Category Archives: Mind Management

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

Blog, Inspirations, Mind Management

Being In Charge of Your Weight During The Holidays Part #4: How To Eat All The Holiday Foods and NOT Gain Weight

Here it is – it’s go time! This is the end of the line, the big mammajamma, the event that could knock you off the rails. Even if you were able to avoid all the little temptations, the Christmas candy dishes, and cookie swaps, the big holiday meal could be the thing that takes down your best-laid plans.

Except we’re not going to let it.

This week we’re going to put together the skills we’ve been practicing into a comprehensive approach to the holiday meal. You know how it usually goes – you start the morning with some kind of traditional sweet roll or fresh baked muffin with your coffee, then you nibble on snacks while you get the food together for the feast, then you taste all the food as you get them ready to be sure they taste delicious, then when dinner rolls around you really aren’t hungry but you load up your plate anyway because you’re not gonna miss out on this meal that you slaved over for everyone else. Besides, who wants to sit at the table and watch everyone else eat? The food is good, but you know it’d be better if you’d been hungry, and now you don’t know when you’re full because you weren’t really hungry anyway, so you end up feeling as stuffed as the turkey. Still, you have to have a slice of the pound cake because you only have it once a year, so you nibble on that thinking you’ll just taste it and when you look down you’re surprised that the plate is empty and you feel slightly nauseous because your belly is so full you couldn’t eat another bite.

How do I know?

Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt. If that description is “enjoying” the holiday meal (with or without extended family around), count me out. Not only is that the opposite of fun, but eating like that is the curse that keeps on giving – you get to experience the misery all over again for at least the next few days on the scale.

No thanks. Let’s pull it all together to get our approach ready!

First, remember why you need a plan. If you don’t plan, your primitive brain will take charge in the moment and you’ll make impulsive decisions. You’ll rationalize why you need to eat everything and a lot of it. So plan for yourself with love and do it in advance. Two, the beautiful memory you want to create is about the love and family and gathering, not the food – it’s just a meal to share with those you love, not the main event. And no matter what anyone else eats or brings, this can’t wreck your plan – only you can do that.

So what does this look like? What if you’re going to your mom’s house to eat and you don’t know what she’s making? What if you don’t want to skimp on your meal? What if you want a cocktail before dinner?

All good. Just sketch out your plan in advance. A word of warning – drinks before dinner can fill you up and make it harder for you to feel hungry for dinner (and the food won’t taste as good). Alcohol also may tempt you to chuck your plan, so go light.

Here’s how you do it. First, think about how long you need to stop eating before dinner time at plan either a light breakfast or an intermittent fast in the morning. You may not want to miss the Christmas muffins, but maybe you have a half of one with your coffee. Decide upfront and only eat that – remember you want to be hungry for dinner! Plan for how many drinks you’re going to have – one, two, or none (be realistic here). You might plan to have that drink with dinner when you’re actually hungry. Plan for hot tea or seltzer for when the first hunger pangs show up – it’s still not time for dinner and you’re not really that hungry, but the fluid in your stomach will calm that down and give you something to sip while you cook or wait.

Remember to enjoy the people around you. It might just be your kids and husband this year (it will be for me too). Look at their faces and see their smiles as they enjoy their new Christmas gifts. Take a deep breath and look past the mess of wrapping paper and the dishes you need to clean up before prepping the meal. You are making your holiday memory right now – what do you want it to be?

Back to the plan. When the food is laid out and you’re ready to fill your plate – don’t. Even if you made all the food yourself, survey the offerings. What looks best? What do you know you definitely want to eat and what could you pass up? If I made it (won’t do it this year), my mom couldn’t pass up creamed corn. I could, so I just decided it wouldn’t be on the menu since she’s going to be on the Zoom screen. Decide what is delicious enough to be on your plate and be choosy. Picky is good here. Don’t forget to include your dessert plan in your survey!

Once you’ve rated the food from most to least important, go through and put a small portion of what you’ve chosen on your plate. let there be space on the plate when you’re done. Don’t plan to come back for seconds – you can pack the food up and eat it tomorrow or next week if you freeze it. There no need to overeat – there’s always more.

When you sit down, look around. See your family enjoying themselves? You’re part of that! Since you waited and you’re hungry, your food is going to taste good. But the first bite will taste the best – as you fill up, the flavors will be less intense, so don’t waste those first few bites. Take a deep breath and slowly enjoy the food. Savor each bite. Talk to the kids or whoever is sitting next to you. Ask if anyone needs something from the kitchen if you want to take a break from your plate. You can do this to check in with your stomach to see if you’re full. If you are, dump your plate and breath – you did it! If you left a little space for dessert, be glad and enjoy a few small bites of the sweet stuff when you get it. Taste each bite carefully and don’t miss it. Enjoy the conversation and the music and being together – this is your holiday memory!

No matter how the actual holiday meal turns out, no matter whether you eat the way you plan or if you overdo it, you are worthy and wonderful. Thank you for being with me on this journey! Merry Christmas, Happy Kwaanza, Happy Hannukah, and a very Happy New Year to you!

If you’re finding this helpful, come back – I’ve got more for you in the new year! And if you’d like to get more personalized help to get you moving with power and intention on your weight loss journey, I can help! I have a few slots left for private coaching, but they are filling up. Send an email to drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and we’ll set up a coaching mini-session to help you see how coaching can help you reach your weight loss goal and beyond!

Here’s your video help for Holiday Weight Loss! Remember to subscribe and set your notifications so you don’t miss upcoming videos!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Mind Management

Being In Charge of Your Weight For The Holidays Part 2: What About Everyone Else?

It’s week 2 in our series Getting In Charge Of Your Weight For The Holidays, and this one is a good one! Did you get through last week and make your plan? Did you get all your reasons straight for what you’re gonna do and why? It’s not too late and you’re not behind – read last week’s post and take a couple of minutes to get caught up!

The holidays are full of tradition, decorating with things we’ve collected for years, making foods we only eat once a year, and listening to special music. It’s a nostalgic time with lots of memories and hopes for creating new special memories. I put out my Black Santas on the mantle every year. My collection was started by my grandmother who has since passed, so I get to remember her every year when I open the boxes of Santas.

My grandmas. together…

Many of us spend our holiday time seeing family, visiting friends, and going to parties. For many of us, this year will be different. My parents aren’t coming to visit like they usually do and there will be no parties or white elephant gift exchanges. For an introvert like me, I won’t miss the parties too much. They’re fun but exhausting for me, so I’m good skipping a year. My extrovert husband probably doesn’t feel the same.

In our traveling and partying and special family meals, we find those special one-time-a-year foods. Grandma used to always make stewed tomatoes as one of the Christmas side dishes and I loved them. In your family, there might be a cake or pie or a special Christmas cookie recipe that only gets made for the holiday. So when those foods show up, you have to eat them, right?

Christmas exchange cookies – gotta have one of each, right?

No.

No, you don’t.

Let me tell you why.

When Aunt Myrtle makes her special Christmas casserole and brings a whole pan of it because she knows how much you love it, you can feel compelled to eat it because you think it would hurt her feelings if you didn’t, even though you know it’s not on the plan you designed, You might be wishing she just wouldn’t make the darn casserole so you didn’t have to struggle not to eat it! Or maybe you think that since you can’t get it any other time of year that it’s ok to go off the plan and just get back on track tomorrow. But those aren’t your only options.

First, if you want to eat a special dish, plan for it. You can specify in your plan a space for your holiday meal and how much of it you’ll have. You can plan to have a piece the size of a deck of playing cards and decide not to have seconds or finish the leftovers the day after Christmas. You can even decide that you won’t eat it this year because your weight loss would be derailed and you really don’t want that to happen, even more than you want the treat.

The reason why you feel compelled to eat the special food all at once is because of the scarcity mentality. You think that because these foods are around once a year that you have to eat them. But you could make these foods any time of year you wanted. You could freeze the Christmas stuffing and gravy and eat it in July if you want! I saw a box of Krispy Creme doughnuts in the office the other day that looked so special and tempting in the pretty red and green Christmas box. So I opened it thinking there must be some extra special kinds of holiday doughnuts inside. But when I opened the box it was just a dozen regular old glazed doughnuts. I could get those any time I want (and I generally don’t want to buy those!).

You think you have to eat the food because you don’t know Aunt Myrtle’s special recipe. What if you asked her for it so you could be the person in the next generation to make her special recipe? Then you could make it whenever you want. She won’t give up the recipe? Then eat it or don’t – save some for later or don’t. Get back to what you really want and you get to decide.

Creating my food plan for the day – not done yet!

The other thing we often think about other people and the holidays is very sneaky. We think something like, “It’s not fair she can eat all that stuff and stay skinny. I just want to be able to eat like everyone else.” Then you pile up your plate so you can’t see any of the decorations and stuff yourself like everyone else.

This thought deserves to be questioned. Is it really true that you want to eat like everyone else? Did you know that the US is fast approaching epidemic proportions of overweight and obesity? That means if you eat like the majority of Americans then you’ll also be in the group of overweight or obese. Don’t you have plenty of people in your family with hypertension and diabetes and heart disease? Most of us do. That’s not what you really want.

What you want is to eat anything you want and be thin – and you know that’s not how it works. We all have that one cousin (or someone) who seems to eat anything they want and not gain weight. While that usually catches up with people later in life and they don’t gain weight, for now, it just seems unfair. But really, what other people eat doesn’t make you gain weight. Only you can figure out how much fuel your body needs and not give it more for storage. Being mad at your body for doing its job is just maddening, and you’re doing that to yourself. You can decide to be happy with the plan you’ve designed and stick to it, knowing that you’ll feel incredible when the scale doesn’t jump up, or maybe even goes down. Nothing tastes as good as that!

Here’s your help in video form for this week!

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

Inspirations, Mind Management

Gratitude in a Pandemic Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. It’s been my favorite holiday for years. I used to say that it was the family gathering and the communal meal, all the traditions and leftovers and togetherness. It’s the one holiday with almost no commercial interest (unless you’re a turkey farmer). But I’m learning that that’s not at the root of my love for Thanksgiving, at least not anymore.

From when I was a kid until I finished medical school, Thanksgiving was always at Grandma’s house in Norfolk, VA. We squeezed into her little house and loaded the kitchen and dining room with turkey and ham, stewed tomatoes, cornbread dressing, gravy, green beans, and lots of desserts. We raided the candy drawer and played on the lawn (taking care to avoid the cactus!). The football game was always on and we slept in guest rooms, on couches, and on blowup mattresses. We had leftover turkey sandwiches and washed tons of dishes.

But in the years since I started working and my grandmother passed away, Thanksgiving has changed. The dinners have been at my house, which for many years felt very strange (I’m not the matriarch of this family yet!). Now that we live in GA, we don’t have much family nearby, so the family gathering became Christmas when my parents and brother come to visit. Some years we’ve combined our celebration with other families from church, and some we’ve done alone. Last year we did a huge vegan Thanksgiving feast with my aunt and cousins (and had a ball!) I’ve learned how to cook the big meal in phases around my work schedule and when we were eating meat, I made the most juicy roasted turkey with compound butter that you ever tasted!

Thanksgiving 2020. This is our first holiday season in a global pandemic. The CDC has recommended that as we weather another surge of COVID-19 cases far worse than the first that we stay home and limit or eliminate communal gatherings for fear that we will worsen the surge. On a personal level, my fear is that we will infect our more vulnerable relatives. There’s been a lot of talk about how this holiday season is lesser for the lack of family plans and how it won’t really seem like the holidays without them. I had a coaching client tell me that she was feeling down because they won’t be spending their holiday traveling to see family because of the virus.

I have a different perspective on the holidays this year.

While it’s true that holidays are often full of family and visiting and big meals and making memories together, that isn’t all there is to the time we have. Yes, it’s true that we may miss the time together, and there’s nothing wrong with feeling some loss over it. But I see this year as an opportunity. When my Thanksgiving changed and I couldn’t get the time off work to travel to my grandmother’s house, I learned to cook my own meals. We started our own traditions, like writing our blessings on the leaves of our grateful tree. This year we are cooking more of the meal together since the kids have learned a lot of cooking skills this year, and they’ve decided they want to make their own special contribution to the meal (as I write this, I don’t actually know what that is – it’s a secret). My daughters will make rolls (they like to play with the dough), and we will make sure to watch the Thanksgiving parade on TV Thursday morning as usual. We’ll all likely stay in pajamas until noon and since the forecast is for cold and rain, we will probably have a crackling fire and some hot tea or cocoa.

The true root of Thanksgiving for me is in the name of the holiday – we give thanks. My gratitude practice truly has changed my life, because writing my gifts has taught me to see the beauty right in front of me. I still miss my grandma and the Thanksgiving holidays with my aunt and cousins. But gratitude teaches me to keep my mind focused on the good, the lovely, the noble, the excellent, and praiseworthy right in front of me (cit). It’s a choice. As I taught my client, she could decide to have a lesser holiday because of the pandemic if she chooses to think that way. Or she can decide this is an opportunity for her and her husband to create their own new family traditions with the baby in this year when the extended family needs and opinions are removed from the celebration. My mom and dad have been doing dinner out for Thanksgiving in recent years, but this year my mom is planning to cook a traditional meal for the two of them to enjoy.

It’s like what we did in our family for Halloween this year. We decided that there would be no bringing candy in from Trick-or-Treating this year. The kids were bummed, but we were firm. So my husband and I decided that we’d create a treasure hunt for them to find the hidden candy we’d bought. They had clues and scrolls and needed to work together to decipher the map. They had a ball! I’m not suggesting that we would like to spend Halloween like this every year (it was a LOT of work, especially for my husband who created the clues!), but it was a Halloween they’ll remember for a very long time. One thing is for sure: We would not have created this memory without the pandemic to encourage our creativity!

I choose to be grateful for the two days I have off from work, for the slower pace to enjoy, for the traditions we observe, and for the chance to protect and care for my family by not having them visit. We’ll enjoy the cornbread stuffing and savory mushroom gravy, the cranberry sauce, and roasted brussels. I’m looking forward to the rolls the girls will make! We’ll see our family – it’ll just be through Zoom (I’m already sending the links!). For me, keeping track of all the goodness in front of me is what makes this holiday and each of the days worth celebrating.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And for those of you who are following along or just need a reset after the holiday meal, here’s the latest video in Weight Loss Mindset. It’s a good one – come through!

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!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

The One Thing That Prevents Success

For those of you who’ve been following these posts, you know about all the things I’m trying to do right now. But for those of you who don’t, let me catch you up.

I’m a practicing OBGYN and Lifestyle Medicine physician, a married mom of four homeschooled kids ages 7-13, and a certified holistic nutrition and life coach. I’m building my coaching practice and am creating an online weight loss course to help other busy professional women to find success in weight loss the way I have. I love my projects and I enjoy being busy and accomplishing things. But I’ve also learned that my tendency is to pile so much on my to-do list that I create a sense of overwhelm and discouragement. I’ve spent years growing my prayer life and practicing mindfulness and meditation to keep me close to God and find balance among the frantic pace of life.

That’s a good summary, right? Sounds pretty peaceful and organized, nice and neat, wrapped up with a bow. And just like people’s timelines on Instagram and Facebook, the story in the background is much more messy, nuanced, and intricate. So let’s talk about what happened this week.

I just came off of a weekend working in the hospital, after which I crashed and slept most of the remainder of the weekend. It was needed, but I really wanted to be conscious to work on the digital course I’m creating. I thought that I’d catch up early in the week because I had two days off and that should be plenty of time to get a ton of work done. And this weekend was “Fall Back”, so I’d get an extra hour of sleep (my favorite night of the year!). But I conveniently let my brain ignore the coaching appointments and homeschool group that meets all day Tuesday and the sales copy I needed to write and the sneakers that my son needed because his shoes had holes in them and the videos I needed to record for my YouTube channel and – well, you get it. There wasn’t as much “free” time as I thought.

So I forged ahead, calendared everything I could, worked through all the lunchtimes, and set aside some work time on Saturday and Sunday. When my meeting Sunday evening was moved to Monday, I celebrated a little. I had time to throw together a quick dinner of garlic green beans, brussel sprout saute, rosemary baby potatoes, and toasted sourdough. We watched part of Coco (it was Dia de Los Muertos), and I got to bed early.

Then I met with Eric, my website creator and all-around tech genius consultant.

Yep, that’s a huge pothole…

As I drove home, I noticed that I kept wanting to stop the car and pick up food. I almost drove through McDonald’s to get some fries. Then I passed a Thai restaurant that we hadn’t gone to for a long time and I thought that would make a good dinner. Then a glass of wine seemed like the first thing I should have when I hit the door. It took me a moment, but I realized that I was feeling stressed. My brain (poor thing) was trying to offer me easy comfort options, those tried and true ways that I’ve used in the past to try to combat my stress and anxiety. Fortunately, I caught onto my mind and talked myself down.

Now, don’t get me wrong. My meeting was not difficult or harsh in any way. Eric is not only a tech genius, but he’s also a soft touch. If anyone can deliver the overwhelming message of what it will take to create what I want from a tech perspective and not make me want to throw myself off the nearest bridge, it’s Eric. But what did come out of the meeting was a much more clear understanding of what was going to be needed from me to be ready to launch this course, and I was crystal clear of the scope of the work I still needed to do (at least for now). It was A LOT. And my brain was ready to throw in the towel. Cash me out – I’m done. I had ALL the thoughts: I don’t have enough time to do all this. The kids need me too – I can’t do more stuff and ignore them. It’s going to take me forever to do all these slides for the course – who has time for all that? My anniversary is this weekend and I don’t want to work then – it’s not fair I can’t take a break. The busiest time of the year is coming – everyone in this family except me has a birthday and the holidays are coming and what in the world made me think I could do all this and create a course at the same time anyway?! It was pretty loud in my head.

But here’s the key: I will not quit. I have my moments, sometimes much more frequently than I’d like when I entertain the thought of quitting. I can justify it and give you all the reasons why it would be better if I quit. But I won’t. That’s why I was successful at weight loss and keeping the weight off – because I did not and will never quit. I won’t stuff myself with fries because I’m stressed, but if I did I’d pick myself back up and get back on my plan tomorrow. I could quit and try to convince myself that I can create this business after the kids go to college, but I won’t. I may have to slow down, change my plan, try a different way, but if I keep going I will get there.

You cannot be a failure if you don’t quit. That’s how so many of us self-sabotage – we keep quitting on ourselves. We believe the thoughts that tell us that we can’t lose weight or that a normal BMI is out of reach, or that we are destined to be big because of our family, or that cooking for ourself is too much work, or eating healthy is impossible with this crazy schedule. All those are thoughts, and not one of them is true. You can do whatever you want. That’s one of the great things about being a grown-up! If you want to lose weight and you never quit on yourself, you will do it. It might be slower or faster than you planned, it might require you to change things you’d rather not, and you certainly are going to have to stop eating your feelings and your stress. But you will make it.

We all have days we want to quit. Many of them we work through, pick ourselves up, and keep going. Do you know what makes it easier? A coach! If you want help with your thinking so you can make it to your goals, comment below and we can set up a mini-session. You can make it!

3COMMENTS

Blog, Inspirations, Mind Management

Why Anyone Does Anything (A Secret of The Mind)

I want to share a secret with you this week. It’s something that has completely changed how I understand not only my own motivations but also those of other people. It’s very interesting! But first, a story…

This week was one of those weeks where I started to question the validity of my own decisions. I mean, who in their right mind works the job I work, manages a homeschool for four kids, also works as a life coach part-time, and creates an online weight loss course? If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’m designing an online weight loss course to be released in 2021, so if you’re interested keep up with this blog – of course I’ll be announcing it here! In any case, between normal work and coaching calls and business building and coursework to learn the course creation and working through the weekend, I skated into Sunday on two wheels with my hair on fire. Seriously, I had an evening last week that started at 5 am heading to work at the hospital and ended with three Zoom calls that I didn’t finish until 9 pm. As much as I wanted to join the outdoor parking lot service planned for church this week, I didn’t go. You know, I still want to feel guilty about that. My mind tried hard to get me to go, to convince me that I should and that it was the right thing to do. Fortunately, I caught on to that mind-trap. I got still for just a moment and listened, and my spirit said to go to sleep. The vision of me sitting in the car, exhausted and cranky and snapping at everyone because I really wanted to be asleep bubbled up in my mind. Besides, if I woke up in time, I could always jump in my car and head over to service.

My trusty chariot…

I woke up at noon. And only because the dog was barking like a lunatic at a front-door delivery.

I never sleep like that! Usually, I rest for an hour or two and get up and then my bladder wakes me up. Or else I have things to do and I set an alarm so I don’t miss the whole day. This time I shut off the phones and slept until that silly dog woke me up. Truly, I was surprised at how tired I must have been. I don’t regret how I spent the week, but I am really glad that I took the time to sleep when I could. There’s almost never a time when the house is free of children and quiet enough for me to recover from working overnight, so this was a very good choice.

Isn’t it funny how even though I knew I needed sleep that I was willing to sacrifice it to go to church because it was “the right thing to do”? We moms do that a lot, don’t we? Someone else needs or wants and we decide to make it happen because we can or we “should”, but our needs go straight to the bottom of the list. I’m not saying you shouldn’t sacrifice for others or always put yourself first, but there’s a balance here. Grinding yourself down for the sake of everyone else isn’t healthy. When I’m strung out from doing too much, I’m not very pleasant. Really, I’m not fit for human consumption! I can try to pull my attitude together and be nice, but I can do it much better when I’m also tended to.

Can you identify my motivation for trying to go to church instead of sleep? It wasn’t excited to see my friends or wanting to get out of the house, or looking forward to the music and fellowship (all of which I love). It was guilt. I was going to go to church because I wanted to avoid the feeling of guilt that I would feel if I didn’t go. I hate to feel guilty – it makes me feel wrong. Not like I just did something wrong, but that I am wrong. And that’s a thoroughly unpleasant emotion, so I avoid it when I can. And when I do the thing that I think should make me feel guilty, I rationalize why I did it and why it was the right thing to do. Then I feel like I have a valid defense for why I did the thing.

I’m judge, jury, and executioner!

That’s a lot of mental gymnastics to avoid an emotion! Now, as a coach I know that what I need to do is identify the thought that is producing my guilty emotion, decide if I want to keep the thought, and if I don’t I can choose to practice thinking a different thought. Sunday morning I was too tired to get all that together. Thank goodness I’ve practiced being still and listening enough to make a rational decision! But all this story brings us to the secret motivation behind why we all do what we do:

Everything we do is because of how we think it will make us feel.

In this situation, I was going to act to avoid feeling guilty, You may make dinner for your family because you’ll feel proud of doing something worthwhile and beneficial for your family. Finishing all your paperwork in the office makes you feel accomplished. I raise my voice at the kids because I think I’ll feel more respected once they listen to me. And on and on and on. We don’t do things because we think about them – we act from the emotions we feel or anticipate feeling.

Changes how you see the actions people take, doesn’t it? When someone yells at their kids, they think they’ll feel better after they release their frustration (even though they often don’t). You finish clearing the mail off the counter because you think you’ll feel satisfied after the counter is clean. Kids take toys from each other because they think having the toy will make them happy (and then they forget about it two minutes later). We eat the cookie because we think it will relieve our stress (even though we feel worse afterward). We snack and eat off our plan because we want to feel taken care of, even though eating in a way that sabotages us makes us ultimately feel uncared for.

So next time you do something you don’t like and you’re not really sure why you did it, ask yourself, “How did I think that would make me feel?” You’ll understand yourself better and maybe you can sprinkle a little compassion on yourself instead of giving yourself the good ol’ fashioned beat-down. Even better, when you’ve got a funky attitude, ask yourself, “How do I want to feel?” You might find the thought that produces the way you really want to feel instead of the ones producing the funk, and you’ll feel better!

Have you ever tried to purposefully produce the thoughts and emotions you want to have? It’s simple work, but it isn’t always easy! The more you practice, the better you’ll get. And if you want to speed your growth in this area, a coach can work like kindling to a fire – and that’s where I can help! If you’d like to see how I can help you reach your goals through professional coaching, contact me, and let’s get things started in a mini-session!

And for those of you who’ve been anticipating a new weight loss series, this week I’ve released the intro to my latest YouTube video class. I’m really excited about this one because we’re camping out in my sweet spot, the intersection between weight and mindset, where the magic happens for successful long-term weight loss. Join me!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Mind Management

How The Hum is Stopping Your Weight Loss

I went away with the family for a week to the North Georgia woods near the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was very peaceful, full of the sounds of nature. The nights were dark and full of stars, and the days were slow, accompanied by the sounds of falling leaves and acorns, the rustle of squirrel and deer, and the soft tones of wind chimes on the porch. We spent the days reading and playing board games, walking through the trees, and sitting around a firepit. It was a time to slow down.

While I was there I found a copy of one of Jon Kabat Zinn’s books on mindfulness and meditation that I hadn’t read. As I read a chapter at a time, swinging in a hammock chair, I was reminded of the importance of staying in the moment and not rushing ahead to other things in my mind (What are we having for dinner? Did I defrost the chili? Should I wash a load of clothes before the day gets away?). It helped me to enjoy the days instead of rushing through them in my mind. But I noticed something else.

I wake up sometimes at night. Most of us do, even if we don’t realize it. We roll over in the bed, shift around, and generally fall back asleep. For me, I don’t always fall right back asleep. My eyes find the light from the streetlights or the alarm clocks and I wake up more. My brain likes to get going with thoughts (How much more time do I have to sleep? I’m going to be tired when the alarm goes off. I need to remember to check on the library book due dates. Maybe I should call my mom while I drive to work tomorrow.) But in the dark of the forest night, I didn’t have that chatter, that “hum” in my mind. I’d wake up, look up at the stars in the inky night and fall back asleep.

We came home on Saturday. After the unpacking and resetting for the evening, we settled back into the routine of family life on the weekend. Everything seemed normal and as peaceful as a house with four kids generally is. I stayed up later than usual, catching up on email and getting organized, thinking I could sleep in a little Sunday morning before virtual church service. But at 6 am, before the light of dawn appeared, the hum began. (You need to get started on your list. Did you check if we have almond milk? You really should clean out that storage room. My hip is sore. I didn’t do enough yoga this week. What are you cooking for dinner? Maybe I should run to the store. If I do all the planning today then I can get more done on Monday. You know you’ve got a long week because you’re working all weekend. What are we going to do about Halloween? You’re so far behind. A good mom would have already gotten pumpkins. You haven’t even decorated! Your kids are going to miss out on Halloween because you are too busy doing other things. You know you ate too much this week. Stop telling yourself it’s water weight. How are you going to get it together this week? You’d better straighten up and get serious.)

I got up. With all that noise in my mind, I wasn’t going back to sleep. Besides, now I felt a low-level anxiety about all that needed to be done and I was feeling like garbage about myself. The restlessness alone was enough to eject me from the covers. I wish I could say that I went to pray and meditate, but I went into autopilot. I don’t even remember what I did other than write a few things down, make tea, and eat handfuls of cashews before church. I didn’t eat my own lunch but picked at the Chipotle that everyone else ordered (I declined my own order, thinking that skipping lunch would be better to get off the vacay weight). I picked at dinner because I made spaghetti for the family because it was fast and easy, but I don’t eat pasta (too much bloat) and I didn’t plan anything ahead of time for myself. You’d think that the scale went down the next day and all the deprivation was worth it.

It didn’t. It wasn’t.

This is why the hum matters. I thought at first that the noise in my head was from being away from the peace of the forest, from not being on vacation anymore. And to a small degree, it was. I had allowed the change in scenery and the time away to help in letting my normal pattern of thinking fade. But as soon as I came home, I fell back into the pattern of background thinking that I’ve gotten used to, even when I didn’t need to on a Sunday morning. The problem with the hum is that it plays in the background and we rarely notice it. The thoughts just speed by and we feel uneasy or stressed or anxious and we’re not really sure why. I was fortunate. The hum that resumed seemed louder than usual because it had quieted while we were away, so I paid attention. Working on my mindfulness prepared me to slow and capture the thoughts, so I figured out what I was doing as I fell back into my pattern.

When we let the hum run unchecked, we live unintentionally. We act in ways that we don’t want to and don’t understand. We snack and eat foods that don’t support us because the background chatter says that we deserve to eat because we’re tired or work so hard, or because it won’t matter anyway because diets don’t work for me and I’m just stuck and this weight isn’t ever coming off anyway. We don’t start with questioning the thoughts because we don’t know they’re there. We sabotage our weight loss because we don’t support ourselves in our minds from the beginning, so our actions follow.

So what do we do about the hum? First, we tune in and listen. What thoughts are being offered by our hard-working brains? The brain tries to be efficient and think thoughts that have been thought before, so it’s likely that when you listen you’ll hear very familiar ideas. Then question the thoughts. Are they true? Do you want them to be? Would you rather think differently? Can you find a way that the thought you think might not be true?

Once you question the thoughts, you’ll find that your brain goes to work trying to answer the questions, so ask some good ones! A journal on your phone or good old paper is helpful here to capture the thoughts. Then when you find one that isn’t useful or helpful, you can find a new thought and practice thinking the new one when the old one comes up (it will). The more you practice the new thought, the more normal it will be to think it automatically. And that’s when you have replaced the old thought. Gradually, you’ll find that your new thinking is creating the peace and strength that you’ve been looking for. It certainly has for me! Now I don’t mean that I never get caught in old thinking patterns (see above!), but I get in more rarely and get out much faster than I used to. The thought work takes effort for sure. But I can attest that it’s definitely worth it! So keep at it and rewire that brain of yours – you’ll thank yourself later!

Have you tried thought work before? Was it helpful or did you get stuck? Self-coaching is super helpful, but sometimes we need a professional coach to help us root out the old patterns and start laying down new ones. A coach can also accelerate your progress in a way that you aren’t likely to do alone. I’m here to help! If you’ve decided it’s time to really get serious about losing your weight for good, that’s my specialty! I can also help with other kinds of mind work as well, so if you want to invest in you, reach out to me and let’s set up a mini-session to decide if we want to work together!

Do you want a sneak peek into what’s coming next on my YouTube channel? Come watch this week’s post, let’s talk more about the hum and I’ll let you in on what’s coming up!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Inspirations, Mind Management

What If I Want To Quit?

When I was a kid, I started tons of activities – tennis, violin, piano, softball, drama, ballet, gymnastics (and probably others I can’t remember). In the beginning, the activities were new and exciting. There was new equipment and uniforms or costumes and teachers and team or classmates. The class was fun and fresh, and usually, I picked up the beginner level skills easily.

That didn’t last.

The longer I’d stay in the activity, the more work I’d have to do to continue to excel. That wasn’t as much fun for me – that meant actual work. So my answer was to quit the activity until my mother finally put her foot down and said I needed to stay with the work. So I did and I learned a lot, generally a better work ethic and how good it feels to have mastered a skill that you work at consistently.

But there was a downside to practicing to persevere no matter what. Whenever I’d be in a situation when I wanted to quit, I’d feel such guilt over it that I couldn’t leave without a lot of shame and regret. When I was thirteen, I was in a program that was designed to train young black kids to become professional musicians. I’d gone through an audition and won a scholarship to the program and was awarded free lessons with professors in violin, piano, and music theory, and I became a member of a youth symphony orchestra in Boston. I went to a music camp for a month each summer. And while I enjoyed the orchestra and music camp, I fought doing the practice work I needed to do each week between lessons. I dreaded showing up to the lessons unprepared, but I kept doing it. Listening to music, being part of the music was wonderful, but I didn’t love playing my primary instrument (the violin). I wanted to quit at least once a week. My professors all said I was extremely talented and had incredible potential, and a powerful ear for music, but I wasn’t going to get better in my performance unless I practiced. I just would not make myself do it.

Toward the end of my eighth-grade year, things came to a head. It was explained to me that if I didn’t want to take full advantage of this opportunity and put in the effort that I should step back and allow another gifted student the chance to have my spot. I finally realized that the goal of the program was not to enrich me but to produce musicians – and I didn’t want to be one. I always wanted to be a physician, and no amount of joy in the world of music was going to turn me into one. Maybe if I’d developed a greater level of mastery of the instrument I would have enjoyed it more. And there are days even now that I miss playing music. But when I realized the space I was in was not for me and that I was blocking someone else, I stepped down. And I do not regret it.

My violin. I still play occasionally…

It’s not always wrong to quit. Sometimes it’s the right thing to do. There are times when you’ve committed to something that turns out to be the wrong space for you to fill and you don’t leave because you don’t want to be a quitter. But how do you know when it’s right to leave? It all depends on your reasons.

For example, you may be enrolled in a weight loss course to get off the thirty pounds you’ve been carrying around since your last baby. But you keep cheating the program, sabotaging your results, and resisting the work you need to do to get the weight off. So why are you trying to lose the weight anyway? Are you trying to get back into high school size jeans so you feel better about yourself? Are you trying to get your husband to stop making little comments about the weight you’ve gained? Are you trying to get your weight down before the reunion or wedding you have to attend in a few months? Maybe you think that life will be perfect when you drop the weight (it won’t because life will still be what it is). The truth may be that the reasons you have are external and not reasons that give you the compelling why you need to persevere when the work gets hard. Maybe you aren’t really ready to lose weight. And what if that’s ok? What if you decide when and why you lose weight because you have a reason to do it that you love?

Or you’re in a mom’s book club that meets every month, complete with a potluck and discussion of whatever you’re read. And even though it seemed like a good idea at the time, you find that you dread having to come up with a new dish to cook and share and you really don’t want to read on a schedule and you’re exhausted after each gathering. You’re afraid that if you quit, the other moms will think badly of you and you’ll lose your friends. So you stay because you want them to like you, but really they don’t know you because you’re showing up as the made-up version of you who is there because you feel like you should. What if you stay because you like the people in the group? Or what if you leave because the group isn’t what you need and you stay in touch with the women you’ve become friends with there?

It all depends on your reason. You have to choose your reason and like it before you make your decision. Did you catch that? You have to like your reason. So often we make decisions for reasons that we really don’t like, for ones that don’t honor our deepest convictions and selves. Then we live these false or superficial rationalizations and wonder why we’re miserable. You don’t have to quit, and you don’t have to stay. But you must like your reason for whichever you choose. Don’t lie to yourself. For example, if you choose to stay at your job, don’t tell yourself it’s because you have to stay. You don’t have to do anything. You choose to stay because you like your paycheck and like being able to pay your bills. You pay taxes because you like staying out of prison. You take care of your kids because you want them to be well.

I almost quit this week. My calendar was planned out for creating my online weight loss course, there was a lot to do and from the very start of the week, I kept running into obstacles and getting further behind. I already had an outstanding task lingering from last week. So I let my mind keep offering up the thought that maybe all this creating just wasn’t possible, that as a woman with young kids working full time I just don’t have the bandwidth to get this done. And I almost agreed with my brain. Once I calmed down and let the frustration pass through, I knew that my misery was because I let my mind offer me up the old thoughts and I could choose to think differently. If I wanted to, I could choose to think that I’m in control of building this course, and the pace and plan are up to me, regardless of what family life looks like. My frustration was from the interruptions in my plan, and because I truly believe that the creation I’m doing is God’s plan for me, I really don’t want to quit.

When I’m tempted to quit, I always check my reason why. For me, it’s usually some flimsy reason like I’m tired of doing the work or I think the process is taking too long. When I remind myself why I started the project in the first place, I still want to finish what I started. So I take a deep breath, maybe take a moment, then dust myself off and keep going. And if I realize that my direction was a mistake or that I’ve grown out of where I am, I own that and decide how to gracefully and kindly step back. Then it’s time to look up and figure out where I’m going. And like my reason why…

Have you ever felt like you wanted to quit something but struggled with the decision? Sometimes it’s useful to have help telling the truth to yourself and liking the reason for your decision. That’s what a coach is for! Let me know if you’d like help in the comments below and we’ll set up a time to talk!

And here’s the last video in the Weight Loss and Hormones series. Don’t miss it!

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