Too Much on Her Plate

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Gold Medal Excuse Number Two: Exhaustion

March 4th, 2010, No Comments »

Gold Medal Excuses: Emotional Eating and Success Traps

This is the second in a series of Gold Medal Excuses. These are the excuses that win the gold. They are so compelling that they stop the game and leave women stuck and not getting where they want to go. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. These are the excuses that leave women working really hard but not moving in the direction that they want to go. You will find the first Gold Medal Excuse here.

Success Traps that Sabotage: Exhaustion

Many of you ARE exhausted and you are paying a huge price. Sleep deprivation is a big problem for busy women and it absolutely will contribute to you feeling:

• Less effective
• Less focused
• Hungry
• Stressed and overwhelmed
• Tense, irritable, and not at your best

Exhaustion is not only the product of sleep deprivation. Exhaustion happens when we run out of fuel. So if you are busy and you aren’t taking the time to eat and to energize with regular activity and with the kinds of things and people that feed your spirit, you are likely to feel run down and exhausted no matter how much sleep you get.  The issues of exhaustion and “no time” are very interrelated and it’s essential that you solve them, because if you don’t you won’t just stay stuck. You’ll burn out.

Guard your sleep fiercely. It’s essential fuel and 99 percent of us need at least 7-8 hours a night. It doesn’t work to cut back during the week and try to catch up on weekends. Sleep is an investment in yourself. If you aren’t getting enough than moving in that direction is the first step you need to take. If you’ve been walking around sleep-deprived for awhile, you’ll be amazed at the difference in how you feel.

Take an inventory of the activities in your life that exhaust you. Are you saying no regularly? Are you doing things that you resent or that waste your time? Could you set better boundaries? Are you open to delegating?

Make a list of the things and people that fuel you. How often are you replenishing your reserves in these areas? If your automatic response has to do with not having enough time, check out the tips here.

Repeat after me: Staying up late doesn’t help. The number one trap I see for women with too much on their plates? Women tend to get into a pattern of staying up late at night in an attempt to catch up, “rest up,” or capture some time alone. Trying to pay yourself at the end of the day almost always backfires. You are likely to overeat (emotional eating and exhaustion eating in the evening are problems for many women), exhaust yourself further, and fritter away the time you do stay awake because you are too tired to do anything else.

Stay tuned for the next Gold Medal Excuse–and feel free to share your favorites by adding a comment.

Take good care,

Gold Medal Excuse Number One: “I don’t have time!”

March 2nd, 2010, 1 Comment »

Gold Medal Excuses: Emotional Eating and Success Traps

“I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.” ~ The March Hare

Here’s a question I am commonly asked: How do I prioritize when I truly have too much to do? When you run a company called Too Much On Her Plate, women email you their to-do lists. Really. And you women are BUSY.

I hear about the businesses you are running and the demanding careers that you have, the aging parents and growing children you are caring for, the relationships and household demands, the health concerns, and the late nights. Many of you see the link clearly between the overwhelming demands of your life and the stress and comfort eating, the weight gain, the lack of energy to exercise, and the difficulty getting where you want to go with your personal goals. And you are feeling frustrated because you don’t know what to do and don’t have the time to think about it or start doing anything differently.

I have news. This problem almost never solves itself. Time will never just show up—and honestly, if it does, you’ll probably find yourself so glad to have it that you just collapse into it and don’t really use it in a way that will benefit you. If you want to get off the hamster wheel, you are going to have to CLAIM some time.

Claiming time means that for now (not forever), you say no to something else in order to claim some time for you. It doesn’t have to be a week. It might be ten minutes. If it is, that’s a great start. Ten minutes devoted just to you and your goal may be more than you gave yourself yesterday. So claim it. Write it in your schedule. Decide in advance what you will do with it. Somebody just emailed me that she purchased my Emotional Eating Toolbox™ 28 Day Program but hasn’t had enough time to do it. Ten minutes a day won’t get it done in 28 days, but it WILL move her forward.

Write this down: Taking ten minutes counts.

Here’s the thing:

Action (even ten minutes) perpetuates action. Getting started—whatever your goal—is a momentous step and just that one act will get you over a hurdle.

Once you learn to carve out ten minutes and really leverage that time you are likely to see what ten minutes can accomplish. Many of us dismiss small actions as “not enough.” When we do that, we stay stuck. I bet you will find ten minute pockets in other places you haven’t been looking—on your commute, before the kids get up, while you are waiting for your computer to start up or your tea to brew. You may also start to see ways you can claim bigger chunks of time (wait until you see what you can do in 20 minutes).

Claiming the time you need for yourself and spending it on activity that is meaningful to you is rejuvenating. People who take regular breaks and who get the self care that they need have more energy.  They are more focused and accomplish more in less time. Claiming time will pay you back in ways that may surprise you.

Looking for time to claim will lead you to be more aware of how you spend your time—maybe not the big chunks of activity, but all the small pieces. It’s amazing the amount of time we give away to things that aren’t important, that we don’t really want to do, or to boredom, procrastination, or even difficulty getting started.

Don’t let not having time be an excuse. Set the timer and claim ten minutes. Today.

Take good care,

Why Resolutions Fail–Reason #3: Glossing over the realities of your life

February 12th, 2010, No Comments »

This is the third in a series of posts on why resolutions fail and why goals aren’t achieved. You can find the previous two posts here and here.

Life happens. Somewhere along the line you’re going to have a business trip, you’ll get the flu, you’ll fight with your partner, you’ll have a really tough day or week or month. When the going gets tough, the majority of resolutions fall apart.

Too many resolutions were created by people wearing rose colored glasses.

I’m all for positive thinking and optimism, but a plan that is going to endure has to include a plan for rough patches and even lapses in action—because they happen. Consider the challenges you are likely to face as you move forward towards your goal. Take note of the places you’ve gotten tangled up in any past attempts. Make a note of upcoming events that are likely to disrupt your schedule or interfere with your focus. Start to think proactively about how you want to respond to the realities of your life. Craft a “Plan B” for time-crunched days, find a support system for the areas you might not know how to address, imagine yourself re-starting if you stop. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and your vulnerabilities. Leverage the positive and be realistic about the rest. You’ll be amazed at the difference this makes.

Take good care,

Why Resolutions Fail–Reason #2: Planning for Perfection

February 10th, 2010, 2 Comments »

If I had a dollar for every get-healthy-lose-weight-get-in-better-shape resolution that was sabotaged by all-or-nothing, perfectionistic thinking, I’d be writing this blog from my villa in the south of France. Healthy lifestyle change is quickly sunk by the mindset that if you don’t get it perfect one hundred percent of the time you’ve failed.

It may sound silly when I write it this way, but have you ever:

• Overeaten at the end of the day and then decided that “now that you’ve blown it” you might as well eat some more?
• Lost motivation because you weren’t making it to the gym as often as you’d planned so quit going all-together?
• Decided that since you overate last night and there’s a party on the weekend you might as well wait until Monday to restart your weight loss plan?

These, my friend, are examples of perfectionism. They reflect the philosophy that you have to get it perfect in order to take action at all. Perfectionism also includes the belief that if it isn’t perfect, it isn’t any good.

The problem is, none of us is perfect, we’ll never hit one hundred percent all the time, and if that is our definition of success, we’ll always fall short. For most of us, that’s pretty discouraging—not a great motivator when you’re looking for making changes that you can stick with over the long haul.

My advice: instead of aiming for perfect, aim for doing your best. Know that even the worst choice can be followed by a good one. If you are someone who tends to think of “restarting” and “failing” or “blowing it,” start retraining yourself to think of the goals you are pursuing as long term. You don’t need every step to be brilliant, you just need to keep taking steps in the right direction.

Take good care,

Why Resolutions Fail and We Don’t Reach Our Goals

February 8th, 2010, No Comments »

It’s February and the crowds at the gym (all those people who made New Year’s resolutions) are thinning out. The kids are back in school, the holidays are long gone, and most of us are in the midst of “real life.” Are your goals and dreams still a part of your reality, or has your zeal and motivation started to fade?

The January “honeymoon phase” may be behind us, but this is actually a perfect time to tweak your plan (or revamp it completely) so that you can go the distance and achieve those goals you’ve set for yourself. The truth is, having things not go the way you had anticipated can be a great opportunity to learn how your plan holds up to real life and identify what changes need to be made so that you can stay on track for the long haul.

This week I’m going to share three reasons that even the most dynamic resolutions might not be getting you where you want to go:

Reason for failure #1: Failure to plan
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” A resolution or an idea is not a plan, it’s an intention. Many busy people err by jumping into action—any kind of action–without investing the time to create a clear, do-able, sustainable plan. If your weight loss resolution fell apart because it was simply based on “eat less,” you might want to take a step back and craft a strategy that includes how you’ll address any triggers to overeat, how you want to respond to physical hunger and cravings, and what other strategies you can put in place to maximize your effectiveness.

Change is not a one shot deal. It’s never too late to reevaluate your approach and create or re-craft your plan of attack. Take a look at any areas of your life that aren’t moving forward and ask yourself what plan or strategy you’d like to use to get them into motion. Be as specific as possible and don’t gloss over the actual “what” and “when” of any actions that you are going to take.

Take good care,

5 Easy Healthy Lifestyle Tips

January 20th, 2010, 5 Comments »

Just thinking about shaping up, losing weight, or eating healthier makes many women exhausted. Changing habits is hard work, but sometimes we approach healthy lifestyle changes in the most difficult way possible. Instead of picking your biggest challenge, consider starting where you know you can be effective, where you can get some lasting bang for your buck, and where you can start growing motivation and momentum.

Here are five relatively painless and struggle-free tips to help you create lasting healthy habits:

1. Get some zzzzzs. Sleep affects just about everything we do and without enough sleep, we all tend to unravel. Inadequate sleep affects your cravings, your metabolism, your energy level, mood, activity, focus and motivation. If you aren’t regularly getting seven hours of sleep a night (or more) this is the first area to address. If you are exhausted and try to keep going, you aren’t likely to be effective and you’ll probably be drawn to mindless “zoning out” activities that are really just busy work. Go to sleep instead.
2. Identify your trouble spots. Don’t just focus on what you want to do. Be smart and identify the things that have led you off track in the past. A positive attitude is great, but a proactive plan for how you will do it differently this time is even better.
3. Grow tools for managing emotions and stress. Emotional eating (including stress eating) is one of the primary causes of overeating, weight gain, and weight regain. Without the strategies you need, stressful situations can trigger very unhealthy (and self-sabotaging) responses such as overeating, smoking, alcohol use, avoidance, or numbing out in front of the computer.  Hard times are also the time when many women abandon or lose track of health, fitness, and wellness goals. Instead of only focusing on what you’ll eat or when you’ll work out, invest some energy in addressing any real issues that are the trigger for the habits you are trying to kick.
4. Don’t lose yourself. One of the biggest reasons that busy women get off track is that they get distracted by other life demands. Designate a time to check in with yourself—at least weekly—and evaluate how things are going. Use this time to schedule the additional time you’ll need throughout the week for exercise, stress relief, meal planning, etc. Post your goals somewhere where you will see them and be reminded of them regularly. Make sure you identify milestones along the way to your big goal and reward yourself for reaching them.
5. Keep it positive. Don’t ignore your mindset—it has the power to impact your mood, your energy level, your choices and your progress. Focus on what you’ve done rather than what didn’t happen. Acknowledge the accomplishments (change is difficult) and celebrate your achievements along the way. Adopt the mantra, “I’m doing my best” instead of “I have to get it perfect” and you’ll be much better prepared to keep going when the going gets tough, recognize your progress and your efforts, and take good care of yourself along the way.

Take good care,

New Year’s Resolution Check in: Are you struggling to find the time?

January 12th, 2010, No Comments »

It’s the second year of January, and if you made a resolution or set a goal to make healthy lifestyle change in 2010, the honeymoon is probably nearing an end. One of the biggest stumbling blocks for many busy women who want to make changes: finding the time to actually make them.

Here’s a question I was asked in an interview recently: “How do we justify taking time out for a workout or a healthy lunch or to work on that novel we want to write when our to-do lists are still a mile long?

This question is really getting at the mindset we have about taking the time for these things. The question itself suggests that it’s hard to see our own action items as important—or as of the same importance as the other items on our to-do lists. If you want to make successful and lasting progress with your goals this year, this is a critical shift in mindset that you must make.

When we see something as essential or valuable we cease to feel the need to defend or justify it.

What is your mindset about me-time and self care? Too many women are stuck in the mindset of believing that self care is expendable—that it’s an “if I can get to it” luxury that can be skipped with little consequence if you need to save time. Not true. The very-busy president of the United States (and every past president I can recall) makes time in his incredibly busy life for regular exercise (as well as for leisure and other self care) does that tell you something about how important and life-enhancing it is?

Consider the costs of not taking the time you need for yourself. This includes not taking the time you need to move forward on your important goals. Symptoms or side effects of not getting enough of what you need to thrive include:

• Overeating
• Compromised health and/or wellness
• Diminished energy
• Decreased productivity
• Reduced focus (including getting distracted from your own goals and priorities)
• Diminished passion for the things that are truly important to you
• Exhaustion and stress
• Time lost “zoning out” or escaping or “being tired”

When we take time for ourselves—to work on bettering our own life, our health, or goals and dreams we:

• Become more of ourselves at our best—that translates into having more zest and energy for the responsibilities we face
• We treat ourselves as valuable and that shows and rubs off on others—when we see ourselves, our ideas and visions as valuable we stand taller, play bigger, think broader and are more successful.
• We provide a powerful model to those who are watching us. We show others how we expect to be treated and we teach our children that it is important to respect and to take good care of themselves as well.
• We have more energy, focus, clarity. We are more confident.

Sound good? Here’s your challenge: what do you need to do to claim the time or energy that you need this week? What do you need to let go of or say no to in order for that to happen? What one action can you take to be more commited to your goals this week?

I’d love to hear what you come up with. Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Take good care,

The Great Plate Experiment: Week One

September 12th, 2009, No Comments »

The new plates are here!

Week one of the plate downsizing experiment is officially over. We’ve moved the old tired chipped dishes out of our kitchen and are now eating off pristine, white 10-inch plates (9.75-inches actually), just like Brian Wansink recommends. As you may recall, the author of Mindless Eating and his team have done research on plate size and food intake and found that simply reducing your plate size from 12-inches to 10-inches could result in an 18 pound weight loss for the average American. I promised I’d report back in and I’m here to tell you that the results so far are promising.

First of all, I’ve had absolutely no complaints. In fact, my husband is quite delighted that these new-fangled dishes don’t get fiery hot when you put them in the microwave like our old dishes from the 1980s did. I’m not noticing anything spectacular or dramatic (nor did I expect to), but I can say that we’ve had more leftovers than we usually do. I take this to mean that we’re serving ourselves less. This is all about gradual and non-noticeable change and we know those are the kinds of lifestyle changes that tend to last. So far, so good.

Have you changed your plate size? Do tell—what happened?

Take good care,

Melissa

Do You Have The Time To Stop Overeating?

September 11th, 2009, No Comments »

Do you have the time to stop overeating? To take control of emotional eating? To get on track with your healthy lifestyle goals?  Lately I’ve been encountering many women who tell me they don’t. I’ve been hearing from women who are incredibly frustrated with their eating habits, their weight gain, their lack of progress on important health goals.  I’ve talked to women who fear their family history of diabetes or heart disease. I’ve talked to women who’ve even had weight loss surgery and are terrified because they are seeing the weight they’ve lost start to creep back.  I’ve also talked with too many women who have put some aspect of their life “on hold” until they can start losing weight. Their struggles with food and emotional eating or overeating are something they think about every day.

But they aren’t moving forward.

They aren’t moving forward because they are using a faulty recipe for success.  These busy woman are trying to make a positive change by cutting back; taking things (food) away and doing with less.  But they aren’t adding anything else in—because they don’t have time.  They don’t have time to feed their spirit, their soul, their passion in non-food ways.  They don’t have time to go to the groups, the seminars, the inspiring places or activities that could keep them on track.  They don’t have time for themselves.

Really, we all have time. The truth is, we choose how we spend it.

Struggles with food are created in many ways.  Struggles with food end when we learn how to really truly feed ourselves the things we need (these are different for everyone) and this can only happen when we take the time to listen and hear ourselves, sort it all out, and respond.  Ending emotional eating, overeating, and weight struggles requires us to take the time—to spend a portion of our time on ourselves.  It doesn’t necessarily need to be a lot of time, but it does have to be dedicated time we allot for ourselves and our needs.  It’s not food-focused time, but it’s time that helps us become less focused on the food.  It’s essential. There really are no short cuts with this step.

Take good care,

Melissa

Is Night Eating Sabotaging Your Weight Loss?

September 8th, 2009, 3 Comments »

The after-dinner hours are a prime time for overeating, emotional eating, boredom eating, and eating out of tiredness.  Not only do the calories add up, preliminary research may support the theory that our bodies actually put on more weight from calories eaten at night.

In a study that will be published in the October issue of Obesity magazine, researchers at Northwestern University studied two groups of mice who were fed identical high-fat diets.  Half the mice were fed during the time when they would normally be sleeping (this was during daylight hours for mice, who are nocturnal) and half the mice were fed on their regular eating schedule.  After six weeks, although both groups had consumed the same amount of calories and showed no difference in activity levels, the mice who ate when they normally would have been sleeping showed a 48 percent increase in body weight while those who had maintained their usual eating times increased their weight by only 20 percent. That’s a pretty big difference.

We don’t know precisely how these findings translate to humans, but this research is worth noting.  Many women struggle with eating after dinner or after the rest of the household has gone to sleep.  Many busy women tell me that the night hours are the only ones that feel like theirs.  For some, the late night/early morning hours are the only time that they feel like they can stop taking care of everyone else and tend to themselves.  The problem is, paying ourselves last doesn’t work.  Too many women are forgoing sleep to try to squeeze in some “Me” time, and most are so tired at this point in their day that one of the primary ways they care for themselves is by resorting to food. Whether or not our bodies respond like the mice who should have been sleeping, it’s a vicious cycle.  The truth is, until we feel entitled to allow ourselves the care we need, it is next-to-impossible to break free of emotional eating and overeating cycles.

Here are some tips to take control of night eating:

1.    Identify what you are looking for.  What’s triggering the eating? Are you lonely, bored, tired?  In need of a reward?  To break this habit, it’s essential that you start creating some to respond to these needs earlier in the day.  You’ll be better off taking your time from the front end of the day.  Start getting up 30 minutes earlier if you need to and adjust your bedtime accordingly.  If you aren’t sure what role your night eating is playing, start by setting aside fifteen minutes a day to journal and pay attention to your thoughts.

2.    Make time for you—when you have the energy to take it. I know you are busy, but time for yourself simply has to be on your agenda.  It may be fifteen minutes a day or an afternoon a week, but make sure there is something that’s all-about-what-you-love-and-need written into your agenda.  If all you get is late night eating, it’s going to be a lot harder to give up—and even if you do, you’re going to feel deprived.

3.    Get on track with sleep. If you aren’t getting at least seven hours of sleep at night, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage with stress and weight loss.  Without adequate sleep you’ll be hungrier, crave more carbs, and be physiologically predisposed to gain more weight. Make the pursuit of those seven uninterrupted hours a priority.

4.    Change it up. Ingrained habits are powerful.  If you are accustomed to noshing while you watch TV or browse the internet, you are going to be more successful curbing night eating if you choose a new activity—at least for the first week or so.  Hang out in a different room, do something you don’t normally do, mix up your routine to minimize eating “on autopilot.”

5.    Challenge yourself. Brush your teeth, put lotion on your hands, use your teeth whitening strips, work on a knitting project—anything that makes it more inconvenient to eat in the evening.

6.    Reward your efforts. Remember that the initial stages of creating change can be the hardest. Plan a non-food reward for each milestone (each evening) you make positive changes.

What has worked for you?  Please share your ideas in a comment.

Take good care,

Melissa