weight loss healthy eating goals nutrition

Learning to Embrace the Process

Have you ever found yourself disappointed with a perfectly productive week simply because you didn’t cross off every item on your never-ending to-do list? Or maybe you lost 6 pounds as a result of completing the Whole30, only to be disappointed because you had a goal of losing 10.  Or perhaps you abandoned your gym routine because you committed to getting in 5 weekly sweat sessions but you only found yourself showing up 3 times a week. Maybe your scenario is slightly different, but I think we have all been in a similar situation. 

Have you ever wondered why we are disappointed? After all, we were productive, we did lose weight, and we were showing up to the gym.  I mean, aren’t these all really great things? Of course they are! So, what is the deal?

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Are You Making This Very Common Eating Mistake?

It is very common in today’s culture to have our breakfast in the car while we’re driving, have lunch at our desks while we’re still working, and have a quick dinner standing over the kitchen counter, hardly pausing before rushing off to our next commitment.

 

The trouble with eating while we’re rushing, working, driving, or even feeling anxious or upset lies in our central nervous system. Within our autonomic nervous system (the part that runs on automatic and regulates such things as heartbeat, digestion, and pupil dilation), there are two branches: sympathetic and parasympathetic.

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Plan to Crush Your 2019 Goals

With 2019 right around the corner, many of us have likely spent some time reflecting on 2018 and thinking about the year to come.  With goal setting season upon us, I wanted to share a few thoughts to keep in mind when preparing to crush your 2019 goals.

Start with something only slightly out of your reach 

Making a change doesn’t mean that it has to be life-changing from the get-go.  Start small.  Don’t make it too difficult.  It has been documented that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities.  Think – not too hard, not too easy, but just right!  For example, if meal planning is on your list of things to implement this year, don’t go from 0 to 100 with your planning.  If this is something new for you, start with committing to planning out two days a week and increasing once you are consistently meeting your goal.  This way you stay within your peak motivation sweet spot and will be a meal plan pro by the end of the year.

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Simply Add Water

Everyone always thinks that the first step in starting along the path to better health is to remove offending foods from your diet.  You know what I am talking about, ditch the grain, ditch the sugar, ditch the dairy.  Sound familiar?  Don’t get me wrong, removing offending foods from your diet is certainly necessary, however, sometimes it just seems less daunting to start by ADDING something simple.  You know, get a simple win under your belt before moving on to a more daunting task. And that simple something is WATER.

Water is the most important nutrient in the body, making up about 55% to 60% of total body mass, yet it is also one of the most common nutritional deficiencies in the United States. Water plays multiple key roles in the body and it is absolutely necessary to consume it on a daily basis as we are constantly losing water throughout the day as part of our normal metabolic processes.  While the amount and distribution of water are regulated within the body, it cannot be stored for long periods of time.  In fact, we can go about 8 weeks without food, but only a matter of days without water.

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