3 Simple Hacks To Help You Lose Weight, Get Fit And Maintain A Healthy Lifestyle

Is your freezer filled with meals from that expensive diet you abandoned a year ago? Maybe you saw the perfect piece of exercise equipment in an infomercial, spent a small fortune, and now it languishes in your spare room. Perhaps it’s the fitness tracker that tells you what you no longer want to know about your sleep, diet and exercise.

Those items are wonderful if you use them as part of your bigger plan to get and stay healthy in mind, body and spirit.

It’s not the diet or equipment that gets you to your fitness goals, it’s the determination and intention to be in it for the long-haul. That, and a few simple things to keep in mind to avoid the fads and the flops:

1.      Beware of fads. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Consider the claims made about that Clear Quartz in your water bottle. Read more here...

A Simple Hack to Stick to Any Goal… using a Rubber Band

My guest blogger, Victor Mathieux, has developed a simple product he thinks will help you reach your goal, any goal. Check it out. It's science:


A couple years ago I launched the Everest goal-setting app and many people from this community liked it, so I’m back to share something new (full-disclosure: I am sharing a product but also have a useful hack you can use regardless):

One day, I realized that despite having 3 reminders set on my phone to “do pushups & take vitamins,” I STILL WASN’T DOING IT. Having studied behavior change for years and having co-founded a company whose sole purpose was to help people stick to their goals, I found this lack of consistency in my own life frustrating.

Practically speaking, I was well aware that to turn a goal into action, three things need to come together: First, you must have the ability to do the task, second, the motivation or desire to do it in the first place, and third, a trigger that sparks you to do it (if you’re not already familiar with this framework, you should checkout the work of BJ Fogg, a behavioral researcher at Stanford).

Read more here... 

The Zen Of Wellness

Does the thought of creating a wellness plan trigger fear of deprivation, pain and suffering? You may worry about a diet free from unhealthy foods, the physical pain involved in starting an exercise program or the suffering of trying to make good choices when it would be so much easier to have that drink, smoke that cigarette or enjoy that chocolate cake. 

As much as you try to avoid it, you can't help but notice that, in the news again, is the advice to eat more fruits and vegetables and less meat and sugar. It's time to take that advice to heart.

With heartfelt caring for your mind, body and spirit, I suggest an Eastern approach to practicing wellness. I borrow from the Buddhist eightfold path, tenets to apply to your wellness plan. May it ease your suffering and enliven your plan to try: 

Right Speech

Stop undermining your plan by being washy washy about how many times a week you'll get to the gym or whether you can really live without your favorite fast food.

Read more here...

 

Do You Have A Dark Passenger?

Late to the Dexter party, it was only this year that I inhaled all eight seasons after a free Showtime offer landed in my inbox. I started with a few episodes, the gateway to a full-blown addiction. 

Dexter's dark passenger was part of my fascination. What is a dark passenger exactly? Is it a secret, or more like a drive, or perhaps a secret drive? Does everyone have one lurking? Do I? More importantly—do you?

For a long time I believe my nicotine addiction was my dark passenger. "It" made me sneak around and lie, things I would not normally do. When I was young and couldn't always afford to buy smokes, "it" made me steal cigarettes from an unsuspecting aunt's purse or money from my mother because she had no cigarettes to steal.

 The dark passenger changes you into a person even you don't quite know: liar, cheater, sneak, impostor, pretender. 

Read more here...

 

The Five Benefits of a Well-Organized Life

One of my clients wants to work on how to be more like a grown-up; she wonders if she needs a schedule. Another bemoans the need for routine in her diet to help her lose weight.  A third client wants to start an exercise program but hates the idea of scheduling it. There's something about the myriad routines and schedules of adult life that many of us resist. 

The Big Think's mention of a new book by Mason Curry, about the daily rituals of successful, creative people, reinforced my position that routines are essential for achievement in anything and everything. 

While I prefer the word "routine" to "ritual," the latter provoking images of questionable, dark practices, people who get things done often lead very structured lives. 

Read more here...

What I Love About The Amazing Lena Dunham

Why is it so surprising that Lena Dunham's Vogue cover was airbrushed? It's not, of course. What is actually surprising is that this edgy, unique, quirky, eccentric, female talent is on the cover of Vogue at all. Far from model-thin, she has this beautiful face that someone you know might have, not the standard beauty of a Hollywood actress. 

You don't have to be twenty-something to find Dunham inspiring. These are my takeaways:

• ”Some shit is just too ridiculous to engage," as she Tweeted about this whole Vogue controversy. In other words, don't sweat the small stuff. It may take a few deep, cleansing breaths and a good talk with a girlfriend to realize it's small stuff, but try to figure it out.

Read more here... 

No One Regrets Not Eating That Cookie

A client of mine and I spoke recently about the stress of facing the multitude of holiday parties packed with cookies, candy, cakes and other problem foods, just as she was making progress on her new and improved healthy meal plan. She resolved to pass on all the junk, noting, "Coming home from a party, I never regret not eating that cookie." She'll wear a bracelet during the holidays to remind her of that observation. It got me thinking about other non-regrets and ways to be happy this holiday season of giving, love and forgiveness. What are some things that you can give up or add on to make your holidays brighter, cheerier, better and calmer? Here are some suggestions! 

During the holidays, no one regrets:

• Not having that last glass of wine. Maybe three is your limit. If so, now's the time to resolve to stick to it. When you arrive home compos mentis, having passed up that offer to stop for an impromptu holiday drink with your ex, you will not feel bad about passing up the wine. Read more here...