YOUR MIND IS ALWAYS LABORING

If you are worried about that Labor day barbeque because you are uncertain if you can make a healthy choice ask yourself if you are using this event to predict failure. Be honest with yourself in an effort to recognize the situations and circumstances where you need to retrain yourself. You should take 100% responsibility for your choices.

You can help retrain yourself by repeating certain new habits such as eating slowly. Not only chewing your food slowly but also placing your utensil down between each bite and do not pick it up until you have completely chewed and swallowed each piece. Make a commitment to eat only at the table and do not pick at the food while it's cooking. You can serve yourself on a smaller plate and leave at least a bite of each item on the plate. This will help you train yourself to stop eating when you are full.

Think your choices through. Behavior modification works only if you are consistently repeating new behaviors.

YOU CAN GET SOME SATISFACTION

It was brought to my attention that some foreign languages have completely different definitions for satisfaction and pleasure. In fact, the two words are not as closely linked as in the English language.

In short, pleasure defines more immediate/short term gratification while satisfaction was more long term.

When it comes to health and fitness the emphasis is more long term. Therefore it makes sense to consider the satisfaction of making certain choices rather than the immediate gratification.

Yes, one should enjoy the pleasures of life. And certainly there are many to be found without sacrificing the long term gain.

WHAT ARE YOU REALLY DEPRIVING YOURSELF OF

When it comes to choosing strictly healthy foods---the battle cry for some overweight persons is typically “I don’t want to deprive myself” or “you have to live”. May I suggest that if having a piece of pie is the highlight of your life, perhaps you need to re examine your life. And what are you really depriving yourself of? Think about it? What has over eating really cost you? Think about what you really want.