I’d like to share with you an email I received from one of the women who reads this blog.

It was in response to the August 21 post on changing your work out strategy when it’s not working.  She wrote:

“Hi Shelli

I agree fully with this post. For years I have been feeling tired and too busy to work out in the evening. I’ve been suffering from osteopenia and some osteoporosis and am unable to carry my own groceries. My husband and I joined a gym and commited ourselves to a trainer for 8 weeks. The first 3 weeks were pure hell pain! Now I do every other day cardio and the alternating day I do my circuits. I am currently lifting weight 30-35 lbs and do push-ups (30).  Best of all I can now get up from the floor to a standing position without calling for help. I can also carry my own groceries.
I am a 63 year old female. If I can do this, any one can!”

I love hearing stories like these. They are so encouraging!

And she’s 100% right, we all can improve our health and fitness if we commit and stick with a well thought out plan!

shelli

Sometimes what you’re doing either with working out or nutrition
just isn’t working.

It’s important to remember that when one strategy doesn’t work, you’ve got to try another and another until you find the one that DOES work.

While this sounds simple enough, it can often be frustrating and
bring you to the point where you feel like quitting and throwing
in the towel.

But when it comes to physical activity and eating well, you really can’t throw in the towel because let’s face it, you must get some exercise, and proper nutrition
is not something you can compromise.

Let me tell you what got me thinking about all this.

I have a client who recently gave birth to her first child.

For years she had done her workouts at home. She used her garage
and set up a treadmill for her cardio and some weights for strength
training. She found music that kept her moving and energized.
She was a happy and healthy camper.

But like I said, that was before the birth of her daughter.

Now she was finding it very challenging to start, and even when
she got started very few scheduled workouts got finished. She
remained committed but the conditions had changed, and therefore
her strategies needed to change.

At this point, joining a gym made sense so she could utilize
their baby sitting services. This would give her the time and
space she needed to get back her discipline and DO the workouts.

Here are two key points to consider if and when your current
health and fitness strategies are just not working.

1. For all of us, there are certain times of the day that work
better than others for establishing consistent exercise routines.

So, if you’ve tried and tried to exercise at certain times of the
day and it just doesn’t seem to be happening, try something
different!

Switch to a morning workout instead of an evening workout. Be creative, but stick with the changes long enough to see if they are really working or not.

One scenario WILL work best for you.

2. However you set up your program, whether it’s a class or from
a book or personal trainer, choose one and commit to it for a
minimum of 6-8 weeks.

Let’s say that again. Whatever you choose, choose and COMMIT!

Block out the time, put it on your calendar, do whatever it takes to actually complete the scheduled routines.

These two points will help you move away from what frustrates so
many people when it comes to working out: inconsistency and lack of results.

Without consistency there can be no results.

So, assess what’s working and keep doing that.

Then assess what’s not working and do something else. Make sure
these two key points are in place and go from there!

shelli

Warning: this blog post contains a humorous yet thoughtful look at
fear!

We hate to admit it but most of our fears are irrational.

And I’ll even admit that most of my fears are irrational.

On one hand, everyday life just isn’t that dangerous anymore.

Technology, engineering, and modern medicine have eliminated so
many of the things that people used to fear.

Fears rise up in response to perceived threats, and trigger a “fight or
flight” response from us. They evolved as a basic survival mechanism.

Studies show what we fear is fairly universal: spiders,
snakes, heights, public speaking, and death.

As Jerry Seinfeld once said, “According to most studies,
people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death.
Does that sound right? This means at a funeral most people would
rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

We all might agree that one of our greatest, if not THE greatest
fear, is fear of failure.

Whether we are aware of it or not, it can paralyze us and keep
us from taking action, taking risks, and having experiences that
might benefit us greatly.

It’s easier for all of us to stick with what we perceive as
safe, comfortable and familiar.

Yet many times when we choose safety we reinforce fear.

We nurture fear. We let it dictate the terms by which we live our
lives and make our choices.

When we overcome our fears we begin to live.

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the
secret of life,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson.

How is fear conquered?

That can be a complicated question that keeps you from ever
actually conquering your fears.

So let’s keep it simple.

We conquer fears by doing what we think we can’t do, again and
again.

Let me give you a personal example.

When I was young, and even to this day, I stutter. Being called
on in class or in any social outing terrified me.

Today however, I seek out opportunities to speak in public. It’s
one of the best ways for me to meet people and let them know who
I am and what I can offer them.

I see fear as a barrier to success.

It can give a small thing a big shadow.

I also see fear as the opposite of faith.

It keeps us stuck in between regret over the past and anxiety about the
future.

These days I’m feeling like very few things warrant the fear
energy we give them. Often we’re running not from genuine threats
but from what we’re imagining.

That’s why my favorite acronym for fear is False Evidence
Appearing Real.

There are many rewards for conquering fear. The biggest one is
the other F word; freedom.

Freedom from anxiety.

Freedom from regret.

Freedom from a life unlived.

Do you think fortune really does favor the brave? I do.

As Marianne Williamson wrote, “Our deepest fear is not that we
are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens
us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? … We
are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our own
light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do
the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others.”

As middle aged women, we have lived enough life to know which
fears are still holding us back.

Air them out, one at a time.

Know them, and work through them and don’t let “false evidence
appear real.”

As for me, I’d much much rather be the one giving the eulogy
than the one in the casket!

What do you think?

shelli

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you catch yourself focused on the problem instead of looking ahead to your goal or destination and figuring out how to get there?

I witnessed an experience like this on the golf course recently.

Henry Ford said, “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

So true, so true.

I was playing golf with two men friends of mine.

On one hole Joe hit a ball smack into a large electrical utility box situated on the fairway alongside a pond. His ball went into the pond.

He dropped another ball on the grass and once again hit it into the box and it ricocheted into the pond.

I kid you not, he did this a third time as well!

I was on the other side of the fairway watching and waiting, and I must admit I started to laugh.

What were the odds of this happening three times in a row?

After all, he only had to get the ball into the air and over the electrical box. He’d gotten golf balls airborne millions of times before, right?

So what went wrong?

I’m guessing he was focusing on the obstacle and taking his eyes off the goal.

If you focus on the fact that you don’t have any willpower to stick to your eating plan, or you have bad habits, or you don’t think you can find exercise that you enjoy, you will hit those barriers and probably not pass them.

You must be aware of the challenges you face in order to navigate past them, but don’t make your obstacle the focus.

Your focus should be on where you’re going next and how you’re going to get there.

If you don’t have willpower, find a group of women with similar goals and challenges and put together a support group.

If you have bad habits, tackle them one at a time and take steps to change.

If you think you can’t find a workout program that you’ll enjoy, talk to women who do seem to be enjoying an active lifestyle and learn how and what they do.

After talking with Joe, the next time he’s got a challenging shot to make on the golf course, he’s going to focus on the options he has for getting his ball to the green and not on the obstacle in his way.

I hope I’m there to witness his success!

Keep this in mind when you pursue your own goals.

Focus on the destination, not on the obstacle.

shelli

Have you ever wondered if there’s a connection between eating sweets and breast cancer?

This topic comes up in the media every now and again, so here’s some information for you.

Limiting carbs and sweets IS one way to decrease your breast cancer risk.

Eating carbohydrates and simple sugars causes a spike in blood sugar. The constant elevation of blood sugar can result in insulin resistance. When that happens your body loses the ability to utilize the calories from the carbohydrates you eat.

It becomes a vicious cycle and takes its toll on you.

You eat carbs, your insulin levels rise but you become less efficient at getting glucose into your cells to be used for fuel.

Your body begins to store excess fat from not utilizing the carbs.

This combination of elevated blood sugar, insulin, and increased fat tissue causes inflammation, which damages other tissues in your body.

Insulin resistance leads to diabetes, heart disease, and strokes. Insulin resistance and diabetes are also linked to cancer.

A 2005 Italian study on the subject, published in the British Medical Journal, looked at roughly 5,000 women. After adjusting for their health history and lifestyle factors and comparing those women with and without diagnosed breast cancer, the researchers found that the women who consumed the most high-carb/high-sugar foods (like biscuits, pastries, and ice cream, as well as chocolate and simple sugars, including honey, jams, and jellies) had a significantly increased risk for breast cancer.

Other studies, including one just published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggest that insulin may be the link to the increased risk for breast cancer.

So take this information and remember that eating too many sweets and having elevated insulin levels raises the risk for breast cancer.

It is a risk factor that we can control.

Focus, instead, on eating a high-fiber diet rich in non-starchy vegetables, fruits, organic animal proteins, fish, beans, nuts/seeds, and other healthy fats. Monitor your sugar intake and gauge your intake of healthier carbs, like rice for instance, by your blood sugar and insulin levels and your weight.

shelli

Do you consider yourself lucky?

Do you know someone you think of as having all the luck, and you call them a lucky duck?

It’s interesting how we view luck.

Some say luck is preparedness meeting opportunity.

There’s also the expression “born under a lucky star.” Some people seem to have the Midas touch and all they touch turns to gold. They seem to get lucky breaks followed by more lucky breaks.

I DO consider myself lucky.

I have abundant health, a profession I enjoy and wonderful relationships. While I’ve had my share of lucky breaks and serendipity, I must admit that I do feel like I also go out and MAKE my luck.

How?

Glad you asked!

Here are some ideas about how I approach creating my good luck:

1. Get out there.

I admit, my naturally outgoing personality makes this one look easy but I still have to practice getting out there. The more you do this the more you’ll come across opportunities and the helpful people who go along with those opportunities. Meet new people. Learn something new about the people you already know. Ask questions. Develop a curious nature. Put yourself out there so that luck will find you!

2. Go with your gut.

Trusting and believing your gut reactions to life can be helpful. Our instincts can guide us. There’s the intellectual approach to life, which has its place, but don’t forget to make room for your instincts to help you make decisions. Start to notice if your luck comes from the times you let your gut be your guide. This will help you trust your gut feelings in the future.

3. Grab the silver lining.

If you think of those people you consider lucky, I’ll bet one trait they have is making lemonade out of lemons. They seem to find something positive to take out of every situation, even when they are out of luck. Misery loves company, and lady luck does too. Fortune seems to go to the fortunate, so find some positive aspect you can focus on in every situation and create your own luck.

These 3 G’s: get, go and grab, can be applied to all aspects of your life.

Want better health, want to enjoy your life more or want to feel more fulfilled in your relationships?

Work with these three approaches and see if you find more opportunities meeting with your preparedness.

I’m betting on lady luck that you do!

shelli

No matter what your sport or what your health and fitness goals are in life, here are 5 perspectives to use that will enhance your experience, guaranteed!

1. Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude

Be thankful for your body. It’s such a gift to be able to be physically active and see your body support you in your physical endeavors.

You likely put many hours into your training, so sometimes it’s easy to forget and take for granted our body’s response to the load we place on it.

Recall how far you’ve come as an athlete and how much progress you’ve made.

Play golf? Recall how awkward you were during the early days on the driving range.

Swim? Remember when you could barely swim two laps in the pool?

Training for a marathon? It’s taken months of dedication and adaptation as you ran mile after mile.

Sometimes when you stop and realize where you WERE as an athlete and how much progress you’ve made, it’s quite an eye opener.

Think about injuries you’ve overcome, obstacles you’ve busted through and choices you’ve had to make to enjoy an active lifestyle.

None of these are easy to handle, so bring that attitude of gratitude with you as you pursue activities that bring you pleasure and you’ll enjoy them even more!

2. Believe

Believe in yourself.

It’s easy to get discouraged and think you won’t ever reach your goals.

Setbacks happen, it’s normal. Get back in the game and start from where you find yourself and keep going!

Surround yourself with a good community of like-minded people and learn to use their support. They’ll help you stay the course, however, the core belief in yourself must come from you.

3. Understand your Nutrition and Hydration Needs

As an athlete and active woman you should know what your nutrition and hydration needs are. Don’t get caught up in what someone else is doing. You have your own needs.

Also, make sure to learn what it takes for your body to recover. Being smart about your recovery time is essential to keeping yourself training long into the future.

4. Stay in the Moment

I know you’ve heard this before, but it can be tricky to really grasp what it means.

Simply put, stay tuned in to what’s happening with your body. Stay present in both your mind and body to what you’re experiencing. Stay focused on what you are doing and how you’re feeling while you’re exercising, training, or racing.

You can do a body scan asking yourself questions such as: am I feeling hydrated, how is my heart rate, how do I feel?

Think about what you are doing in this moment. Don’t fall into the mental trap of spending too much time in future planning.

For instance, if you’re out for a hike and your thoughts turn to “what am I going to have for dinner tonight?” it’s likely that you’re probably hungry and should take in some fuel NOW!

Staying present fosters a sense of enjoyment and enriches your experience and memory of what you’re doing. It takes practice, so if you’re not already working with this idea, start now.

5. It’s All About the Journey

I know, this sounds like a platitude but it’s really true. As athletes we reach for new goals and experiences. We can be overly result-oriented so we have a tendency to forget to enjoy the journey and focus too much on our improvement or lack of results as a measure of success.

I train many first time marathoners.

The first goal I look to instill in them is that they finish the marathon with a smile on their face.

Their result time for that first marathon is insignificant compared to having a great experience. There is only one first, and I want them to enjoy it and perhaps even think about doing it again. It requires that their mindset focus on the journey!

There will always be rough spots and obstacles to overcome if we’re active and pursue an active lifestyle.

I think these five focuses help us keep one foot in front of the other, doing our best and moving forward.

Your perspective is key to how you’ll experience your life, so add these five to your perspective checklist and let them enrich your active lifestyle!

shelli

“The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.”

- Napoleon Hill

While I’m no Napoleon Hill, I do believe that you can’t possibly get to where you’re going if you don’t know where that is!

And in setting a course of action or choosing a goal, you do need to prioritize your actions.

When you look at that statement more closely, it also means that some things in your life will need less of a focus and some things will need more focus.

And some things will need to be eliminated altogether because there’s only so much time and energy in a day!

As an example, let’s say you’ve decided to pay more attention to eating in a healthier and more nutritious way. That’s your number one goal.

So maybe you need to do some reading to educate yourself on what that really means.

Maybe you’ll consult with a nutritionist, shop at different stores, make time to go to a farmer’s market, or do more cooking and food preparation than you’re used to.

All of that will take time, so you’ll need to make adjustments in your schedule.

In creating your new schedule you’ll ask yourself what can I take out of my schedule and what will I need to put into my schedule to reach my goal of a healthier and more nutritious diet.

Take out a sheet of paper and start brainstorming.

Follow this two step process. First identify the goal. Then create the space for the action steps needed to reach your goal.

1. My goal is to ______________________________.

2. I can take out _________________________ and ____________________ to create time and space.

For example:

*My goal is to eat in a healthier and more nutritious way.

I can take out snacking on junky fast food and I can make time at home to prepare healthy snacks and carry them with me.

*My goal is to exercise more.

I can take out watching television after dinner so that I can make room for taking a walk instead.

*My goal is to get more and better sleep.

I can shut off the computer a few hours before bedtime to make room for creating bedtime rituals that will allow me to sleep better.

See how this works?

This may seem overly simplistic, but give it a try.

It’s helpful whether your goals are off track and you need to get them back on track, or if you want to start moving in a new direction.

This give-and-take exercise really gets you thinking about how you’ll better manage your time, and the actions you actually need to take in order to reach your goals.

Let me know how it goes!

shelli

Are you up for success? I sure hope so!

Here are some ideas about how to set yourself up for successful, healthy living.

We are all influenced by our environment when it comes to our levels of physical activity and how much and what we eat. Our environment creates what’s “normal”, and so by changing our environment we can increase success.

Eating junk food, not exercising, sedentary living, hours and hours of TV watching or time on the internet; these take away from healthy living.

Here are some ideas and action steps you can take to help your environment lead you to more success:

1. Use smaller plates and cups. Most of us are used to just filling our dish and eating until the food is gone. The smaller plates strategy is a great one that I have been myself for years. It works!

2. If there’s a food you don’t want to eat, don’t keep it in the house. Make it harder to get. Now while I recognize that we do need to make peace with food and shouldn’t be scared of any particular food, I am also a pragmatist. For me, a box of cookies or salty foods can sit in my cupboards forever and not tempt me. Ice cream is a different story! I don’t keep it in my house, and make eating it a special occasion activity done OUTSIDE my home.

3. The flip side to that is if there’s a food you “should” be eating, make it easier to get.
*Sign up for a CSA (community supported agriculture) box so that fresh, healthy produce and/or organic meat is delivered to you.
*Have fresh, healthy whole foods on hand and prepared. You can buy pre-cut vegetables, if that makes eating them easier for you.
*If you don’t want to cook, hire a personal chef. While on the surface that may seem more costly, if you eat better and choose your foods wisely, it may be cost effective and well worth the money. Check it out.

4. Put the television in an inconvenient place and don’t watch it while you eat. Watching while you eat makes you much less aware of what and how much you’re eating. If you find that you’re watching too much and your healthy living rituals are falling by the wayside, cut your cable package down so you don’t have 100 channels. Or get rid of the television altogether. I haven’t watched television in ten years!

5. Park your car farther away from where you’re going. Walk the extra distance. Or sell the car and get a bike. Or commit to walking when you have errands to run within a close proximity to where you live.

6. Join a social group organized around activity: a class, club, or a group that meets for certain events like hiking. Find a workout buddy. Surround yourself with people who are also working on their health, fitness, and nutrition. Organize your social events around activity; get a bunch of friends together in the park for some games like softball or frisbee.

Notice two things about these strategies:

1. They make problematic behaviours inconvenient.
2. They make healthy behaviours convenient.

Knowing and doing are two very different things.

Environment influences us to DO, and will often win over knowledge when it comes to the choices we make.

If your environment needs a tune-up, then get to it and do it. You will progress along your road to successful, healthy living!

Let me know if you try any of these strategies and how they work.

I always look forward to hearing from you!

shelli

There’s something I call the Oprah Syndrome (O.S.).

Let me give you an example to illustrate the O.S.

My cousins invited me for a home cooked dinner. They are in their 80’s, in fairly good health and are aware of health foods and making the best nutritional choices possible.

Before we started the meal, they gave me a piece of bread and told me to dip it in olive oil and eat it first before eating anything else.

I asked them when and why they started this new custom.

They told me they were watching Oprah and a guest on her show suggested doing this.

Oprah Syndrome in action; whatever Oprah says, does, or her guests say and do must be correct, so I’ll do it too!

While I have great respect for Oprah and all the success she’s had, sometimes this copycat behavior really irks me. Particularly when I’m in disagreement with the suggestions.

Here’s my case in point.

These past few years Oprah has been using walking as her primary exercise and so have millions of her followers. Yet, she’s still overweight and still looking to get leaner.

While walking is better than no exercise at all, if you want a lean body it’s simply not sufficient exercise. It won’t help you burn fat.

Why?

Because in order to burn fat your body needs to produce fat-burning compounds known as catecholamines. When you produce them, they bind to metabolic receptors on the outer membrane of fat cells, causing their destruction. That’s the scientific explanation, but all it means is that fat cells will shrink.

And what creates this fat burning effect?

This only happens when you exercise at 60 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. Calculate this range with this formula: 220 minus your age times .60 equals your target heart rate zone.

When you exercise by the numbers and understand what’s required, you’ll burn fat.

So, yes, the Oprah Syndrome can lead you in the right direction, but in this case it’s important to add the missing piece that will get you RESULTS!

shelli