Tag: Decisions

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Weight Loss Exercise

Tony Robbins Tips for 2012

Tony Robbins is a guy that I have listened to for years but I took a break from him for the last few years thinking that the last thing that I need is motivation and the big thing that I needed was action.

Well times maybe changing for me. I watched this Tony Robbins video last weekend and it really fired me up, I was sharing it everywhere I could

Be warned the Tony Robbins video is 35 or 40 minutes long but I think this is a great break to inspire you. When I say inspire I mean that watching this video is not just to get you fired up and ready to take on the world but instead this video will give you actionable ideas for how to make sure that you know where you are going and why. I think mostly of this as a planning session and brainstorming and it should lead to another session for you to make sure you know what you need to do over the rest of the year.

How Tony Robbins Helps Build Standards

Looking at this video by Tony Robbins I just want to mention one thing and that is the idea of setting standards that you live by. By saying standards I mean that I think of myself as living a certain way, decisions to live by. Here are an example of 5 of my standards that I live by.

  1. I drink water all day long
  2. Exercise is a high priority everyday
  3. I never eat after dinner
  4. Fruit and veggies are great snacks
  5. I make sure I have goals for the week all the time

I know this list is just an example of a few things and I know I still come up short. I scramble around from task to task and leave a lot of things unfinished and I get distracted easily so I still have a lot of work to do.

I hope that Tony Robbins video as well as my own examples here can help you to set your own standards as well as look at, like I do, parts of your life where standards are missing. Tony Robbins is more than just a motivational speaker, I think that watching these Tony Robbins videos can help you build some needed structure in your life.

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General Weight Loss Tips

Wait for Hunger Challenge: Week One

I debated what I would call this challenge.  I went back and forth on using the word “hunger” because it’s loaded. Because people in the world are actually hungry and do not have the luxury of eating when they’re not. There are also people in the world who deny themselves food when they are hungry. I first called it the “feeling it challenge” and then the “wait for it challenge”. And then a million other combinations of words that just didn’t feel right. So in advance, this challenge means exactly what it says: waiting for hunger to eat.

In the past week I’ve been challenging myself to 1) wait for hunger to eat 2) stop at the first signs of full 3) feel the feelings of wanting to eat outside of hunger 4) sit down and eat without watching tv or being in front of the computer 5) find something else to fill the need 6) eliminate guilt from eating. I’m realizing that when I wait for hunger, it takes less food to make me full. When I eat from habit or emotion, I will never, ever be full. This is profound for me. It is profound because I know how much food I need in a day. When I eliminate guilt, the power is gone.

In the past two times I’ve gone out to eat, I’ve slowed down. To drink water, to have conversation, to look around. I’m not stuffing food in my face. I’m making different decisions. When I’m at home, a different challenge arises, having food around all the time. So I make myself think harder. To write down what I’m feeling and to do something else. Anything that will make me happier than overeating. This challenge is not about guilt, deprivation or starvation. It’s about eating, stress free, and then stopping. It’s about moving on.

Yesterday I was more productive and happy  than I’ve been in a long time. I created a task jar where I write down all of the tasks I want to get done on post-it notes. I fold them up and drop them in the jar. I shake it a little and pick one at random. I do that task and nothing else. I was focused. And it worked for me. I completed 14 tasks. I was only tempted to overeat once (yogurt with dark chocolate peanut butter). I got stuff done that I’ve been sitting on for weeks. Stuff I was waiting for the “perfect situation” to complete.

I bring this up because I found something that worked for me. I’ve been making to-do lists and detailed plans using other peoples methods for as long as I can remember. I just don’t work that way. I get overwhelmed, I find excuses and then I just drop it all. I become paralyzed by methods that do not work for me. And the same goes for eating. All I need to change my life if is to wait for hunger. I know how to eat. I know how much my body needs to lose weight. I trust that in myself. When I count calories or eliminate food, it’s because I don’t trust myself. And I end up eating without hunger. Programs, for me, cover the problem. They put power in food, rather than me. I know it works for people. But, as I sit here, still in need of losing 150 + pounds, I need a new way. My way.

So if you feel like you might benefit from this challenge, I encourage you to leave a comment. For the next week I’m making a promise to myself that I will not eat when I’m not genuinely hungry. If I want to eat, I will write instead. I will sew a skirt. I will blog about something fun. I will decorate my house. I will hug my husband. I will do something, anything, that fills me up without food. This isn’t about counting calories, or feeling guilty over any food decision I make. This isn’t about nutrition, or avoiding food groups. It’s simple: only eat when you’re hungry without distractionsand stop eating when you’re full. If you’re in, I will support you in anyway I can. I will correspond in the comments. I will visit your blog. We can do this!

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Weight Loss Exercise

Change your life with a bunch of little questions


If you want to make changes in your life you need to look at two places, where you are today and where you want to be in the future. The trouble with these two questions is that they are far too wide ranging, are these really fair questions or is there an easy way to break them down.

Change your life with a bunch of little questionsI have asked this question of myself many times because it seems that some people make great strides in changing their life and some people seem to be stuck in a rut for years at a time. I myself have occasionally made big changes but my life but just like most people these changes are a bit more random than I would like.

So what is the secret to making changes in your life that are lasting and are what you really want? What do you really want?

Well a little while ago it dawned on me, the real secret is to make the small decisions in all parts of your life and then incorporate those changes.

What do you want in the future

Look through your day and see what you want to get out of it. Go through your weekend and see what you want to get out of it. Go through your workday and see what you want to get out of it. Take a look at your life in general today. How does it look? What are you happy with? What are you disappointed about. Take a day and write these things down (You didn’t think nirvana was a 10 minute process did you?).

Let’s say that you now have a broad idea of what you would like to keep and what you would like to change in your life. This is a very broad list so do not get hung up on it. The list is a general direction that we can look at and then apply then next step to try to put our life into alignment.

A lot of little questions

The next process is 100 questions or so that you need to ask yourself in a deliberate manner from the moment you wake up in the morning until the moment you go to sleep at night. Some of these questions you ask too often and some of these questions you never ask yourself. This is the stuff of your life and once you question it you can make 100 little changes and your life will never be the same

Here is the question list

Morning
What time did you get up?
Should you get up earlier or later?
When you woke up what did you think, and I mean the very first though? Positive or negative?
What did you do next? Shower? Eat? Exercise?
What do you want to do?
Get in shape?
Sleep more?
Organize before work?
How long is the time that you take to get from bed to leaving for work?
Would you like some relaxing time?
Do you get too much relaxing time?
Do you eat at home?
Do you read the paper?
Watch TV?
Listen to the radio?

Going to work
After leaving for work do you stop to eat?
Do you go to a restaurant for breakfast?
Do you have enough time to get to work?
How do you get to work?
Do you take a bus?
Do you drive?
Do you walk?
Do you carpool?
Do you go to the home office/ desk and work?
Once you get to work do you plan your morning?
Surf the net?
Have a meltdown because everything hits you at once?
Look at email?
When you get into work do you eat breakfast?
Do you drink coffee?
Do you have a donut or Danish?

The Workday
As you go through your day at work do you get hit with tasks or do you create your schedule?
Do you go to meetings or set meetings?
Do you allocate your time or do you just get hit with whatever is someones bad planning?
Lunchtime hits, do you go out for lunch?
Did you bring lunch?
What kind of food do you eat?
Do you have lunch at your desk?
Lunch with others?
How long is lunch, 30 minutes? An hour? 2 hours?

After Work
After you get off work do you go straight home?
Out for drinks?
Out to a park?
Out for dinner?
Stay at the office until you are too tired to work?

Evening Schedule
In the evening do you stay home to watch TV?
Do you go out to the bar?
Do you go to a hockey or baseball game?
Do you rent a movie?
Do you have friends over?
Do you go over to other peoples homes to visit?
Do you go to a gym or fitness center?
At night do you read a book?
Watch TV some more?
Fall asleep watching the tube in bed?

Sleep and rest
Now that the day is over do you sleep 6 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours?
Do you get enough sleep?
Do you pack the sleep in on the weekends and sacrifice weekday sleep?

Was that a lot of questions or what? Actually that is only about 63 questions so you could ask a lot more if you would like. Now in answering all of those questions do you think that you have a better method of changing than just using an affirmation of  “I want to lose weight” or thinking about exercising? This method should really give you a better set of ways in which change can be made

Time is on your side

I think that realistically we all have about 16 hours of time between the time we wake up and the time that we go to sleep and even if you go to work for 8 or 10 hours a day this still leaves a lot of time that we have a lot of control over. These are just all of the questions for a weekday. You can probably do the same for the weekends, or planning vacations, or changing jobs to something that you want to do more.

The essential thing is that if you are not happy with the answer to anything in your life then ask yourself more and smaller one or all of the questions what do you do about it? You have the opportunity to change any part of your life and just by asking a lot of small questions you will make those big changes that you want to make but do not know how.

I am sure that this process is the easiest way towards change. If you want to lose weight ask all those eating questions and exercise questions and research a good answer. If you are single and want to change that ask all the questions of the things that you do yourself and get others involved in them. If you want to take more control of your life ask all of those questions for work and home that you let others dictate and answer them the way that you want.

The real key to all this is to go to those first few questions that I said to ask about your life and what you want. The really broad questions are a direction and get hints from all of these little questions as to what you do next to make that big thing happen.

After 40 years of living a happy as well as unhappy life I wish someone had told me to ask as many of these small questions as I have laid out here. I hope that all these little things do in fact change you life into the type of life that you are looking for.