Gift Giver of Health

Good morning ladies,

We need to stop thinking that our own personal health is only for us.  Do you know that when you take your health into consideration and succeed in a plan you aren’t just improving your health, you are improving the health of all those who are watching you.  I’m not saying if you run a 5k then someone else you know who hasn’t ever run before can run a 5k that same day.  However, you are giving what it takes before they commit to training for a 5k, thought.  When someone watches you succeed in a health and wellness plan it gives them thought.  All things begin with thought, you are giving them a beginning.

Have you noticed the people you are around typically do the same things as you do?  Why do you think that is?  Because we gravitate toward those who have similar thoughts put forth into similar actions.  When you change your thoughts you either begin the shift in your social culture or you shift into another social culture.  It is the way of the world.

We, Your Turn, talk a lot about selfishness, yes it is selfish to take time for yourself FIRST and I LOVE that!  But, as much as I love that I also love how YT Inspirators are beginning to notice what their selfishness has done.  At our YT Weight Loss Support Group a woman was talking about the change she made for herself has supported change in a family member who lives STATES away from us.  She spoke of the change in her children, grandchildren and how the community has started a walking group JUST BECAUSE she and another YT Inspirator began to do things for their health.  The other Inspirators in the room began to talk about how their change has brought about changes in others and how they were changed because…..the conversation just rolled.  They understand how their health is changing their culture, changing the culture in others changes their culture and the world begins to shift and change.

If you struggle with the idea of being selfish, taking time for yourself, giving yourself back your health I implore you to STOP AND THINK about it in another way.  Put away the idea of your own selfishness and instead begin to think you need to support change in your social culture, your family culture.  Think about yourself as such an amazing giver that you are giving your time to you because you are giving someone else permission to think of their health and wellness.  You taking time for you is really quite a gift to another person.  You are just so damn kind, I LOVE THAT!!

Go out there today, take time for yourself because you AREN’T selfish, you are a gift giver of health to the culture that you are in.

Get Your Sweat On

Your Turn

Mel

CHEERS…To Moms!

Good morning ladies, Happy Mothers Day, yesterday, to all the moms out there.  I received the gift I wanted, all my kids home with me.  We played cards, Molly painted my toe nails, the little boys and I snuggled.  We …

Get Gritty!

Good morning ladies,

I’m awake after a night of weird dreams.  My dreams were all of me trying to do something that was sort of dumb; one dream was of me stealing a boat out of a store that once belonged to my dead uncle.  I had a friend helping me and we were being chased but I wouldn’t give up or give in to not getting that boat back.  This dream was after another dream where I single handedly unarmed a man who was trying to do things that I didn’t approve of.  This man kept coming after me but I kept up averting him in some house until the police arrived.  In my dream I had stamina, determination to accomplish an intention…Angela Ducksworth would call what I had in my dream GRIT!

Last night I ran with some Your Turn Inspirators who also showed GRIT.  They were determined to run those 5 solid minutes.  They would call to one another words of encouragement to keep it up.   A few, even after they could have gone home from completing their workout, stayed to run up Maple Hill; we start at Crosstown Pkwy and run all the way up to the tippy top of that steep hill to the stop sign.  That hill is nothing short of a bitch, you think you’ve got it then you hit the steepest part and you are almost completely stopped in your tracks.  To get to the top you have to have determination, stamina and an intention to make it to the top…GRIT.

Women who are involved in the Your Turn Weight Loss Support Group had been encouraged to keep up the effort it takes to keep journaling their food.  Take the successes along with the challenges and stay with the commitment to their health.  A woman wrote on our FB group, “I know this has to be long term. I know that the quality of my life as well as the length of the healthy part of my life depends on it. When I think of the magnitude of changing forever, it feels overwhelming, so I try to stay focused on the short term. It will likely take 20 weeks to lose a kindergartner if I am completely focused. And I have like 3 or more to lose. That is a long fucking time, right? But I can rejoice in the ten-ish pounds I have lost in the past 5 weeks now. I can keep this up because I while I don’t see the change in my body, I see the change in the scale. I’ve spent 37 years abusing my body. That shit is over. It doesn’t mean I can’t ever have a chocolate cupcake. It means I can’t have a chocolate cupcake after eating crap all day. It means I can’t have 6 cupcakes. The most amazing part of this journey is how really simple changes are making a difference. Portion control is HUGE for me and not so hard if I pay attention. Failure is simply not a fucking option. Period.”  That woman, that Your Turn Inspirator has GRIT!!!

Another Inspirator once told me that if we flow in the river of our culture, easy food and no movement that is challenging we will all end up without the health of our body.  She told me that this is a river we need to fight against.  She’s right, we need to have GRIT to get our health back, GRIT to keep our health, GRIT is where a healthy life is at!

To the GRITTY YOU, I toast you with my cucumber water this morning.  Let’s stay GRITTY!

Your Turn

Mel

Small Steps to Success

Good morning ladies,

“It is always best to believe in oneself but a little help from a friend can certainly help.”~unknown

How often does “I Can’t” comes to the mind before you ever think you can.   We have approximately 50,000 thoughts in any given day, many of them are negative thoughts of the past or pessimistic thoughts of the future.  It seems shortly after a GREAT thing occurs in your life the mind takes us to a place of “that won’t happen again” UNLESS you train your mind to think positive thoughts.  Training your mind to find the best parts of our past and the greatest possibilities of our future takes practice and time but I know a way to retrain the brain while you are becoming the healthiest you that you can be…SMALL SUCCESSES.

We have the ability to break down the negative patterns the more small successes we have to think about.  Your Turn has made the choice to take every goal and break it down into VERY SMALL, VERY MANAGEABLE, ACHIEVABLE STEPS.  Instead of making weight loss seem a HUGE challenge for those who have 70-80-90 or over 100 lbs to lose we talk about things like, “instead of drinking a 12 pack of soda a day, drink 11 1/2 cans by pouring 1/2 of the last one of the day out”, we don’t flinch when women have said to us, “I eat 2 meals at McDonald’s when I go through the drive through and I’m alone”…that’s totally fine, “how about instead of you eating both meals you pick either 1 of the extra fries or 1 of the extra sandwiches and throw it away, give it away or pee on it before you eat anything, do it as soon as you get it into the car?”.  It seemed the very minute the 12 pack of soda a day Inspirator began cutting out small amounts of soda (which she didn’t  think she could do AT ALL) she realized it was possible, she could do it and her mind changed.  She started thinking that if she could do that she could do…X…  As soon as the Inspirator began cutting out that 2nd large fry from the McDonald’s meal she realized, she COULD make this change and her mind began to change, from there she wanted another small step because she was “READY TO DO MORE”.  SUCCESS!!!

Within a few short weeks of having one small step success lead into another small step success they are gaining back some of the confidence that they had lost because they couldn’t make BIG CHANGES STICK, they had felt like they were failures and gave up trying.

For the women who realized they COULD run 60 seconds then realized they COULD run 90 seconds then COULD run 3 minutes…one small success leading into another and the next thing you know they ran a 5K and are now looking to train in the same small step manner for a sprint triathlon.

With help, support and a friend saying, “you can do this, this is manageable” we can turn an “I CAN’T” into a “I DID IT, LET’S TRY SOMETHING ELSE”.  Not only do we change the negative thought patterns into positive outlooks for the future but we are also helping to create a healthier you.  The next time “I can’t” begins to creep in, write what you “can’t” do down and let’s break it out into small steps to success!!  YOU CAN, YOU WILL and YOU WILL ACHIEVE MORE!!!  I believe in you!!!

Your Turn

Mel