While the number of calories you take in each day is not the only determining factor of your success, it is one of the most important.  To lose one pound of fat, you need to burn 3500 calories and that is the math.  While not all calories are created equally, knowing what and how much you are eating is a must for long term success, at least until you learn what a healthy meal is and what are considered “normal portion” sizes.  Your calories consumed each day are individual to you based on your weight, activity level, amount of body fat versus lean muscle etc.  Invest the time to determine what is right for you and make that you calorie target each day.  And yes, things eaten while standing and on holidays do count!

Do you know the look?  The look you get in the grocery store when they are glancing into your cart to see what you are buying.  At a restaurant, when others are looking to see what you have ordered for your meal.  Especially difficult for me is in the line to board a plane when I imagine everyone is hoping they won’t be sitting next to me.
The look is about “being judged.”

I start imagining the conversations they are having in their mind in my own mind:

“She obviously does not have any will power”
“She must be very lazy”
“You can tell she doesn’t care what she looks like”
“She must be stupid or at least not very smart”
“I doubt she is very successful in life being that much overweight”
“What a loser and why doesn’t she just eat less”

And worse, I start arguing back with them in my head.

“You have no idea how much will power it takes to walk onto this plane knowing what you are thinking”
“Lazy?  I probably do more in one day than you do in a week”
“You have no idea what I am feeling”
“I am fabulously successful in every area of my life, except my weight. How successful are you and what does what I weigh have to do with it anyway?”

To achieve and maintain a healthy weight I need to do three important things:

1.  Healthy, clean eating, with a variety of foods all in reasonable portions.
2.  Exercise in some way every day.
3.  Have a healthy mindset which is congruent with a healthy lifestyle.

At The Healthy Breakfast Club this morning we talked about an article by Charles E Henderson, Ph.D. called “Some Real Reasons Why People have Weight Control Problems.  Dr. Henderson listed 4 categories of reasons including environment, health, conscious and sub conscious.

He listed as the conscious reasons eating to feel good, lack of nutritional information and insufficient exercise.  However, it was in the list of subconscious reasons I found the root of most of my struggles.  How I describe them include eating to fill a void, loneliness, fear of rejection by loved ones, fear of jealousy, fear of being vulnerable and daring people to love and respect us in spite of our weight to measure their genuineness.

In creating a congruent healthy lifestyle and mindset, it can be easier to start with creating healthy daily routines.  You can make one decision or one step or one small change towards health and then implement it immediately.  For example, when I first joined Beachbody my exercise goal was to walk non-stop for three minutes for three days.  For the next four days, I walked for four minutes nonstop.  And then I moved to five days of five minutes etc.  You get the point.  Was it a huge step?  Heck no!  Was it a step?   Yes, lots of them building on one another and creating congruency.

I have heard that Rome was not built in a day.  And I am choosing to take one step each day and improve the quality of my life.  On a call yesterday for one of my businesses are expert speaker shared “Consistency over time creates results.”  That is what my goal is.  To consistently take steps which are in the right direction.

What step are you prepared to take today?  My next action after writing this will be to go to the kitchen and prepare a healthy, balanced breakfast before I do anything else.

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Weight control would be much simpler if the reasons people consciously believe for their overweight were true.   But they are not.

~ Dr. Charles Henderson