Who are you?
How do you define yourself? Are you your career? Are you your weight? Are you your relationships? Who are you? This might seem like a weird question but I guess what I really want to know is, do you like you? Are you happy? Do you embrace all parts of yourself? Do you see yourself as multidimensional? Do you feel like you could like yourself more, be happier? Do you believe there are areas of yourself or lifestyle that could be changed to improve the quality of your day-to-day life?
October is about change and yes, as a nutritionist I tend to focus on dietary change but food or diet is just one piece of a full life. The idea of dietary change is a way to increase your overall enjoyment or quality of life. When you feel good everything is better.
If you feel good, feel happy and have zero health concerns or complaints rock on! Keep doing what you’re doing. However, if you’re someone dealing with one or more common (not normal) symptoms associated with body dysfunction like heartburn, brain fog, fatigue, gas, bloating, belly fat, headaches, depression, anxiety, skin rashes, constipation, diarrhea, high blood sugar and the like then dietary changes could be a simple tweak to boost your level of joy and increase your overall quality of life.
Embrace Your Life
Take a second and think of all the good things in your life. The things that make you happy. Being happy is a beautiful thing. When you’re happy you pulse with beauty and positivity that is infectious and draws more happiness and positivity to you.
When I talk about dietary change, it’s as a tool to help you feel your best so you can increase your happiness and allow your personal beauty to shine on everyone around you. You are beautiful, but if your body isn’t functioning as well as it could your happiness and beauty may not be shining as brightly as they could be.
You deserve to shine. You and everyone around you, your friends, your family, your co-workers all deserve to basque in your glow!
Reset & Feel Good
Dietary changes help you reset your ‘feel good’ thermostat which in turn increases your happiness and as a result, your overall quality of life. Removing offending foods, foods that just aren’t working for you allows your body the opportunity it needs to start a healing process. I truly believe, this is the SIMPLEST first step everyone can take if there is dysfunction.
Feeling good is powerful. Once you realize what good feels like you want more. You realize that feeling lousy is not acceptable. The problem, most people have no idea what good feels like. Their bodies have been burping, farting, aching and puffy for so long that they live with this as their new normal. A normal that is actually lousy but because their ‘feel good’ reference point is long buried and forgotten lousy = normal.
Dietary change can uncover the long forgotten sensation of ‘feeling good’ and once rediscovered you won’t want to part with it. Happiness brings more happiness, positivity brings more positivity, feeling good brings more feeling good.
Listen & Proceed
Once you find your ‘feel good’ you learn to once again listen to your body. Take note of what makes your body happy and what makes your body angry. What are you eating when you feel energized, lean, happy, clear headed? What did you eat that caused gas, bloating, fatigue or other uncomfortable symptoms from your past?
Once you start to really have a handle on how to eat to feel good you can proceed into an area of experimentation. Start to reintroduce favorite foods and listen. What does your body have to say? Are these foods you can continue to enjoy or did your body give you a clear sign that you’re heading in a bad direction?
Life Upgrades
As your internal health improves, you may find that other areas of your life also improve.
When you eat nutrient dense food that supplies your body with proper nourishment and energy you tend to eat less. You actually eat less because you eat less often. One of the benefits of this is more time in your day. You spend less time thinking about what and when you’re going to eat. Food is no longer all consuming. Being hangry is a thing of the past. Your hunger is a slow building, natural hunger that alerts you gently when it’s time to re-fuel.
Good health has tangible results. You may find that your doctor wants to know what you’ve been doing because you look great AND your blood work has improved.
Optimal function requires a healthy weight. You’re body isn’t functioning optimally if it’s carrying more weight than is appropriate for your size. Your body wants you at a healthy weight. Weight loss is a by product of health.
Optimal digestive function means your metabolic hormones are firing at just the right levels. No blood sugar highs and lows. This means, your energy level stays consistent and even throughout the day. You may notice this as a happy, even mood all day, no binge eating or sugar cravings to re-focus or pep yourself up, no thoughts of an afternoon nap.
Choice
Change is a choice. No one can force you to change. I can’t make dietary changes for you. All I can do is give you information, support, and offer accountability. You have to decided if your level of comfort and happiness is acceptable. If after some proper self evaluation you realize your life isn’t what you envisioned and you know you deserve better, you have the choice to change your life. In order to do that you have to decide to commit to making the changes that will change your vision and your story.
Spend some time thinking about this. Again, what makes you happy? Are there things keeping you from feeling your best? Do you want to make change but really aren’t sure what to do? Easy, find someone who can help you.
Accountability
Maybe you know what to do. Maybe you have all the books and follow all the websites. You have the information or at least most of the information. You keep telling yourself to just do it, this time you’ll stick with it but then you don’t.
For some people, going it alone is hard, really hard. If you agree, know, it’s not just in your head. It really is hard.
According to research, two factors that effectively help people succeed with the desired behavior changes that they want are incentives and accountability. Finding the right ‘commitment system’ can make it easier to reach your goals because of social expectation. You need to declare your goals out loud to other people. If you keep them to yourself they’re easy to ignore because there’s no social expectation, no accountability!
The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) did an accountability study and found:
- People are 65% more likely to complete a goal if they commit, out loud to someone else that they trying to achieve a specific goal
- The success rate increases to 95% if there are scheduled accountability appointments with another person.
Let me just hit that last point again, if you have regularly scheduled accountability appointments with another person your chances of successfully reaching your goal increase by 95%!
What does accountability look like?
- Regularly, pre-scheduled appointments with a mentor/coach who can offer expert knowledge and support
- Weekly commitments (homework) around a specific action
- Investing in yourself by signing a contract or agreement
- Group support with like minded, similar people who will keep you grounded, focused and help encourage you to make the changes needed to adopt new habits
What’s Your Type
When it comes to making change there are 3 types of people.
- DIYer – the do it yourselfer. This is the person that gathers information, formulates a plan, executes that plan and achieves her goals. These people do exist but they are rare.
- Struggler – similar to the DIYer, knows she wants to make change, says “how can I do this”, spends months, even years trying to do it herself but rarely gets results and the results she does get don’t tend to last. This person is all too common. I think we all probably know this person or are this person.
- Visionary – again, like type 1 & 2, knows she wants to make change but instead of wasting time trying to figure it all out on her own she asks, “who can help me achieve this?”. She finds a mentor or coach, someone who has experience in her needed area of change. Someone who can get the results she desires faster than she could do it on her own. Not as common but becoming more common, the go-getter who knows when and how to ask for help.
Do you fit into one of these 3 categories? I always like to think of myself as #1 but unfortunately, I tend to be #2. I’m happy to report that I am finally transitioning to #3. I have really started to embrace the idea of seeking expert advice and support in areas where I KNOW there are people more knowledgable and qualified that me ; )
An example of this is exercise. For the first time in my almost 52 years I am working consistently with a coach. A strength and conditioning coach. He’s actually a powerlifting coach. I like to say I’m now a powerlifter but really I’m just a beginner powerlifter which is still AWESOME to me. Anyway, since I started working with my coach I have lifted weights consistently 4 days a week for the past 9 months. Never, ever in all my years of exercise, even the years when I was really loving exercise was I that consistent.
Body Remodel Blueprint
I am in the process of finishing up my proprietary nutritional group coaching program called, The Body Remodel Blueprint. It’s a 90 day lifestyle fix-up that will help you reclaim your health and lose weight for good.
Everything is easier with the right tools even weight loss ; )
This program brings the accountability! There are weekly group meetings, weekly Q&A sessions, a couple of individual one-on-one consults during the course of the program. There are weekly education topics with specific action items (homework), there are tangible results markers – blood chemistry work, body metrics and other tracking tools. There is a private facebook group and 24/7 messaging for on going support. There’s even more but you’ll have to join the group to hear it all.
I’m very excited. I LOVE group coaching. I love the energy. I love the interaction between group members. I love the brainstorming and problem solving that you can only get with group thinking. I love all the sharing and support. Just talking about it excites me!!
This is a virtual, small group program, which means you can join from anywhere! All group meetings will be video conferences. Everyone will be visible and able to interact just as you would with a live group. Technology is amazing! Our world is becoming smaller and more intimate everyday.
If you, like me, get your energy from interacting with others, are looking for accountability to make diet and lifestyle changes, are ready to commit and take action please add your name and email below. I’ll be sure to contact you in the coming month with more information about how you can become part of the Body Remodel Program.
Focus on Change
I hope the October theme of change has you thinking. I hope you’re noticing areas of your life where you could make some changes that will upgrade your personal wellbeing, level of joy and overall quality of life. There are so many small things we can all do to increase our own individual happiness and spread that happiness to everyone we touch.
Be happy, spread joy,
I’m Amy a board certified holistic nutritionist, certified functional nutritionist and lifestyle practitioner and certified Life Coach. I help women in midlife understand the changing needs of their body so that they can stop dieting and lose weight permanently. At 56 I live what I teach. Don’t believe the story that your best years are behind you. They are not. Your best years are just starting!