by Cindy Carbone
Resolutions 101- Change Your Mind, Change Your Life!
Commit to H.E.A.L. America
Diets don’t work.
Countless pounds are lost every year using all sorts of diets and methods. Many people are successful at losing weight, but most are not successful at keeping it off. We spend a fortune on appetite suppressants and doctor controlled weight loss programs. We get bariatric or LAP-BAND surgery. We start new, well-intentioned exercise routines. We drop 8 jean sizes, buy a whole new wardrobe, and feel better than we have in years!
Unfortunately, however, the odds are that we will gain every pound back. If we go on a diet, get surgery, or use appetite suppressants, we eventually go back to normal living. When this happens, we assume our old eating habits. We have learned nothing, only made temporary behavioral change, and in many cases have done damage to our metabolism.
I have a secret. I know exactly how to lose weight, and keep it off.
The secret to losing weight means NOT falling prey to the trends of the Weight Loss Industry. This highly profitable, and growing industry is dedicated to our obesity, our ignorant food culture, our obsession with being thin, and our desperation to jump on the latest weight loss trend, fad, or diet. What is absolutely insane is that despite the financial success of this industry, we find ourselves fatter, and sicker than ever before. We will try, believe, and pay just about anything for overnight weight loss success. We will do anything, no matter how drastic, temporarily. But guess what? Temporary change means temporary results, and I firmly believe that weight loss should never be our primary goal.
Indeed, the secret to permanent weight loss has little to do with weight, and everything to do with health.
When we focus on our health, we do not drink diet sodas, take appetite suppressants, or eat artificially sweetened food. We do not drastically reduce our calorie intake, take HCG hormones, or forego all complex carbohydrates. We do not starve ourselves all day, so we can drink our calories at a party at night.
When we focus on health, we eat MORE fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and whole grains. When we focus on health, we exercise because it is good for our bodies, not because it burns 500 calories. When we focus on health, we do not eat a salad, while feeding our children fast food, because pursuing health means we think about the health of our entire family. When we focus on health, there is no hypocrisy and no overnight success.
Health is a long-term goal, not a short-term fixation. There is no end, no joining fee, no weekly weigh-ins, and no drastic calorie reductions. Attaining health is about doing not depriving, action not cessation, starting not stopping. Being healthy is a priority, and a lifestyle.
But understanding what it takes to be healthy requires knowledge. To navigate our health within the context of our crazy, ignorant food culture, requires education, and not that provided by our government. Attaining health means prioritizing health, and prioritizing health means changing our lives.
But before we can effectively change our lives, we must first change our MINDS!
Do you know what sets healthy minded people apart from everyone else? Wisdom.
We are not born with health wisdom, it comes from making a conscious CHOICE to become informed. Our country is not suffering from willpower issues, we are suffering from won’t power issues. Health wisdom is everywhere, but no one wants to hear it.
Here are the basic principles behind health wisdom. Health wisdom is about being empowered, not being a victim. Health wisdom means understanding that our lifestyle and behaviors are far greater predictors of disease than genetics. Health wisdom means making informed, knowledgeable, and mindful decisions today, so that we can have health and vitality tomorrow. Health wisdom means knowing that the food we feed our children today, will set them on a path to health or disease, tomorrow.
Which brings me to a grave statistic. Our children’s generation is predicted to be the very first to have a shorter life expectancy than the generation before them. This means that health trends indicate that the choices we are making for our children now, will result in more cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and earlier death for them, later.
Indeed, it seems that our efforts to avert health wisdom, and take the easy way out, will eventually take the lives of our children.
We need to take control of our health. We need to H.E.A.L. America. H.E.A.L. stands for “healthy eating and living.” It is a commitment to stop eating with ignorance, and start eating with mindfulness. This requires self-education, which can be attained by reading a few books by authors Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, and Marion Nestle, and watching two documentaries. This education WILL change your mind, guaranteed. The rest will happen gradually, as you begin to see the world of food, and health from a different perspective.
Commit to join this movement today. Commit to change your mind, your health, your children’s health, and the health of our planet.
Go to the “Educate Your Way to Health” website H.E.A.L. page for details, including a 12 step program to gradually become the best version of yourself that you can be. For your New Years Resolution commit to a new idea, a new path to health, through education and action. Pass this along through Facebook, Twitter, or email to friends and family as your commitment to healthy eating and living. In the process, change our children’s destiny, and help H.E.A.L. America!
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About Cindy: As a Health Coach, my focus is on basic nutritional education, as it relates to your health, and your body. I believe that people should pursue health and wellness, over pure weight loss goals. This pursuit of optimal health is the only way to true, lasting, lifestyle change. Health knowledge, results in informed and educated choices and behaviors, which naturally results in weight loss, while at the same time, changing and improving the lives, and overall health, of your entire family. Lifestyle, behaviors, and food choices are strong environmental factors that greatly predict health, and disease. Every man, woman, adolescent, and child requires the same foods to be healthy, and fight disease. My perspective is that of a Mom trying to feed her kids nutrient rich whole foods, in a country that glorifies fast, and processed foods, and thinks nothing of it being the mainstay of our diets! My goal is to educate and inform, and I reach out to all mothers. Mothers have the power and influence to make the change necessary for the current and future health of our children, and our country.
