Passion For Living

Daily (or very frequent) habits will create your results.

Bringing in your desired behaviors as your identity is one way to gain an adherence mindset. If you identify as the "person who does XYZ", then repeating the behavior is not questionable. It just IS.

As soon as you make it optional or have the mindset "that's for other people", then you've taken yourself out.

Try thinking in terms of "identity" with the following thought prompts:

I am becoming a person who...
I am a person who...
I have evidence that I can do...
I want to be the person who... therefore I am doing... to get there.

Just make sure your new identity thoughts are believable and align with the person you want to be.

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Boredom - How to embrace the feeling and stop trying to avoid it...

When my daughter complains that she is bored, my usual response is: That's a good thing!

The feeling of "bored" is just that - a feeling. And feelings are information. So it's the perfect flag for anyone to slow down and take a peek at what is going on- On The Inside!

You know, instead of busting out the phone to tune it out, or eat, or drink, or shop, or distract with ANYTHING to avoid being bored.

The negative consequence from always avoiding boredom is that you miss the opportunity to learn about yourself, create agency over this feeling, AND any consequences that come along with the distractions you choose - too much of XYZ.

Here are some great coaching questions to ask yourself about boredom:

1) Why am I avoiding the feeling of bored?
2) What does bored feel like?
3) Where does my mind go when I sit with boredom?
4) Are there areas of my life that I am avoiding dealing with that tend to come up when I am bored?
5) Can I sit with myself and my thoughts? If the answer is no, what is coming up?
6) If feeling bored is a regular visitor and you have already processed it a number of times, then asking yourself what you want to feel instead is also a great question. Not to avoid the feeling, but rather to notice it and gently steer it in a new direction with thoughts that serve you.

Embrace your feelings as information!

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Winter invites us to get introspective! 😌

What a great time to journal, do thought work, and work on our mindsets.

These are great practices all year round, but during the winter, we naturally get quieter, spend more time by ourselves or with smaller groups, get cozier, and stay inside more. If you haven't created an introspective routine, now is the perfect time to get yourself a notebook and start writing. 📒🖋

Journal prompts:
What characteristics do I want to work on?
What thoughts do I have about XYZ?
What thoughts are getting in my way?
Where am I living with indecision? Why?
What story am I telling myself about XYZ, and how can I re-conceptualize in a way that serves me?
What do I want to believe?

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How to know when your social media habits have gone from healthy dose to not-so-much...

Time to turn it off and live for a while?

Social media is a tool for communication, information, and connecting, but like with any tool, the way you use it matters!

A good test to give yourself is to answer the following:

1) If I were to schedule ahead of time how much I want to be on social media, how much time would I allow? (Perhaps over a week or each day)

The reason this is important is because your planning brain cares much more about the bigger picture than the brain that gets sucked into an addictive activity. Don't ask this question while you are scrolling!

2) What result am I getting?

What do you actually get from your social media time? Is it high quality communication, do you feel emotionally uplifted, do you gain new insights/perspectives/ ideas /inspiration?

Or is it draining, numbing, and feeling like you just lost an hour of life without anything to show for it?

Get honest with yourself.

3) If I only spent the pre-determined time on social media, how much time/energy would I gain for something else in my life? Where would I put that?

Exploring your alternative life may spark an interest in letting go of a habit that is not serving you.

4) Would I want my kid(s) to spend this much time on social media? Be a role model and demonstrate deliberate habits around the social media tool.

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If your brain is your greatest asset... have you been investing in it?

We often think more about maintaining our external assets - finances, houses, cars, etc.

Or perhaps investing in relationships, which does go a long way. But you also need to cover the one asset that you will have until your dying day - your brain!

That means...

Exercising
Sleeping well
Learning
Working on your thoughts
Meditating
Getting help if needed

And reducing...

Junk food
Alcohol
Numbing out
Toxic thoughts
Indulging in thoughts that don't serve you

Take a peek at your own life and decide if you are investing well in your brain!

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Quality sleep, exercise, nutrition, close relationships, and stress management are not Nice-to-Haves- they are Need-to-Haves if we want to have long, fulfilling lives.

If any of these areas are lacking for you, there are great science-backed sources of information out there. But you also have to find ways to commit and change- which will all rely on mindset.

Open your mind for change with high-quality questions:

How can I make this work for me?

What skills would I cultivate through making this change?

Who am I becoming in this journey?

What is the best plan for me right now?

What small steps could I take, starting today?

Where do I want to channel my desires?

What do I want to experience?

There's a level of self care that is way more powerful than bubble baths and pedicures...

The way you talk to yourself.

The level of compassion toward yourself.

Your relationship with YOU.

A bubble bath is not going to change the way you talk to yourself.

I am all about self care, but there's a hierarchy of needs at play here...

Take notice of how you think about yourself, the conversations in your mind, the questions you ask yourself, the names and titles you give yourself. Do any of these need an upgrade??

You can start changing thoughts by:

1) Acknowledging your current thoughts
2) Have some compassion that it is very human to have thoughts of all kinds
3) Think of new thoughts that you can practice
4) When old thoughts pop up, gently steer them toward the new thoughts you are practicing
5) Repeat

Let's discuss over-consuming...

It is so easy for us to overeat or overdrink on a regular basis. And while this is not the only reason for extra weight, it is part of the equation for many people. And one that most diets don't give you tools for.

There are 4 steps to gaining agency over your overconsumption of food/beverages:

1) Learn your reasons & habits
Getting honest with yourself (with love), ask yourself when do I overconsume, how much, how often, in what circumstances?
Is it purely habit?
Is it to numb emotions or stress?
Is it to create more pleasure because something in your life is not going well?
Is it to fit in with others?
Is it during certain times of day?
Is it only certain foods/beverages?
Write down EVERYTHING that comes up about overconsuming.

2) Acknowledge, acceptance, and compassion
With step one completed, we need to move into a completely judgement free zone where we look at this as a very human experience. Separating facts from stories would be a great exercise here. What are the facts without adjectives or opinions? Bring in some compassion. Look at your reasons with curiosity. Learn about yourself. Ask yourself "what's going on, love?" Processing your thoughts and emotions about the subject can be freeing and help you move forward.

Going thru this with a coach is highly recommended!

3) Allow urges
Once you have pinpointed some of the times you overconsume, come up with a game plan to deal with the urges when they come up. Include allowing yourself to feel the urge without rewarding it. An urge is the emotion you feel urging you to do something so that your brain can get a reward.

How does that look?

You acknowledge the urge as a feeling and have compassion that it is there and you let it be.

Urge for a cookie? "Oh hello urge, I see you. I know you think it is very important to eat this cookie right now, but I am only having one dessert per week, so I am just going to let you be." Breathe into it and let it be.

If you do give into urges, don't judge yourself- learn from it. Learn what your brain was telling you, learn how it felt, learn if you were resisting, so that you can continually improve your process.

4) Work on real solutions
So getting back to your reasons for overconsuming... you will also want to work on real solutions for the root causes.

If the overconsumption is purely habit, then spend some time learning mindfulness, setting up your environment for success, make healthy choices easier, and possibly track your behaviors for more awareness.

If it is more emotionally driven, then you will need a way to cope with emotions, process emotions, and possibly find other activities that de-stress and bring you peace.

Start by journaling or writing down your thoughts and feelings. This process creates awareness and allows you to see what is really going on. Before you turned to food, now turn toward your inner self.

If this is a struggle, life coaches and therapists may be a great investment in your mental health.

Secondly, think of what conversation you want to have with yourself whenever you get an urge to overconsume.

Thirdly, list out other activities you could do instead of eating/drinking that help you move forward. This should not take the place of processing your thoughts and emotions, but be supplemental to that. It's not a distraction per say, but deliberately choosing other activities that help you reduce stress and gain a healthy habit.

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Third rule of weight loss: Think Long Term for your Food Protocol. 👈

There are abundant reasons to approach any weight loss journey with long term success and sustainability in mind. Because...

1) We get good at what we practice.

Practicing healthy habits for LIFE is better than thinking you will do something short term and then go back to the habits that got you the results you are trying to change.

2) Yo-yo approaches (on again/ off again) wreak havoc on metabolism. It starts making it harder and harder to overcome.

3) Every long term weight loss success story includes a lifestyle approach- one where the person decides to stop mucking around with short term diets, gets back to basics, eats whole foods instead of processed, develops healthy habits, and just keeps it going for years and years.

Seriously. If there was another approach out there that worked we would all know about it and weight loss would be a distant subject. But for now, the data shows that lifestyle approaches are the key to long term success.

▶️ Emotional eating will be the subject of my next post, but included in the development of your eating protocol will be ways to cope with stress, urges, and cravings.

So when you develop your Eating Protocol, think about how and what you want to eat long term that supports your weight, health, and values.

What does a typical week look like?
What are your choices?
How many joy eats will you eat?
How far in advance do you want to decide on what you eat? (Planning ahead of time uses your most advanced part of your brain)
What weight would this plan likely maintain?
Is this plan healthy?

Once you decide how this looks, then you have to start bridging the gap between this way of eating versus your current state.

Most people do better taking small steps at a time. 👣

But this is a very personalized journey, so you need to dig deep, get honest with what you want to commit to, and start practicing without JUDGEMENT. Every "failure" is just an opportunity to learn. Look at each one with curiosity.

Now, once you get to the point where you are eating close to this long term plan, then you can assess if you need to tweak it slightly for weight loss versus weight maintenance. But to be eating your new way is step one!!

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Second rule of weight loss: Get Honest with Yourself. 🫣

We have so much bu****it happening in this world about body image, dieting, & weight loss that needs to be unlearned. So the first place to start is the only place that you have full control over- yourself. 👈

Forgetting about what everyone else thinks (or what you think everyone else thinks), get to know your own opinion about the following:

1) What weight would I be comfortable at that supports the lifestyle I want to have and the health I want to sustain?

2) How do I want to eat LONG TERM that supports my health, this goal weight, and my values?

3) What are my reasons and do I love my reasons?

4) Would I recommend this for my mom or daughter or best friend (or insert other loved one)? The reason I ask this is because so many people are willing to be hard on themselves- so this is a great way to check up on that.

Taking the time to honestly think about these questions for yourself is key to a successful weight loss journey that leads to sustainability.

Next post- How to design your way of eating
Followed by- Why we overeat and how to stop

Keep following!

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First rule of any weight loss journey- it needs to come from love. 😍

The whole process.

From love. 👈

The planning, the assessing, the weigh ins, the reasons, the way you talk to yourself, the way you take care of yourself, the way you push through a workout, the way you choose what goes into your mouth, the way you deal with mistakes, the way you deal with plateaus- ALL OF IT FROM LOVE.

If you can't muster love, start with compassion.

If you can't muster compassion, start with neutral.

But you must decide here and now it will not come from a place of beating yourself up, being frustrated with yourself, or thinking you don't deserve love or are unworthy of the life you want.

📒🖋
To tease this out, you can journal all your current thoughts about your weight or weight loss journey to see where you are at now. Do this with your NO JUDGEMENT hat on. Get curious. And then work on a few key thoughts that you can start changing.

Here are some examples:

1) I hate my body... change to "I have a human body."
2) I don't deserve love... change to "my weight has nothing to do with my loveability."
3) I can't ever lose weight... change to "many humans find this challenging but it is possible and I will figure this out."

Then whenever your old thought pops into your head, you say- "That was the old version of me, now I am practicing a new version" - and practice your new thought. 🧠

It's a process that you will keep doing throughout your journey and into the next journey- becoming your next version more deliberately than you ever have before. 👀

As you change your thoughts, you change your emotions, attitudes, and actions. And that drives everything!

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Passion for Living - Passion for Living Wellness Coaching Get Your NEXT LEVEL results for weight loss, living deliberately, & feeling empowered! Certified Life & Weight Loss Coach

Tired and stressed? Bored? Anxious?

Food won't help the root cause.

But many of us have learned to use food for the temporary relief it brings. 😔

And then we make it a habit.

And then the extra food adds up in the form of weight gain.

And then we try to "diet" and we are miserable- because we are hungry and we don't have our buffer anymore. Now we feel all the feelings we tried to suppress... plus add "deprived" to the list. It feels crappy!

We blame the diet and go back to our old ways. Repeat in a few months.

The good news is: There is another way!

It's about changing your relationship with urges to overeat, finding the food protocol that works for you long term, processing emotions, finding your root causes of overeating, and developing a different mindset that drives different actions.

For the next few posts I will touch on these key concepts to stop overeating the sustainable way!

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Pause and think about what you are thinking. 🤔

So many if us just let thoughts happen without reflecting on them, seeing if they serve us, and potentially change them if they are not serving us.

The good news is that your mindset is not fixed. It can be cleaned up and rearranged! 😉

Ask yourself:
What am I thinking?
Why am I thinking this?
Is this serving me?
Is there something I would rather think instead?
What are some other options?
If these thoughts were my daughter's (or insert other close relationship), what would I say?
What advice would I give?

Great places to start making changes:
How you talk to yourself internally
Judgement thoughts about yourself, other people and the world
Complaining without solutions
Worrying
Dramatic or catastrophizing thoughts
All-or-nothing thoughts
Doom and gloom thoughts

Work through the questions and decide which thoughts you want to work on. Create a daily practice to let go of old thoughts that do not serve you and rehearse the thoughts you want to try. Make sure they are believable. Move through more neutral thoughts if you need to at first.

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The path you take toward a goal can look very different from another person with the same goal.

So make sure you are designing your own path that works for you!

Some people actually love making drastic changes. Going all in, doing extremes, making a great story. And these stories can be quite inspiring, but not everyone is wired to do well this way.

Many of us will have to make small, consistent changes over time. And that's OK. We can still get there and enjoy the journey.

Whatever path or program you create for yourself, just make sure:
1) It comes from a place of love for yourself
2) It fits your current priorities
3) It moves you toward your goal
4) It is sustainable & health-promoting
5) It is fun even if it is challenging

Having a visual tracking mechanism, frequent check-ins with yourself, having accountability partners, and revisiting your goals & your reasons will all help keep you going strong whenever the journey gets tedious and challenging.

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What if you could design your own personal retreat for restoration, self care, and doing your favorite activities?

What would your day look like?

I was having fun with this question this morning and decided mine would be the perfect mix of sleeping 8-9 hours, fitness/running, yoga, vegan eating (made by a chef, of course), journaling, reading, walking, massage, facial, photography, watching puppies or baby goats, meditation, firepit with friends, and taking a class. Could I fit all that in one day? 🤔 Might have to stay a week... 😆

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Happy Easter!

Awareness
Acceptance
Love & Compassion
Empowerment
Deliberate Direction

These are the five steps or stages to leading a deliberate life!

😳 It starts with awareness- knowing & getting curious about what you are thinking, what you are feeling, what are the facts, what you make it mean, what are different perspectives, etc.

😌 Acceptance- accepting the things you cannot change, accepting your responsibility to respond, accepting that life is 50/50 (always a mix of discomfort & comfort), and accepting your current/past/future states as perfectly human.

🥰 Love & Compassion- bringing self-love and love for others into the equation. This includes forgiveness, empathy, respect, and other helpful emotions that move you forward.

🤔 Empowerment- recognizing you have agency over your decisions, over your experience, over your thinking and feeling, over your response and behavior.

🫡 Deliberate direction- taking all those steps into account and making decisions to live more deliberately/consciously according to your values and the experiences you want to have.

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Psychologist Dr. Robert Puff has a podcast called The Happiness Podcast, and he ends every show with the phrase:

Accept what is. Love what is.

It means accepting the things we cannot control, the circumstances that occur in our life that happen, the facts, things outside of ourselves that we cannot change, etc. And then being able to bring LOVE to the experience. 💕

That's our part of the equation. We get to have agency over our RESPONSE, no matter what. And love is an option that we can create. 👈

Sometimes this phrase is challenging, but that's the point.

It's not EASY. You actually have to work at it.

That doesn't mean you have to love the situation itself, it means you love yourself through your actions and response, you love others wholeheartedly through the experience, you love what you learn and your growth, and you love that this is part of the human experience.

So what might this look like in a given situation?

Step 1- Identify the facts (not the story, just the facts)

Step 2- Identify your thoughts about the facts and how you feel emotionally. Stay here a bit with no judgement. Have compassion for yourself. See all of it as very human, nothing has "gone wrong."

Within this step you can start looking at the facts with a level of acceptance. Accept that reality happens- that this universe presents us with situations and events and people and science. We may not like all these situations, but we get to respond.

Step 3- Decide how you want to feel about the situation or what emotion would be helpful in moving forward. 🤔

Thoughts create emotions, so also think about what you would be thinking to drive more of the helpful emotion. Practice this way of thinking as you move forward, while learning to let go of the thoughts keeping you back.

This is also a great step for ensuring self love through the process. I like to ask, "what would love do?"

Step 4- What are my options? Drop into brainstorming mode and begin to sort through all your options. Don't be quick to judge them, you need to show your brain that you do have options.

Step 5- Make decisions while having your own back. Stop thinking about decisions as "right or wrong" and think about them as just decisions made with the current information and no matter the outcome, it was the right decision.

Another great way to make decisions is to look at your reasons for each decision and then decide which reason you like best.

Step 6- Always look at every experience as a learning experience. Reflect on what you learned and how you can use this opportunity for growth.

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You can decide to "reboot" whenever you want!

Start something new, make a change, change a lifestyle habit, let go of something that doesn't serve you.

You don't need a new year, birthday, medical diagnosis, upcoming event, or someone to compare to.

You just get to decide it's a good time for you to make a change because you want to.

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Have a goal? Pay attention if you feel in a HURRY to get there.

You know, like you can't get there fast enough?

👉You start cutting corners.
👉You get frustrated when you don't see quick results or changes.
👉You are hard on yourself for not getting it "right".

These are all red flags. 🚩

Ask yourself WHY you are in a hurry...?

Chances are, you have one of the following tendencies. Reminder- these are mindsets we can change!

1) You think "there" is better than "here". When we believe that some future state will be so much better, then we can certainly be on a hurry. But guess what? It isn't necessarily "better", it's just different. There will be more goals, more problems, more of LIFE once you get past this current goal. It will not wipe away the human experience of life being 50% positive/ 50% negative. So embrace NOW as part of a journey. What are you learning now? How are you growing now? What is this part of the journey here to teach you?

2) You are a perfectionist living a perfectionist fantasy. Perfectionist mindsets can get in the way of growth because the blinders are on. Perfectionists focus on problems, blame themselves or others for imperfections, and leave little brain energy for true growth, learning, and compassion. Cultivate compassion for every moment things do not go "perfectly" and redirect your brain energy toward solutions, not the problem itself.

3) You tie your self-worth or loveability to reaching this goal (or every goal you set). Eeks! This one is huge. First of all, you don't earn worthiness- each one of us is already worthy. And loveable. Period. Secondly, if you are constantly chasing circumstances to feel good about yourself or "prove" yourself worthy, you have it backwards. Your thoughts and feelings about yourself are not dependent on circumstances. They are separate. You can determine your own thoughts and feelings with your mindset. You can just decide to feel a certain way about yourself. Now, this may take practice, of course. But it doesn't depend on reaching some goal.

Goals are just meant to be guides or maps for experiences we want to have. The point isn't "to arrive." The point is to have the experience, gain skills, learn, grow, and make memories.

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Knowing when to take a break from working out and when to keep going... 🥱🙄🫡

It's a common question- how do you know when your body really needs to relax or if you just need to push through the "I don't feel like it" phase?

Here are some key questions to ask yourself:

1) Have I been challenging myself and would it make sense to be physically needing a rest? 🤔

2) Do I show signs of over-training: High Resting HR, HR variability (not acting normal or consistent with exertion), fatigue, not feeling recovered after resting, excessive sweating, feeling weighed down.

3) Any signs of an injury or muscle strain that probably needs to heal or get checked out before returning?

4) Would a different type of movement sound better- maybe it's just a need to mix in different activities?

5) Would I feel great once I did it? 👈

6) Have I been fueling properly and getting enough water? 🍎💧

7) Do I have a resting protocol that makes sense with my plan? Have I been following it? Do I need to reassess the plan?

Answering these questions will help tease out what is going on if you are wondering when to take a break and rest versus getting your workout in and pushing through. 🏃‍♀️

Remember there is a formula for each of us:
Stress + Rest = Growth

If you decide to push through, remember to acknowledge the thoughts and feelings you have about it. Allow those feelings and then let them go gently or let them come on with you like carrying a purse as you show your brain that you will be OK. 👛

It might look like:

"I really don't feel like working out right now but I want to improve my health and I know I will feel so much better afterwards, so let's just do this. The hardest part is starting. Come on "blah", you are coming along with me."

This approach gives space for how you are feeling without judging it but also maintains the new mindset you are practicing that leads to the outcomes you want to create.

It's a process! Keep practicing the mindsets you want to create while letting go of the thoughts that don't serve you. 😍

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New Year words... 🥳🎊🎉

Some people like to choose a word for the upcoming year to ground their decisions, goals, and energy toward the meaning of the word.

What about choosing energy words, as in what type of emotional energy do you want to create, convey, excude, embody throughout the year?

Or maybe have one for each season?

Example:
Winter- Peaceful
Spring- Confident
Summer- Energized
Fall- Loving

Your thoughts create your emotions and your emotions drive your actions and attitudes. So work on coming up with thoughts that help you create your emotional energy words!

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The four contributions of hope:
1) Clear & inspiring goals
2) Realistic ways to achieve those goals
3) Belief that one has the ability to achieve the goals
4) A support system when it gets tough

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Frustrated about weight loss? Refocus your energy toward building a healthy lifestyle instead. 🏌‍♀️🚵‍♀️🛌🧘‍♀️🏃‍♀️🥑🍎🥦

And work on loving yourself regardless of how much you weigh. 😍

I am a certified weight loss coach, but over the past few years I really began to realize how much time and energy women put towards worrying about their weight that actually gets in the way of building long term health and loving themselves no matter what.

Why aren't those two things the most important?

I repeat: Long Term Health & Unconditional Love

I highly recommend shifting to this focus. 👈

The process will be more rewarding, fun, and feel great!

Weight loss may result, sure. And if there are vital health reasons for bringing it down, that's something to keep in mind. But weight loss in and of itself is a symptom, a byproduct. The focus ought to be on ways to implement processes that promote healthy lifestyle, fitness, longevity, and health span.

Why DO women pay do much attention to weight? 😳

Well we are in the midst of turning around a culture that's been going on for centuries- that women should conform to some ideal in order to be pleasing to society and worthy of love and attention. The messaging we still get hasn't completely resolved this ordeal. Diet culture is still rampant. Women still see their bodies as meaning something about them.

Now add in a processed food system and fast food culture that makes it harder to be healthy as well and easier to gain weight. Now we're in a perfect storm.

That's a lot to turn around! 🤯

This is fairly new territory for women to learn to love themselves unconditionally and focus some of their attention on themselves for self care and having their own goals and priorities.

So let's embrace our rights to choose how we want to think about our own health and self-love!

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