"If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten."
— Tony Robbins

» weight: 250.8
» bmi: 41.6
» percentile: > 98th (nice, huh?)

» HFCS
» pop & other caffienated products
» dairy
» fried foods
» sugary drinks
» artificial sweeteners
» dried fruit
» carbs, especially refined
» starch
» bread

» daily stretching
» 1/2 hour yoga at least four days a week
» weight training (pilates, weights, etc) at least four days a week
» 40 minutes of aerobic biking at least four days a week

Really, my health philosophy is surprisingly simple. I generally follow a diet based on an understanding of evolutionary science. I think it’s more important to eat, move, and live according to how humans are designed and not according to society’s artificial developments of the last 100 years. Fortunately, this regimen is not only incredibly healthy, it’s quite simple.

In a nutshell:
- fresh, organic, unprocessed food – no junk!
- daily activity – whether it’s the gym or a walk along the beach, it all counts
- plenty of quality sleep
- plenty of water, no soda or sweetened drinks
- antioxidants galore – the key to limiting stress
- a good fish-oil supplement
- essential fats, reckless amounts of vegetables, and lean, clean protein
- time for fun – don’t take anything too seriously – ethical behavior – because what goes around comes around
- taking responsibility for yourself and your life – openness to new things and ideas

I love how the weight-loss community has created a separate classification they call non-scale victories (NSVs). Can you finally plop comfortably in a movie theater seat? [...] Are you far less winded after your 1 mile walk than you were when you STARTed? Celebrate you and your successes, and don’t waste precious time worrying about others or only focusing on your larger overarching goal.

The epidemic of obesity is a byproduct of our success as a society.

Pumpkin Raisin Muffins

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 Tablespoons unrefined sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon
1⁄4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 15-ounce can solid-pack pumpkin
1⁄2 cup raisins
Preheat oven to 375°F.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl.

Add pumpkin, 1⁄2 cup of water, and raisins. Stir until just mixed.

Spoon batter into a muffin-cup-lined muffin pan, filling to just below tops.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until tops of muffins bounce back when pressed lightly. Remove from oven and let stand 5 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

It is my personal belief that limiting refined sugars and starches, soda, unhealthy saturated fats and low nutrient junk food will go a long way toward healing a stressed digestive system.

When food is the cure for what ails you, choosing whole natural foods makes the most sense, after all.

Experience taught me to avoid high fructose corn syrup as much as possible. HFCS is a relatively new super-refined, super-sweet cornstarch based sweetener (added to so many products now, it's ubiquitous). HFCS can cause digestive troubles in an already sensitive system (and you should know it also raises your set point for "sweet" taste, and is suspected to contribute to insulin resistance, linked to developing Type 2 Diabetes - a once adult-onset disease now endangering our children and teens).

Lawrence LeShan, Ph.D., author of " Meditating to Attain a Healthy Body Weight," suggests choosing a word such as “hungry,” “diet,” “thin,” “fat” or the name of your favorite binge food (such as “chocolate” or “Oreos”) as a mantra, a word to repeat over and over again during your meditation.

Re-repeat the word of your choice. Chant it. Focus on nothing else but the word. Let the sound of the word vibrate through your body. Let the word resonate up from your abdomen and let it go to your hands and your feet. Let your muscles move as you chant the word.

LeShan suggests that you focus your mind on that word until an association forms. For example, if you choose the word “hungry,” the first association that pops into your mind could be “full.”

Think about the connection between the two words for five or six seconds. Do not try to make emotional sense of the connection or to gain any deeper insights. These may be done outside the meditation. Return to your mantra and wait for the next association. Do this for 15 minutes a day, five times a week, for at least six weeks. It may help you understand and control your eating habits.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been wating for. We are the change that we seek." Barack Obama

How do we create pathways of change so gently that we don't take fright?

There is a very interesting Japanese philosophy called Kaizen which can help us do just that. Kaizen focuses on continuous but small change.

In order to find out how Kaizen can help us to establish new habits, let’s take a look at change in terms of momentum. Just imagine for a moment that you are the captain of an ocean liner. If you decided to change course 90 degrees, there would be two different ways to accomplish this. One way would be to stall the ship’s forward momentum and then take up a new course.

Big changes mean that momentum is lost.

The other way to change course would be to use the forward momentum and to incrementally change course until the full 90 degrees are accomplished.

If we change direction little by little, we can use momentum to affect change.

Andy Ryan says: The small steps in Kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.

With a strategy of continuous low-level change, we are able to sidestep the number one barrier to change: fear.

Let’s see how this would work in our daily life. Let’s imagine that you want to get up an hour earlier each morning in order to be more productive.

Strategy No. 1: You grit your teeth, set your clock an hour earlier, and struggle out of bed. This might work for a few days, or for longer if you’re disciplined. But chances are that you’ll be back in your old groove as soon as you begin to feel tired and stressed.

Strategy No. 2: You use the Kaizen method and get up one minute earlier each day. Two months later you would be getting out of bed one hour earlier – without even noticing the change!

You can see by this example what a powerful strategy for change Kaizen is.

by Gregory Joujon-Roche

Want to "spice" up your workout? Borrow a note from the Spice Girls and try mixing things up!

That’s the approach I took when helping them get into tip-top shape for their reunion tour. Take, for instance, the workout I designed for Melanie Chisholm, aka Sporty Spice. With a nickname like that, you’ve got to look fit! So with training, we hit it hard – five days a week.

Each day focused on a different activity so as to offer a range of fitness benefits and keep things interesting:

Spinning – to burn fat and build stamina.

Yoga – to boost flexibility and restore inner peace.

Strength training – to build definition.

Pilates – to stabilize the core.

Beach runs – to provide overall conditioning, work the glutes and offer a change of scenery and a breath of fresh air.

Of course, working out around rehearsals and tour dates is always challenging, and some training sessions started at the crack of dawn. A combination of exercise, strict diet, massage and sleep whenever possible was the recipe for looking great on stage and having the stamina to endure the tour. It’s tough work, but persistence and dedication really paid off!

You can do it, too. Try putting some "spice" into your workouts and see how much more fun it is to get in shape.

You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.
Edwin Louis Cole

I have an inaccurate self image, like reverse anorexia. Anorexics typically see themselves as much fatter than they actually are. Even when their ribs show through their flesh, in their heads they still think they're fat.

In my case, even though I am morbidly obese, the image that I have of myself in my head is normal weight. If I were to draw a picture of myself, I'd probably make myself skinnier than I am without really even noticing it. In the movie The Matrix this is called "residual self-image." Even though the character of Neo has a closely shaved head of hair in the real world, he has his full head of hair in the matrix. I'm fat, I know I'm fat, yet if I were to enter a matrix I would be thin.

This image gets shaken whenever I see photos of myself or the worst - a video. For my junior year of college, I took a speech class where all our speeches were taped. We then had to review our performance and critique ourselves. This was excruciating for me. The round, obese girl on video was in dichotomy with the image of myself in my head. I did not move like that. I did not look like that. I would only watch a couple seconds at a time, then fast forward through the freak show.

Even though I can see the difference in the mirror or on a tape, these moments of clarity last less than a minute. The majority of my day I do not look at myself. I look at other people. I suppose I am like a cat, raised by dogs who then thinks she's a dog. Most people in the world are an average weight or only mildly overweight. Finding someone 300+ like me is rare. Being surrounded by people of this size makes me think that I myself look like them.

Even when I work with other fat people, I disassociate myself from them. I worked with an overweight diabetic middle-aged woman at one job who would trudge slowly from the door to her chair. On some level I knew that I could be her in 20 years, yet I would also bar her off from myself in my mind. She was not like me. I was not that fat. I did not look like that. Though most likely I did.

This erroneous self-image is partly what prevented me from acknowledging my weight problem. Even as the pounds kept piling on, my self-image remained skinny and allowed me to live comfortably in denial of the problem creeping up all around me.

1. THE LAW OF SELF-DISCIPLINE (OR THE LAW OF ACTION)
Success comes from doing what we know we should be doing, when we should be doing it, whether we want to or not.
Conflict comes from doing what we know we should not be doing.

2. THE LAW OF RESPONSIBILITY
You are responsible for the outcomes you experience.
The actions you take determine your outcomes.

3. THE LAW OF ATTRACTION
If you really believe you can be, have, or do something, you will create the circumstances and find the people to allow you to be, have or do.
The subconscious mind determines your direction in your pursuit of your goals consistent with our deepest beliefs and thoughts input by your conscious mind.

4. THE LAW OF EXPECTATION
Your life is a direct result of your expectations for it.
Focused, positive expectations will create focused, positive results.

5. THE LAW OF BELIEF
A belief is the guiding factor, principle, passion or faith that provides direction for life.
Our belief system will cause us to act in accordance with the belief, whether it is reality or not.

"I went to several doctors, trying to get them to prescribe a weight-loss pill."

But none of her doctors would give her the quick fix she was looking for. Instead, a physician handed her a 1,600-calorie-a-day diet and told her to start moving.

At first, Wygal was shocked and refused to begin a diet that she thought was too restrictive. Even though her weight was rapidly approaching 300 pounds, she believed she had a pretty good diet and an active lifestyle.

Now comfortable with her weight, which she says fluctuates between 170 and 180 pounds, Wygal works out at least five to six days a week. She says the key to losing weight and keeping it off is being honest about what you eat, writing it down and staying consistent. She wants people to know they can do it, but there are no quick fixes or easy outs -- just hard work.

"It won't happen overnight," Wygal advises. "Know that it will take time but it is worth it in the end."

Tracey Wygal's Success Strategy
1. Keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat and drink. Calculate total calories at the end of the day. Be consistent in your diet.

2. Be consistent in your exercise. Create a set gym/workout schedule. Vary only when absolutely necessary.

3. Find a gym that accommodates your lifestyle (hours of operation, day care options, equipment, classes offered, etc.).

4. Change your outlook on food. Instead of equating food with happiness or enjoyment, view it as purely as nourishment or fuel for your body to function.

5. Be realistic in your goals and program. Know that it will take time to make considerable change, and don't give up!

6. Stop making excuses and make it happen! Make YOUR health a PRIORITY in your life.

The ability to delay rewards until you’ve done the less savory tasks creates a healthy balance of work and fun that allows you to focus fully on each at its appropriate time. This holds true for reaching any goal, from housecleaning to a physical fitness routine or a spiritual practice. When we choose to focus our energy on the completion of a task, we can fully indulge in the rewards later—rewards that include a clean house, a healthy body, and peace of mind. Your foremost responsibility today is to your own body, mind, and spirit and the constant creation and enjoyment of your life.

When we prioritize what is truly important to us, making such choices comes easily. Then we realize it is not something that is imposed upon us by others, but our own choices that guide us in making the small daily decisions that are necessary to reach our long-term goals. There is a result for every action we choose to make. When we examine the possible results, we can balance present-moment awareness with acts of building our future. In doing so, we take responsibility for our parts in the design of our lives as we work with the universe’s energy.