Oddly, I think have a plan. A plan that will help me lose thirty pounds in five short months. A plan that will help you follow along and through lifestyle change, set your own attainable weight loss and fitness goals. Are you ready to challenge yourself?
Many of you have been inspired by my story,”Weight Lost. Life Found.” as written by Michelle Magnan of the Calgary Herald on Mar 26, 2009 edition. Your feedback has been incredibly positive and I thank you. I have also gotten to know your stories and struggles first hand and can relate to what you are going through. There are some of you that are reaching out privately and asking for my help. You are telling me that you really want to give it a go and change your life. You’re tired and you’ve reached the end of your road. You want change now!
The bad news is that I by myself can’t change your life. The good news is that I can help, but it needs to come from deep within you. How deep you ask? Are you willing to find out? You are the only one that possesses the answer to that delicate question. Can you make this change? THAT answer is YES!
Let’s get started. I will make the full plan available through this blog and through time, but for now we’re going to take you through a simple exercise that will put your life into perspective. You will discover who you are and hopefully identify areas that need improvement or a little bit of tweaking in your life.
So here’s the deal; Give me seven days and I’ll help you change your life!
Here’s how we’re going to start!
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Make a commitment to yourself that you are willing to change your life. The way your going to do this is by leaving a comment in this posting saying “I’m in” , “Bring it on!”, “Lets go!” or what ever you like.
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The next step will be to take a one week detailed snap shot of your life. You’re going to do so by filling out an activity log that will help you record how you really spend your time. What you should be recording is absolutely everything that consumes more than 15 minutes of your time! During your work day record your when you start/finish as well as your breaks. Here’s a little sample of what we are talking about for the remainder of the day;
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sleep times,
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meals
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work times
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driving, transit or taxing the kids around
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leisure time (eg. TV, reading, movies, hanging with friends)
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exercise time
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grocery shopping,
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household chores (eg cooking. Laundry, yard work etc)
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baths / showers
Here’s a sample activity log that you can print out use to record your activities.
Ok, I’ll be the first guinea pig - I’m in. I guess this means I can’t celebrate my upcoming birthday! With two jobs and my chaotic schedule, filling in the log should be interesting, but I’m going to give it a try.
Perfect Margarita! You CAN celebrate your upcoming birthday, just be a little watchful as to what you put into your body! Maybe you can celebrate your birthday and also the fact that your are taking steps towards changing certain aspects of your life!?!?
I’m back home on Monday and plan on making it work. I am looking forward to additional tips and suggestions. I’m ready to get started
Okay folks … we have a few following along publically via the blog and a few people following along privately via email. You should have all had adequate time to complete the tasks, so lets get rolling on this. Things are going to be picking up and by May 1 you will be in a full program!
You should have all spent a week tracking your activities in your activity log. Make a copy of this log and keep the original nicely tucked away for future reference. There are many reasons why we’ve done this exercise and I will make most of the reasons available to you , (on a need to know basis in order not to overwhelm you right now), as we progress through your journeys, but here are the some important reflections to consider.
The weeklong activity log will give a 1 week snap shot of your 52 week year. Remember it’s only a snap shot and things may change when you go on holidays etc. but for the most part it is a pretty accurate reflection of what your life is looking like. Is this how you want to live your life? Probably NOT! That why you’re here!
Writing things down or logging things down plays a critical role in your success. It provides a way of tracking history which we can then reference or reflect on at a later time. Its not just about the numbers but the positive psychological impact these writing will have on you during difficult times. If you have any intentions of changing your life you need to “see it” in writing; when you “see it”, it becomes real! Its part of the brain game you’re going to learn about! Do you understand?
Over the next few posts I will be showing you how to analyze your activity log and how to spot “patterns”. Some of these patterns are going to be good patterns while some of them are going to be bad “patterns” or so called habits. We are going to focus on building on those good patterns and trying to eliminate the bad patterns. We are also going to focus on building new patterns that will contribute positively to the life style change we are all about to embark on.
Have you ever heard successful people talk about non successful people? Many indicate that not all of us go into things planning to fail, we just fail to plan! So we are going plan and organize your life in order to deal with not only the obligations you have but most importantly the obligation you have to yourself of changing your life style and taking back control of your life. Planning is going to be the fundamental foundation to your life style change!
Lets build a positive pattern now …
… look at your activity log and identify a 20-30 minute daily activity that you can replace with a 20-30 minute walk. I would like you to PLAN and implement four of these 20-30 minute walk activities per week.
That’s it for now and good luck …
Hi Frank;
I’m interested to find out what I could do to change my poor every day health habits.
Need to change & downsize my gut.
Where do I start.
Terry: You’re at the right spot! Fill out the activity log located in this post and read along the post above yours and then follow my future posts! We’ll get you changing your life style for the better in no time!
cheers
Frank