Happy Thanksgiving

For many of you this week is the start of holiday festivities and fun. In the US we will be celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday which is always challenging for anyone struggling with their weight, or simply short on time for exercise routines.

This need not be a situation of all or nothing, meaning either you stuff yourself silly or deprive yourself of pumpkin pie, stuffing or even the smallest spoonful of gravy. It is one day, you do not have to over-indulge all week long or straight through until New Year.

If you start today, by staying compliant with your healthy meal plan, you can indulge a little on Thanksgiving! Focus this week on maintaining the weight you are right now and eat your Thanksgiving meal responsibly. You can have everything! What you don’t need to do is have everything for 3 people!

Tomorrow, you can get right back on track. Remember, it is a time to enjoy your family and friends and be grateful for all you have. With that in mind, here are a few tips:

1) Focus on how many times and how long you will be able to exercise this week, then schedule it. What gets scheduled, gets done.
2) Eat small amounts of food every 2-3 hours throughout the day to give you better control of your appetite so you do not arrive at the Thanksgiving table starving. Not eating or eating very little that day will make you more inclined to over-indulge.
3) To the best that you can, start your day with exercise and focus on the intensity and duration both. Obviously creating a calorie deficit will help the equation of calories in calories out… which also supports #1.
4) Avoid drinking your calories, they add up quickly and stimulate your appetite. Water is always the best choice. Save the calories in your calorie bank account for the delicious food.
5) Make smart choices with what is available. Go ahead and try it all if you can’t resist… just watch your portion size.
6) Eat slow, and relax. Enjoy your company. Stop frequently and take a deep breath. Give your brain time to get the signal that your stomach is full… it takes a while.
7) Get up and move from the table or help clear as soon as it is appropriate.

I would like to take a minute to tell you how thankful I am to all of you who have participated in my programs, to all of you who have taken the time to leave comments on my blog, and to all of you who subscribe to my newsletters. To all of you celebrating Thanksgiving, I wish you all a very happy holiday.

Reebok Easytone Shoes: The Latest Quick-Fix

Reebok’s new claim, “Better legs and a better butt with every step”
is yet another quick-fix claim for the weight-loss industry.

The ad, not missing a beat for a sexy close-up shot of, uh… T & A,
tells us, “make your boobs jealous” with the shoes “proven” to tone
your butt more than regular sneakers.

Sadly, the only proven outcome from these shoes is that sex sells
and so do quick fixes. Personally, I think it’s offensive to women.

So, if your steps are taken from your sofa to the refrigerator,
unless your refrigerator is a few miles away, don’t be checking out
your butt for toned muscle changes in the mirror any time soon.

Now if you wore them to the gym or boot camp at least 3-days a week
and focused your attention on high intensity combinations of full
body exercises, kept a food journal, had an action plan to prepare
healthy food in smart portion sizes to help you reach your goals,
created an accountability system and focused on your goals daily, not
only would you reach your goals, but you would be wearing cute shoes
too.

Hey, if these shoes are what motivate you to do all that, go for it. What do you think?

The Secret to Getting the Body You Want

What if you could have the lean sleek body you’ve always wanted… simply by investing 7 min. a week with 7 people. Is that something you’d want to do?

I’m going to tell you exactly how to do that in a minute, but before I do, let me see if this resonates with you…

Are you trying hard to eat right and exercise regularly so that you can lose the fat, get toned and strong, but you’re finding that you’re not doing what you want to do?

Do you find that you’re setting the goals but even with the best of intentions, you are not really following through on them? You’re not holding yourself accountable or taking the steps to get them done?

Before you know it, you’re getting more frustrated because it seems the more you know what you want, the more you stop taking any action to achieve your goals… and you can’t figure out why! You don’t have a structure that supports you.

As Tony Robbins says, “If you talk about it, it’s a dream, if you envision it, it’s possible, but if you schedule it, it’s real.”

So how come you can’t schedule it? Do you know if you simply followed through on all the things you intend to do you would probably get all the results you desire?

Setting goals that you can be held accountable to is one of the most powerful things in terms of going from intention to results.

You want to be first be accountable to yourself by using a scale, body fat caliper, tape measure, weekly progress chart, a daily nutrition diary and a training journal, whatever it takes. Then you can double your motivation and double your results if you had external accountability to a group who is there to support you and hold you to your commitments.

There really is a powerful structure to do exactly that, and it only takes 7 minutes a week with 7 people. You may have heard the term before of masterminding. Let me tell you how this works. This is not coaching. This is about holding you accountable, keeping you motivated, and having a community to check in with once a week.

It’s kind of like going to the gym …if you have to go on your own it’s not quite the same as having a buddy to go with. Well, that’s what this is all about. You are going to have 6 buddies and we’re all going to keep ourselves motivated and accountable. We’re going to celebrate our wins and it’s going to help us in a fun way to make sure we meet all our fitness and nutrition goals and virtually guarantee success.

I’m running a Mastermind group specifically for people who really want to make changes in their life, and really see changes in their body. If you are not getting the results you want, you probably are not changing what you doing. Setting goals are fine, but if you have nothing keeping you accountable to take the action steps necessary, those goals quickly become empty promises that just make you feel frustrated for even trying.

I’m sure you’ll agree, that if you could get all the results that you want, and stop spending money on fitness gear, on nutritional supplements, and all the stuff that you don’t use… but you could actually get results by being in a community of like-minded people who all share your goals, and have access to me, a wellness coach and personal trainer leading your group, I’m sure you would easily agree that is easily worth $49… but really you can’t even put a price on an outcome as important as improving your life!

Because I am launching this new mastermind program, and I want to offer it to you with the first 4 calls free of charge, after that it will be $49.00 per month. If you were to pay one-on-one coaching with me, it would be $300 a month, but with this program you will have access to me for much less. Oh, and I almost forgot, for as long as you stay in the mastermind program, you will have free access to my online training and nutrition program with over 13 custom nutrition plans and a library of over 700 exercises with video descriptions.

The only thing I ask is, if you do participate, you make a commitment to every call. This is not a drop in when you want to and then hear the replay later. This is a team. It relies on your contribution. You are not just receiving benefit, but you are providing benefit too. If you’re not there, you’re not helping, in fact you’re hurting. If you can’t make the commitment to come for each call, don’t sign up.

You are welcome to join, make a difference in your life, and the lives of the others in the group by emailing me: lauren@yourpartnerforchange.com

If you want more details, you can refer back to the previous post: 1-Hour Mastermind

1-Hour Mastermind

First Come First Serve!

Happy November! We are officially into the holiday season. This is indeed a fun time although notoriously stressful as well.

Besides “normal” craziness… there are work parties, social gatherings, and family celebrations that can throw off your routine.

The reason for the statistic of people gaining and average of 10 pounds between now and New Years happens because not only are your normal eating patterns interrupted, but you are shorter on “me” time, that’s where the stress comes in. Before you know it you are cutting out workouts to fit everything in.

While we should all be able to enjoy the holidays it is challenging for anyone trying to stay or become lean.

I am beginning a mastermind group for this reason and I want to keep the group small, 7 people maximum… if there is more interest, I will open more groups based on responses collected.

What is a mastermind?

This will be a 1-hour recorded call, scheduled once a week, and lead by me personally. It is based on the mastermind practices of industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who was the wealthiest man in the world in the 1930’s, wealthy even by today’s standards, and he was also the biggest philanthropist of the 20th century.

Andrew Carnegie was successful for a number of reasons, but notably for doing more with less and optimizing efficiencies for effectiveness. He found an advantage, and used it repeatedly, an advantage that we can all profit from. He regularly used masterminds as his number one tool.

Most people know masterminding from Napoleon Hill’s legendary book Think and Grow Rich. (Chapter 10 for those of you who have it.) Napoleon Hill depicted the success formula of Andrew Carnegie.

What’s all that have to do with weight-loss??

What a mastermind accomplishes is accountability to a group, setting goals and the best practices in getting goals done… in short, easy solutions to achieve your outcome… in this case, staying motivated and taking action to be in the best shape of your life, through the holiday season… and always.

In our 1-hour mastermind, we will meet on a recorded call so you can access and review it at any time, everyone will have a turn to ask a question and get feedback, and then everyone will in turn state their S.M.A.R.T. goal, (specific, measurable, accountable, realistic, and time-bound), for the week and report back each week.

What’s in it for YOU?

If you want to see your body make changes for the better, avoid unnecessary holiday weight gain, and develop the laser-focused attention to get the job done with the support and wisdom of a like-minded accountability group, then this is an amazing opportunity for you. This will not be a time suck… the meetings are succinct yet productive to keep you on tract.

In addition, everyone in the 1-hour mastermind will have access to the self-serve version of my on-line exercise and nutrition program (a $20/month value) at no additional cost. If you would like me to custom design your program, that would be extra, but we could work out an arrangement if that interests you.

To launch this new mastermind program, I am offering the first 2 calls free of charge, after that it will be $49.00 per month. This is a limited time offer until November 15th!

I hope you will consider the Carnegie mastermind formula to achieve your greatest success in this challenging time, and always. While no one can do the exercises for you or eat for you, you don’t have to do this alone. Support from a group has been documented and proven to increase your success exponentially.

If you want to take advantage of this special launch offer, email me at this address: lauren@yourpartnerforchange.com and please be sure to include your time zone!

How would you feel, being in the best shape of your life by New Years 2010 while everyone else is making resolutions?

I look forward to hearing from you,

Lauren