Busting Through The Weight Loss Plateau

by

Annette Jones

Weight Loss Plateau

The weight loss plateau is not a phenomenon that is unique to Weight Loss as a plateau can happen in other parts of your life too. In your career, your relationships or even a form of exercise.

What all these things have in common is, that we get use to what we are doing, a little bit or boredom and a dash of no variety and bang! you slam into the brick wall and come to a complete stop.

The trick is to recognize when it’s about to hit and catch it before you start the spiral into the abyss of the roundabout of “Here we go again”.

It’s human nature and completely normal to hit a plateau and everybody does it at sometime when they are losing weight.

I know, it’s really unfair as up until this point you have been “really good” “followed the plan step by step” and “stuck to the exercise plan like glue” you have worked really hard and quite frankly feel a little ripped off!

Being Honest With Yourself

To bust through the weight loss plateau takes courage. Courage to be completely honest with yourself. Much of it is a mind game and if you are in control and not negative Nancy or Nigel, then you are already in front.

What tends to happen is we become a bit slack. We stop writing down the foods that we are eating every day. We use to follow the theory if we bite it – we write it, however, now we just guess. It’s amazing how those little morsels of food and the nutritional additions can soon add up.

Perhaps your portion sizes have crept up? Exercise has become monotonous and boring too. Be honest here!

Chemical Reactions & Metabolism

A weight loss plateau can also happen because of a chemical reaction in your body too.

How exciting is it when you are in those first couple of weeks, the pounds or kgs are dropping off, you are feeling good and even a little bit sassy!

…and then it stops…

There is a type of carbohydrate called Glycogen found in the liver and muscles and when your food intake or calories are reduced your body releases Glycogen to use it as energy.

When Glycogen is used as energy it also let’s go of water that it stores, hence in those first few weeks weight loss can be credited to water loss.

A weight loss plateau happens as your metabolism slows— energy burning slows down as you begin to lose muscle. Your not burning the same amount of energy and calories and therefore hit a weight loss plateau! You repeat the daily activities that had such success when you initially started, you feel like you are peddling uphill and getting nowhere!

The Solution? Change It Up!

There are two solutions both are the initial causes of weight gain in the first place! Calories eaten and expulsion of energy!

Let me be more specific as you already know that, right?!

Go Back To the Beginning

Have a look at WHY you started, reignite yourself, check that there are no holes in your plan, (you DO have a plan don’t you?), is there something you are not following or doing now that you were doing? Remember BE HONEST. It’s OK if you have, pat yourself on the back, readjust and MOVE ON!

Check Your Portions

Have a look at your portion sizes are you adding a little here and there? Taste testing in the kitchen more often (Guilty!)?

Change up your food too, remember that’s why we have cheat days to “trick” our bodies, they have a memory for what is normal so change it up add a shake a couple of times a week, reduce your calorie in-take on some days.

Don’t go overboard here just subtle changes combined with other subtle changes will win out.

Take Your Workouts to a Whole New Level!

Change it up! If you have been only walking add some jogging. I started by jogging from one lamp post to another and then played a game with myself and added another lamp post and another lamp post until I was jogging the whole circuit.

Add some classes, Zumba and Belly Dancing are a lot of fun helps you to really move your body and sweat it out.

Add some weights to build muscle, this will help strip fat, win-win! Tones and tightens too!

Visualize & Imagination

This is THE most important step throughout your whole weight loss journey.

Do you have a picture in your minds eye of how you want to look and feel when you reach the size and shape you are journeying towards?

Without this it would be like wanting to travel from Vegas to L.A. without knowing the directions, not having a map and not knowing some of the details of how to reach L.A.

Get that pair of jeans out the back of your closet…you know the ones I mean… and hang them up somewhere you can see them EVERY day. Spend a few minutes looking at them or thinking about when you use to wear them, what were you doing, who were you with and most importantly how did you feel?

Those jeans hold memories and perhaps they are the very key to you busting through your weight loss plateau!

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30 Day Ab Challenge

I posted the image that you see here on the Weight Loss Mother Facebook page and the response has been amazing with the amount of people signing up for the 30 Day Ab Challenge.

So many of you are interested in tightening, toning & firming your abs!

We all have a 6 pack, some are just hidden under a layer of fat or two. The idea being when we exercise we burn fat, therefore reducing the amount of fat that covers certain parts of our bodies.

Exercising Abs doesn’t necessarily mean we will get a lean, mean Ab machine, however, it will guarantee some tightening and toning of the muscle that sits underneath. It’s been well documented that we can’t spot reduce. We can’t chose a part of our body, exercise it like crazy and see results. There’s a bit more to it than that.

For any fat loss to occur there has to be less food or calories going in and more movement or exercise going on.

The #30DayAbChallenge and some cardio thrown into the mix will certainly make a difference to the shape of your body, over the 30 days.

**Disclaimer, Please check with your physician before you attempt any form of exercise.

Naturally, there are many ways to do these exercises, please use these as a guideline.

30 Day Ab Challenge Exercise 1 Sit Ups

30 Day Ab Challenge – Sit Ups

1. Lie on the floor or mat with your knees bent and your feet flat on the ground
2. Place your hands behind your ears or cross your arms over your chest with your hand place on your opposite shoulder
3. Tighten your Abs pulling your belly button in towards your back (this will help support your lower back)
4. Keeping your eyes looking forwards and your feet firmly on the ground slowly lift your head, shoulders, shoulder blades and pull up from the floor keeping your abs tight. Rise up to about 90 degrees
5. Hold for a second then slowly roll back keeping your upper body slightly of the floor or mat
6. Repeat steps 3-5 for the amount of sit ups

30 Day Ab Challenge Exercise 2 – Crunches

30 Day Ab Challenge – Crunches

1. Lie on the floor or mat
2. Bend your knees and keep you feet flat on the floor OR if you want to lift your feet about an inch off the floor for some extra “Crunch”
3. Cross your arms across your chest placing opposite hands on shoulders
4. Tuck your fingers behind your ears or place your hands behind your neck, if you take the second option be sure not to pull on your neck as it doesn’t allow for the full movement through the crunch, plus this can place a strain on your back
5. Looking up to the ceiling curl your back isolating and using only your abs. You should be able to pop a tennis ball between your chin and chest, so no cheating and taking the easy way out! Keep your elbows back, and roll down gently after holding for a few seconds
6. Repeat for the required number depending what day you are on

30 Day Ab Challenge Exercise 3 – Leg Raises

#30DayAbChallenge – Leg Raises

1. Lie on the floor or mat, legs stretched out in front of you
2. Bend your legs at the knees and point your toes
3. Lift your legs from the knees down taking your toes towards the ceiling, keep your toes pointed
4. Very slowly lower your legs to the floor still with your toes pointed until they are about an inch off the floor
5. Slowly raise your legs back to the ceiling
6. Repeat for the required number depending what day you are on

30 Day Ab Challenge Exercise 4 – Planks

30 Day Ab Challenge – Planks

1. Lie on the floor face down coming up on your forearms and elbows
2. Make sure your elbows are directly under you shoulders
3. Legs together, tuck your toes under so they will help balance your body and push up as if you are going to do a push up
4. Stay in a straight line from toes to the top of your head, keeping your back straight and your abs engaged
5. Hold for 15 secs then each day increase by 5 seconds
6. Repeat for the required number depending what day you are on

As you are working from the inside, why not consider the outside of your body too? Body wraps are the hottest new thing to market and are a great kick start or add on to getting healthy sexy body inside and out, it can speed up the process too. You can read about Body Wraps here.

Good luck and be sure to let me know how you are going below with your 30 Day Ab Challenge!

The post 30 Day Ab Challenge appeared first on Weight Loss Mother.

Emotional Eating

Emotional Eating, nah I don’t do that…

…and then it suddenly dawned on me, emotional eating was a big part of my life. Mine?!

It seemed overnight I’d gone from one of those girls who use to be able to eat anything, not gain any weight, would look good in a potato sack into an overweight, to someone who took part in emotional eating.

Emotional eating started for me as unhappiness before I separated and divorced from my second husband. I wasn’t happy in the relationship so I ate to comfort myself instead.

Since meeting him I stacked on a massive amount of weight (for me), the most I’d weighed in my entire life other than when I was pregnant! How had that happened?

Initially it was that love sick period of time when you first meet someone and dinners, lunches and socializing is part of the whole scene.

Then when the love drug wore off and we returned to our normal selves, as our comfort levels rose and defenses dropped, those not-so-wonderful traits emerged from both of us. Things that we once thought were cute about each other were now as irritating as sandpaper!

I could make a (long) list of things in my head that I didn’t like and focused on them daily. Not intentionally of course, but like anything, the more you focus on that thing (wanted or not) the more that thing continues to show up in your life!

I took comfort in food to help with the stress and fill the ever growing empty space inside me. This is where my apprenticeship of emotional eating began I kind of let myself go in the whole “who cares about weight” thing.

Emotional eating drove me to seek happiness from my outside world in the form of food and drink, instead of my inside world where all answers hid waiting to be discovered.

My husband and I separated. I was unhappy and so was he; it was inevitable that we would separate when I look back.

After 5 short years of being married I gained 34lbs (15 kgs), not a bad effort for someone who is only 5’3 and use to be able to eat anything without putting on an ounce of weight. Cellulite and fat certainly hadn’t taken up residence either up until this time, so that was a shock to my system too.

What a mess my life was and I was a long way from self love, respect, appreciation and acceptance of myself.

Instead I had feeling of self loathing, anger, ate to soothe myself and the pain I was feeling. Every day I disliked myself due to my weight. I became obsessed with how I looked, felt revolting in my larger clothes and wore loose fitting clothes that were comfortable over my ever growing tummy and thighs.

Then out of the blue I received a phone call from a girlfriend one Friday afternoon. She had a spare ticket to an introductory weekend for a course and would I like to attend?

I said yes I would go, as I had nothing planned anyway. I sat in the room with the 80 other people before the weekend started, I knew I would go on and do the whole program, it was time to face the demons that had plagued me for years.

The program was great and I learnt so much about my behavior and how it developed, how I could change my behavior I didn’t like (emotional eating), together with creating new beliefs and habits.

I learnt about my values (what is important to me) and if my life doesn’t line up according to my values how that effects me and what I can do to improve it if I don’t like it.

Emotional Eating – Make a Decision

One of the biggest “aha moments” for me was how my mind could run my life, IF I let it.

If I reacted to life, rather than respond to life I would continue to love junk food, hate exercise and quickly realized I needed to change my mindset. This included what I thought about myself, what I said to myself and I needed to be aware of negative thoughts and words that constantly flowed out of my mouth!

I learnt how to heal the underlying issues that I was feeling that had turned me to emotional eating. Once I opened my self up to my issues it was like watching a movie on the big screen about my life.

I could see where the triggers were, my reactions and how I handled not only emotional eating, but life in general too. The good thing about that was I could create a different movie about my life, how I wanted it to be and how I wanted to feel instead.

This wasn’t just about positive thinking or saying affirmations every day, this was getting to some core issues deep down within myself, like peeling back an onion layer by layer.

I gave myself permission to reveal and heal, made a decision instead of covering up and festering feelings of shame, I learnt to forgive and accept – both myself and other people that had crossed my path.

Is Emotional Eating Still a Part of My Life?

Do I consider myself “healed” from emotional eating? I’d say no as in much the same way someone who has been sober for 20 years after drinking alcohol to excess.

They still called themselves an alcoholic, even though they haven’t touched a drop in 20 years. They have just learnt to master their emotions and their minds so they don’t use alcohol to drown their pain.

As a self confessed emotional eater I have learnt to notice what the emotions and feelings are that send me in the direction of the fridge or the pantry. I create a different picture with my thoughts, have a bit of a chat to myself, change my focus and drink a glass of water or choose a piece of fruit instead.

Am I perfect? No Way! In fact giving up being perfect was a big part of my emotional eating . Far from perfect and happily confess to that, I no longer see myself and talk about myself as an emotional eater either.

Come and say Hi on Facebook, I’d love to meet you!

The post Emotional Eating = Emotional Eater appeared first on Weight Loss Mother.

Weight Loss Formula

Weight Loss Formula

by Annette Jones

We’ve talked about self-talk and weight loss and self belief and weight loss in previous posts now it’s time to unveil the Weight Loss Formula! Here it is…

D x V x P > C

I can hear your mind ticking just looking at that formula, don’t worry it’s really easy to understand, let me explain.

(D)esire x (V)ision x (P)lan > (C)

The weight loss formula is all about change. Now before you go clicking on that X at the top of the page to back yourself right out of here, read on as this really is the secret to losing weight, the true weight loss formula.

Weight Loss Formula – THE “D” – DO – DIS-SATISFIED – DEMAND

In order for us to DO something (take action) about the thing we are not happy about, i.e. weight loss, we have to be VERY DIS-SATISFIED with where we are RIGHT now.

We then have to DEMAND something different from ourselves…not the same old same old.

You’ve tried everything, right? And all those other things didn’t work, that’s why you are reading this post.

Your attitude to weight loss has to be I will accept NOTHING less! AND I AM prepared to DO WHATEVER it takes. Then, and ONLY then, will change take place, i.e.weight loss and keeping it of permanently. That my friends is the REAL SECRET not just to weight loss but for anything in our life that we want to change.

Weight Loss Formula – THE “V” – VISION

Do you have a vision of what you want to look like when you have reached your goal? Just an “I want to lose weight” goal won’t be sufficient, you have to know. Do you have a picture of what you want to look like, a pair of jeans you want to fit into, a favorite dress perhaps?

Can you see what your life will look like when you reach your goal, what will you be doing differently than what you are doing right now?

Take that picture, pair of jeans or dress and put them where you will see them EVERYDAY in your VISION until you reach your goal!

Weight Loss Formula – THE “P” – PLAN

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Unless you have a plan of attack the “what” you are going to do and “when”, it is very unlikely that you will achieve what you set out to achieve.

Putting your plan in writing is very powerful and you are just about guaranteed of winning when you write something down, no matter what it is!

Weight Loss Formula – THE “C” – CHANGE

Change is probably the least favourite thing for humans to do, but what stops us, what REALLY stops us??? Oh, it’s not the actual change itself as in the process but the PERCEIVED cost (to ourselves) of change. Meaning, what we think we have to do for that change to take place.

Change that thought and then there is NO limit. It’s only your thoughts and beliefs that really holds you back. Master them and you can have just about anything in life, not just weight loss and looking & feeling better.

The GOOD NEWS is, there are all sorts of support material literally at our finger tips that also support our self talk, self beliefs and the willingness to change!

Let talk about the obvious first, you are HERE right, reading this blog, connecting on Facebook or Stumble and talking to me on Twitter?

You are already THINKING about change, (taking some action) and perhaps you have for quite some time and have decided NOW is YOUR time, so pat yourself on the back for that!

There are other ways to help support yourself too, you can

• Read books that motivate and inspire you
• Listen to an audio
• Watch a DVD/You Tube clip that has a positive message

Ask yourself if the following serve you do they help you move towards what you want…

• Radio
• T.V.
• Friends
• Family
• Work Colleagues

…and also ask yourself if they encourage you to think and speak positively in your self-talk about your body? Do they nourish your mind and make you feel good about yourself or not?

How we think about ourselves and speak about ourselves and what we say, all contribute to how we feel about ourselves. What we believe to be true either works for us or against us and sometimes we feel like we need all the help we can get.

Start with yourself, start watching your thoughts, listen to your self-talk and self beliefs make a decision, make a plan and follow the weight loss formula and you will win every time!

The post Weight Loss Formula appeared first on Weight Loss Mother.

What does Self Belief have to do with weight loss?

by Annette Jones

Self Belief

In my last post I discussed Self-Talk and how it effects Weight Loss. In this post we move on to self belief and in particular the beliefs we have about ourselves, how we feel and how that can effect weight loss.

Watching and listening to our our self-talk is step one and knowing what we believe about our bodies and our self belief is step two.

Before I get to beliefs in general let me define what a belief is. A belief is a thought that you keep thinking. Say it often enough, think it often enough and you soon start believing it.

Beliefs can also start from other people. Something that a teacher, family member or friend said to you years ago that you take on board. That’s OK if that belief works for you, but what if a belief works against you?

If you are told over and over that you are stupid, won’t amount to much, won’t make anything of your life and had worse legs than a table, you could still be holding onto that belief today.

That was me and I was told all of those things by a cranky old mathematics teacher in high school. Although she was knowledgeable (or so I believed at the time) she was also very cruel with her words. I heard it so often from her and use to think about what she said over and over, so I believed her.

That was until I started learning about how our minds work and how we can change our very own beliefs. I found out all sorts of things that I believed in wasn’t true! Sure I wasn’t great at math, in fact I really detested math (I wonder why?) I felt under pressure to learn, panicked that I wouldn’t be able to learn, kept thinking I couldn’t learn, kept telling myself I wasn’t good at math and therefore couldn’t learn.

It wasn’t until I went to University to learn how to teach adults (as a mature age student), that I found out that I was smarter than I thought, even topped the class in Human Resources!

Now I didn’t tell that story to impress you, I told it to impress UPON you that some of the beliefs you hold about yourself right now, might not even be true! And that’s OK,  because you are not alone in your thinking, as just about every single human being on the planet has/or had beliefs about themselves that aren’t true and don’t serve them!

Problem with beliefs that aren’t true is, they effect your self esteem and your confidence. They start to chip away, bit-by-bit, until you start living according to those beliefs. Then you wake up one day and realize how miserable you feel, how unenthusiastic you are, often to the point of feeling depressed.

When talking about weight loss, if we are not feeling that great about ourselves,  feeling depressed, etc, our self esteem drops along with our confidence. Studies have shown that if we are unhappy then we also tend to overeat. I’m sure you have heard all about emotional eating and how that can lead to weight gain so I won’t go into that again.

The GOOD news is we can DO something about our self belief by simply changing the way we think about them and taking some action.  It’s that simple! No digging around in the past, no hard stuff, no months of therapy, it’s a simple as making a new belief about exactly the same thing that was causing us to agonize about our bodies.

Stayed tuned for the next post that covers that all important step, action (or if you can’t wait you can connect with me on Facebook). Uplifting self talk, self belief, taking ACTION and understanding the Weight Loss Formula will all take you to the next level of moving towards the goals you have set for yourself!

The post What Does Self Belief Have to Do With Weight Loss? appeared first on Weight Loss Mother.

Almond and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Healthy Almond and Choc Chip Cookies

Sometimes we would all like to have a little something sweet with a hot drink, after a meal or for a quick snack and if can be a healthy treat so much the better. Why not make that little something a healthy treat nutritious and tasty too?

The following recipe swaps flour for almond meal making this recipe also Gluten Free. The cookies are full of healthy fats and antioxidants but don’t let that  fool you though, just as with their unhealthy, sugar loaded cousins, if you eat too many,  you will put on weight.

Ingredients

2 cups almond meal
1 tsp baking soda
A pinch of Himalayan salt
1/4 cup organic coconut oil
2 tbsp Organic Maple Syrup or raw honey
Small handful of cacao nibs

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and grease and line a baking tray in preparation

Place the almond meal, baking soda, salt, coconut oil and maple syrup into a bowl. Mix all the ingredients together until combined thoroughly.

Once the ingredients are combines add the cacao nibs.

Roll the mixture into small balls

Press each ball down onto the lined baking tray just using your fingers or if you want a fancier look use the back of a fork

Bake in the oven for approx 8-15 minutes checking around the 10 minute mark.

Transfer the cookies on to a rack until cool

Enjoy these healthy treats with your favorite coffee, tea or just enjoy by themselves

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Self-Talk

What DOES self-talk have to do with weight loss?

Everything! Self talk can affect your confidence, self esteem and have a real impact on how you feel and what you think about yourself.

Some of the most common problems I hear from women that really want to lose weight is that they have a lack of time, lack of will power or lack of self-control, and can I tell you, it’s NOT your fault!

One thing I want you to understand is that you are not alone and EVERY person on the planet has this very same problem about something that is going on in their lives, unless your control your own mind, IT will control you!

And that’s OK for all the mechanics of our bodies that we don’t want to think about and have control over, such as a regular heart beat, imagine every second of every day for your entire life having to tell your very own heart to beat, you would have no time for anything else!

There are several areas that we can be aware of about how and what we think and explore, however,  the first area we can take a look at is what are the conversations going on in your head and are they uplifting words about you or not?

What IS  your own self talk, what do you say to yourself? Are you aware of them or you haven’t got a clue of what I am talking about?

I’m not talking about “Positive thinking” either…

Introducing Negative Nancy’s Self-Talk

Here’s what I mean.

For example, you think to yourself “I’d really like to buy that dress, I really like it” and without you even realizing why, you can be walking OUT of the store without the dress you REALLY liked and wanted!

So what just happened my friend is the conversation in your head that controlled whether you bought the dress or not.  Your own self talk and it generally goes something like this.

“I’d really like that new dress, I love the color” “What, that one? You wouldn’t look good in that” Or “What, that color wouldn’t suit you” or “Nah that would look way better on someone else than you”.

In that short time, right in that moment that sometimes constant companion, Negative Nancy, talked you out of buying that dress in an instant!

Nancy probably controls way more than you even realize. She probably tells you stuff like

• you can’t do that
• you are not good enough
• what makes you think you can do that?
• someone else is way better at that than you
• you wouldn’t fit in there
• what are you looking at those new trainers for, you know you’ll never use them
• have that piece of chocolate cake, you can always start again tomorrow
• etc, etc

I bet you could even add a few of your own in there yourself!

So how do you change that?

First let me remind you again that it’s NOT your fault and it’s all the life experiences that you have had in the past that brings you to this exact spot!

People, situations and the stories we tell ourselves, really shape the person we become, especially in those first 7 years of our lives.

It could have been a friend, a childhood sweetheart, a well meaning family member, a teacher or your peers. It could have been something you saw on the T.V., heard on the radio or read in a magazine that lead you to believe whatever Nancy is constantly chattering to you about, day in, day out.

The exposure varies but the impact can be the same, something that was said to you along time ago can still be impacting your life, right now, to this very day!

Imagine a 6 year olds point of view, running your life today, not the actual 6 year old but the way the 6 year old thought at the time. That my friend could be happening to you, I know this for a fact because I’ve found it out about myself!

Just last weekend I bumped into an old friend I hadn’t see for a few years. She had lost alot of weight back then and was dealing with a crisis and a lot of issues in her life and we lost touch because of where she was in her life.

I commented how good she looked and how much healthier she looked too. Her immediate reply was that she’d put ON weight (which she has) I said she looked better for it, “yeah” she said “but I have to tell myself that and see myself in that light” she has her own self-talk going on as we all do.

What to Do About Your Own Self-Talk

So what is there to do about our own self-talk?

We are always thinking, hearing or doing something to improve our bodies and in the process we have forgotten all about our minds, the very thing that runs the show. Which is totally OK because you might not have even known about it until this very moment!

We have lots of positive opinions about others but not a lot of positive opinions about ourselves. True?

I want you to really think about this and become aware of the self-talk that is going on in your head. Is negative Nancy chatting away day in, day out?

Is she bossing you around telling you what to do & how to do it? AND do you also realize in this process you DON’T agree with her?

This is the first step in taking your control back over your own mind and your own self talk. Awareness is the all important key to unlocking the door to whatever you want to achieve in life, not just weight loss.

Will you EVER have full total control? Probably not, however, just becoming AWARE that Negative Nancy exists let’s you know that you can at least take control of the conversation!

Remember this is NOT about “Positive Thinking” or being egotistical about yourself, it’s just watching, observing, listening and being aware  of what is going on with your self talk.

In the next few days write down in your journal or notebook a few of the words or sentences that you catch yourself saying as you go about your day and here is  the next installment about self-talk and its relationship to weight loss and what to do next.

The post What Has Self-Talk Got to Do With Weight Loss? appeared first on Weight Loss Mother.

Recently I watched a short YouTube clip about how we think we look and how that image of ourselves could be really different to the actual reality how we really do appear to others, i.e. our own perception of our body image.

A soap company made the clip, however, the clip has nothing to do with soap and everything to do with how we feel about, see and describe ourselves.

You can watch it here I found it really interesting…

I have also been doing lots of research lately and here’s what I have learnt

•  Many women are really concerned about how they look to other people
• Many women have a distorted image of themselves, what they see in the mirror and what is reality
• That image is always negative and related to size and weight loss/gain
• Many women would like to be able eat healthy, exercise and have a balanced lifestyle
• Many women want to feel happier

We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded from the media with images of celebrities, models and also suggesting  that skinny women are somehow more acceptable than women who are not.

I’m sure some of those are no surprise to you.

Although we know somewhere in our logical mind that most (about 95%) of those images are always photo-shopped (you do don’t you?) plus drinking more water, eating more vegetables, eating less sugar, cutting out junk altogether and exercising will not only makes us feel better, it will help us lose weight too, many women don’t.

Why is that?

The truth behind this my friend is quite a complex one and the quality of our food and process to produce it, alone contributes quiet a bit, however, the missing piece of the puzzle is quite simple. It’s all to do with how we think, the stories we tell ourselves together with who or what is running the show.

We are so well educated about weight loss, i.e. emotional eating, eat less calories, burn more energy through exercise, portion sizes and control, variety of foods, food grouping and combining, there is not much we don’t know and if we care to know more we would just have to “Google It” anyway to find lots of different answers.

That said, I don’t challenge any of the above as I am talking about the our mindset, our body image that we already hold and the strength of our will.

How we talk to ourselves, what are we saying to ourselves and how we say it and when are we saying it, all has to do with the, (as in the case of the media), information we are receiving.

Our mind has a constant bombardment of information coming in from our surroundings (think TV, radio, people, the internet) and then depending on our values, how and what our mind filters (according to our beliefs) depends on what we actually do with that information.

We can really praise ourselves or we can beat up on ourselves, the choice is ours, if we know how to take control of our mind.

We have a constant conversation going on (in our own head) as we have an opinion on just about everything! Just ask me I’ll tell you hehe!

The trick is to be an eavesdropper on the conversation and argue your case and to take change and your own mind. You’ve probably already done this with a piece of cake at least once!

Before we can do that tho we have to be certain about what we want and what we are prepared (and not prepared) to do about it.

Here’s what you need for a strong will and mindset, have a postive body image, so you can lose weight easily and successfully

• You have to have made a “decision”, not just a yeah it would be nice to lose weight or a “yeah I want to lose weight” that is a dream not a decision, you HAVE to be in a place where you are GOING to lose weight period. NO MATTER WHAT!
• You know WHY you want to lose weight
• You have a goal
• Your goal is written down
• You know How and have a plan

They are the first crucial points you need to consider and take action around to take control of your own mind and lose weight. Only when you do this, your weight will change to where you want it to be and so will your mindset and body image.

The post Body Image – Is Yours Really What You Think It Is? appeared first on Weight Loss Mother.

Healthy Slow Cooked Lamb

A leg of Lamb is a lean cut of meat, therefore low in fat, it can be roasted, cut into leg steaks or slow cooked as with this recipe. The meat is full of vitamins and minerals and has a beautiful full and almost sweet flavor and a bonus is it can be found almost all year round.

Lamb is my favorite red meat, I would prefer it to any other as I love the flavor, it’s plentiful and reasonably priced.

Lamb is also one of the few animals in some parts of the world where they are mostly grass fed, rather than grains which most of the cows and pigs that are sent to feedlots for fattening.

This following recipe is an easy set and forget way to serve up a healthy, nutritional meal for your family with very little effort. It was inspired by numerous slow cooked recipes and morphed into my own over time.

 Ingredients

4.40 lbs or 1 x 1.8 – 2 kg leg of lamb

4 Anchovy Fillets (trust me here, even if you don’t like them)

3 large cloves garlic, quartered

A good mineral or sea salt (I use pink Himalayan salt)

Freshly ground black pepper

2 bouquet garnis (you can use ready made ones, or make your own, see ingredients below)

1 small fresh piece of celery

1 tablespoon of cold pressed olive oil (optional)

1 cup (250ml) full-flavored veal or chicken stock (home made if you have it)

1 cup (250ml) dry white wine (if don’t want alcohol in your dish then use more stock)

Utensils

String (if you are using fresh ingredients for your bouquet garnis)

Kitchen Towel

Sharp Knife

Method

A bouquet garnis is a collection of herbs, usually a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme and parsley stalks. Bunch the herbs together with the celery and tie with string.

Take the anchovy fillets out of the jar and lie on kitchen paper.  Cut each anchovy fillet into 3 pieces.

With the tip of a sharp knife, make 6 deep incisions into teach side of lamb.

Insert 1 piece of anchovy and 1 sliver of garlic into each incision.

Grind pepper over lamb and rub in a little salt.

Heat oil in a heavy-based frying pan and seal lamb on all sides until a rich golden brown if using the olive oil (This recipe tastes just as good with out the olive oil)

Add lamb and bouquet garnis to your slow cooker, then pour in stock and wine (if you are using it).

Healthy Slow cooked Lamb

Put on lid on, choose the low setting if you have one on your slow cooker and set for 8 hours

When the lamb is cooked and ready to serve, remove from the slow cooker and carefully transfer meat to a hot serving dish, it will probably fall apart at this stage!

Healthy Slow Cooked Lamb

Thicken the juices with 2 tablespoons or cornflour mixed with a the cold water and stir until cooked or just Pour the juices into a sauce-boat without tickening

Gently carve meat (it will be very tender and will fall apart if it hasn’t already).

Moisten meat generously with cooking juices and serve

Serve with your favorite vegetables, here I served with Leek, Carrots, Snap Peas & Broccoli. Mashed potato is the perfect comfort food to accompany the healthy slow cooked Lamb too, enjoy!

Healthy Slow Cooked Lamb

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