Let’s face it. Very few people in our society use food strictly as fuel for their daily activities. We eat for flavors. We eat for entertainment. We eat to alleviate boredom, fatigue, excitement or heartache. We eat to be part of a social event. We eat because advertisers spend millions of dollars seducing us into equating their food products with happiness, sex, excitement and other wonderful things. It’s no wonder that we use food to soothe and satisfy a vast array of human needs – we hunger and crave lots of things that are not food.

Hunger is an incredibly complex phenomenon that we experience in many areas of our lives. We hunger in our relationships if our emotional needs are not being met. We hunger for physical energy or for sensory stimuli if we are bored and in need of entertainment. A craving or hunger for food is not always a physical need for caloric intake brought on by low blood sugar.

To get to the root of your hunger try this quick exercise. Pause for a few minutes before you eat and think about how you know you are hungry. Write down everything you are feeling at that moment to help give you clues to what you are really hungry for. Then, brainstorm non-food related activities that deal directly with what you are feeling. For example, if you if want to eat because you’re tired, consider taking a nap. If you’re eating because you’re lonely, call a friend. If you’re eating because you’re stressed, take a bath or try some relaxation techniques.

To lose weight, we must eat less. However, if the focus is shifted away from food restriction towards getting to know our hunger cues and our real reasons for seeking food, eating less slowly becomes more natural and much easier to handle.

In less than 2 weeks I will be participating in the Beaches Jazz Tune Up 5K Walk with Slimband colleagues, patients and MySlimband members.
I am very excited about this because I feel not only is it away for myself to get more active this summer in a fun way, but I believe this event will be a good way for everyone who is struggling with the idea of exercise and physical exertion to realize it can be fun, you can do it with friends and you can fit it into a busy life.

I can’t wait to see everyone there and do this 5K walk with you! In the meantime I wanted to share some tips that I have been doing to prep for it.

Practice – You don’t have to be Perfect!
I didn’t become a fitness pro, I just used this opportunity to give my puppy some extra long walks or just do laps around a track. I never rushed, I started slow and stopped when I felt I needed to. Then I have been gradually trying to extend my walking time each day. Another tip is how about getting your phone chat time in while on a stroll or bring a friend along? When you catch up with family or friends you will be distracted and before you know it you’ve walked for 30 minutes!

Water – H2O is so Important!
I started keeping track of how many glasses of water a day I was drinking and it was pretty bad! I was at 2 glasses maybe 3 if I was lucky. So my next goal became upping that number to at least 8 per day. It wasn’t easy at first but I noticed that by drinking more water I felt “cleaner”, had less muscle cramping, didn’t feel the need to eat as much and had way more energy!

Healthy Snack – Getting that Energy!
After a long day at work I would often have no energy and feel drained! If I wanted to accomplish anything I needed a boost. Having a healthy snack about 30 minutes to an hour before my walks really gave me a kick start. Including protein in my snacks really helped too!

Bragging – Tell Everyone!
OK not because I feel like I have to toot my own horn, even though this will be a pretty awesome accomplishment, but this will create a sense accountability and motivation for myself. My friends have been asking me how the prepping for the walk is going and want to know how I do. I get a sense of encouragement and motivation to stick with the practice walks even on those days where I would rather procrastinate.

Music – Get your Groove on!
Nothing makes me want to get up and go more than a high-energy good tune. I pick a bunch of my favorites, usually the kind that make me feel like dancing, and download them to my MP3 player. While listening to the songs I try to match my walking pace to the beat of the music, not always easy mind you! But it definitely help me up the ante and keep going just a bit longer when I start to get tired… at least until the end of that song.

Try some of these tips to help you stay “on track”!

~Rian

Some people absolutely LOVE winter, if you are one of those, well sorry I can’t relate. I LOVE summer, the hot sticky days, going to the beach, lemonade, pool parties, drinks on the patio and best of all, ice cream, mmmmmm!!!!!

So when it comes to winter, well I have a super hard time adjusting and adapting to the cold, frigid weather. I try to stay positive and partake in the season by skating and skiing, but my patience and motivation does not last long.

This winter, it really seems like a downer because of the cold frigid weather. Personally December always goes by so fast because of all the preparations for the holiday season. But when January rolls by and the mercury dips even lower, well that’s when I really begin feeling the winter blues. Winter signals hibernation and unfortunately we are not bears and can’t take a super long nap until the warm breezes return. So we are left to deal with the effects on our body, mind and soul. Many people can relate to this and some of the symptoms that most people experience are:

• A change in appetite, particularly craving foods you know you should stay away from
• Weight gain
• Decreased energy
• Fatigue
• Tendency to oversleep which causes tiredness
• Difficulty concentrating or staying motivated
• Irritability, especially towards loved ones
• Avoidance of social situations
• Feelings of anxiety and despair

Well I have to say, in the last 2 weeks I have definitely experienced almost all of those. So I have decided to take   note of what I can do to break my winter blues other than count down the days until summer returns. Here are some suggestions:

• Take a vacation down south, unfortunately that’s not in my cards this year L
• Exposure to bright, artificial light (Remember your health care professional should be consulted before beginning light therapy)
• A midday walk outside to get fresh air and natural light. Even if its cold, bundle up and go out at least for 30 minutes a day
• Arrange your environment so you receive maximum sunlight
• Exercise relieves stress, builds energy and increases your mental and physical well-being
• Monitor your diet and make healthy choices
• Use aromatherapy candles or oils that have spring/summer scents like lavender
• Most important, be aware of your moods. Self-awareness can alleviate some of the feelings of distress during these seasons

What do you do to break free of winter? The more suggestions the better.

Every holiday season I do the same thing, I tell myself that I am going to be good and eat healthy and try to stay on track with my exercise schedule. However, first chance I get I sleep in, which in a weird way seems to throw off my whole schedule. This and not going to work brings out the more relaxed attitude. With that, my somewhat weekly regime of eating healthy and exercising 3 times a week goes down the tubes.

This year I managed to pack 5 days worth of eating into only 2 days, and of course mainly from the sweet food category I might add. Many people can relate, you know you shouldn’t but then your eyes take over and those cream puffs, that slice of cheese cake or those decorated sugar cookies with sprinkles just don’t look that bad and sinister anymore. I kept telling myself, “Oh I will just have a bit,” but deep down you know you will have a bit several times a day and when you take 5 days into account, a bit really becomes a heaping pile of calories.

Those 5 days seem to do so much damage. Yeah its only 5 days, but getting back into a healthy routine just seems so much more difficult now. The hurdle is not a hurdle anymore but a tall brick wall. I don’t do New Years resolutions because I guess I have looked at the whole ritual negatively. To me I always thought it was rubbish that nobody stuck to it and as a result would later feel bad. Well this year I have decided to do it and be motivated enough to stick with it and not just give it lip service.

I’m not an expert but I really think that if you want to succeed you really have to mean it and want it. I think deep down we all know if we are going to succeed at it because it’s a matter of caring, staying motivated and putting the time into whatever you want to really succeed.

My New Years resolution is to get back on track eating healthy and regularly exercising. My motivational factor is a nice wedding dress that I need to fit into for my July wedding. How do I plan to do it, well in the grocery store, I plan to shop in the outside aisles of the store, the meat section and the fruits/vegetables section and try to stay away from the middle section that usually has more of the foods you should be staying away from. In regards to the exercise, well how more convenient can it get, my building has a gym literally down the hall from my suite. So I plan to visit it 3 times a week and go swimming once a week with an exercise buddy so we can help each other stay motivated. Hopefully I stay on track, but I have a positive attitude and I think that goes a long way in helping.

So what is your New Year’s resolution and how do you plan on achieving it and staying motivated?

- Hanna

The hardest part of any challenge, whether it’s losing weight, eating healthier, quitting smoking or finishing a project, is staying motivated.

No matter how fired up you are in the beginning to get started, eventually the enormity of what you are taking on becomes emotionally, physically and psychologically daunting. This is when we are at our weakest and most likely to quit, when we don’t see the light at end of the proverbial tunnel and know that it’s still quite a ways off.

How can we fight that irresistible urge to slip back into our comfort zone of inactivity, bad habits and procrastination? You need to find your inspiration. What inspired you to improve your quality of life in the first place? That is your motivation! You may find that as you progress towards your goal your inspiration may evolve and change but you MUST continue to remind yourself to keep motivated!

Keeping track of your progress in a journal, posting pictures of someone you look up to or encouraging messages around your home and reminding yourself of the end result your WILL achieve are some ways you can keep that motivation going.

When my sister-in-law had my 2 amazing nieces in less than 2 years she wanted to get back into shape. Not an easy feat with a toddler, a baby and a household to run. Her inspiration? Her daughters. She wanted to be able to be an active mom, run around and play with her kids without losing her breath or getting tired too soon. So she began making changes, ate healthier, found a little time every day to do some physical activity and sure enough she started to see results.

Eventually her inspiration changed, after hearing about a local run for breast cancer awareness she became motivated to join and complete the 10K run. She started training harder and became more focussed and sure enough completed the race in 32^nd place. No Olympic records were broken but she had achieved her goal by staying motivated and inspired.

Here are some inspirational quotes you can use to help you stay motivated and reach your goals:

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

-Joshua J. Marine

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Great changes may not happen right away, but with effort even the difficult may become easy.

- Bill Blackman

Never, never, never give up.

- Winston Churchill

You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.

- Professor Harold Hill (The Music Man)

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.

- Abraham Lincoln

The greatest wealth is health.

- Virgil

Rian