Kimberly J Garcia

Category: Health

  • Why We’re So Passionate About Food!

    Why We’re So Passionate About Food!

    In recent years, our team has learned so much professionally and personally about the importance of food. Learning through mistakes, illness and success, we have become very passionate about sharing a message of truth. What’s tough, is sometimes a message of truth may seem a little overboard or outside of the norm.

    I remember the first time I met a gentleman Paul Chek at an ECA Fitness conference in Miami. He is the creator of the CHEK Institute and by far one of the best health practitioners in the WORLD!  In 2005, I attended a brief nutrition lecture with him and was totally blown away! I knew everything he said was the absolute truth, but it seemed so out of my reach that I was unable to wrap my head around the changes he was recommending. Information such as switching my meat to organic, throwing out my microwave and going back to eating REAL food! I valued what he said, but it seemed as if I would have to move to a remote island somewhere to make the changes truly come to life. An island where there was no temptation, no kids screaming for what they want and free food from the land.

    I was already eating “HEALTHY” based on what mainstream society was telling me, but I realized I was still having issues such as gas, constipation, fatigue, depression and cellulite.  As I moved forward with clients and coaching them with lifestyle changes, I started to see many trends with health symptoms relating directly to how someone was eating. I started to see those who ate too little had hypothyroid, heart palpitations and extremely low pulse rates, others who followed popular weight loss programs for several years had Fibromyalgia, depression and symptoms of MS and those who cut out whole food groups experienced digestive disorders, skin issues and diseases such as Hashimoto’s Disease.

    Prior to receiving extensive training and experience in this area, I used to just focus on Calories, Fat, Protein, Carbs and Fiber. I thought if I hit my calorie goal, I was healthy!  NOT! That was the furthest from the truth. I found that this method of achieving weight loss was very generic and actually created sick, skinny and fat bodies, not healthy, vibrant bodies!

    Food, or the replacement of food, has the most POWER when it comes to how you look, think, act, feel and age! When we train clients we are very passionate about sharing this truth with them, because we know what they do when they leave our facility is more critical than what they do when they are with us. If we train someone at a high intensity, but they go home and either skip meals, eat microwaved meals or often drink protein shakes, we know (based on trends & education) most will be creating a chronic illness for themselves. Training programs which advise you to eat very strict amounts of calories, omitting whole food groups such as fat, meat or carbs, will eventually (or immediately) lead to serious issues. When someone hires us, they typically have a goal of weight loss, pain relief, more energy and a tight body! We know if they crash diet or eat all “fake” food, they may achieve these goals very short-term, but not long after, the injuries will increase, healing time will take much longer and/or chronic diseases such as autoimmune dysfunction or Cancer will arise. There is just no way around it!

    Metabolism is all chemical reactions happening in a living organism to maintain life.  Calories are units of energy required to help the chemical reactions take place. Whole food calories are the only ones which have true nutrients to spark these reactions in a way which creates life versus stress in the body.

    Our goal is to help people achieve the goals they truly want:

    Energy, Health, Tight Bodies, Strength, Better Skin, LIFE

    Weight loss does not guarantee any of these things which is why we never advise crap food, surgeries or crap meal replacements as a way to achieve the body you want.

    If you are experiencing gas, bloating, anxiety, mood swings, depression, autoimmune dysfunction, poor healing, infertility, impotency, loss of libido, symptoms of MS, Melasma, muscle wasting, increased injuries- YOU ARE NOT DOING SOMETHING RIGHT!

    A health plan should make you feel healthier!

    It took me some time to realize Paul Chek was definitely not crazy or going overboard when he shared his passion for better health. What he was doing was trying to save lives and prevent unnecessary health problems being created by common “health” practices. He was the expert and had already been there, done that.  I chose to learn by his mistakes and start applying versus fighting the advice. Our entire staff has worked over the past few years to make small changes and it is amazing to see how far we have come mentally, physically and emotionally.  It’s always a work in progress, but I am here to tell you THAT YOU CAN DO IT! You can have what you want to have without deprivation, sickness, high food bills and strict diets.

    If you need help taking your health to the next level, please email me at kimgarcia@gimefitness.com .

    If you want to get started on your own, your best investment right now would be our new Tour of the Store GIME Guide!

    This is quick fix allows for you to make easy changes TOMORROW!

    Save Your Time, Money and Health! Know that your diagnosis does not have to be permanent! More than 2/3rd’s of our current health problems can be completely managed/eliminated through small, simple changes! We hope you will understand our passion and we hope to add more Quality of Life to your years!

     

    *Photo from http://www.paulshealthblog.com/2010/07/you-are-what-you-eat.html

  • Pills are Painless?

    Are you playing with your body’s chemistry?

    Could you be creating a serious health problem?

    Chances are if you take prescription medications, over the counter vitamins and a pain reliever now and then, the answer is YES! Americans as a whole are unaware of the billions of chemical reactions happening in their  body each second and have become immune to the fact that everything which they put into their mouth impacts these reactions. Your metabolism is every chemical reaction happening within your body to maintain life. The substances we place into our mouth either promote these reactions helping to maintain life or they have the ability to cease the chemical reactions leading to a slow death.

    Growing up I saw commercials constantly telling me if I have a headache, take this. If I have a backache, take this. If I have depression, take this. It seemed as if I had experienced any pain or symptom the solution was to take something to get rid of it. When we hear this repetitively, it seems normal to just take something to solve your physical and mental health problems. Although there are times when we do need a medication or supplement to help us improve our health, this programmed thought to just take something is very dangerous in many ways.  Let me share with you just my personal experience with pills and how they have impacted my life.

    1.The Teen Years- As a teen, my mom had to work a lot. My father was not in the picture and my step father was not a good resource for parenting. Needless to say I spent a lot of time with my friends. I originally had a great group of friends which focused on school, good grades and movie night. Through certain events, I slowly migrated towards a group of friends who had less leadership in their life and had more interest in drinking, skipping school and drug use. With my insecurities in myself and lack of quality family time, I became drawn to this environment. As I surrounded myself with people who experimented with drugs, the only one I felt safe to take were in the form of a pill. I would not do heavy drugs such as cocaine, crack or acid. I felt these were unsafe, looked trashy and had too many risks. I did feel safe to take pills. Why? They seemed harmless. Everyone took them and they were very easy to swallow. Smoking caused coughing, smelly clothes and cancer. Although I tried smoking, I always felt pills would be a much easier way to be part of the crowd without too much danger. At this time deadly pills such as OxyContin were not available or popular. Ten years later, a young girl locally who took a half of one pill died that same night in her sleep. Children who have watched their parents take these pills are also following suit and have now lost their life. I was the lucky one, but could you imagine a gifted student who graduated with honors and was most proud of state science fair, falling into the thought process of pills being safe?

    2.The Diet Industry: When I first entered the fitness world, I was looking for a pill which could give me natural energy to improve my workouts and help me get through my work day. I entered a popular nutrition store and the representative recommended a product which was made from MaHuang, the herbal form of Ephedra. He said it was all natural and a great way to receive safe energy.  I was excited and felt like this was a good choice. Well the bottle with a picture of a 200lb body builder on the front said to take four per serving. So the next day I took four pills and within an hour thought I was going to explode. My body was racing, my head was tingling and I could not stop. At 118lbs and 18 years old, I guess the four pills were a little much. Did anyone tell me this? No. Did the bottle warn me? No. The kid in the store said this was safe and why would I doubt him since he sells these products all the time? Needless to say anytime I took these type of pills, I felt as if I was on the speed I experimented with as a young teenager and knew these pills must not be good for me. I definitely did not have lasting energy and if anything, when they wore off, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. This experience helped me later in life working with a mentally ill client searching for weight loss. The client had went to her psychiatrist expressing symptoms of tingling in her head, a racing feeling and itching. He then gave her a prescription for anti-psychotic drugs. Her symptoms seemed closely related to what I felt when I took my energy pill. I asked the client if she had been taking weight loss pills and/or drinking energy drinks at the time the symptoms began. Sure enough she was taking 4-6 pills per day and drinking 2-4 energy drinks. No one asked her what she had changed, nor what she was taking when her symptoms appeared. Instead she was given a very powerful drug which added to her negative symptoms. Luckily I was able to attend a consult with her and her doctor. After hearing this information he felt confident he could remove the prescribed drug from her daily regimen. Simple diet changes and elimination of weight loss products cleared up the client’s problems almost immediately. What’s happening to those out there who do not have an advocate? Are they on a pill to address the symptoms of another pill? Are they becoming an addicted member of society which can not add value to their community in the workforce and does not feel valuable to themselves?

    3. Pills a Safe Way to Die- This is going to sound rough and maybe unbelievable, but it’s critical we share our experiences to help save others. After years of an emotionally abusive relationship in which my boyfriend loved to make me feel lesser about myself, I felt as if I wanted to pay him back for the pain he had caused me. I had secluded myself from friends due to his possessiveness, felt too ugly to do things normal people in their twenties did and was ready to hurt him the way he had hurt me. I decided one day to take pills left over from my step father’s previous surgery. He happened to have an entire bottle of the pain reliever Darvocet in the medicine cabinet. I decided if I took the pills I could die painlessly and make my then boyfriend suffer for all the pain he caused me. Of course I didn’t want to die, but I wanted my feelings validated. No matter how bad he hurt me mentally or physically, he never seemed to let it bother him. I wanted him to feel the pain he had caused me. After taking 17 pills, I planned to go to sleep. Thank you to God (who was  always watching over me, even in the times I was a total idiot) a friend showed up and came to my rescue. I told her what I had done and why.  My mother then came home and called her friend which was a nurse. My mom kept me awake per instruction of her friend. They started giving me water and I began to vomit. Imagine vomiting at least 20 times in one day. I could first only handle a sip of water and then a quarter of a glass and then a full glass. After hours of vomiting and a day of rest, I finally felt like myself again. It was the stupidest thing I ever did, but something I needed to go through to see pills are not painless and that I was much more valuable than what I had felt. My mom, although scared and angry, showed me love and understanding.  I had done such a good job hiding my feelings from her and others. She had no idea I ever felt this way. This was a big life lesson for all of us.

    4. Pills to Cover Severe Stomach Pain- This was my third year into trying to live perfect, go to college, work at night and exercise an hour or more per day. I ate healthy, made good grades and worked hard. I thought I was doing everything right. I began to experience severe abdominal pain, bowel issues, melasma and skin rashes which mimicked lupus. My doctors told me I was stressed, I should drink water and eat salad. I was diagnosed with IBS and given a pill. The pain continued. Two colonoscopies later and continued use of Metamucil with no long term relief from symptoms. I was told my colon was moving at the rate of a 40 year old and I was only 21. Still no solutions other than take this pill and live with it. I later discovered I was eating too little on my healthy diet, over training and was creating a sluggish system with a spastic colon due to my daily choices. After changing my work out regimen, eliminating diet foods and achieving a realistic body fat, all pain and bowel issues went away. I was even able to menstruate again after a year and a half without a period.  All symptoms were accounted to stress according to my Physicians, but no one could tell me how to balance this stress since I was exercising, eating what we thought was “healthy” and drinking water. I later learned through my training at the CHEK Institute how to help balance the various stressors and which factors were impacting my health.  I now teach people how to assess their stressors and how to take control of their life. The pills never helped.

    5. Nutrition Deficiencies– After years of doing what mainstream media told me to do, exercise, eat the right amount of calories, go, go, go- I continued to have vague symptoms such as fatigue, depression, peripheral neuropathy and dull chest aches. I approached my doctor with the symptoms. She tested my thyroid and everything showed fine on paper. Yet I had very low blood pressure, low pulse, low body temp and general fatigue. Nothing in blood work could be revealed. One day when the tingling in my arm and face took over the doctor instructed me to go to the ER. After two visits and a $5,000 bill nothing was discovered, yet my symptoms were getting worse. I finally researched vitamin deficiencies and my symptoms. I found many vitamin B deficiencies which matched my ailments. I then found a company SpectraCell Labs which could test each of my nutrient levels. This is not something generally ordered by Physicians. This is the first time I actually received answers to what was causing my symptoms. The test revealed a Vitamin B3 and Vitamin B6 deficiency, along with lower rates of CoQ10 and B12. Each of the deficiencies matched the exact symptoms I was was having for more than a year. I discovered my on the go diet of “healthier” snack foods and busy lifestyle was depleting my body of essential nutrients needed for proper metabolism, hormones, nerve health and brain function. I quickly purchased the exact vitamins I needed, made additional dietary changes and improved my symptoms within weeks.

    6. Cookie Cutter Programs- Many people are being advised to take the same vitamins, the same medications, the same vaccines, the same diet plans, yet everyone is chemically in a different place. I have found even local health professionals do not understand the danger of recommending the same supplement plan to all of their clients. I have seen clients told to take vitamins designed for a vegan, when their lifestyle matches nothing of a vegan. I have seen people told to take loads of calcium pyruvate for weight loss to later lead to heart problems. Although vitamins may seem harmless and medications may seem to eliminate our symptoms, it is critical we understand we are each uniquely made with drastically different lifestyles. Taking a vitamin to hopefully help prevent disease, without knowing what your body needs, can cause more problems than prevention. Taking the same Statin drug as most people are taking without solving the underlying  cause of your cholesterol issue, can cause additional issues such as joint pain, liver problems and continued disease progression.  You are not an inanimate object such as a car, lawn mower or motorcycle which can be given the same fuel over and over again. You are a person working to maintain a quality of life. It is important that you assess your symptoms and then analyze what you could be doing to cause your symptoms. Once the causes are determined, you work to eliminate the ones you can and supplement specifically to your needs.

    My goal of this blog is to help open a dialogue. A better understanding of how complex our body is. An understanding as to how even smart people can make poor choices and feel as if pills are painless.  Although these are quick synopses of a much bigger picture, these stories are reality and a reality many innocent people are dealing with on a day to day basis. People looking for help in all the right places and mostly innocent professionals trying to offer quick solutions.  These seemingly  harmless prescriptions for pain relief, weight loss and better health are leading to much bigger issues within our society. Issues of drug addiction which stemmed from common back pain or an internal insecurity which went unrecognized during a 15  minute office visit. Issues of chronic vitamin deficiencies being misdiagnosed as depression, MS and Fibromyalgia. Issues of a society who looks to the pill and the doctor to cure them versus looking within at their own personal habits, insecurities and choices. Forgetting to search for ways to take ownership and improve.  After hearing recently that our county  is the second highest in the state with drug addicted babies being born to their drug addicted moms and overdose death on the rise, I asked myself what was it that made me think pills were harmless? What made me think I could solve my problems with a pill?

    I realized these pictures were planted in my head and the notion of pills being painless was eventually just assumed. My TV told me they were a solution, Physicians prescribed them to fix my illness, the nice guy at the store told me I could have more energy and anyone I respected in my life seemed to think it was good to take the vitamins their friend told them to and to just pop an Advil when you felt a headache coming on.  These are pictures planted in our mind. Pictures of approval, of something not so bad to do.

    When you cut yourself, you see blood and you feel pain. If you burn yourself, there is an immediate response. Innocently, as a society, we have failed to realize the tiny wounds which are being placed within our body each time we take a pill which is not intended for us. Whether it’s a pill , a drink or a special meal, if we are ingesting fuel which was not designed to improve the rate of cell renewal in our body, we are slowly creating pain. Vague symptoms which will appear rapidly or over time without us knowing we are creating the problem. In order to change the pill addiction problems in our community we must work together to recommend medications responsibly. We must educate on the complexity of the human body and how valuable we each are. We must understand most of us are not chemist and can not safely play around with medications no matter how harmless they seem. We must start to think about what may be causing our symptoms versus finding ways to cover them up. As Physicians, as friends, parents and educators, we must lead by example. We must show respect to the power of medicine, good and bad. We must try to take care of ourselves through good food, good thoughts and good rest. We must not just assume we can abuse our bodies and burn the candle at both ends without a consequence. We should work to heal ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally reaching out for resources. And once we have covered our part, then if still needed, we shall utilize the correct supplements and medication to help maintain our quality of life. As others start to see the respect and value we place on our body’s and our life,  they will know they can turn to us for assistance versus medicating themselves into a never ending road of unhappiness and addiction.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • How the Successful Lose Weight and Keep it Off

    Working with so many people to help them lose weight, having many successes and having many who give up, I ask myself, how is it that I made the commitment to make better choices?  How is that many people I helped 10 or more years ago to lose weight, have kept it off? Because truly that’s the real answer. Anyone and any diet can help someone lose weight, but which methods and behaviors actually keep it off? And for that matter, which methods and behaviors actually make you healthier during the process? For today, we will discuss how to be successful at weight loss for life, but it’s a whole other story as to whether your weight loss is healthy or not.

    In recent years, weight loss has become very complicated, gimmicky and obsessive. We seem to be drawn to these characteristics, but of course we’re being marketed daily to think we should eat less, move more and if we screw up, we might as well give up.  This is why 95% of dieters fail and most attempt at least 8 times before they actually succeed. If you want to break this statistic, read on. If you want to stay on the hamster wheel, close now.

     GET OFF THE WHEEL!!! YOU CAN BE SUCCESSFUL FOR LIFE!

     

    I believe it’s time to make a change and I believe I am tired of seeing people get caught up in the whirlwind of the dieting industry. Each person deserves to feel their best and it’s time I share the simple, yet priceless secrets with you.

    1.  Successful people make small changes over time.

    No one can be perfect in a week. We do not become a perfect student, a perfect parent or a perfect spouse over night (if ever). So how do we think we could live completely “good” when it comes to diet and exercise? It’s just not possible to turn your world upside down and keep it that way just because the diet book or the trainer told you to. It’s also not smart to just change everything in your body over night. Going from no exercise and no awareness of diet, to daily cardio sessions and food restriction makes your body feel like it’s under attack. Many foods we are addicted to can also cause horrible feelings or severe cravings as we try to wean off of them. It’s important that we make small changes each day, each week to move us toward our goals of living healthier. I personally started drinking water versus soda or tea. Then I started to exercise. Next I started to make sure my snacks offered nutrition versus just something to put into my mouth. Small adjustments lead to long-term success.

    2.Successful people do not feel guilty.

    This is kind of misleading. In the beginning when I started seeing great success with my small changes, I did start to enjoy the results of my choices and started to become obsessed. If I missed a workout, I would feel severely guilty and then over do it the next day or not eat to make up for it. I thought that was the best way to balance it out. That method soon created many health problems for me and I realized I was doing something wrong. I also realized I was putting too much pressure on myself and not allowing myself to be HUMAN. As you begin your health journey, you are going to eat a cookie again, you are going to miss a workout and you are going to fluctuate in weight. It’s just a given. What you can do to save yourself much mental anguish, is to eliminate the guilt. Feeling guilty is poison and it adds no value to your program. The more we obsess over the mistake, the more we tend to make poor choices for our body. We tend to either over eat, under eat, over exercise or GIVE UP. If you make a mistake at work, do you just quit? If you make a mistake as a parent, do you give your kids up for adoption? No, we apologize for the mistake and we generally work to do better the next time. If you can carry this behavior over into your health journey, you will never GIVE UP again. You may have a stall, but when you over eat one day, you can get up, apologize to yourself and determine how to prevent the same mistake in the future. Or you can say, I only over eat one or two days per year, no big deal and let it go. Learning to work around your mistakes and how to prevent them, will lead to long-term success.

    3. Successful people commit for life.

    Do you know how long ago it was that I switched to water from soda and tea? 17 years ago! I didn’t just say let me drink this water to get the weight off and then I will give it all up to go back to my old habits. Once I learned how important water was and how many empty calories were in many drinks we choose to consume, I used my logic and said it’s just not worth it to me. I was not so logical when it came to exercise though. I started exercising about 16 years ago and became really fit the first year. Of course I was 19 or so  and it was not too hard to shape up. Once I got in shape, I said ok, I am fit now. I should be able to maintain this. Then I stopped exercising all together. About a year went by and I had not gained any weight. Yet, while riding as a passenger in the car one day, I propped my leg up by the window, looked down and saw someone elses leg. I thought is that my 20 year old leg covered in cellulite? But how? I have not gained any weight according to the scale. This is when I realized the scale does not always tell the truth. It may tell me good or not so good numbers, but they truly do not matter if my health is failing or my body fat is rising! This is when I realized, just like the water, exercise was going to be a part of my life in some fashion if I wanted to maintain a healthy looking body and not just a number on the scale. If you want to be successful with weight loss for life, you have to realize there are no time frames. Think about what you want to feel like five years from now, not just five weeks from now and start to make small changes you will commit to for life.

    The successful weight loss people you see at work, at the gym, throughout life are the ones incorporating these behaviors. Most are not genetically fit. They have just committed to apply logic to their daily choices and find ways to deal with their emotions. They have made the commitment to value their body and how it feels, just as some have made the commitment to not pay attention to their body. Our daily choices and perseverance is what equates to our short and long-term results. I hope these priceless secrets to success can help you improve your results today and on going! The power is within you to be successful. You may need guidance and support, but there are no magic pills, no magic surgeries and no magic diets, just simple secrets of success.

     

  • Remember 1440 in 2012!

    Do you know what the number 1440 represents? I didn’t realize the importance of that number until I attended a recent youth summit held last year for the Hernando Youth Initiative. Florida child advocate Jack Levine, reminded us that there are 1440 minutes in every day. With those 1440 minutes, we each have the choice as to how we use them.  He suggested that we take at least 20 minutes of alone time for ourselves and dedicate at least 20 additional minutes toward meaningful conversation with someone else in our life.  Forty minutes dedicated daily to important priorities leaving us with 1400 additional minutes to spend on everything and everyone else. 

    This message came at just the right time for me. I had many recent life changes which led me to be very focused on my business, my clients, family and friends. All of this focus was for a great cause, but in the midst of supporting everyone else, I was starting to neglect myself.  I realized how quickly days can fly by without us realizing we have not made a nice meal for ourselves or even taken time to relax our minds. The days of ordering out, skipping exercise and working 15 hours straight, were starting to take a toll on my mindset and my body.  As a wellness coach I realized that although my intentions were good and I knew what to do, I was not applying my own knowledge during my hectic days. These daily choices were starting to add up.  

    It is important in 2012 that we realize our daily choices add up either positively or negatively having a cumulative effect on our mind, body and soul.  Much of our quality of life and longevity is decided upon our daily lifestyle choices. Science suggests only 1/3 of our outcomes are based upon genetics. This is great news for us if we decide to invest at least 20 minutes into ourselves each day. Doing so may drastically slow the aging process and improve the way we feel. 

    Think about it, wherever you spend the most productive time, you tend to get the best result.

    If you spend a few hours cleaning your house each week, it generally looks well kept. If you take time to water your plants, prune them and give them proper care, they tend to live longer. We have to remember our bodies are the same way, yet our bodies are much more valuable than the car, house or plants. 

    According to a recent Wall Street Journal post, 6 out of 7 full time employees are struggling with weight issues and/or chronic health conditions. Our children are on medication for diabetes, blood pressure and depression. Although these statistics are becoming common, they are not normal. The human body was not created to fall apart. With a little upkeep, it can be rather resilient. Taking a few minutes to pack a healthy snack to go, grabbing a bottle of water or stretching before you wind down at night, can lead to a healthier you.  Small choices can add up to big rewards. 

    As we enter into 2012, think about your 1440 minutes and how you want to use them daily. Only you can make the choice as to how you want to spend your time. For your health and our future, it is my hope that you will dedicate at least 20 minutes daily to invest life’s best gift….YOU!

  • ValueSelf

    Have you complimented yourself today? Have you taken time to take care you? I hope so.

    Do you know that you are the most important piece of the puzzle?

    Without you, there is no job, there is no family and there is no driving to get where you need to be.

    Many of us are so busy worrying about where we need to be, who we need to take care of or our deadline at work, that we forget the most important piece- SELF! As we hurry through our lives, many times we forget how valuable our mind and body is. Without the abilities we have been blessed with, we would be unable to do so many things for everything and everyone else, but many times we forget this.

    We spend more time ignoring our body or cutting ourselves down. We mentally call ourselves ugly, wrinkled, fat, lazy, stupid, incapable…. but all is not true. We are the furthest from any of these things, yet we somehow find ways to abuse ourselves mentally and physically while taking time to make everyone else happy.

    You have been uniquely and beautifully made with the ability to have feelings, make your own decisions, create change and to climb mountains. Incidences in your life may have caused you to forget these things, but they’re true. No matter what your formal education, your current fitness state or your current social status, you have the ability to achieve what you want. Sometimes it may be tough to figure out how to get started or how to overcome your current obstacles, but what’s important is to know YOU CAN DO IT!

    Many times if we feel behind or lost, we give up versus looking for ways to take small steps in the direction we want to head. Know that with small steps and belief in yourself you can achieve more. You can feel better, think better and move better.

    The biggest mistake many of us make is comparing ourselves to others or focusing too much on where we wish we were at versus the little steps we need to take to get to there. For example, if you have 100lbs to lose, you can’t focus on the 100lbs or your goal weight without getting frustrated and wanting to give up. 100lbs seems like such a LONG way away! Instead, you have to focus on the behaviors needed to achieve the 100 pound weight loss. Think about it, if you want to graduate high school or college, you can’t just think about the degree, you have to attend courses, study, take tests and put in the time. This is the same when trying to lose weight. You must think of the steps needed to achieve 100 pound weight loss degree. Study, put in the time and make the extra effort to ValueSelf. It takes 13 years to graduate high school and many of us achieve this. If you dedicate just one to two years to taking care of you, you can lose that 100 pounds focusing on five pounds at a time and the habits needed to achieve that loss.

    This is the same with trying to achieve a business goal. You cannot just focus on where you want to be and get stressed that you are not there yet. You have to think about what you may have to do to get you there and most of all you have to know that you CAN do it. Many of us get side tracked when working towards our goals or hung up on some of the judgment and pressures of society.

    Now is your time to know that YOU can do what you want to do and YOU can achieve your goals beginning TODAY!

    Do not wait until 2012! Start investing in yourself today, mentally, physically and emotionally.

    If you take time to fuel your body, compliment your mind and to rest your soul, you will start to function better for yourself and everyone around you. You will be able to think clearly about how you want to feel, think, act and look and you will take the steps to seek solutions to your obstacles.

    Never say “I Can’t” again! Replace that statement with the words, “I have not learned how to yet.” Because you my friend are just as valuable as the next and you have ALL the capabilities to fully live your life if you are willing to take the steps to get there.

    The most important thing is to enjoy the journey. You are only guaranteed this present moment. So no matter where you want to be or where you are headed, do not rush it and do not get stressed about not being there yet. Do what you can do and be thankful for what you DO have. Enjoy the ups and the downs. Every time there is a down, know there is a light at the end of the tunnel if you continue to persevere.

    Above all, don’t keep putting yourself last. You were put on this Earth as a gift and you deserve to be treated like a special gift. You should be the first to value that gift. The more you ValueSelf, the more others will value you. Not only will they value you, but they will be thankful for the whole person you are giving to them. A mom, a husband, a wife, a dad, a child who values their self, can give true energy and love to those around them.

    Remember, although you have lots to get done and lots to accomplish, you cannot give what you don’t have. Learn to have compassion, love, energy and time for self and you will be able to authentically give all of those things to everyone else in your life.

  • Oh Scale, How Beautiful Art Thou?

    Do you remember the fairy tales when they used to look in the mirror and say, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” This common question was popular in the Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Now in recent movies children and adults step on the scale to determine their beauty. It’s funny, they do not even pay attention to how their clothes fit or what the mirror looks like, as soon as they step on the scale they feel beautiful or not.

    It starts when we’re a child and we’re told whether we are healthy or not by our weight on the scale.  Then we start to see media ads showing hot bodies, rapid weight loss and plastic surgery. All leading us to believe if the scale goes down, we will be beautiful and accepted. We then fight to burn off stubborn fat. We fight in many ways. Some buy weight loss pills, others practice moderate to severe starvation, while some try surgery. All to get the number on the scale to go down. But what does that number mean? If you lose weight through crash dieting, will you look good after you lose 50lbs? Will you feel good? Will you maintain it?

    It amazes me how we have been controlled by this digital piece of equipment that lays on the floor all day. How do we rely on an inanimate object to tell us whether we are beautiful or not? A human could tell us we look amazing, our clothes could fit better, but if the scale says we are up two pounds, we immediately feel like a FAT failure. Trust me, I used to have this mind set. If I was down two, I was happy, up two and I was rude to everyone around. The sad part is, no one else could see any changes, just me and my bathroom scale (my depressed attitude made me uglier than the two pound weight gain did anyway).

    We have to change this mind set. Weight loss does not mean pretty or handsome. If you lose 50lbs rapidly, trust me, you will not look attractive to most people. Many times, your skin hangs off of you, you feel like crap from nutritional deficiencies and you’re wondering how you are going to tone up the hanging skin. I have seen people be happy that they lost 100lbs in 4 months, but they look and feel ten times worse than they did when they we’re 100lbs heavier.  Some are elated because the scale says 100lbs less, but when they really sit down and look at how they feel from starving and how they look from losing 50% of their muscle, it still does not equate to happiness or beauty.

    To the flip side, I may meet someone who has lost pant sizes, gained strength and energy, but they are depressed because the scale says their up 5lbs. Many times when someone starts losing weight slowly through strength training and a good diet, they may actually gain weight or maintain on the scale due to muscle gain and other factors. Their body is working to get healthy, but many times they are dropping body fat and changing shape, tone and sizes. Their body is internally getting healthy and working to increase their metabolism. But sure enough, because the scale says their up 5lbs, they freak out and beat themselves up. Either they start to starve themselves, give up or go on a binge. They forgot that their friend mentioned how good they looked, that their rings were getting looser or they felt ten times better. The stupid, inanimate scale told them they were up 5lbs so this healthy crap must not be working.

    We need to realize that the scale only gives us a number. It doesn’t tell us whether we are a ball of flab or a ball of fit! It does not tell us whether we are preventing disease or creating cancer and bone loss. If you are starving yourself, taking weight loss pills or going to most doctors to reduce your stomach size, please do not jump up and down for your weight loss. It’s not getting you to where you really want to be. At least I wouldn’t think so. Not from the after effects we have all seen and experienced.

    It’s time we do what they did before scales existed. We focused on how we felt and how our clothes fit. If things were getting a little tight, we moved a little more or laid off the extra helping. If we were feeling run down, we used to eat specific foods to help get us going. Our goal was never to starve ourselves or drink protein shakes to feel good. Our goal was always to eat good food and work hard. Your body will look like what you do to it.

    Think about how you take care of everything else in your life? Think of how you judge whether something is beautiful or not? Do you judge the beauty of a flower by it’s weight? Do you judge the condition of your car by how much it weighs? Do you think your dog is cute because it is at an ideal weight? No! You do not determine beauty by how much any of these things weigh and you do not keep them beautiful by weighing them on a scale everyday. What do you do? YOU TAKE CARE OF THEM. We take care of the flowers we want to look beautiful. We take care of the car we do not want to break down. And we love the puppy we want to live long. Guess what? That is the secret to your beauty!

    Take care of your body. Give it the water you give to your garden. Put your body on a regular maintenance plan as you do your favorite car and give it the quality fuel it was designed to run on. Don’t throw your body on a scale everyday and expect it to look like what you want it to. It will not get you where you want to be. It will just spit out a number that gives you a false sense of health and gets you hung up on all the wrong behaviors. All the ones which lead to you not doing what you truly need to do in order to achieve a healthy, tone body!

    Try this today. Whether you are thin, heavy, fit or flabby, get off the scale. Weigh yourself one more time tomorrow, write it down and then do a 180! Throw it out for 180 days and just focus solely on what you need to do to feel good and look good. Focus on the behaviors it takes to have a healthy body. Go walking, drink water, reduce alcohol, reduce fried foods, have fun with your friends. These steps lead to better health, peace of mind and a better relationship with you. Check it 180 days from now and see what happens. This does not mean free reign to eat and do what you want. This means free brain space to focus on what you can do to cherish your body without wasting your thoughts on what the scale says.

    Don’t feel guilty or judged if you have tried the crash diets, the medical weight loss etc. We all have. We have all been tricked into thinking this is a faster, easier route, when really it’s a slow death and a miserable mental journey. Take care of you like you would anything else you value and never stop. Even if you have a setback, no biggie, just don’t give up. It’s never too late to feel better than you do right now, mentally, physically and/or emotionally. You were made uniquely beautiful and there is no one just like you. Start treating yourself that way, because you truly are the fairest of them all!