we know that the more we work, the more results we get, this is a great way to measure success. Not only are we feeling good because we are able to do more, but we also are doing more. This way, the results are going to continue to come.

4. Body composition

To get more technical with the second option, body composition or body fat percentage is a great way to measure your progress because it gets to the bottom of what we want to do. Rather than weight loss, it should really be called fat loss. As we trim body fat, we shape our bodies to the ideal form. As we discussed, the weight doesn’t always go down in direct proportions here. Because of the different densities and distribution of fat and muscle, you may be losing body fat without actually losing weight.

5. Your ideas

What have you done to measure progress? We want to hear from you on ways that you have stuck with a program and continued to see results. Sharing tips and tricks is a great way to help each other reach goals. We look forward to hearing about your success and how you got there!

Personal Vision

Your company has a vision. It has a mission statement of a mindset that defines what the purpose and goals are. Each day when your company does business, the person deal that is being made is in line with the vision. If it is not in line, problems occur and the company suffers consequences. Maybe these consequences are major and come in the form of legal action or negative media coverage. Maybe the consequences are minor and only involve some internal conversations to resolve the issues. No matter how it plays out, when a company does things that go against the vision, there are negative consequences.

Each individual person should have a vision too. When you get up in the morning, you know what you have to do and where you have to go. The one thing that many of us don’t think about is the why. Why are we going to the job that we are going to? Why are we even getting up today? There is a whole series of questions that we can ask ourselves to find this personal vision. If we don’t find it, how do we know what is important? The level of importance that we assign a task is not in our control if we don’t match it to our own personal vision. The importance will be determined by someone else.

Instead, why don’t we think about what is important to us and then start planning our agenda? I understand that paying the bills, putting a roof over our heads and having food on the table are all very important. I work to do those things every day too. But what I don’t understand is how we can spend an entire day, career or even lifetime devoted to things that hold no connection with our personal vision. This topic comes up when I talk with coaching clients about what they want to do. Initially I hear, “I want to lose weight” or “I want to quit smoking”. Occasionally, I even hear “I just want to feel better.” That statement, while still very general, is getting us closer to understanding a personal vision.

I’m not suggesting that we all quit our jobs and start an all-consuming self discovery mission. What I am suggesting is that we start a short list of the things that are important to us. Start by making a list of two or three things that you hold to be most important in your life. Once you have your list, think about how much time and effort you put into those things. If you are devoting the most time and energy to the things that you hold to be the most important, you are in line with your personal vision.

Some people like to take it a step further. Many people can identify with the corporate concept of a vision and mission statement. Try to write a brief statement that embodies your values and explains what is most important to you. Once you can do that, you can do much more. You can now measure the things you are doing against this statement. Now you have a gage for every task you complete. Is this important to me? More importantly, why is it important and how important is it to me?

Too often we end up sacrificing what is important to us. Why do we do this? I think it’s because we don’t take time to define our own importance. Not just the things we think are important; my concern is that we don’t define our importance in general. The importance of what you want to do and how you want to feel are being defined by other people in many of our lives. It’s time we took a few minutes to arrange you own list to make sure that your actions today are in line with your personal vision. If they are not, we know that there are consequences.

Living Life: making it easy

I know that we all appreciate life. Despite all of the complaining we do, we really do enjoy life. After all, what is the alternative? Rather than debate the possibilities of the afterlife, I’d rather keep it simple. Let’s keep it as simple as this: we have a simple decision to make each day. Every day, with everything we do we have to make one decision. That decision is either to get up in the morning and live, or to stay in bed and hide. No matter what else you run into during the day, you’ve already made the decision to get up and live, so why start worrying now?

I was talking to a friend one day after a long day. He had been working very long hours and felt like he wasn’t going to be able to make it to our hockey game that evening. I had experienced the same thing during grueling weeks myself, so I understood where he was coming from. The advice I gave him was directly from a coach that said it to me.

The story of how I discovered the one simple decision:

One day, during hockey practice I was feeling tired. We had a set number of repetitions to get through on a particular drill. We would not be getting done until we had done the drill ten times. The number was ten, period, not eight, not nine, but exactly ten. I was so exhausted that I had to take a knee between one drill and the next. When I did this, my coach came over and said: “you know, you have to do this anyway. “ “I know”, I said with a heavy sigh, “but I am so tired!” When he heard this, my coach asked me a question that seemed out of place for the rink. He said, “Have you ever been bored in class?” I answered with a an emphatic “Yes, of course I’ve been bored in class!” “Well, did the time go any faster when you started to get antsy?” “No”, I answered after thinking about it for a second. “Ok, did you feel good when you got done?” “Yes, I waited so long to get done.” “Did you really?” He asked. “Hmmm, yeah?” I answered as he cracked a smile. His next question was what got me thinking. “Did you feel good, or did you just feel like you were no longer fighting against something?” “Just because you felt antsy and bored during class, doesn’t mean you felt GOOD when class ended. It just means you don’t feel AS antsy or bored.”

What I learned from that conversation was that no matter how much I disliked the end of practice or the end of class or anything else in life, I had a decision to make. That decision is simple. In fact, it is even simpler than I thought it was. The decision is: Do I want to do this the easy way, or do I want to do it the hard way? It is that simple. As you live your life, you can choose to do it the easy way or to do it the hard way.

Now when I say easy or hard, I don’t mean to take the easy way out and never push yourself. That is a different kind of easy. The easy I’m talking about is the state of mind we had when we were kids. Remember when it was easy to enjoy everything? Remember when you smiled all day and laughed at everything that happened without waiting to see if it was an appropriate situation to laugh at?

Somewhere along the line it becomes easier to make life hard. It becomes natural to find all of the things we don’t like about something and focus on them. We focus on them to the point that we are unable to see any good in a situation because we are too busy thinking about everything we don’t like. We will even spend time complaining about good things in our lives. I’m not perfect. I complain. I find things that are good to be a “hassle” or a “burden” just like everyone else. But I noticed something that many of us are doing without thinking about it. We are making life very difficult for ourselves. When given the decision to make life easy or make life hard, we are choosing to make it hard. I don’t know why this is and I don’t even know that I have the answer. What I do know is that we have the power to make a decision. We can decide to make life easier, if we really want to. I believe that when you are truly living your life, you make it easier on yourself and everyone around you.

Live life, enjoy it and make it easy.

Control

If you turn on the news, you will hear all about the latest health care reform ideas. You will hear how badly we need change. I agree. But what I don’t agree with is where we are placing the highest priorities. I see people getting worked up over prescription costs and network regulations. I also see people calling for the heads of insurance companies, claiming that they are evil and out to get us. I’m not trying to start a public vs. private debate, so that is all I will say about either side. It doesn't have to be a complicated debate though. In fact, we are wasting a lot of time and energy.

You can change the health care system any way you want to, but with our current lifestyles, it won’t make a difference. There is only one thing that will “fix” our current situation. That one thing is control. The good (or bad) thing is that we already have control. We have control over our own health regardless of the system operating around us. The health care system is there to treat illness, injury and other disease. What if we could prevent some of these things? Wouldn’t that be a good system? Well, we can and the current system, even if we don’t change a single thing, will function well if we start using our control. We just need to use our control.

No matter what side of the debate you are on, you can see where I’m coming from, right? Think about it: instead of going down to the town hall meeting to complain about what they might take away or how change may or may not affect you, what if you took control of your health? What if you spent as much time taking care of yourself as you did worrying about how much reform will cost?

The fact is: No one in government, no one in insurance, not even anyone in the medical field can give you any more control over your health. They can regulate what types of treatments you receive, provide the payment for such treatments and even operate on you to battle certain ailments. But the bottom line is, they are only able to treat symptoms that you present to them. 75% of the symptoms we present to them are preventable, meaning we shouldn’t need 75% of what we are being treated for. What’s worse is that we still aren’t solving the problems now. We are just treating symptoms. What kind of control is that?

In other words, for the past few decades, we have been throwing ourselves at the mercy of modern medicine and begging it to keep us going. We have refused to take responsibility for our own health and now we are blaming the very system that has kept us alive for being the problem. We have run up a huge bill for services that we have depended upon, but now we don’t want to pay for it.

Control: You have it, I have it and actually we all have the control. Let’s use it and truly solve this problem rather than looking for more ways to treat the symptoms. Health insurance is expensive because health care is expensive. If we are in control, we will prevent the problems that are costing us so much money. Wouldn’t that solve our health care problems? That sounds like a good solution to me.

Internal Motivation, Passion and Belief

We all hear about what we are “supposed to do”. We all know what is “good for us” and “bad for us”. So what makes us decide how we are going to live our lives? What is the difference between healthy and unhealthy?

These are two questions that I ask myself regularly. I find it natural to think about this as I am helping people decide to change…or not to change. They are interesting questions for me because we always have a choice. We decide what is “realistic” or not. We all have the same number of hours in the day. We all start out with the same number of calories consumed when we wake up (hopefully it’s 0, if not, you’ve got a sleep walking and worse, a sleep eating habit.)

So why do some people find it impossible to live healthy, while others find it impossible not to? I think it boils down to motivation. You’ve heard me talk about motivation before, but this a little different. By definition, motivation is simply the reason for doing something. I want to go deeper with the word (and concept of) motivation. It is one thing to want something, but it is another thing altogether to want something enough to work for it.

When we look at school, sports or work, it is easy to think of ourselves as resilient. We have had challenges since birth that have molded our resolve and given us the sense of what we are capable of. Not only do we know what we are capable of, but we are also in tune with how much resistance we can tolerate along the way. The key to being successful in anything is to be able to achieve our goals no matter how much resistance we experience.

When you want something (motivation) and you want it bad enough (passion) and believe you can achieve it (belief) there is a certain magic that seems to come out that makes things seem as if they were meant to be. We often hear people praised as “made for this” or “in their element” because things seem to come so naturally for them. But what if those people simply want something (motivation), want it bad enough to work for it (passion) and truly believe that they can succeed (belief)? Isn’t that all it takes?

Maybe that’s not all it takes. Support, encouragement and the proper tools certainly help, but without motivation, passion and belief, things will be very difficult. There are a lot of people trying to make changes without one, two and even all three of these factors. Think about it. There are people (maybe you are one of them, we’ve all been there in one area or another) that are trying to change a habit in their lives because it is the right thing to do, or because someone told them to do it. When your only motivation comes from someone else’s ideas, how can you develop a passion?

What is even more difficult is believing that you can achieve it. Imagine living your whole life as an active person. Someone tells you that it is bad for you to be active, so they want you to stop moving so much. Think about how difficult it would be to find the motivation to stop all physical activity just because someone else thought you should. Of course, this is the reverse of what we are used to hearing, but it is a good way to illustrate what we are putting ourselves through when we crash diet or try to quit smoking cold turkey. If you don’t believe in it, or believe that you can do it, you won’t do it.

In the health and fitness industry, I think we have put ourselves in a tough position. We create these vacuums for ourselves by thrusting everything aside and vowing to change everything at once. We’ve all seen the next big thing on television that is the new answer to the age old problem. And what do they always say? They say, “Finally, this is the program for you.” “This is the one you’ve been waiting for”. They go on and on about why THIS program is the secret to your success. We think that if someone tells us to do something (expert or not), that all we have to is listen and do it. Millions of people have found that that is not the case. I have worked with countless numbers of them that tried to use motivation from the outside, but didn’t get very far because they didn’t have any passion for it or any belief that they could ever succeed. So what happens? They fail and it feels like “yet another” situation that they failed in. We all know what that does to the belief factor: now I believe even more strongly that I AM a failure.

The point I am trying to make here is that everyone has limits, but we often decide what they are before we even try to do something. No matter what we do in life, there are things that we are passionate about. The more we do those things, the more we understand our abilities and believe we can succeed in them. If you want to be healthy, you know what you are supposed to do. We have known the difference between healthy and unhealthy for centuries. There isn’t a whole lot that has changed, other than a lot more confusion and complication. In health, just like in any other area of life, we are capable of accomplishing the things we are motivated to do, the things (and results) that we are passionate about and of course things that we believe we can achieve.

Don’t exercise because I told you to, or because you saw a news story about it being good for you. Exercise because you like the way you feel when you are done. Exercise because you like going to the gym in the morning and watching the news on the treadmill. There are millions of good things we get from all of the habits in our lives. At least there should be good things coming from our habits. If you aren’t getting positives from your habits, than why are they your habits? Who’s habits do you have? When you are motivated internally, have a passion for what you are doing and believe that you can do it, you are truly healthy and successful.

Buffet Strategies

Dessert is a good thing, but it doesn’t have to be automatic. Stuffing yourself at a buffet doesn't have to be automatic either. I was at a function that served a buffet style lunch. This is not uncommon and is often the ideal situation for over eating. I know that the fear is “I can have as much as I want, so I am going to take as much as I can”, but that doesn’t have to be the way we do it. I actually have found that this is an easier way to control not only what you eat, but how much you eat. Here are some simple tips to help you at your next buffet- style meal:

Take a look before you go up

You get to pick and choose at the buffet. What better way to know what you want (and don’t want) than to take a preview? Once you take a look, you can plan for the items that you want to make sure you include. We’ve all been in this situation: You are filling up your plate when you get down the line to something that you simply must have. It may not be a terrible option, but you’ve already filled your plate and you want to make more room for it, so it gets piled on. And, that is the “typical buffet”.

With a preview, we are planning ahead. It is almost like looking at a menu and deciding before you are in the heat of the decision.

Plan another trip

I know that no one wants to be stigmatized as the one abusing the buffet. Sometimes it can feel awkward to make another trip up. First of all, you can use that to your advantage and NOT go back up. Once you have finished your plate (even if it is small by regular buffet standards) you are likely to notice that you are satisfied. The food on your plate was enough to get you through the event and now you can relax and enjoy the conversation at the table. Or, if you are still hungry, you can go up and get another small plate and no one will care. You can’t lose. The only way you can lose is to eat too much and feel like you have harmed your routine.

My favorite example of this is the dessert table. Many of the events I have attended have a dessert table at the end of the buffet line. Each dessert is on its own plate, so you need to take it separately anyway. I use this opportunity to split things up. By not taking the dessert, I am making it a conscious decision to go back if I really want it. I have found that often, I won’t, not that it never happens, but when it is a conscious decision I don’t automatically do it without thinking. In fact, I’ve noticed that there are times when we have a dessert already in front of us that we are merely thinking of that and pounding down our food just to get to the dessert that is staring us in the face.

Whether there is a dessert table, a room full of food or just a typical buffet, you can succeed. Buffet does not have to equal over eating. As long as you have a plan and stick to that plan, you will be able to get through without the guilt.

Making Exercise Part of Your Life

Exercise is important. We all know it is important. At a young age, we start doing it naturally. Without thinking twice about it, we run and we play as kids. In fact, we usually have to be told to stop. Otherwise we go until we literally can’t go anymore and sleep becomes the next activity. The reason I bring this up is not to say that we get lazy as adults or that we should all quit our jobs and play all day. I bring this up because at one point, exercise was part of everything we did, but now it is something that we have to squeeze in. Or worse, it is something that we don’t have time for.

I don’t have a lot of free time during a typical day or week. Like the rest of us, a great deal of my time is spent on my career. I focus on clients and other aspects of my business for a great majority of my time. My point about that is not to brag about how busy I am, or how I can squeeze exercise in no matter how busy I am. Although that is technically true, there is a better reason for me to bring this to light.

The most important reason I can think about us focusing on our time and fitting in exercise is to see that it is not as dire as we think it is. First of all, when we were kids we loved every minute of activity. Now we look at it as a chore or task to be completed. It is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle. And it is easy to feel like we have no time at all for anyone or anything. What we need to do is take a step back to look at remember the following points:

- You don’t have to be training for a marathon to be active
- You don’t have to be in the gym to get exercise
- It’s the exercise you enjoy that you will keep doing

Too often we look at our routine and try to find a way to revamp it in one sweeping change. Not only is this overly difficult, but it is also not necessary. Your goal was to do more activity than you did last month, not to make the Olympic team. We think if we can’t do a world-class distance in a record-breaking time that it’s not good enough. The scary part is that when we try and fail, it only gets harder to try it again because of all the negativity.

Once you have these 3 simple points in your head, it will be much easier to make exercise part of your life. Not only will you give yourself a break from the negative thoughts, but you will also start to enjoy the exercise again. Think about it this way: What are you more likely to do tomorrow, something that you fought through and can barley do today, or something that you enjoyed and are looking forward to doing again today? It’s that simple.

So, what is the lesson here? The lesson is, to make exercise part of your life, you only need to remember the following things:

- You don’t have to be training for a marathon to be active
- You don’t have to be in the gym to get exercise
- It’s the exercise you enjoy that you will keep doing

The Importance of Goal Setting

Goal Setting is a habit. We use it in all areas of life. We often discuss goal setting as a good way to make changes and improve health. Goal setting is also important in business, family and any other area that we want a certain result. Generally, we want positive results in all areas of life. Some of us seem to find a way to be successful in multiple areas, while others excel in one area, but struggle in another.

Why is this? I think it is because thy habit of goal setting has not been formed or needs to be practiced more. Let’s take John for example:

John is a talented musician. He plays the piano and has for many years. He has been good at it as long as he can remember and now he earns a living playing. Clearly, John has talent, or he wouldn’t be paid for his music. He is good enough for people to come and watch him perform. Yet, there is a part of John that is not successful. He has struggled with his weight for years too. While he has great skill in one area, he lacks in another. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to lose weight, it’s just that he can’t seem to find the right plan to get him to his desired results.

In fact, it goes beyond that. When John and I started working together, he had a clear passion for his music. He realized that if he didn’t lose weight, he would be putting himself at risk for medical problems as he got older. He also realized that he wanted to change, but hadn’t ever tried much of a serious plan before.

What John needed, was to look at his health like he has looked at his music. When we compared his health to his music career, it was clear to John that he had been setting goals, formed habits and was on a specific plan from years ago. Once he was able to think about the desired results that he set for his career (tickets sold, gigs booked, etc.) it was easy to the importance of having goals. An even bigger light bulb came on when he thought about the habits he had formed throughout his career. Habits like practicing, rest and communication with his manager about promotion, to name a few, were the keys to his success. John realized that without the goals and habits he had developed, not only would he not be able to earn a living as a talented musician, he would not likely be this good if he even played at all!

The lesson John learned was a valuable one. Not only was he able to put some goals on paper and start forming the habits to get him there, he also improved his career. That’s right, the goal setting that became so unconscious around his music became much more directed now that he understood the importance. This lesson was a bigger one for me, as I realized that goal setting in one area can improve another area as well. The fact is, goal setting is a habit. It is valuable in all areas of our lives.

Managing Expectations

We talk about management in many settings. Money management, business management and time management are all very important to our day to day lives. I even stress health management on a daily basis. Management is a key to any game plan, no matter what you are trying to accomplish.

There is another form of management that I want to discuss today. That is managing expectations. The management of our expectations often gets neglected or downright abused. In my opinion, expectations are a big challenge in our lives and management is the biggest challenge of all.

When I say that managing expectations often gets neglected or abused, what I mean is that we don’t do it very well and sometimes we even set ourselves (and others) up for failure. Let’s take a look at some examples to get a better picture of this challenge.

Michael is a client that has a clear list of goals that he wants to make. He wants to quit smoking and start dealing with his stress in other ways. He has done this before, so we start by talking about his past experience. Michael was feeling good after his first week of change. He significantly cut back on smoking. The only problem is that he thought he would be able to quit completely in a week. His expectation was, start tapering down and quit altogether by the end of the first week. Well, it wasn’t that simple with the other things going on in his life. He had other tasks to focus on and when he was at work, the days got very stressful. Naturally, since this was his routine, he smoked and had trouble cutting down as much as he wanted to. The results: Michael was frustrated and started going back in the other direction because he was upset about his “failure”.

Our first conversation made it clear to Michael what the problem was last time. It was not that he couldn’t do it or that he needed something major to take place to help him. It was clear that all he needed to do was manage his expectations.

It sounds simple, but I asked Michael the question:
Would you rather try to run one mile and get two, or would rather try for two and only get one?
In his case, of course, I followed that with: would you rather quit cold turkey today, but be smoking again in a month, or would you want to still be smoking next week, but continue moving toward quitting and be smoke-free next month?

There are many philosophies and goal setting techniques that will give us different conclusions, but the point is that surpassing a goal leaves us feeling better than not reaching one.

The answer for Michael, on the second try, was simple. His expectation was that he would spend a week tapering his cigarettes down. Week two would be spent focusing on his stressors while he stuck with that same number of cigarettes as week one. Once he was clear on what was making him feel stressed and therefore wanting to smoke, he could alter his habits by being alert to those events. Before they happened, he started chewing gum. Now that he had his routine on track, he was feeling confident and ready to start moving forward. The gum helped him continue to lower is smoking each day and eventually (one a two weeks later) he was smoke-free. The best part is that he remained smoke-free since he actually changed his habits rather than just quitting temporarily.

Managing expectations is the difference between quitting because we are frustrated and continuing to move forward. Without managing expectations, not only do we not know what we are capable of, we actually lower our capacity because we defeat ourselves before we even get started. Before you set a goal, be sure that your expectation is realistic.

The Holidays and Vacation

The holidays can be a very enjoyable time. They can also be a nightmare for someone making lifestyle changes. We’ve all heard tales about Christmas or Thanksgiving being the day that “ruined me” or “derailed” the positive progress that was made leading up to them. It is a classic scenario for someone watching their weight to fear the holidays, vacations and any other special occasion for that matter.

Why are the holidays so tough? Well, for starters, the holidays are already putting us in a tricky position because we build them up so much. We’ve all heard someone say (or said it ourselves): “I wouldn’t normally eat that, but it is the holidays, so I have to.” Or you’ve been told (or been the one telling): “You have to eat this because it’s just not (insert holiday here) without it.”

Which reminds me of the most recent holiday (and inspiration for this week’s article), the 4th of July. We have all been to a gathering where there are assorted grilled meats, potato salads, corn on the cob, apple pie, etc. We’ve all gotten that first whiff off the grill when meal-time was near. We’ve all had the moment of decision as we filled our plates as well. “Should I stop?” “Is that enough?” We ask ourselves these questions, but we just keep piling the food on. Why? Because it’s the holidays and we think we won’t enjoy the day as much if we don’t eat as much as we can.

Now, when I put it that way, you can clearly see the flaw in our logic. In reality, how do we spend the rest of the day? We spend it uncomfortably full, tired and wishing we hadn’t eaten so much! Not to mention the mental game we are playing because we just “undid” everything we had worked for. Why do we know what we want, yet still do the opposite? This is a fascinating thought for me, not only because my clients are dealing with it every day, but because I too have found it to be a challenge.

So what can we do? Well, the 4th of July holiday really made me think this year. I was thinking about our freedom and all of the choices we have now. If we didn’t have these choices, life would not be very fun or fulfilling. But, what we have to remember is that we are free to choose. I feel that as soon as a certain day comes around or a certain option is in front of us, we throw choice right out the window.

I think we do this because we have surrendered to the moment. The holiday that we have been waiting for or the vacation that we are finally on makes us feel like we have to splurge in order to enjoy ourselves. When in reality, we don’t truly enjoy ourselves because we are physically uncomfortable and more significantly, we feel that we have gone against our natural choice in the first place and done something that we quickly regret.

What is the solution? While there are many steps that can be taken to change these habits, the first thing that needs to change is our mindset. The mindset of “doing whatever I can do to sabotage myself and go against the norm will bring me the most enjoyment right now” is clearly not giving us what we want. We may have a short period of enjoyment, but long term and even immediately following, our actions do not bring us the results we want, and therefore we are really letting ourselves down.

The mindset that will help us succeed is this:
Take the vacation, don’t let it take you

Celebrate the holidays with your choices and you will enjoy your results. If you leave it up to chance, you know the possibilities and know how you will feel afterward. When you get away, realize that the choices you make now will impact you now and in the future. We are the same people on vacation that we are at home. There is no way to forget or pretend what happens on a trip and have it somehow not affect us when we return home. Going with a goals and a realistic plan will help you manage the choices you have while still enjoying them, both during and after you make them.