Happy Halloween! This time of year brings up a LOT of weight issues for a LOT of women. There are all these holidays and parties and you just sort of feel 
helpless as you look out at the sea of endless food.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Food is a good thing! You can enjoy your holidays and parties and stop fretting over the food. How? By focusing on feeling good. Ok, maybe that sounds nuts, but hear me out.
If you know me, you know I don’t promote weight loss for the sake of weight loss.
What I believe in is taking extremely good care of yourself and having the weight come off as an extra added bonus.
Why?
Because I’ve been in this business since 1997, and in that time I have seen people do all kinds of crazy things to lose weight. And if they lose it, that’s great, but because of the methods they’ve used they usually feel miserable. And constipated. And sometimes their hair falls out.
And I’ve also seen people lose weight as a result of shifting to a healthier lifestyle. And those healthy people are happy.
The point in all of this is- if it’s not about being happy during your brief stay on this planet, then what is it about?
What I can tell you for sure is that it’s NOT about being skinny.
My question for you is- have you busted your butt trying to lose weight only to find yourself exhausted, miserable, possibly overwhelmed with all the ‘work’ that you feel you have to put in to maintain your new shape? But hey, you were skinny, right? Or maybe you put in all that work and you still felt overweight?
I am telling you, it’s just that your focus is in the wrong place. Focus on your health and on feeling good! When you treat your body right, it will find it’s way to it’s ideal weight.
So what does treating your body right mean? I’ll make it as simple as possible for you in 4 steps:
1- Eat foods that make you feel good about yourself. That pretty much sums it up. If you eat something you know to be good for your body, you feel good about yourself. This is not deprivation based, because you are focusing on the good things you are eating. Focus on the positive and the negative just moves aside to make room.
2- Exercise a MINIMUM of 10 minutes a day. Why do I say 10 minutes? Because a few years ago I discovered just how powerful 10 minutes could be. I’d just had a baby and was 30 lbs overweight. I didn’t feel like I had any time, but I had to do something. So I exercised a minimum of 10 minutes a day, and after a few months I lost ALL 30 lbs! But that’s not the main point. The exercise I did boosted my energy and gave me strength to get through that time in my life. Plus, I believe it helped me to enjoy that time as opposed to focusing on feeling sleep deprived and crazy. If you don’t feel like you have enough time, then start with 10 minutes. If you have time to go to the bathroom, you have time for 10 minutes of exercise.
3- Sleep between 7-9 hours per night. Might sound easier than it is. This part of the puzzle has been my biggest struggle, and I have literally had to cut out work in order to fit in 8 hours of sleep between the time I got home from work in the evening and got up to go to work in the morning. Crazy. But I did it. Took small steps. You can, too!
4- Manage your Stress. That’s a big one. One way to do this is to make a list of 10 things that make you feel good and are good for you. Then, when you have that stressed out moment and your head is about to spin off and you can’t think and you’re going for the ice cream, pick up this list and choose something on the list instead.
Start with that and if you forget any of it, just remember the key point. And that is- focus on doing what feels good.
Enjoy!
Your Fitness Coach,
Miranda