Be The Terminator!

January 16, 2013January 16, 2013 / intrepidjane

Are you ready to celebrate how far you’ve already come?

Today’s post is all about exploring the process of change and celebrating how far you’ve already come :).

You may not have found it easy to change your eating or exercise habits in the past. You may not have found it easy to love and appreciate your body.You may have been on or off diets several times in your life. You may even have bought all the kit to exercise, gone to one class and then not continued. You may not even believe it’s possible for you to change completely and have the body you want with a healthy lifestyle to go with it. If any of this rings true for you, here’s the good news : in terms of your moving towards a healthy relationship with food and your body, you may be much further along the road of change than you think!

Where Are You In The Process Of Change? Prochaska and Di Clemente (1983) describe a model of change comprising 7 key phases :

Pre-Contemplation.
Contemplation.
Preparation.
Action.
Maintenance.
Relapse.
Termination

Pre-Contemplation In this phase, people are not seriously considering the possibility of change. An example of a person in this stage could be someone who is overweight but does not have any real desire to lose weight, eat healthily, get fit, process their emotions in a healthy way or tackle their inner “Cookie Monster” (actually mine was a Pringles Monster but that’s another story!). You might hear someone in this phase say “So, I’m overweight. That’s just the way I am and I’m kinda used to it. There’s more to life than exercise and mung beans.”

Contemplation During this phase, people become aware , or acknowledge the existence, of a problem. They are seriously considering the possibility of change but need to weigh up whether to take any action or not. In terms of weight loss, many people remain in this stage of contemplation for years! (Sound familiar?!) You might hear someone in this phase saying something like “I know I need to do something but I just don’t know where to start. I’m not sure whether I have the time or whether I’ve left it too late. I’m not sure about paying for a gym membership but I do know that if I don’t do something now, it could have consequences for my life in the future. Can I really change what I eat? Do I really want to eat differently? Is this change really important for me? Is it important enough? Why do I really need to change my relationship with food and my body? Can I go on like this for much longer? What will happen if I don’t change?”

Are you preparing for a change?

Preparation As soon as you get to the Preparation phase, things start to look good! Procheska and Di Clemente suggest that if you find yourself at this stage, it’s very likely that you will make a change within the next 3 months. During this key phase, you might find yourself collecting information about what is required to start the change process. You might be Googling about the best way to lose weight, you might be finding out about the cost of membership at a local gym, you might be on Amazon checking out all the diet books, you may be asking about local therapists and weight loss coaches. If you’ve asked for more information about my live Thigh High Boot Camp events or my coaching packages, then you are already at this stage in the change process! (Even reading this blog means that it’s likely that you’re at this stage :))

Action This is the stage when people actually start to make changes. If you have signed up to my upcoming weight loss boot camps or to my coaching programme, then you are at this advanced stage already! If you’ve joined a gym and booked your induction, you’ve arrived at this stage. If you’ve started to read about an approach to weight loss which may work for you – and you’re implementing the recommendations –Woo-Hoo! Go you, Action Adventurer! If you’ve started attending a local weight loss support group, full-on Action Alerts all around!

So you can congratulate yourself already for getting this far – did you realise how far you had already come? As you engage fully with the process of taking action -and start to make sustainable psychological, emotional, spiritual, dietary, exercise and life-style changes- you will move further into this stage.

Maintenance This Maintenance phase is all about your sustaining the progress made during the action phase. For you, this stage might represent the period directly after completing one of my weight loss events or coaching programmes. It could be the stage when the novelty of going to an exercise class or a weight loss support group has worn off and it’s beginning to feel like a regular part of life. It might be the phase where the eating approach you have selected is definitely getting you results and all you need to do is just keep following the approach.

Some people will stay at this stage for a matter of weeks – others for a considerable period of time. During this stage you may not be totally confident about your ability to avoid relapsing into old habits. After the initial “success highs” have worn off, you may become increasingly aware of old unhelpful patterns which may require resolution. This is all good news : it means you are gaining more insight into who you are and how you work. It’s all part of the process of learning to “stay on track naturally” in a way which works for you

Relapse This is the stage when people are not able to keep and maintain new psychological, behavioural and emotional patterns or don’t stick to their plan of action. This can happen for any number of reasons – but if relapses occur, there is still hope! Just because you don’t “stay on the wagon” (and it really is worth challenging what this phrase actually means!) doesn’t mean you can’t get back on! Actually, it might hearten you to know that it is recognised that relapses are vital to any successful change process. Although it is helpful to avoid relapsing into old behaviours, it should be emphasised that you can learn a great deal about how to change your behaviour (on a permanent basis) from your relapses. (It was only when I relapsed that I learned that the emotion driving my eating behaviour was anxiety. That was a really useful insight for me and helped me to shift my focus to resolving my own anxiety so that my hunger was driven by genuine physiological appetite rather than an emotion).

If you become aware of your “triggers” for relapse, you have a much better chance of resolving the trigger-response relationship once and for all!

Be the Terminator!

Termination (doesn’t sound great but it’s the best bit!) At this stage the old psychological, emotional or behavioural response is gone for good – it is the stage we all dream of! When you reach this stage, your new psychological, emotional ad behavioural responses will happen automatically, unconsciously and naturally. (Termination sounds pretty cool, right?)

Something For You To Chew Over! Even though you might be busy “being good” right now and avoiding popping to the local “Take-Away” restaurant, here’s a healthy “Take Away” for you. Wherever you’re at in this process, you’re in it! Whether you know it consciously or not, you’re on the road to change 🙂 Congratulations!

Useful Resources If you’ve enjoyed this post and would like to learn more about my take on “staying on track” and “relapse”(I call this phase “wiggling”), please check out my 12 Days of Christmas series of posts. These 2 posts will be of particular interest :

https://thighhighbootcamp.com/2012/12/18/welcome-to-the-12-days-of-christmas-project/

https://thighhighbootcamp.com/2013/01/02/act-in-a-response-able-way/

You can also find out more about my live weight loss boot camps (in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England) and my 1-1 and group coaching programmes here http://www.thighhighbootcamp.com

I’ll be back – and, until then, gotta run 🙂 !

Personal Training Works Best When It Gets Really Personal!

January 7, 2013January 7, 2013 / intrepidjane

Today’s the day!

My Facebook newsfeed is jam-packed with folks declaring that today marks the first day of their 2013 “health kick”. Local gyms are starting fitness and weight loss challenges as I type. Personal trainers in every global nook and cranny are reminding me about their services to support the achievement of our weight loss and fitness goals, so we can (at last) be the proud owner of that “dream body”.

As a fitness professional myself, I think that the fitness industry offers valuable support to those of us who want to lead a healthier life. Being physically active is a really important aspect of our journey towards a healthier relationship with our body and towards achieving (and maintaining) our optimal weight .Being physically active encourages us to spend more time in our bodies and gives us the opportunity to develop exquisite levels of body awareness. Bottom line : exercise definitely supports your getting the “bottom line” you really want :)!(That’s just me being “cheeky” :)! Ooops!)

Are you an active fan yet?

If you’re on a weight loss journey, you probably agree with everything I’ve just said. And whilst you might be an “intellectual fan” of exercise (and you could probably give a lecture on everything you “should” be doing to get the body of your dreams – and keep it), chances are you’re not an “active fan” (yet :))! Chances are, you wish you didn’t have to do that whole exercise thing – or that someone else could do it for you! Chances are, you might not find it easy to get motivated to move your body. Chances are you might even sense some resistance every time the word “work-out” is mentioned (and chances are, you’re not even sure why that should be the case .. especially because you intellectually acknowledge that working out can move you in the direction of that dream body!).

What often happens at this point is that people decide to engage the services of a personal trainer. Sounds ideal, right? Well, there are some really useful things to be gained from working with a personal trainer. Firstly, they know stuff about physiology; they know what “good form” and good technique looks like; they know about training frequency, intensity and volume. They know the latest thinking on the best ways to achieve your physical goals. The really good ones also know a thing or two about nutrition. Add to the mix that you’re spending time with people who are just “oozing” vibrant energy, body confidence and health (that’s contagious and you might be at serious risk of catching some of that if you spend enough time in their company!) and it all looks incredibly appealing. And all of this is both valuable and important – and, if you take regular training sessions (and eat what they tell you to), sooner or later you get to see physical changes in your body.

Sounds perfect, right? Or can you see where this might be heading? Does this remind you of anything? Like the diet you really didn’t enjoy but you forced yourself to do it anyway to get the results? Did you manage to stay “on track” for good? What happened when your emotional appetite shouted louder than the diet rules? Did going on a diet resolve your relationship with both food and your body? Did going on a diet resolve your emotional issues once and for all? Did you eventually get to love that strict diet in the end? (I’m guessing it was unsustainable and didn’t work out the way you’d hoped, right?)

Are you plugged into your own motivational power source?

So what am I trying to say here? Here’s the thing : working with a personal trainer can definitely improve your relationship with your body and bring massive physiological benefits. The personal training process can help you to develop confidence in new ways too. But, what if after weeks or months of personal training you still don’t feel motivated to exercise? What if you rely on the personal trainer to take responsibility for your motivation in the longer term? What would happen if you stopped working with the personal trainer? How will working with the personal trainer have contributed towards your developing a life-long love affair with physical activity?

For some lucky people, resolving their emotions, beliefs, values, attitudes and identity around food and their body can be the piece of the puzzle that transforms everything. For these lucky people, once they have been able to stop emotional eating and to start relating to their body and food in healthy ways, they find it easy to do the whole exercise thing. Things just fall into place. They’re enjoying being in their bodies again, enjoying exercise as an end in itself rather than as a means to an end. Motivation comes easily.

For some of us, however, even when we’ve resolved our emotional eating patterns, the exercise piece still doesn’t fit naturally with us. And this is the crux of it all. Until you’ve worked out why you don’t enjoy working out and why you don’t find it easy to access powerful positive motivational forces , you’ll just have to work out how you’re going to pay your personal training bill in the long term! (The minute you “break-up” with your personal trainer, the divorce courts will let them walk away with all the motivation. After all, it was theirs on the first place).

Personal training can be transformational!

My view is this : your personal trainer’s responsibility is to help you to become your own best personal trainer. Their intention shouldn’t be to have you as a client as long as they can! Instead, the relationship should exist for a sufficient time – enough time to get to the a point where you are ready to fly solo (in touch with your own motivation and really enjoying a positive relationship with physical activity). In order to get to that point, your personal trainer needs to be skilful at working out what’s really going on with you. Over and above training your physical body (and teaching you how to do that for yourself), they should also acknowledge the all-important mind-body relationship ~ so that all of you is lined up for “effortless” success within the context of physical fitness. That’s right, I actually said effortless and I meant it! I’ll go one step further. What if you were to break out of the “Exercise is hell” paradigm and break into this one “Exercise is a true reward for both me and my body : it is a joyous communion my deepest natural self.”? Are you shouting “Get real!” at the computer screen? (Get real? I just did :)).

If you are considering the personal training route to help yourself get back into regular physical activity, my advice is to ascertain just how personal the experience is going to be! When interviewing a prospective personal trainer, it’s really worth checking out their philosophy. If you meet one who is capable of helping you to explore how your emotions, attitudes, values, beliefs, identity (and even your life purpose) are impacting on your current relationship with physical activity (and food!) – that’s what I call personal! If you meet one who is qualified to help resolve unwanted emotions – that’s what I call personal! If you meet one who knows how to help you to develop supportive beliefs about yourself and physical activity – that’s what I call personal! If you meet one who knows how to help you to get in touch with your most powerful, positive motivational forces – that’s what I call personal!

If you walk into a personal training studio with a mindset that isn’t totally supportive of your fitness / health journey (or supportive of you as a whole for that matter!) then just make sure that, one day, you’re able to walk out of that studio with a whole lot more than the body of your dreams. Just make sure that you’re able to leave all that no longer serves you (physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually) behind. For good.

Make sure it’s more than cosmetic!

Just like forcing yourself to go on a strict diet does little to heal your relationship with both food and your body, personal training that does not acknowledge your unique psychological, emotional and spiritual make-up is at best only that – make-up : a cosmetic that makes the surface look good for a little while and then wears off.

In my experience of the fitness world, fitness professionals are genuinely committed to helping people to develop, and maintain, healthy lifestyles. If you are hoping that getting a personal trainer will help you to resolve your relationship with food and your body, do satisfy yourself that they can support you in this way. I am really thrilled that more and more personal trainers are becoming qualified in the psychological aspects of weight loss and fitness – I’m a huge fan of the holistic approach. And if you meet a personal trainer who you think can help you achieve your fitness goals but may not be qualified in the emotional and psychological side of things, my advice would be to make sure that you find a way of resolving the emotional/psychological spiritual stuff too. I’d suggest finding a qualified coach or therapist who is fit to work out this side of things with you 🙂 This way, every inch of you is headed in the same direction : your body is taking action and your mind will be wired up to support your success!

Here’s the take-away : Only when personal training seeks to explore the deepest truth of who we are, is personal training personal enough.

Gotta run :)!

Trust Transforms!

January 4, 2013January 4, 2013 / intrepidjane

Welcome to the 11^th day of the 12 Days of Christmas project! (If you are just joining the project now, you can get the full low-down here: https://thighhighbootcamp.com/2012/12/18/welcome-to-the-12-days-of-christmas-project/ and I really recommend that you start the project at Day 1 to get the full benefit!)

Yesterday’s post was all about gaining more insights and reviewing progress. And today? Well, today’s the day. This is the big one. If you can crack this, you’re pretty much well on your way to staying “on track” for the long term (and enjoying it!).

Trust is the key!

Today’s post is all about learning to trust your body again. And it’s not just about your learning to trust your body, it’s all about your body learning to trust you too! If, in the past, you trusted “outside” information to determine what/when/how to eat and if you stopped trusting your real appetite, if you stopped respecting and processing your emotions .. well, it might just be time to start relating to your body in a new way.

Trust is a crucial element of a mutually respectful, loving relationship. If the trust has been broken between you and your body, healing this trust can transform your relationship.

Chances are, you’re in a relationship right now with another person or you’ve experienced relationships in the past. And you may have had experiences of broken trust too or know people who have experienced it. And that means, you’ve probably got a fair bit of expertise in this field already. If you were to give advice on how to build trust in a relationship, what would it be? Can you think of at least 5 different ways to build trust in a relationship and then apply them to the relationship between you and your body?

Here are the 5 ways I came up with :

Take small steps!

1. Start small You can build confidence and trust in your body by handing over “responsibility” for small things to start with. Whilst your body is a powerful, intelligent organism capable of both managing your appetite and regulating your weight, “you” may not be able to fully trust its capability yet. What is one small thing, one small responsibility you could give back to your body to show that you are beginning to trust it?

Idea : Every time you eat, check in with your body to see if you can gauge how hungry you are. Check whether it’s physiological hunger or an emotion. What’s important to start with, is not how good you are at determining how hungry you are – it’s the act of checking in the first place. The message to your body is “ I am genuinely trying to listen to you. I trust you are giving me some helpful information here. I may not know what that information is but I know it’s important.”

If that feels too much to start with, think of other body signals that you may not always respect, like a sleep signal. Do you ever get to the point in the evening when your body says sleep and your mind says “let’s stay up an watch the film”?. Do you think you could respect that signal and go to sleep? Again the message to your body is “I’m starting to listen. I know you are doing your best to maintain optimal health. I trust your judgement and I’m acting on it.”

Look for the things you can trust!

2. Look for the things you can trust, rather than the things you can’t trust yet Often in relationships where trust has been broken, the “wounded” party wants to build trust again but finds themselves always looking for evidence of the behaviour that broke the trust in the first place. For example, if a partner had an affair, the “wounded” party is constantly on the look- out for all the signs of another affair (rather than on constant look- out for all the evidence that their partner is remaining faithful). So, within the context of your relationship with you body, make a list of at least 10 things that you totally trust about it. Consider this question every day and notice how quickly the list grows!

Idea : Write down your list, starting with the phrase “I totally trust my body to ….” Example ~ I totally trust my body to regulate my heart rate. I totally trust my body to grow my finger and toe nails. (Get the idea?)

3. Be honest, be open and be prepared to have the not-so-easy conversations Learning to communicate with your body in an honest way, and being prepared to “stay in the conversation” when things get tough, is key to building trust. The message to your body is “I’m not running away. I’m not just going to switch off the trust. By learning more about you, and by seeking to understand your needs and your motivations, I’m in a better position to build a trusting relationship with you.”

Idea : Have a regular “date” with your body. Set a period of time to one side every week for just you and your body. Get things off your chest (both of you!) and talk about the real stuff. You can use the process I described on the 4^th Day of Christmas (that Barry Manilow is a very helpful guy, you know! :)) Using this process also helps to build empathy (something that can really support trust-building). https://thighhighbootcamp.com/2012/12/28/connect-communicate-and-collaborate/

Become a cheer-leader!

4. Acknowledge your partner’s strengths : become a cheer-leader! We’ve probably all been to dinner parties where we’ve met a couple who quite obviously aren’t getting along. They pick and dig at each other, constantly undermining their relationship. And they even do it in public! (Woo-hoo! Hello! Wake-up call coming straight at ya!) How would you feel if someone did that to you? How do you think your body experiences your digs and prods (in public too!)?

If you’re serious about re-building your relationship with your body, and about establishing a climate of trust, then it’s time to start acknowledging your body’s strengths – and then RAVING about them (even in public!) The message to your body is something like this “ I may not have been so good at letting you know this in the past but I want to be with you. Just you. I admire you. You’ve stuck by me through thick-and-thin – literally. I’m in it for the long haul. I want us both to feel really good about being in this relationship. You can trust the fact that I genuinely admire you. I’m proud of you. And to build that trust, I’m going to keep reminding you that I’m on your side. Just like you’ve been on mine.”

Idea : Every day, look at your body and find one thing you love about it. Now go for it with the gushing! Really get yourself into the “I really love this” feeling (you know how to do this now, right?) .A brilliant example of this feeling is in Saturday Night Fever when Doreen says “I love to watch you dance, Tony!” She adores him and when she says these words, we totally believe her because her whole body is giving that message too. So get your Doreen on and get going with the adoration 🙂

Here are some ideas to get you started :

“I just LOVE the way my eyes sparkle when …….”

“It’s incredible how I can let other people know what I’m feeling without having to say a word. What an amazing thing!”

“I adore how my eyebrows tell the whole story by….”

“I’m in awe of my own heartbeat. When I feel it, it makes me realise ……”

Advanced Method 🙂 After I’ve done this exercise, I usually share an Austin Powers moment with myself in front of the mirror : I give myself a wink and say “It’s good to be me!”. This step is completely optional ~ although, I can’t recommend it highly enough. It really makes me giggle 🙂

Be predictable in new ways!

5. Be predictable If your partner says they will be at home at 7pm and they always are, it builds trust. Now, thinking in terms of the relationship between you and your body, can your body predict you and can you predict it? I bet, in the past, your body may have been pretty confident that if it gave you a loud and clear “stop eating now!”signal , you wouldn’t stop at all! So now, you’ve got the opportunity to show your body how predictable you can be in a new way, so trust grows between you 🙂

Decide on one thing you can do every day (something that will support your weight loss journey) which will let your body know that it can rely on you. Make sure this behaviour is so regular, that it becomes predictable.

Idea : (I’m saying this in a very quiet and gentle voice 🙂 and I’ve just winked at you too in an Austin Powers way). Do something physical (your body will love you for it!). 5 minutes a day will do the trick as long as you do it every day and become predictable.

You could stretch, you could dance, you could go for a walk, you could… (well you’ve got the general direction I’m headed in, right?)

Phew – so that’s us done for today! It’s really worth journaling your journey towards a trusting relationship with your body : it’ll probably be a deeply moving experience! And if you’re reading this, wondering whether it’s worth building a trusting relationship with your body, all I can say is that it’s the best thing I ever did for myself.

It’s true love!

I feel privileged to own my body. I am in awe of its strength and tenderness. I love the way it supports me and communicates with me.I love the way it moves. Most of all, I feel that I always have “someone” on my side .. and now, I feel there is no gap between me and my body. We are close, inseparable and deeply connected : walking each other home 🙂 (That’s right, I’m crying : it’s a true love story and it’s okay to cry at those!)

Here are what some of the women who’ve experienced the Thigh-High Boot Camp programme say about their journey with Trust :

Julie is more than 2 stone lighter since boot camp!

Julie (attended Thigh-High Boot Camp in Portrush, Northern Ireland, June 2012) “I spent such a long time in my life not being in touch with my body and hating it. At boot camp, I began an exciting journey to get me back in touch with my body again and what an exciting journey that is! (I’m well on the way to reaching my final destination of overall fabulousness :)). One of the key things I’ve learned is that my body is actually a pretty amazing thing and knows what it’s doing. I’m beginning to trust my body to do the best for me and it’s giving me fabulous results. No guilt, losing weight in an effortless way, getting excited about exercise and generally feeling so much better about myself, my body and my life. Drop the conscious control and guilt and trust your body. The great thing is that when you tune into your body and actually listen to it, it’ll tell you LOUD and CLEAR exactly what it needs. I’m certainly excited about what 2013 will bring!”

Kate

Kate (attended Thigh-High Boot Camp in Drymen, Scotland, October 2012) “Tuning in to my authentic appetite has been a revelation. It turns out that the part of myself I believed I could trust the least is the part that most deserves my trust and respect.”

Stephanie

Stephanie (attended the programme in Scotland, August 2010) “It’s been a journey… Now I don’t think, I feel. And I feel pretty darn good. And when I’m feeling, I’m not analysing : I am not focusing on losing weight/ body fat. It is just happening. And I’m having what I want when I want. What I want has changed a lot, what appeals to me has changed.”

Gotta run 🙂 ! (#Predictable :))

Nourishing Confidence!

December 31, 2012December 31, 2012 / intrepidjane

Welcome to the 7^th day of the 12 Days of Christmas project! (If you are just joining the project now, you can get the full low-down here: https://thighhighbootcamp.com/2012/12/18/welcome-to-the-12-days-of-christmas-project/ and I really recommend that you start the project at Day 1 to get the full benefit!)

Yesterday was all about your learning how to recognise an emotion by observing it ; how to learn from the emotion; andhow to process the emotion and let it go.

What am I serving up today?

Today, I’m taking a slightly different tack and taking a look at food and the notion of “diets”. If you’ve been taking part in the 12 Days of Christmas project, you may be paying more attention to which foods support your eating pleasure ; you may have changed your mind about what pleasure means for you. You may be reconnecting with your body, with your appetite and with your emotions. You may even be developing confidence in your own ability to pay attention to your natural signals.

And there’s a powerful word : CONFIDENCE. As you’re developing confidence in your own body, as you begin to value and relate to your body in new ways, you might want to feed it in new ways too. How confident are you about making the right food choices for you?

How do you know what’s healthy for you and your body? Well, that’s a really good question. And there are a myriad of answers to be found in a multitude of dietary approaches. And whilst it can be helpful to keep connected to nutritional science’s latest conversation , it’s probably even more helpful to keep connected to your own inner nutritional guru.

Here are my suggestions to help you find a way of eating that works for both you and your body :

1. It needs to be pleasurable (look good, smell good and feel good in your body).

2. Be fully respectful of the signals and feedback your body offers to you.

3. Experiment until you have designed a way of eating that is tailored to you.

4. Acknowledge that your body is changing all the time (this means that what you eat may need to change over time).

5. Develop a style of eating focused on health / energy / vitality rather than weight loss. (Ask yourself : what do I want food to give me BEYOND weight loss?)

About Diets There is a whole heap of information about diet, eating philosophies and nutrition available – in fact, there is so much information around that it’s not always easy to determine what’s going to work for you or be healthy for you. New ideas come and go and researchers are discovering new things all the time. Because nutritional science is in its infancy , this means we have to be courageous enough to make our own choices (we have to evaluate the science and do our homework too!) and we have to be confident enough to experiment and find out what works for our own body and our own mind.

Trust your inner nutritional guru!

I’m certainly not going to be prescribing any diets here! Rather, I’m suggesting that it’s all about your learning to make food choices that support your health. I’m suggesting it’s all about your having the confidence to develop a style of eating (your own nutritional philosophy) based on your own body wisdom and on your own assessment of anything new that nutritional science brings to the conversation. Being your own best nutritional guru is not only GREAT for your mind-body but it frees you from being driven exclusively by an external set of rules.

It Really Is Up To You! If I’d been writing this blog post 10 years ago, you would have seen a picture of the UK Healthy Eating Pyramid (with cereals and grains propping up the rest of the diet). That’s how I was trained when I studied nutrition : low fat and whole grain carbs as a basis for a healthy diet.

Since then, lots has changed . When I trained in over 10 years ago, they were just starting to talk about the notion of Glycaemic Indices (the rate at which foods release their sugar into the body and affect blood sugar levels).Now they talk about Glycaemic Load (GL) (ie. they are learning more and more all the time) and diets higher in protein and higher in fat are now being recommended (protein satisfies you and fat doesn’t always make you fat! That’s the latest conversation :))

How do you know if your way of eating is working for you?

Confused yet? Who wouldn’t be?! I’ve checked out every diet over the years (and tried out most when I was struggling with my weight). In the end, I decided to put my own stake in the ground : I developed an eating approach that works for me based on my own body wisdom and my own views on the science. Here are the guidelines that I developed for myself that help me to make choices about my style of eating / food . As you consider my guidelines, what would yours be? (Write them down, chew them over and them give it a whirl : experiment! You might be thrilled at your growing confidence in the area of nutrition :))

1.Do I believe the science? (With the internet, well-qualified friends and a basic understanding of what constitutes “good research”, you can begin to get a feel for whether an eating approach is worth trying!)

2. Do I feel satisfied eating in this way? (If I am hungry and constantly thinking about food ~ it’s not working for me!)

3. Do I feel energised and healthy?

4. Am I sleeping well?

5. Does my skin and hair look good?

6. Am I achieving / maintaining a healthy weight?

7. Do I enjoy eating this way?

8. Can I find the foods easily?

9. Does it support my lifestyle? (Can I run on this food? Can I compete on this food? Can I eat out with friends on this food?)

10. Is it sustainable in the longer term? (I couldn’t detox, juice-fast or Slimfast “shake it” for the rest of my life ~ and I bet you couldn’t either!)

11. IS THE FOOD “REAL”? (I avoid processed foods whenever possible : my body doesn’t like them!)

All In Good Time! Your body may take time to adapt to a new way of eating. Give your body and mind a chance to digest what you are offering to it.

Be an explorer of food!

Well, I think I’ve served up quite a healthy portion today, so I’ll leave you to get stuck in. And I’m going to leave you with a smile too 🙂 . This quote from Erma Bombeck always makes me giggle : “I am not a glutton – I am an explorer of food”. Puts me in mind of Indiana Jones and those Lara Croft boots again 🙂

If Indy (he’s my favourite after Barry Manilow, by the way) were sitting next to me , I’d expect he’d offer the following advice to us all right now :

Go exploring!

Have an adventure!

Have fun!

You may get into some scrapes but you’ll sure learn fast!

Respect the magic : it’s powerful!

You’re more resourceful than you think!

If you find a puzzle, the solution isn’t probably what you expect it to be!

Trap doors aren’t so bad : if you fall down one, enjoy the ride (but remember where the trap door is for the next time)!

There is always treasure : follow the signs and symbols, crack the code and it’s yours :)!

Your enemy often turns out to be a great ally!

Gotta run 🙂 ! Oh – And do have a wonderful slide into 2013 tonight 🙂

JT ( If you are interested in 1-1 coaching or in attending a live Thigh-High Bootcamp event, please feel free to visit my website http://www.thighhighbootcamp.com for more info 🙂 The next live events are taking place in Northern Ireland – Portrush and Belfast in January and February ; and in England – Warrington in February).

Welcome to The Thigh-High Boot Camp!

February 12, 2012December 11, 2012 / intrepidjane

A very warm welcome to you! I invite you to watch this short welcome video if you’d like to get a better feel for what I’m about :

Are you unhappy about your weight or your body?
Are you fed up of dieting?
Have you had enough of looking at yourself in the mirror and saying things about yourself that even your worst enemy wouldn’t say to you?
Are you fed up of waiting to live the life you want, and feel the way you want to feel, because you feel your weight is getting in the way?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’ve come to the right place! And if you think this is one of those strict military- type boot camps – that just isn’t what I’m about (that’s because I know you’ve read every diet book going and you’ve probably started many an exercise regime too.. and it’s still not working out for you.)

This is not a diet. This is not an exercise programme. This is a heart-warming, soul-nourishing feast of learning that offers you the opportunity to get up-close-and-personal with your emotional appetite and to get back in touch with your natural body wisdom.

If you have struggled with your weight for too long, now is the time to end the battle and discover what all graduates of the Thigh-High Boot Camp know : give your weight a piece of your mind and it’ll give you the peace you’ve been looking for all this time 😉

For full details of the (women-only) Thigh High Boot Camp (what it is and how it works), just click on “About The Boot Camp”.

What are you weighting for?!

Jane Talbot 😉