Category Archives: Mind Management

NOCOMMENTS

How Emotional Eating Helps Weight Loss

Welcome – I’m glad you’re here! This week we’re going to talk about a topic that gets us deep into the root of our weight loss journey: Emotional eating.

We’re not born with an emotional eating problem. As babies, we eat for fuel. Our tummies growl with hunger, we cry, and we get fed. It works!

But then we learn that when we do something that an adult likes, we get candy. When a special occasion happens, special foods are prepared and served. Cakes are decorated and eaten on birthdays, cookies are baked because mommy loves us, and a team win is celebrated with a trip out for ice cream.

We learn to eat emotionally.

We are taught that food is the solution to so much more than hunger – it solves boredom, worry, stress, fatigue, and anxiety. Food is for entertainment, reward, and comfort. We learn that some foods are “comfort” foods like mac and cheese, some are fun foods (chips, candy, popsicles), and some foods are “good” but not fun (like veggies). Somewhere along the journey to becoming overweight, we realize that we’re eating for reasons that use food to solve problems other than hunger. We label it “emotional eating” and think that we’ll never lose weight if we don’t stop it.

Emotional eating isn’t a problem.

In fact, it’s not what’s causing you to be overweight.

I know – right now you’re saying, “Wait – isn’t emotional eating a bad thing? Didn’t you just say that emotional eating is why I have a weight problem?”

Actually, no. I said that when you eat to solve emotions instead of hunger, you will eat more than you need and gain weight. This is a uniquely human problem. You don’t see birds binging on the bugs they eat or cows eating grass until they’re too full to stand up. Animals eat for hunger only. But as humans, we eat for pleasure and flavor as well. We prepare and arrange and decorate food – eating is more than satisfying hunger for us.

All eating is emotional eating.

The question really is: What emotion is generating the food choice you’re making? When you buy fresh veggies and leafy greens at the farmer’s market, prepare a lovely salad with homemade dressing and grill your squash and peppers, why did you do all that? You may feel deserving of a meal full of foods that fuel your body. You might feel committed to your food plan. You may feel loving toward yourself and want to give yourself the gift of a whole foods meal. You might choose to bypass snacking on popcorn while you write emails because you know that you want to eat only when you’re hungry and you know you use the popcorn to distract you from feeling the boredom of writing more emails.

You get to choose emotions that serve your plan for weight loss.

The only question is how you generate the emotions that serve your weight loss plans instead of sabotaging them? The key is in your mind! What you think creates your emotions, and that’s what gets you the results you want. Is it hard to create emotions that keep you on track for your weight loss goals? No, but it does take practice. And just like any good student in training, you’ll get there faster/easier/better with a coach. If you know that what you need is a coach to help you sort out what’s keeping you from your weight loss success, I can help! Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and let’s set up a consultation. Let’s get moving toward your goal!

Here’s your video help for the week!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Mind Management

Weight Loss Coaching: The Reason We Do ANYTHING

Are you ready for another glimpse into the secret workings of your mind? This week, I want to share with you a key to why you do the things you do, even when they end up being against your higher goals. You know how sometimes you do things that make you question later, “Why did I do that?” I’m going to help you see why you keep doing that thing and what you can do to catch yourself next time!

Your brain is an amazing and complex organ. It runs your bodily functions while still helping you to make decisions and run your life. Your mind learns quickly how to do things with efficiency and is great at automating tasks that you practice. Walking is a good example – not something you have to give conscious thought to anymore! But that tendency toward efficiency can work against you when you want to do something new, like change your way of eating or create something new. Then your brain tries to resist the change because it takes a lot of energy, so your default practiced thinking is what you fall back on. Your mind likes to keep doing what it knows will work!

But there’s another big reason why you fall into old patterns: Your thoughts produce your feelings. Your brain remembers feelings and records them. Everything that you do is because of how you think it will make you feel.

Did you catch that?

You do what you do because of how you think it will make you feel. For example, you correct your kids because (your thought) you think that a good mom trains her kids how to behave well. You think that if you do this, you will feel accomplished (like a good mom!). Or you might decide that your work schedule is crazy stressful and the doughnuts in the breakroom are calling your name. You deserve a doughnut to reward yourself for handling all the stress (your thought). You think that you’ll feel good by eating the doughnut. The brain supports this thinking for two reasons. One is because you’ve used food as a solution for stress so often that eating is linked to stress relief in your brain. And two, eating sugar and starch actually does reward the brain with a little happy hormone called dopamine, so momentarily you do feel better. Your brain conveniently “forgets” the long-term effect of eating food you don’t need, which is the scale going up or your clothes not fitting well.

This is where coaching comes in. Those thoughts and suggestions and projections from your brain are what we examine in coaching. We question them and look at them to see what you’re creating when you agree with those thoughts. If you’re making choices that cause you to eat when you’re not physically hungry, you’re doing it to make yourself feel better or to avoid feeling something unpleasant. If what you want is to lose weight, then you have to stop eating for reasons other than hunger, which is challenging when your default thinking prompts you to eat to feel better! But when we question the default thinking with coaching, that’s what allows you to change what you do. Instead of being driven by the feeling you think food will produce, you’ll choose to act in a way that supports your higher goal. Achieving your goal always feels better for longer than eating the food!

Eating to solve stress, fatigue, boredom, and frustration are all ways that our brain has learned to cope with unpleasant emotions. If you know that when you feel stress you can eat chips and get away from the stress for a few minutes, your brain will offer that as a solution, even though rationally you know that chips don’t really solve your stress and make the scale go up when you eat them. But it’s an efficient solution, and your brain is all about efficiency! Coaching helps you to see your patterns and find ways to change them to support yourself. It’s incredible how having a coach to help you see your mind shifts the way you make decisions.

You can rewire your brain! With practice and consistency, you will be successful. But if you’re finding that you keep bumping up against the same obstacles and you want help, I’m here for you. Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and set up a free consultation. Coaching will help you reach your goal and you can have what you need!

Here’s your video help for the week – listen to me go into more detail on your thoughts and feelings!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Mind Management

Weight Loss Coaching: Your Brain vs Reality

Let’s get to it!

Last week we talked about developing awareness around the thoughts your brain offers you. That alone is powerful! The brain is so often on auto-pilot and unsupervised that it’s amazing how much has gone unnoticed when you start paying attention to it. This week, I want to help you go further. What do you do with the thoughts once you are aware of them?

But before you can decide what to do with your thoughts, you have to know that what is going through your head is actually a thought. A thought is something you can decide to change because your brain made it up. The problem is that a lot of our thoughts seem like facts – we want to believe that the thoughts we have are true! So often a thought goes through our mind and we simply accept it.

So what’s the difference between thought and circumstance (or fact)? Let’s do the easy one first: A circumstance is a neutral fact. “It’s 84 degrees F outside” is a circumstance. Dishes in the sink are a circumstance. Flowers in a vase are a circumstance. The number on the scale is a circumstance. I know, that last one feels less like a neutral fact! What’s a thought? The thought comes from what you decide to think about the circumstance. “It’s hot outside”, “My kitchen is a mess”, “My husband loves me so much he brought me flowers”, and “My weight is out of control” are all thoughts. You might decide that you like some of these thoughts or you may not, but these are not facts. If anyone in the world could disagree with your thought, then it’s not a fact. You can keep it, but it’s just a thought you agree with!

Why does it matter? Your power is in your ability to choose thoughts that take you to where you want to go. If your goal is to lose ten pounds, you want to choose thoughts that help you get there. The problem with thoughts like “My weight is out of control” is that they tend to promote shame, judgment, negativity, and a sense of hopelessness. When you feel that way, you’re a lot less likely to be successful at moving yourself toward your weight loss goal. Just like a teenager, you’ll eventually tune out your own negative thoughts. They’re still there running the show, but you won’t be willing to look at them with compassion and curiosity, which you need to change your thinking. If you want to change, the power is in your mind.

How do you discern the difference between a thought and a circumstance? Simple – ask yourself if it’s true. If your brain tried to fight you and argue that it’s sort of true, then ask if it’s 100% true. If you can’t say yes, then it’s a thought, not a circumstance.

Where you are today, the life you live right now results from the thoughts you have been thinking. You’ve practiced certain thoughts so much that you have created a belief for yourself, and you live according to that belief. If you want to create new results in your life, you need new thoughts to practice. How? You become aware of your thoughts, question them, evaluate them for what results they are creating, and then create new thoughts to replace the old ones if they aren’t producing what you want. When you believe the new thoughts, you will begin creating new results in your life. Everything you want to create or become is possible once you manage your thinking!

You might be thinking, “Well, that sounds straightforward, but I need help actually doing it!” Thought work is powerful and simple, but it’s much easier to do it with help. If you want help, email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and we can set up a free consultation where I’ll help you get started, and we’ll decide if we want to work together. You don’t have to do this alone!

Here’s your video help for the week!

NOCOMMENTS

Inspirations, Mind Management

Weight Loss Coaching: The First Step

Welcome! Whether it’s your first time here or you’ve read for years, I’m glad you’re here today. Recently there’s been a lot of discussion around coaching, so I’ve been talking to more people about what I do in weight loss coaching with my clients. There’ve been a lot of questions – how does it work? Do you help me choose a diet that’s right for me? Why is coaching helpful for weight loss?

It’s fun for me to talk about because I love to coach! I also know how crucial managing the mind around any decision is, and weight loss is no exception. We get the concept of a coach in sports: An elite athlete needs a coach to be trained to achieve their potential in their discipline. CEOs hire business coaches to help them make the best high-level decisions for their companies.

A coach helps you reach your goal.

Weight loss is no different. When you set forth a goal to lose 20 pounds, you can’t just decide one day and wake up the next having achieved it. You know that. You’ll need to sustain your efforts over time and be consistent to get the weight to come off of your body. That’s where a coach helps – you’ll want to stop, give up, quit, cheat, self-sabotage, and your coach will help you stay on track to your goal! But weight loss coaching isn’t about having a cheerleader or just someone to help remind you of your goal.

It’s having someone outside of you who can help you see your mind.

This is the key to good coaching and where I begin with each of my clients. In order to make progress toward a goal, we have to be able to see our thoughts about what we are trying to achieve. When a client wants to lose weight, they have lots of thoughts about what they have to do (how should I eat? exercise? starve? be uncomfortable?). The thoughts are what trigger the actions we take, so we have to be able to see what we’re thinking. A good coach shows you your thoughts and helps you see how they are producing your current results.

I love the spiritual truth behind managing your thoughts – this is why it works! 2 Corinthians 10:5 says we are to take every thought captive and make them obedient to Christ. Most of us aren’t even aware of most of our thoughts, much let taking charge of them. So this is where coaching starts: We begin with awareness. The first step is learning to see the thoughts that trigger our actions. In the beginning, we aren’t trying to change the thoughts or take new actions – just be aware of them. Actively changing the thoughts and taking new actions comes later, but you can’t move ahead without awareness. So how do we become aware?

We practice being the observer.

The observer is you watching your mind. It’s recognizing that you are not the thoughts you think and that your mind is not in charge of you. Your brain will offer up many thoughts and you get to decide if you agree or disagree with those thoughts. We think our brain is the boss, but it’s really just an efficient secretary. It keeps the thoughts in very efficient files, so we don’t have to think about most things. Most of what we do is automated: We tie out shoes, walk around, pour a glass of water with ease. When we eat, we do it because of default reasoning in our minds. For example, we eat because it’s lunchtime, or because someone brought doughnuts to the office, or we’re bored or stressed or tired or frustrated, or because we want to make ourselves feel better. None of those reasons are because the body is hungry and needs fuel.

In order to stop eating for reasons other than hunger, your thoughts need reprogramming. If you’ve learned over the years to eat for reasons other than hunger (we all have), then you have to be aware of the thoughts that prompt you to eat. You have to be able to observe your mind. When your brain tells you that a cookie will make you feel better after that hard conversation with your husband, you get to see that your brain is used to offering a cookie as the solution to stress. You can decide that you will agree with your brain and eat the cookie, or you could choose to remind your brain that you will ultimately not feel better from the cookie and that what you really want is to watch the scale go down. You can choose to disagree with your brain! The default thoughts can be changed to serve your goal. The process of change is work, but it can be done.

That’s why you need a coach!

You can lose weight and reach your goal. But if you’re finding it hard to do it on your own and know you need a coach to help you change your brain, I’m here to help! Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and set up a free consultation. It’ll be the first step on your way to permanent, successful weight loss!

Here’s your video help for the week! It’s a double dose!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Mind Management

Weight Loss On Fast Food

What the what? Yes, I said it – weight loss on fast food! I know you’ve been taught that losing weight means giving up all the foods you love and never eating fast food, junk food, comfort food again. But what if that’s not true?

This week I want to tell you a new story about a client of mine who lost weight on fast food. When this client came to me, she was crystal clear: She did not want to give up all her favorite foods and live a life of deprivation. She didn’t like to plan, cook, or meal prep and she wasn’t interested in doing any of that to lose her weight. She ate out regularly, and Chick-Fil-a was a regular part of her routine. She wasn’t sure what I’d say or how I was going to help her, but she wanted to be clear where her boundaries were.

No problem.

Seriously, I had no problem with anything she said. Actually, I was glad to find out that she was clear on what she wanted to create for herself. Knowing where to start and where my clients actually are is a crucial part of being able to coach successfully. We spent the first session assessing where she was starting and helping her set up some guidelines she felt were going to be useful to her around her eating. No plans were made to change her actual diet.

She lost 6 pounds before our next session.

This is the power of coaching. When you become aware of what you’re creating in your life, you get to make decisions. Most of us are unaware of how our thinking is creating the results we have in our lives – we just don’t like those results. We don’t like that our jeans don’t fit, or that the mirror is telling a story we don’t like, or that the number on the scale is higher than it’s ever been. We don’t make the connection between our thinking and our results.

Awareness is the first step.

Over the course of time, my client continued to lose weight. I never did prescribe her a diet. That’s what weight loss coaching is not. Now, I can create an eating plan for anyone – that’s why I studied holistic nutrition and lifestyle medicine! I troubleshoot for my clients when they run into obstacles around their eating style all the time. What I don’t do is tell people what to eat. Why not?

Because it doesn’t work. No one likes a bunch of rules. You know I’m right – your teen rebels against rules and so do you. You don’t like to be micromanaged at work, right? Why? Because you want to make your own decisions. And with eating, you absolutely must make your own decisions. If you choose to follow a diet, you’ll probably be successful as long as you follow the diet to the letter. But eventually, you will “fall off the wagon”, make exceptions, cheat the diet, or whatever you want to call it. And when you stop following the diet, whatever you used to do creeps back in. A diet doesn’t change your thinking about food – it just changes your actions around food. If you haven’t changed your thinking as you lose weight, your default thinking creeps back in as soon as you stop the diet. What do you get if you do what you’ve always done? You get the same result you’ve always gotten. And that is why most people regain weight after they stop a diet.

You have a unique life and you have to be able to own your choices. Giving the responsibility of your weight loss over to a diet takes away your power, but owning each choice you make around food is how you take your power back.

Having a coach helps you do exactly that.

You can do this! And if you know you’re ready to take charge of your thinking and you want me to coach you, email me at drandreachristanparks@gmail.com. We’ll set up a consultation and get you started. You don’t have to do this alone!

Here’s your video help for the week!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Weight Loss Stories From A Coach

I want to apologize…

It’s taken me a minute to realize that I haven’t let you in on what I’m doing. Some of you are new to the blog, but many of you have been around for years, reading these posts, seeing my recipes, watching me help my family go plant-based, and now I’m talking about weight loss and coaching and I never explained why!

You know how sometimes you’re too close to a situation to see clearly and it all makes sense and seems obvious to you until you talk to someone else about it and they’re completely confused? That’s what happened to me. I’m all gung-ho about my weight loss coaching, telling people that I’m a certified coach, offering to help, and when we talk I realize they don’t know what I’m talking about. Not really.

It’s easy to get it when I say, “I’m a doctor.” You know that means I went to medical school and residency and I take care of patients. But a coach? Coach of what? How do I help?

I’m going to be more clear. So I’ve decided that the best way to explain what I’m doing as a coach is to tell you stories. Fun, right? For the next several weeks I’m going to tell stories about people I’ve helped in their weight loss journey so you can see the lasting impact that coaching can have on weight loss.

Let’s start with my story…

After my first baby…

Ever since I can remember and probably at least since puberty, I was overweight. I don’t recall any time in my adult life when I was at a normal, healthy weight. All through high school and college I struggled with weight, negative body issues, shame, and self-hatred. It was tough. I tried crazy metabolic diets, Weight Watchers, whatever I thought would help.

I was a dancer in both high school and college. I was always the biggest girl on the stage. Moving and performing were pure joy, but putting on the tight-fitting costumes wasn’t a fun experience.

Things didn’t improve when I got into medical school. I lived alone and studied my days away. Snacks were an easy way to break up the monotony and keep from falling asleep on the books. Medical training also taught me to eat whenever I had a chance even if I wasn’t hungry because I wouldn’t know when the next chance to eat would be. Residency was even worse. The constant snacking and “I deserve it” eating became an ingrained pattern.

After training was over and I had my first baby, I was almost 200 pounds. I was exactly the same weight I was when I started the pregnancy. Trying to breastfeed and stay covered was hard because I was pretty big up top. I wanted to be one of those pretty young moms pushing a stroller, looking fit and energetic, but in reality, I was exhausted, heavy, and uncomfortable in my own body. When I started avoiding being in any pictures with my daughter because I hated how I looked, I knew something had to change.

I lost 60 pounds in 6 months. After a lifetime of living in a body that didn’t feel comfortable, I finally felt full of lightness and energy! It was exhilarating! I wanted everyone I knew that struggled with their weight to have the same success and feeling I had – but when people asked me how I lost the weight, I didn’t know how to explain. No, I didn’t do a diet. No, I wasn’t starving myself or exercising to exhaustion. No, I wasn’t taking pills or shots. People looked at me sideways when I said I was only eating when I was hungry and stopping when I was full. Yes, but how? And what else?

After four babies…

I didn’t know how to say it then, but what had changed was my mind. I was thinking about food, my body, what I would and wouldn’t do around food in a completely different way than I had my whole life. For the past more than 14 years that I’ve kept off this weight, I knew my mind had changed, but I didn’t know how to give that transformation to someone else.

So I became a certified life and weight loss coach.

Now I’m able to help other women make decisions about their life and weight that get them unstuck. I help my clients see how their thinking is creating the life they have now. Coaching allows me to help my clients create the results they want in their life and reach their goals. I get to use all of my physician’s brain and my coach training to help people to find the health and wellness that they want. It’s a wonderful place to be!

If you know that what you need to get to your weight loss goal is a transformation in your thinking, I can help! Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and let’s set up a consultation. I can help you get a jump start toward your goal in one hour and we can work together to reach that goal!

Come back next week to learn about successful weight loss on chicken wings and pizza…

Here’s your video help for the week!

3COMMENTS

Blog, Inspirations, Mind Management

Self Care: What if You Don’t?

It’s the last week of our Self Care series! I’m glad you’re here. Whether you’re joining in just now or have been following along the whole time, you’re here because self-care means something to you. We’ve talked about the reasons for self-care, the benefits of self-care, and why we think we can’t have more self-care in our lives.

This week I want to consider what happens if we don’t make space for self-care.

Here’s the deal: I’m the most guilty of all when it comes to packing my schedule with to-dos and filling up all my time with what needs to be done next. I’m not here as the self-care guru sitting on high, teaching everyone else from a place of full self-actualization and nirvana.

I’m not that girl.

I’m the one running around, hair-on-fire, caffeinating when needed, and hating on the alarm when it goes off in the mornings. I’m the one crying silent tears when I look at my to-do list and then telling myself to put on my big girl panties and deal. I’m hustling, running, working/parenting/cooking/cleaning, trying desperately to get to the end so I can rest.

It’s a trap.

Here’s the truth: There is no end to the to-do list.

If you plan to rest when you get all the work done, if you think you’ll take care of yourself when everyone and everything is taken care of, you’ll never get there. Your rest can’t wait until everything is done. You will never get everything done. The only way you will have the stamina to get through all your work is to fuel yourself. Everyone needs whole food, clean water, rest, friendship, and recreation. You are not an exception.

Besides, who really wants a life where you race through on fumes and arrive at the end, not having enjoyed the journey? What’s the point of working the whole of your adult life, hoping to have a life you enjoy later? I used to think that that was how life was supposed to be lived – work really hard, save money, enjoy life in retirement if you’ve planned/saved/worked hard enough. I’m reevaluating my whole outlook on that. I’m not advocating for being irresponsible with your time and money, but putting off enjoying your life in a hustle to enjoy it later is a losing proposition.

First, what about all the time you’re spending in your life right now? If I can’t enjoy the work I do every day, then why am I doing it? There are other ways to make money. I can choose to enjoy my work, my family, my friends, and my home as it is now. I don’t have to wait until everything is done and perfect before I enjoy it. Why would I sign up for forty years of burnout, fatigue, and stagnation when I can incorporate good and nourishing things in my life every day? I have time to breathe mindfully every day. I can go for long walks sometimes. Bubble baths are lovely. I can buy flowers with my groceries. Yoga helps me feel good in my body and my mind. Daily prayer keeps me connected and faithful. I can go on my solo retreats. I can have a spa day (when COVID ends!). There’s more – and I don’t have to wait for any of it.

Second, hustling your buns off now to enjoy life later can backfire. I’ve seen people arrive at their planned retirement after years of work they didn’t enjoy to enter those years with a diagnosis that prevented them from doing the traveling and fun that they anticipated. Their spouse gets sick and retirement becomes a time of doctor visits and medication regimens. The bottom falls out of the market and there’s not enough money for the retirement they planned.

It’s not that I’ve lost my belief in planning for the future. But certainty in the future is a myth. None of us know for sure what’s coming tomorrow, much less in 20 years. What I have is today. I have now. It’s possible to plan and enjoy life now too!

What do you want to do with today?

It’s simple to decide to get off the hamster wheel, but it’s not easy. If you feel stuck in the way you’ve been living your life, or you just can’t get out of your own way to get the weight off, I’m here to help! Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and let’s set up a consultation. We can get you moving again!

Here’s your video help for the week!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Self Care: ” I Feel Selfish!”

Welcome to week 4 of the Self Care series! I’m glad you’re here because this thought about self-care is so common! Thinking that self-care is selfish is one of those sneaky background thoughts that we don’t really say out loud. We know self-care is supposed to be important and we kind of accept that it should be part of our lives, while in real life we can’t seem to get it in. There are so many other people in our lives who need things too! Now we feel guilty we’re not doing it AND selfish for trying to do it at all.

This sneaky thought needs reevaluation…

When I realize I have thoughts that cause inner conflict, my first step in evaluation is to question the thought. Is it true? So what about self-care is selfish? We think that if we take time for ourselves that we will be taking away time from someone else who needs us. We think our spouse or husband will have to go without because we did something for us. So we figure that if someone has to go without something they need, then it should be us, not them.

Sometimes this is the best decision. Some needs are that important! The problem comes when this is our default answer to balancing the needs and requests of the people in our lives. I’m convinced that the self-care movement comes from a push-back against this default thinking that we women have adopted.

Yes, I mean women.

As a society, we are very comfortable with the role of the woman as the caretaker. We play that role at work, at home, and in relationships. We don’t have that same cultural expectation of men, so they don’t play it out. When’s the last time that you heard a man say, “I can’t go out/play ball/go to the gym”? They don’t. They know what they want and need to be the person they are and they plan for it, usually with other people helping make it possible. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We as women might want to do the same!

So is it true that self-care is selfish? If we allow for it for men, plan for downtime for the kids, and hesitate to load responsibilities on others, then we recognize that taking care of human needs does matter. So caring for yourself isn’t selfish. That’s just a thought we have chosen.

Here’s the main reason I have a problem with the thought that self-care is selfish: It means that while everyone else can have normal human needs, the main caretaker can’t. To me, that lessens the humanity of the caretaker – the mom, grandma, wife, sister, daughter. That’s a whole lot of humans that are expected not to take care of themselves for the sake of others! That seems more like a man-made cultural construct than a godly love of humanity.

We have value. Each of us has wants and needs and lives and relationships and dreams. To live the full expression of our human life we need to see the value in that life. We see it for other people. We make space and time and provide for others. Why is it so hard to see the value of ourselves?

Besides, who is supposed to take care of you? You raise your kids to become independent and take care of themselves, right? When your daughters are grown up, how do you want them to live? You’re really the only one who is assigned the role of caring for you as an adult. I’m not saying don’t accept help – absolutely accept any help you can get! But who else knows what will best fuel your body, what kind of exercise feels good to you, how much sleep you need, and what is fun for you? We spend so much time taking care of other people and studying and anticipating their needs that sometimes we forget what we even like to do!

You have lots of responsibilities and people to care for. So do I. I’m grateful I have them because otherwise, I’d be alone (and most days I’d rather have them!). But it’s also your responsibility to take care of yourself. You have to be your own advocate. When you care for yourself, you have more to offer – to yourself, to others, and to the world. When you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t give as much as you have to give. And that’s a loss for us all.

Sometimes it’s hard to get the old thinking out and the new thinking in. What do you want? What do you need? Why haven’t you created it for yourself already? Maybe you need to let some things go so you can get more sleep. Or you might want to change your schedule so you have time to exercise. You might want to learn to meditate to manage your mind and stress. You may want to finally drop 20 pounds and feel better in your body. It might be that you want all of it and have no idea how to make it happen in your super-busy life!

I might be a little biased, but the way to get your life to become what you want it to be is with a coach. Changing your thinking alone is hard, but a coach can help you cut through the noise and find a path to where you want to be. I think having a coach is the ultimate form of self-care because fixing your thinking is the origin of any change you ever have or will ever make! Managing my mind is absolutely how I am able to move my life forward out of confusion and in the direction of my dreams. I want that for you too!

I want to help you get where you want to go! If you want a coach to help you finally get off the weight for good or cut through all the noise in your life to get to your goals, email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com, and let’s set up a consultation. You can get to the life you want!

If you have questions or want to talk more about how to change thinking so it works for you instead of against you, comment below and we’ll talk…

Here’s your video help for the week!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Self Care: “I Don’t Have Enough Time!”

As a coach, this is one of my favorite things to talk about. At some point, we’ve all told ourselves that the solution to all our problems would be if we had more time. We know deep in our hearts that if we didn’t need to sleep or if we could have 30 hours in a day that we could get everything done, life would be much more peaceful, and we could accomplish all our goals and dreams. It feels so true! But it’s a lie. So let’s get to it!

Ever watch someone else’s life and think, “How does she do it all?” Other people are working their full-time job, cooking full meals for their family, and publishing their latest book. Or they’re traveling and they meditate daily and they homeschool their kids and their house looks like it came out of a magazine. How is it that other people do all these things and you feel like you’re running and top speed, hair on fire, and you have a never-ending to-do list that seems to get longer the harder you work?

They must have paid help.

They don’t sleep.

Their husband must do more than yours around the house.

Who knows? It doesn’t really matter. The truth is that no matter what their situation, they have exactly the same amount of time that you do. We all have the same amount of time! Not convinced? Let me show you…

I like to think of time as the great equalizer. It’s our most precious nonrenewable resource! Time is a construct we as humans have defined and structured and whether we like it or not, we live within time. Every day has 24 hours, and we all get the exact same amount.

This is great news!

If time is a neutral construct and we all have the same amount, then we start on equal footing with the time we have. The only difference is how we spend it. This is where we have all our power – we choose how we spend our allotment of time.

Did you catch that?

We get to choose how we spend our time. Contrary to what we tell ourselves, no one has extra time waiting to be used up. We generally fill up all our time with something. When it’s all spent and we don’t like how we spent it, we think the solution is that we need more. The solution is to decide how we want to spend the time and then just do that.

We don’t do it that way.

We use our time with things that don’t matter (ever fall into a Facebook hole and lose an hour? I have). We binge-watch TV and then wonder why we don’t have time to create that thing we really want. We complain that we don’t have enough time, but the result of that is feeling powerless and subject to time. When we feel that way, we let time go by while we do things we haven’t thought through and we spend time mindlessly, like swiping a credit card and not thinking about how we have to pay for that later. It’s a completely powerless place to be.

But how we spend time is a choice. Are your kids in four activities and you’re running every day to take them to this or that? Why? Do you like your reasons? If you do, then that’s a good choice and carry on, sister! If not, then why are you spending your time that way? Do you like that you end the day with two hours of TV and go to bed later than you want and wake up hating your alarm every morning? Then why are you choosing to do that?

You get to choose how you spend your time and you have as much as anyone else. You want to eat real food for dinner instead of take-out? Figure out how to spend your time to make that happen. Do you feel best when you get a daily walk? Schedule your day (and the night before!) to be sure you block time for your walk. Whatever it is, you have time for it. You decide, you spend, you have the power over how you use your time. You’ll have to say no to some things – that is a good thing! Be in power and choose how you spend your time. No one else can decide for you, so you get to be in charge!

I know it can be tricky – thinking we are at the mercy of time is an easy pattern to fall into and a hard one to get out of if you’re not trained to think differently. But that’s what coaching is for! If you want help stepping into your power and getting control of your time, your eating, your life, email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and let’s make time to work together. You’ve got an hour to invest in yourself – let’s go!

Here’s your video help this week!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Self Care: Why It Matters

Welcome back for week 2 of the Self Care series. Last week we talked about what self-care is and we expanded our thinking about what can be included in self-care. This week, we are going to take our view of self-care a little deeper…

Why does it matter?

I mean, we all like the concept of self-care. Whether we’re talking about spa days, retreats, getting enough sleep, or feeding our bodies in a nourishing way, it seems like a decent enough idea. Sure, doing any or all of these things is at least nourishing and could be deeply loving and caring for us. But if we’re super busy (we are) and we’ve got tons of other compelling things to do (we do) and we don’t have time for self-care, then does it make a difference if we don’t get around to it? Does it matter if we don’t take time for self-care?

The reason why we ask that question comes from the value we assign to self-care. We think somewhere deep inside that self-care is a luxury, that it’s an indulgence, like staying up all night binging on a Netflix show (if this is what fills your sails, then do you. I mean no harm :). It feels like self-care is a guilty pleasure, one that we really can’t afford. Or we think that if we make time for self-care then we sacrifice something else equally worthy. We believe that because we forget the point of self-care altogether.

Self-care is to take care of you. Self-care matters because you matter.

We assign value to all the roles and responsibilities in our lives. Our jobs as wife, mom, daughter, worker, member of whatever all are roles we take seriously. And they’re important. But how well do you fill those roles if you’re exhausted, caffeinated, and dragging yourself through the day, looking forward to the moment you can fall into bed only to get up and do it again? What if you had carved out half an hour of time to walk outside or go to sleep a little earlier than usual? We think that something won’t get done if we include ourselves in our to-do list.

But what if taking care of yourself made you better for the other things you do?

Think about it. If you weren’t so tired, maybe you’d get even more done in less time. Maybe you’d have a moment to give hugs to your littlest when she asks instead of rushing to get the next thing done. Maybe you’d call a friend on your commute instead of worrying about what you need to do when you get back home. You might wake up with inspiration and ideas instead of dread for the day coming. You might plan meals that fuel your body and keep you on your weight loss plan.

If you mattered to you, if you were important on your list, what might change? You might say no to things that were less important (and you might be glad you did!) You might feel better and do more than you thought you could. You just might enjoy your life instead of putting on your big girl panties and just dealing most of the time.

You matter. The only reason you don’t keep yourself on your list is because you forget that you matter. You don’t know that taking care of yourself takes care of others too. You’re better when you have fuel in the tank instead of running on fumes. You’re more patient, peaceful, creative, loving. I know it’s true because I have been both stressed-out running-on-fumes mama and mama-who-has-time-for-hugs. I like me as the second mama better! When I take care of myself I have more to give to my husband, my kids, my work, and my life. I do miss a lot of TV shows and movies, but I’ve decided that it’s a sacrifice I can live with. I’ve said no to other things that I can live without. You can choose to do the same if it gets you back on your list!

Easier said than done sometimes, I know. If you can’t get your weight off because you can’t plan/meal prep/get it together because life is so out of balance, I can help! Email me a drandreachristainparks@gmail.com and we’ll set up a consultation to start getting your life back in balance!

Here’s your video help this week!

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