Motivational Letters

1. Lower your expectations on how quickly weight loss will occur. We are all different metabolically, socially, medically. It will be slow for some, faster for others. Be patient. 2. Motivation. None of us wake up motivated to eat better or exercise more. It’s an effort. Realize the effort is worth it. Start some sort of exercise. Don’t expect yourself to “want to do it”. Just do it, and you will feel better afterwards. 3. Be willing to change. No one ‘diet’ is necessarily going to work for everyone. You need to find out what works for you. Be willing [...]

I am always interested (or perhaps baffled and impressed!) by how well most people do with their weight when they are away on holiday. I should clarify this statement by excluding holidays on cruise ships and all-inclusive resorts! Usually I hear how ‘much’ people ate at the main meals, or how many carbohydrates they allowed themselves, yet weight loss still occurred. My suspicions as to the mechanism of this unexpected weight loss are multi-fold. We forget how much less stress there is on holiday compared to home, with work load and family demands. The impact of low-grade cortisol elevations certainly [...]

I realized that it has been a couple of weeks since I have written a new motivational letter and I have two choices: 1. I can feel badly, perhaps even guilty for not applying myself and putting off a task I deeply enjoy doing until the last minute to accomplish. OR 2. I can accept that I may have slipped on my normal Thursday night routine and get back at it with no emotion or guilt. I can simply accept the choices I have made and move on; be proactive. I choose 2! I like the other 6 billion plus [...]

We try to encourage people not to be perfectionistic. None of us can eat ‘perfectly' 100% of the time. However, perfectionism remains a trap for many of us. Once a person has perceived they have eaten poorly, they simply continue eating poorly and essentially give up. Once again we are empowering food, not ourselves. You and you alone have control over what foods you eat. It takes work. It takes practice. You will make mistakes, but this is good. Making mistakes, then learning to get back on track without beating yourself up, leads to long term success! Remember this: imperatives [...]