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There is a lot of awesome action going on right now over at Find Food Peace.  Including photographs by a real photographer (if you are a business/website owner and you have not done this yet- get. on. it!), weekly blog posts on how to create a body & a life you love and a new affordable life coaching program for the masses.

In case you have missed any of my recent posts, here is a quick recap  for you:

Stick To Your Goals With One Easy Step

A Common Mistake That Dieters Make Daily

Love Your Body In A Swimsuit By This Weekend

Lose Your Negative Thoughts In Seconds

The Single Most Important Thing You Can Teach Yourself

How To Become A Happier Person

The Three Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight

If any of these posts speak to you or if you have any burning questions, leave your comments below the blog and I will get back to you ASAP!  I have some spare time carved out of my day just for that 🙂

The Three Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight

**Sign-up to receive my newsletter, which will give you tips to shed all of your unwanted weight, learn how to overcome emotional eating, finally enjoy working out, create emotional health by making yourself a huge priority, and find more time in your life to spend doing the activities you love.  If you’re interested, I will be rolling out a new affordable coaching program this week!  It will only be offered in my newsletter and will be first come, first serve!**

We all have our reasons why we hold onto those few extra pounds.  Perhaps the weight protects you from going after your wildest dreams or maybe you do not have enough time to dedicate to the cause.  However strong your reason is, you can get past it and lose that weight.  As a life coach that specializes in weight loss, I have heard everything in the book.  I have also helped tons of individuals shed their reasons and move forward into living healthy lives.  Here are the three main reasons that are keeping you from losing weight and living a life you deserve.

Reason #1:  Excuses  Excuses are the biggest reason why people get stuck in a world of being overweight and unhappy.  I have heard excuses that range from “I do not love myself enough to lose weight,” to “Putting myself first makes me feel selfish.”  Whatever your excuse is, I have a hunch that you actually believe it.  Know this: Your excuses are not true and they are taking you away from living a life of truth.  The quicker you rid yourself of them, the sooner you can start taking the steps you have been longing for.

Action Plan:  Make a list of all of the excuses why you have held onto the extra weight.  Dig deep here.  Bring every single excuse to the surface and examine why you held onto that thought for so long.  The next time this excuse comes up you know that it is just an excuse and it holds no real meaning.  Let the excuse go and before you know it, you’ve proved that excuse wrong.

Christi Nielsen / Art Photos / CC BY-NC-ND

Reason #2:  Security If you have ever said something along the lines of, “I will start to date once I lose 15 pounds,” or “I will be happy once I lose weight,” then you are using your weight as a security blanket.  You are choosing not to live your life until you look different.  Start living your life right now!   When you allow yourself to do the things that you thought only your “skinny self” could do, you are proving to yourself that you do not deserve happiness right now and riding yourself the opportunity to live in the present.  When you allow yourself to live your life right now, the exact way that you are, you will be surprised what happens to your waistline.

Action Plan:  Jot down all of the things that you are waiting to do until you are at your ideal weight.  Choose one thing on your list and do it this week.  Rock your dreams at any weight and show yourself that happiness is not dependent on your pant size!

Reason #3:  Fear  There are a few different types of fear that can accompany weight loss; fear of making yourself a priority, fear of changing your lifestyle, fear of starvation, fear of working out and fear of being comfortable with oneself.  Whatever type of fear you can identify with, know that once you start working on whatever scares you, the fear will subside.  Remember how terrifying it was the first time you dove off a diving board?  Then you dove, survived, and did it again one hundred more times that day.  Fear can be paralyzing and can keep you from moving for years, or perhaps a lifetime.  Do not just wait for the fear to go away, work through it.

Action Plan:  Identify your fearful thoughts.  Once you have done that, ask yourself these genius questions by Byron Katie, “Is this thought true? Can you absolutely know that this thought is true?  How do you react when you think this thought? Who would you be without this thought?”  Once you put the fears out in the open, they hold less power in your mind.  Bonus: write down a thought that feels truer than your crappy fearful thought.  Set a daily reminder in your calendar with the new and improved thought and watch how your energy shifts.

These three main mental blocks come up time and time again.  They can manifest as a reality in your mind for a long time and convince you of a lot of untrue things.  Once you have worked through these things, start making changes slowly.  Do not shoot out of a cannon and make 100 changes to your life in one week, it’s not sustainable.  Just ask anyone who has cut out all carbs or tried to work out every morning at 5:00 a.m.  Start with small goals and once you have mastered those, move onto the next.  When it feels too hard to continue, take a break for one day.  Pick up wherever you left off the following day and find peace in knowing that you will get there.

**If you enjoyed this article and are interested in working with me one-on-one, contact me at betsy@betsyfrycoaching.com and we can start changing your life next week!  If you’re interested in the brand spankin’ new coaching program that will exclusively roll out in my newsletter next week, then sign-up today!  It is first come, first serve y’all!  This one will book fast.** 

How to love your thighs and your crazy aunt

365 Readers:  It has been awhile since I have posted here and I apologize.  I mentioned in my latest blog that I was cooking up something else.  Although it is not ready yet, I do have some content that I wrote for the new site that I wanted to share with you.   Enjoy it!

How to love your thighs and your crazy aunt

My philosophy for change is easy; you have to let go of your desired outcome and love where you are right now. What does this mean? It means letting go of the painful thoughts of what your life should look like and embracing the picture you have created for yourself right now. This is the first and the most important step that you will take on the road to a healthy life.

How much time and energy are you using everyday thinking about how life should be for you? You should have smaller thighs. You should be in a great relationship. You should be making a lot more money. All of these shoulds are causing you pain and are keeping you stuck in the life that you are in right now. It does not mean that you have to settle for a life without those things, it means you have to embrace where you are to get to where you want to be.

Learning to do this takes patience, persistence and most importantly, self-love. Here are five fun tips to fall in love with who you are right now:

1. Create time to make time.  Find time to care for yourself every single day.  Carving time out of your schedule to tend to only yourself may seem like a luxury that you cannot afford. However, living your life believing that you do not have enough time to tend to your own needs first is even more dangerous. How many times have you heard the spiel from the flight attendants about putting your own oxygen mask on before assisting others? Same thing goes in life.

Action Plan: Make a list of all the things you have to do during your day. Cut out a few of the things that are not necessary or find another way to do it. Ex: Have to clean the house? Enroll your significant other to help or decide that those dirty floors can wait until you have more time. Now take those newly free 30 minutes to exercise, read a book or catch up on a blog. Whatever it is you need that day.  Do it with the same amount of importance that you would have placed on something not so important (aka cleaning the dog hair off your floor).

2. Clear out your contact list. We all have a few people in our lives that drain us mentally, emotionally or physically. It is time to be brutally honest and ask yourself why you keep these people around. I call these people “drainers.” They will continue to drain all of your awesomeness out of you until you no longer have anything to give. Doing a friend a solid is a part of a healthy friendship, doing a friend a lot of solids and having to continually prop them up in their lives is not. Take a look at the people who make you feel alive inside and full of laughter on the outside; those are the people to surround yourself with.

Action Plan: Hopefully just reading that last tip has sparked a name or two in your head. If it did not, it could mean that you do not have anyone like that in your life. Give yourself a high-five for not letting them in!  If you are not sure if you have anyone like that in your life, then ask those light-up-your-life-friends if there are people in your life that you continually talk about because they make you feel crappy. Those LUYLF’s will be honest. Once you have the name(s), slowly let them go. Stop proactively making plans and take your time responding to emails/texts. Take note of how you feel with less of them in your life. If you notice a more positive you, then it is time to let go entirely.

3. Clear out your planner. We are back to looking at that wham-packed schedule of yours. Is there anything on your planner that makes you cringe? Perhaps a happy hour with co-workers and all they do is job bash? Or a dinner date with your Aunt who wants to talk about your recent weight gain?  You do not have to do those things if they make you feel anything but stellar. Those situations will just steer you further and further away from the happy life you are aiming for.

Action Plan: You have a few options here based on what type of person you are or are striving to be. Option A: Cancel the plans and continue to keep them off of your planner in the future. Option B: Inform your co-workers/friends/family that if you get together then whatever it is that you do not want to talk about will not be up for table chat. Then come to the event prepared to listen (sometimes it is more fun to listen than to talk) with a list of suitable topics to discuss. Ex: Aunt Sally, tell me about the first time you fell in love or the biggest adventure of your life. I guarantee that more fun will be had for everyone involved.

4. Ditch the Donuts.  We all have our favorite way of coping with issues in life.  Mine used to be eating copious amounts of donuts until I felt so sick that I (kind of) forgot what my initial problem was.  If you are here, then I am going to assume you turn to food when the times get tough.  What’s your poison?   Be honest to yourself and admit what you do and how you do it.  Do you eat in your car or when nobody else is around?  Or do you wait until you can go to dinner with friends and then it feels more justified?   Everyone has their way of dealing, it’s time to take a look at yours.

Action Plan:  Now that you have identified how you handle the pain in your life, it is time to dig deeper.  What is the pain that you are covering up?  Is it deep-seated and deserves some nurturing from a life coach or therapist?  Is it light-hearted and just needs a friend’s ear?  Figure out what it is and give it the attention that is needed to move forward.   As you are in the process of figuring out your issues, you will have to find new ways to help you get through them.  My favorite way is by going for a run.  It is just me, my rockin’ Les Miserables Pandora Station (not kidding) and my thoughts.  It is freedom in a sports bra clad disguise.   Now it is your turn to figure out what feels better than stuffing down your feelings with a bear-claw.  Lets recap these steps 1. Figure out how you (unhealthily) cope  2. Identify what it is you are trying to cover-up and how to address it  3. Introduce new (healthy) ways to help you cope.

5.  Retrain your brain.  After all of these changes have been implemented into your life you deserve a break.  I do not mean running back to the fridge to celebrate with a pack of Double-Stuff Oreos.   I mean that you need to reward positive behavior in your life with small celebrations that do not include food.  This is going to reinforce the changes you have made and signal the brain that it likes the change.  Change. Is. Good.

Action Plan:  Have fun with this part!  Create a list of all of the ways you can treat yourself for bringing more happiness into your life.  Example:  play fetch with the pooch, meditate for 5 minutes, drink a cup of tea, go to yoga, read a chapter in your favorite book, call a friend or zone out on a trashy reality show that you will not admit to anyone you watch.  Once you have your list completed, reward yourself every time that you complete an item from the list above.  Make sure that while you are integrating these rewards into your life that you are dubbing them that.  You deserve this reward girl, rawr!   Side Note:  feel free to add in animal noises if it makes you feel sassy!

These are the first steps in learning how to move forward in your life without making life altering changes.  When you add these in you will enjoy where you are and in return, stop yearning for those shoulds.  After all, those shoulds do not really exist.  They are just what you have created in your head to keep you in a safe place, paralyzed by fear.    Ready to make some of these changes?  In the comment section below, write about what things you gave up, what you added in and how life feels different.

Days 268-272: Lots of Sweat & Rain

Day 268:   I am starting to think that keeping up with the blog is harder than the working out!  This week was filled with lots of sweaty, humid, rainy runs.  Starting with a four mile run on the 4th!   The air in Denver was thick with smoke from Wyoming wildfires, which proved to make my run a bit tricky.  Luckily, I ran early in the morning before the air quality was too bad.

Days 269 & 270:  4 mile runs to the park both days and biking to/from work.

Day 271: Yesterday I biked to and from work and tagged on a few extra miles thinking that was all I was going to have time for before a storm hit.  Once I got home, I decided to go to Core Power for a Saturday evening sculpt class. Due to my newest Yoga Sculpt addiction,  I made the decision to buy an unlimited month at the nearest studio to add some definition to my guns pronto.    The 60 minute class has bursts of cardio, weight training and yoga poses.  It really is the perfect combination.

Day 272:  This morning Mike and I rode our bikes to lululemon to join their 4 mile run club.  We started out in the same running group for about a mile and then Mike naturally went with the fastest group at an 8:30 pace and I finished with a different group at a 9:30 pace.  Afterwards, we grabbed coffees and walked around the Cherry Creek Arts festival.  We fell in love with lots of art that we could never afford, dreamt of what our house is going to look like in a few months and then rode our bikes home (very quickly) in the rain.

It’s been quite the week, jammed with lots more last-minute wedding planning and holiday playing.  Five more weeks until the big day and again, my apologies for the blog slacking lately.   It will pick back up over the next few weeks!

Day 170: Find Your Motivation

Day 170:   This afternoon all I wanted was to go on a long walk with Mike through Washington Park for my workout.  We walked hand-in-hand for 45 minutes while dodging park geese and talking about life.  Then something strange happened:  I became motivated to do more.  We watched runner after runner after runner, jogging by us with their music blasting in their ears.  I wanted that.

We came home and I changed into my run gear and slipped out the door and back towards the park for 5.4 miles.  Paula Abdul sang her heart out and I ran my legs to exhaustion.  Thanks to my fellow runners who continue to inspire my sweat every single day.

I had a reader write in and ask me to include what I eat/drink on a daily basis to stay energized.  I loved that someone was that interested in how I fuel myself and it also made me wonder how I feel about broadcasting my not so perfect diet on the web.   Below is my food journal for today (which happens to be a decent day of eating), but this is not how I always eat.  I listen to my body, I allow my cravings to have what they want and I eat (almost) everything in moderation.  It’s a big change from what my eating patterns used to be and still light-years from what I would truly want my diet to look  like.

Breakfast:  Steel cut oats, flax-seed meal, banana and a cup of coffee with almond milk

Snack: Carrots and a handful of pretzels

Lunch: A tofu burger with low-fat cheese, cantaloupe

Snack:  Granola bar and more cantaloupe

Dinner:  Smoothie with 3 cups spinach, 2 scoops protein powder, 4 huge strawberries, frozen mango

Desert:  bowl of vanilla yogurt

Drinks:  7 glasses of water and one glass of almond milk

My eating is a continuing  battle and ALWAYS a work in progress.  I have had an ugly past ridden with eating disorders, body image issues and consistent pain that revolved around food.  After seeking my own coach for the problems I had, I  began coaching others on how to get through their own eating struggles to find freedom and peace.  It’s hard work, but each client reminds me over and over again of how rewarding the dedication to ending their food battle can be.

Jeesh, so long story short?  I am going to start adding some all-star recipes in with my blog.  Have any you love?  Send them my way, betsysalzler@moxie-coaching.com   My fiance would appreciate it 🙂