Have you written your New Year’s resolutions yet? When January 1st arrives, everyone has big dreams and ideas but they always seem to die out by the first week of February. Let’s leave that behavior to last year and raise the bar for this year!
We are going to do this by digging deeper, figuring out what truly needs to be done, flashing a light in all of those dark corners and applying solutions for lasting change.
Below is broken into two segments. Part 1 is the ultimate New Year’s Revolution guide to setting and achieving your deepest desires for this year. Part 2 highlights my top solutions for breaking the cycle of emotional eating and dancing to a new rhythm this year.
Follow the steps I’ve outlined below and I promise you’ll finally stick to your New Year’s resolutions and achieve everything you put your mind to!
DAMY New Year’s Revolution
1. Choose and clarify your goals.
Once you have chosen your intentions make sure that these goals are coming from a place of self love.
Meaning this is something you truly want to accomplish, feel or be a part of. Take a moment with each goal and truly feel out if this is something that’s coming from a positive, life enhancing place.
Example – “I want to be as skinny as the models I see in magazines” versus “I want to feel vibrant, sexy, healthy and full of energy.”
2. Create a success action plan for each goal.
If your goal is to workout daily set that appointment ahead of time and stick to it like you would any other appointment. Give yourself the same respect as you would give your doctor if you had an appointment. You are worthy of the time allotted for your goals and you are the only one that can show up for them.
If you change your mindset to making these appointments no matter how you feel (outside of being sick of course) this will lead the way to create more motivation and most importantly results.
3. Be realistic with your goals.
Yes, anyone that has 20 lbs to lose (or more or less) would like to do so in a week. This is just our ego’s way of blocking us once again from achieving freedom in our mind and body. It’s essentially us lying on the floor screaming like a child “I want it now!” It’s time for the woman or man in us to step forward and lead that little child’s way gently by saying “you will get there one day at a time” get up off the floor and take action towards your goal.
The length it takes to get your results truly doesn’t matter in the long run because results that are achieved in a natural, healthy, balanced way are the results that last. That is a fact.
4. Post your goals where you’ll see them often.
When I have a goal that I am sincerely working on I like to write it on a recipe card and post-it notes. I write it in an affirming way and place it in my wallet, on my mirror and on my desk. Other great places are your kitchen, bathroom mirror, etc.
Something along the lines of “This will be my year to create my healthiest, fittest, more radiant self yet. I consume natural, energizing foods. I exercise daily. I rest when needed and I trust the process of my body.”
A goal is an intention of a destination or a shift in your life. It in no way should feel heavy, negative, obsessive, or suffocating. But only you are in control of this.
It is about how you treat, address and feel about your goals. Goals are not a punishment for being not good enough. You are perfect as you are and you want to accomplish something more. That is the base for all healthy goal setting.
5. Check in with yourself and your goals.
Once in a while it is healthy to re-look at our goals and just make sure that we are still in-tune with them. An example that I have is when I started in the health and fitness industry I had certain goals and dreams that I desperately wanted. I tortured myself mentally and emotionally for not achieving certain goals. If I had taken the time to truly step back and look at those goals I would be able to see at the time that they were egoic, shallow and coming from a place of wanting others to tell me I was great. I can honestly say that who I am today is embarrassed by some of my goals and cannot state how grateful I am that those dreams didn’t come true.
This is personal for everyone and no one can tell you if your goal is coming from a deep solid place except you. Being healthy, happy, successful, energetic, feeling energized and full of love are all base goals that are real.
6. To share or not to share. This is the question.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to manifesting an intention. There is the school of keep your deepest desires closest to your heart and don’t share them with others. This comes from a thought process of when we share our goals with others sometimes we’re shot down. Negativity sets in and we start to believe maybe we can’t accomplish our goals. This is especially true when you are trying to accomplish something the people you surround yourself with haven’t accomplished in their lives.
Some examples of this are if your intention is to be lighter and healthier and you come from an overweight family. Your family may feel insulted, threatened or jealous of your goals. They may not give you loving support which may make you lose your faith in yourself. In this scenario I believe keeping your goals to yourself and working on them, showing your results instead of stating them is the better choice.
The other school of thought is telling others what you intend on accomplishing based on the premise that the others will hold you accountable. If you are surrounded by supportive, encouraging, life-affirming individuals this may be the choice for you.
Know your situation and make an educated as to which way is best for you.
7. Faith and consistency.
Accomplishing anything in life is not going to be a straight line. I pray for each of you that your path is as simple, smooth and full of grace as possible. But there will be bumps in the road.
You have to find that inner spark that knows that it is okay. Our ego will take any little tiny bump and put the thought in our head that it’s all over, it’s all ruined, nothing good is ever going to happen and we might as well just quit. There’s no such thing as quitting wanted to have the life you want. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to feel fulfilled. You deserve to be proud of yourself and celebrate your accomplishments. This is done by keeping your eye on the prize even when you don’t feel like it. Meaning that, 80-90% of the time you are making choices and taking action towards the things you want in your life.
When you make a choice that is not in line with what you want the next moment or available chance you just get back on your path. No more shame. No more self abuse. No more guilt. It’s time to love yourself into the life that feels most radiant and rich and beautiful to you.
This is the DAMY New Year’s Revolution. It’s time to dance to a new rhythm, own our lives and rock our dreams!
If emotional eating is something you have struggled with in the past I hope that Part 2 of our DAMY New Year’s Revolution below can help you release the old cycles and welcome healing.
How to Dance to a New Rhythm this Year
Of all the emails I receive many are questions on how to heal the cycles of emotional eating once and for all. Often, when we eat emotionally, we reach for junk food and lots of it, and that can have huge effects on our ability to achieve our health and fitness goals.
To break the cycle, we need to recognize what emotional eating is. If you are suddenly stricken with hunger or have a craving that can be fulfilled by only the specific food you are thinking about, it is likely that your hunger is emotional and not physical. Genuine hunger comes on gradually, not all of a sudden, and if you’re really hungry you will find many foods to be satisfying, not just what you are craving.
The sudden onset of hunger is triggered by an emotional event. All of us have been conditioned to eat food when we’re sad, bored, frustrated, anxious and even when we’re happy (think of all the times we choose to celebrate an event with cake and desserts). Emotional eating also tends to become a vicious cycle of self-sabotage. Once we allow ourselves to eat emotionally, we feel guilty, and that guilt feeds another bout of emotional eating that moves us even further away from our goals.
The most important step in breaking the cycle is being able to recognize your triggers. For the next week, track your meals in a food journal such as the online DAMY journal Along with your meals, you should write down your cravings and what your emotional state was before you experienced the craving (remember, it can be anything ranging from happiness to sadness to boredom to anger). If you give in, write down how you feel after you satisfy your craving. If you don’t give in, I also want you to write down how you feel. At the end of the week, look at your journal and reflect on the moments when your cravings struck.
Now that you know your triggers, here are 7 tips to help you beat them!
1. Eat Clean.
When you’re Eating Clean, you’re eating 5-6 small meals a day. You won’t be hungry because you’ll be eating the right portions of food for you and you’ll be getting the right balance of lean protein, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates to properly nourish your body. With meals every 2-3 hours and with the guidance of DAMY meal plan, you shouldn’t suffer the cravings caused when we don’t supply our bodies with the proper nutrients.
2. Wait it out.
Once you’ve recognized that your craving is not genuine hunger, you can acknowledge it and choose not to feed it. Engage in another activity to take your mind off of the craving. Give yourself time to let the feeling pass. Even if it does linger, you can help beat it by eating your next Clean meal.
3. Don’t deprive yourself.
The next time you are tempted by a craving, stop and reflect on your hunger. If you’ve determined that you are genuinely hungry, eat a small Clean snack made of almonds and a piece of fruit or maybe a few carrots with a bit of hummus. Keeping yourself hungry will only intensify the craving and leave you more prone to giving in.
4. Get support.
If the emotions that triggered your craving are negative ones, manage it in a way that isn’t eating. If you need to vent, head over to your email and let it out! Email me anytime! I am here to support you, give sound advice and help you through your troubles.
5. Create a new habit.
In the end, if you want to stop emotional eating, you have to find ways other than eating to manage stress, alleviate boredom and show love. When I need a mental break from my chaotic life, I grab my running shoes and hit the treadmill. When I want to show my family that I love them, I spend quality time with them playing games, going for walks or even goofing off and sharing some laughter.
6. Moderation not elimination.
In the beginning, breaking this habit may be tough and you may give into your cravings more often than you’d like. Try dividing comfort foods into small portions. For example, reach for a snack-sized chocolate bar rather than a full-sized one. Better yet, if you have a chocolate craving, reach for a square of dark chocolate. Eat one, and have the strength to walk away.
7. There’s no such thing as failure.
As I said, there will be times when you give into the craving. Don’t think of this as a personal failure but as an opportunity to improve yourself. When you label yourself as a failure, you’ll only provide yourself with the negative emotions that trigger an episode of emotional eating.
*With all your goals and intentions take the moment of time that it takes to hold them in silent prayer for yourself. For everyone that will be joining me with a DAMY Health Online Program this year I look forward to our journey of self realization together.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks