Red's Health Tips

Blog 10JAN12 – Results Matter – Day 7

Interesting day today!  I had a Toastmasters meeting at noon.  We had a guest speaker with a motivational topic.  I was extremely pleased with his speech and was one of three evaluators for that speech.  I stopped by Popeye’s on the way home and grabbed a quick bite to eat.  I worked on my e-book formatting (I’m learning more and more about e-book publishing) for a while and then went to a wake.  I got home in time to change clothes and go to a Houston Live Stock & Rodeo Committee Meeting.  I volunteered for the ticket committee.  My daughter went with me.  We stopped at Whataburger on the way and grabbed a quick bit to eat.  Two fast-food meals today!

I am wrapping up my first week today.  Tomorrow I start on Week 2.  I will weigh myself in the morning and report tomorrow on the results.  I don’t notice any clothing looser in one week, but that is expected.  I have not had any urges for food out of the ordinary.  The nutritional balance of my food selections today was scant, but the portion control and hydration were fine.  Next week I will concentrate on supplementation (vitamins and minerals plus).  I was able to supplement my first meal today with Chia seed (fiber).  I was unable to supplement my second meal today with fiber in a timely manner.  I ensure that I take fiber when the majority of my meal is protein.  I supplement daily with vitamins and minerals.  I have missed my vitamin supplementation one day this past week.

I have had all the energy this past week for any task that I chose to tackle.  I have been clear-headed and able to think well.  I have been frustrated with formatting requirements for electronic publishing, but that is a learning curve.  I will be able to publish my next electronic book much easier than this one since I have learned a lot in this process.

Do I have any regrets this week with my lifestyle change?  No, I don’t.  There was one time when I wanted to revert for a meal to my old lifestyle and I thought about it seriously for less than a minute and was able to push through that temporary obstruction to my time-life continuum.  I feel satisfied after eating and don’t have any after-meal hunger.  I have had no urges to eat in between meals.  Time management has prevented me from preparing a couple of meals that I had planned, but those things happen in life.  Remain flexible!

I have never proposed an introductory plan for changing a lifestyle before.  I gave this one a lot of thought.  My preliminary model had many of the specifics for next week in the first week.  I took most of them out of Week 1 and placed them in Week 2.  I felt it was important to prepare your mindset for a change first rather than just starting dietary change.  I stuck with the basics to prepare you to face the challenges that lay ahead.

What would I have done differently in Week 1?  That’s an interesting question.  I just started thinking about that today – now that I’m finishing up Week 1.  I don’t have an immediate answer, but I will continue to tweak this 28-day program to make it better.

Red O’Laughlin

Your Prosperity Professor

281-437-8114 H/W  281-687-1188 C

Blog 09JAN12 – RESULTS MATTER – Day 6

Expectations are key to your victory over unwanted weight.  You must talk to your subconscious mind to have it support your goals.  Expect and intend are two verbs that talk directly to your subconscious mind.  Wish, want and desire talk to your conscious mind.  Your conscious mind is not in charge of your future.

I’m sure you are like me with regard to expectations.  There are some things we expect to work every time we use them.  When was the last time you turned a faucet handle and did not get water to come out?  Maybe right after Hurricane Ike; however, basically, water comes out of the faucet every time you turn the knob.  It’s a built in expectation – it will work whenever you want it to.

You want your subconscious mind to provide that same level of support for your weight loss program.  Talk to your subconscious mind often.  Tell it that you expect to change your lifestyle and lose weight.  Tell your subconscious mind that you intend to succeed.  Visualize your success all the time.  Visualize it as if it was the knob on the faucet – there is nothing that can happen that will deter you from reaching your goal.  Your expectations are automatic.

If you haven’t eliminated or reduced your daily intake or fructose, now is a good time to begin before the end of the week arrives.  Fructose causes many more problems than causing fat to remain in your fat cells.  It is dangerous for your overall health.  It’s not the fructose from an apple or a pear.  That level of fructose is tolerable by your body and will be handled well.  It’s the overloading of fructose from sodas and other enriched drinks and foods.

If you don’t know how to read a food label, you must learn.  It is vital to your new lifestyle.  There are YouTube videos and articles that can give you real insights into reading labels.  The specific thing I look for first on a food label is the serving size.  There are too many times that I have looked at a food label and almost assumed that the serving size was the package or container that held the product.

Upon further analysis I discover that there are two or three or more servings in that one package or container.  Without knowing the serving size you can inadvertently eat more than you think you are eating.  The next time you are in a grocery store pick up two or three different things from each aisle and look at the serving size for each product.  Pick up things that you normally eat.  Pick up things that you have never eaten.  Develop a habit of reading food labels, particularly for any product that you are not sure of the nutritional value and serving size.

I had one meal today at Panera Bread for a luncheon meeting and a home-cooked meal tonight.  I am not a breakfast person.  I drink 20 ounces of water upon awakening and then switch to iced tea after that.  I don’t eat until late morning or noontime.  Eastern philosophy tells us to eat when we are hungry.  Eastern philosophy tells us that breakfast is not the most important meal of the day.  Eastern philosophy tells us that you can skip breakfast if you want.

Lunch should be your largest meal of the day because you have all day to digest it.  A large meal within three hours of going to bed will interfere with your sleep.  I eat my first meal of the day when I am hungry – not until.  I eat my last meal of the day several hours before I go to bed.  I know tonight what home-made meals I will eat tomorrow.  I planned them out earlier this week when I went shopping.  Plan your meals in advance and stick as closely as you can to your plan.

My biggest lifestyle problem used to be eating snacks late at night.  I would ‘chow-down’ on cookies, ice cream, and other items with a glass or two of wine late at night.  Before I wrote my book, I knew that this was not proper, but I had developed a habit.  And, I maintained that habit very well for several years.  I have been pretty good about not eating late at night.  I still have a very small portion of something – usually a small handful of nuts with a glass or two of water.  However, I still try to make this happen several hours before I go to bed.

Sometimes just the taste of something satisfies your need.  I eat a dozen nuts and feel quenched.  I am breaking my habit of continually eating whatever is around because it is around.  Habits created our lifestyles.  You must break the habits that created opportunities for extra fat storage.  This week the focus has been on hydration, balance and moderation – along with mental discipline and a few other planning tips.

In two day I begin the second week of my 28-day Fast Start program.  It will begin a full program of active weight loss actions.  If you have developed discipline in the little things this week, then next week you can concentrate of actions that will attack predatory chemical reactions in your body – those chemical reactions that shut down your fat burning processes.  I am looking forward to stepping on the scales in two days to see how well I fared this past week.

Red O’Laughlin

Your Prosperity Professor

281-437-8114 H/W    281-687-1188 C