Love or Hate: What's Your Motivation?

"I hate my thighs." "I'm fat." "I'm disgusting." Does this sound like you? Or are you more like this: "I love myself." "I respect and love my body." "I feel good when I take care of myself." Self-hate can be a powerful motivator to getting in the gym and eating healthy for the time being, but it isn't powerful enough to sustain healthy habits. Sure, putting yourself down will get you there, but it doesn't help you feel positive about what you're doing and eventually you just want to feel good. That's when the old self-destructive habits come in and take over again. To truly develop a life plan for health and a slim waistline, you have to love and respect yourself now even if you're in a body you don't care for. When you love and respect yourself you want to take care of yourself by eating healthy and exercising regularly.

Think about it this way: if your child fell behind in school, you wouldn't tell her she's an idiot, worthless and a failure because of lack luster grades, would you? Of course not. You would tell her she's bright and wonderful and special and totally capable of earning A's. Taking the first approach would clearly hinder any chance of her pulling her grades up and chip away at her self esteem.

You must treat yourself like that special child who deserves nurturing--you may be an adult, but each day you are growing into a better person who needs love and care to flourish. Love yourself today, and everyday!

Pumpkin Pie Protein Shake Recipe

Good morning! Today seems like the first day of fall here in Scottsdale, where I woke up to temperatures in the 40's for the first time! Feeling especially festive--and especially jealous of all of the Starbuck's people who drink sugar loaded pumpkin spice lattes--I decided to make a healthy version for my pre-workout protein dose. Enjoy!

1/4 c. low fat cottage cheese

1/4 c. milk (soy, almond, skim) or water

1/4 c. pumpkin (be sure to buy the 100% real pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling which is loaded with sugar)

1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder

5-6 ice cubes

sprinkle of cinnamon

sprinkle of nutmeg

1-2 packets of splenda or stevia (to taste)

Put it all in a blender and voila! My boyfriend can't believe how good this tastes--just like pumpkin pie! The cottage cheese is a slow burning protein that will keep your body going for hours, and the whey is fast absorbing, so this shake offers the best of both worlds. I can't wait for Christmas to experiment with egg nog protein recipes! Enjoy!

Ignorance is bliss...

...but knowledge will lead to a smaller dress size! Do you really know what you're eating? I always encourage people to keep a food journal if they can't seem to lose weight because it's frighteningly eye opening. With laptops and smart phones, it's super easy to look up the calorie content of virtually any food, including entire meals at restaurants. My favorite is www.calorieking.com because you can specify the exact portion size of your food. Www.caloriesperhour.com is a close second, with an easy organization of food groups. You may think it's a hassle to record everything you consume, but isn't it a bigger hassle to buy bigger clothes and not know why?

Whatever you do, don't diet--ever!

You want to drop some weight so you go on a diet--you and 90% of American women--and you start, like most people, on a Monday. The diet may work, meaning you lose weight, but eventually it all comes back, and often you gain a few extra pounds. You decide you want to lose weight again, so you go on another diet, and the cycle goes on and on.

Diets may be well intentioned but they have the wrong approach. They have you change too much overnight, going one day from living in ways that support excess weight to the next day eating like a bird. Because most diets involve a steep learning curve coupled with a major time commitment, you fall off the wagon, but even when you try to eat "normally" your body fights back and you gain weight. Then the next time you diet, the weight doesn't come off as easily as it had in the past, so you have to go to more extremes to see less effective results.

This post is the first of many anti-diet posts, as I believe dieting is the #1 reason why 66% of Americans, that's 2 out of 3 American people, are overweight and/or obese. I know it's incredibly tempting to jump on the latest diet bandwagon, especially when your mother/neighbor/co-worker/friend lost tons of weight on it, but you have to resist this urge. As you'll see in my upcoming posts, diets destroy our body's natural ability to lose weight, they harm us psychologically, and they chip away at our self worth and self esteem. And, at the risk of sounding glib, they just don't work.

So vow from today on, no matter what you do, DON'T DIET!

What's Your Excuse?

There are a million excuses to not do something, but not one good reason--so what's your excuse to avoiding or postponing a healthy lifestyle? Many of the excuses we come up with don't seem like excuses while we're making them. One important step you can make today is to pinpoint the excuses you're most likely to make, so you can recognize them in the future. I've grouped together six popular categories. Next time you're inner weasel is trying to get out of living healthy, ask yourself, "am I making an excuse?"

Health Excuses

• I need to get my calcium in, so I better drink this milkshake.
• Walking to the mailbox is exercise.

Giving Up Excuses

• I'm always going to be fat, so why bother?
• Eating right is too hard.

Blaming Excuses

• My boss was so harsh today, eating will make me feel better.
• My husband always wants to eat out. It's his fault I'm overweight.

Bedtime Excuses

• I won't sleep well if I don't eat my nightly ice cream.

Celebration Excuses (this one could go on forever)

• It's my birthday.
• It's Friday/the weekend.

Victim Excuses

• My mother's fat, so I'm always going to be fat.
• I just have a slow metabolism and can't do anything about it.

Sound familiar? The next time you hear something like one of the above examples cross your lips, stop yourself from giving in. Think of the health and lifestyle benefits you'll gain from losing weight slowly and in a healthy way. And don't let some weak excuse derail your future success!