Should I Take Vitamins? – Part 1

 Diet, Health  No Responses »
Dec 302013
 

There are five supplements I think every adult should take. The first one is a whole-food based multivitamin.

A recent article in 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, which will likely have little, if any, effect when taken in isolation without proper co-factors. The article does recommend one standalone vitamin that should be taken by everyone: vitamin D. I’ve discussed the importance of vitamin D in another chapter and the rampant deficiency among children and adults today, so I couldn’t agree more. Vitamin D3 can stand on its own and I take it daily; most other vitamins need to be taken together as part of a complete nutritional package.

Eating a whole food and plant-based diet will go a long way toward staying healthy and I strongly recommend we do both. 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. 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 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 chapters 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. 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, it is hard to get food with the nutritional profile you need for health. Then you’d have to eat a lot of it, and how many of us can sit down and eat a bunch of tomatoes or a basket full of kale. You’ll feel full long before you can finish, especially if you paired it with a big piece of meat protein or dairy.

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 when I can’t. But despite my best efforts, I do not believe that I can get the nutrition I need without taking a multivitamin (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.

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 manmade synthetic compounds.

Because synthetic vitamins are created in a lab to simulate the real thing, they are often 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, 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. (Centrum is famous for this).

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.

Click to read the next installment of the series: 5 Supplements Every Adult Should Take

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 at www.nehealthadvisory.com

Photo Source: Microsoft Clip Art

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What Every Vegetarian (Or Someone Who Loves One) Needs to Know

 Cholesterol, Diet, Fruit & Veggies, Healthy Choices  No Responses »
Dec 302013
 

We have all seen or heard horror stories around today’s “factory farms.” It is sometimes to hear or see it and go on eating business as usual.  We want changes to be made and at the same time, we know we need to get back to eating more vegetables and less processed foods. As a result, some of us choose to forego meat completely and opt for a totally plant-based diet (though the plant horror stories pour in daily as well! Even organic plants are increasing grown from GMO or compromised seeds or in soil that has contaminants so the need to be vigilant remains with all food purchases today.)

Going vegetarian has only become possible as a healthy lifestyle choice very recently.  In fact, there has never been a successful vegetarian society on record: every culture, tribe, or race has eaten some form of animal protein, whether it is game, fish, or insects. That’s because there are certain nutritional components such as vitamin B12 and essential fatty acids that our bodies require in order to function and until recently, these could not be acquired in supplement form.

Now it is possible to access these nutrients through pills, though research suggests that they may not be absorbed or applied as effectively as if we took them in directly from nature. Some choose the vegetarian lifestyle because they believe it’s healthier: they say it makes them feel better or have more energy — and it is certainly preferable in that regard to consuming processed food and empty calories. (We’ll talk more about the health benefits and risks shortly.)

Others make the choice as a means of affecting change or voicing discontent with today’s food practices, though many food insiders suggest that trying to change the system by removing your money from it is not the most effective strategy. Instead, they argue that more powerful change can be made by supporting sustainable and humane food practices like raising grass-fed beef, producing raw milk and giving your money to local family farms.

Almost every health guru is telling us to eat mostly plants these days and eating 50% of our calories from vegetables or having 9-13 servings of vegetables a day is becoming increasingly common as an eating goal, whether you are vegetarian or not. But there are key health differences and implications between eating ‘mostly’ plants and eating ‘only’ plants. Regardless of the reason you or your loved one chooses a vegetarian diet, there are some important health factors you need to take into consideration to ensure you thrive — and survive — on your plant-based plan.

Vegetarians and Cholesterol
Many vegetarians I know are confounded by the fact that they have high cholesterol, convincing themselves that it must be genetic. While the first thing I would say is that many studies show that people with high cholesterol live longer than people with low cholesterol and 75% of those who suffer heart attacks have “normal” cholesterol so don’t stress yet, they can’t figure out why and they are afraid that they are at heart health risk.

(Cholesterol tests are not an accurate reflection of your heart health risk; if you want to know what actually does predict your heart health risk, you’ll want to read my article on the one test your doctor isn’t doing.)

What they don’t realize is that we need cholesterol; it plays several absolutely essential roles in a healthy functional body. While a popular advertisement suggests that we run on coffee drinks, in truth, our bodies run on cholesterol. Cholesterol keeps cell membranes from falling apart and plays an integral part in cellular repair. It builds brain and nerve tissue, supports the immune system, and maintains neurotransmitter and brain function.

Cholesterol is also a vital pre-cursor to many major hormones including testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, cortisol, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Cholesterol helps regulate mood, is required for synthesis of vitamin D and helps us digest fat-soluble vitamins such as A,D,E and K. We could not live without cholesterol!

The body manufactures about 75% of the cholesterol it needs; the rest we must take in from foods. Without adequate dietary cholesterol, the body may divert cholesterol to where it is needed most: cellular repair and healthy function in key areas, especially the brain. When this happens, there may not be enough left for use in hormone synthesis, which can cause hormonal imbalance or other concerns.

This is why some people (especially but not limited to women going through perimenopause) who do not eat enough cholesterol may experience more severe hormonal reactions and symptoms.

In fact, the body has a built-in mechanism to increase its cholesterol production to override a severe shortage. When cholesterol is not being consumed in appropriate levels, the liver will step in and actually overproduce cholesterol. If you were to be tested at that time, your cholesterol levels could be considered high, even though you would actually be cholesterol deficient.

If you don’t eat much cholesterol, or you’re on a low-fat diet, that could be the case for you. (But hopefully you know by now that low fat is NOT the answer – not for health or for weight loss.)

We have to eat cholesterol or our bodies will produce it for us. Eating foods high in cholesterol won’t raise your cholesterol. That’s because if you eat cholesterol, your body will just produce less: it’s one of life’s perfect balancing mechanisms. While we can make up to 75% and we need to eat the rest to survive,  if we eat more than 25%, the body just produces less and brings us back into alignment naturally.

We can get the cholesterol we need by eating a typical diet including meat and/or fish. If you are vegetarian you can get cholesterol from egg yolks (one of nature’s super foods), butter, cream or cheese. The problem arises for vegans as plants only contain trace amounts and not nearly the level needed to support healthy brain and cell function.

While plant products such as flax seeds and peanuts contain phytosterols, which are cholesterol-like compounds, research suggests that these compounds actually compete with cholesterol for absorption in the intestines. This poses a health challenge for vegans as there is no adequate non-animal source of cholesterol; flax is the next best alternative. Vegans will have to use all their available cholesterol for cell and brain function and there may not be enough left over for hormonal balance and other functions.

Before we leave cholesterol, there are three foods that actually WILL raise your cholesterol. If you think you eat healthy and yet your cholesterol levels are high, you likely have inflammation and sending in cholesterol is the body’s way of dealing with that. (If you want to learn more about the three foods that will raise your cholesterol and cause health problems, you can read my article on three foods that raise your cholesterol here.)

Vegetarians and Homocysteine
One marker that unlike cholesterol has been directly linked heart health is high homocysteine levels. High homocysteine is a reliable risk factor for heart attack, stroke, diabetes, cancer, neurological conditions such as Alzheimer and Parkinson’s, thyroid concerns, infertility, depression, digestive disorders and chronic pain.

High levels of homocysteine impact your body in a number of harmful ways including accelerating aging and depressing your immune system but it’s rarely tested for because it’s expensive and there isn’t a prescription available to treat it.

Studies have shown that many vegans and vegetarians have high homocysteine levels. One study showed vegans to have 50% higher homocysteine levels and vegetarians to have 30% higher homocysteine levels than their omnivore counterparts. This is because their bodies lack the B12 required for conversion processes that must occur since B12 is typically found in animal protein.

Vegetarians were found to have 37% less (and vegans 59% less) B12 than the omnivore group, enough to constitute clinical deficiency in 78% of the vegans and 26% of the vegetarians. The study also showed that people eating vegan and vegetarian diets lacked the essential amino acid methionine because the levels in plants are lower than those found in meat. Vegetarians and especially vegans need to look to add B12 to their diets through injections, sublingual (under tongue) or spray B12 supplements.

(To learn more about what homocysteine is, how it works, the conversion process mentioned briefly above and why homocysteine is so important, see my article on homocysteine.)

Vegetarians and Depression
A recent study showed that vegetarians were more likely to face anxiety, depression or mental disorders than the general population. When they adjusted for age,  gender and education, within comparable groups they saw a 2 to 3 fold increase in incidence rates.

We already learned that cholesterol runs the brain and regulates your mood, so a shortage will have an impact on brain function. In addition we learned of the important of cholesterol in hormonal balance. If your hormones are out of whack, mood swings and depression can occur.

We also know that omega 3 essential fatty acids are critical to brain function and balance. Many studies have shown improvements in mood through omega 3 supplementation. Because these fatty acids are essential, our bodies cannot make them; we must eat them. Fish oil capsules are a great way to get the required dose, but for vegetarians and vegans, it is much harder.

There are 3 essential fatty acids: ALA, EPA, and DHA. The challenge to vegetarians is that you cannot get EPA or DHA from plants. (An algae-based DHA product is now  available but there are questions as to whether or not it is absorbed or utilized fully effectively, though something is always better than nothing!) ALA can be ingested from plant sources such as flaxseed, chia and hemp. While these seeds offer the greatest concentrations, they each pose another challenge. Hemp is not always easy to acquire or work with.

Flaxseed competes with cholesterol receptor sites and needs to be ground in order to be digested. While best fresh, flax seeds can be ground in advance and stored in the freezer, but there is some evidence that after age 45, we don’t absorb the oil by-product as well. Purchasing flaxseed oil is an option but it cannot be heated or it will damage the ALA and drinking it straight can be a challenge.

Lastly chia seeds have an omega 6-3 ratio of 3-1. We need to be eating omega 3 and omega 6 oils in a ratio of 1:1. In todays world, that ratio can sometimes be off by 1-20 or even 1-50 with all the omega 6 oils and oil products we consume. So while chia can help, it also adds to the omega 6-3 imbalance burden (though again, for some vegetarians, this may well be necessary and worthwhile.)

You can also get ALA from walnuts and pumpkin seeds, though in much smaller doses. Soy and canola also contain small amounts of ALA, but given the negative health impacts, they are best avoided.

Even if you eat enough ALA, the then body has to convert it to EPA and DHA. If you eat enough and you are very healthy, that may work fine. But some people will struggle converting ALA efficiently and if you have other issues going on that impact your ability to convert effectively, your body — and your brain — will be affected because it will not be able to convert enough to keep you healthy and mentally strong.

To learn more, you can read about my article on omega 3s.

Vegetarians and Soy
I am working on a full article on soy, coming soon. But for now I just want to mention soy briefly here because many vegetarians use soy as a protein alternative. Fermented soy foods such as miso, tempeh, natto, and traditionally fermented soy sauce have long been a nutritional staple in many cultures and they offer tremendous health benefits.

However, unfermented soy is no longer grown or processed in a way that affords us health benefits. Soy is an endocrine disruptor, which we discussed in the prostate and breast health article. It takes up the estrogen receptor sites, blocking estrogen from getting into cells and leaving it circulating throughout the blood stream. This excess estrogen can lead to hormonal imbalance, development of breasts in boys and men, and prostate and breast cancer concerns as well as thyroid problems, to name but a few of its many health concerns.

Soy milk, soy cheese, tofu, soybean oil, and many commercial artificially created soy sauce varieties are not health foods but rather pose health risks; they should be minimized.  If you’re looking to use soy, stick with fermented soy products.

Vegetarians and Diabetes
Contrary to what we might think of living a healthy plant lifestyle, vegetarians actually struggle with diabetes. The largely vegetarian country of India now faces the highest incidence level in the world and it is continually rising. That’s because in India, as the middle and upper classes have emerged, sedentary jobs are on the rise and Western food habits have invaded. Long known to be lovers of sweets, Indians love the sugar that is now plentiful, as well as the fried and processed foods we eat in the West, which may be vegetable-based but are no less healthy.

While some people lose weight on a vegetarian diet, others gain weight as they seek to satiate themselves with bread and pasta and empty carbohydrates that covert quickly into sugar. They also tend to gain weight in the more dangerous place, the abdomen.  They may lack enough healthy fat in their diets and so their bodies seek to store more.

It’s important to combine healthy fat and protein with vegetables so vegetarians need to look for good fat sources such as olive and flaxseed oils, avocados, and coconut oil and be sure they are getting adequate protein from other sources such as quinoa. (For more information on diabetes and why food combining is so important, see my article on The Diabetes Myth.)

Some people thrive on a vegetarian diet: they look good and they feel good. Others grow very thin, frail and weak: when you see them they look pale and move slowly. I read a study awhile back that stated that only about one-third of the population could be successful on a vegetarian diet.  That study assumed that you aggressively supplemented for missing nutrients and ate all the varied nuts, seeds, legumes and other foods needed to round out a balanced nutritional profile.

Taking all of that into account, they found that still only about a third of us could be healthy on a vegetarian diet. So if you have chosen a vegetarian lifestyle for any reason, you need to pay close attention to your body and listen to what those close to you see and share with you. I cannot tell you how many former vegetarians have told me their lives changed the day they went back to eating small amounts of animal protein. That may not be you but I have personally observed strong healthy adults turn into overweight or abnormally thin versions of their former selves on vegetarian diets.

I’ve tried to go vegetarian and for me, I did not thrive. But it works for many people I know. Just not all.  If you look and feel great and you are able to procure all the micronutrients that you need, then you may be among the third of the population who will do fine on a vegetarian diet. But be wary of persuading your family, friends or co-workers to join you because what works for you may well not work for them (especially children).

If you begin to see your body shift over time that you don’t like, or if you’re not willing to devote the time and energy it takes to plan your diet thoroughly, then you may want to consider making some changes that will enable you to support your morality along with your health.

Whether you go vegetarian or not, we can all benefit from more a more plant-centric diet and from avoiding processed foods. That’s common ground we can all agree on!

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 Apolonia | 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.

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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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New Year’s Resolutions in Small Steps

 Wellness  No Responses »
Dec 302013
 

The fourth secret of change in my 5 part series of articles on the five secrets of change (if you missed any of the first three secrets you can find them here) is that change needs to be able to be progressive. It is possible to quit something cold turkey and we’ve probably all heard one amazing story of how someone did that. Most of the time there was a life-changing shift or change of circumstances that accompanies it. If you are that motivated and you are able to do it, then congratulations! Go for it! But how many of those stories have you heard?

Most of us cannot make change by simply flipping a switch. We need to build new habits and progress over time. So any program that asks you to go cold turkey on something that you love or do regularly may be successful short-term, but the change won’t stick. Because as soon as you go back to your old ways of doing things, you’ll revert back to the old situation and gain the weight back, start spending again or fall back in front of the tv instead of working on your novel.

I teach indoor cycling and indoor rowing classes so I’m at a gym all year long. And every January I see people come full of enthusiasm, ready to start their exercise plans only to take on too much too soon and be too sore to come back for a week. They may come back one or two more times after that, but each time again, it’s too much and they need time to recover.

It feels hard and overwhelming, they are tired and sore and so they never make it a new habit. I see it over and over again. They need to start small and progress over time, allowing their bodies to adapt and building the new habits that will take over from the old. Just putting on their sneakers every day for a week may be their best start. That may seem ineffective, but if building the habit of getting sneakers on and getting dressed to exercise happens and becomes ingrained, it’s much easier to take the next step toward actually doing it and sticking with it.

Successful change programs give you the ability to progress and make evolutionary changes: in fact it’s the evolutionary changes that bring the revolutionary results.
Evolutionary change is more predictable change: it allows for the brain to prepare for what’s coming and anticipate it so that it doesn’t feel stress. It even allows you to prepare for weak moments and put a plan in place in advance for if they should occur. Anticipating temptation or even failure can cut off destructive actions as well as the guilt we can feel if we go off course.

In my course, Finally Make It Happen, we look at how to make change progressively. So if you want to start an exercise program, we look at what you can realistically fit into your life in terms of time and what works given your current state of wellness, and we create a starting point that is totally doable and feels effortless. That may be 10 reps or it may be putting on your sneakers. We start with what feels effortless and build that habit and then we work on progressing from there gradually over time.

If you want to drink less wine or coffee, we look at setting a goal of ½ a glass or ¼ glass less or whatever feels totally doable to you and then gradually, very gradually, we progress from there. That way you feel in control of your decisions and empowered and over time you can reach your goal without ever feeling deprived.

Hey if you can do it a little faster and progress a little more quickly, great: you don’t need to go that slow! But if something is hard for you or it feels like a big change, slow and steady progression will get you there and let you finally make it happen.

In my course, we also plan in advance for temptation or failure, putting strategies in place so that weak moments can be subverted and if we do go astray, we know we can come right back and carry on: all is not lost and we are not bad or weak. We can overcome our physiology with proven willpower weapons and stay on track.

That’s how my friend Mark lost 50 pounds and kept it off for over ten years: slow progressive changes, evolving over time so it never feels hard or like it’s too much or overwhelming. But you don’t need to wait to take my course to put this change secret into place.

Instead of trying to add an hour of exercise in or giving up ice cream, decide today to move your needle just a tiny bit in the direction you want to go. Even one less bite of ice cream, one extra glass of water or 5-10 minutes walking at lunch is a step in the direction of reaching your goals and fulfilling your dream and once you’re moving, you can continue to progress over time at the right pace for you until you 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.

Article Photo: courtesy of digitalart | FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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