Think Yourself Fit

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You don’t have to be an Olympic athlete to picture yourself living a healthy lifestyle, making positive choices, and reaching your goals. Take some time each day to visualize yourself exercising and enjoying it! When you imagine yourself doing well and having a good time, your thoughts will be positive and you will be more likely to do the very things (like workout regularly) that will help you reach your goals.

As in most of life, your attitude will determine how well you do. Believe in yourself and talk positively to yourself, just as you would encourage a friend or loved one. Tell yourself that you CAN do it! Visualize yourself living healthy and exercising and your body (and actions) will follow. Remember that negative talk will bring you down, but staying positive will help you to think yourself fit!

Taken From
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/motivation_articles.asp?id=1012

Rekindle Yourself

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If you have struggled to follow through with your New Year’s Resolution, remember it’sonly February. It’s not too late to reorganize yourself and rekindle your commitment.

One of the biggest mistakes that resolution-makers do is make unrealistic resolutions thatare almost impossible to keep. They think that if the goal is difficult to reach then theywill be motivated to strive to reach it. Actually, setting goals too high is one of thebiggest reasons people break resolutions, so bring your goal down a notch. For example,if you originally aimed to lose 10 pounds each month, drop it down to 5 pounds permonth. Notice how good it feels to actually meet or exceed your goal month after month.If you kept the weight loss going all year, assuming you need to, you could reach aweight loss of 60 pounds or more! Five pounds per month doesn’t sound exciting, but 60pounds per year certainly does.

Get beyond vague ideas such as “I’m going to lose 30 pounds this year.” The questionthat needs to be answered is, “How will I lose 30 pounds in a year?” You need a plan.How much exercise can you commit to per week (minutes per workout and days perweek)? What time of day will you exercise? The key is setting specific, attainable minigoalsto help you reach your resolution or goal. For example, resolving to exercise moreis too vague; instead, promise yourself, for example, to walk outdoors four times a weekfor 30 minutes before going to work.

Make a contract with yourself and write it down on paper. The saying going “If youwrite it, you own it. Place the contract where you’ll see it regularly, such as therefrigerator door or your desk. Look inward and persevere. If you fall off track, get backon track the very next morning! Lapses will happen - we’re all human, we all experienceholidays or other bumps in the road regularly. It’s never too late to pick up where you leftoff or to restart. The big thing when you fall off track is to prevent the lapse from turning into a relapse (lasting weeks) or a collapse (lasting months or years). People who don’tbeat themselves up, but instead, take lapses in stride and restart are the most successful atmaintaining healthy lifestyles long-term.

Taken fromhttps://www.brighamandwomens.org/healtheweightforwomen/special_topics/recommit_to_resolutions.pdf

Basics for 1200 Calorie Exchange Plan

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Information on 1200 Calorie Exchange Plan and Low Carbs.

http://www.swedish.org/114493.cfm

Watch Those Portions!

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A new study confirms that people have difficulty judging how much food they eat. This can pose a problem since excessive amounts of food are frequently available to us. Ideally, our internal hunger signals would guide us to eat just the right amount of food for our needs. Unfortunately, studies show that external influences distract many of us from following our body signals.

The increase in restaurant portions is equally troublesome, since many Americans eat out frequently. The excess portions can affect our health. An order of pasta, for example, is often three cups. For those with calorie needs at the lower end of the spectrum, like inactive women and older adults, that’s all six of the daily grain servings, recommended by the Food Guide Pyramid, in one meal.

Thankfully, people can improve their ability to estimate portions. In one study, people first misjudged the amounts of different food portions by 33 to almost 200 percent. After some brief training looking at labeled portions and learning a few shortcuts, their ability improved markedly. Then with some practice measuring foods, the people were able to correctly guess the size of portions without error or with no more than 24 percent error - a huge improvement from the beginning of the study.

Taken From

http://diabeticgourmet.com/articles/403.shtml

My Assignment for the next 2 weeks, Measure Cereal, Peanut Butter, and other foods that I eat frequently that I know I am overeating.

Funny thing: Watching Good Morning America, and Bob is on from Biggest Loser, saying to measure your food and train yourself on poriton size before eyeballing it. LOL. A sign for me, perhaps?