3 Ways to Return to Your Diet and Fitness Resolutions Pt. 2

By Amy Phillips-Gary

In the previous blog post, I talked about those “oops” moments-- when you've set diet or fitness goals for yourself only to discover somewhere down the road that you've veered quite far from the course you intended.

Sometimes we are very aware of the splurge we are having or the “vacation” from the gym we are taking. Other times, we simply get so caught up in life we don't realize that we're eating and moving (or not) in ways that we'd supposedly sworn off for good.

It happens.

These two posts are all about encouraging you to get back on the track that you set for yourself. As I suggested previously, re-framing and re-phrasing your diet and fitness resolutions in terms of commitments might help you return to your goals in more sustainable and self-empowering ways.

Here are 3 additional suggestions...

#1) Forgive Yourself
I can't even count the number of times that I've noticed myself eating spoonfuls of cookie dough when I'd promised myself just 1 or 2 cookies. I then usually proceed to feel a number of emotions: shame, embarrassment, frustration, anger, irritation, sadness, helplessness and out of control.

You can probably guess that none of these emotions ever help me to stop eating cookie dough or cookies. I am taken further away from my promise to myself as the self-criticism builds and grows (along with my waistline!).

Instead, I could make a giant move back toward the diet and fitness goals I've set for myself by taking a interrupting this pattern and, instead, forgiving.

Forgiveness is an amazing and powerful practice.

As you forgive yourself, you clear away all of that blame, judgment and even self-pity, if that's mixed in there too. You don't have to beat yourself up anymore. You've probably already experienced that this isn't an effective motivator anyway.

Even if you don't believe it at first, instead of the self-castigation, repeat to yourself, “I love you, I forgive you.”

Repeat that sentence and allow yourself to open up more and more to the meaning behind the words.

Forgiveness tends to create internal space that was previously taken up with all of the blame, judgment and self-pity. From that expanded internal space, there's so much more room for choice.

What will your next move be?

#2) Return to the Present Moment
When you forgive, you essentially let go of whatever “oops” just occurred. You are now ready to come back to the present moment.

This is where your power and your capacity to make conscious decisions resides.

Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle so wisely says: “Through forgiveness, which essentially means recognizing the insubstantiality of the past and allowing the present moment to be as it is, the miracle of transformation happens not only within but also without.”

Each morning before you get out of bed, you might consider setting your diet and fitness goals or intentions for the day. Just for that day.

Be specific and be realistic.

If you have a super busy day at the office, perhaps an hour-long trip to the gym in the evening is unlikely. Set daily goals for yourself that you can relatively easily follow and feel good about.

Remember, the more success you encounter, the easier it can be to continue on this path.

Particularly before you eat anything, take a few seconds to check in with yourself. Will eating this particular food or this amount of food help you keep to your daily goal? Make the choice to eat or not eat whatever it is from a present and conscious place.

#3) Know Your Triggers
Triggers. We all have them.

These are those seemingly insignificant words, events, days of the week, times of day, visual, auditory or sensory cues that somehow transport us back to another time and place-- often one that was unpleasant, undesired and perhaps even traumatic.

Triggers can come up in the middle of a conversation you are having with your partner. They might emerge when you hear a particular song on the radio. They could pop up when you face an apparent block with a project you are working on.

When we are triggered, we can seem to lose control. We might find ourselves saying, doing, eating or not-exercising in ways that we later regret.

Triggers can be food-related. Some of us turn to food when we feel overwhelmed, bored, depressed or dissatisfied. We use foods (usually those foods that are not included on our healthier eating diets) to cope or attempt to escape.

If this happens in your life, it's important that you get to know what specific things trigger you.

Notice if you reach for chips when you feel overly busy or overloaded during your workday, for example. If so, take care of your overwhelmed feelings as soon as you recognize them by taking a short break if possible. Step away from your desk; go get a glass of water and remember to breathe.

The key here is to soothe whatever feelings you are having in ways that will allow you to maintain your daily eating (and fitness) goals.


It doesn't matter how many times you fall off the proverbial diet and fitness wagon. Get back up, love and forgive yourself and return to living more fully and mindfully in this present moment.

Do this all the way to a healthier, happier, more fulfilled you!

“Oops, I did it again...” Tips to Help You Return to Your Diet and Fitness Resolutions

By Amy Phillips-Gary

So maybe you set some diet and fitness resolutions for yourself at the beginning of the year. And maybe in the first few weeks of January you stuck with them and possibly even saw some positive results.

But now it's almost a month and half later, and it's likely that you've encountered some “oops” moments-- or maybe more than just a few.

At our family Superbowl party last night, for example, I realized that I was eating Fritos, cookies and chocolate-covered almonds without giving any of it much thought. I wasn't even hungry, but these treats are party food and tasted great.

Oops!

I am not on a strict diet right now, but, I have set for myself the intention to eat more mindfully.

That does not include shoveling in Fritos and chocolate!

It can happen as quickly as that. You tune back in to yourself and realize that you have fallen into old eating and non-exercise habits.

What many of us, myself included, do when we realize that we've veered from the healthier course we've set is to scold, judge and blame ourselves.

Sometimes we make excuses like, “It's too cold and snowy to go for a run” as we sit back down on the couch.

Much of the time, we also drag ourselves through the judgmental mud for not following through... as usual. As I've pointed out in past blog posts, self-shaming is absolutely NOT an effective motivator if getting back into alignment with diet and fitness resolutions is desired.

A first question to ask yourself might be, “Am I really willing to make a commitment to lose weight by eating differently and/or exercising more frequently?”

Offer yourself the chance to really consider this question. If you are merely trying to lose weight and get more fit because you think you “should,” this could part of the problem.

It's not that you are weak-willed or undisciplined. Instead, perhaps you haven't created a resolution or set an intention to which you can whole-heartedly commit.

As you probably know, commitments that you maintain usually link up with something that resonates deeply within you. I'm not necessarily suggesting that you abandon your weight loss or fitness aspirations.

What I do recommend is that you find some aspect about eating healthier and moving your body more that lines up with your core beliefs and goals.

For example, instead, of “I want to lose 35 pounds by the summer by following this particular diet and exercise regimen,” you might resolve, “I will eat at least 2 green salads each day and will not choose cookies unless I've had 5 (or more) servings of vegetables first.”

This second resolution is more specific and it also might better line up with your beliefs that a diet rich in vegetables will help keep you healthy, which lines up with your commitment to live a long and physically healthy life.

The commitment is to a healthier, more vibrant and energetic life and not necessarily to a particular number of pounds lost-- although that might be desired (and attained) as well.

This specific change in phrasing might not speak to you.

Find a different way to approach your diet and fitness goals and then re-phrase or re-think them so that they resonate more fully with what's most important to you.

This different approach can help you incorporate new ways of eating and exercising into your life with less internal resistance than you might have encountered in the past. You might even find yourself enjoying following these resolutions along the way.

Continue to play around with your resolutions until you find what works for you.

*Coming up on Friday....Part 2 of Tips to Help You Return to Your Diet and Fitness Resolutions

Diet Success Tips: It's NOT About Willpower

By Amy Phillips-Gary

It's difficult not to notice the countless ads for various diet plans and products lately.

Of course, this is to be expected. Shedding pounds is, by far, one of the most popular resolutions that people here in the U.S. set for themselves after the December holidays.

As you might have experienced, after intending that this is the year we will drop a clothing size or two, people often become distracted, overwhelmed, disenchanted, or frustrated in some way and our bathroom scales seem to indicate that we've failed to meet our weight loss goals...again.

I'm right there with the masses who struggle with diet and weight loss. I've set countless goals for myself regarding what I eat, how much and when in an effort to create the body size and shape and I desire.

And I'm right there with the masses who feel like we've failed when it doesn't happen.

Sometimes, when I've slid back into my usual eating habits (the ones that I deem to be unhealthy), I feel as if I have little or no willpower. When it comes to chocolate and sweets in particular, it can appear to me that I am simply unable to say “no.”

Saying “no” is what dieting seems to be all about, doesn't it?

It's actually NOT about willpower.
When I look at the areas of my life in which I feel more successful in reaching goals and creating what I want, I can see that willpower and the ability to say “no” are not necessarily the keys.

In fact, a recent Wall Street Journal article highlights the findings of various scientific studies about willpower that support this assertion.

Neuroscientists are discovering that the area of the brain that is associated with things like willpower, short-term memory, focus and abstract problem-solving can become overloaded more easily than one would assume.

When faced with too many tasks, this part of the brain can only handle just so much.

This is why, according to the article, our resolve to go home from work and eat a big healthy salad for dinner flies out the window when we are tired and have had a particularly challenging day. Pizza is ordered and, pretty soon, we are sitting there feeling fat and bad because we've eaten more of a food that we were trying to avoid.

When it comes to eating healthier and losing weight, I am coming to believe that the emphasis needs to be on making conscious and affirmative decisions about food, the body and exercise.

“Yes” needs to be said to the activities, behaviors and thoughts that will support us in the changes we want to make.

Instead of saying “no” all of the time to those “junk” foods, find ways to create more space and openness within yourself to the new foods you're willing to try and the potentially new eating habits you're wanting to adopt.

Create a plan that you can stick to.
The research findings discussed in the Wall Street Journal article, also show that when the brain is focused and intentions are clear and manageable, tasks (including behavior changes) can be easily followed through with.

Keep this in mind as you choose a program or product to help you lose weight.

Check out what's available to you. If the program or product sounds like it would be a good fit for your life and intentions, give it a try.

You might not want to pay money for a program or product, but you'd still like to shed pounds. If so, there is a vast variety of free resources at your library, on the internet and even in the examples of your friends and family members.

Whatever kind of weight loss plan that you create and choose, make sure that you feel hopeful, eager and even excited about it.

How does it feel when you consider doing what the resource is asking you to do? How does it feel when you actually eat these different foods or in a different way?

If your plan feels overwhelming or unrealistic, perhaps that's your signal to step it back a bit or look for another approach.

It can be very healthy to challenge yourself-- especially when it comes to habits that are not serving your overall well being. But challenging yourself doesn't mean you feel overwhelmed or doomed to eventually fail at the outset.

Again, pay close attention to what has supported success for you in other areas of your life. Apply those supports to this new and, perhaps, trickier issue.

Visualize what you want as you make changes.
I urge you to also pay close attention to what you are thinking about and envisioning for yourself and your future.

Whether you decide to keep a food diary, count calories, weigh your portions or whatever actions relative to eating that you choose, keep visualizing what you ultimately want along the way.

Take time every day to visualize yourself happy, healthy, fulfilled and walking around in the body size that you desire. See yourself enjoying the act of eating and exercising.

Above all, expand your acceptance yourself the way that you are right now. Coming to peace with what is-- and even appreciating it-- can powerfully carry you through to the changes you want.

Upgrade You: Diet and Fitness Self-Improvement Tips

By Amy Phillips-Gary

Losing weight and exercising more are two resolutions that just about everybody includes on his or her list of self improvements to make.

And just about everyone (with exceptions of course) somewhere along the line falls short of those goals. Those aspirations usually get swept aside and forgotten-- or used as a rationale for self-criticism and beating up on one's self.

If you'd like to upgrade yourself by making improvements in the ways you eat and/or your physical fitness, setting yourself up to succeed is a vital first step.

Too many of us dive right in to a new diet or exercise regimen with high hopes and, for whatever reason, we plateau, get bored or distracted or don't follow through completely. It can seem like we are failures at this. And for this reason, many of us give up trying.

Upgrade in a sustainable way...
Before you start to count calories or head off for your first run in years, I encourage you to get clear about the upgrade you want. From as observational a perspective as you can muster, look at where you are. What are your habits when it comes to eating and exercise? What do you consider your strengths and where are your weaknesses?

In a diet book I'm reading, The Thin Commandments: The Ten No-Fail Strategies for Permanent Weight Loss, author Stephen Gullo advises those who'd like to lose weight to know your food history.

He offers examples of clients he's worked with who, for example, have troublesome histories with cookies, but are not as tempted to binge when it comes to pudding. When a particular client keeps his or her history in mind, that person can actually eat dessert in moderation and continue to shed pounds.

Get to know what your history is with particular foods and then come up with strategies about how you can stay on your path of becoming thinner and do so in sustainable ways.

Think in terms of continually making life choices that are in alignment with the upgrade you desire, instead of short-term and possibly more extreme diets during which you might feel deprived and even starved.

Stay tuned in to your feelings. If you feel overwhelmed or intense emotions when you consider a particular upgrade, take the time to explore those emotions. What possible past events or old beliefs are those feelings tied to? Get curious and discover what you need to resolve as you move forward with these changes.

You can apply the notion of sustainability to your fitness improvements too.

If you tend to get bored on the exercise equipment at the gym, recognize that and come up with different fitness strategies. There countless ways to move your body-- experiment until you find a repertoire that is actually enjoyable.

Upgrade in a process-oriented way...
It's common to set goals for yourself when attempting to improve your fitness and diet. There's nothing wrong with goals, except that sometimes we become so hyper-focused on the outcome and “end goal,” we might miss or belittle our smaller achievements along the way.

I think that it's great to set an intention to lose 25 lbs, 50 lbs or more or less. It's equally wonderful to strive to lift a particular weight, run a certain number of miles and so on. Even so-called "failures" along the way can be viewed as opportunities for learning, clarification and choice.

As I said, goals can be great motivators-- when placed in a particular perspective.

Consider offering most of your attention to how you feel about yourself and your eating and exercise habits from moment-to-moment. Set your longer-term goal and then put it to the side symbolically. It's still there, but the majority of your focus is on the here and now.

Allow yourself a cheer when you find that your pants button easier than they used to, even if you aren't at that goal weight yet. Pat yourself on the back for getting outside for a brisk walk in the chilly rain, even if you aren't running the miles you want to yet.

It is this sense of presence and process that allows your upgrade to sustain and feel great. This practice will support your ability to continue to make improvements in all areas of your life.
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*Personal Growth Planet blog is taking part in National Blog Posting Month (http://www.nablopomo.com/). Every weekday in November, you'll find daily blogs linked by weekly themes.