November 21, 2017

The holiday season is synonymous with food… and lots of it! So, with all the events you’ll be attending this season, how do you keep from destroying your health… and actually lose weight?

Whether you’ve been trying to take back your health for a while now, or are just starting out during the last months of this year, the holidays can be daunting. Food—most of it bad for you—can feel like it’s everywhere. Holiday parties, big family meals, all those extra boxes of calorie-packed treats Dorothy at the office keeps leaving in the break room… it can feel inescapable at times.
But, here’s the thing…

It’s not inescapable. The temptation to indulge—or, more likely, to overindulge—doesn’t have to be irresistible.

Here are five surefire strategies for tamping down the temptation and holding on to your health this holiday season.

1. Understand What You’re Up Against

Your health starts with one thing, and one thing only: Awareness.

When you understand where your bad habits have their roots, you can make healthy choices. You can say “no” to death and say “yes” to life.

It’s no different when it comes to your health this holiday season. Understanding what you’re up against will go a long way in allowing you to make the right choices for your health.

So, what exactly are you up against? What, exactly, do you need to be aware of?

First, understand that holiday overindulgence isn’t a real thing. Instead, it’s the primary message of a marketing campaign you’ve been subjected to for your entire life. The holidays can mean a lot of things, but NONE of those things are overeating.

We have this vision of huge, calorie-packed meals—and the lethargy that follows—because that’s what they’ve sold you. You hear a lot about the over-commercialization of the holidays when it comes to gifts. But it’s the same thing with food.

Notice the commercials on TV this time of year… In an attempt to sell you french-fried onions, for example, they’ll show those onions posed within a square acre of “holiday food.”

You won’t just see Acme Turkey gravy.

No, you’ll see it poured over a metric ton of meat, stuffing, potatoes, and who knows what else. Those big meals aren’t there by accident.

Toy companies target your kids. Food companies target everyone.

Second, you’re up against the idea that everyone eats terribly during the holidays. It’s social pressure 101. Because it’s “just a thing people do,” it makes it much easier to indulge yourself. Despite the fact that no, not everyone eats terribly during the holidays.

Third, know that eating is never an isolated activity. It’s rooted in emotion. Around the holidays, it’s also rooted in the feelings we have about traditions. Apple dump cake might be tempting. Grandma’s apple dump cake, though, is on a whole different level.

Traditions are powerful. So are emotions. Understanding those connections—and building awareness around their existence—can go a long way in keeping you healthy—and happy—during the holidays.

So, awareness is the starting point.

2. Don’t Look Forward to New Year’s

New Year’s is a tough animal to tackle. Because, while it’s good to feel like you have a fresh start, and equally good to set healthy goals for yourself, too often it tends to have the opposite effect.

It can be easy to overindulge during the holidays when you “know” that you’re going to get your health in order on January 1st. That day has become more of an excuse than anything else. It’s easy to see it as a chance for a do-over… even when you know, in the back of your mind, that most, if not all, of your resolutions will be broken and forgotten by the second week of January.

It’s human nature to want to improve yourself. It’s also a noble endeavor. But New Year’s Day isn’t the time to do that. For one, there’s a ton of added pressure. And secondly, just like a lot of people wrack up credit card debt buying gifts during the holidays, there’s also often a “health debt” that comes due once the holidays are over. Overindulge for the last two months of the year, and you’re setting yourself even further behind the eight ball, health-wise.

Also, look… The truth is, there’s no good time to start making healthy lifestyle changes. The fourth quarter of the year is problematic because of the holidays, right? But the first three months of the year are inconvenient because, well, it’s cold and no one wants to leave the house to go to the gym. The second quarter isn’t great because you’re busy and vacation is coming up. And the third quarter? It’s hot. You’re trying to pack in more summer fun before the leaves start turning brown, and honestly… after the holidays you’ll get things in order.

All of which combines to mean one thing: Because there’s no “good” time to start taking back your health, any time of the year is the best place to start.

Don’t let your excuses get in the way of everything you can accomplish.

If you’ve already started taking back your health by slowly replacing the bad habits with good ones, then take this holiday season as an opportunity to continue.

If you haven’t started making those changes, start today. Now is as good—or bad— a time as any.

Either way, let New Year’s Day be a celebration of everything you’ve accomplished so far instead of the starting point.

3. Have a Plan

No one’s ever done something good for themselves in a sustainable way without a plan. So, as you tiptoe through the minefield that is the holidays, go in with a plan.

This plan doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as making sure that you’ve filled up on a healthy meal or snack before you go to a holiday party. Or it could be just making a promise to yourself that you’ll drink water instead of punch, or pop, or eggnog.

You know yourself. And because you’ve built up that awareness about what your triggers are going to be back in step 1, you’ll be able to come up with a strategy that works for you.

4. Bring Your Own Food

Part of that strategy might be bringing your own food to meals and other events. Make something healthy… and make a lot of it to share!

Thanks to the internet, there are tons of super healthy holiday recipes right at your fingertips. Here are a few to get you started. 

Choose one, take it with you, and share it. You can even decide not to tell anyone it’s healthy. See how they feel about it before you tell them it’s the only dish on the table that won’t cause a coronary.

Be an inspiration to others.

5. Remember What the Holidays are Actually About

Finally, take a step back. Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. And then think about what the holidays REALLY MEAN.

Your answer is going to be your own. The holidays mean as many different things as there are people who celebrate them. Family, faith, togetherness, joy, thanksgiving… for you it can be about any combination of these deeper meanings.

But what this time of year is NOT ABOUT holds true across the board.

The holidays are not about spending more money than you have on gifts that no one needs.

They aren’t about raiding the shopping mall at midnight on Black Friday.

They aren’t for stuffing yourself until you pass out on the couch in front of the football game.

So much of what is marketed AT you this time of year are lies, plain and simple. Those huge meals you see in the commercials? Most of the time, that’s not even food.

Everything you see is an idealized—and FALSE—expectation that you’re being psychologically manipulated to attempt to live up to.

Take this holiday season back for yourself. Build that awareness. Understand your own reason for the season.

And above all, choose your health. Choose your happiness.

Choose life.

Watch more below!

The post How to Actually Lose Weight During this Holiday Season appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

September 7, 2017

Caught in the yo-yoing cycle of fad dieting? Here’s how to shed those pounds and keep them off!

Anyone can lose weight. It’s a simple process: Use up more calories than you take in.

But, ask anyone who’s tried out a fad diet, and they’ll all tell you the same thing. “Yeah, it works. But only for a little while.”

Yo-yoing is the term people use to describe the process of losing—and then regaining—weight. If fad diets have anything in common, it’s that most—if not all—result in this drop-and-gain cycle.

It’s a disappointing process, really. You work really hard at a diet, achieve your goals, and then… you go back to square.

So, why is it so hard to keep the weight off?

THE WHY

For a lot of people, it has a lot to do with their “Why.”

Why are you trying to lose weight to begin with? To look good in a bathing suit? To fit into a particular dress for a class or family reunion?

The problem here is that often those things have an expiration date. Once vacation is over, that motivating factor is no longer present. And with it goes the “Why.”

The other issue with fad diets is that even when they “work”—and by “work” I mean that you lose the weight, at least initially—most of them are so bad for you that yeah, that bathing suit might fight, but you’re unhealthier internally than you were before.

Along those same lines, belly fat isn’t just an outer, physical problem. It’s a sign of what’s going on inside you. It’s a symptom of an unhealthy lifestyle.

(For example, it’s not uncommon to find people who look “thin” on the outside but have all sorts of insulin resistance and belly fat issues inside their bodies.)

Here’s how it works.

When your body is working as it should, your gut microbiome—the hundreds of millions of microscopic plants, animals, bacteria, and other tiny critters that live in your gastrointestinal tract—produce chemicals that improve your bodily systems. They are nutrifying your body.

But, when they’re out of balance, the secretions lead to sickness. And why do they fall out of balance?

It’s all lifestyle. It’s what you put into your body, along with how you handle the inevitable stress in your life.

A lot of times, this imbalance is a major factor in belly fat accumulation.

So, how do you get the weight off and keep it off?

The first step is to find your “Why?”

Ask yourself, why do you want to lose the weight? What’s the primary reason for it?

Are you ready to lose weight… FOR GOOD? Register for our FREE Wellness Dinner Seminar and learn how here.

For a lot of our members at the Wellness Training Institute, the decision to lose the weight and get healthy happens after a major medical event. An accident, a heart attack, a cancer diagnosis—or worse.

For some, it’s realizing that your family, kids, or grandchildren want them to be around for longer than their current lifestyle choices would predict.

For others, it’s merely reaching the point where enough is enough. You have one life, this is it, and you deserve to be happy. But without your health, happiness just isn’t going to happen.

FIND YOUR WHY

So, no matter what your reason is, find it. The important thing to know as you search for it is that it’s there. Sure, you might want to fit into a smaller size, but that’s rarely the real reason. I mentioned symptoms earlier, and a lot our external, maybe shallower impulses, tend to have roots deep within our selves.

Finding yours might be just what you need to get rid of that belly fat, regain your health, and grab that happy life that’s waiting for you just beyond your choice to take that first step forward—and then keep going!

 Watch and listen to more below!

The post How to Keep the Belly Fat Away… For Good appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

September 30, 2016

“For he who has health has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.”– Owen Arthur

The hardest part about getting healthy is, for a lot of people, knowing where to start.

And the hardest part of knowing where to start is the fact that every time you look into some health tip, you find a countering opinion. You have so much information at your finger tips— Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Youtube, Pintrest— but what is true? What will work? So, you start researching, hoping that you’ll find the right information to get you started.

But instead of finding a solution, all you find is information.

And there is A LOT of it. Much of which contradicts itself.

For example: Bananas are good. Also, they are bad.

Or: An apple a day keeps the doctor away… or does it?

Or: Grains are good. But they are also the opposite of good.

Or: Fats make you fat. And… they make you thin.

It’s enough to make your head explode.

And that’s just the beginning of the pain a solo journey down the path toward wellness is going to bring you.

Not to add to your confusion unnecessarily, but here are a number of other obstacles you are probably going to encounter in just trying to figure out where to even begin.

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

Labels

Labels are hard to read. (And that’s not by mistake.) So, even if you’re attempting to begin eating better by choosing low-fat or reduced-sodium processed foods (don’t do this, btw), you’re still fighting an uphill battle with information.

For example, look at this label for cornmeal:

All of that seems pretty okay, right? You have corn, the word “whole grain” (which is supposed to be good, right?), a little plant oil, some salt, and then… what is this TBHQ business?

Well, the answer to that question is this: TBHQ (or Tertiary Butylhydroquinone) is a petroleum-based preservative. It’s there to lengthen the shelf life of the cornmeal. It also increases your risk of cancer. It’s also a neurotoxin. And, oh yeah, consuming more than five grams of it at one time may possibly kill you outright.

And that’s just one example. Figuring out what you’re actually eating when you choose processed foods—even the ones that claim they’re good for you!—is almost impossible without at least a doctorate in biochemical engineering.

Marketing

When was the last time you saw a commercial for a vegetable?

Probably never.

And there’s a very simple reason for that: Vegetables aren’t good business in the same way that soft drinks or breakfast cereal are. The reason why is because vegetables can’t sit on a shelf for months at a time in the market, don’t offer very good margins for the corporations themselves, and aren’t filled with addictive substances designed specifically to get you to buy more and more (and more) of them.

Advertisers know this. And so, they aren’t going to waste their time trying to get you to consume them.

Which is why it’s so hard to try to eat healthy. You are constantly bombarded with messaging telling you to eat things that will eventually kill you. And even if you know this, it’s still so hard to fight against that level of psychological warfare.

When you’re a single target, it’s hard to keep from getting shot up with arrows at every turn.

Everyone Else is Eating Junk

This is probably one of the most powerful adversaries you have when attempting to fly solo on your health journey. By nature, humans are communal when it comes to food. Sunday dinners with grandma. First dates out at an Italian bistro. Thanksgiving dinner.

We eat together.

So, when you drive past a McDonalds at noon on a Tuesday and the parking lot is filled beyond capacity, it’s easy to sort of make up your mind that yeah, McDonalds is terrible for you, but still… everyone else is doing it.

In working with our members at the Wellness Training Institute, this issue of community is far and away the biggest hurdle we have to tackle. So many of our members come into the program attempting to get healthy, but have little to no support back home with their friends and family. Misery loves company, and that applies to food as much as it does to anything else.

For all the reasons I gave above why getting healthy alone is such a hard—if not impossible—task, this one is probably the most revealing why.

I’ve had countless members come to me, right before they graduate, and say how they never would’ve accomplished their wellness goals if it hadn’t been for the community they found in our Healthful Evolutions program. They found the necessary support with the other members of the program—people with similar goals, encouraging and celebrating with each other—that they didn’t have back in their regular lives.

That’s really the moral of the story. You can’t go it alone. If you want to get healthy, you have to surround yourself with others who want the same thing—both for themselves and, just as importantly, for you.

So… where are you on your health journey? What are your goals? What are your struggles? Share them below in the comments!

The post Why You Can’t Get Healthy Alone appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

September 27, 2016

Very few people have ever decided that they are going to just throw up their hands, decide that whatever happens happens, and just choose to stay sick and broken down and headed for an early grave.

But at the same time, the evidence is there that a big chunk of our culture has done just that.

We eat terribly. We’re addicted to distraction. We spend enough of our lives not moving around to the point that movement becomes difficult—if not impossible—later in life.

And, any commercial break during any TV show at any time of day shows how much encouragement we are getting from the corporations intent on selling us more and more of this lifestyle that’s killing us quicker than we could ever hope to manage on our own.

So, how do we fix it? How can you, today, start making better nutritional choices to feel better, live better, and simply be better?

I’m glad you asked. It’s not nearly as hard as you might think.

1. Look at What You’re Eating

The best way to get as many calories (and toxic chemicals, empty carbs, and stuff that isn’t even food to begin with) through your mouth and down into your body is to just shovel it mindlessly in.

It’s like the old adage: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In this case, if all you’re eating is food from a bag or a box, then everything looks like food.

Which, of course, it isn’t.

Instead, if you choose your food mindfully—and then eat it in the same way—you are quickly going to become aware of what, exactly, it is that you’re eating.

And with everything you eat, ask yourself this question: Is this helping my body or hurting it? People know a Double Whopper with bacon-flavored cheese isn’t good for you. But, what if you thought about it in this way: If I continued to eat this, every day, would it help me or hurt me?

The answer is obvious. And if you keep that question in mind when both choosing and consuming food, you’ll be a lot more enlightened about what exactly is going into your body.

Just shovel it in. Seriously. Whatever it is, just eat it.

2. Eat Plants.

It’s really that simple. Plants are healthy. They have almost all the nutrition inside them that you will ever need. Vitamins. Minerals. Fiber. A whole array of nutrients.

And the best way to start introducing more plants into your diet is to do just that. Introduce them.

Don’t take anything else out of your diet. Eat what you’re eating now. But add in two servings of vegetables to every meal. For those of us who aren’t keen on counting, think about it this way: For every meal, half your plate should be vegetables. You like Twinkies? Fine. Keep eating Twinkies. But also add in some broccoli, or carrots, or (if you want to get fancy) a rutabaga. Whatever.

Just fill up half your plate with whatever vegetable you choose.

After a while of not feeling so horrid from dawn until dusk, you’re body is going to adapt. It’s going to want those vegetables. Like a truck you’ve been filling up with maple syrup for the past decade that now has a taste of what it feels like to run on premium gasoline, you’re going to be surprised at how much you won’t miss the garbage.

Don’t eat them. Don’t think about them. Don’t even look at them. Pretend they are all poisonous. (Because let’s face it… they are). 

3. Quit Frying things.

Seriously. Just stop it. No more frying your food.

Oil just adds calories. You can still use your frying pans, but use them for steaming or sautéing. Or, if the temptation is too much, take all your frying pans and make decorative planters out of them. Or give your cat a little treat in the form of a much wider, slightly shallower, and be-handled new watering dish. Or fill them up with soil and start growing sprouts for all the salads you are going to look forward to eating in the future once your veins de-grease themselves and your body is more animal than off-shore oil well.

4. Understand Why You Eat What You Do

This is a big one.

A lot of why we eat isn’t from nutritional deficit, but instead because we feel a certain way.

Happy? Grab an Oreo.

Sad? Grab a Double-stuff Oreo.

The food we eat often has very little to do if we’re hungry or not. A lot of people (and I used to be this way, so don’t accuse me of getting preachy on you) just eat out of simple boredom.

An Oreo in our culture is legitimately just something to do.

Being mindful about WHY you eat, on the other hand, puts the nutritional factorial back into the equation. If you are upset and start reaching into the snack cabinet, take a breath, and ask yourself why your hand is currently wrapped around a Ho-Ho. Are you hungry, really? Or are you eating out of emotion?

Eating mindfully is one of those habits that can make a big difference very quickly. We have members that come into the program that have legitimately never once thought about WHY they eat what they eat. And once that lightbulb goes on above their heads, you can see the change almost visibly in their faces.

Once you get it, you get it. And then, combined with the other steps on this list, eating starts becoming something life-giving and rewarding, and not a mindless exercise in chewing.

What steps do you want to take to begin eating better? Let us know in the comment section below!

The post 4 Things You Can Do Nutritionally RIGHT NOW to Improve Your Life appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

August 30, 2016

When people say they’re on a “diet,” what do they actually mean?

For most people it means losing weight. “Diet” and “weight loss” have been inextricably linked in our culture, mainly because of the last 50 years of advertising campaigns.

Which is really a shame.

Because what “diet” really means is whatever a species happens to be eating.

Get Real

The way it’s used commonly now makes it sound like a punishment. Like you’ve done something bad and now have to punish yourself through restriction.

The way we ought to approach diet is to look at what food we’re eating.

That sounds overly simplistic, but stay with me here, because there’s a significant distinction to be made when it comes to food.

Because a lot of what we eat as a culture isn’t actually food.

The actual definition of food is “anything that sustains growth and repairs tissue.”

So, an apple, for instance, is mostly comprised of food. Most of what makes up an apple can be broken down by your body for use in cellular growth and repair, or serves as roughage to keep all the different channels clean.

A Big Mac, on the other hand, is made up of a little bit of food. I’m sure there are some vitamins and minerals floating around in that small lake of secret sauce. Your digestive juices might happen upon a few stray protein strands. You might even find a complex carb or two that happened to fall out of the sky and adhere to a plastic poppy seed. But most of what’s going into your body isn’t food.

It’s stuff.

But not food.

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

The One Question

The best way to think about food—and about diet as a whole—is to ask yourself this one question: If I eat this over a long period, is it going to bring me life or lead to death?

And as far as figuring out what to eat, if you let that question guide your dietary choices, you aren’t going to have to worry about cutting calories or drinking nothing but lemon-flavored water for the next three weeks.

It’s amazing how well the body adapts when you view food in the right way. The weight comes off. The belly fat disappears. The sicknesses you’ve lived with for decades begin to fade… and then disappear altogether.

The body is a miracle in a lot of ways. Its capacity to repair itself is one of the most magnificent.

You just have to feed it real food.

The post The End of Real Food: Hijacking the Word “Diet” appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

August 19, 2016

One of the most frustrating things about the internet is that I see ads like these every day:

The frustrating thing about each of these is how utterly preposterous the claims are. Twenty-five pounds in two weeks? Really?

Even if what the advertiser is promising comes true, can you imagine how your body would be affected by losing that much weight that fast? That can’t possibly be a pretty picture.

For those keeping score, those effects could include electrolyte imbalances, malnutrition, gallstones, loose flaps of skin, dehydrations, fatigue, irritability, dizziness, constipation, muscle and hair loss, and a whole laundry list of other nasty things.

Plus, what happens on week three? Is that weight going to stay off?

I doubt it.

Ads like these work, unfortunately. And the attitudes behind them are the main cause for why the Fad Diet Industry in America alone pulls in $33 billion annually.

But weight loss and health aren’t the same thing.

Sure, if you are obese, it’s obviously in your best interest to lose that excess belly fat. Obesity is currently at epidemic levels, killing 300,000 people each year and owning the runner-up spot on the list of all preventable causes of death.

But just losing the weight doesn’t mean you’re healthy.

Health is all about nutrifying your life.

It’s about making changes to your life—literally choosing “life” over “death” each moment of your life.

That doesn’t happen over night.

Instead, the only way significant, healthy change happens is through a gradual process.

The Only Way to Change

Remember the dumb “diets” from above? Here’s why they don’t work.

You want to lose weight. So you go on a restrictive “diet”—you don’t eat certain things, you do eat certain things, and in effect manage to make your self miserable for the duration.

After a few days, you can’t stand it any longer, so you cheat. Just a little—a snack-sized Snickers, maybe, or a handful of those gross orange circus peanuts—and then you dive back into the torture.

You tell yourself that your little “cheat” wasn’t a big deal. And in reality, it isn’t. Well, at least not in isolation. But this sort of thing doesn’t tend to happen in isolation. Your cheat happened, and your brain knows it happened, so you feel a little guilty, and the next time the cravings come knocking, you’re that much more likely to eat an entire bag of chips and wash it down with a Dr. Pepper Turbo Gulp.

So, you struggle to try to eat well, all the while battling yourself at every turn, slipping up and getting back on the proverbial wagon in a cycle that leaves you—if it’s even possible—even more miserable.

Eventually, you quit the whole diet thing and go back to the way you’ve always eaten.

What’s interesting about this cycle, though is this: Notice how you fell off the wagon. It wasn’t all at once. It was step by baby step, right?

That’s telling. Because that’s how to make real change in your life. Only, in reverse.

The way we as humans change is by slowly, gradually forming new habits.

And we’ve found that the best way to do this is by maintaining what you are currently doing, keeping even your bad habits intact, and simply adding on good habits.

Deprivation is rarely a good teacher. Instead, health is truly an evolution. Eliminating everything all at once leaves you starving for the nutrients your body needs, and tends to leave you overwhelmed. Gradual change, on the other hand, moves the needle slowly, and as a consequence makes that change far more likely to stick.

Want more great information about the foundations of a healthy life? Download the first installment of our NEW 7-part eBook series The 7 Habits of Highly Healthful People for FREE right now, right HERE!

Another Thing That Doesn’t Work

I hear a lot of people talk about moderation. As if just eating SOME bad things will magically get you healthy. The problem with this idea is essentially: What’s moderate?

If you smoke four packs of cigarettes a day, cutting that down to two would be moderate, right?

Obviously, that’s still not going to be good for you.

Moderation, then, isn’t a goal that’s likely going to get you anywhere.

Instead, take baby steps toward health. Crowd in the good stuff, make it a habit, and you’ll be amazed at how lasting changes can improve your quality of life.

Health is wholeness. And it’s a process, not a destination.

The post The Importance of Gradual Change appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.