Nutrition and Weight Loss Ideas

This is the second of two articles by a guest writer — Marilu Henner.

Marilu Henner is a well-known actress and the author of New York Times and national bestselling books, Marilu Henner’s Total Health Makeover and The 30-Day Total Health Makeover, I Refuse to Raise a Brat, Healthy Life Kitchen, Healthy Kids, Healthy Holidays, and By All Means Keep on Moving. For more than twenty years she has championed a vigorous, healthy lifestyle and has inspired millions of people along the way.

Since we’re writing about health and fitness in our current series, I found two recent articles by Marilu Henner to be quite relevant to our discussion. I’ve posted both of them today.

You can also read more about Marilu at her web site, Marilu.com

You can also follow along with Marilu in her related articles at the above web site.

This second article is entitled, “Set Up Your Environment to WIN!“.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. They sure did “talk” to me, I’ll tell you.

Also, on the subject of our own health and fitness, I invite you to take a look at the new page I have set up – look over on the left under “Pages”. I will be adding to this information over the next few days, so keep checking back!

I’ll see you again tomorrow.

Shanti.
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I want you to look at the whole process of dieting, health, and fitness in an entirely new way. I want you to think of the next few weeks as if you were starting your own small business, and the product that you are manufacturing in this small business is a newer, fitter, healthier, better organized, more motivated, sexier YOU.

Now, if you really were going to start your own small business, the first thing you would do is organize for efficiency. Let’s use, for example, a very simple business like a garage sale. The best way to go about organizing for a garage sale is to assess your inventory (keep, sell, throw away), strategize your marketing (signs, ads, word of mouth), gather your materials (labels, racks, signs) and all the other items you’ll be using to most efficiently categorize, display and sell the unwanted objects.

In the same vein, the first thing you’ll want to do to most efficiently manufacture and maintain a newer, fitter, healthier you, is to organize your environment in a way that’s most advantageous to your goals. You have to set up your environment to WIN. And the best way to do that is to make your whole environment a health workshop.

“If you build it, a healthy, new you will come.”

First you gather up all of the unused items gathering dust. The treadmill that was never used, the latest fitness equipment bought from an infomercial and never opened, weights, yoga mat, wok, juicer, etc. Decide whether or not it belongs in your workshop. Use it or lose it.

You go into your pantry, read the labels and start discarding all of the manufactured pseudo foods that have been poisoning your body for all of these years. Yes, it may seem like you have nothing left in your kitchen when you are finished, but that is the point. You are preparing the way for a new you!

You go into your bathroom, and you pull the scale down from the shelf where you hid it before the holidays. You throw away your old toothbrush; because today you are going to begin anew, and nothing will better symbolize your health mission than a new toothbrush. (Two or three times a day you’ll be reminded!) You take a look in the mirror to see the old you one last time. As you look in the mirror you can imagine a new person taking shape. You are now taking charge of your life, one day at a time.

You now begin the transformation by preparing an area for you to exercise, every day. Your workout clothes, shoes, and equipment (along with ipod, walkman, etc.) should be organized and in one space, and you should have an area set-aside exclusively for workouts. To meet your goal, it’s best to break a sweat every day for at least 10 minutes, but, be careful. You want to start slowly; you have the rest of your life to achieve your dreams!

You go back to the kitchen and make a list of healthy foods that you already love. There’s some fruit or vegetable that you love, so start there. Five to ten servings of fruits and vegetables a day are best, and try to eat organic whenever possible. Raw vegetables for salads are important, and if you learn to wean yourself from the fatty dressings, salads can become an important part of your diet.

Then on to the healthy carbs! Forget those high-protein diets. Healthy complex carbohydrates form the cornerstone of a healthy diet. These include whole grains like brown rice, oatmeal, sprouted breads, etc. Next come the beans and legumes, including soy products. Finally, the healthy snack foods like nuts, seeds, and soy or rice based ice cream to round out your new diet.

You’ll want a refrigerator and cupboard stocked with these whole natural foods rather than the junk that usually tempts you when you’re weak. You’ll want your kitchen utensils arranged for easily preparing vegetables and fruits as well as having storage containers to keep healthy snacks fresh and ready to go for when you need them most.

Setting up your environment to win is not a simple task. It can’t be done overnight or even over a weekend, but once it’s in place, the benefits will last a lifetime. Building your health workshop/company will be an important component of the step-by-step process we will take throughout our next few weeks together.

Today’s articles will be by a guest writer — and it’s someone you may recognize — Marilu Henner.

Marilu Henner is a well-known actress and the author of New York Times and national bestselling books, Marilu Henner’s Total Health Makeover and The 30-Day Total Health Makeover, I Refuse to Raise a Brat, Healthy Life Kitchen, Healthy Kids, Healthy Holidays, and By All Means Keep on Moving. For more than twenty years she has championed a vigorous, healthy lifestyle and has inspired millions of people along the way.

Since we’re writing about health and fitness in our current series, I found two recent articles by Marilu Henner to be quite relevant to our discussion. I’ll post both of them today.

You can also read more about Marilu at her web site, Marilu.com

The first of these is the article entitled, “Stop Self-Sabotage“.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. They sure did “talk” to me, I’ll tell you.

Shanti.
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Reading your posts I can see that Self-Sabotage is a universal problem. But what is self-sabotage? Self-Sabotage is the method that people use to set themselves up to fail, the excuse they use to blame their failure on someone or something else. The key to success is to understand that Self-Sabotage can be controlled, and once the urge for failure is conquered, our goals can be achieved.

I think I understand the reasons for self-sabotage because I sabotaged my best efforts at self-improvement for years. I list five types of self-sabotage below, and believe me, sometimes I could indulge in all five of them in a single day!

We’ll be discussing what to do about self-sabotaging throughout the month, but for now, here are just a few of the Top Reasons People Self Sabotage!

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