TOXIC PEOPLE

When my client (at 62 year old man) began a great work out program and became obsessed with getting healthy. His neighbors told him he was being "controlled"--that he needed to seek therapy to go over his recent focus on health. Their fear was that he was brainwashed into a work-out program .
As a hypnotherapist and human being, I understand that we hang on to our present situations (even painful ones) but I am amazed at how hard we try to get others to hang on with us. Over 60% of the population is overweight, so it shouldn't be a surprise that when you go against the norm-you will encounter resistance from your co-workers and friends.
Remember that as you get healthier and slimmer, you may be a constant reminder of the choices your "out of shape" friends are not making. My advice: do NOT do what overweight people are doing. Choose what the healthy people are doing. Keep your focus on being healthy. The rest will follow.

DAY OFF MIND ON

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.

This isn’t about expecting yourself to be perfect either. Do not look at any event as a roadblock or a stumbling point. Instead as an opportunity to shift your mindset and relearn new habits. After all, habit patterns are things you learned. And if you learned them you can unlearn them.

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.

THE BEST TIME TO EXERCISE

People ask me all the time “What is the best form of exercise.” And the other question is “when is the best time to do it.”

Now here’s the big secret. Believe it or not there is a “best” exercise and the “best” time to do it. So get ready!

The best exercise is --- the one you’ll do.

The best time to exercise --- when you’ll do it.

If you are starting a work out program just schedule a time that is convenient for you.

THE BEST FREE ANTI-AGING MEDICINE

Studies indicate that people who exercise can REVERSE the aging of their internal organs by seven years. Other studies indicate men well into their sixties and seventies can increase their muscle strength by 100 percent after just twelve weeks of training.

While your body is getting stronger it also gets leaner. Remember as a result your bodies ability to process glucose increases. And you train your body to constantly burn fat. Not to mention that regular exercise lessens the chances of osteoporosis. Once you get osteoporosis --- you cannot reverse it. But you can slow it down and prevent it with exercise.


Be good to yourself everyday. Develop the habit of exercise everyday. Allow yourself the time. Either you will do the work. Or the work will do you in. Your body is truly a gift and source of wonder. Cherish the gift and take care of yourself so you can experience the possibilities of what your human body can do.

BUSY WORK IS NOT EXERCISE

Don’t confuse your life stuff with exercise. I hear from a lot of women who are moms at home “I exercise all day long. I chase the kids, mow the lawn, do the dishes, the laundry. Why I never stop exercising. “ When I tell them that’s not considered exercising they get confused.

Let me say that if you are capable of lifting fifty pounds --and all day long you lift twenty pounds of laundry, fifteen bags of groceries---at no time are you putting a sustained demand on that muscle. If this weren’t true. Then why do most construction workers waddle?

So you may be tired chasing the dog, mowing the lawn, etc--- but to your muscle it’s just busy work. It must be HIGH INTENSITY for at least twenty minutes or continuous strain on the muscle. You should be moving a major muscle and breaking into a sweat.

You must MAKE time to exercise. And I know—everybody is busy. It’s very fashionable to be busy too. Everyone is busy but you have time to watch TV. If you have time to watch one television show. You have time to exercise.

It’s basic inertia. You put a potato on a coach, it will NOT move. Exercising is crucial to enhancing your life. When you regularly exercise it increases your cell’s ability to absorb glucose.

BURN IT!

Remember when it comes to health and fitness---genes are not a fate. They are just a factor. Genetics tells us how tall we will be, what color our skin will be. But no one has waltzed into my office and asked me to assist them to become “Chinese” “Black” or “taller”. That’s fate. Health and your physical condition---can be altered.

Basically you eat. Proteins are made into amino acids and carbs into sugar. They both go to the liver. Too many carbs the liver doesn’t know what to do with it so it sends it to a thigh or your belly. If you have muscles it goes to the muscles. If you are not using the muscle the muscles say, “(Yawn) I don’t need it. “ And it goes to fat.

The fuel circles around looking for something to connect with. It says “Hey, are there any muscles out there?!”And your body says “No, I just sitting in a chair.” So it keeps going around. Goes to the belly. Nope. Still no muscles.Maybe it goes to the thighs. Maybe it hangs out there for a while. For some people a long long while.

Every time you move the muscles they call the fat cells ---Hopefully they still have the phone number. The muscles say to the fat cell “Hey, you’re not going to believe this but he’s running! Send the fat. We need the fuel here.”

The only way to get rid of fat is to burn it!

INCREASE YOUR METABOLISM

There is no diet that will cure an overweight problem. Yes, you may initially lose weight. But I’ve heard story after story about people who have lost ten pounds on this diet and twenty pounds on another diet. But a diet will not change the problem.

Diet pills do not work for the same reason. I will repeat Diet pills do not work.

Now we are all somewhat familiar with the old standard answer of it’s simply “calories in/calories out” In other words it’s like a scale. If you add stuff on this side—you must add from the other side. Adding more stuff on the left side is like increasing your calories (eating more) When you do this you tip the scale to this side. Adding more exercise to the other side is like balancing the scale.

But humans are passive scales. We are each unique and have a metabolism. Metabolism is the rate at which your body breaks down the nutrients in food to produce energy. You are born with a certain baseline metabolism HOWEVER you can raise your metabolic rate by exercising and building lean muscles.