July Week 1: Preventing Going "Off"

Happy July everyone and welcome to our theme of “Bouncing Back”. This month we will be looking at developing the incredibly powerful skill of how to bounce back after binging, or losing focus with your weight release, or even if you have gained a few pounds. Being able to build the muscle of recovering as quickly as possible from any overeating episode is vital to not only reaching your ideal weight but keeping it off for the long term.

This week I would like to begin with looking at three of the best ways I know to keep from “falling off” in the first place. Obviously, it is much easier to stay focused rather than to recover and get it back, so let’s focus on working that muscle first!

PREVENTING “GOING OFF”

I want to invite you to see that there is a science behind weight mastery that goes beyond writing your food and getting enough exercise. The science involves working with your brain in a way to keep it on course with your weight goals.

Nowadays, with all the distracting forces of technology, we are all a bit ADD! Our overstimulated brains are way more apt to get distracted or super stressed and that can easily lead to stress eating, emotional eating and allowing yourself to get too hungry and then overeating.

On top of our distracting lives, we tend to speak critically and harshly with ourselves and create high expectations that set us up to fail and feel bad about ourselves. What do we do when we feel bad? We eat of course!

In order to keep our mind in a more powerful, forward thinking place, we need to call upon our Inner Coach to help us with some offensive strategies that protect our brains from all that negative stimulation.  We can learn to leverage the limited willpower we have to get ourselves through the day with more focus and resolve.

If you can commit, for the month of July, to practice these three Inner Coach based practices, I assure you that you will have a mindful and focused month of weight mastery.

1. WEEKLY PLANNING POW WOW WITH YOUR INNER COACH: Setting some quiet planning time aside on Sunday, even if it’s 10 minutes, to think through your exercise and weight goals.
   • Take a moment and create a vision of where you would like to be the following Sunday: weight wise, vibrancy wise, and how you would like to feel about how you took care of yourself this week.
   • Decide specifically what your weight release goal for the week is. This will allow you to break down into daily steps the actions you need to take to reach your goal, what your daily calorie budget needs to be, along with your exercise needs.
   • Put your exercise appointments in your calendar along with ideas for meals.This will help you make decisions ahead of time.  We often have no willpower left when making decisions later in the day so our decisions tend to be more impulsive, based on old habits versus what we really need to do for ourselves.
   • This powerful weekly practice accomplishes many positive things:
     • It shows you that you are worth loving attention.
     • It sharpens your commitment to your weekly goal.
     • It gives you a step-by step-road map to follow through on.
     • It makes it much easier to stay focused on a daily basis.
2. MORNING MEDITATION WITH INNER COACH: For those of you using our morning meditation session provided in these weekly coaching sessions: great! This is the tool you could use every day to reinforce the daily plans that you mapped out in your weekly session.
   
   If you haven’t been using the tool, please listen. This 10 minute session helps you create a mental road map for your day but also walks you through those vulnerable moments in your day when you might “go off”. If you take a moment to think through taking care of yourself in those moments with a better strategy, it will raise your chances of successfully making it through your day in a focused manner.
   
   Even if you don’t listen to the session, think your day of food and exercise through, along with the vulnerable times, and see how much more easily you go through the day from start to finish.
3. AFTERNOON HUDDLE WITH YOUR INNER COACH: The mid-afternoon is a time of day when our willpower has lapsed due to all the stimulus and stress of the day.  Take a moment to refresh your willpower and rethink your positive actions of self care for the rest of the day. All you need to do is close your eyes for a few moments and breathe steadily and evenly - get in touch with your breath and your heart rate. Slow it down and remind yourself you are worth taking care of.
   
   Again, we have a tool for you: a five minute meditation you can listen to in the afternoon to reset your mind. You will find this break and reset in your afternoon creates a strong bridge that overpasses any old habits of “going off” in the afternoon or evening which is when we are the most vulnerable.

Try these three fast and easy techniques this week. Practicing them often will strengthen your staying on track muscle and weaken the “going off” muscle, which will create much more consistency and confidence for you in the long run.

Next week we will hop into bouncing back techniques! 

Have a great week!