It’s Time to Assemble Your Army!

Let’s get real here, life is hard!  It doesn’t matter how many perfect smiling photos you post on Instagram or how many “look at how great my life is” status updates you post on Facebook, the truth is you got problems just like the rest of us!  While I’m not suggesting we start a new social media movement of airing out our dirty laundry for all of the world to see, but perhaps it’s time to stop wearing the ridiculous masks of perfection we’ve been hiding behind for so long! These disguises we so diligently wear create a barricade between our pain and the world around us.  We don’t want others to see our wounds, our scars, our heartbreaks, our disappointments, or our failures in life.  So we stuff those suckers down deep inside, in hopes that they never become exposed for all to see.  Our desire to do this is likely deeply rooted in the fear of being rejected, judged or criticized by our family and friends.  And since they are all busy wearing their own masks of perfection, we’re likely blinded to the fact that they’ve got some issues too and maybe even the same ones as us!  We’re shocked when we hear the news of certain celebrities, who have remarkable talent and seemingly amazing lives, yet, make the decision to prematurely end their own lives.  The personas they present to the public do an amazing job of masking the pain and suffering they were secretly fighting.  While the societal norm may be to mask our pain, suck it up, and hide our scars from the world, in adhering to this trend we are doing ourselves a great disservice.  We were not designed to walk through life or any trial in this life alone, my friends!  Love, encouragement and support serve an essential role to someone who is fighting any life battle.  If we think we’re alone in fighting our battles, we’re more likely to throw in the towel and give up, but if we know there’s someone out there who’s willing to get in the pits with us and stand by our side in the darkest times we’re more likely to keep fighting.

As someone who lost over 160 pounds the old school way of eating healthy and exercising, I can tell you that losing weight is very much a trial!  Certainly, it is not as grim as some life trials may be, but it most definitely is one that will push you to your psychological limits.  There is an old African proverb you’ve likely heard before that says, “it takes a village to raise a child” and from my experience I would pose the argument that it also takes one to successfully lose weight and restore your body!  Trying to lose weight without any support from family and friends can be likened to sending an untrained and unarmed soldier out on the battlefield alone, it likely won’t turn out well for him.  The same is true for weight loss, sure, you can do it solo but without the proper training, equipment and support, the odds are stacked highly against you! When setting a weight loss goal, it’s important to create a plan on how to reach that goal.  I’ve written previously on the importance of having a battle plan and how to create one, here.  After you have created your battle plan, it’s important to assemble your army of supporters to help you reach your goals.  These are your biggest cheerleaders, the people you can call when you mess up and need to be encouraged!  The people who will lift you up when your strength to fight is dwindling.  The ones who remind you of the importance of what you’re fighting for! These are the dear ones who will stand by your side in hard times and also be the first ones to celebrate the victories with you along the way! If you’re ready to conquer the battle of the bulge, it’s time to assemble your army! 

The Most Important Thing You Can Do To Lose Weight

When it comes to losing weight, it’s been estimated that as high as 95% of all diets fail and that even for those who do lose weight on them, it is often gained back within a year.  Clearly for those wanting to lose weight the odds are stacked against you.  It’s no secret that losing weight is hard work, if it were easy and required little effort and commitment, we would all have our dream bodies! But the truth is that like anything worthwhile in life, to lose weight you are going to have to put in hard work, effort, and make sacrifices to reach your goals.  So what is the most important thing you can do to lose weight and avoid failure? You must shift your perspective from the “diet” mentality to having a mindset of being on a lifelong health journey.  Diets are built for failure. They involve strict rules, restrict certain foods, place limitations on calories, etc.  An ideal standard is created for eating and as a result, an “all or nothing” mindset is maintained by those following the diet. So when we mess up and eat a “forbidden” food or go on a binge at a celebration we often give up and quit the diet at that point. The diet mentality is founded on perfection and guess what my friends? None of us are perfect!  There’s going to be parties, holidays, bad days, and stress and those delicious foods are going to be there waiting for us!  If we buy into the diet lie of needing to be perfect all the time, we will never get far.

I’ve shared with readers numerous times that prior to shifting my perspective from the “diet mentality” to the “journey mentality” that I had tried just about every awful diet out there.  I would begin a diet all fired up, make a hundred changes to my diet at one time and follow whatever crazy strict rules were required of me.  I would lose weight, feel better and continue following the prescribed rules….but then life would happen and I would mess up and “cheat” on the diet which would then lead to feelings of guilt, shame, regret, and unworthiness.  These emotions would then create a downward spiral of quitting the diet, eating like a pig again, regaining whatever weight I had lost and ultimately being heavier than when I initially began the diet. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “yo-yo dieter”, I could have been the textbook example of one.  I was an all-star failure of diets for over 10 years of my life! Let me save you some heartache my friend, the sooner you breakdown the walls of perfection that diets require of you and shift to the perspective of being on a lifelong journey to health, the sooner you will be on your way to reaching your goals.  Let’s be honest- you will have bad days, hell, you may have bad months and you are going to mess up but you must develop self-grace and be able to forgive yourself when you mess up and then continue on your journey.  Forgiving yourself is necessary to prevent those lies of guilt, shame, and unworthiness from taking root in your life and enslaving you.  You can’t allow mess ups result in you giving up completely. It’s not about perfection my friends, it’s about persistence! You must continue on your journey and persist despite whatever oppositions you may face or how hard you may fall. When you fall, get right back up again and press on.  Be relentless in your pursuit and remove the option of quitting off the table completely! It’s impossible to fail if failure is not an option! In the end, perfection doesn’t matter, the times you fell will not be counted but what will matter is that you persevered through all of the obstacles and reached your goals!  If you are ready to receive new results, it’s time to break free from the old mindsets that have been imprisoning you to the vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting and step out with the new mindset that will lead you to success!

The Importance of Detoxing and Some Simple and Inexpensive Ways to do it Naturally

Are you feeling sluggish and fatigued, lacking energy? Are you struggling to lose weight despite the fact that you’re eating healthy and exercising? Is your breath kicking? Is your skin breaking out so much you feel like your reliving your teenage years?   If you are experiencing such symptoms, there is a good chance your body is full of toxins and you are in need of a detox!  Despite every effort you may make to eat healthy and avoid obvious toxins, every day you come in contact with and ingest toxins. These little suckers are everywhere- the food you eat, the air you breathe, the water you drink, the skin products you use, the cleaning products you use, the clothing you wear, ….honestly, the list goes on and on.  The truth of the matter is, no matter how hard you try, you can’t completely avoid toxins because we live in a toxic world.  Our bodies are designed to naturally filter out toxins on their own.  The problem is that with the crazy amount of toxins we come in contact with daily, sometimes our systems are unable to keep up with the demand.  When toxins start building up in our systems, we then start experiencing some of the symptoms listed above.  The good news is there are ways you can naturally “assist” your body’s built in detoxifying systems to work quicker and more efficiently at removing the harmful toxins from your system.  There are many great benefits to detoxing your body periodically, such as more energy, eliminating waste, weight loss, a stronger immune system, better skin and hair, better breath, a clearer mind, and overall you will feel much better!  While some people turn to some really drastic measures to detoxify their bodies, such methods are not needed to reap the benefits that detoxing brings.  Here are some simple, inexpensive and natural ways to help detox your body and be on your way to feeling amazing!

1. Water-Drinking water is one of the easiest ways to help your body transport the toxins out of your system. Water is used by all of your body’s “built in” detoxifying systems such as your colon, liver, and kidneys to remove waste from your body.  Consuming enough water daily ensures that these organs function properly and successfully do their job of removing toxins.  Aim at drinking half of your body weight in ounces of water each day to keep your body working efficiently.
2. Lemon water- Lemon water is known to help aid in digestion and also balance the ph levels within your body.  There are many benefits to drinking lemon water every day, especially first thing in the morning, because of its abilities to help eliminate toxins from the body quicker. Dr. Axe, who specializes in using food as medicine, has outlined many of the great benefits of including lemon water in your daily routine in his article, "Benefits of Lemon Water".
3.  Focus on real food- It’s no secret that fruits and vegetables are healthy for you! They are full of vitamins and antioxidants that are vital for a healthy body. Our bodies weren’t designed to run on toxic processed foods and when you eat junk food, your body has to work overtime to filter it out!  By eliminating processed foods and focusing on God made foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins and healthy fats, you won’t be “clogging” your body’s filtration systems with extra toxins and they will be able to do their jobs without added stress. 
4. Sweating- One of the ways your body naturally removes toxins is through the process of sweating.  One of the easiest ways to help remove toxins from your system is to exercise and “sweat it out”. In addition to removing toxins, sweating has many other amazing benefits including clearer skin and boosting your immune system.

Don’t Overlook Emotional Toxins!

Just like you don’t want to let a bunch of environmental toxins build up and hang out in your body, it’s equally important to take some time to evaluate and address the emotional toxins that you may also have built up in your system. Maintaining harmful emotions such as unforgiveness, anger, guilt, shame, and regret that have come as a response to the wounds inflicted by others or by life's disappointments, are incredibly toxic to your health. Letting such harmful emotions build up inside over the months or years without dealing with them is similar to trash piling up in a garbage can, if you don’t take out the trash, it’s eventually going to overflow.  The same is true of your emotional trash, if you don’t deal with it and take it out, it’s going to spill out into and effect your life.  Toxic emotions bring about things like depression, anxiety, hatred, bitterness and ultimately the absence of peace in your life. When peace is gone from our lives, we are quick to self-medicate- we turn to turn to things like alcohol, drugs, prescription pills, sex, and for many…. food.  While all these self-medications may temporarily make us feel better and provide some peace, they are all incredibly addicting, meaning, we have to partake in these things more and more and in greater quantities in order to achieve the temporary fix that they bring us. Eventually, after the “high” wears off, we are still left with the toxic emotions in our system that we wanted to escape initially.  A vast majority of the population claim to be “emotional eaters” and turn to unhealthy “comfort foods” to feel better.  Could the fact that you’ve not emptied your emotional garbage lately be the very thing that is hindering you achieving your weight loss goals?  Detoxing toxic emotions is often times an incredibly painful process, but a necessity in order to live a healthy life.  Forgive those who have wronged you, even if they don't deserve it!  Holding that grudge is only hurting you, not them! Let go of the guilt, shame and regrets of your past.  Shake off those emotional chains that have been enslaving you to your past and breakout into your future! Eliminate those toxic emotions you've been holding onto today and become the beautiful and healthy individual you were made to be!

Tips to help you Stay Sane When Cutting Carbs from your Diet

The holidays are long gone and chances are you, like many of us, are a few weeks into cleaning up your diet in an effort to shed all those holiday cookies and tamales that are clinging for dear life to various parts of your body.  When it comes to weight loss, many choose to lower their carbohydrate intake to help reach their weight loss goal quickly and efficiently.  So if you’ve taken the low carb plunge, welcome to the club! I won’t sugar coat it, the first weeks of cutting the carbs out of your diet seriously suck.  You will likely experience withdrawal symptoms similar to an addict and you will begin to wonder if all this suffering is worth it.  Hang in there, it does get better and believe it or not there will be a day when you won’t even miss bread or pasta!  So if you are on the low carb band wagon here are some tips to help you stay sane those first weeks.

1. Clear out the junk- Seriously anything you can’t eat needs to go! Why torture yourself every time you reach in cupboard to get something by having to have enough willpower to resist that package of your favorite cookies you can’t eat? If you feel guilty about throwing perfectly good food away donate the food to the needy or give it to a skinny friend.
2. Stock your kitchen for success- Do a major shopping trip and stock up on plenty of lean proteins, eggs, low carb dairy, healthy fats, and non-starchy vegetables.  Take a look here for ideas of clean foods to have on hand and also here for essential ingredients to have on hand for healthy cooking.
3.  Make your carbs count- When you are limiting carbs you will want to select the ones you do eat wisely. Choose carbs that have more fiber content in them to keep you full longer.  Include plenty of high fiber vegetables such as spinach and broccoli and also some nuts and seeds such as chia and flax seed which have high fiber contents.  
4. Drink lots of water- There are many benefits to drinking a lot of water when trying to become healthier.  However it’s even more crucial to do so when you cut carbs because your body releases water quickly due to glycogen stores being depleted.  A good goal to aim for is to drink half of your body weight in ounces of water daily.
5. Think outside of the box- Do a quick Google or Pinterest search and you will find a bunch of crazy low carb friends who have come up with creative alternatives for all of your favorite high carb recipes.  Here are a few of my favorite substitutes that make eating less carbs more manageable:

• Almond Flour- I use this in place of breadcrumbs for breading meat and as a baking substitute to make everything from low carb pancakes to low carb pizza crust.
• Cauliflower- This vegetable reigns king as the most versatile vegetable, you may seem skeptical at first, but cauliflower can be used in place of rice, potatoes, and as a flour replacement in pizza crust and breadsticks.
• Zucchini- I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, zucchini can be spiralized into a low carb pasta alternative and it will bring you joy when you're cutting carbs and dreaming of pasta.
• Lettuce leaves- Use in place of buns on your favorite burger, as bread for a sandwich, or in place of a taco shells.

Stay the course my friend, the temporary suffering that comes from lowering your carbohydrate intake will be worth it in the long haul! Sooner than you know it, you will be looking and feeling great!

Cultivating a Grateful Heart to Reach Your Weight Loss Goals

After some recent reflection on my weight loss journey I came to the realization that I was carrying around some extra baggage that needed to be dealt with.  While this “baggage” may not have measured on my scale, it was really weighing me down.  At this point, I have maintained my weight loss for several years but I realized I still wasn’t satisfied with my body.  I would look in a mirror and be disgusted with myself- I would see my arm fat waving back at me, I’d get disappointed that I had a 2 pack instead of a 6 pack, and even though I could lift heavy weights with my legs I’d zone in on the small indentation on my leg and consider my hard work useless.  When people would compliment me about the visible changes I had made to my body, instead of being grateful for their encouraging words, I would respond to them by pointing out one of my flaws. I am so embarrassed by this behavior now but I did this for years my friends!  I just couldn’t accept a compliment from anyone about my weight loss or body because I was weighed down with a flawed perspective, the lens from which I viewed myself and measured my success was blurred.  I was never satisfied! I would reach a goal and not be happy because I had already found 20 new things wrong with myself that needed to be fixed, it was an endless cycle and completely exhausting! I was like a hamster on a wheel, going round and round. In hindsight, it’s so easy now for me to identify that I was an incredibly ungrateful person! The things I didn’t have were blinding me to all the things that I did have! I couldn’t see or celebrate them because I was only fixated on what I didn’t have.  Sometimes in life, we tend to focus on what we want so much, that we fail to recognize and appreciate how far we’ve come. We’re always looking for what’s next, we always want more and we never stop to be thankful for the now.  This flawed mindset is evident throughout our society- we want the newest cars, the trendiest clothes, and people line up for days to buy the newest iPhone even though they have a perfectly good phone already in their pocket!  We focus on better, more, faster… and as a result we’re left feeling empty, never being completely satisfied with what we have.   To be a grateful person is a choice one must consciously make, it’s against most people’s character to be naturally thankful due to our cultural upbringing of being focused on more.

So you may be thinking, yeah all this sounds real nice and all but how the heck does being a thankful person help with weight loss? Our minds are incredibly powerful.  Our thoughts- what we chose to think about and focus on in our minds, often expand and overflow into our lives.   If you are constantly dwelling on what you don’t have, you’ll never be happy with what you do have.  If your mind is flooded with negative thoughts, you’ll constantly be left feeling bad and honestly, it’s hard to make good choices when you feel bad.  If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably experienced some form of emotional eating at some point on your weight loss journey.  Let’s be honest, there are times when life sucks so bad that eating a big bowl of ice cream or maybe straight from the carton (whatever, don’t judge me) is just what you need to feel better.  Chances are if you feel like crap, you’re more likely to eat like crap!  A sound mind is essential for making the necessary good choices each day that help you eventually reach your weight loss goals.  The choice of which mindset you will choose to embrace is yours.  By choosing to maintain an mindset of thanksgiving- being grateful for what you have and how much you have already accomplished, will result in a much more positive outlook in life, making it more possible to make better decisions and reach your goals.  Your grateful heart will become the fertile ground, ready for seeds (goals and accomplishments) to be planted and harvested. A thankful heart is ideal potting soil.  It’s really difficult to grow a dream or goal in bad soil.  Perhaps you’re frustrated that you haven’t made much progress towards your weight loss goal, could it be that you have overlooked the soil you’re planting that goal in?

No matter your circumstance in life, there is always something to be thankful for. You may have to do some serious digging at times but you can always find something to be grateful for.  You may not be where you want to be in life but you can be thankful that you aren’t where you used to be! Each step you take in the right direction, no matter how small it may be, is one to be proud of and thankful for! When I look in the mirror now- yup, still no 6 pack, but I’m thankful I don’t have the baker’s dozen of rolls that I once had! And yes, that arm fat still waves at me sometimes but I’m thankful that I’m able to do all the crazy arm exercises that I once would have never imagined myself being able to do!  Today I’m incredible grateful that I’m no longer a slave to running on that ridiculous hamster wheel of never being satisfied and I encourage you, my friend, to jump off that sucker too!  The quickest exit off is to cultivate a thankful heart and you’ll be amazed at the harvest you’ll begin to reap when you finally have the necessary good soil to grow your goals and dreams in. 

7 Simple Things to Help you Lose Weight Faster

When it comes to losing weight, we want results as quickly as possible. Making healthy changes is never initially fun- giving up all your favorite foods and waking up early to shove your “fluff” into embarrassing spandex pants to hit the gym for a grueling workout session doesn’t exactly seem like much “fun” to most of us.  But if we’re going to make these changes, we better see some results to know our efforts are not in vain, right?  We all know that there is no “quick fix” for weight loss, if there was we would all be skinny!  However, there are some small changes that if implemented into your lifestyle, will help you lose weight faster.  You don’t have to make all of these changes all at once, perhaps try to add one each week.

1. Don’t drink your calories- When you’re cutting calories from your diet, you want to get the most from each calorie you consume.  Most people don’t think much about calories they drink but they can be a huge sabotage to their weight loss efforts. You’d be surprised how many calories are hiding in your favorite Starbucks beverage! It is also best to eliminate alcohol when trying to lose weight.  Besides being empty calories and providing no nutritional benefit to your body, alcoholic beverages completely wreak havoc on your body’s ability to burn fat. Read more about the negative effects of alcohol on weight loss here
2. Eat Breakfast- Mornings can be a hectic time and breakfast seems like an easy thing to eliminate while in a rush to get out the door.  Nutritionists across the board deem breakfast the most important meal of the day and advise never to skip it.  There are numerous studies that show eating breakfast aids in weight loss and also provides many other great health benefits.
3. Get enough sleep- Sleep is an easily overlooked component of weight loss but not getting enough zzz’s will hinder your body’s ability to function properly, including its ability to burn fat. Inadequate amounts of sleep will slow or stall weight loss, even if your eating and workouts are on point!  Aim at getting 7-8 hours of sleep each day so your body can function at optimal levels.
4. Stop eating out- It’s no secret fast food is unhealthy and high in calories and fat and should be avoided.  But your favorite sit down restaurant meals can also impede your weight loss efforts.  Restaurants are notorious for huge portion sizes and even when ordering a healthier option you may be consuming way more calories than you should be.  Also when eating out you don’t always know exactly how your food is being prepared, that grilled chicken you think is healthy may be grilled in heavy amounts of butter or oil and your veggies on the side may be slathered in butter and salt making them not as figure friendly as you thought.  When it comes to weight loss, you’re much better off preparing your own food.
5. Cut out high calorie condiments- Condiments like mayonnaise on your sandwich or dressing on your salad can pack large amounts of calories that can easily be overlooked.  A tablespoon of mayonnaise has around 100 calories and some dressings have over 200 calories per 2 tablespoon serving! If you can’t completely eliminate certain condiments, look for lower calorie substitutes.  There are a lot of great low calorie salad dressings sold in stores or you can make your own substitutes using Greek yogurt or low fat sour cream as substitutes for mayonnaise based dressings.
6. Eat real food- When it comes to weight loss and general health, it’s best to eat whole, unprocessed, God made foods.  The benefits of eliminating processed foods from your diet include weight loss, increased energy, better sleep, less illnesses, better hair and skin, and better moods (eat this). If you think of food like fuel, choosing real food is the optimal grade fuel that you can provide your body with and it will function at it's optimal level when fueled by unprocessed foods. 
7. Move more- Exercise is an obvious component to weight loss, but working out for an hour and then sitting the rest of the day isn’t the mentality we should have.  Every little bit of movement counts, look for ways throughout your day to get extra movement.  Park further away in parking lots, take the stairs instead of the elevator, do some squats while your brushing your teeth or cooking… you get the idea. The more you move, the more you burn!

2017 is Your Year to Rise!

Perhaps 2016 wasn’t all that you hoped it would be and the trials and heartaches that you faced have left you feeling paralyzed, not knowing exactly how to move forward.  I know for me personally, 2016 was one of the most trying and difficult years I’ve ever had to face.  Trial after trial left me feeling like I was walking around with a “kick me” sign on my back and it was hard to take a step forward when I was surrounded by such turmoil!  I wanted to get up and run my race but I was deeply wounded, life’s trials had hit me so hard that I was left feeling like I couldn't move on. Has life ever hit you so hard, you felt like you can’t move?

Success in life has a high price tag and each obstacle and trial that you will face in life has the potential to either make or break you.  If you press on and endure through life’s trials you will eventually reach your finish line and you’ll be thankful for each scar you received on your way there.  Those scars will serve as reminders of how you overcame that which you thought you couldn’t. On the other hand, if you allow a trial to consume you and you stop running your race, that trial just robbed you of ever accomplishing your goal or reaching your finish line.  Trust me, I know all too well just how heartbreaking and painful trials in life can be, but in midst of every trial you will face there comes that pivotal moment- that Rocky Balboa second- when your down on the ground losing the fight and the decision is in your hands to either stay down and give up or to get up again and keep fighting.  Are you going to let the trials, setbacks, disappointments and heartaches in life hold you down?  Or are you going to rise up from the ashes of yesterday’s disappointments and fight for everything you believe in? 

There is always a sense of excitement that comes with the beginning of each new year.  A turning of the page in the book of life; a time to start fresh in pursuing our goals.  Many people make resolutions at the beginning of a new year, which are the personal goals they hope to accomplish in the year ahead.  While they are quick to write these resolutions, they often overlook the idea that in order to be successful in establishing a new mindset or goal, their old destructive mindsets must first be shed. Maybe this is why statistically of all the New Year’s resolutions that are made each year only 8% are actually achieved (Forbes Magazine Online).  We really need to practice what Disney’s character Elsa proclaims so famously in the movie Frozen, we must learn to “Let it go”.  Let go of those hurts that are holding us back, because, really we’re only setting ourselves up for failure when we’re still holding on to disappointments and failures of yesterday.   In order to successfully pursue the new, we must first let go of the old. 

When it comes to weight loss, many have tried before and failed.  They start out each time with a new diet or exercise routine but they fail to fully shed their old destructive mindsets from the past. They have the best intentions to succeed but more times often than not, that negative mindset creeps back in and take over, which results in you guessed it, another failed attempt.  This concept can be seen across the board in people’s lives- it’s why we continue to fail at losing weight, it’s why we have failed relationships, it’s why we return to addictions, and it’s why we get “stuck” in life and are unable to move forward.   If you want the new, you must take the time to address the old and let go of it in order to successfully attain your goal. For me personally, I failed at least 30 times (probably more) at losing my excess weight and keeping it off before I actually succeeded.  My desire for losing weight was the same in each attempt, so what happened that made me successful in my final attempt? Among many other things, it was the shedding of the destructive mindset that I was following a “diet” and having an “all or nothing” approach and now embracing the new mindset that it was a lifelong health journey. It seems so simple now looking back, but it honestly took me over 10 years, a lot of horrible "diets", and a lot of failed attempts to finally make the realization that being on a “diet” would never work and that if I wanted to be healthy I would have to embrace a new mindset.  What destructive mindsets are holding you back from your goals?  I can’t stress the importance for you to take some time to reflect on your past failures and identify the destructive mindsets that you need to let go!

Let 2017 be your year to rise up and achieve your goals.  Shake off those old destructive mindsets and lay to rest the disappointments from your past and step out into the new!  Speak new life into those old dreams and goals that you gave up on because you failed so many times! Let go of how many times you failed- it’s never too late my friend, you’re never too far gone or too old to accomplish your goals or to make new ones! Get a new mind and you will get new results! May 2017 be your year to rise up and boldly fight for the victory in your life!