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Here is the last excerpt from my suggestions on how to lose those pesky last 10 lbs.
Confidence is so important yet so lacking by a lot of us. I am talking about overall confidence not piecemeal confidence. To be clear, piecemeal confidence is when you have one strength like you run well, or you play an instrument well, and you have confidence around that but you don’t have confidence about anything else in your life. Overall confidence means that you feel comfortable in most circumstances and with your overall self, inside and out. You make no excuses for who you are and what you look like. It is not arrogance or pretending pleasantries, but being your true self and not needing to prove yourself.
I don’t really understand why it is so hard to feel that way. Many of us lose any confidence we have around puberty and then spend many years as adults regaining it.
Let’s get back to why confidence has anything to do with losing weight.
Being sure of yourself and comfortable with who you are reduces stress. Why you wonder? Well, your internal dialogue for one. People who are not confident have a very negative internal dialogue passing through their thoughts many moments of the day. Just imagine for a second someone telling you how bad you are on a daily basis. For one, you wouldn’t put up with it but two, after some time, it would undermine your confidence. Many of us do the same thing to ourselves without even realizing that we are doing it.
So let’s review. You are telling yourself that you are a bad person, that you look ugly, that your thighs are fat, that you can’t do anything right, etc.
Those thoughts lead to feeling sad, feeling inadequate, feeling not good enough and not loveable. When you feel like that most of the time, it is impossible to feel confident. You get sicker faster, you are more prone to disease, you are more likely to get depressed.
Now is it starting to get more clear why you are under stress when you are not confident in yourself?
Just a side note to clear this up a bit. This is not set in stone. There are many variations and reasons why someone may not be confident and under stress. I am just addressing one point only.
Any kind of stress is proven to counter the body’s ability to shed pounds.
Now having confidence will help you to shed those last 10 or even one pound because you have an easier time finding the balance you are looking for when trying to shed the last 10.
Believing in yourself helps you to have the confidence that you CAN lose those 10 lbs, or any weight.
How do you get confidence when you don’t have it? Internal dialogue is one way. Change it from negative thoughts to positive thoughts. Everytime you have a negative thought, change it to a positive thought instead. For example, I can’t do that triathlon, try -I could do that triathlon instead. Or, my thighs are fat, try -I have an hourglass figure instead.
There are other ways too, but there are many books in the self help section that can help you with that.
Most importantly: take the time to get to know yourself and your special abilities and interests. Spend some time alone, enjoy your own company. Make friends who share the same interests and who support you in your positive endeavors.
A good friend is going to accept your changes and encourage you to reach your goals.
Losing ten pounds is hard, especially your last 10 before your goal weight. Being balanced through confidence, hydration, sleeping 8 hrs, exercise and a healthy balanced diet will help.
Changing your everyday life to incorporate these points and after time they will become a way of life and help you to keep it off!

Thanks to everyone for sending their comments.  I love to hear from you.

So I am calling this Losing Weight but I want to change it.  It’s just too mainstream for me.  It’s not really about losing weight, or it shouldn’t be.  If it starts that way and morfs into something more balanced that’s OK too.

Words matter.  What we think and say has meaning to us and to others.  The words we use to describe things can have a big impact on the people around us and on us too.  So, having said that I should call it finding balance.

I call it finding balance because it is more than just looking good.  That is why most people want to lose weight.  Admit it, you want your close to hang better on your body.  You may also want your spouse or significant other to be attracted to you.  Most of us, even if we won’t admit it, want to lose weight for cosmetic reasons.  I think that’s OK because the health usually follows and that’s what is more important.  Being healthy.

So far I have covered exercise, sleep, food, I have a few topics left- water and internal confidence are the last two.  Before I start, I want to mention something that my friend learned.  She was listening to a famous psychologist on the TV who mentioned a book about diet.  It is called “The Belly Fat Cure” by Jorge Cruise.  I automatically thought “could this be another gimmick?” but when I heard the name of the psychologist I was more willing to listen.  Anyway, she told me about the book a little.  The premise is that we eat too much sugar in our diets (including natural fruits) than we should eat.  If you limit the amount of sugar you consume, you will lose 4-9 lbs a week in Belly fat.  I am mentioning this book NOT to promote it but to use it as an example of all the confusing information there is out there about diets.  Lots of people write books about what kind of diet you should eat to be skinny.  Some of these “diets” are harmful.  A diet that you should only do for a short period of time is not a diet, it’s dangerous.  A diet is the way you eat all of the time.  It’s a way of  life.  Anyway, I am not opposed to this book because to me it is helping us to learn about sugars and why they are not good for us in large quantities.  My friend is going to try this out and I’ll let you know how it worked for her.

So, hydration.  Hydrating your body is simpler than it used to be.  They (the scientists) used to insist that we should be consuming 8 glasses a day or water minimum on top of all the foods that we consumed in a day.  Now, we know that vegies and fruits contribute to those 8 glasses, so do things like soup and juice.

What I find scary, is that a lot of us do not drink any water at all!  No water?  What?  I don’t get it.  You don’t like water?  What’s not to like!  It’s refreshing, good for you and calorie free!  How could you do any better?  A lot of people drink pop.  Pop?  Really?  On what planet does it make sense to grab a pop instead of water?  Even a diet pop is not refreshing!  I know a lot of you disagree with me.  The bottom line is, pop and juice and alcohol have a lot of calories in them and very little to no nutritional value.  If you are trying to be healthy and lose weight NEVER drink your calories.  Remember that.  It is very important.  Would you rather eat that drink?  It is better for you get your calories from food than from drink.  So start drinking less juice and pop, and even less alcohol (leave it for special occasions) and grab some water instead.  I am getting thirsty just writing this.

On top of all of this, pop, even diet pop, has been proven to contribute to obesity.  Yes obesity!  That is serious stuff!  I don’t think most people want to be obese.  My father in law, stopped drinking pop once, he lost his beer belly!  It wasn’t really a beer belly by the way…

I am so adamant about pop, that my kids are not allowed to drink it and I hope to sway them away from it as they get older.  It is just one of those “consumables” that is not worth our time.

Just want to make a side note here: fruit juices (natural ones) are great every once in a while and milk is a great food.  My main goal in this blog are to focus on the foods you eat more than the things you drink to get your nutrients and calories.

I will leave the confidence to the next blog.  That one will be long!

Signing off- Leticia

It’s been too long since I have updated this blog. I’ve been moving out of my house, moving into a temporary house, and waiting to move into our new house…
Anyway, I was talking about balance. So easy to say but so hard to do.
A wise person once said to me. We are all on a journey called life. When we are trying to achieve a goal, we are trying to change behavior and patterns that have been set for a long time. To start with, you will have peaks and valleys. The valleys will be deep and the peaks high. But as you practice balance, those peaks and valleys begin to meet and become more of a unifying line than a wavy line.
So our current topic is cardio. We talked about working hard and getting your heart rate up. It is also beneficial to be more physical in your daily life.
Taking the stairs instead of the elevator (up and down), walking to the store or work, etc. Anything that keeps you moving.
I do a lot every day and even when I am not working out I am moving constantly.
For a year I had a job where I was sitting at a desk all day. I gained 10 lbs in that year. When I started working as a Personal Trainer, I lost it but the difference in my exercise was minimal. The biggest change was that I was no longer sitting on my butt all day. Moving around burns calories. Go out and walk those dogs, play with your kids, come up with silly games, do things with friends like riding your bike, roller blading, etc. Make it fun.
Sleep. That’s a big one. Your body repairs when at rest. Your body heals when at rest. Your body releases hormones when at rest.
Many of us know these things and yet we still cheat our bodies of sleep at night. Eight full hours of uninterupted sleep is what we needed to feel rested for the next day.
We often can get too wound up in life to get to bed at the right time and get the eight hours we need. Without the proper rest, your body goes into survival mode. While in survival mode, the body is under stress. The body, generally, does not function normally while under stress because it is in fight or flight and doing whatever it can to survive. When your body does not function normally and is in fight or flight, it will not release pounds. It needs all the energy it can get so it’s going to hold onto what you have.
So number one thing = start sleeping eight hours a night.
On that note, it’s time for me to go to bed. Kids are down, now it’s my turn!