Category Archives: Help Getting It Done

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Inspirations, Mind Management

Stop The Mind Spin

Ever feel like you just can’t get back on track, no matter how much you’d like to? I do. It used to feel like I’d set a goal, like getting the garage organized or exercising three days a week or lose 10 pounds and then I’d look up and three months had gone by and I hadn’t done it. Not even gotten closer to the goal by a little bit. And I’d be so frustrated and discouraged that so much time had passed and I hadn’t made any progress that I’d wonder what was wrong with me. Turns out, nothing was wrong. It was my brain that was hijacking my plans. I’ll explain how it was doing that and how I learned to turn it around. But first, a story…

More than five years ago before I started writing this blog, I’d started going on prayer walks in the early mornings. Rain, cold, dark – didn’t matter. I was out there. I needed the quiet morning time to get my mind tuned in to God in a way that I wasn’t able to do in the warm house. Mostly, I couldn’t pray while being still because I was too sleepy from the work of having four little ones. So I started walking to pray. Some days I just listened. And one of those days God told me that I needed to start writing a blog.

No. Why? What would I even write about? Why would God ask me to write a blog when I could barely manage to go to work and take care of these children? Surely I heard that wrong. But again and again in the dark quiet of the early morning hours, I heard it again. I needed to start writing a blog.

Eventually, I finally decided that a blog might be important in the future. It might be useful to share some of the things that I was learning as a mom and physician and holistic living advocate. Maybe there would be some use for writing these lessons down. At the very least, it might be a creative outlet for me, and it might even help someone out there. So I decided to do it!

Immediately my brain put up all the objections. The biggest one was, “I don’t know how to create a blog. I’m not good at tech things.” I spent months waiting for a blog site to drop out of the sky for me magically to start writing into. I allowed my brain to believe all the reasons it created for why I couldn’t create a blog, mostly because I didn’t have a technical knowledge around how it worked. Mind you, I didn’t look into how to create a blog, or whether there were sites that made it easy, or whether I could get help with the technical aspect of starting a blog site. I just didn’t do anything except know that I wasn’t doing what I was called to do.

Does this sound familiar to you? We all have things we could do and don’t. It’s not usually because we aren’t smart enough or because it’s too expensive or because we really don’t have the ability. It’s because we let our brains stop us.

Think about the last time you wanted to try something new. Seemed exciting, right? That’s inspiration, and it feels wonderful! The issue comes up when you have to put in the effort to take the dream into reality. That requires effort, mistakes, and discomfort. Your brain wants none of that – it wants you to be comfortable and to conserve energy at all costs. So when you try to get out there in the unknown, it will try to stop you to keep you safe and not have to work too hard. It’s ok – that’s its job. Your brain is working perfectly! But if you want to grow and accomplish new things, you have to override your brain’s default mode and be willing to get uncomfortable.

How do you practice overriding the default mode of your mind? The first step is to recognize the pattern. When you say, “I don’t know how”, you think you’re just reporting the facts. But really, your brain is offering you an obstacle. If you buy into it, you won’t go any further. The way to move past the obstacle is to ask your brain quality questions and watch it go to work. When you think, “I don’t know how”, you ask your mind instead, “But if you did know how, what would you do?” Your brain will stutter for a second – that’s ok. Don’t let it get away with the I-don’t-know-how excuse. Let it start looking for solutions instead – that’s much more constructive and your brain can do it if you put it to work. If you add to the good question the thought “I am capable of figuring this out”, then you’ve made a constructive assignment that your brain will love. And you’ll get stuff done that you thought you couldn’t!

Giving my very first Food As Medicine talk…

You know the next part of the story, but you don’t know how I did it. I started writing my blog and posting weekly in 2016. So how did I do it? I decided to start talking about the dream of writing a blog to other people, and one suggested that I talk to a web designer in our church. In the process of talking to him, I realized I could put together a site by myself, but I’d do it faster and better with help. So he helped me, and A Journey To Wholeness was born! My lack of technical knowledge wasn’t the barrier I made it to be – it was just a thought that was designed to keep me safe in the cave. But I’m much more interested in achieving my dreams than I am in being comfortable. I’ve heard it said that discomfort is the currency of your dreams. So I’m getting better at being uncomfortable. And to me, the minor discomfort is worth it!

It’s not easy. Even if you know what you want to do and maybe even how to make it happen, you still might find that your brain wants to hijack you from your success. If you’re having trouble getting out of your own way, that’s what a coach is for! If you want to finally lose that weight, repair that relationship, or get your life in order, you don’t have to do it alone. Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and let’s set up a mini-session to see if we want to work together. I want to see you succeed!

Here’s your video help for the week!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

How To Get Out Of The Cave

It’s six am, the thunderstorm has just passed, and there’s a hush over the house. No one else is up except me and I’d really like to crawl back into my warm bed and sleep more. My brain is up to its usual tricks, trying to convince me that I don’t need to write this post. I’ve been writing weekly for more than four years, so maybe that’s enough? It’s not as though my posts have gone viral and I have sponsors paying me to get these posts out, so if I skip a week or stop blogging altogether then no big loss, right? My YouTube video is already out for the week and that seems to be going well, so maybe I should just focus on recording videos – at least that’s done in the light of day instead of before dawn.

It’s a good thing I’m watching my brain.

This is an example of what I mean by being in the cave. It’s hiding, going for what’s small and easy and comfortable instead of being willing to try and not see immediate success. Because I know my brain wants to conserve energy and stay safe, I’ve learned to catch it trying to shift my plans from what’s best to what’s easy. It’s very adept at finding all the reasons why the easy way is the right way, just like I did above. There were even more reasons, like the fact that today is my day off, and although I have a massive list of to-dos, I have the whole day and the kids will be at their homeschool group so I could definitely write this later. So why am I up now?

If I go back to sleep, my brain wants to convince me that I’ll be more rested and efficient later today. Surely I’ll have plenty of time while the kids are in class to get lots done. But here’s what will actually happen: The kids will oversleep, and I’ll be rushing around trying to get them to school with their lunches and books and masks, and by the time I sit down it’ll be about an hour later than I planned. Then I’ll spend my hour planning out the rest of the week and because I have coaching clients to meet with I’ll realize that my wide-open day is actually only a few unscheduled hours before the kids return. Those hours will be quickly assigned to the aforementioned to-do list items, and before I know it the kids will be back. Dinner plans will be approaching and then I’ll be meeting with my last coaching client. See, the day went by really fast!

It’s always a mistake to trust your brain to make the best decisions on the fly instead of planning ahead. Because our brains are designed for efficiency and energy conservation, the default settings are not in favor of well-thought-out plans because they take more work and energy. So how do we get ourselves to get out of the cave mode and back onto implementing our plans and goals? I have a few tactics for you…

Let’s zero in on your target…

Plan in advance.

It’s best to use your most advanced brain functions to work on your goals, and that’s your planning brain. That part of your brain is called the prefrontal cortex and it allows you to make future plans. Your puppy can’t do this higher brain function, but you can. It takes energy and your brain will resist and try to convince you that you can figure things out as they come. Don’t be fooled – decisions in the moment are made by a different part of your brain and it’s not as good at choosing the best option for your future. When you plan in advance, you have your highest good in mind. If you’re trying to lose weight, you plan your meals in advance with the goal in mind. Your plan gets highjacked when you try to decide in the moment if the doughnuts in the office can be added to the plan.

Watch your brain

Once you’ve made the plan, you think that’s the end of the story. But there’s another part of your brain that despite your excellent planning will get involved and try to change the plan. It’s not that your primitive brain doesn’t want you to succeed, but it wants you to be comfortable more than it wants you to grow. Growing and changing requires you to come out of the cave, and that’s scary and threatening to the primitive brain that wants you to stay safe. So when you make the plan, expect that when you get to the part where you have to execute the plan, you won’t want to do it. This is normal. You have to practice overriding the impulses from your primitive brain that want to convince you away from the plan. When you do this (especially at first), your brain will fight back with more reasons why you should chuck the plan. Notice all the chatter against your well-thought-out plan. Just know that your brain is trying to keep you safe and do what you planned anyway.

Trust your future self

One of the benefits of planning in advance is that you get to decide what you want and make it happen. You get the opportunity to envision who you will be in the future and create her. You meet who you will be in your mind and by taking day-by-day steps, you become her. The you who is 20 pounds lighter? She’s the one who’s helping you meal-plan. The you with a successful business? She’s the one who told you to set your alarm for 5:30 am and get up and write before the kids get up. She has your goals and dreams in mind when you plan. Trust her.

Stick to the plan

When you wake up and your brain wants to convince you that you can sleep 30 more minutes – don’t. When you think that one slice of cake from the farewell party at work won’t matter – it does. Remember that your brain always wants to conserve energy and do what’s easy, so expect it to resist when you get to the work you’ve planned. When you deviate from your plan, you’ll always get a lesser result than if you’d done what your planning brain had in mind. Know that when you made your plan, you had your highest good in mind. The more you practice making the plan absolute, the less your brain will think that your plan is optional. That means you’ll get less mental chatter and resistance (not none), and you’ll be able to do what you planned more easily. When you stick to your plan, you get closer to your goal. Add all the forward steps together, and you’ll make it!

Learning this practice is excellent for reaching your goals, but it can be tricky to retrain your brain without help. That’s what coaching is for – I can help you! Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and let’s set up a time to show you how coaching can help you finally achieve your goals – you don’t have to do it alone!

Here’s your video help for the week:

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Inspirations, Mind Management

What If It’s Too Much?

It’s been a whirlwind the past couple of weeks! So much has happened recently in the world that it can feel overwhelming to keep moving ahead. I know the temptation to “go in the cave”, the instinct to withdraw and hide from my life has been front and center recently. It can be tough when it feels like you’re carrying as much weight as you can possibly bear and something else happens. I can feel like wanting to run and hide – I dream of huddling under a pile of blankets in a warm dark place and pretending that I don’t have to deal with any of it.

Have you felt that way? I know I’m not the only one. I know some of the challenges you face in your lives – the learning disabilities your kids have, the illnesses you or your parents face, the work struggles on top of trying to keep your family life running. Each of us has something we’re dealing with.

And yet we started 2021 with a big sigh of relief that 2020 was over and we looked forward with hope to the promise of a new year. Isn’t hope a beautiful feeling? The resiliency of the human spirit to keep reaching for possibility is a powerful and inspiring thing. So many of us started the year with a place for really tackling our weight problem this year, or getting our small business going, or building a consistent meditation practice. We were starting over and this year was going to be better!

And then the invasion of the Capitol building happened on January 6.

Well, at least it wasn’t this bad…

It was shocking to watch people walk by armed Capitol police and put their feet up on the desks of our legislators. It was maddening to see the lack of preparedness for these protests when contrasted to the show of force for the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. It was discouraging to realize that the instigators of this riot weren’t condemned by everyone and that even around this situation we as citizens couldn’t be unified. And then we had to prepare for the possibility of more violence and chaos as Inauguration day approaches. What is this world that we live in?

And many of us said, “It’s just too much.” Some of us were ready to get into that cave, to try to get back to only the absolute requirements of our lives. That weight loss plan, the business project, the meditation practice – all that would just have to wait. There was just too much going on to build and grow and be creative. So we stopped. We let go of the meal prep and planning and organizing for the business and setting the alarm a few minutes earlier to make room for the meditation exercises. We just let it go.

Especially as Black women, the strain can be unbelievable. (I know everyone reading isn’t a Black woman, but a lot of you are and I am, so I’m going here for a moment.) Between the structural racism and sexism at work, the unequal household burden most of us shoulder in childcare and home maintenance, the eldercare some of us do, and the background narrative of the strong black woman who can’t let anyone see her sweat, the pressure is immense. It’s easy to believe that we can’t do one more thing and taking care of ourselves isn’t as important as all the other things we need to manage and all the other people who need us.

I know how you feel. Three of my kids are on the puberty roller coaster right now, and it seems like I can’t get a handle on what they need anymore. I thought I had it down – and then their needs changed. The challenges in raising them in this online world are different and often very scary. Navigating the hormones and emotions and threat of online pornography and the social media dangers and guiding their very impressionable young minds is a daunting task. Knowing I have to prepare them for this world we live in and wanting to protect them from it at the same time is a balancing act I don’t think I’m doing very well. Add that now they actually have opinions and sometimes they don’t want to share them because they are afraid they’ll disappoint us or get in trouble and now we have to navigate secrets and hiding. I’ve been hearing that voice that says it’s too much to raise these kids and be a physician and have my coaching practice and keep a strong marriage going. I’ve been looking around to see if there’s an opt-out button on any parts of my life – can I unsubscribe to any of this?

Yes, you can. But it’s not what you think and it won’t do what you want. Sometimes you need to constrain and stop doing optional activities so you can focus on a crisis in your life. Pray and listen and you’ll know what you should do. But what happens most often is that life happens and we give up on taking care of ourselves. We think that by letting our own growth and care go that we’ll have more time and space to manage everything else. But then we delay losing that 20 pounds or getting that dream business off the ground and our mindfulness work doesn’t become part of our life and life keeps happening anyway.

You know, from New Year’s Day to January 6th, we thought we had a fresh start. We let the Capitol invasion make us think that the world was out of control and we needed to give up the “optional” and focus on the “essential” We were in a dangerous world and we’d better get safe. But here’s the reality: the world before January 6th was no different than the one after. It’s the same world. We just see some of it more clearly than we did before. It may be that we’d like this world to be better (I do!), but it’s not true that things are worse than they’ve been or everything is going downhill. If anything, the events of the past four years have revealed the truth of the world we live in, which gives us a chance to decide how we want to live in it, what part we want to take to change it. Giving up on our growth won’t make the world better, only less, because we aren’t becoming what we’re called to be in it. Losing your weight alone might not make you into the person you are designed to become. But not having the noise in your head around wanting to lose weight will give you space to grow into that person. If weight isn’t your struggle, the same goes for you. You have something getting in your way and putting it off until life “settles down” is how you make sure you never deal with your obstacle.

The world is what it is. We get to choose how we want to show up in it. So let’s get going on our plans and dreams and become who we are here to be!

If you’re still here, you may be one of many wondering how to do what I’m encouraging you to do. It may seem impossible to do what you are already doing and get moving on your plans too. It’s not. You might not know this, but you’re the only thing in your way. And that’s great news because you can change you. But you don’t have to do it alone! Set up a free mini-session with me by emailing drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and I’ll get you the boost you need to get started!

Here’s your video help for the week!

2COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

The Top Three Things Preventing Your Success

Welcome back! I’m fired up – ready to get going on my 2021 goal, build some things, grow and expand and change my life! How about you? You know, this is the time of year when we revel in the newness of the year, we’ve made plans and we’re looking forward to achievement, and possibility seems around every corner.

But over the next few months, that new car smell will fade. The excitement wanes. The default patterns of our life creep in and we go back to our normal routines. The plans and dreams for the year fade into the background and our efforts become a little more half-hearted.

This year was a little different. We started with hope and excitement and then when the Capitol building was invaded many of us had an abrupt stop. We’d hoped this year was going to be uphill from 2020, but doubt crept in with the ugliness we witnessed in DC. With all that we’ve seen and continue to see unfold, it’s easy to skip straight into the March doldrums in January. Why even try when things are the way they are?

Because you are here for a reason, that’s why! Your plans and goal and dreams are important, and you are going to have this life one time, so it’s time to use it! Let’s start again with the energy of the new year, only this time let’s make sure we’re wise to how we defeat our own progress. Today I want to shine some light on three common ways we block our own progress and stop before we achieve our goals. Let’s get started!

The first trap is perfectionism, and it’s a sneaky one because it can seem like a good idea. We learn in school to strive for A level work and anything less isn’t our best. So when we want to write or create a business or raise our children or help others in any way, we think it has to be perfect or our efforts are unworthy. We might as well not do it if it isn’t going to be excellent, right? Wrong! Here’s why: When we have an all-or-nothing mentality, we only create when we have our idea or product or plan in a perfect state. That means that more often than not, we won’t produce anything. Perfectionism causes you to freeze, and you don’t take any action at all.

You’re much more likely to move forward if you drop the perfectionist mentality. If you can adopt a learner’s mindset, especially if you’re doing something new, you’re much more likely to keep going. Imagine a new toddler who falls down one time when trying to learn to walk and decides, “Nope, that wasn’t great, so never mind. I just won’t learn how to walk. Better stick with what I know.” That’s crazy, and no baby does that. But as we get older, we stop being willing to try new things and possibly look less than perfect. That thinking is stifling, and it kills growth. It’s more helpful for action to think in terms of B minus work – make it good enough, get it done, and get it out there. You’re trying to find the perfect extracurricular program for your kids? Doesn’t exist. Talk to your kid or observe them, choose something, and see how it goes. Want to write a book? Not gonna happen if you wait for inspiration to strike and hours to appear in your busy schedule. Better to write 5 minutes a day and get something on paper. You’ll get closer to the goal!

The second major way we stop ourselves is with the way we talk to ourselves inside our own heads. Take a moment and think about it – how do you talk to yourself when you mess up? Are you gentle and kind with yourself or do you slap yourself around? I’d bet it’s the latter. We think that being patient with ourselves is giving us a pass, and if we get a pass we won’t change. But go back in your mind to your childhood. When you got a lecture or fussed at, were you motivated to change, or did you rebel? If you had a fantastic coach or teacher who motivated you to do more than you thought you could, did they do it by making you feel like trash or by encouraging and inspiring you? Right. Even if they were tough, they believed in you and encouraged you. So why do we think that we can berate ourselves into change? It might get you to change temporarily, but in the long term, you’ll rebel against yourself. You will get sick of the you who’s beating you down. If you really want to make progress, you’ll have to love and encourage yourself, talking to yourself with kindness, patience, and understanding. You’ll enjoy the process of change because you’ll like being with yourself more (like you loved being with your coach!), and you’ll keep trying to do better even if you have a misstep.

And that brings us to the last reason why we fail in the pursuit of our dreams: We quit. When we give up on a goal, it’s usually because it wasn’t working out the way we envisioned it, so we think that it’s not going to work out. But “This isn’t working” is just a thought. It isn’t even true. It only becomes true when you believe it and stop trying. What’s your definition of failure? If you’ve made a plan and it isn’t happening the way you thought, is that failure? What if you decided that the way things were working out was just a twist, all part of a longer story? For me, I’ve decided that my definition of failure is when I decide to quit. Anything before that, all the attempts, all the trials are just leading up to my eventual success. Things don’t always work out according to my timeline, but I’ve decided not to define that as failure. I understand that I don’t see the whole picture of my life in advance, so maybe this delay or change is exactly the way this should work out. And I keep going – either I win or I learn. Either way, I’m getting closer to where I want to be. And you are too!

I’m so glad you were here with me today. If you’re still reading, it’s because you are getting something from the coaching in this blog – I’m thrilled by that! But I also know that retraining your mind on your own is a big challenge, and you might want some expert help. I can help you! If you want to set up a free mini-session with me to get a jump-start on your weight loss goals, sorting out a challenging relationship, or any other nagging issue in your life, email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and we’ll set up a time to get you started!

Here’s your video help for this week! Come see Weight Loss: What Emotions Serve You? Not all of the ones you’re choosing are helpful – let me show you which ones will move your weight loss in the right direction!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Inspirations, Mind Management

Handling The COVID Weight

Happy New Year! Welcome to the beginning of 2021 and the start of a whole new year. I don’t know what it is, but whenever a new year starts, it seems like a gift. It’s almost as if we get a “start over” pass. It doesn’t really make sense – as humans, we are the ones who designed the calendar we use, and one day called January 1st is just a construct we designed. It doesn’t really change things to name one day belonging to 2020 and the next belonging to 2021.

And yet, it feels different to start a new year. 2020 was a lot to manage! Between the 100 year pandemic, the acceleration of the polarization of people around the globe, the elections and the political landscape, and the resurgence of the racial and social justice movements, each day had plenty to occupy the mind. I think I listened regularly to the news more than I ever have. There were moments when it was better to check out of being connected to social media and the news cycle, if only for my own sanity. This was the year I started to understand on a personal level how the effects of social media increase anxiety. I’m already wound pretty tight (my family lovingly has labeled me forever type A), but too much fuel from arguments on Facebook or podcasts could work me into an impatient, angry, worried mess who couldn’t shut my brain off to sleep.

So I get it. Our environment affected all of us in 2020. So many of us were adjusting to unplanned homeschooling, working from home, learning to become Zoom experts, and collecting masks like it was our job. Being separated from family, friends, and church was isolating (and restful sometimes!). There were so many things changing at once that people everywhere were struggling to cope. I knew early on that we were suffering when I watched how much harder it got for our mental health colleagues to care for people – the capacity just wasn’t there to meet the need for help with the sharp spike in anxiety and depression. I had more women come in to tell me that their hormones were out of whack, when really they were incredibly anxious, not sleeping, and eating away their stress.

“COVID weight” became almost a joke. Except it really wasn’t funny, especially not to the women who’d gained it. I heard people try to blame it on being stuck at home and not being able to get to the gym or being around their kids who ate all day long. But that wasn’t the only option, because I helped people lose weight this year. People had more time to schedule time to walk because they weren’t commuting, and there was more opportunity to cook at home instead of eating out, especially when some restaurants were closed temporarily. We had the chance to control our food and our portions and our minds – and so many of us didn’t.

Why not? It’s easy to beat ourselves up and be upset about the weight gain, to start an uber-restrictive weight loss plan with the intention of whipping ourselves into shape for the new year. Of course, it’s a new start and we can choose to make this a different year, right? Yes, we can. We can decide anything we want and act from our beliefs. But here’s the thing: We didn’t eat away our stress and make decisions we didn’t like about our eating because we wanted to. We did it because we didn’t know how to what else to do. So how are we going to be different so we can do differently this year? We’re still in a pandemic, cases are still rising, shutdowns and lockdowns are still happening. It’s still an uncertain world and we have to navigate it, even as we start a new calendar.

Here’s a thought that may help: It’s always been an uncertain world. We think we know what will happen day-to-day and we make plans, but we really don’t know what’s coming. We never have. We can realize that we ignored the uncertainty in the past and acknowledge that it was always there. We are not God, and we never knew what the future held. Nothing has changed from that perspective. We still can’t predict the future, and we can live on anyway. Not knowing the future doesn’t have to drive us to overeat or overdrink or be anxious. We can manage our thoughts, the one thing we actually can control. And we keep on living, we make our plans, we take care of what we can. We can honor our eating plan, and be around the snacks and kids without eating away stress or boredom or worry. We can lose the COVID weight, we can be in better health in mind, body, and spirit during the pandemic than we were before, and we can have joyful and grateful lives no matter what the calendar or news says. That’s the way to start a New Year!

I hope this helped you as you make your plans on how you want to enter 2021. But I know that getting there takes work and isn’t as easy as reading a blog post. The best way to learn to manage your mind and make progress on managing your stress so you can stop eating it away is to get help. As a physician life and weight loss coach, I can help you learn to manage your mind so you don’t want to eat when you feel stress or anxiety or boredom. I can help you drop the weight and find the balance you need. Don’t try to do it all alone. You can go further with a coach. If you want to get going, email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and we’ll set up a mini-session so you can get immediate free help!

Here’s your video for the week! Let me help love you into the New Year!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

Being In Charge Of Your Weight For The Holidays, Part#3: What’s Special About The Holidays?

The big day is almost here! Christmas is only a few days away and we’re in the home stretch of all the holiday cookie swaps and food gifts, not to mention the big Christmas day meal. I figure we all need a little bit of reinforcement, as well as a break, so I’m going to post twice this week to last you through the rest of the season if you need help, and no post next week so you can take a week off (and I will too!). Don’t worry, I’ve got special stuff planned for the New Year, so get ready for some goodness coming your way!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the holidays, especially since this particular one is so different because of COVID. Since the vaccine isn’t widely available this year, my parents won’t be coming to visit as they usually do for Christmas. That’s a blow for all of us, especially the kids who were hoping that we’d be past the pandemic by now so their grandparents could visit. But a flight from the Northeast in the midst of this pandemic for my folks is not a good idea, so we’ll be doing Zoom calls with them and all the grandparents and family we can gather up virtually. This is one time that I really miss not having family nearby…

Growing up, my mom and her two sisters lived nearby each other in Brookline (Boston-adjacent). I grew up with my cousins, and holiday meals meant big potluck meals at one of the sister’s homes. The men would be watching a football game while the moms set out all the food – the ham and turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce and greens and mac and cheese and on and on. Dishes of red and green candy were set all over the house and of course, a whole sideboard of cakes and pies were just waiting to be demolished after the holiday feast. Somehow, pieces of the pie crusts and edges of cakes always seemed to disappear before dinner.

Memories – powerful things, aren’t they? We remember the big family gatherings and the food is woven through the memories. We talk about those times and the food seems to come to the front of our minds so easily. We remember Auntie’s potato salad or Grandma’s stewed tomatoes, Mom’s pound cake, and cousin’s mac and cheese. We love the flavors so much that we ask for the food every year, we beg for the secret recipes, we strive as adults to make it taste like mom made it.

It’s interesting how the mind works. When we eat “comfort food”, the food that’s usually full of flour and sugar and fat (mostly all at the same time), our brain gets a nice dose of dopamine, the reward chemical in the brain. So as we’re eating and laughing with family and recording those memories, we’re also recording these foods as extra rewarding. So we seek them out again every year and try to make sure we don’t miss out on any of them. We have FOMO for holiday foods!

But have you ever tasted a special holiday dish and realize it didn’t taste that great? Sometimes the food isn’t actually as good as you remember, and it isn’t because the food is any different. Often, the family is different, the energy of little kids has gone as the family has grown up, cherished elders have passed on, some family members are too far away to travel to be together. We think that recreating a special meal makes the holiday special. But it’s the memories of the fun we had together that made the holiday special. Let me show you…

When we were gathering in Brookline for the holidays, the part I remember most is what the cousins were doing while the adults were watching football and preparing food. We were dressed up in our velvet dresses and dress slacks, wrestling with our biggest cousin (who was six foot four and could sling us around like toys). We were remaking music videos of Michael Jackson and Madonna songs. We were sneaking candy from those dishes I mentioned before (not allowed before dinner!). We were playing games and wishing the moms would hurry up and call us to dinner. We were snuggling on the couch bothering our uncle watching the game until we got bored and wandered off to play a more interesting game. I remember everyone under 18 being assigned to kitchen duty after the meal and feeling like I was being sentenced to prison. The best was all the cousins performing the music video remakes after dinner for the adults (or playing the VHS tape we made earlier once we got advanced).

There’s no meal that can recreate those memories.

Some of the cousins, decades later…

My point is this: Trying to recreate the magic of the holidays with food doesn’t work. The beauty and specialness come from the memories, the people, the time spent. So enjoy the holiday and the family, the music and the decoration. Make the special dishes and enjoy them. But use your mind to find the special moments, to record the memories you want to replay over and over. No matter what you eat, the holiday magic is all around you if you look for it!

I’m so glad you’ve been with me as we prepare for the unique challenges of food and the holidays! I know from personal experience how tough it can be. You don’t have to navigate your weight loss journey by yourself! If you think you want to work with me to reach your weight loss goals and keep the weight off forever, send me an email at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and we’ll set up a free mini-session to let you try out coaching and get you started!

Here’s your video help for this week! The last video is out too so you can be ready before Christmas!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Holiday Weight Loss Part 1: What Do You Really Want?

Here we go, week 1 in this series on Holiday Weight Loss! Christmas is fast approaching and New Year’s Eve will be right behind, so what do we do to get ready? How do we enjoy the holiday without avoiding every cookie tray and candy display or do we just eat our way silly all the way to January 1?

We need a plan.

So that’s what we focus on this week. That old saying “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” is true in this case. If we let our minds and mouths decide in the moment which temptations and treats to participate in, we’re going to eat most of the time. It’s normal: When your mind sees the pecan pie, you think, “That looks good!”, and your brain goes to work finding reasons why you should eat it. Your brain always looks for evidence to confirm what you think. So we have to get in front of our brains and give directions so we don’t get pulled in by all the holiday food distractions.

My sweet middle girl painted this cookie! So cute!

In order to do this, we’ve got to remember a few facts about how our brains react to the things that happen at this time of year. One I already mentioned – your brain looks for reasons to reinforce what you think. So if you’re not aware of innocent thoughts like “That looks delicious” or “I want some of that” or “I deserve a cookie”, you won’t know that your brain is making a case in the background for you to violate your eating plan. Then you wonder why you’re exhausted from trying to resist all the temptations and you keep giving in.

Two, willpower runs out. You can think of willpower like a muscle – it gets fatigued when you work it really hard. It can get stronger with practice, but it will run out at some point. So you need another way other than willpower to get through with your plan intact.

Three, your brain is easily distracted by new things. Novelty gets attention. When you see all the pretty colorful packages of candy wrapped up and topped with a bow or laid out in grandma’s crystal bowl that only comes out for Christmas, your brain is attracted and ignores that this is the same candy you can buy all year long in the stores, maybe just in different colors.

Fourth, your brain does not make good decisions in the moment. The amygdala (the primitive part of the brain) reacts instead of planning. So if you’re confronted with a treat and you have no plan, the amygdala jumps in to make the decision. And since it’s most interested in comfort and safety, it will generally decide that the sugar is a good idea, because it’s not looking into the future and thinking about what’s best for you later. It only worries about now. The forward-thinking part of your brain cares about you tomorrow and next month and next year, and that’s why a plan is so important!

And finally, your mind is very good at finding reasons for you to eat sugar. It will try to convince you how you can only get that kind of cake during Christmas, so you’d better eat it now (not true – you could make it later or save a piece until you add it to your plan). This is classic scarcity mentality – that’s why it works in marketing and we buy extra stuff, and it works to make us seat off plan too. Also, your brain likes sugar – it’s easy fuel and gives a strong dopamine reward signal, so it will seek more. So your brain records experiences in your past with cake and pie and candy as pleasant and asks for more, ignoring the unpleasant experience of feeling over-full, nauseous from the sugar load, or regretful when you watched the scale go up. So don’t be fooled!

So how do we make a plan to enjoy our holidays and not rely on exhausting our willpower? You have to answer one crucial question: What do you want? When you look forward to January, do you want to keep the scales from going up? Are you ok with 5 pounds of holiday weight gain? Do you want to keep to your plan with rare exceptions and keep watching the scales go down? How badly do you want to eat the holiday treats and meals?

Take some time here. It may be that you decide that the special ham with the crunchy sugar glaze is worth eating yourself into a coma over and taking a wrecking ball to your weight loss plan since you only eat it around Christmas, but if you take a moment to consider it, maybe not. You can actually get that ham all year round at any of the chain stores. And do you really want to eat loads of it, or would a couple of slices be enough? What do you want to do when you get to Christmas dinner? It may be that you want to face-plant into all the special foods you (or someone else!) prepared and you’re good with what comes afterward. Great – write that plan down! You may decide that you want to have some red and green peanut m&m’s because you love having those during the holiday. Ok, write it down and make a plan for how much and how often you’ll have them. Maybe you have to have a slice of sweet potato pie after Christmas dinner. How are you going to make sure you plan your meal so you have enough room to comfortably enjoy that pie? It won’t taste as good if you’re stuffed. Maybe you eat it first. Make your plan and write it down.

You get the point. You get to decide what treats and decisions you make. The key is to use the higher part of your brain to do it and to honor your plan. Your prefrontal cortex makes good decisions, thoughtful ones that think ahead to the best results, so spend some time planning so you don’t react when new treats pop up. And be realistic – don’t plan to have a salad for Christmas dinner while everyone else eats mashed potatoes and gravy. Or decide that you’ll never eat any holiday candy in the office. Give it some thought and make a plan for what will get you what you really want. And I’ll say it again – honor your plan. This is how you build trust in yourself. This is how you learn to eat what you way you will and feel proud when you do what you promised. This propels you toward success much better than beating yourself up after eating off-plan. Be kind to you. No matter how imperfectly you eat, you’re worthy of love and care. We keep going and planning and doing better and we leave the mistakes in the past after we’ve learned from them. Every misstep or off-plan moment is a chance to learn, so we can keep getting better. You’ve got this!

And if you want to meet me on YouTube and get more support on this, come watch this week’s video and help yourself stay on track! The series intro AND week one are up!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

How To Get (and stay!) In Charge of Your Weight During The Holidays

I had a completely different plan for this blog post. I was going to be writing a series leading up to my online weight loss program, complete with lots of helpful tips and insights about how to successfully lose weight permanently. My program is really coming together and there’s so much good stuff in there that some of it has to spill over into my posts, right?

Well…

It does and it will. But when I woke up at 530 this morning and sat quietly in my meditation time, that wasn’t what the Spirit said I was to write about. So here I am, sitting in the dark of my early morning living room with the bright white of the laptop screen glowing, writing a note of love and encouragement to you.

So what are we going to talk about? We all just finished our first pandemic Thanksgiving ever, and no matter how you did it, with or without all the extended family and travel, you probably ate a special meal. And you might have eaten a lot of that particular meal, maybe with a couple of encore presentations (#leftovers). There might also have been extra desserts around, and maybe a gingerbread house or Christmas candy starting to show up around the kitchen.

It seems like the food of the season just happens, doesn’t it? As if it just creeps into our homes and lives without us even noticing it. And that, my friends, is the trap. We don’t even notice it. When we don’t notice, we are on auto-pilot, and when that happens, the unconscious eating follows, along with the holiday weight gain and New Year regrets and resolutions. It’s actually pretty predictable, but we play our part in it over and over.

Not this year. Not me.

Yes, this slide into holiday overeating happens to me too. Even though I’ve lost this weight and have kept it off all these years, it’s easy to slide back into the patterns of mindless overeating. Really, I did that for so many years that it’s almost rote. Muscle memory. Practice makes perfect, right?

Except this practice isn’t what I want to make perfect. When I watched the scale jump up over the days following Thanksgiving, I woke up and got aware. Yes, some of the gain is water weight and inflammation from eating more flour and sugar than normal for me (the Thanksgiving stuffing got me!). So I’m not freaking out, because I know what happened, I decided to eat the food, and I know what to do to get back to where I want to be. But I still remember in past years how I’d panic over the scale and try to double down on my weight loss plan, just to hold off the weight gain through the holidays. And before that, I wouldn’t even try to be aware – I’d just avoid the scale and pretend that I could eat like I always did at the holidays and I wouldn’t really gain that much.

I don’t even see you…

Well, panic and willful ignorance are off the to-do list for me. They don’t work, they’re painful (either in the moment or later, depending on which you choose), and I know a better way. So for the next few weeks, I’m going to share how I manage the ongoing holiday food festival without depending on willpower or sticking my head in the sand. We’re going to be mindful and intentional about our eating through this holiday season, and weight gain isn’t part of the plan.

Now, before you decide to check back here after the holidays because you think I’m going to tell you to avoid all the fun foods that make your holiday special, hold on. I’m not. You can eat and do whatever you want with your holiday! That’s the great thing about being a grown-up: We can do what we want! I can hear you arguing – we still have to obey the law, I have to take care of my family, I have to go to work. No, actually you don’t have to do any of those things. You choose to do those things because you want to stay out of jail, you want your family to be taken care of, and you enjoy getting paid for the work you do. Your holiday eating is the same – you choose how you want to handle it. You can eat every favorite holiday cookie you see, keep a stash of candy canes in the car, and drink egg nog every night. You can gain 15 pounds by New Year’s and no one can tell you otherwise.

What we’re not going to do is be unaware.

We are going to decide what we want and stick to honoring our own wishes. We often start out with an impossible wish list of how we want things to go (I will eat all the holiday foods and not gain an ounce), but we rarely actually decide what we want most and move toward it. So that’s what we’re going to learn! Want a preview? Here’s what we’re going to practice for the next few weeks:

Week 1: What Do You Really Want? (Let’s make a plan so we get where we want to go)

Week 2: What About Everyone Else (We’ll address how our thoughts about what other people eat and cook and do affect our weight loss plans)

Week 3: What Makes Holidays Special? (Why is the food the center of it all, and does it have to be that way?)

Week 4: How To Enjoy All The Holiday Foods and Not Gain Weight

Weight gain for the holidays is not inevitable, and it’s certainly not on my to-do list! Let’s get aware, make our plan, and enjoy our holiday plans without the New Year regrets. See you next week!

Want a jump start on getting your weight loss mindset right? Join me for this week’s class on Having Your Own Back – you’ll want to learn this skill!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Weight Loss and The To-Do List Mentality

I love my to-do lists.

Those lists are my friend. They keep me company, go everywhere with me, keep me on track, and remind me what to do when I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to get done. I have lists on my phone, lists on sticky notes, reminders in the car, and e-calender appointments to help me get all the things done that go along with working, taking care of a family of six, and growing a business. The list is how I keep track of what needs to be done.

I used to think having a list was like playing a game: If I finish the list for the day, I win! I’d start each day thinking that I would get everything done on the list and then I could reward myself with some downtime. When the list is finished I can watch a show or read a book. I can take a long bath or go to sleep early if I’m tired.

The problem with that thinking was that I rarely get to the end of the list. The trick no one tells you about being an adult is that the list never ends. There’s always more to do. So even when I decide to put reading or rest or “downtime” on the list, my brain remembers the other things on the list and wants to hustle through the downtime to get the rest of the list done. The crazy-making part is that my I-win-if-I-finish-the-list mentality created that hustle in the first place! My own thinking causes the rush and win-or-lose feeling to my day.

If in order to win I have to finish the list, then by definition when I don’t finish the list, then I lose. Of course, if there’s more on my to-do list than I can finish in one day and there’s always more to add to the list, then I will be losing much more than I win. Now, if that was just the way it is, then I’d have to figure out how to make peace with that. But the definition of winning and losing is completely made up – and I made the rules. I created this absolute win or lose system for my list – how culturally American of me!

This mentality creeps in with weight loss too. When we create an eating plan for ourselves, we make the rules. We get to choose what success means, but generally, we decide that following the plan perfectly and the number on the scale going down is the one definition of success. Any other result is failure. If the scale doesn’t go down, we lose. If we make a mistake on our plan, we lose. But because long-term weight loss is dependent on long term change, and change that lasts requires practice, and practice means we have to make mistakes, then successful weight loss means that we will make mistakes and the number on the scale won’t go down in a straight line. All or nothing mentality doesn’t work with the to-do list, and it doesn’t serve us in weight loss.

Why? If we make the rules win or lose, doesn’t that mean we will try harder and strive better and win more often than we lose? Actually, no. When we rig the game against ourselves and we realize that we’re going to lose much of the time, we’re more likely to give up. Ever play tic-tac-toe? Once you realize most rounds of tic-tac-toe are going to end in a draw, you stop playing. We do the same thing with weight loss – we just call it “that diet didn’t work for me” or “I just can’t lose weight”.

What if there’s a way to change the game so the way we write the rules makes us successful? The good news is, since we make the game in the first place, we can change it up. Instead of playing an all-or-nothing game where you can only win if you finish the day perfectly, what if we celebrate all the accomplishments we make that day? What if I use my to-do list for me instead of against me? What if weight loss success is also defined as the incremental changes and improvements we make?

What does that look like? I’ve started listing all the things I got done at the end of the day. Usually, this includes a lot more than what I had on the to-do list. Looking back at what I’ve accomplished makes me feel like a rock star! For weight loss, we can celebrate that we ate the lunch we planned instead of the drug rep lunch that was brought into the office, even if we ate a cookie too because we know that in the past we would have bailed on our homemade lunch plan. We get to give ourselves a pat on the back when we wait to eat until we’re truly hungry when normally we’d have grabbed snacks with each stressful moment during the day. We remember to feel satisfaction when we eat slowly and stop eating when our body says to, even when there’s more food on the plate. We celebrate the wins and successes, not just record the misses or losses.

Losing weight can be accomplished with an iron will and beating yourself down to do the “right” thing. But getting all the weight off and keeping it off? That tactic won’t work. Your willingness to take that kind of abuse from yourself just won’t last. Think of your mind as a young teenager – how much resistance will you get when you talk down to her? Tons. Loads. Your mind will push back and resist and rebel, so the weight comes back along with your self-sabotage. Supporting yourself and your efforts is how you keep the willingness to move forward.

I don’t want to give up my to-do list because it helps me get things done. Working the list in a way that reminds me of the powerful tool it is, reflects my accomplishments, and reminds me how smart and powerful I am, this helps me keep moving forward. Slow steps forward or running, if you’re moving toward your goal you will get there. The constant forward movement is how we reach our goals, whether it’s weight loss or building a business or living a life we love.

Sticking with the plan and moving toward your goal is hard but worthy work. Keep going and you’ll make it. If you’re feeling like you’re having a hard time getting on track or you need a little help getting going, that’s what a coach is for and I can help you! If you want me to help you get a jump start on the path to permanent weight loss, let’s set up a free mini session so I can give you the help you need! Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and let get started!

For those of you who’ve been waiting, here this week’s video on Weight Loss Mindset! It was a little delayed in production, but it’s worth the wait. Come join me!

4COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

The Gift In The Struggle

This weekend was our 17th wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 17 years! But when I look at these big kids walking around in my house and I know they weren’t here when we started our life together, it makes more sense that it’s been more time than they’ve been around.

We usually go away for a weekend getaway to spend time away from the kids. But this year with COVID, we didn’t have an option to leave the kids. There just wasn’t anyone that we felt either that we would ask to take the risk of staying with the kids or that wouldn’t add risk to our house by keeping the kids. When he found an available little house in a nearby retreat community, we decided to go anyway. With the kids.

Now, I had my misgivings about the plan. Taking the kids would require more planning, more food preparation, more noise, and less rest, uninterrupted time alone, and general peace and quiet. But he said he would make a plan with the kids to keep them occupied and besides, the alternative was staying home with no romantic getaway. So that’s how our four kids went on our anniversary weekend.

Stowaways…

It was different. I don’t know what I expected exactly, but I think that I thought it wouldn’t feel like a retreat because they were along for the ride. There were definitely some noisy arguments and messy kitchen issues. But actually, they did a decent job of trying to make themselves scarce so we could be alone. It helped that the retreat community was very safe and quiet and they could go off into the walking trails and explore on their own. He and I went out on walks alone, and ate our lunch alone on the patio, and wandered the wood trails together. There were many lovely peaceful moments and I didn’t want to come home.

One of my favorite times we spent was at the labyrinth in the community. This double labyrinth is one of the largest and most beautiful I’ve seen, surrounded by trees and built of stone. I’ve had deep communion with God each time I’ve gone here, even though I always question if I will learn anything new every time I enter it. If you haven’t walked a labyrinth, I wrote a whole post about them here. Before I entered the labyrinth, I prayed for God to come and be with me and show me what I needed to know. As I meandered the path of the labyrinth, insight after lesson after blessing came to me. I’ll have to write a part two about some of it! But as I turned back and forth through the curves, I could see my husband standing off at a close distance, praying, and having his own time of retreat and communion. This is the scripture that God spoke to me:

“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matt 7:11

Sometimes we forget the gifts that we’ve been given. It’s so easy to forget in the midst of all the things we worry about every day. I remember the days when I was begging in prayer on my face in my closet for my husband. Watching him around the labyrinth reminded me all over again of the gift that he is to me. When I remember him as my gift, it’s as though I receive the gift all over again! Other gifts we get don’t seem like gifts at the time. Sometimes the gift looks like a struggle or challenge, and until it works and grows in us, we don’t see it as a gift. Right now, the work of building my business and starting a whole new unfamiliar venture doesn’t always seem exciting and fun – sometimes it doesn’t feel like a gift. But I can see glimpses of how the struggle is designed to grow in me the character that I need, and for that I’m grateful. The work and struggle means I’m not forgotten. It means there’s more in me to become. It means I’m being called to more.

Can you see your struggles that way? Are you able to see how your battle with weight may be the thing that grows and changes you forever? What if raising your children and staying close to your spouse develops you into a more loving and patient person, the one you really want to be?

We think that if we work hard enough, keep trying, change things over and over until we get them just right, eventually, we will arrive. There is no arriving – we are always on the journey. If we wait to arrive, we don’t enjoy the in-between times, which is most of our lives. We should and do enjoy the accomplishments and achievements! Learning to enjoy the pathway takes more work, but the reward is loving the life you have right now.

It can be easier said than done to learn to think this way. I can help with that! If you’ve been curious about how a life coach can help you love your life and move forward much faster than you’ve been able to do on your own, email me at drandreachristiaparks@gmail.com and we’ll set up a mini-session!

Here’s this week’s installment of my Weight Loss Mindset series – join me!

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