With the same results each time: Lose a little bit of weight on the diet. Get tired of the diet because it’s impossible to maintain for whatever reason. Go back to “normal food” and slowly gain back the weight lost, plus a little bit to add more motivation next year.

It doesn’t really add motivation though, does it? It’s more like adjusting to the new normal and seeing how long it takes before new clothing becomes mandatory because the old clothes are too tight now.

And that’s the whole cycle. Get tired of being too heavy, go on a diet, lose a bit of weight, gain it all back, and try again next year. So many people experience this that there’s even a term for it.

Yo-yo dieting.

So-named because that’s what happens to the weight. It bobs up and down, slowly but steadily climbing a bit higher over the course of the year, until we decide to do something about it, then it drops, and begins to climb all over again.

I suppose we could also have called it “itsy-bitsy spider dieting,” as the spider seems as persistent as that yo-yo.

Regardless of what we call it though, living through it feels demoralizing.

Year after year, sometimes more than once per year, we put ourselves through this. Consistently trying to get onto the other side of the scale, where the numbers go down and stay down.

But they don’t. We watch the mirror in horror as our face swells to the point that we no longer see any family resemblance. We are now the generic “fat person” background character in someone else’s movie.

Why is getting healthy so hard? Why do we have to struggle like this?

Some people can’t take it any longer and resort to drastic medical measures, like having their stomachs stapled so they physically can’t eat as much food. And sometimes that doesn’t work either!

Can you imagine undergoing surgery in an effort to lose weight, and still have it fail?

Now the medical community is even armed with shots to help lose weight. These products are brand-new. Has there been a long-term study on their effects on the body? Will we be watching TV in 2036 and seeing ads for, “If you used MiracleDrug and are now experiencing symptoms of disintegrating liver [or some long list of other possible horrible ailments] YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO COMPENSATION!” Time will tell.

Why does getting healthy have to be so darned hard?

What if it wasn’t? What if all you needed to do to become the healthy version of yourself is eat and move a bit?

That sounds like fantasy, doesn’t it? Yet for millions of people, it’s reality.

No, there’s no accompanying magic pill to take that makes all of your consumed calories disappear. Likewise, there’s no special food, instant meals, or shake packages. You can literally eat the foods you enjoy, move your body in whatever way you can, and watch the scale go in reverse.

Yes, you do need to move your body. Does that mean hours upon hours of standing-in-place cardio sessions? Nope.

I was skeptical too when I came across this method.

I thought the only way to lose weight and get into shape was to spend a lifetime at the gym, drinking kale smoothies, and eating bland, flavorless “health” food.

Yet I made pork tacos with Spanish Rice for dinner last night, and every Friday night is Pizza Night.

I’m also a chocoholic. I eat chocolate every single day, and I typically end each day with ice cream.

Yet I dropped from 240 down to 168 eating just like this.

Mind you, I didn’t stay at 168 for more than a month or so. People started telling me I was looking “too thin,” so I tweaked my plan a bit and popped up to 183, where I’ve been holding steady since 2020.

So, what do you need to do to make this work for yourself? To answer that, I created a whole year-long immersion program.

During that program, I go over the nine core competencies that everyone must master to live a full and healthy life. None of them are hard, but it’s likely that you’re not doing all nine in the right way at the moment.

I know I sure wasn’t! That’s why, even though I was working out like a madman at the gym, I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted on the scale, or on my body for that matter.

After making these small tweaks, though, everything changed. It really does feel like magic! It took me several decades to pack on all that weight, but once I really got into it, that fat just melted right off in months.

While learning the nine core competencies, I also help my clients to incorporate them into their lives, so that they really start living them and embodying them. After that, I celebrate with them each month as the scale begins to drop, they buy a new outfit in a smaller size, their clothes start to fit how they want them to fit, and they start to admire their own reflection again.

Will it work for you?

Let’s find out! Schedule a call with me to discuss your situation, and if you think it makes sense for us to work together, we will 😊 If not, no worries. I want to work with clients who want my help. Is that you? Click the link below:

Visit: https://www.eclecticwellbeing.com/Mark1-2-1

The post Why is Getting Healthy so Hard? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

For me, that was my health.

As a young man, I was actually happy to be putting on weight. I was working out like mad, and attributed the gains to be my workout, working. I was ecstatic when I finally broke 200!

There was that beer gut that developed in the process… But when an older (probably in his 30’s at the time), male bartender told me, “A wise man builds a shed for his tools,” I accepted the gut as a normal part of manhood and pressed on.

It didn’t stop though. I increased the intensity of my workouts, and I got fairly strong, for a nerdy kid who weighed 135 throughout high school. Yet the gut kept growing.

Then it began to spread. Now it wasn’t just my gut that was expanding, fat was spreading into my face. My cheeks and neck began to swell. It got to the point where I felt like I didn’t really have “my” face anymore. There was now more of a generally round, “fat guy” face where mine used to be.

The legs and arms began to fill as well. It didn’t matter how much I worked out. I was still getting stronger, the muscles were still getting bigger; but, there were no “cuts,” no definition to anything. People started telling me, “you look like you used to work out.”

Ouch. No one who works out wants to hear that they look like they used to look good.

I decided that I had done enough bulking, it was time to cut.

So, how do I lose a bunch of fat, really fast? At the time, Dr. Atkins was all the rage, so I jumped on board. Zero-carb, high fat, all protein, all day. I made it about two weeks, but hey, I dropped 15 pounds!

And then 20 pounds crept back on throughout the rest of the year.

I kept thinking, “if only I could keep this up for longer…” so the next year I pushed harder, with about the same results.

I tried again the following year, same thing happened. Diet tech improvements came along. Now they have a powder that “gets you back into ketosis when you fall out of it.”

For the uninitiated, “ketosis” is the target state of the Atkins approach. This means that there will be “ketone bodies” present in the urine that can be detected by peeing on a special test strip. These ketone bodies only show up in the urine under special circumstances.

One of those situations is kidney failure, which we definitely want to avoid.

The other, is when we’ve exhausted our supply of available glucose for fuel to trick our body into thinking we’re starving so it switches to burning off our fat reserves.

If you’ve never done Atkins before, it takes a good 3 days for you to burn off your existing glucose stores before your body reluctantly switches into ketosis (fat-burning mode via simulated starvation). Once you’re in ketosis, your body is constantly burning up your fat reserves. But, any amount of carbs you ingest will throw you out of it, leaving you waiting for your body to burn those carbs off to get back into ketosis.

Ah! But now we have this Miracle Powder that will get you right back into ketosis! Of course I tried it. I don’t really know if it didn’t work, or if I used it as a means to sneak carbs in here and there, but the net result was that it was less effective than Atkins alone.

This is where the “low-carb” craze came from. The idea is that if you can just eat very low carbs, your body will choose to burn off fat. Except that, the body doesn’t work like that. If it has glucose to burn as fuel, it’s going to burn that glucose as fuel. And when it has an excess of glucose, it will store the balance as fat for later use.

Long story short: Atkins doesn’t work! Or rather, it is an effective tool at removing fat very quickly, for a short period of time. Which is exactly what Dr. Atkins intended! He pioneered this method as a means to reduce enough fat in people to allow them to safely undergo surgery.

Atkins was never meant to be used as a long-term approach to overall health.

Great 😧 now what? Looking for a more modern approach, I tried Intermittent Fasting.

Typically, this involves squeezing all of your eating for the day into a narrow window. For example, maybe only eating between the hours of 4 pm to 8 pm. If you’ve never tried this before, you’ll probably be cranky and hungry up until that four o’clock mark, then bloated as you try to compress 3000 calories into one reasonably healthy meal, after which you’ll probably go to bed hungry.

Now, I’m not saying Intermittent Fasting doesn’t work. There are many people who swear by it. And in fact, I found it an excellent means by which to maintain my body composition levels (meaning my lean mass to fat mass ratio.) It wasn’t very effective, for me though, at reducing my existing fat levels.

There are, of course, variations on this theme. I’ve described what many people call the OMAD method, or One Meal A Day. My mother uses this method effectively to maintain her health in her mid-70’s now.

You could also use a larger window and eat two meals a day. This is a great way to go for people who don’t feel hungry in the morning when they wake up. No problem! Skip breakfast and start with lunch.

I’ve done this before myself too, but not to effectively drop fat pounds.

Then there’s the complete opposite approach: Eating numerous, albeit small, meals throughout the day. I’ve done this one as well. The concept here is to not allow yourself to get hungry, keeping your body processing food all day long, and burning up the energy as you go so it won’t get stored as fat.

For me, this was eating small meals every three hours or so. When I say small, I mean a can of tuna fish and some crackers, or a pair of hard-boiled eggs and half a slice of bread. Just enough food to keep you going to your next eating window, spaced about three hours apart.

Basically, you’re eating all day long, maybe as much as seven times a day, depending on when you wake and sleep. It’s a LOT of eating. And if you work in an office, your coworkers may get annoyed with you and your stinky tuna cans. How effective was it? Well, I definitely bulked up, but still had a hard time cutting the fat.

And then I tried the “stupid” diets. You know the ones I mean. Where they sound way too stupid to actually work. Things like, “the all-cabbage diet,” or “the carnivore diet,” or even, the “paleo diet.” Did they work? Meh, they’re basically all variations of the Atkins theme. So yes, they worked in the short term, but were too hard to maintain to make a meaningful difference.

There I was, after literal decades of trying and failing every diet I could think of. My insurmountable task proving itself to be a formidable foe. What do you do when you’ve tried everything you can think of, and NOTHING has worked?

You get help.

In 2020, that’s exactly what I did. I decided to get to the bottom of what the heck I was doing wrong to my health. I paid money to learn how to get healthy.

And you know what? I found out it wasn’t a single really big mistake I was making. There were dozens of little ones. In fact, when I sat down and thought about all of the things that I’m doing now, that I wasn’t doing then, there were over 100 differences!

Now I’ve made it my mission to help as many people as possible to make these little changes in their lives, because it adds up to big results!

No more dieting! I have no need to go on a diet now, because I’m already at my ideal weight. All I need to do is eat and move, and my body composition takes care of itself.

Want to know if I can help you, too? Hit the link below and let’s find out!

Visit: https://www.eclecticwellbeing.com/Mark1-2-1

The post How do I get to Where I Want to Be? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

Have you ever let some small thing totally derail your day? This used to happen to me all the time when I would “try” to eat healthy. Like, when ordering breakfast, I’d absent-mindedly have grabbed, paid for, then consumed an entire chocolate chip muffin with my morning coffee.

It’s not the muffin that’s bad, it’s what happens after eating it. Guilt. Shame. Beating yourself up for being a “bad eater.” And then the absolute worst thing happens: “Well, now this whole day is shot. I might as well eat all of the stuff I know I’m not allowed to eat.”

It isn’t the all-or-nothing mindset. It’s believing that we must be 100% perfect all the time, or it means we’re bad.

No. Don’t do that to yourself.

Instead, make a game out of it.

See how many “good” meals you can get in a row before eating something “bad.”

When I started, it was 2 meals. Mainly because I was eating those chocolate chip muffins for breakfast every day. For lunch and dinner I did pretty good.

Once I decided to start making breakfast healthier, my “good” streak stretched to 5. Now I was eating the muffins every other day. Progress!

Over time, that streak got longer and longer. Now, I’ve stopped keeping track, but it’s probably around 30 healthy meals in a row before I have an ice cream sundae, or a candy bar, or heck, maybe even a chocolate chip muffin.

Thinking along these lines is a much healthier mindset to have.

We are not one meal; nor are we one day. We are the culmination of all the foods we’ve eaten over the course of months.

With that in mind, what do you want to become?

Will you be made from fresh fruits and vegetables, lean cuts of meat, legumes, mushrooms, and other whole foods? Or will it be from whatever the ingredients are in the factory processed entrees waiting in the freezer?

I decided to live on the healthy side. How about you?

Bear in mind, it wasn’t an overnight shift. I was living on freezer goodies for years. Burritos, supreme pizzas, taquitos, chicken wings, were all lunch staples. If I ran out for lunch, it was a double quarter pounder with cheese, large fries and a chocolate shake. Or maybe a Mexican pizza, two tacos supreme, and a chicken burrito supreme, with a large Baja Blast Mountain Dew. Quite frequently it was also the Chinese Buffett.

Every time I tried to 180° my diet into health, I failed miserably.

I thought I was the problem. What else could it have been?

Turns out, it’s basic human psychology. Our brains don’t like too much change all at once.

“Don’t like,” is probably too soft a term here. It’s more like “everything is crazy! Which way is up? How do I get out of here?”

And that’s exactly what happens. The brain feels like it’s been thrown into chaos, and the subconscious mind takes over.

You can’t fight the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind will always drive you to do the things you’ve told it you want to do. And in this case, the drive is back to “normality.”

At my most unhealthy state, I was eating all of the unhealthy things I mentioned above, while snacking on chips with sour cream-based dip, and washing it down with soda, beer, or coffee, depending on time of day.

And I had the bloodwork to show for it! I was still in my 30’s when my doctor put me on blood pressure and cholesterol meds.

My first wake-up call was when my cousin Marty passed away from a sudden heart attack at 42.

Then Mom’s reaction was, “oh, the 40-year curse got him.” To which I immediately retorted, “the 40-year what now?”

As it happened, the men on my mother’s side of the family had a history of dropping dead from sudden heart attacks in their early 40’s(!)

One of the other things these men all had in common?

Horrible eating habits. Just like me.

Now I was at a point where I knew I needed to change, because not changing was likely to kill me. I was already on meds. My triglycerides were off the charts. (Seriously, the chart ended at 500 and mine were in the 800’s!) My cholesterol numbers were upside-down. My arteries were probably already starting to harden and choke off.

But every time I tried to get healthy, I failed right back to where I started.

What I wound up doing, just happened to be the correct thing to do. I decided to start small.

I switched to black coffee, then I stopped drinking soda. That’s at least two meals every day where I wasn’t drinking empty calories.

Holy cow, did that make a difference!

I went from 240 down to 220 in what seemed to be an instant, but in reality was several months.

My face started to look more like a face again, instead of the generic roundness I had become accustomed to. My 38 pants that I had been debating about taking up to 40’s were now more comfortable to wear.

That little change alone went a long way, but it wasn’t enough to get me down under 220.

I tried to weightlift my way into health, thinking I would burn off all of the extra calories I didn’t need. In this, I became stronger; but the scale didn’t seem to want to budge.

I cut way back on those frozen entrees I had been eating for lunch and got into the 205 range.

It wasn’t until I got serious and studied the nutritional principles that I now coach that I was able to get properly lean.

None of it is hard! In fact, I like to tell my clients that I help them fail their way to success.

Would you like to have a conversation with me to see if I might be able to help you?

This link will let you look at my calendar to see if there’s any time where our schedules align. If there is, go ahead and book the Can I Help You Call 😊 I’ll take it from there.

https://www.eclecticwellbeing.com/Mark1-2-1

The post Game Your Way Into Health appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

I love to travel! Who doesn’t? Challenging myself to do new things. Discovering beautiful places to renew my spirit. Savoring new flavors on my palette. Engaging with people different than me and understanding other cultures.

Travel improves our well-being in many ways.

Studies show that travel help reduces the risks of heart disease. Travel can increase your levels of dopamine, which helps to feel deeper levels of satisfaction and pleasure. We boost our creativity when traveling in a foreign country, not only finding ways to communicate when we don’t speak the language but also there are many ways to do activities we do every day and take for granted.

Traveling, whether abroad or to nearby destinations, is something many of us do, but without intention and without embracing all these well-being benefits.  We go on a trip. Explore the sites, usually with our phone in hand, taking picture after picture, posting selfies on social media, and missing half of what is in our site.

We dine at delicious restaurants. Perhaps even order a tasty dish that we’ve never tried before and may never eat again because we have no idea what is in it or how it was prepared.

But have you been on a retreat? Maybe it was a yoga retreat to deepen your practice or focus on a particular flavor of yoga. Or perhaps it was a spiritual retreat, filled with silence and prayer. Or maybe a day retreat, time spent away from the day-to-day to fill your cup!

Retreats are travel with a purpose. Intentionally embracing the well-being benefits we are blessed with when we explore new destinations, and cultures and partake in novel activities.

The World Is Your Backyard

How many plant species are in your yard? A hundred? Two hundred? Even if it’s 500, that’s less than 1% of all plant species in the world!

When we travel, we can explore nature. Allow our senses to notice the different sites, sounds, and smells of the landscape.

My favorite area of the worldwide backyard is beneath the ocean. No matter how hard you want to see coral, you can only see it in its living form underwater.  The beauty of the ocean and the life living there is remarkable. Filled with color. Vibrancy. And without much sound, it creates a different kind of peace and serenity.

My levels of well-being drastically increase when I dive or snorkel. Why?

First, when I dive, my breath is my guide. If you’ve ever scuba-dived, you know what I mean. You can’t help but hear your own breath. Your breath is calming.

Secondly, I am not distracted. I am simply observing. Noticing the plant life, the fish, and their interaction.

What does this sound like?

Mindfulness. Almost a form of meditation.

This is exactly why so many retreats are near breathtaking and exotic natural wonders, engaging our parasympathetic nervous system and improving our well-being.

If you can’t get away to an exotic place, explore the land beneath your feet. Take a Day Retreat and go Forest Bathing, which is much more than a mindful walk in the woods.  It’s embodying the forest, exploring it in new ways. Weather not cooperating? Bring the outdoors in. At last week’s Spring Into Health & Happiness Day Retreat, we did just that! We took a Forest Bath indoors, exploring the forest floor by bringing wood, rocks, moss, and more inside and experiencing it in a more mindful, embodied way.

Treat Your Body Well

Don’t our bodies deserve a change from day to day too?

Our tastebuds yearn for some new flavors. Our muscles want to move in different ways.

Many retreats incorporate exploring our Body Home in new ways. A yoga retreat provides daily Yoga practices that many don’t experience in their daily lives. These new daily retreat rituals, awaken our desires to perhaps practice more often when we get home.

Retreats intentionally provide physical activity to not strain the body, but to ignite it!

Eating differently when on a retreat, treats our body to nutrients and flavors we tend to overlook when eating on the run.

Years ago, on a Tony Robbins Retreat, I was introduced to wheatgrass and eating a plant-based diet. At first, I felt disappointed, like I was missing out by not eating meat or trying local cuisine. But the goal of this retreat was to master our life, including the health of our bodies. By being intentional, and allowing myself to observe the experience, I noticed that although I still enjoy meat, my body feels better when I eat less meat and more veggies and other plant-based foods like mushrooms. I was on retreat to master my health, and that week had a profound effect on how I view food.

I now see food as both fuel for my body and as enjoyment for my tastebuds. And many dishes satisfy both.  This leads me to…..

Discover Your Self in Other Cultures

Retreats not only expose us to other cultures they immerse us in those cultures. To provide us the opportunity to notice similarities and accept our differences, without judgment.

Years ago, Mark and I reunited with our daughter Hana, who was living in Colombia at the time, in Guatemala. We had ever been and were excited to see volcanos and stay on Lake Atitlán, a lake formed by a volcanic eruption 84,000 years ago. This vacation became a retreat of sorts, where we immersed ourselves in the Mayan culture.

Prime example, we took a cooking class. But this cooking class was not a fancy restaurant, let alone any restaurant. It was facilitated at a local Mayan woman’s home. We met her in town at the food market where we shopped with her. Allowing her to explain the intricacies of local vegetables and food.

The cooking class was held at her modest home. We climbed the stairs to the roof where there was an outdoor kitchen. We made a special Guatemalan dish together and sat at the table on the roof exploring the food we had just prepared.

As I look back, I still feel a sense of delight and a better understanding of the people of the area. I noticed how this woman was simply striving to make a better life for herself and her children, just like single moms do here in the US. I noticed that back home in the US, one would have to jump through permitting to allow such a business in their home.

But most importantly, I gained a better understanding of my Self. Gratitude for being able to be there with my daughter. And igniting a desire to leave the world better than I found it. This was travel with a purpose.

Reflection and Self-Care

I define a retreat as “intentionally withdrawing from everyday activities to a safe space in order to reflect on one’s Self and connect to one’s surroundings.”

Although I’ve mentioned some exotic places, some of the best retreats are local and can be as short as a day. They simply need to be intentional and bring us inward.

Retreats don’t have to be centered on Yoga. Journaling, mindfully walking, or even planting flowers and veggies can allow us to reflect on our lives and connect with the world around us.

Our Day Retreats are designed to connect you back to yourself, withdrawing from the everyday.

One of our guests from last week’s Day Retreat posted on Facebook, “It exceeded all of my expectations.  Mark and Kathi have created the ultimate oasis.  They bring so much experience and knowledge to this little corner of South West Michigan.  I left feeling refreshed, energized, and full of new ideas.”

And they can be personal, just for you or a small group of loved ones.

Starting this summer, Eclectic Well-Being will not only continue to offer our amazing destination retreats like our upcoming journey to Amorgos Greece, and our intimate Southwest Michigan Day Retreats like last week’s Spring Into Health & Happiness, but we will be offering personal retreats, where we intentionally plan activities that help you to reflect and connect with your Self. Time for true Self-Care.

Curious about what that could look like?

Maybe you want to explore meditation and learn how to cook healthy meals for your family.  A weekend retreat with us could include a few cooking classes with Mark, a meditation workshop with me, including experimenting with Yoga Nidra and Forest Bathing, and of course a day trip to Silver Beach in nearby St Joe.

Or maybe you’re contemplating a change in your life, a new job, or a relationship.  A weekend immersion in my coaching program, the Total MindShift, can help you explore the future while you relax and unwind on the farm.

Or maybe you want to jumpstart getting healthy! We can help you find physical activities you enjoy while Mark leads you through his Total HealthShift. Try hiking nearby dunes. Of do some gardening for exercise.

We plan this retreat experience with you, ensuring it’s consciously curated to help you create a life and body you love!

Sound interesting? Send me an email and let’s see what we can create for you! Kathi@eclecticwellbeing.com

The post Travel With Purpose – Make It More Than A Vacation appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

by Kathi Szabo

I truly believe that without a clear vision of what you really want in life, you will never be satisfied.

But, I also believe that our desires, our vision of what we want our lives to be, is always changing, rarely staying the same.

First, when we achieve our desires, our mind notices other things that are in line with our first desire. For example, say our dream is to travel to Machu Pichu. Once we achieve that, we notice so many other wonders in the world we want to see. Or maybe once we visit Machu Pichu, we’re satisfied and we want to settle down and buy a house.

Then there are times we get closer to our dreams and desires, and something about it doesn’t feel right. We notice something different and become more intrigued. We decide to make adjustments to our dream based on what we know now.

That’s life. Life is always changing. We are always changing. Others are always changing. Things happen that we have no control over yet it impacts us. We can choose how it impacts us, but it still impacts us.

When Mark and I started Eclectic Well-Being, we had one clear vision, to help people live better lives. It was pretty simple. We knew that included the internal self, thoughts, emotions, basically your mindset. We also knew it include the body. Not that we want everyone to have Instagram Yogi bodies, but we want to help others live a healthy life, so they can live longer and enjoy more of their life. And we knew helping people live better lives included connection. Connection to community and connection to nature.

The Changing Vision of Eclectic Well-Being

Last year we worked hard to create a platform similar to what we created at our yoga studio, offer classes and workshops, a membership site, and membership perks. That was actually deviation from our original  vision of wanting to partner with other businesses, sending clients to the best yoga studio, recommending small gyms, referring our clients to other wellness modalities based on their needs. But somehow, we overlooked our actual desire. The familiarity of running a membership-based business was still ingrained in our minds.

By the end of the year, we knew we needed to change. We weren’t serving our clients by having a little of this and a little of that.  Community and Connection though was still important to us.  How could we focus on one to one coaching but still create community and connection?

We shifted our vision again and decided to continue to include monthly connection events, but also include connecting more with our community of other wellness providers. Our original business idea was centered around working and supporting others who could serve our clients in ways we couldn’t. After all, we aren’t experts in everything, and we envisioned a community of wellness providers working with us. We overlooked this clarity because it was such a change from how we’d been operating the past few years. We were comfortable in operating a yoga studio and we tried like heck to stay in that comfort zone even though that was not our desire.

Overlooking our real vision because we are comfortable with what we know, happens to many of us. Comfort, or certainty as Tony Robbins would call it, is a need we all have. And sometimes moving out of our comfort zone, even when it’s a desire of ours, can be challenging.

Dreams Change

Now 4 months into 2022 and my lenses, my clarity, need readjusting again.

Retreats were more of a side note in our business model. It was always in the back of my mind, but it was not my focus. However, since planning and executing our DREAM Retreat to St Croix, and selling out our Women’s Only Self Care Day Retreat next month – Retreats are now my passion. It’s what I dream about! It’s what I truly love doing!  I love the planning. I love the traveling. I love meeting new people. I love the challenge of being in new surroundings, even when they aren’t quite what you expected.  And I believe Retreats are life-changing!  They are magical and I want everyone to experience them.  That’s why today I just confirmed our second DREAM Retreat but this time to Amorgos, Greece! Yoga, Mindfulness, Meditation, Mindset, Self Discovery and Exploring the Greek Island Culture.

Time for New Lenses!

We experience life and we see things differently. Having clarity is great, but we must notice when the vision becomes fuzzy and blurry. When it does, it’s time to reassess and go back to the drawing board!

So how do we know when it’s time to change our Dreams?

It’s when you no longer are excited by the dream.

It’s when working for the dream is a daunting task.

When it’s no longer fun.

When it no longer brings you joy.

But what if your current dream no longer brings you joy, but you don’t know what will?

You feel stuck.

You may be living the dream you thought you wanted, but something is still lacking.

That’s what the Total MindShift is all about.

It’s taking the time to shift our thought patterns so we can begin to dream again. To let the world be our playground. To listen, truly listen to our heart’s desires.

I practice what I teach. Whenever I feel frustrated, or I feel myself avoiding things, I stop and go inward.

I dig into my psyche. Observing my thoughts and taking note of the observation.

How am I feeling? Are there limiting beliefs stopping me from pursuing my dreams? Do I just need some time to myself?

Mindfulness and Self Care are key.

Finding New Clarity – AGAIN…

So if you are feeling you need to get clarity again. That perhaps your dreams have shifted. Here’s what I recommend.

1. If you don’t journal start, or at least have a practice as you work through getting your clarity. I love the exercise from “An Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron of morning pages. Write 3 pages I believe even if it’s the same thing over and over. Just write and get it out.
2. Sit and breathe. This is great advice for whenever anxiety or frustration creeps up. Focused awareness meditation of simply noticing your breath. This simple technique calms the nervous system and will help move you into a powerful state, or the parasympathetic nervous system.
3. Find Gratitude for what you currently have. This is key. Even if we’ve recently experienced loss or tragedy, we can find gratitude for other things in our lives. Without gratitude, we cling to frustration and anger for what we don’t have. This will never propel us to living our dreams.
4. Clarify your values. There are numerous exercises out there to do this. One I like is from the book “Who’s in Your Room” by Emery, Misner, and Sapio.
5. Hire a Coach. Coaches are trained to not solve the issue for you, not to layout your dream based on any survey or quiz. No, coaches are here to support and help you find the answers in yourself. Because it is already inside you, you just need to bring it to the surface.
6. Live. Love. Laugh. Life is whatever you create, and you can only create when you are embracing the current moment.

Living in Motion

What I’ve learned over the past 7 years, is that my dreams and desires are always in motion. That my values guide me. And that the universe is always working for my greatest good! That last belief is faith. Faith that our dreams are worth pursuing. Faith that we are here for a reason. Faith that love always wins. Faith in ourselves and those around us.

If you’d like to explore working together and creating a Total MindShift so you can consciously create a life you love, schedule a no-pressure call with me, and let’s see where the road goes.

And if you want to experience a mini DREAM Retreat this summer, join us for a weekend in the Poconos. Experience Yoga Nidra, a mindfulness walk, morning meditation, river rafting and connection to community and to nature. Check it out! Limited spaces!

The post When It’s Time To Replace Your Lenses appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

I bet many of you are wondering since I’m married to a Health and Mindset Coach, why haven’t I become slender and fit? Honestly, that’s a great question and one I even sometimes ponder.

But the answers are rather easy, and they all come back to my own thoughts. Even though I may get reminders from Mark on occasion (coaching your spouse is not always a great idea. Many times we are more receptive to a stranger’s comments than those we love.), he’s not the one in control of my actions or my thoughts. Only I am. As a coach, he can guide me, hold me accountable, but he can’t make choices for me. He can’t decide in the moment for me. That is all on me.

So why am I starting this spring in the same place as last summer? Well, I’ll tell you – but first I want you to notice that I am starting this spring in the same place as last summer.  This means I’ve made progress!  I’m realizing winter did it again to my body 3 months earlier than when I noticed it last year!

GROWING UP FEMALE

I’ve had to “watch” my weight for as long as I can remember. In high school, I was always on a diet, trying to be skinny. A childhood memory stayed in my mind of me in a Brownie uniform from probably 1^st or 2^nd grade with the front button bulging from my body being too big for it. In junior high, I also had been given the largest cheerleader uniform, because, well, I was the largest cheerleader.  I was not overweight in high school, but I sure felt like if I wasn’t on a diet I would be.

Looking back it’s rather sad that so many of my thoughts, and I’m sure those of other high school girls, were on their bodies. And it was more what others thought, not how we felt. No wonder we grew into women who are so focused on our outer beauty. Young women still face stigmatism based on their weight.

LONG TERM VS SHORT TERM

I became a Saluki Shaker in college, a member of the marching bands dance team. I loved dancing and had even thought of leaving school to dance. But I was too fearful of the unknown. Afraid I wasn’t good enough.  So, when I made the dance team in the spring and was told to come back in the fall 15 pounds less, I was back to dieting!  I had to be good enough! Only this time I tried to be smart about it.

My mom and I joined what would now be called a women’s boutique gym.  We went 3 times a week and I could see my progress as they weighed us at every visit.  I was eating healthy.  I gave up pop, (what we call soda in Chicago), I chose taco salads or tostadas rather than nachos while working that summer at Taco Bell.

But at the end of summer, I was still a few pounds shy of my goal.  I missed the first game of the season because I honestly didn’t think I would actually be benched for a few pounds. Heck, my uniform fit me!

I spent that football season (I love football) sitting in saunas, starving myself all week to binge all weekend, and many other unhealthy short-term fixes. The life of binging and purging.

I quit the Shakers at the end of the season. I was smart enough to know this type of eating was not healthy nor good for my body.  This was the start of me not wanting short-term diets. Instead, looking at weight loss as a long-term, life-changing option.

MY WHY IS NOT STRONG ENOUGH

In my mindset coaching program, The Total MindShift, I start with clarity.  Being absolutely clear on your why, your reason for being. Our purpose, our why, is what drives our everyday decisions. With a clear purpose, decisions on what action to take become clear and easy. If our why is not clear, change doesn’t happen.

Right now my why is just not strong enough to drop another 15-20 pounds. My why is to be healthy and do the things I love doing. But my body is healthy.  I have no medical issues like high blood pressure or diabetes. I feel good. My extra pounds have not yet stopped me from doing the things I love. I hike. I kayak. I practice yoga. I travel back and forth to the city.  There is nothing right now that I can’t do because of my weight.

However, I’ve noticed that I’m getting more winded when Mark and I go for our hikes. I’m getting more winded teaching yoga. AND my jeans are back to being tight! This is my mindfulness coming into action! Noticing these subtle changes in my body. And, I’m noticing these things in March rather than last year in June when I put my bathing suit on. These few changes in my body, which are not in line with my why are the agitator for me to take new action. A month ago, when the weather was too cold to hike, when I was sick with a cold and missed 2 weeks of teaching, and when I hadn’t put on jeans, I didn’t have a why to make changes.  Today, I do.

5 PRIMARY DRIVERS

This week, after noticing the changes in my body, I’ve become more aware of my beliefs, thoughts, and actions. It’s what David Bayer calls the 5 primary drivers: Beliefs lead to thoughts, thoughts lead to feelings, feelings lead to action, which leads to results that reinforce our beliefs or make us rethink.

The thought pattern I’ve had over the last few months was:

Beliefs – I am healthy.

Thoughts – My clothes fit. I can do all the things I love. It’s too cold to go hiking. I have a cold so I should rest. Spring is far off. I’ll be ready to hike when the weather warms.

Feelings – Relaxed. Feelings of hibernating. Warmth. Tired.

Action – Sit by the fire. Watch the snow, not play in it. Make plans for spring. Eat for hibernation meaning comforting winter foods.

Results – My cold slowly goes away. I start feeling sluggish but not enough to change my beliefs until I try on my jeans. Until we go out for a hike. And then my beliefs change to:

Beliefs – Hiking will be much more enjoyable if I dropped 10 pounds.

Thoughts – I can do this. Just rethink your portions and choices.  Move more. Hey, you noticed this before it got warm out and your jeans don’t fit at all!

Feelings – Can’t wait till summer and we can hike the ridge! Or maybe plan a vacation around a long hike. Maybe hike Mount Tammany!

Action – Schedule hikes. Notice when I’m eating out of boredom or to soothe emotions. Make different choices.

Results – My jeans fit better. I’m less winded teaching yoga and hiking.

Back to my beliefs – I feel good!

THE SECRET IS IN YOUR THOUGHTS

So there you have it. Why I’m not as fit and trim as you may expect the wife of a Health and Mindset Coach to be. But you can see, it’s all in my thoughts.

When Mark coaches his clients, he gives guidance on nutrition and movement, because yes, these are key to being healthy and getting down to your ideal weight.

But what he can provide that other Health Coaches can’t, is a mindful approach that includes your mindset. Diving deep into why you may want to lose weight or gain muscle. Digging into your beliefs and your 5 primary drivers.  Getting down to the root of what is holding you back and then making some new decisions, changing your beliefs.

If you are ready to give up dieting forever! If you are ready to consciously create a life and body you love. Schedule a no-hassle, no-pressure Well-Being 101 call with us!  Start living your best life today!

The post Why Haven’t I Gotten Down to My Ideal Weight? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

Stress. We all experience it at one point in our lives. But let’s look at two different points of view.

The first, stress is harmful. That stress blocks our growth. It worsens our health and should be avoided at all costs due to its negative effects.

Now, the second point of view is that stress is helpful. Stress enhances our growth, improves our health, and can yield positive results, helping us become the person we want to be.

Which one do you agree with more? Which one rings true for you?

Before you decide, let’s look at stress as…

A Mathematical Equation.

Let’s say that Stress = Pressures – Capacity

A simple equation.  If we think of stress in this way, there are only two ways to successfully manage your stress, increase capacity or reduce the pressures.  This can make easing stress seem a bit more simple.

But let’s look at four different scenarios.

First, let’s say we have low pressures and high capacity. That would equal a low-stress level.  But we also find ourselves bored and unengaged. When we have no challenges, no pressure to complete a task or learn or develop, but we have the energy, the space, and the time to do it, we crave something more. So low pressure, high capacity is may not bring stress but it does bring apathy and indifference.

Now let’s look at low pressure and low capacity. Here we are on autopilot. We’re going through the motions. There’s no pressure but we don’t have the energy to do anything anyway. This is the hamster wheel of mediocrity.  We don’t feel stressed. We’re not necessarily bored, but we are uninspired. We lack passion. This type of situation can lead to depression.

So, what about high pressure and low capacity? Well, this leads to high pressure. To feelings of overwhelm. Too much of this can lead to chronic stress which is not beneficial.  You may be thinking the only way to reduce our overwhelm is to reduce our pressures. But as noted previously, we can also increase capacity.

If we increase capacity, that leads us to our fourth scenario, high pressure and high capacity, a state of engagement. A state of being “in the zone.” A state of working in flow. When we are so engaged in our work, time flies! We feel accomplished. In this scenario, we see stress as a learning experience, as a way to grow and develop. A way to solve a problem. This is stress being helpful.

Eustress

This type of stress was coined Eustress by a Hungarian endocrinologist, Hans Selye. It literally means “good stress.”

Society, since the mid-twentieth century, has blamed many health issues on too much stress. But stress, when managed appropriately, is ultimately how we grow. How we learn new skills. How we feel accomplished.

Eustress has emotional and health benefits. It differs from distress, the term coined for bad stress, in the following ways:

• Eustress is not chronic. It is short-lived
• Eustress energizes and motivates
• Eustress brings focus and improves performance

Increase Capacity

Thinking back to our simple math equation, Stress = Pressures – Capacity, we can see that whenever we begin to feel distress, the bad stress that brings overwhelm and negative feelings to our body, we have the power to move into Eustress by increasing our capacity.

But wait, what do we mean by “increase our capacity?”

It’s the same thing we mean when we say in yoga, create space.

The same meaning Dr. Dan Siegel, author of the book AWARE, gives to the purpose of meditation, to increase our container of consciousness.

We increase capacity by engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. By relaxing.

There are only two states of being: powerful and primal. And these two states of being, correlate directly back to the two parts of our nervous system, the sympathetic and parasympathetic.

Our sympathetic nervous system, fight, flight, or freeze, is designed to keep us safe from mortal danger. It doesn’t create space or allow for more capacity. If anything, it shrinks capacity, reacting immediately when we are in danger such as getting out of the way quickly, without thinking when a car looks to be coming right at us. This is a good thing when we need it.

The parasympathetic, the rest and digest system, creates capacity. When we are calm we have more space to process, to look for the right solutions, to learn and grow.

To increase capacity, we find calmness. We find relaxation.

Relaxed Under Pressure

To move from distress to eustress, we have to be calm and relaxed.  You may be asking yourself, “but wait, how can I possibly be calm when I have a project due tomorrow morning. I don’t have time to be relaxed.”

I would argue, you don’t have time not to be.

In this case, do you need to fight? Who would you need to fight with? Yourself? Fighting with yourself or someone else is not going to get the project completed any quicker.

Do you need to flee? Is fleeing, leaving your work, walking away, going to accomplish anything?

Do you need to freeze? Stop working? Definitely not!

So, it seems pretty obvious that the sympathetic nervous system here, or a primal state, is not going to help us get the project done.

But, if we can calm ourselves, move into a powerful state, engage the parasympathetic nervous system, we create space to think openly. We can find new ideas. Search our brain, our goal-achieving machine for answers and ideas. This is the capacity we need to move us to eustress.

Now, if you are wondering how to increase your capacity? Well, one suggestion is to join me for our Winter Retreat on Saturday, Feb 19. And there is also a pop-up Full Moon Yoga Nidra, on Wednesday, Feb 16. Both will help prime your being to relax more.

But if you are looking for some “in the moment” resources, ideas to get you out of distress and into eustress at the moment you are experiencing it, to find calm when you feel like your in the middle of chaos? Check back next week! I’ll be sharing some useful tips anyone can use!

The post Is Stress Harmful or Helpful? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

I rang in 2022 with my word of intention, Surrender.

I’m looking at my intention as letting go of controlling what I cannot control. Giving up trying to manage every outcome and instead allowing things to unfold. To observe what is happening around me, and then formulate what only I can do, not what others may do.

Yet here I am, 3 weeks into the new year and I’ve had to remind myself several times to surrender. Reverting to my controlling ways is not easy to change, but having one word to focus on has helped me stay on track. It’s not easy, but I don’t expect changing something that has been a part of me for decades was going to be.

And then there was my intention of getting back to a regular yoga practice. Yes I teach yoga at least 3 times a week, and soon to be 4 with the opening of Yoga37 in Mansfield, but any yoga teacher will tell you, teaching is not the same as a practice. So over a week ago, I joined The Movement in Allentown. I scheduled a class. Then, last Sunday I wasn’t feeling well and I didn’t want to risk infecting anyone, so I canceled. Almost a week later, I’m feeling fine, but I haven’t rescheduled.

All-In – but then what?

Many of us, (if not all of us) start the new year with grand plans, intentions, resolutions, and goals. We are “All-In!” This is the year I’m going to do that thing I’ve been talking about for decades! Or maybe it’s the year you’re going to finish that project. Or maybe you’re going to get healthy! Get a new job. Stop complaining! So many things we are going to do and boom! It’s February 1^st and we are back on the treadmill, running and running, but still in the same place as the last minute of 2021.

Where are you in these statistics from https://discoverhappyhabits.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/?

64% make it through January in keeping to their New Years Resolutions

In a 2016 study, of the 41% of Americans who made resolutions, only 9% felt they were successful by the end of the year.

Why do so many of us give up on our intentions? The article gives 4 reasons:

• Unrealistic goals
• Didn’t track their progress
• Forgot about them
• Too many resolutions, goals, or intentions

Which one has stopped you in the past?

Unrealistic Goals

This is a great one when it comes to weight loss and exercise. After watching a motivational speaker like Tony Robbins or Les Brown, we think we can do anything! We’re going to lose 50 pounds and get into that skinny black dress we wore 10 years ago by June! Too often we set unrealistic timelines on ourselves.  The intention or goal isn’t unrealistic, but sometimes we simply need more time to get there.

Getting down to my ideal weight, the term Mark uses in his Metabolic Mindfulness program to describe the weight I would like to be at, is another one of my goals for 2022. Rather, my goal is to continue to progress to that ideal weight throughout the year.  See, I don’t want a short-term fix here. Sure, I could go on several diets, start running 3 times a week and get to my ideal weight in a few months. But then what happens?

Well based on my history, when I hit my ideal weight I go out and celebrate, eating all the stuff I gave up on the diet. I take a week off from running. And in one week I’m no longer at my ideal weight.

Not the end I have in mind.

I want a realistic goal and for me, that is continuous progress toward my ideal weight.

If you are already struggling with your intentions or resolutions, is it because you place unrealistic demands on yourself? Is the timing necessary? We want our intentions to be a stretch, to invoke change, but we want them to be achievable. If you are looking at your 2022 intentions with doubt, change them up now and make them achievable!

Progress

When making intentions for the new year, just like when setting any goals in business or life, we will more likely achieve them if we regularly measure our progress toward them. This can be done in so many ways, but my favorite is checking in on my progress each day, each week, each month.

You may be thinking that’s a lot of progress check-ins.  It’s not that I measure my progress say on my yoga practice every day, but I have a journal, a calendar of sorts, where each day I set my intentions. These are based on my weekly intentions, which are based on my monthly intentions, which come from my yearly intention. Of course, some things come up that need my attention and they get added as well. But I am very clear in mindset. I have my word, it is easy to remember.  I have my intentions, they are achievable.

Measuring my progress is answering one question.  Am I closer than I was yesterday?

Am I closer to naturally letting go of control? Does it feel more like me?

Am I closer to my ideal weight?

Am I closer to getting back to a regular yoga practice?

If the answer is yes, well I’m on track. If the answer is no, which is where I am right now for my yoga practice, I can make that a priority. Decide on one thing I can do that brings me closer.

Forgot Your Intention?

If you make it a priority to measure your progress, you can’t forget your intention. But if for some reason you do, then it clearly wasn’t your heart’s desire. Make a new intention, one that resonates with your entire being, and move on.

Too Many Intentions

This one gets me every day! Seriously, it really does!

I start the morning by writing in my journal all the things I want to accomplish for the day. Because I wake up refreshed and energized, in a positive mindset, I think I can do it all!

Sound familiar? Did you feel that way on January 1^st when you set all those goals for the New Year?

I’ve learned from experience that I set myself up to feel overwhelmed when I give myself so many goals and intentions, whether it’s for the day or the year. And when we are overwhelmed, we tend to not be productive because we are spending more energy trying not to feel overwhelmed instead of just doing what we can.

If you think you may have set too many intentions for the year, go back to them and sit with them. Are they all important? Do they all need to be done in 2022? Which have you not thought of since January 1?

The last question gives you permission to let those go.  If you haven’t thought about it in three weeks, it’s not important.

Decide which three at most are most important to you and hold onto those. Make them achievable. Measure their progress.

Adjust Your Mindset

Setting intentions for the year can be a powerful tool to creating your life, moving closer to the unique person you are meant to be. It’s the premise behind The Total MindShift, where we not just set our intentions, but we do so with purpose and with an understanding that everything we need to live our dreams, is all inside of us!

But we must consciously create intentions. Setting those that bring us joy. Those that bring everlasting change. Allowing us to shine our light on others. To become “powerful beyond measure.” In turn, we liberate others to shine just as brightly. For when we step into our greatness, we automatically become a beacon for others.

The post New Year’s Intentions: Day 22 – 343 More To Go appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve managed to do since the start of the pandemic.

In the beginning – panic eating

Don’t get me wrong – in the very beginning I was panic-eating just like the rest of us. Kathi and I were eating ice cream sundaes every night! Hot Fudge and Carmel Sauce were our go to favorites! Comfort food like mashed potatoes sounded awesome! Just like many of you, we used food to satisfy our need for certainty and comfort during those first few weeks of complete uncertainty.

After the first month I had ballooned up to around 225! Kathi didn’t want to step on the scale, but when her leggings felt tight, we both knew our panic-eating had to stop.

In April the textbooks for the nutrition certification course in which I had recently enrolled in had arrived.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the lockdown gave me a lot more free-time and it was the perfect opportunity to begin studying something I have always been interested in, nutrition and eating healthy.

I had tried numerous programs or “diets” in the past.

I’d done Atkins before, then Keto for a while. Tried Paleo, South Beach, and Mediterranean. I tried a packaged food program that I now can’t believe I ate those processed foods. They had no taste! Kathi hated it since it left her fending for herself since she wanted no part of pre-made meals!

Heck, one April I decided to try eating vegan. This was a number of years ago when Kathi still worked in the city. I was the chef in the house and I didn’t bother to tell her what I was doing. (See, whatever new diet regimen I decide to try, she was stuck having to try too 😉) However, she noticed after about a week of tofu and imitation meat products. She wasn’t thrilled with the vegan plan – mostly it was the cheese she missed.  Lucky for her, that attempt did not even last a whole month.

Looking for Health in all the wrong places.

So after all those different diets or eating plans I was still looking to be healthier. And this time was different. There was a realization of getting older and I didn’t want any short term fixes. I wanted lasting change.  For my food to fuel my body. To continue living an active life. I also wanted to change my family history. My dad died at only 62 years of age, and a few months later his older brother, my Uncle Bill, died at just 64. I don’t want that to be me. I see myself living to well over 100, and I want to live that long life being able to do the things I love, like hiking, scuba diving, exploring.

Finally, I also want Kathi to join me in this long healthy active life.  We share most of our meals together.  It’s important to me for us to share in this health journey! I want our meals to be tasty as well as providing the nutrition our bodies need as we age.

So after talking with a number of health coaches I know, I settled on the science and behavior based certification from Precision Nutrition. The program was supposed to take about a year to complete; I did it in roughly 3 months.

And then I put it all into practice,

and the pounds started falling off. Before I knew it, I was under 200! I stepped on the scale one morning and it read 199.4. I hadn’t been under 200 since the last millennium. Boy was I ecstatic!

But it didn’t stop there. Each week I was lighter and lighter. I’ve been consistently in the low 170’s for several months now. As of this morning I’m 172.6, and the lowest I’ve seen was 170.3, last week. I don’t know if I’ll see the 160’s. I’m not really even trying to shed any more weight.

Of course, I haven’t really been “trying” this whole time, either.

I’m not on any weird, restrictive diet. In fact, I’ve literally been eating Chocolate, Ice Cream, Pizza, Tacos, Burgers, and Pasta all along, and there have been a couple of occasions where I’ve gorged on a plate of desserts, or a really sweet and gooey Yogurtland bowl.

And still I was able to get down to my ideal body weight. The scale tells me I’m between 7.3 and 10.1% bodyfat. I think it’s being a bit generous, and I’d estimate I’m between 12 and 15%, which is right in the healthy range for a man on the cusp of his 50’s.

Although I studied this nutrition program because I wanted to get healthy and live a long life, I also did it because I want to help people. Besides teaching yoga and mindfulness, I wanted to teach people how to be healthy. To shed the pounds and negativity that’s holding them back from being their true Self. Living a full and abundant life!

Afterall that’s why Kathi and I started Eclectic Well-Being!

So, do you want to know the secret?

Join me for Well-Being 101 on Saturday, September 25^th from 10:30 – Noon, Eastern time, where I will spill it all!

✔ Learn to let go of what is truly holding you back from having the body you want, or anything else in your life that you desire by using this one simple technique.

✔ I’ll share one core principle which is the most proven effective way to make lasting change in your mindset and your body… It improves your chances of success by 95%… in anything.

✔ Discover how you can have more health, more joy, and get out of your own way without changing the core of who you are or doing things you don’t want to do.

This is a hybrid event, so you can attend in-person or via Zoom. Spots are filling up quickly, so register today 😊

https://eclectic.kartra.com/calendar/WB101Calendar

The post Eat Chocolate and Ice Cream Every Day, Pizza Weekly, Tacos, Burgers, Pasta, and Still Drop 50 Pounds? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

When we decided to become coaches, some in our family wondered what exactly does a coach do?  Who hires you?  Why do they hire you?

Let’s first discuss what coaches don’t do.  Coaches are not therapists.  We don’t try to solve your problems by analyzing your past experiences or diagnosing any cognitive, psychological or emotional disorders.  In fact, we don’t try to solve your problems for you in any way.

What we do is listen, pose questions, and offer observations.  Many like us, also incorporate teaching into our practice.  Teaching, as an invitation, not that what I teach is the only option, but as an invitation to try some practices and techniques that have been useful for others.

Why hire a coach? 
Well why do some people hire a trainer?  Because we want support, guidance, and accountability.  Same reasons you want to hire a coach, but instead of working on your physical goals, we work on life goals; whether that be your health, your mindset, your career, your finances, your relationships, and other areas of your life on which you choose to work. All coaches are trained to listen, respond with questions, offer support and be direct and honest.

Coaches help you find solutions within yourself to make the changes needed to have what you truly desire.   This could be a myriad of things.  Perhaps you want to stop having the same arguments with your spouse.  Maybe you want to figure out if the career you are in is really what you want to be doing.  Maybe you’ve noticed a change in body weight and want to figure out how to still enjoy food but not keep gaining weight as you get older.  Perhaps you are celebrating your child’s wedding and having the house back to yourselves, but now what are you going to do?

What do all these scenarios have in common?  They involve going inward, exploring options, finding clarity as to what YOU really want and then coming up with an action plan.  Our lives are habitual.  We repeat the same patterns.  In order to make changes, we need to stop doing the same things.  To paraphrase Einstein, “Insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results.”  That’s most of us.  We don’t realize we do the same things, but we do.  It’s the way our brain is connected.

Why can’t you simply make these changes on your own? Well you can try. However, because science has shown that 90% of our thoughts are repetitive, (and 80% of those are negative) most people find themselves in the same thought pattern. They find it difficult to shift on their own and see the multitude of possibilities.

Example, many of us think “the problem” is our current job. So we find a new job, thinking everything will be solved. But in reality, we are repeating the same behaviors and usually we find ourselves unhappy again in a short time. A coach interrupts these habits, offers questions and ideas that will prompt your brain to think differently, and provide guidance with new ideas and potential solutions. By asking thoughtful but direct questions, coaches provide a safe environment for you to reprogram your brain, opening up new possibilities!

Eclectic Well-Being focuses on Mindset and Nutrition, two areas where many people struggle but with simple changes, get exceptional results!

The Total Mind Shift is an 8 week program centered on discovering what makes you, well, you!  Exploring your character, your personality, your hopes and dreams.  Ensuring you have complete clarity as to what life you want to live, what brings you joy and abundance!  We focus on small changes you can make to truly be the person you want to be and have the life you desire.  At the end of 8 weeks you have a set of tools you can use whenever you find yourself falling back into old patterns.  If you need further support, we also have one-to-one as-needed sessions for past clients.

Metabolic Mindfulness is a 10-week program designed for people who want to identify as healthy, fit individuals, but aren’t quite sure where to begin, or have experienced setbacks in the past. This program covers everything you need to know to live consistently at your ideal body weight and never need to “go on a diet” ever again, while still eating food that tastes good and makes you feel good. We believe there is no “one best diet” out there that will work for everyone. Our program helps you to figure out what’s going to work for you, for the rest of your life.

Curious if Coaching can help you live with more joy, health and abundance?  Schedule a Discovery Call with either of us!

The post What is Coaching? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.