Seriously. Fear of actually becoming the better version of yourself, not just because you’re getting thin and healthy, but because it can seem scary to step into your own greatness. (Yes, greatness. I believe we each have greatness within us.)

When we decide we want to lose weight (or be successful in business, get a better job, run a marathon, you name it), it seems exciting to many of us. When I finally decided to bite the bullet and get my own excess weight off for good, one of my key motivators was simple: I wanted to feel a certain comfort in small sized clothing, and I’d visualize it (before I even knew what visualizing was) every time I’d find myself wanting to stray. How did those size 6 jeans feel on? In my mind’s eye, I felt like a rock star. :) (Turns out I’m naturally a 2/4, but those 6s in my daydreams felt awesome at the time.)

In fact, in my own life, nothing could have kept me from feeling great at a lower weight.

But you might fall into the opposite camp, even if you’re not aware of it.

Who are you when you’re thin? Are you afraid of becoming someone else? Are you scared of having to embrace a life in which you get more attention/different attention/better attention from others? (It’s not that being thin does this on its own, necessarily, but gaining confidence does tend to attract situations where you’re in the spotlight more.)

And when you’re getting more attention, that means you feel like there’s even more risk involved in just being you.

This I get as well. And I mention it because I’ve been dealing with something similar lately, just not about weight loss. As you likely know as a reader of this blog, I’m in the process of launching a huge national event (see details on ThriveMom! Telesummit here and register now). Tons of people involved. Huge numbers of signups. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever tried to pull off on my own. And I’m loving it but … it can be scary at times. Especially when you’re putting yourself out there, doing new things, getting more attention. You don’t know if everything will go to plan.

I won’t lie and say that this whole process has been painless because it hasn’t. I’ve felt overwhelmed a few times. I’ve wondered if I tackled more than I could handle. I’ve been exhausted and had to take a break. And I had to sit myself down and give myself pep talks like the one I’m about to give you. :) Yes, I’m aware that I probably look crazy when I talk to myself. But it works!

And here’s what I want to share with you: The problem with living large, with losing the weight and becoming a more excellent version of yourself is that it’s scary because it’s unknown. (And no, I’m not saying you can’t be excellent if you’re overweight. But if you’re not feeling your best, if you don’t like how you look with excess pounds on your frame, the weight is holding you back from being the full-on, most awesome you that you can be.)

But the problem with staying small is worse because staying small is an absolute soul killer. The moment we decide NOT to step into the bigger challenges, the moment we choose NOT to do the things we dream of, we lose energy, lose momentum, lose a certain lift in our step and sense of happiness about the world at large. We begin to feel limited and helpless.

If our kids want to go out and do amazing things, which I know most of us moms want for our children, they have to take risks, make mistakes and keep plugging. And to inspire them, we have to get out there and do things we think are amazing too. And amazing very, very often = a little bit scary. But the scary stuff is worth it because it allows us to learn and grow as people. And if losing weight is frightening to you, let me ask you this: How scary is it to you to go on living the way you currently are, unhappy with how you look and feel, low energy, less healthy than you otherwise could be?

For me, the answer was simple (not easy to make, just simple) after not committing fully for many years. If you could choose how you look and feel 1 year from today (or 6 months from today), how would it be? And are you ready to do what it takes to get there?

If fear has been holding you back, I strongly urge you to consider expanding your horizons. Think big. Live large. Go outside your comfort zone and embrace the fact that you can BE thin and healthy and you’ll find a way to grow into (no pun intended) the stronger, more powerful you that you uncover as you lose weight. It may be scary at times. You might feel shaky now and then. But that’s how you get to do ALL that you dream of. And I know you can do it. Because neither I nor my amazing clients are any more special than you. We just decided to plunge into scary territory, and the rest is history. So why don’t you go make some history of your own?

This may seem harder to manage than other aspects of weight loss quickly, creating a healthier lifestyle and getting yourself on track to have a happier, more balanced life full of health. Certainly emotional eating sometimes makes incorporating diet and exercise into your life more challenging — in part because so many of us grew up in families where food was an expression of love or where the most accepted way of expressing our feelings was by eating. And we may not have witnessed many healthy habits either.

When I was growing up, every family event was all about the meal being served for the occasion, and I remember my lovely grandmother (who was obese and dealt with many health challenges in her life, including a really tough run with colon cancer) always overdoing it on the food she served — making enough food and enough different types of food to feed a not-so-small army, which we often ended up eating even though it was far too much and not healthy either.

Most of us women (in a family with lots of females) all took that focus on eating to heart, and I went on to make money during college and afterward for some time as a professional baker and dessert maker. I thought food was a part of who I was as a person, in fact, for a very, very long time. But I also grew more and more overweight, sicker and sicker, and my lifestyle had to change or else I was going to spend the rest of my years taking increasingly frightening amounts of very potent medications just to barely manage my symptoms. So change I did, and one of the things I had to tackle first and foremost was my relationship with food so that I could lose my emotional eating habit. Because no matter what, to lose weight, you do have to change your eating and reduce how many calories you eat. (And to lose weight healthfully, you have to replace unhealthy foods with healthy ones too, which happen to have fewer calories too — a nice side effect!)

The good news is that while emotional eating can certainly be challenging, it doesn’t have to be the way you live your life forever. I’m living proof, and I help clients improve their relationships with food as well all the time.

In fact, there are conscious steps you can take to eliminate your emotional eating habit, and I recently shared them all in a teleseminar I gave for my Inner Circle Coaching Club. You can access this Learning Module on conquering your emotional eating habit as a member in my Inner Circle.

Some simple things that may work for you right away include:

1) Asking yourself before you eat whether you’re hungry or lonely/frustrated/bored. Often that’s all it takes to avoid overeating and avoid weight gain — knowing the underlying emotions and working through them instead of trying to mask them with food.

2) Being mindful for the next few days of whether you’re eating due to real hunger or because you want comfort. If the latter, what else could you use to comfort yourself? Foods aren’t the answer — not even healthy ones. They’re like a band-aid over a wound that won’t heal on its own.

3) Working to avoid as much stress as possible or otherwise get upset to the point that you’re inclined to overeat for emotional reasons. You don’t have to make yourself gain body fat just because you’re upset, and your eating habits while under stress are probably far less optimal than they are in normal conditions. (And if stress is the norm, are there some larger shifts you can make?)

4) Knowing that food cravings aren’t always about emotional eating habits — they’re also sometimes physiological. Many women I work with initially feel that most of their overeating is due to emotional stress, and yet invariably it turns out that they have certain trigger foods that cause them severe withdrawal symptoms (not just cravings, but also depression symptoms, irritability, anxiety and other emotional symptoms) when they stop eating them, which is a sign NOT to eat these foods … again, no matter how healthy they are under normal conditions.

Certainly working on the underlying causes is important as well, but often just being mindful of the moments when you’d otherwise reach for food without actually being hungry can often impact your weight for the better. The most important thing to know as a current emotional eater is that even if you’ve struggled in the past with your emotional eating habit, you can take active steps to eliminate it entirely.

Just a quick note to let you know I’m back and will be blogging regularly again after a great holiday break spent enjoying having my husband home for a blissfully long and well-deserved few weeks off.

I don’t know about you, but my 2009 was challenging. We moved into a new house (our first), which was fraught with miscellaneous construction and heating problems right from the start. A couple days before 2009 began, I fell down a flight of stairs in my new basement and spent a couple weeks recovering (but had literally zero lasting damage from it, thankfully). My husband traveled almost constantly for over 3/4 of the year. My son had a severe allergic reaction that required us to change our already healthy lifestyle to be even more careful to accommodate his food allergies. And yet, after all that, the last couple months of 2009 were almost — dare I say it? — relaxed, unchaotic and full of good things.

And yet despite the year seeming to be complex and frustrating, which it certainly was at times, I feel like it was a triumph. I got to help women around the world take charge of their weight and their health. I got clear on how I can reach out and help many more moms than I already do (lots of exciting stuff in the works that I’ll share soon, promise!). I am thrilled to have my family together again every day and appreciate every moment even more. And while I know this blog isn’t reaching as many moms as I want it to in the future, I get enough comments from many of you that I feel like I’ve had at least a small role in helping you achieve your own triumphs this year. And lest I forget, my son went from just barely getting around on his own to becoming quite the acrobat :) and speaking complete sentences — that alone is no small feat!

So it seems that even if 2009 was tough, it was also amazing and a pivotal year for me and my family.

How about you? Did you do everything you hoped to in 2009?

If not, now’s the time to think about what you can do in 2010 so that you’re happy with how it ends, so that you can look back at the end of the year and say, “Wow, look at what I managed to accomplish.” And “Wow, I never thought I’d do … [fill in the black with your personal big dream].” If it’s losing the weight for good, eating healthfully, working on the mindset issues that may be holding you back and getting physically active WILL get you where you want to go. If it’s finding more time to reconnect with a part of yourself you haven’t expressed in too long (say, your artistic side), taking small actions now to get set up can make all the difference.

But do something. Take any action. Why not make 2010 your year!

Recommended Resource:
This month’s Inner Circle coaching call is all about planning for your success this year. Find out more and become a member here.

So let me ask you this: What are you doing for yourself now when you accomplish something, get through a tough week, etc.? It might be that you want to buy a new outfit or put away money for something special down the line. It actually doesn’t matter what you choose, just that you do something to commemorate the fact that you rock! :)

At a minimum, I want to recommend that you sit back for just a moment when you’ve done something important and just recognize what you’ve accomplished. It’s SO easy to sell yourself short, and we’re often taught not to think positively about ourselves or express those sorts of emotions, but what’s wrong with being proud that you’ve managed to do something like change a habit, eat a full day or week or month’s meals that are very healthy, or whatever you choose to examine?

That inner voice inside your head may also try to tell you that what you’ve done isn’t “as great” as something someone else has done or that you’ve done at other times. But every time you listen to that mind chatter, it keeps you from enjoying the moment.

So if you haven’t lately, here’s my personal invitation to you to think about what you’ve managed to do lately and do something nice for yourself. Doesn’t matter what it is if it’s healthy. And all you might need to do is just acknowledge your accomplishments to yourself (no small feat). Even if it feels funny at first, just do it anyway. It’s good for you in ways you might not yet be able to fathom.

Here are a few things you can do to enjoy a healthier Halloween with your family:

1) Focus on the fun of trick-or-treating. Half the fun of Halloween is just plain going door-to-door, getting treats the likes of which you don’t know until you get there and seeing other folks in your neighborhood do the same. Special events are about more than just food, and Halloween is one of the most fun holidays there is!

2) Create a fun, spooky atmosphere. My son is still too young to appreciate scary stuff, and I tend to like the cheerier spooky stuff myself, so we stuck mainly to pumpkins for our decor. But there are so many options for creating a great Halloween atmosphere in your home that require little time or expense. Consider adding a soundtrack to your decor, such as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” At most local department stores, I’ve seen Halloween CDs available in the Halloween decor section. Growing up, we had a fabulous Disney album full of spooky sounds, but it’s sadly only available on vinyl (used) and is probably considered an antique by now. :)

3) Make rules about candy and avoid arguing. I recommend limiting the amount of candy your child can eat to, say, 2 pieces on Halloween night and 1 piece for the next few nights at most. Moms of older kids swear that you can throw out most of the candy without your kids even noticing, but I’ve not tried it. In my household, we’re not having any candy because of our food allergy issues, but I’ll be making healthy cookies for our Halloween treats and decorating them with cute Halloween-themed cat pop-ups on toothpicks (available at Target and craft stores) — adorable and isn’t bad for you in the slightest.

4) Instead of giving out junk food yourself, get creative. This year, we’re giving out several things, depending on the age of the child. We’re new to the neighborhood as well, so I’m not sure how many visitors we’ll get. Some of what we’ve bought to give away are Halloween pencils and notepads, boxes of organic raisins and glow-in-the-dark bracelets. (I believe I got this idea from Dr. Fuhrman’s newsletter, and it’s a great one!) We ordered our glow-in-the-dark items a few weeks back, but I saw them sold at Michael’s just this week when looking for other supplies for one of our household’s costumes.

5) Fill yourself and the kids up on healthy food before you go out trick-or-treating. Unlike adults, most kids just plain do not eat when they’re not hungry — at least not much. So fill up your kids’ bellies (and your own!) with a hearty meal. I recommend something very filling like a vegetarian chili or stew, as well as a healthy dessert such as my Banana Oatmeal Cookies. As a treat, some apple cider that’s been simmered with a few cinnamon sticks would be warming without being very unhealthy.

6) Create events to take place on Halloween that aren’t about food. I haven’t tried this yet for Halloween because my son is so small, but it has worked for other holidays quite well. You can create family traditions that are non-food-related by coming up with fun games to play, telling ghost stories, going for a drive to see Halloween decorations in neighborhoods farther afield … The possibilities are endless! But the basic concept is to come up with fun things to do that don’t revolve solely around food. One of the biggest challenges many of my coaching clients come to me with is how to deal with holidays and special events, and in reality, you have full control over so much of how your family’s time gets spent.

If you’re doing special stuff for Halloween that’s healthy that I’ve overlooked here, shoot me an email to share your ideas. I’d love to hear them!

When I opened my BodySoul Balance Coaching practice last year, I immediately began taking on new clients — women who wanted to beat their struggles with weight loss, emotional eating and unhealthy living — and have kept *very* busy since.

But early this year, I realized I needed to make a big shift. Why? Because if I can only coach individual moms one on one, that limits how I can help women just like you. (It would mean working around the clock to help no more than maybe 30 women at most!)

But other than working hard to be a great mom to my son, my biggest goal in life is to help as many struggling women as possible to take charge of their lives, to find out once and for all how fabulous it feels to love how you look and feel every day, to feel balanced and happy and empowered.

So I decided to create a unique coaching program where I can help you…

Even if you’re not ready for one-on-one coaching…

Perhaps it isn’t financially feasible for you in this tough economy…

Perhaps you’re still working up the mental energy to give healthy
eating and healthy living a real go and need motivation…

I’ve also gotten lots of requests from women just like you — so I know you’re craving more knowledge, more motivation, the proverbial kick in the pants you need to make big changes in your life (but as painlessly as possible!). That’s what my Inner Circle Coaching Club is all about.

If you decide to become a member, you’ll join a group of likeminded moms who are also in your same situation — stressed out and frustrated with your weight loss attempts, and very ready to get from that state of struggle to a place in your life where being thin and healthy is the norm, is simply the way you live your life.

I’m so proud to be able to offer this kind of coaching to you because I wish I’d had this kind of mentoring available when I was in need of it. It was much harder to learn the ropes of a healthy lifestyle and put it into action when I had to make up all the rules myself than it is when someone’s done the legwork for you! (I’m not talking about just what to eat. There’s so much more to it for most of us moms, who have so much going on taking care of our families that we have to get used to taking care of ourselves for a change.)

Have you recognized that you need the help of a mentor who’s been exactly where you are now in the past (overweight, feeling stuck, unhappy, not sure where to turn, in need of reassurance as you make your way into a healthier, happier way of living) and can guide you so that you don’t have to do it all by trial and error?

If that sounds like you, if you’re not getting where you want to go as quickly and easily as you’d hoped, if you need a kickstart, I strongly recommend that you consider becoming a part of my Inner Circle Coaching Club.

To get all the details, simply head to:

www.lgminnercircle.com

Oh, before I forget, I should also mention that there are some great bonuses for the first moms who join (like a free 30-minute coaching session with me!), but you can read more about all that at www.lgminnercircle.com

Here’s the quotation …

“It is not the critic who counts; not the [wo]man [or man] who points out how the strong [wo]man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the [wo]man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends [her]self in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if [s]he fails, at least [s]he fails while daring greatly. So that [her] place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Powerful words from Theodore Roosevelt, who seems to know that it takes hard work and making mistakes sometimes to achieve great things … including losing weight, tackling stressors head on and working hard to create your personal best life (if I do say so myself, those are particularly worthy causes!). :)

If you haven’t yet … engaged in your pursuit of a happier, healthier life for yourself, what are you waiting for?

Lately I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this idea of what fuels some people to stick to their guns and some not to when it comes to how they eat, and a lot of it comes down to, well, spunk, gumption … or, said more plainly, confidence to be themselves even in the face of adversity.

I assure you that most people in your life will be happy that you are getting healthier and happier when you change your lifestyle to a healthier one, but there’s always someone in the crowd who won’t be. It is quite literally ALWAYS someone insecure who sees you succeeding at something she (or he) cannot, and since that person can’t bear to look within to examine the actions she should take to change her own plight, she instead attacks you so that perhaps she can bring you back “down to her level,” which I say without condescension or meaning that there’s some sort of moral superiority to eating well. I say often that “it’s just food,” and I mean that; my life is so vastly, incredibly, indescribably improved by eating well every day, and yet even though I’ve made my career of helping women like you transition to healthier living and eating, I totally get that food is just but one aspect of a happy life. And it took more than changing what I ate to get happy myself.

I’ve not yet been in a position yet where I’ve had to defend my way of eating to anyone openly attacking me, even several years after making the initial switch, though I certainly have some naysayers who are still stuck in the mires of food addiction and choose the negative route about what I eat (and anything anyone else does that doesn’t make them happy, incidentally). And my son is young enough that I have total control over what he eats, so he eats what must be considered extremely healthfully by normal American standards.

But even on the odd occasions when someone has been rather questioning, and even in situations where I’ve had to explain how my family eats, I’ve found it pretty painless to do so. Call it spunk, call it whatever you want. I guess I’m pretty comfortable with the fact that I’m not here to please others; I’m here to lead my own best life. I try to be gracious, generous, accommodating at all times as much as possible, but at the end of the day, I have to protect myself and my family’s health, and if that goes against the grain, so be it.

Certainly this is a confidence issue, and it’s one I’ve spoken to many a client about lately — these issues seem to crop up in 3s or 4s.

But we can each gain confidence. I wasn’t “naturally” confident. I didn’t have a perfect life prior to losing the weight and changing my health, and I had little self-esteem for a large portion of my life. And yet now I do think I’m rather spunky. (I started a blog called LeanGreenMama. I suppose that shows some level of spunkiness, right?) ;)

I got here by following my heart, learning when to trust my Inner Voice and how to ignore my Inner Critic (that I also refer to as the Voice of Doom) who told me to play it “safe” (even when “safe” wasn’t actually safe, like when it told me not to change my eating habits because of fear), and essentially doing things to build up my sense of trust in who I am unfiltered. Meaning that I don’t try to please others; I just try to be myself and peacefully go about my business as much as possible, and that lets me feel good most of the time.

How about you? How do you handle these situations where you don’t quite fit in with the other folks because you’re trying to eat healthfully in a world full of greasy chicken wings and fried cheese? Are you spunky? Does your self-esteem hold you back from being the true you?

A couple thoughts:

1) Today I was at the grocery store loading up on healthy stuff to take on the road tomorrow afternoon (whole grain bread for my son, easily portable fruit, brazil nuts and other good stuff to tide us over while we’re gone overnight), and I had a flashback to the days when I was transitioning to healthy eating. I had made a rule for myself that I would not leave the grocery store with junk in my cart, and I recall having inner debates with myself *while at the store, pushing my shopping cart through the supermarket, probably looking mildly insane* :) and putting certain foods back due to this rule. If I hadn’t decided I wanted to be thin and healthy more than I wanted whatever it was that appealed at the time (I’m thinking it was chocolate-covered raisins or some such), I’d have left with those foods, eaten them, felt lousy, craved more sugar and other junk and not gotten where I wanted to go with my life nearly as quickly.

Once you decide, you have to really make the cut. It might be inconvenient or frustrating in the moment, but if you really choose health, you’ll do the right thing by saying no to what you want in the moment. Having simple rules to follow really helps.

2) Longer term, you can rely on previous positive experiences to motivate you. But it helps to have a clear focus.

I don’t have the same trouble I once did making changes in my diet when I need to because I’ve had so many positive experiences doing it now that I can rely on those to guide me. This will happen for you as well the longer you do it!

But occasionally I do still have to make tweaks in what I eat, and this past week was one such week because something just wasn’t working. And today, there I stood at Whole Foods, thankfully not hungry (seriously, folks, don’t go to the store if you’re hungry if this is a problem for you!) but still feeling a twinge of frustration that I couldn’t buy a particular item. (What it was is irrelevant because it’s a perfectly healthy food, just one that seems not to agree with my body.) There was a part of me that wanted to buy it and put off my body’s “cleanup” process until I had one more round. Might as well say one more fix, which is the truth of the matter because my body responds to the food like it’s a drug.

But again, I’m well-practiced at this by now, so my logic kicked in and said, “Jennifer, you like to feel good every day, right? You’re tired of these cravings you’ve had the last little while that you’ve been trying to figure this out, right?”

And reason took over, reminded me to walk past that section and I’m over it. In another couple days, I’ll care even less. And in the meantime, my body will have completely detoxed, I’ll be craving-free again and I’ll feel calm, steady and ready to tackle anything life throws at me.

That’s a pretty big motivator — that longer-term picture of happiness, of more patience with my son (you see, when I eat certain foods — like certain fruits, as is the case here — it affects my mood/temperament in a way I’d rather it not), of not feeling like I’m chasing after yet another fix from a food that my body doesn’t like, which leads to highly unnecessary highs and lows.

Do you have a picture of what you want to achieve in your mind? Do you have it written down? How vivid is it?

If you’re not clear on what you want, it’s much easier to get distracted there in the moment. I know that if I want to have my best possible life, I have to eat well to feel well, feel happy, not feel harried and impatient with a not-quite-20-month-old little boy who needs me to be his center, to be more productive in less time when I work, to help my clients as effectively as possible. What do you want? Really?

In essence, it comes down to:

a) making the decision

b) taking actions in line with your decision

Yes, I’m oversimplifying a bit here because making the decision alone can be quite challenging. But once you’ve truly decided that you want to live a healthier lifestyle, it becomes far less challenging to put one foot in front of the other and just do it.

But keep in mind this key concept:

Right now, you’re living the life you’ve chosen for yourself.

If you feel lousy right now, are overweight or are feeling trapped in a bad pattern, I know that’s not what you want to hear. And I’m not trying to be unsupportive. I know too well what it’s like to feel helpless (though we’re actually not helpless — it’s just an illusion we feel because we don’t know the steps yet to break out of the cycle).

But realistically, you are living your current life because of choices you have made. If you choose to eat food that causes you to have cravings, you are choosing discomfort and that whole dramatic cycle of cravings. If you feel out of balance and aren’t sure how to regain your footing, it’s because you’ve been taking actions that are, in fact, unbalanced. If you’re angry or frustrated or sad, it’s because you’ve made decisions that weren’t right for you, didn’t let you fulfill your potential.

Now, obviously (and I’ve said it here in this post already, so there!) :) I believe there’s a way out. In fact, I know there’s a way out. I’ve been that “trapped” and unhappy and unhealthy person, and yet now that’s nothing like who I am. And I escaped that life by deciding — making the cut, once and for all — that it wasn’t going to be that way anymore, that there had to be a better way. Even if I didn’t know the path I would have to take to get to that new place.

We can’t always know where we’re going before we go. Sometimes you just have to drive blind.

Have you made the decision — really — to become the person you truly wish to be? Thin, healthy, free, happy, balanced — you choose the qualities because it’s your life to lead. Do you want to be more adventurous? Choose that too! Afraid to claim too many of these things at once? Pick 2 or 3.

Relax, you can always change your mind later. But don’t sit back and not decide. Hovering there in the transition between the life you’re currently living and the life you wish to lead is painful. Far more painful, by the way, and chronic and frustrating and soul killing by far than actually going through with making the necessary changes to get thinner, healthier, more adventurous, more loving, just … more. If you’re happy how you are now, great. But if you’re not, not making the decision, not taking the actions you need to take — that’s what leads to regret.

There is so much life out there, so much potential, and you can truly decide to be anything you wish and make it happen. I know you can. I know it because I now lead an “I need to pinch myself to believe it” kind of good life — stressful sometimes, sure, and a work in progress like anyone else’s — and so can you.

Deciding makes a huge difference. Coaching can help you move in the right direction with the actions you take. And just believing that maybe you can be who you dream of being — that counts for a lot. I feel that we wouldn’t have the capacity to dream if we didn’t also have the capacity to become that which we dream of becoming. What’s your dream? Decide to make it happen. What are you waiting for?