Breathe Energy & New Life into Your Why

Hi Thrivers!

We have new people – and  welcome!! – I’m sharing five super important posts to read below. Every Monday I send a newsletter to you and these posts will make the Monday posts a lot easier to understand. And if you haven’t received your Aunt Bea copy just write to me at: Wendy@theInspiredEater.com and I’ll shoot it over.

• Begin Here
• This Metaphor Is My Constant Companion as I Preserve My Weight Loss After Age Fifty
• Brownies for Breakfast
• 6 Pillars of Losing Weight After Age 50
• How to Conquer Your Evening Sugar Cravings

Pearl One

You Know More Than You Think You Do. Both you and I have space in our mind where our subconscious dwells and just like you wouldn’t rush at a frightened animal, we shouldn’t storm our subconscious either. She’ll speak to us through our writing, but first she needs to feel respected and valued before she’ll show up and share her wisdom. Once she sees proof that we’re one-hundred percent-in, watch the gems pour forth from your pen onto the page (laptops are wonderful too).

Knowing that my motivation has changed through the years, taking the time to explore why I’m still adamant about creating a lifetime-weight loss for myself has been crucial.

I wrote to these journal prompts this morning:

• What strengths do you bring to any endeavor?
• Do you remember a time (on any topic, not only food and weight) when you were super motivated and crushed it?
• Can you identify what drove you to success that particular time?
• Think of a second time when you were outrageously successful. Why did you pursue success as hard as you did? In your mind and in your journal, “stack” the two spectacular memories and memorize the stack. Wake up, go to sleep, bring the stack to life.
• In general, how do you keep your momentum up during the “messy middle?
• If someone were to call you obsessive, what are you obsessive about?
• What is the “fluffiest” reason you want a forever-loss?
• What’s one of the deeper reasons?
• Would it be catastrophic if you don’t lose/preserve at this point in life? Why or why not?
• What does “immersing” yourself in your why mean to you?
• Who/what means more to you than anything in the world and how are they connected to your forever-loss?
• And from Mark Manson: what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?

Realign your why every morning in your journal and watch the imagery come to life. ♥

Pearl Two

How to Strengthen Your Why. You’ve identified what’s motivating you, now take a moment to think about strengthening your why. What do I mean by strengthening? Let’s say that you identify your grand kids as being the reason you want to lose forty pounds. Your goal is to stay super active so that you’re able to take the kids to the beach to fly a kite or to Disneyland to stand in line. These are ways I strengthen my whys. If you have a fun way of strengthening, please share in the comments below.

• Keep photos of your grand kids front and center, not just in the living room, but in the kitchen where you’ll see their little faces every day. Use smart-self talk and say this photo represents why you’re putting in such effort to trek the Smart Eating Path. (When the going gets tough, this picture will immediately take you back to your why.) 
• Go “Oprah” on your why and create a vision board about it. (I still remember a vision board from thirty years ago. Vision boards work.)
• Write in your journal each day about your why. The goal: to keep what drives you front-and-center.
• Give yourself time each day to think about how pivotal the work you’re doing now will be for your grand kids in the future. As you’re imaging your success, what do you see? What do you hear? Smell? Feel? And think? Go deep into this imagery every day and/or think about this picture just as you’re falling to sleep at night. A dear friend did this exercise and said, “flying a kite on the beach with my granddaughter” was – and still is – her strengthened why. ♥

Pearl Three

Sequencing is taken directly from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The purpose of sequences is to help us move from reacting to circumstances to responding. I encourage you to do a sequence a day in your journal. Powerful stuff.

Automatic Sequence

• Situation (something super concrete): I wasn’t able to buy the house close to my grand kids.
• Thought: Oh, no!!! The ideal home becomes available, and I didn’t move fast enough. Just great.
• Feeling: Anger. I’m so mad. Trying to buy the home from another state is hard.
• Action: I’m in a terrible mood.
• Result: I spend my entire day ticked off.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation (something super concrete): I wasn’t able to buy the house close to my grand kids.
• Chosen Thought: Darn it! I choose to see missing out on the house as it wasn’t meant to be mine. More houses will come along.
• Feeling: Understood.
• Action: I start looking at houses by my grand kids.
• Result: I stay patent and remind myself that the right house will along. ♥

Pearl Four

Books love us and want us to be happy

Still Alice by Lisa Genova is a story of a Harvard professor who gets early Alzheimer’s. Genova has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard and watched her grandmother descend into Alzheimer’s. she, wrote an amazing debut novel.

But – I know you’re wondering — can a science-y type really write an interesting book? This one sure can. Tasty book dessert. You might remember another neuroscientist who had a stroke and wrote about her experience in My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. Her TED Talk is excellent too. ♥

Pearl Five

Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards.”  Tony Robbins ♥

A friend’s son — same age as my kids — is a biochemistry Honors student at a prestigious university and won a scholarship that covers one year of master’s study at the University of Cambridge!! Meanwhile my two are on the couch watching Wicked.

It would be wonderful that if you like theInspiredEater.com that you share with your loved one.

Have a smart eating week!!

♥, Wendy

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!!

I am not an expert, doctor, surgeon, nurse, dietician, or nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.