Drink Less, Live More

Welcome to this weeks Mindful Weighs Wednesday friends! Have you tried to lose weight and just don't see the scale moving? How often have you tried a diet to only feel "hungry" all the time. I would encourage you to pay attention to if that is truly hunger, or a habit you have created which is holding you back from seeing the results you imagine. A key to losing weight is becoming more aware of knowing the difference between true physical hunger, and eating as a means to feel better. There are sensations of hunger, and feelings of hunger. Many people don't take the time to pay attention to the difference, and it truly can make all the difference as you lose weight. Sensations begin in the body and send signal to the brain. Examples of sensations include burning, cold, stomach grumbling or body feeling weak. Emotional feelings of hunger start in the brain and send a signal to the body. Emotions are feelings, or vibrations, like lonely, angry, bored or...

Imagine how you will feel when you get to the weight you are aiming for, or drinking exactly as you planned.  Maybe you think you will feel happy, or proud.  For some of you that world would only exists when you arrive at the finish line.  I want to encourage you to begin feeling that way now, without the scale confirming your weight, and without the leftover wine as evidence.  Truly think of how you will feel, and think about why you will feel that way.   Why we do anything in this world is because we think it will make us feel a certain way.  Let’s take the example of losing weight.  Right now you may be someone who thinks you will feel happy when you lose your weight.  If being thin equals happiness why are there are a lot of miserable thin people in the world?  The difference is simple - each person has different thoughts.  Different thoughts create different feelings.  Really take the time to think about this.  ...

This past weekend I was at an amazing women’s leadership meeting where the topic of imposter syndrome was discussed.  Wikipedia says it is “a term coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes referring to high-achieving individuals marked by inability to internalize their accomplishments and a fear of being exposed as “fraud”… Despite external evidence of their competence…”.  Many of us have experienced this - perhaps you attribute your success to luck or timing, and you think you will soon to be “found out”.  You don’t give yourself enough credit to believe you are exactly where you deserve to be based on your skills, experience and unique abilities.  As I was listening, I thought of how often we engage in mind drama - over-reactive, exaggerated details created in our mind. Think of how often you tell yourself stories about a situation - personal or professional.  Typically this happens when you are a little un...

Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing Molly Fletcher ( www.mollyfletcher.com ) present at a meeting.  For anyone who may not know this powerhouse, my agenda described her as - a trailblazer in every sense of the word.  She has a rare talent of business wisdom, relationship brilliance and unwavering optimism.  As a CEO she shares her unconventional and unique techniques that made her on of the first female agents in the high stakes, big ego world of professional sports and now successful entrepreneur.  She was hailed as the “female Gerry Maguire” by CNN.  For me, it was her energy, enthusiasm and message of taking the time to deliberately place your energy on what matters most, remain present in every moment, and be willing to be vulnerable that truly resonated. I wanted to share with you a few of the take-aways I found helpful.  Think of the top 5 most important things in your life.  One by one take them away - what is your top remaining...

When you think of indulging what comes to mind?  I imagine something like a warm chocolate chip cookie with smooth vanilla ice cream and hot fudge, or a spa day with massage, mani and pedi, and a fabulous bottle of wine on a special occasion.  These all seem lovely, but today I want to look three other things we all tend to indulge in sometimes don’t even recognize it  - worry, confusion and overwhelm. An indulgent emotion is on that seems comfortable but does not fuel the actions necessary to obtain a desired result.  It often presents when one is not experience traction, growth or movement.  These feelings pretend to be necessary.  Often people will come to me and think the feelings aren’t optional, and are just the effect of their life circumstance.  These feelings serve no purpose, and are actually the biggest dream stealers around.  You are indulging when you tell yourself you have too much to do, your confused on where to start, or ...

I love the responses I get when I tell people I am a Life and Weight Coach.  Some think I’ve joined a cult, others think I only promote positive thinking.  Life coaches actually specialize in a variety of client specific areas.  I work with highly functional women who want to drink less or weigh less in order to feel more in control.   Different coaches have different approaches.  The tools I share come from my training at the Life Coach School.  One of the tools that has made a significant difference in many lives is the idea of the Balance of Emotions.  This is a theory that the human experience is designed to be made up of half “negative” and half “positive” emotions and that this duality adds value, meaning and depth to our lives. Take a moment to really think about this.  So often we fight against what is.  We think things should be different.  We think we have to feel better, and in resisting the negative we make ourse...

Welcome back to Thinking about Drinking Thursday, where we discuss tools to help you drink less.  If you are a highly functioning gal who has decided to just cut back on your drinking - this is for you.  If you have been saying you want to drink less, but haven't been successful I want to help by sharing some tools with you.   This is going to be short and sweet in order for you to really focus on the task at hand today. Have you ever considered the importance of a question?  A question is defined as a sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information.   Your brain is like a GPS and wants to seek answers for the questions you ask it.  Decide on purpose the best way to illicit the best answer.  The way to do that is to ask really good questions. Stop asking why you can’t stop drinking. Stop asking why its not fun to not drink with friends. Stop asking why you feel so terrible the next morning. All of these questions w...

Welcome Back to Mindful Weighs Wednesday where we talk about tools to help you lose weight.  One thing many of my clients, friends, and family have in common is they want to lose weight.  I think there is a very large percentage to the population that would say they want to lose weight.  So why is it that so many people are not successful?  The difference my friends is between wanting and committing. When you look up the definition of want it is to “have a desire to possess or do (something); wish for.  This is a passive state of thinking.  You can want something all day long, and never receive it.  Commit is defined as to “carry out or perpetuate”, this is implies action.  You will never change your results without taking action, so wanting ultimately leaves you right where you are today.  I want to share an example of wanting vs committing I recently heard listening to Weight Coach Brenda Lomali.  First, start by t hinking of...

I was recently looking back on my gratitude journal and had a chuckle for how often I have our dog listed.  If you are a dog person you get this -  we just love our dogs so much - and they for sure, have unconditional love for us.  Imagine your most strained relationship, and now imagine feeling what you feel for your dog, for that person.  Say what?!  I am going to suggest unconditional love is actually a gift you give yourself, and it makes your life easier, not harder. Love feels good.  If given a choice most of us would choose it, yet we don’t often consciously choose it.  Instead we choose to feel disappointment, or frustration when someone doesn’t meet our expectations.  We create rules that set us up to feel negative emotion.  We act as if there actions, determine our feelings.  This is not how it works - our thoughts about their actions cause the negative emotions.  The truth is, you not feeling loving is only h...

We had such a fun weekend with our niece in town.  Her and I worked on our vision boards and as we were chatting about creating our lives on purpose, we also discussed the concept of “your either winning or learning”.  It was a discussion around how the fear of failure often holds people back.  She is only 8 and already thinks of me as “crazy Aunt Michelley” so I’m not sure how much of it will stick just yet, but hopefully what I share helps you.   Many people, including myself, grew up being afraid to fail.  Always get the A, be the top performer, don’t mess up - all well intended and always a nice feeling to win, but many times the desire for perfection stops people from trying new things.  We have complete control over what failure means to us.  If you search the definition of failure it is simply “the omission of expected or required action”.  Most people just stop expecting, or set low expectations so they either never fail, or recycl...

Whether you are enjoying a Sunday Fun-day or a Restful Sunday - this is an important piece of information worth sharing again.  The foundation of awareness lies in knowing the difference between a Circumstance and a Thought.  Here’s how - please enjoy!  It’s so interesting how we look at circumstances in our lives as facts, yet most of the time they are simply thoughts.  I talk to so many people who want to share their stories and believe all of it as truth.  What I want to do is point out areas that are thoughts, and show them they can decide to keep the thought if it serves their purpose in life, or exchange it for a new one that will.  Let me help break it down.  Circumstances in our lives are the things that occur in the world around us.  They are things we do not have control over, and can not directly change.  They are facts that can be agreed upon in the court of law.  Examples may be weather and other peoples beha...

I'm sitting in the quiet of my office waiting for everyone to wake up, and on the couch our rescue pup Tucker is all cozy snuggled up.  My brain says I should just relax with him for awhile.  I don't think I'm really "feeling" like doing work.  I'm sure you've had those days.  Here's the thing friends - part of making our way to accomplishing our goals is overcoming this.  You take action despite not feeling like it.  We are good at procrastinating things that give us long term pleasure - think of losing weight for example.  How often do you tell yourself you will start Monday, or you don’t feel like exercising today.  If you are cutting back on drinking maybe you say - I’ll do it next weekend because there is an important gathering this one.  We are terrible at procrastinating at things that give us short term pleasure - holding back for example on getting that dessert at dinner, or extra glass of wine.  If we can change this...

It has been a long week, and I am looking forward to some fun this weekend!  We don’t have kids, but we have one visiting this weekend which will infuse an air of refreshment.  In the past I’ve had plans, plans, plans, go, go go on the agenda.  This weekend I’m thinking we can slow down (well, a little) and I am considering a vision board project with her.  I want to use it as an opportunity to discuss how she is already purposeful, she is already magnificent, 100% lovable and she can decide what she wants to create in her life from there.   So often I work with clients who want to “find their purpose”.  I too have spent years searching for mine - as if we are all on a treasure hunt.  We look to others for ideas of purpose.  Someone like Mother Teresa obviously had a purpose, and then we start feeling guilty because we are pretty sure she wasn’t waking up Sunday morning with the negative self talk from drinking too much Pino...

Welcome back to Thinking about Drinking Thursday, where we discuss tools to help you drink less.  If you are a highly functioning gal who has decided to just cut back on your drinking - this is for you.  If you have been saying you want to drink less, but haven't been successful I want to help by sharing some tools with you.   Have you had days where you really wish you could cut back on drinking but one glass leads to another, and the next thing you know you feel like you are unable to stop?  You wake up the next morning full of regret and negative self talk.  So many people face a similar struggle.  I want you to understand nothing has gone wrong here. The over desire for alcohol is a learned behavior, and the fantastic news is if you can learn it, you can also unlearn it.  Over drinking becomes a habit that happens unconsciously.  You have a thought, feel desire, reward with alcohol, practice and repeat.  Similar to brushing y...

Happy Valentine’s Day friends!  A day of romance, a day of desire.  A day of flowers, cards, fancy dinners and chocolate.  It is also Mindful Weighs Wednesday, where we discuss tools to help you lose weight, and because I love you all I’m going to have to keep it honest here. How cute is the box of chocolates with the puppy on it?  Chocolate and puppies = love right?  Not so fast.  Watch yourself today when you reach for the caramel nut section.  Pay attention to thinking things like - “the chocolates are a present for the love we share”, or “everyone celebrates with a nice dinner”, “food is love”, “eating sweets is part of the tradition”, “it’s fine to eat them today”, or “I should be able to eat what I want - it’s a holiday”.  These are all thought errors for the person trying to lose weight. A thought error is a thought that creates an unwanted desire and unwanted actions.  Our desire comes from the dopamine hits we get once...

I just read a stat, according to the National Retail Federation, that 18.2 billion is spent on Valentine’s Day between flowers, cards and candy.  That is a lot of loving folks!  Love is an intense feeling of deep affection, and often given more freely to others over ourselves.  Go crazy this week - love on yourself a bit and see how amazing you can be when you have your own back.   Think about it - when do you show yourself compassion? We are often so hard on ourselves, and constantly compare ourselves to others.  People spend a lot of time trying  to get people to like them, saying and doing what they think others are looking for.  We often put extra pressure on ourselves to abide by actions made up in our head about how we should act.  Sometimes this can get creepy and weird, other times it is just a lot of extra brain energy used up.  Honestly, at the end of the day everyone gets to think what they want to, and when we try to ...

Your brain is filled with so many sentences, and many are so ingrained you just think they are “truth”, and often go unquestioned.  If you want to make changes in your life you need to begin believing new things in advance - before even seeing them.   Wayne Dyer says, “I will see it when I believe it”. Most of us operate on the opposite thought, and it can be quite challenging to achieve something if you don’t believe it to be possible. We constantly sabotage ourselves in accomplishing our dreams.   It is especially challenging to change thoughts and beliefs about yourself.   You may currently think “I’m just that kind of person”, “I can’t do that”, “I’m not good at this”.   Pay attention to your feelings when you think these thoughts - they will typically be negative and drive drive your actions to accomplish new goals.   Your belief system is creating your life. The fantastic news is that as a human you have the ability to manage your mind, a...

Today I want to start right off with a little activity to get you started.  Take a moment and right down all the people (and pets) you love in your life.  Now, look at the list and find where you are located.  Say What?!?  Interesting right?  I recently saw this post on social media and I bet for many you don’t even have yourself on it.   So often I have ladies tell me they don’t have time for themselves.  They are busy with their career, kids, spouse - always going - going - going, giving so much to everyone else and barely leaving anything for themselves.  No wonder we often turn to a little extra vino to take the edge off.  But remember - you can not pour love from an empty bottle, and you are the most important person to take care of.  You need to be healthy - that includes physical and mental health, in order to be the best for everyone around you.   The challenging part is you give so much to others, at you...