Living Lean: Putting Healthy Living Into Action

Even though my field is health coaching and personal training, I get weary and uninspired by the tidbits of information that are available for free on even highly regarded, well researched, and prominent professional oriented websites.

This is not to undermine these sites, as I use them quite often as a resource. It is to suggest however, that we need to focus more thoughtfully on what matters most for us as health oriented individuals. Let me explain.

Reading But Not Doing the Work
Here’s what I believe is happening with the wealth of information we have access to on the internet. As consumers, we consistently look for the big breakthrough in losing weight and keeping it off. There’s nothing new about this. With our desire to lose weight, we put our energy into reading material about healthy living and weight loss, but without actually doing the work of cleaning up our eating habits and increasing our energy expenditure with exercise. The vast amount of information available to us has the effect of numbing us. This sea of information intended to increase consumer awareness and motivation often times causes the opposite effect.

Though we have the greatest access to information in history, unhealthy living and obesity are at epidemic proportions.

We Need to Make Sense of Information
As people we are cognitively driven to make sense of the world and so we succeed best when information is integrated systematically into our own lifestyle needs. We have an innate desire to live a healthy life. If you doubt this, ask yourself how many times you have stopped and started exercise and healthy eating programs? We want purpose, meaning, and a sense of systematic planning when it comes to most things that are important to us. Unfortunately, for most people who are aiming to lose weight or become healthier, these small bits of information only serve to distract them from carrying out a more thoughtful strategic plan that is necessary for long lasting behavior change.

What To Do?
What to do is the question. Many of us are good at what we do. We are driven, motivated, and have a system for succeeding at whatever it is we choose. So the question that you may have as a “dieter” is, “Why can’t I succeed at losing weight when I am competent in most other areas of my life?” This is a question worth taking a few minutes to analyze. Think about this – What makes you successful? It does not need to relate to money or fame, but only in what is important to you. If money and fame are important, that is o.k of course, but what I am striving to have you analyze is the idea that there is a strong correlation between strategic effort and success. Rarely does anyone succeed if a thoughtful plan is not put into action.

So Why Can’t I Lose Weight?
These tidbits of information that we have been flooded with for years now is just that- tidbits of information with no plan – no overall strategy – no meaning – and no real life changing purpose! Designed to help us? Of course! But prioritized and individualized for our unique motivations, strengths, weaknesses, and lifestyles – hardly.

We all have areas that we excel in and that comes easy and more naturally to us. We still of course have to work strategically, but it is work that gives us purpose, energy, and meaning in our lives. In these strength areas of our lives we’ve found value in goal setting, planning, strategizing, implementing, assessing and reassessing. These same skills need to be used to implement thoughtful planning and to design our own healthy lives.

We need to use our brains, exercise our willpower and take action.

We Stopped Believing
Somewhere in our society’s timeline we stopped believing that smart effort was required for being healthy. Regardless of why or how we came to believe this is really not important. As a health coach I prefer to look forward to what can be, and only reflect on the past to bring a sensibility to our future aspirations. And it is my hope to bring the energy I have in my work, to help you transform the vision you have of a leaner healthier body, and happier life, into the reality you deserve.

This is why I designed a healthy eating program that is all about sticking to a schedule, not having to figure a bunch of complicated stuff out and getting support from a professional without the hassle of scheduled in person meeting (but with all the accountability!)