Exercise vs. Movement: What Matters Most?

 Fitness/Exercise  No Responses »
Apr 292014
 

We have all read and heard about the many benefits of exercise.  Exercise has been shown to lower your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, improve cognitive function, fitness, improve your mood and reduce depression, and reduce the risk of cancer. It’s also been shown to change the T cells in cancer patients from unhealthy to healthy and create a low sugar environment that discouraged the growth and spread of cancer cells in patients who are already diagnosed.

So if you’re looking for an excuse to re-start your exercise plan, there are many! But did you know that if you are sedentary throughout most of your day, your risk of health concerns is much higher, even if you are a rigorous and religious exerciser?

Research shows that long periods of sitting have negative effects on our health that are not fully erased even if we demonstrate healthy habits after work. Movement, it turns out, is even more important for good health than exercise. Especially since I just read a statistic that more than 50% of men and women don’t engage in vigorous physical activity for more than 10 minutes a week which is not enough to attain any real health benefit. If you’re in that group, moving is even more important!

But even if you work out, it’s moving throughout the day that seems to make the biggest difference. USA Today recently reported the results of a study that revealed that the risk of heart failure was more than double for men who sat for five hours a day outside of work and didn’t exercise as compared to men who sat for less than two hours a day and were physically active. Men with the lowest risk were those who exercised the most and sat for less than two hours a day.

But while this may seem to highlight that men who exercise more are healthier, the study also confirmed that a regular fitness routine did NOT erase the effects of sitting for long durations. The study followed 82,000 men for 10 years and found that the increased risk correlations to sitting were true no matter how long they exercised. It wasn’t the exercise that made the difference: it was the amount of time spent sitting that played the biggest role in the men’s health risks.

Whether you are exercising regularly or not, if you want to improve your health, you should create time for movement breaks throughout the day. According to James Levine, co-director of Obesity Solutions at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, “If you’ve been sitting for an hour, you’ve been sitting too long.”  Dr. Joseph Mercola thinks even an hour is too long. He recommends that you take a movement break every 15 minutes and suggests setting a timer at work or using a phone app to remind you to get up and walk or stretch.

If you think about it, it makes total sense. As we evolved away from chasing our food (and being chased by it!) and settled down, we still lived in a state of constant movement. Cooking, weaving, gathering, building, everything we did in our day was movement. Even if we sat to mend something we would then get up to stir the pot or get more material. Even in more recent years as we built businesses that were more stationary, the business owner would check out his fleet or land or livestock, on foot or on horseback. Ladies would take long walks in the garden, as would couples after dinner, and for a special occasion, the entertainment after dinner would involve dance.

Taking frequent breaks throughout the day to get up and stretch your body will  release tightness from your muscles and keep energy (and blood and oxygen) flowing smoothly throughout your body. A stretch, some simple calisthenics or yoga poses will go a long way. If you can, take a little time to go for a walk.

While a nice long walk during lunch or after work is a great health option that can also provide a forum for social interaction or emotional reconnection with a friend or loved one, little intermittent walking breaks throughout the day can improve your health… and your creativity.

A new study from Stanford University revealed that our ability to solve problems creatively, or our divergent thinking creativity, increases during and after walking. Researchers put 176 college students into groups and asked them to generate as many possible solutions in a set time by coming up for different possible uses for an object. The scores were evaluated on their originality, whether other participants also identified that same solution, and their appropriateness, or whether the ideas were actually realistic.

The participants took the test while sitting, being pushed in a wheelchair, or walking inside or outside for a period of 5-16 minutes. They found that participants scored 60% higher when they were walking than sitting, whether it was indoors or outdoors and that their creative thinking levels remained elevated for a period of time after their walk.

So the next time you are sitting at your desk working hard to solve a problem, rushing to finish a report, or struggling to find an answer, take a few minutes to get up and go for a walk. The answer just might come to you more quickly and your health will be improved as well.

To your wellness and health: your true wealth!

I-Signature.jpg

Inger

Author: Inger Pols is the Editor of the New England Health Advisory and Author/Creator, Finally Make It Happen, the proven process to get what you want. Get a free special report on The Truth About Sugar: It’s Not All Equal and a free copy of Inger’s bestselling ebook at www.IngerPols.com/freegifts

Photo Source: courtesy of photostock / Free Digital Photos

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The Truth About Vitamins

 Diet, Health, Healthy Choices  No Responses »
Feb 262014
 

Recently, a study claimed that taking vitamins has no merit. It’s not new news: pharmaceutical-funded studies have been claiming this for some time (because vitamins can’t be patented and if you take them, you might not need their drugs.) While the study says vitamins in isolation don’t work (I agree), it also claims that multivitamins have no merit (I disagree: synthetic multivitamins have no merit, but whole food multi-vitamins have been shown to have health benefits.)

The debate isn’t new. One of the most vehement arguments came a few years ago when Reader’s Digest called vitamins “a scam” and said that taking them is a waste of money. It cited a study of 160,000 mid-life women that showed no difference in health with respect to the big diseases like cancer, heart disease and stroke, from taking a multivitamin. But as with all studies, you need to dig deeper—in this case because not all vitamins are created equal. (I am always suspect when a magazine whose advertising is largely from pharmaceutical companies says vitamins are worthless.)

The article challenges the benefits of certain individual supplements, such as vitamins A or E taken by themselves.  I agree these vitamins will have little, if any, effect when taken in isolation because they require proper co-factors for absorption. The article and the recent study both recommend one standalone vitamin that should be taken by everyone: vitamin D. (I’ve discussed the importance of vitamin D previously and I will be writing more about it soon as I believe it is so important.)

There is a rampant vitamin D deficiency among children and adults today, so I couldn’t agree more. Vitamin D3 can stand on its own and I take 5000 mg daily as part of my multivitamin and more in addition during the winter. (Do not take a prescription vitamin D as you will receive vitamin D2 which is not as absorpable or effective as vitamin D3 which you can buy inexpensively over the counter, though natural sunlight is still best.)

But most other vitamins need to be taken together as part of a complete nutritional package and won’t have much if any impact if taken alone.

Many people say that if we eat well, we don’t need a multivitamin. Eating a whole food and plant-based diet will go a long way toward staying healthy and I strongly recommend we do that. We cannot eat too many dark leafy green vegetables and we should be eating the rainbow (fruits and vegetables that cover every spectrum of color from white to orange, red, green and purple.) But I also take a whole food multivitamin and a whole food raw green superfood powder, because the truth is, it is very difficult to get the nutrients we need from our modern food supply.

These days, to offset the bad fats and processed food sugars we consume and to restore balance within our bodies, we need more vegetables than ever. (New standards raise fruits and vegetables up to 9-13 servings a day!) We are not just eating to fuel our bodies, we are eating to heal our bodies from the inflammation and oxidation of our processed diets. It’s getting harder to get the nutrients we need because in addition to the packaged and prepared foods in our diets, our fresh food supply is not as vitamin rich as it used to be. Soil has been depleted of nutrients, food is sprayed with chemicals and pesticides or is genetically modified to grow bigger or to resist disease, and then it is transported hundreds or thousands of miles to get to our tables.

If you go to a farm or a market and buy fresh produce, you know that after a few days on your counter, it will begin to go bad. Now think about the grapes or tomatoes you are buying from the opposite coast or from South America. They were picked, packaged and then shipped (sometimes by barge) to the U.S., sent out by truck across the country to your local market, displayed on the shelf for several days (or weeks) and then finally taken home.

For the produce to survive that trip looking fresh and beautiful and without bruising, it is heavily sprayed with chemicals, and picked before it is ripe and allowed to mature along the way. Once the fruit leaves the vine, it doesn’t get the sun and the nutrients any longer, it doesn’t fully develop the enzymes and phytonutrients that are usually present in mature fresh picked local produce.

(I talk a lot more about organic versus local and making better fruit and vegetable choices in the articles on produce, but you should also know that many chemicals and pesticides banned in the U.S. are still used freely in the foreign countries from which we buy produce.)

Studies estimate more than 50% of nutrient value is lost in the journey from farm to table. That’s’ very conservative. So even if you are doing your best to eat a lot of good fruits and veggies, unless you have access to a local farm, and even then, it is hard to get food with the nutritional profile you need for health. Plus,  you’d have to eat a lot of it, and how many of us can sit down and eat a basket full of kale?

If you still think you can go it alone without, you may recall in one of my articles I shared that to get the same level of nutrients that you could get from two peaches back in the 1950’s, today you would have to eat 53! Who is doing that?

While I fantasize about growing my own food, here in New England, with a long, cold winter and a busy life with two kids and work, it’s not possible at the moment. I do my best to shop at local farmers’ markets for fresh produce, and I buy flash frozen organic produce (never canned) when I can’t. Despite my best efforts, I do not believe that I can get the nutrition I need without taking a multivitamin and my kids take one too.

But there is a big difference among multivitamins. There are natural organic whole food based products that when manufactured correctly leave the integrity of the whole food intact. And then there are cheap synthetic forms that you can buy in drugstores or big box stores which are the vitamins the studies are talking about.

When looking for a good whole food supplement, keep in mind that whole foods are just that: whole foods. Look for ingredients such as carrots, spinach, wheat grass, spirulina, kale, celery etc. There will be vitamins listed as well but their sources will also be present: The original foods from which they were derived. When the ingredient list reads more like a science report than a grocery list, and there are no food sources included just isolated chemicals, it’s typically comprised of man-made synthetic compounds.

Because synthetic vitamins are created in a lab to simulate the real thing, they are not identical in the way they interact with or are absorbed by the body. They are often missing minerals, nutrients and other requisite co-factors for assimilation. In addition, they often contain cheap fillers and binders from ingredients like sand and titanium dioxide, dibasic calcium phosphate and microcrystalline cellulose (refined wood pulp);  they are ingredients that our bodies cannot absorb and that may even be harmful to us. Many common over-the-counter vitamins are passed through the stool whole and intact.

Taking a multivitamin that includes a broad spectrum of vitamins, minerals and nutrients can make a difference, but only if it is bioavailable and bioabsorpable; in other words your body can actually break down and absorb the nutrients. That is not possible with synthetic vitamins. I prefer a whole food-based product that is as close to what I should be eating as possible, and made from the real thing, not created to imitate it.

Interestingly the Readers Digest article’s main argument against taking multivitamins said, “These days, you’re extremely unlikely to be deficient if you eat an average America diet, if only because many packaged foods are vitamin enriched.”

Think about that for a moment.

Food manufacturers strip out all the vitamins that exist in the food during the manufacturing process. Then they “enrich” them, by adding back cheap lab-created imitations. They want us to believe that these created versions are the same as the original, but research shows they are not: you cannot duplicate naturally occurring nutrients from synthetic ingredients. In addition, they will be missing enzymes and cofactors required for assimilation. When I see “enriched” on a food label, I know to stay away.

The truth is that enriched foods do not add vital nutrients to our bodies, nor will synthetic vitamin pills. The best way to get what we need is from the whole food source. Nature intended us to eat vitamins, minerals, trace minerals and phytonutrients together as they work synergistically. When whole food supplements are made the right way, they maintain a multitude of the plants original components and the integrity of the food source.

So eat as much good stuff as you can. Buy local when you can, organic if possible. But given the nutrient levels in today’s soil and ultimately, food supply, along with the long transit times and warehouse distribution processes, even if you eat really well, you probably won’t get all the nutrients you need from food. Most — if not all — of us will still need to supplement with a whole food-based supplement to bridge the gap for long-term health and wellness.

To your wellness and health: your true wealth!

Inger

Author: Inger Pols is the Editor of the New England Health Advisory and Author/Creator, Finally Make It Happen, the proven process to get what you want. Get a free special report on The Truth About Sugar: It’s Not All Equal. Learn more about Inger and receive her free bestselling ebook What Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You.

Article Photo: courtesy of m_bartosch | FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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One Small Step to Successful Resolutions

 Wellness  No Responses »
Dec 312013
 

As I watched people struggle to try to lose weight or change their diet in order to regain their health, I have observed the 98% rule over and over again: 98% of people who diet will gain back the weight and more. Usually in 6-12 months. I became curious about what it takes to be among the 2% who actually do succeed.

So I started talking to people who had succeeded and those who had failed, experts and regular folks, and I started researching how to make lasting change: I read every book and research study I could find! I discovered that there are several key elements necessary in order for change to occur and to stick; I call them “The Five Secrets of Change.”

While all five are required for most people to make lasting change, you can really begin to move the needle immediately with Change Secret #1. In this first of five parts series on making lasting change, we’re going to focus on making your changes small. You may have heard people talk about small steps before but there is a powerful scientific reason why small is the way to go: successful change has to be small because our brains are actually hard-wired to resist big changes.

Even though we may eally want to make a big change, we feel ready for it and our desire is strong, our brains perceive large changes as stress. The definition of stress is a perceived threat, real or imaginary. It doesn’t matter to the brain if it’s true or if it’s a real threat: the brain sees it the same way in either instance. Our brains will try to protect us and make us feel safe and comfortable again by bringing us back to where we were before, where it felt safe.

It’s actually been seen on MRI scans. Studies have shown that a part of the brain known as the amygdala, which controls our stress response, becomes activated if a patient is asked to make a big change. When scientists suggest something that represents a significant change in behavior or routine, such as losing 10+ pounds or changing jobs, the amygdala fires up and engages. It begins to try to bring you back to homeostasis, or the place where you feel more comfortable, by eliminating the stressor.

When patients were asked to make a smaller change, such as drinking more water or eating out less, the amygdala remained dormant and did not resist. The amygdala did not perceive the smaller goal to be a threat so there was no need to try to interfere and change the behavior.

So when you try a new exercise program and all of a sudden you think maybe I’ll skip the gym today, it’s not about willpower or being weak: your brain may actually be trying to alter your behavior to keep you in the safe comfortable place you were before where it is not stressful.

A study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine concluded that participants who made one small, potentially permanent change in either their physical activity or their food choices, lost more than twice as much belly fat, 2 1/2 more inches off their waistlines, and about 4 times more weight than those who tried traditional calorie restriction plans or physical activity guidelines. The successful changes were very small such walking 5 more minutes a day or drinking one less soda per day.

In my audio course launching in January called Finally Make It Happen, we look at how to break down your change goals into small action steps that fit easily into your life. We follow a unique prioritization process to get at where you should start and then we map out how to move forward step by step.

But you don’t have to take my course or wait another day to start making lasting change! You can begin today by choosing a small steps toward your goal and beginning with just one step at a time until it has become a new habit.

Study after study has shown that small changes are the most effective way to achieve long-term success, but we continue to want to take on too much too soon or make big, hard changes to get results faster. We’re setting ourselves up to fail because we cannot outsmart our own brains; they are only trying to keep us safe and comfortable by doing what they think we want.

It may be common sense and you may have heard it before, but as you know, common sense is not always common practice! Making small changes is the first secret to successful lasting change. Choose one small step that you can take today and you’ll be on your way to Finally Make It Happen. You can read about the other 4 secrets to making lasting change at www.nehealthadvisory.com.

To your wellness and health: your true wealth!

Inger

Author: Inger Pols is the Editor of the New England Health Advisory and Author/Creator, Finally Make It Happen, the proven process to get what you want. Get a free special report on The Truth About Sugar: It’s Not All Equal. Learn more about Inger and receive her free bestselling ebook What Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You at www.ingerpols.com/freegifts

Article Photo: courtesy of samuiblue | FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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The Five Reasons Most People Fail to Get What They Want

 Wellness  No Responses »
Dec 302013
 

In the prior article series, we looked at the 5 secrets of change. (If you missed any of the 5 secrets, you can read them here). These five elements need to be in place no matter what program, product, plan, or diet you follow in order to make lasting change. In my course, Finally Make It Happen, I’ve developed a simple process that incorporates all 5 of the secrets so that you don’t even need to think about it.

You don’t have to take my course to get the benefits though. You can apply those secrets to any program, process or diet plan you decide to pursue. If you apply all 5 elements to your plan, then you can increase your chances of success exponentially. But the reality is, while the five secrets will get you far, they are not enough to ensure you succeed. To reach your goals, fulfill your dreams, and get your to do list done, you need to be able to overcome the five reasons most people fail t get what they want.

The first reason people fail is a lack of clarity: they aren’t clear on what they truly want and they don’t have a clear plan that will work for them to get it. Having a plan that works, that includes all five secrets, will help you avoid failure, because the #1 reason people fail is because they don’t have a plan, or the right kind of a plan, for making change.

It may seem obvious, but it still catches people off guard so many times: knowing what you really want is critical to getting it. If you think you want to lose weight but you don’t realize that you are overeating because you are miserable in your relationship, for example, then a weight loss goal is not going to get you where you want to go.

Then creating the right plan for you that incorporates the five secrets of change: small, effortless, empowered, progressive, and supportive. Most people either fail to plan, which as they say is a plan to fail, or they choose a plan that is way too restrictive to make lasting change. In my audio course, we make a simple easy, customizable step-by-step plan to get you where you want to go and we make sure you are crystal clear on what your REALLY want.

Once you have clarity, we turn to the second reason that most people fail to get what they want: they have what scientists call a belief gap between what they think is possible and what actually is possible. Let’s face it, we have all tried to do something and failed before. Many of us have tried to make lasting change and have not been able to do so. So we have a belief that we can’t do it. This belief may be obvious to you and you may be fully aware of it because you tried and failed so many times before. Often, however, it is subconscious and we don’t even know it exists.

Many of us have what are known as limiting beliefs, or beliefs that we can’t do or have something. These ideas that it’s hopeless, we’re helpless, it’s useless, we’re worthless or blameless (because we choose to make excuses and blame everyone else) are embedded within our subconscious and can sabotage us and set us up for failure. We may not even know that they are there. So how do they get there?

Scientists know that there are actually 5 different brain waves, alpha, delta, beta, gamma, and theta. Up to age 6, our brains are in the theta stage. We are awake, aware and absorbing all. It’s the same stage we go into under hypnosis. But this brain wave, while awake and aware, does not have a filter. So we take in everything and it leaves an indelible impression, yet we don’t question it or assess it in any way. After age 6, we start to question and filter information but prior to that, we just drink it all in.

So if your parents said money is the root of all evil, or change is hard, you will subconsciously believe that. If someone told you that you were not good at something, or you heard something on TV or maybe you overheard people talking about how “that’s” not for them, no matter what “that” might be, all that information was imprinted on your mind and you may not even know that it’s still there. In my course, Finally Make It Happen, we look at conscious beliefs as well as subconscious beliefs and learn how to bust the beliefs that don’t serve us and build new beliefs that do, using the latest cutting edge mind/body techniques.

But there is something you can do right now to start new belief building. Take out a piece of paper and write down all the reason why you CAN do or have something. I am skinny, wealthy, done with my book because… until you have a nice long list! This process creates a turn around in your brain from a negative belief to a positive one and it builds confidence and self-esteem toward reaching your goal. It may seem silly or simple, but this simple shift really refocuses your brain on re-framing “I can’ts” into “I cans” so you can Finally Make It Happen. Science shows that re-framing in this positive way can shift your beliefs and open up more possibility, confidence and success in your life.

The next major reason people fail also has to do with mindset and it is all about motivation mastery. We all have motivations for pursuing our dreams and reaching our goals, but we also know that motivation can fade over time. In my course, Finally Make It Happen, we look at positive and negative motivation and see why both are important. We learn how to harness and master motivation over time. We also look at why science shows that to succeed, you need to unite your left (logical goal-setting) side and your right (emotional, visual, freedom-loving) side of the brain together in the fight to make it happen.

We often focus on the left logical brain and make goals and lists which are effective tools for making progress, but without uniting the right brain along with the left, it’s like trying to run on one leg: you can move forward, but not very quickly and you will get very tired over time. It can be hard to stick with a goal over time, especially if the right “emotional” more immediate gratification side of the brain wants something else in that moment.

That’s when all of a sudden the ice cream is much more important than fitting in your skinny jeans. This is normal and we know this: it happens to everyone. But there are ways to unite the left and right brain to master motivation and make sure these moments are few and far between. We go through a number of techniques in my course, but I can give you one right now that you can use today to help maintain motivation.

When you think about your goal or objective and you focus in on your motivation, try to bring in your right brain by seeing as well as thinking. The brain actually converts words into visual images. When you say the word tree, your mind sees a tree, not the letters. So when you set that goal to lose 10 pounds, see yourself as you will be when you reach that goal. Create pictures in your mind around the end result. See the office you’ll get with your new promotion or the new car you want and picture yourself having it/being it/doing it. It’s important not just to focus on the end result, but also to focus on yourself getting there: see yourself working toward your goal and then reaching it.

Then to ramp it up even more, bring in another right brain element, feeling. Feel what it will feel like to reach that goal and any time you waiver or the ice cream tempts you, see and feel yourself reaching the goal and the temptation will lessen. It’s been proven that when you connect visuals and feelings with your goals, they become much stronger and you can reconnect to your motivation with images and feelings any time you are distracted or tempted or even procrastinating. Take a deep breath and refocus on the images and the feelings; this simple technique will start your motivation mastery and you can build on it from there.

The fourth reason people fail is because they don’t know how to make — or break — habits. There is still a myth out there that new habits take 21 days to form, and that is simply not true. Some habits can be made, or broken, very quickly while others can take months or years to become ingrained. It has a lot to do with again uniting our left and right brains together in the fight so that emotion and logic are partnering to get the job done. You need to know the secrets to making new habits more easily. In my course, Finally Make It Happen, we delve into the 7 most effective habit helpers you can use to make a new healthy habit.

Here’s one habit helper that you can use right now: tie a new behavior to an already established habit. Scientists call it anchoring and it works because this new behavior piggybacks off something that you are already doing without thinking about it. So for example, if you are trying to remember to take your vitamins at night before you sleep, you might put the bottle next to your toothbrush. Since brushing before bed is already automatic, everything you pick up your brush, you’ll see the vitamins and remember to take them.

Now that’s a very simple example and it may be every time you open the refrigerator or turn on the TV, or it may be that you really need to get creative like I did with one of my clients. He really wanted to meditate but he was a busy executive with a large family and could never seem to find time to do it without being interrupted. He’d go in the bedroom to lie down or close his door at work and there would be an emergency or a crisis or a call.

So I looked at other activities in his day, where he is alone and how we could tie meditation in. In the end, I got really creative and decided that every time he got in the car, which was typically to go to work and to come home from work, he took a minute to close his eyes and be quiet. We started small, with one minute and gradually over time it grew to be longer. No one bothered him and he learned that even if he was running late, by still taking that minute or two, he was calmer, clearer and more effective.

He ended up turning off his phone and driving to and from work after his meditation in quiet and stillness and it became his favorite time of day. So whether it’s simple or you have to get really creative, tie your action to something you already do and it will make it easier to create a new habit.

The last reason people fail to reach their goal, achieve their dream or get it done, is that they lack willpower to resist in the moment. Many of us have come to believe we don’t have enough willpower or that we are weak, but that’s simply not true. The truth is that willpower is like a muscle. If you don’t have it, it simply means you haven’t exercised it and if you start to exercise it, it will strengthen and develop over time.

In my course, Finally Make It Happen, we go through 10 exercises to strengthen your willpower and arm you with willpower weapons. I want to leave you with one willpower weapon that you can use today to help banish temptation and stay on track. One of my favorite willpower weapons is what I like to call If/then. And it simply means that if you feel tempted, you will have a plan already in place for what you will do then.

For example, if I am tempted to eat the ice cream, I will close the fridge door and count to ten and see myself in my skinny jeans. If I am tempted to buy yet another pair of brown boots because they are on sale, I will take a walk and remember the beach vacation I am saving for.

Or my personal favorite if then because it relates back to the 5th secret of change, support, if I am tempted then I will call my best buddy who knows how badly I want to reach my goal and she will call me out and question whether I really want to make that choice. It’s a simple technique, but by planning in advance for temptation or possible failure, you can put a plan in place so you know exactly what to do and you’ll be much more likely to overcome the temptation and stick to your goal.

Armed with tools to overcome the 5 reasons most people fail to get what they want, you can get started, keep going, and get it done. No matter what your “it” may be.

Here’s to your success so you can Finally Make It Happen. You can learn more about the Finally Make It Happen course at www.ingerpols.com/courses

To your wellness and health: your true wealth!

Inger

Author: Inger Pols is the Editor of the New England Health Advisory and Author/Creator, Finally Make It Happen, the proven process to get what you want. Get a free special report on The Truth About Sugar: It’s Not All Equal. Learn more about Inger and receive her free bestselling ebook What Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You at www.ingerpols.com/freegifts.

Article Photo: courtesy of renjith krishnan | FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Get the Support You Need for Keeping Resolutions this New Years

 Wellness  No Responses »
Dec 302013
 

This is the last in my 5 part series on the five secrets of change. If you missed any of the previous four, you can find them here. The fifth and final secret of change is support. This may be the most overlooked element of making successful lasting change. There are several reasons why support is crucial.

Most people immediately jump to accountability and it’s true that building a support system will ensure that someone is holding you accountable to your dreams, your goals and your actions. That’s why you have one on ones with your boss to check in on how projects are progressing and that’s why when you write your senior thesis in school you have to meet with an advisor on a regular basis to ensure you continue to progress and have help or support if you are getting stuck.

It’s also why more and more people are hiring coaches, be it health coaches or life coaches. If someone is checking in on you every week and asking you how it’s going, and you know you’re going to have to tell them how you did, it can help you find motivation to keep at it or to resist giving in to short-term desires in lieu of your longer-term goal.

Plus you get the added benefit of the emotional connection with someone else who understands what you are trying to do and you experience the feeling that you are not in it alone. That’s huge because when you are trying to do new things even if it’s not hard or scary, it’s still new and it takes some time and adjustment to get into new routines. Having someone to talk to about it can ease the transition and make it all happen more smoothly.

Another reason why support is crucial though is that we need to celebrate our successes. Often we’ve been beaten down from our past failures and we may have doubts about succeeding this time. In my course, Finally Make It Happen, we look at how to remove those doubts and instill the belief that you CAN succeed. Having doubt is not unusual and having support to remind you of your motivation and cheer you one way you can begin to remove it.

Most of us focus on failures more than successes, so we remember and attach to the negative moments instead of the positive ones. Having support will ensure that you stop and take the time to celebrate each and every success and build on them over time until celebrating your accomplishments and rewarding your success becomes a new way of life.

Study after study has shown that people succeed at a far greater rate if they have support than if they try to go it alone. As I shared in a previous article, I teach in a lot of gyms and I see the fallout rate of new members who join and are gone a few weeks later. Studies have shown that people who join a gym with a buddy are much more likely to still be members a year later. Even if you don’t exercise together or aren’t even at the gym at the same time, signing up with someone else and knowing they’ll ask you if you’ve gone or you have someone to talk to about how it’s going makes you much more likely to stick with it.

A powerful study looked at heart patients who had had a heart attack and were in serious danger of having another potentially fatal attack if they did not make some basic lifestyle changes. One group received a support system, the other did not. In the group that did not, 9 out of 10 patients could not make the basic changes required, even though their lives were at stake.

Often we know exactly what we need to do but we still don’t do it. They say people will continue to make the same choices until the pain of making them finally outweighs the pain of change. But in that study, lives were at stake and people still could not make the changes on their own. Humans are wired for inter-connectivity, companionship and support. If you’re trying to make new habits or reach a big goal, support is absolutely critical for success.

In my course, Finally Make It Happen, I teach you how to create a support system to build accountability , connection, and to learn to celebrate successes. In addition to showing you how to do it on your own, I’ve created a group forum for connection, support and celebration where you can join with other people working toward similar goals and share challenges, advice, support and share victories.

But you don’t need to take my course to build support. Find someone in your life who wants the best for you and will stand by you no matter what. Enlist them to support you on your journey, to be your buddy to share your challenges and to celebrate your successes. And try using another of the willpower weapons you’ll learn about in my course, the If/Then technique.

If/then is a process you can use when you feel tempted to do or not do something that you know is not in your best interest. For example, when you walk by the shoe sale and see another pair of black pumps that look so good even though you are trying to save for your dream vacation… or you come home from work after a tough day and open the freezer and see the ice cream staring back at you.

If that happens, then you plan in advance for what you will do. So if that happens, then I will…. And you create a strategy to employ in that moment. If I am tempted to spend money I will take a deep breath and count to ten and see myself on the beach in Tahiti. If I am tempted to open the ice cream then I will close the freezer door and take a 10 minute walk first.

But my favorite then of all is one that aligns perfectly with change secret #5: support. If I am tempted then I will call my buddy and talk to her first. She will remind me of what I am trying to do, what I am working toward and support me in making a different choice.

So there you have it! Five secrets of change that will help you to Finally Make It Happen, no matter what you “it.” If you want to learn more about my program, you can visit my website at ingerpols.com and if you join my mailing list, you’ll receive a free gift and information on the course release. But whether you choose to learn more or not, you can take these five secrets and apply them to any process, program, diet or plan and improve your results dramatically.

Now that you know how to outsmart your brain: just take small effortless steps that work for YOU at the rate or pace that is right for you. Oh and don’t forget to Get support and celebrate your successes along the way!

Lasting change IS possible. I’ve done it, my clients have done it and so can you. Isn’t it time to Finally Make it Happen?

To your wellness and health: your true wealth!

Inger

Author: Inger Pols is the Editor of the New England Health Advisory and Author/Creator, Finally Make It Happen, the proven process to get what you want. Get a free special report on The Truth About Sugar: It’s Not All Equal. Learn more about Inger and receive her free bestselling ebook What Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You at www.ingerpols.com/freegifts

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