Your attitudes and beliefs are the core of how you react to your world.  For whatever reason as to why you hold to certain beliefs or ways of thinking, it is first and foremost important for you to take responsibility for them and evaluate them honestly. Some attitudes and beliefs are positive and supportive of your efforts, and ultimate goals in life. However your negative attitudes and beliefs become obstacles that all to often block your vision of fulfilling your dream in life. Attitudes and beliefs will either move you forward or backward in regards to fulfilling your dreams.

Make a list of your beliefs, both positive and negative concerning where you are and where you want to be in regards to your weight loss goals. Your positive beliefs about yourself and your situation related to fulfilling your ultimate weight loss goals are your friends and will reinforce your efforts in reaching your goal. Your negative beliefs; your fears, doubts and concerns are your foe and will sabotage your dreams if interjected. Whether it is concerns of money, lack of time, skill or knowledge, determine how you can change a negative belief into a positive friend that will enable you to reach your goals. Interpreting an attitude or belief as “good” or “bad” doesn’t make it good or bad; it’s just an interpretation. If your beliefs are obstacles, they become stones that will trip you up, however if you use your beliefs instead to achieve your dreams, they then become stepping-stones. Will you use your beliefs as obstacles or stepping-stones?  How you see them is up to you!

Remember: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?!

                                                                                    ~ Robert Schuller

If you are like most people you have tried literally hundreds of diets. It might have been the grapefruit diet, the cereal diet, the Atkins diet, Protein power diet, or the Sugar Busters diet. The first thing that you should understand about weight loss is that focusing on “dieting” is a waste of time and energy. Commercial diet centers want you to buy their product and will provide you with a sound plan for short-term success. If your new diet is simply a diet supplement, or a product that promises weight loss, will you take this diet product or supplement forever? Interestingly, regarding diet supplements, a study of those who are successful at long term weight loss through the National Weight Control Registry demonstrated that only 3.6% of those who were successful used any kind of diet supplement to reach their healthy body weight and maintain it.  Past dieting patterns are often conditioned with “I’ll eat what I want to today and start my diet tomorrow.”  So, you binge today and starve yourself tomorrow only to fall back into old eating habits by the third day. Today is the time to start your lifestyle change, the time to select healthy food choices. This journey will be filled with stumbles, challenges, and successes, however by starting to make healthy decisions for good eating now, will be an essential step to living a healthy life.

When you become aware of the unhealthy things that you’re eating, i.e. non-nutritious empty calories, and high fat foods, and focus on cutting out these type of foods for healthy low fat nutritious food choices you will then be taking a step toward a lifestyle change. Without changing your habits and daily activities, you will never realize life long success with your weight and health.  It takes time to get rid of the excessive weight that you’ve put on, and it takes time to change your unhealthy habits that have been cultivated for years. In the past you may have dieted just to lose weight, this is why the diet didn’t work or allowed you to lose some weight only to gain it back again when you returned to old eating habits. This time you must plan on changing your lifestyle for a lifetime.

Remember: The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can’t be done.                                                                       ~Mary Frances Berry

Weight gain during the holidays does not need to be inevitable. However to avoid those extra calories you must preplan your meals. When going to a holiday party, plan on filling up with low calorie foods prior to the party. Eating high fiber foods prior to going to the party, such as high fiber cereals and fruit will fill you up and satiate you, so that you’ll be less inclined to overeat at the party. When you arrive at the party, start with calorie free drinks, and progress to low calorie hors d’oeuvres. Then try small bite sizes from two or three items that you really wanted to taste.

When preparing for the large holiday dinner, plan on allocating the majority of your calories to that meal by reducing your breakfast and lunch calories. Start by using a smaller plate. Plan on savoring your meal taking your time to eat and taste the food. This will allow the food you eat to signal receptors in your stomach that will send messages to your brain, telling you you’re getting full. Put those foods that will fill you up, on your plate first then add small portions of those foods that you really find tasty (your favorites).

Lastly, realize that if you have a plan that is carefully laid out, you’ll be more likely to succeed. 

When you realize that your weight loss successes are dependent upon your thinking and ultimately your thoughts pushing you toward positive action, you’ll then realize that your failures are also dependent upon your thinking and negative thoughts regarding your weight loss efforts and goals. The first step to weight loss success is realizing that being overweight is a result of your eating habits and/or lack of consistent exercise. Secondly, you must embrace the understanding that while genetics play a small role in weight control, your family background is not the reason you remain over weight. Thirdly, while there are organizations and programs that are helpful in assisting individuals with the weight loss process, you must understand no one outside yourself, nor any special diet or program is responsible for your weight loss/health and fitness success or failure. Lastly, you must realize your success is not based upon some stroke of luck, nor is being overweight “just your fate in life” and that you have no control over it.  If you continue to blame your weight on someone or something other than yourself you will always have difficulty in achieving permanent weight loss success. Plan to take responsibility for both your successes and failures related to achieving permanent weight loss and an improved level of health and fitness.

Remember:  Demand the best from yourself, because others will demand the best of you… Successful people don’t simply give a project hard work. They give it their best work.

                                   ~ Win Borden

Make your home a place, which is safe from tempting old eating behaviors. Make sure you remove unhealthy junk foods that are impulse or binge foods for you. Foods like sugared sodas, crackers, cookies, breads, and pastries, candies, ice cream, and high fat foods should be removed from your home, kitchen, study, or wherever you might be hiding them.

Make your workplace conducive to ongoing progress in reaching your goals. Take healthy foods to work to replace any tempting foods that are brought in by other people.

Go grocery shopping with a goal of buying healthy foods: Make a shopping list before you start and plan on sticking to the list. Put foods in your refrigerator that are compatible with your taste and are also healthy.

Plan your meals and snacks ahead of time: Write out a breakfast, lunch and dinner plan the night before so that you’ll be less likely to eat impulsively or to overeat.

When you go out to eat, plan on visiting restaurants where you know you can make good food choices. Restaurants that have low fat “healthy heart” items on their menu or where you can order healthy “a la carte” dishes should be a priority.

As you make each of your weight loss goals plan on not returning to old behaviors just because you reached your weight goal. Be serious about your lifestyle change for improved health and fitness. Returning to old eating and exercise behaviors will only return you to your previous overweight out-of-shape condition.

As a part of not returning to old behaviors, make a vow to not return to old “big clothes” that are now too large for you. Get rid of these “big clothes” and buy new clothes that show the slimmer you, and personify the “new healthier you”!

To live forever young, eternal youth, whatever you want to call it, anti-aging or slowing the aging process has been the search of man for centuries. Fortunately there is one formula that has shown time and again to slow down the aging process and increase the maximum life span.  There is no controversy about it, for the past 60 years it is the only method known to researchers, that has consistently demonstrated it’s ability to extend the maximum lifespan of a species. In fact in every animal species ever tested, restricting calorie intake has always produced a longer and a more functional life, with less chronic disease.

The idea is simple, just eat enough food to maintain yourself, but never too many calories. Calorie restriction is not the same as malnutrition, fasting or starvation. These dietary practices will accelerate the aging process because macronutrients (essential fatty acids, essential amino acids), and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) are deficient. Appropriate caloric restriction should provide enough protein to preserve lean body mass, carbohydrates to maintain glucose levels for adequate brain, and nervous system function, and essential fatty acids for cell formation and hormone function. The key is to know the minimal amount of calories along with appropriate amounts of macronutrient and micronutrients that will allow your body to perform at its optimal level. By reducing caloric intake without diminishing vital nutrients, the body can function at its best, without the overproduction of free radicals, glucose, and insulin, which are the physiological hallmarks of disease and the related aging process.

If caloric restriction is the way to health and longevity, overeating and gluttony is the way to promote disease and decrease lifespan. In fact this is exactly what researchers have found. Those who overeat, leading to obesity, have an increased incidence of coronary heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis and diabetes. Indeed those same physiological parameters that were reduced with caloric restriction (free radicals, glucose and insulin) are increased with overeating.  If you want to live not only a longer but a higher quality of life you’ll embrace the principles of caloric restriction and put them into practice not only through the course of this weight loss program, but for the rest of your life.

Remember: It’s not the quantity but the quality of the ingredients that give an outstanding product. More is not always the best.

Most of us have experienced the fall to tempting foods that we tell ourselves that we’ll only eat a small portion. Impulse foods are those foods we bring home and then cannot control our intakes of them. Whether it is a special kind of ice cream, your favorite cookies, or fresh baked breads and pastries…we tell ourselves that we’ll control our eating, however what too often follows is a disaster. We have a couple of cookies, or a bowl of ice cream, only to return for a few more cookies, another bowl of ice cream, and before we realize it we’ve consumed the whole bag or a half-gallon of ice cream.

These foods stimulate certain “feel good” neurotransmitters that give us a lift and influence us to go back for more. Neurotransmitters such as serotonin, and dopamine are stimulated by simple carbohydrates and fats, and are responsible for the good feelings we get when we eat them. No matter how hard we want to resist these impulse foods… if we bring them home we’ll end up eating them in excess. So what’s the solution to this problem? Don’t bring these type of foods home! To bring tempting, impulse foods home is like a recovering alcoholic bringing a six pack of beer home and telling himself that he’ll just drink one beer a day. How ridiculous would that be? That would never happen! Yet people who have food addictions do the same thing on a weekly basis.

First of all get rid of all the junk food in the house. There really is no place for junk food for those who are trying to eat healthy and lose weight.

Remove or replace candy dishes with fruit bowls to cut down on the amount of candy you may eat throughout the day. If you have hidden food to eat in private, remove the food from these hiding places and get rid of it! Do not bring tempting “impulse” foods in the house. Eat these foods occasionally and only while out in places where you can control the quantity you eat. For example, order a one-scoop ice cream cone when you are out rather than having a half-gallon of your favorite ice cream in the freezer.

Change your route to work, or to the store if you’re tempted to stop for something whenever you see a certain food store.

Avoid tempting finger foods at parties. Focus on calorie free beverages, veggie trays, and enjoy the conversation rather than the food.

When you dine out, the portions are often supersize, so choose a healthy appetizer and split an entrée with your spouse. You can order side dishes (a la carte’) consisting of veggies. You can also ask for a half order of a main course (most restaurants will do this, particularly if it's pasta).

Have you ever taken the last piece of apple pie just because it was there? Or “polished off” a dish of sweet potatoe casserole even though it was cold? Most of us have experienced these temptations, and we do so because there are triggers that cause us to overindulge, even when we're no longer hungry. The next time you are tempted by food ask yourself are you really hungry or eating to just indulge?