Your mental state before you start a workout can play a big part in how that workout goes. Yes, working out can help improve your mental state by pumping those endorphins through and relieving stress. But who wants to just “get” through a workout? Enjoying the workout and being proud of it is so much more beneficial.

We all have those days that we just don’t want to workout, but we do anyway. Take notice of how many days in a row those feelings are happening. You may need to make some transitions.

For one thing your really going to have to change your attitude about working out. What is it that has you thinking “I don’t wanna”? Double check it’s not a negative person you are around that is encouraging these thoughts. It may be subtle, but if they feel guilty about not working out and are jealous of your motivation, they could be sabotaging your workouts.

It could be time for a change. I know for me, I’ve been working out in the same little gym for 3 years now. The only classes we have are the one’s I put together and they have to be some kind of circuit training or small bootcamp. We just don’t have the room for more. I love my gym, but after 3 years of the same thing, I can honestly tell you I’m getting bored. My husband has had the same issue. So I will be adding some new fitness Dvd’s at home, I’m going to check into the yoga class through our parks & rec and there is always fitv for some free workouts to change things up.

By going into your workouts with a better attitude you are ensured to get much more from it. Enjoying your workout will help you push harder. You’ll improve your cardio, your stability, your muscle strength much faster if you push it.

How long has it been since you’ve written down goals? Business, personal, family, weight loss; do you have the goals solidified?

Today I met with a client that has a big number to lose. She’d love to lose 60 pounds by March. But as she said this goal out loud she’s rolling her eyes and telling me that she knows it’s unrealistic.

She’s right and wrong. If we can’t break the defeated mindset, then yes, it’s unrealistic. But after session I put pen to paper and pulled out my planner.

As of today there are 16 weeks left in the year. 2 pounds is a great weekly weight loss goal. Those two numbers multiply into 32 pounds! That’s just to the end of the year. Add in another 10 weeks to mid-March and she’d be at 52 pounds. Not quite the 60, but really darn close and we know she can kick some higher numbers here and there to really get it.

The look on her face was priceless as I handed her the post-it note to keep. 60 pounds doesn’t look so far away when you map it out 2 pounds at a time. Goals are attainable when you set them on paper and map out a plan to get there.

You diet, drop a few pounds and then put it back on again. Consequently you do the same thing over and over again and it just gets frustrating. Sound familiar? Well it’s time to break out of the cycle and learn how to lose weight effectively- without a fancy diet.

Here are some rules that can help weight loss:

• Enjoy your body and ditch guilt. Often, women in particular, focus on their flaws and ignore what is brilliant about their bodies. So what if you are carrying a bit of extra weight? Try not to focus outwardly on your body, it is an amazing machine that serves you well. In the end, with good diet and exercise you will get where you want to be, so appreciate what you have for now. Don’t feel guilty for indulging every now and then either, you might regret eating something, but don’t see it as a failure, just something you enjoyed at the time. You can work it off later.
• See food for what it is. Food is the tool to sustain your body and keep you going. Don’t turn to food when you are bored, so many people make this mistake. Keep yourself occupied and just see food for what it really is, something you need when you are hungry, this is the only time you should eat.
• Plan your work outs.. If you schedule time for a work out then you are more likely to do it: if you feel like ditching it then consider whether what you plan to do instead is really worth it. Give yourself incentive by buying new exercise clothes regularly as you drop weight. If you know you are exercising regularly you will feel less guilty when you indulge on a night out or suchlike as you know you will burn it off the next day.
• Rotate exercises. If you think about it, if you do the same exercise repeatedly then you are just working one part of your body constantly and leaving others as they are. Although you may want to target one area, it is important for overall health that you work your whole body. Varying exercise makes it less boring and also helps you lose weight faster. Try to avoid going to a regular classes that focus on one body part and use a variety of equipment or exercises instead.
• Use weights. Use weights that push you. Don’t worry about looking too muscular, weights can also just help to tone your body. Try doing 15 reps, twice a day, 3 days a week. Your body works hard to maintain muscle when you have it so, the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn, even when resting.
• Ignore the scales. Don’t constantly look at the scales. Monitor your health on whether you feel good. Don’t just restrict yourself to a number. If you are exercising and building up muscle you may not lose much weight anyway, as muscle weighs more than fat.

Try to get out of a diet mindset, healthy eating and regular exercise is the best plan to lose weight; and remember the rules above.

No matter how hard we try to stick to a healthy lifestyle, sooner or later we all trip and start eating some junk food, or skip our exercise program
for a few days.  It happens, so don’t beat yourself up about it.  At the same time you want to make sure you get back on track as soon as possible.
After all, you don’t want to get too comfortable where you are.  Her are some tips to help you get back into a routine that includes healthy eating
and daily exercise.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

The most important thing when you fall off the healthy eating wagon is to not beat yourself up about it.  Sure, it wasn’t what you had planned, but
we all give in to cravings sometimes.  Forgive yourself for it and move on.  If you don’t you’ll get into a vicious cycle of feeling guilty, which gets
you depressed, which makes you eat.  Because you eat even more junk food to ease the pain from feeling guilty, you get yourself in even deeper.  Before you know it, you’ll just give up yet again and slip back into your old
eating habits.  Don’t let this happen again, forgive yourself for slipping
and then…

Get Started Again

Get right back into your healthy eating routine.  Don’t allow yourself to give up.  Fix a yummy salad, snack on some fruit or fix some grilled
chicken and vegetables for dinner.  If you are subscribed to the Healthy Menu Mailer, prepare the dinner on the menu tonight.  The sooner you get back into your healthy eating habits after overindulging, the better.  Your blood sugar will normalize, avoiding additional sugar spikes that could result in more cravings.  It also helps to drink plenty of water if you feel like more of the foods that you really shouldn’t be eating.  Distract yourself, if those bags of chips or the pie in the fridge are still calling you.

Keep a Log or Journal

You may also want to start a food and exercise log or journal.  This doesn’t have to be anything complicated.  A simple spiral-bound notebook
will do.  Write down what and how much you ate every day, how many glasses of water you drank and how much you exercised.  A weight loss journal is great way to create accountability.  Because you know you will have to write down that bowl of ice cream you’re thinking of eating, you will skip it and pick up some frozen grapes or some fresh berries instead.  Your journal can also be a big motivator.  When you feel like giving up, review it and look at how much progress you have made in the past weeks.

Take these tips to heart when you do slip and get back on track with your healthy eating habits and weight loss efforts as soon as possible.  A
healthy menu planner like Healthy Menu Mailer can help you stay on track with your healthy eating.

There are many times in your life that you might want to have the help of a personal trainer, and doing aerobic exercise is certainly one of those times. This is a situation in which a personal trainer can really help you get the most out of your fitness goals and can really help you figure out where you should go next when it comes to working out.

It is very easy to find a trainer to help you with your aerobic exercise. The most important thing is that you are able to find a trainer that understands who you are and can help you be the best that you can be. There are many types of trainers that might fit this idea, so you have to be sure that you find one that really makes you feel comfortable. It might seem like a trainer that stresses you out would be good for your working out, but in the long run you might end up getting more frustrated and you might not end up doing as well as you’d like to do.

The point of having a personal trainer is that you are really allowed to be yourself and to do the best that you can do on your own. This means that you have to be willing to work with the aid of a trainer, but when it comes down to it you have to be able to take care of yourself and get yourself in better shape. Your person trainer must be someone who is going to encourage you but also someone who is going to be willing to let you be yourself and work at your own pace.

When you have a personal trainer for aerobic exercise, you can count on one thing—you are going to have motivation. Often, aerobic exercise is something that is easy to forget about and something that is easy to put on the back burner because of other things that come up. With your personal trainer you’ll find that it is much harder to get out of working, so you are going to be more likely to get your workout done. As long as you can find a personal trainer that is willing to work with you and that is willing to work with any conditions that you might have, you will find that this can be most beneficial for you and you’ll be able to be very happy when it comes to the amount of work that you have done.

What is your real reason for losing weight?

I will admit it…I’m vain and competitive and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I do want to keep myself healthy, but those other 2 reasons beat it any day.  I have found that I become stagnate if I don’t have a race or sport goal in mind as well.  But this is just how I work, you need to find what works for you.

Celebrate each success along the way and enjoy the way your body looks at each step. It makes all the work more worth it.

What was your latest “I’ve got to get healthy moment”?

My last moment had a couple of different aspects to it.

In Jan of 04 my Aunt gave me pictures from my other Aunt’s wedding that Summer before. I literally couldn’t tell it was me. I had no idea how I had gotten to that to point. I knew I was overweight cause I had just hit 197 and knew I wasn’t going over 200. (that was the other aspect to the moment) But I had no idea of all the rolls that were going on around my body.

It was an unflattering picture of me sitting back in a chair, but that doesn’t matter. It was still a me that I never want to see again. It was literally like one of those jenny craig before/after commercials.

I know we constantly hear and say, I’m going on a diet tomorrow. I’ll go to the gym..tomorrow. There is no tomorrow, there is only today. So think of what you can do at this moment to better yourself.

Food wise: Eat a salad with dinner. Eat a piece of fruit with lunch. Have a sandwich with carrot sticks instead of potato chips.

Fitness wise: Take the stairs. Do extra stairs at home. Walk to the mailbox. Park farther away from the door. Do laundry while watching tv, it keeps you moving (folding) while you are sitting.

Mind wise: Get that book you have wanted to read. Buy on ebay, 1/2 price or go to the library. Take a looooonnnnng bubble bath and hold no guilt, you deserve it. Light a candle while you are doing dishes, it will make it more tranquil while you are contemplating all you have to do tomorrow.

In order to succeed you need to have your goals written down. Then pick one of those goals and break it down into small “bite size” chunks to work on. Each week work another piece of the goal into your daily schedule. By the end of 6-8 weeks you will have turned that new goal into a good habit.

This was posted on one of my favorite boards. Oh so true!

Only One Pound

Hello! Do you know me?
If you don’t, you should. I’m a pound of fat.
And I am the happiest pound of fat that you would ever want to meet.
Want to know why?
It’s because no one ever wants to lose me;
I’m ONLY ONE POUND, just a pound!
Everyone wants to lose three pounds, five pounds, or fifteen pounds, but never only one.
So I just stick around and happily keep you fat.
Then I add to myself, ever so slyly, so that you never seem to notice it.
That is until I’ve grown to ten, twenty, thirty or even more pounds in weight.
Yes, it’s fun being ONLY ONE POUND OF FAT, left to do as I please.
So, when you weigh in, keep right on saying, “Oh, I only lost one pound.”
(As if that were such a terrible thing)
For you see, if you do this, you’ll encourage others to keep me around because they’ll think I’m not worth losing.
And, I love being around you – your arms, your legs, your chin, your hips and every part of you.
Happy Days!!!
After all, I’m ONLY ONE POUND OF FAT!!!

-Author Unknown