This year my son has begun little athletics.  I have never been one of the parents to just watch from the sidelines, i like a job and I like to be involved in any way possible (this may well have something to do with my ADHD). A couple of weeks ago I was given the job of bell ringer for the longer distance events. Our local athletics club has a wonderful culture, it is not all about winning but rather about fun, friendship and doing YOUR best.

If you have ever run the middle distance events like the 800m and the 1500m you will know just how taxing they can be. Whilst watching and cheering the kids on I began to notice a trend.  The first 3 or 4 kids to finish would cross the line, fall in an exhausted heap panting their lungs out.  Interestingly however the second group of kids when they crossed the line would have barely blown out a candle.  They crossed the line, picked up their drink bottles and calmly wondered off towards the next event.  This second group didn’t appear to be even trying. It was as if they had given up before they had even started the event. This trend was evident in all ages groups – boys and girls.

This kind of behaviour is by no means isolated to little athletics, we as adults do it all the time.  It saddens me however to see that these kids where missing out on gifts that come from giving your all and instead in some small way where choosing to quit even before they even had the opportunity to fail.

As a culture it is time for us to redefine failure.  When I asked my daughter Mackenzie what failure meant to her she responded “ dad, failure is just an opportunity for me to learn something new”.  This definition removes that paralysis that so many of us experience when we come up against new challenges.

Our fast paced modern culture has become obsessed with winning.  Winners are put into the limelight, given the money and all the trappings of life.  What we don’t see though is all the failures that they have through out their journey.

The truth is that sometimes life is difficult, uncomfortable and requires great effort. Whilst I will be the first to admit that winning isn’t everything.  I  do believe there is something magical that comes from doing your best.

Doing your best builds character and resilience. The famous basketball John Wooden said “Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

As you stare down that challenge in front of you remember this;  Failure is a part of life, quitting is not.

I would love to know your thoughts. Please comment below.

Although there are certain pillars of behaviour change that are the same for all of us  - (click here to watch the video), we have to acknowledge that what works for one individual may not work for another.

Bright spots was a term first coined by social researches Dan and Chip Health. Bright spots are about asking the simple and profound question “what’s working, and how can we do more of it?  Too often when we come up against challenges we tend to be more problem focused; “What’s broken and how do we fix it?

Bright spots assumes that we are naturally creative, resourceful and the best judge at knowing what works for us.

Recognizing our bright spots is all about looking at times in the past when things worked for you.

We have all had moments where we have had successfully made changes – even if was just for a few hours.   Looking back at what worked provides a road map that gives us direction moving forwards.

A sample dialogue might go like this:

When was the last time you exercised? Last year there was a period of three weeks that I walked every second day.

What about that situation allowed you to exercise? I was walking at lunchtimes with Sally from the PR department – but it all stopped when Sally changed jobs

How can we do more of it? I could easily ask Jen from accounting or even pop a note up in the staff room to see if someone else wants to walk with me.

The bright spot in the situation above had the person realize that walking with someone else made them much more likely to have a regular exercise practice.

When was the last you felt like you ate in a healthy way? Last week I ate really well

What was the situation that allowed you to eat well? I was organized enough to write a shopping list and a meal plan for the week.  I knew exactly what i needed and this allowed me to take great fresh food to lunch and have simple healthy produce readily available for dinner and snacks.

How can we do more of it? I am going to take 90 minutes each saturday morning to plan my week ahead and shop.

The bright spot in this situation was realizing that the healthy eating habits where actually about good shopping habits.  Looking at what worked in the past provides the roadmap of what to do in the future.

Here are other areas that looking for bright spots can be helpful in…

• When was the last time you felt like you got a great nights sleep? etc
• When was the last time you managed to get through a stressful situation without getting anxious? etc
• When was the last time you felt like your children where actually listening to you? etc

Searching for your bright spots are so incredibly powerful because they show us the circumstances, habits and behaviours that actually led to the results we are wanting.

Taking a moment to look at what has worked for us in the past can be a great start on your journey towards your outcome.

Let me know how you go.

Sleep is something that gets lost in just about every discussion about fat loss and body composition. Whilst most of us know that we should be eating better and moving more, very few people understand the enormous impact that sleep has on fat loss. My clients are often surprised to hear that people who sleep 7 to 9 hours a night have healthier body weights than those who slept less.

If you eat well and exercise often but still struggle to lose weight then chances are poor or inadequate sleep might be playing a role.

So what’s sleep go to do with fat loss?  Let me explain…  It appears that inadequate sleep wreaks havoc on many of our fat loss hormones and makes us crave food (the nasty stuff  too!). After going without adequate sleep for just 2 nights, people in one study had more of the hunger-inducing hormone ghrelin and less of the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin – anyone for a midnight snack???

But perhaps the most damaging effects of poor sleep is its impact on elevating cortisol levels and blunting insulin sensitivity which ultimately results in a shut down of fat loss.

Hopefully by now you are starting to see that proper sleep is an important part of your fat loss program.  I am often having to remind my clients that you can’t eat and exercise your way out of poor sleeping habits.

In our ever increasing busy lifestyles getting a good nights sleep is becoming more and more difficult. Let me share my top 5 tips for a great nights sleep

1. Make sure the room is dark and by dark i mean pitch black.  Turn off bedside lights, alarm clocks (cover these) and make sure there is no street lights shinning through the gaps beside the blind. You may even want to invest in a black out blind. Making the room dark massively improves the quality of most peoples sleep. Many of my clients notice an immediate improvement in length and quality of sleep from this step alone
2. Aim for 8-9.5 hours each night.  Whilst we can survive on less than this we cannot thrive.  There is no medal in life for being the person who gets the least sleep.  When you sleep more not only does your weight loss improve so to will your productivity the next day.
3. Your inconsistent wake and sleep times are throwing you into a mild case jet lag and create a road block to your fat loss.   Consistency in wake and sleep times are essential for the body to get into a healthy rhythm. If you are tired after a late night get up the next day at the same time and take a 20 minute nap during the day to catch up (see tip 5)
4. Be sure to “unplug’ the hour before bed.  That means turn off the television and computer.  Give the brain some time to unwind and slow down.  Try reading a good book or writing in a journal.
5. When asked about my favorite supplement I can’t go past a 20 minute nap.  Just 20 minutes is all it takes to refresh and rebalance your body.  I know you are probably telling yourself that you are too busy for a nap. However researchers have shown that taking 20 minutes out to rest ultimately skyrockets productivity – and it does wonders for just about every other area of your health and wellbeing also.

I have seen stubborn fat begin to shift when patients start getting a good nights sleep.  Getting enough sleep is the missing link that stops or slows down many peoples weight loss.    Follow the five steps above, you’ll love the results.

Listen in as I interveiw mum and all round superstar Kyla as she shares her journey towards running her first marathon. Kyla openly shares the tips and strategies that allowed her to fit her busy schedule in around her young family, work and husband. This is truly an inspirational story with something for all of us to learn.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePkTNpHT8vo

We are all starting to understand that decreasing our sugar is a good thing. Clients of mine are often confused about the relationship between sugar and common carbohydrates like breads, pasta and rice. In this video we will break it all down.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxMs0gZWKDs

Making health changes is not always easy, in fact the truth is that most of us suck (me included).  The reason why many of us struggle is because of our over dependance on willpower.  The innovative four pillars model breaks our health goals down make sustainable change much easier.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBMc2rNXUpA

The reason that so many of us fail to change our exercise and eating habits is that we keep trying to do the same thing over and over again (sometimes referred to as insanity).  We work ourselves up into a motivated frenzy telling ourselves that this time I will stick to my diet and I WILL get up every morning to walk before work.  The problem is that this is the same thing that you told yourself last time and the time before that and the time before that……..

In the race to begin our new lifestyle (or perhaps the need to fit into that new dress this weekend) we often forget the much needed first steps of any behaviour change. So lets look at a new place to start.

Our motivation and ability to create our new lifestyle habits depend on having clear, compelling, and measurable results.  Consequently, many of us fail to create change from the outset because we fail to envision these results.  Stephen Covey in is book 7 Habits schools us on the importance of beginning with the end in mind. When we have clarity about our destination the journey gets a whole lot easier.  What i am suggesting is that you don’t waste a moment on how to create change until you have clarified what you want, why you want it and when you want it.

The what, why and when will act as powerful fuel when the going gets tough.  Ignore these and you will likely run out of energy and end up right back to where you started.  Think about making your outcome specific and measurable.  Too often we focus on just losing weight or wanting to get fitter.  These statements are too vague and have no long term drive associated with them.  Try something like this;  I want to fit into my favorite little black dress or I want to run a 5km fun run in under 40minutes.

Too often we forget to stop and ask ourselves why is this change important.  Diving deep and looking at the cost of our current behaviours and then reflecting on the benefits of our new behaviours is a essential part of long term success.  It has been said that when the why is big enough the how is easy.  Try making your new behaviour change about more than just yourself.  Think of the impact that it will have on your children, partner and even as a role model for those around you.

Making your result time bound will add another level of motivation to your outcome.  Give your goals a completion date.  I want to wear my favorite little black dress to my best friends 40th birthday on September 30th.  Making your goal time bound bring a sense of urgency and reality to your goal.

So next time before leaping into your new diet or exercise program take a moment to investigate what you really want, why is it important and by what date you will expect to get these results.  This might just be the most important 30 minutes of your new life.

Many self help guru’s and modern day positive help authors relate that our thoughts can have a huge impact on our level of wellbeing.  For years though many scientists and more traditional medical practitioners have laughed this of as “mumbo jumbo”.  Recent research though is having the medical field do a complete turn around.  Scientists are now showing that thoughts have the ability to turn on the stress response (what a surprise – not!).  The stress response often referred to as  the “fight or flight response” was imprinted on our nerve systems from our hunter gatherer past when we occasionally had to run from a lion or tiger.  One of the consequences of fight flight is a down regulation of the immune system.  The intelligent body decides to down regulate the immune system in an effort to save energy ( after all it expects we are being chased by a lion or tiger).  This stressful event in the past was a 90 second event.  We either escaped the lion or got eaten, after this period the immune system was switched right back on again. Unfortunately nowadays stress is much more pervasive, it last days, weeks and sometimes years and this comes at a tremendous cost – cranky sinuses are just one!

Managing stress in our life is essential if you want to express great health and wellness.  Dealing with stress has to be holistic – you need to eat well (foods from nature), move often and have strategies to deal with ever present mental and emotional stress.

One of the most effective strategies I have come up with to deal with mental stress is to ask myself can I influence this issue?  If the answer is yes I write down what steps I can begin to take and I take action.  It the answer is no (as is often the case) I find it much easier for me to let go.

Take a moment to look at the stresses in your life, which ones can you control i.e your messy desk, the quality of your work and which ones can’t you i.e what the weather will be like for you birthday party this saturday night.  After asking this question either take action or learn to let go.