you can also register you spot at admin@whatactuallyworks.com.au
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Listen to Kyla’s Journey – Healthy Life Podcast
Listen in as I interveiw mum and all round superstar Kyla as she shares her journey towards running her first marathon. Kyla openly shares the tips and strategies that allowed her to fit her busy schedule in around her young family, work and husband. This is truly an inspirational story with something for all of us to learn.
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We are all starting to understand that decreasing our sugar is a good thing. Clients of mine are often confused about the relationship between sugar and common carbohydrates like breads, pasta and rice. In this video we will break it all down.
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Making health changes is not always easy, in fact the truth is that most of us suck (me included). The reason why many of us struggle is because of our over dependance on willpower. The innovative four pillars model breaks our health goals down make sustainable change much easier.
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“Health moments” as I like to call them are times where the decision that are about to make tends to have a disproportionately large impact on your health. Choosing wisely at this “health moment” is one of the keys to mastering just about every level of your wellbeing.
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When it comes to making long term changes we stink. I know that sounds a bit rough but lets look at our results: over 90% of dieters end up right back where they started within 12 months, almost half of marriages fail and two out of three criminals are re arrested within a three year period. Now some social psychologist have taken these alarming statistics to mean that we cannot change and would suggest that trying is futile. But rather than heading down this slightly depressing path I would like to remind you of the wise words of Confucius “when it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps”.
The reason that so many of us fail to change our exercise and eating habits is that we keep trying to do the same thing over and over again (sometimes referred to as insanity). We work ourselves up into a motivated frenzy telling ourselves that this time I will stick to my diet and I WILL get up every morning to walk before work. The problem is that this is the same thing that you told yourself last time and the time before that and the time before that……..
In the race to begin our new lifestyle (or perhaps the need to fit into that new dress this weekend) we often forget the much needed first steps of any behaviour change. So lets look at a new place to start.
Our motivation and ability to create our new lifestyle habits depend on having clear, compelling, and measurable results. Consequently, many of us fail to create change from the outset because we fail to envision these results. Stephen Covey in is book 7 Habits schools us on the importance of beginning with the end in mind. When we have clarity about our destination the journey gets a whole lot easier. What i am suggesting is that you don’t waste a moment on how to create change until you have clarified what you want, why you want it and when you want it.
The what, why and when will act as powerful fuel when the going gets tough. Ignore these and you will likely run out of energy and end up right back to where you started. Think about making your outcome specific and measurable. Too often we focus on just losing weight or wanting to get fitter. These statements are too vague and have no long term drive associated with them. Try something like this; I want to fit into my favorite little black dress or I want to run a 5km fun run in under 40minutes.
Too often we forget to stop and ask ourselves why is this change important. Diving deep and looking at the cost of our current behaviours and then reflecting on the benefits of our new behaviours is a essential part of long term success. It has been said that when the why is big enough the how is easy. Try making your new behaviour change about more than just yourself. Think of the impact that it will have on your children, partner and even as a role model for those around you.
Making your result time bound will add another level of motivation to your outcome. Give your goals a completion date. I want to wear my favorite little black dress to my best friends 40th birthday on September 30th. Making your goal time bound bring a sense of urgency and reality to your goal.
So next time before leaping into your new diet or exercise program take a moment to investigate what you really want, why is it important and by what date you will expect to get these results. This might just be the most important 30 minutes of your new life.
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Are my thoughts making me sick? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself this question? Just this morning I was talking with a client of mine named Sue (name changed of course), she was sharing her frustration about her flared up sinuses. After listening for a few minutes I asked Sue why did she think that her sinuses had flared up at this particular time – after all they had been great for months previously. Sue thought for a moment and couldn’t come up with anything, her diet and exercise of recent have been fabulous. I continued to probe a little and asked about her work. Sue immediately shared her week’s frustration with a project she was dealing with, in fact she told me that she had woken at 4am this morning anxious about a specific detail.
Many self help guru’s and modern day positive help authors relate that our thoughts can have a huge impact on our level of wellbeing. For years though many scientists and more traditional medical practitioners have laughed this of as “mumbo jumbo”. Recent research though is having the medical field do a complete turn around. Scientists are now showing that thoughts have the ability to turn on the stress response (what a surprise – not!). The stress response often referred to as the “fight or flight response” was imprinted on our nerve systems from our hunter gatherer past when we occasionally had to run from a lion or tiger. One of the consequences of fight flight is a down regulation of the immune system. The intelligent body decides to down regulate the immune system in an effort to save energy ( after all it expects we are being chased by a lion or tiger). This stressful event in the past was a 90 second event. We either escaped the lion or got eaten, after this period the immune system was switched right back on again. Unfortunately nowadays stress is much more pervasive, it last days, weeks and sometimes years and this comes at a tremendous cost – cranky sinuses are just one!
Managing stress in our life is essential if you want to express great health and wellness. Dealing with stress has to be holistic – you need to eat well (foods from nature), move often and have strategies to deal with ever present mental and emotional stress.
One of the most effective strategies I have come up with to deal with mental stress is to ask myself can I influence this issue? If the answer is yes I write down what steps I can begin to take and I take action. It the answer is no (as is often the case) I find it much easier for me to let go.
Take a moment to look at the stresses in your life, which ones can you control i.e your messy desk, the quality of your work and which ones can’t you i.e what the weather will be like for you birthday party this saturday night. After asking this question either take action or learn to let go.
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