It’s easy to let things slip, to let the days pass whilst achieving little. So easy in fact that when it comes to actually looking at where you are in life you can be suprised at how much time has been wasted in procrastination and mindless habits. Which is why you should take time regularly to give yourself an honest appraisal of your current life situation and how it synchs up with what you want out of life and the goals you want to pursue.
Do you get that nagging feeling that you should be taking better care of yourself through diet and exercise?
Have you felt your professional life isn’t go as planned, or you’ve been putting off personal projects that need your attention?
Have you got that nagging feeling in some of your relationships?
At one time or another, we all feel that things are not quite going as we want, but rarely do we always face up to the issues. The key is to not hide away, but to face these things and while you’re at it, look honestly at all aspects of your life.
A life appraisal
Look at your situation, look at your daily habits and your routine, be as harsh as possible and give yourself an honest, blunt appraisal. The really brave will also ask trusted friends and family for their opinions on where improvements can be made.
Look at your present situation, warts and all, but dont wallow in it - face it. Once you face it, you can work out how to solve it. It often helps to split an appraisal into two areas:
Mindless habits
What are the habits I have that need changing? A habit is something you do, often without consciously thinking about it or the long term consequences.
If you smoke, think honestly about what you are doing and why. Does this really marry up to the goals you have?
Procrastination
What am I putting off until tomorrow?
Quote: Apollo Creed - “There is no tomorrow!”
If you haven’t worked out regularly, ask yourself why not? What is it that stops you going, what gets in the way?
Or maybe it’s a personal project that you’ve been delaying, because the sheer volume of work is putting you off.
Face your fear, take the actions to conquer it and you’ll find that actually the biggest thing you were fearing was the fear itself. Every issue can be solved by taking the steps to overcome it, everything can be broken down into achievable goals.
Planning & Action steps
You want to rewrite your negative habits into positive ones and you want to stop procrastinating and get into motion. You can’t do this without a plan of action, you need to know what must be done and when.
For this, you need a list of your long term goals and then the monthly, weekly & daily goals you will need to do to achieve them.
Say you want to lose 10% in bodyfat. There are steps you must take to achieve this: Monthy, weekly and more importantly daily steps and tasks to reach your goal. But to see the end result you must be honest with where you are now and your current actions.
Face it, are you ever going to be able to achieve great flexibility if you stretch once a week? Will you ever reach your bodyfat goal if you keep putting off your diet plan and cardio routines. Once you face the issues you can identify the tasks to overcome the obstacles and plan your route to success.
I truly believe facing your fear outright is far better than living indefinitely with that horrible nagging feeling that you could be achieving more. As long as we dont take action we will remain stagnant and we will not be able to achieve our goals to the best of our abilities.
Strive to be the best you can, analyse where you are, face the reality then plan and take the required action to reach your goals.
February 16th, 2009
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
February 11th, 2009
What you eat, and more importantly how much, is key in the fight to losing bodyfat. Cardiovascular exercise plays a large part, but your approach to nutrition and portion sizes can make the difference between success and failure in your traning.
That being the case here are 5 tips for helping control your portion sizes:
1. Eat frequently
Eat regular, smaller meals thoughout the day. Not only will this help regulate your blood sugar levels, giving you more energy, it will also stop you from getting too hungy and gorging at your next meal. As a guide try to eat smaller meals every three hours, aiming to eat 6 times a day. With each meal you should try to have a serving of carbohydrates, protein and fat.
2. Eat slowly
It takes approx 20 minutes for your body to realise that it is full. Eating slowly and properly chewing your food will help the body with digestion which in turn will mean your body gets more out of the food. Take the time to really savour your food and you’ll find you’ll want less, it’s quality not quantity.
3. Eat Salad
Feeling hungry? At the dinner table, starting off with a salad is a great way from curbing hunger. A salad contains few calories, lots of nutrients and is easily digestible. On it’s own a salad is perfect, but if you find you need to make it more exciting with a salad dressing be careful not to add too much as this can really hike up the calories.
4. Plan and prepare your own meals
If you fail to plan you plan to fail as the old saying goes. Planning and preparing your own meals in advance is perhaps one of the most important things you can do to help with fat loss. Not only will you know exactely what you will be eating the next day, you will also know exactely what ingredients are going into your meals.
As this becomes a habit you’ll begin to be able to ‘eyeball’ portion sizes elsewhere, making it less likely that you’ll overeat.
You’ll also be less likely to accept that offer of a doughnut at work when you know you’ve prepared your own healthy afternoon snack!
5. Know yourself
With all the good intentions in the world, what are you likely to do if you walk into a restaurant with a buffet? If you miss a meal, what are the chances that you’ll gorge on the next one? If you buy a large bar of chocolate are you going to be able to have a small bit and save the rest for another time?
It all comes down to knowing yourself and your habits. Sure, habits can be changed, but is it not better to remove yourself from the temptation?
Implementing these tips and making them daily habits could really help you reduce bodyfat. Why go on a crazy diet temporarily when you can add 5 simple guidelines to your life?
Good luck in your health and fitness journey.
January 12th, 2009
“Hopelessness is only a state of mind, therefore impossibilities are only illusions.”
January 7th, 2009
It’s been said that we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with. Think about that for a second, we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with.
In essence, we become who we ’sit with’ and this happens for a multitude of reasons, we want to fit in, we choose not to challenge the common beliefs that others have, or perhaps we get into a routine with our friends and family that’s not as good as it could be. It’s important to remember that our associations with others affect our outlook on life and they may also dictate what we hope to achieve and what our expectations of the future may hold.
But, whilst these assocations can have a huge impact on us, it’s important to remember that it’s not just the people we choose to spend time with that make us. Let’s take it a step further:
- What do you regularly eat and drink?
- What do you regularly watch or listen to?
- What kind of things do you read?
- Perhaps most importantly, what are the most common thoughts or beliefs that run through your head unchecked?
All these ‘choices’ influence you just as greatly as who you choose to spend time with. So, where are you at and what can you do?
Friends and Family
Look at who you currently spend a lot of time with, are these relationships taking you in a positive or negative direction? If you need to, try to disassociate yourself from negative people in your life. This obviously gets much harder if these people are very close to you. In this case, try to limit the time spent with them. Most importantly, seek out positive, life affirming people who make you feel good when you are around them.
Nutrition
If you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with, you are most definitely the average of the 5 foods you eat the most! Our body needs food to rebuild and replenish itself, when you think about it like that we very much do become what we eat. The right foods can heal and repair us, they can put us in a good mood and give us energy and vitality. The wrong foods can do the exact opposite.
Again, take a look at where you currently are by starting to keep a diary of the foods you eat. From here you will be able to see where you can make improvements.
Other inputs
Do you watch dreary, negative programmes on TV? Read trashy magazines or papers that sensationalize the news. Or do you watch, listen and read things that inspire and motivate you? Are you constantly learning? You see where we are going with this.
Your thoughts
We’ve all heard of the power of positive thinking. It’s been said that we have around 3,000 thoughts per day, that’s a huge amount. Most of these thoughts we accept and allow to go unchallenged. You become what you think about the most so why not ditch the negative thoughts and change your thinking to reflect who you want to be.
The most important thing to remember is that you have control of the inputs in your life, you make the choices and ultimately make the decision of who you want to be.
January 6th, 2009
“Every passing moment you have a chance to turn it all around”
January 3rd, 2009
