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Patti Helsten Petrella
teaching Pilates and Yoga
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Body/Spirit Fitness offers you ideas and
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Patti Helsten Petrella
teaches Yoga and
Pilates.
This is a fitness site for
body spirit and mind.
Articles and help on
weight loss, wieght loss.
Diet tips, exercise tips,
weightloss tips, lowfat
cooking, low-fat
cooking, low fat cooking.
Vegetarian tips.  
Dealing with obesity
resistance resistence
training with weights
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Keys to Weight Loss

By Patti Petrella
Take responsibility, but don’t hang on to guilt.
Change will not happen until you take responsibility for where
you are right now.   That doesn’t mean feeling guilty, or
berating your self.  It simply means that for no matter what the
situation, “I am responsible for my life, where it is now and
where it is going.  I can change it at any time.” Until you stop
being a victim of circumstances and acknowledge that you
make your own reality, for good or bad, the change you make
will not be permanent, because deep down you don’t believe
you control your environment. You merely react to it.

Stop paying hooky from life and take responsibility for what
you do, have done and will do.  At some point you have to
stop making excuses and be accountable for all that is in you
life.  When you do, it will be a very liberating experience.  To
accept that you control it all from here on, gives you great
power and self esteem.  You are now the architect, and can
design any kind of life and experience that you desire.

Guilt is useless.  Let go of it.  Take this time to look back on
any mistakes and learn from them.  Once you have learned
from them, they are no longer mistakes, but are now lessons.
Lessons are invaluable.

Take the attitude of a warrior or an athlete
No longer a victim-think of yourself as an icon of strength and
power.  Challenge yourself physically.  Want to run a 10K or a
marathon?  Do it. Start training today.  The best way to make
sure you stay with a fitness program is to set some goals of
achievement for yourself.  Maybe you’re not ready for a
marathon-Go for a half marathon.  Set goals for yourself that
you must work for, by becoming more fit.  Make a promise to
yourself of something you will do physically, and keep your
promise.  Don’t let yourself off the hook any more than you
would break a vow to someone else. Make the picture of
strength and power part of your psyche. Live it!

Stop dieting-Eat right-Cut out processed foods
Permanent weight Loss seems be one of the most difficult
undertakings one can achieve judging by the success rate or
lack thereof.  We seem to be dieting ourselves fat.  Losing 5-
10lbs, and gaining 10-15lbs, over and over, until we are much
heavier than when we started.  

The reasons for this are simple.  First of all, by looking for the
fast fix, we follow the latest diet fad which is rarely “eat right
and exercise”.  Because we are not, on the whole, exercising,
we loss muscle and fat and when we gain it back, it is all fat,
thus lowering our metabolism and making it more difficult to
lose in the future.  

The other drawback to these fad diets is that they just don’t
teach you good eating habits, and they are not diets that can
be sustained indefinitely. Nobody wants to hear, “eat a healthy
diet, exercise, and lose weight slowly.”  Yet that is exactly what
actually works.

Eating a diet of complex carbohydrates, low fat, and moderate
protein will help you not only lose weight, but keep it off, while
looking and feeling better.  The fiber from complex carbs slows
the absorption, which prevents a rapid rise in sugar, (causing
insulin related weight gain), and this also fills you up and gives
you energy.   These whole foods also have a thousand
substances that give you protection to cancer, heart disease
and premature aging.  Remember I am talking complex whole
food carbohydrates not simple carbs which will send your
insulin levels soaring and pack on the pounds.

You  lose weight by eating less sugar and less fat and and
less processed foods and this is a “diet” you can stay on the
rest of your lives and not feel deprived.  This is not a diet.  It is
simply eating healthy.  Ask any of the major health
organizations, who are not profiting from the latest “weight loss
wonder”. Let’s face it, nobody benefits, but you from eating
healthy so it isn’t going to be advertised or promoted.

Keep your blood sugar level-Eat smaller meals and eat every
four hours.  I can not stress enough how important it is to keep
your blood sugar level with healthy snacks.  A good majority
overeating is in response to letting your blood sugar get low
either through eating sweets and causing an insulin reaction
trigger low blood sugar or because of waiting too long
between meals.  They result is that we always overeat
because of it.  Eating a healthy snack or small meal every four
hours will resolve this problem.  

What is a healthy snack?  Let’s take a quick review of food.   A complex
carbohydrate, such as whole foods, whole wheat, fruits vegetables, etc
will slow absorptions down because of its fiber content.  A simple
carbohydrate, such as sugar or white bread, and other processed foods
are quickly absorbed and causes an over reaction of insulin which in turn
makes you feel sluggish and
run down. This ignites the eating of more sugar to combat the
tired feeling and then you are in a vicious circle resulting in
weight gain and perhaps even type two diabetes in time.

Eating a whole food complex carbohydrates with a little protein
very four hours will keep your blood sugar level and good
cellular uptake and function. Too much protein will causes
toxic by-products, such as ammonia to be released in the
body.  A diet of 10-15% fat, 15-20% protein and 65-75%
complex carbohydrate is ideal.  Go to any major health
organization’s recommendation and this is close to what they
recommend.  We are going a little bit lower in fat, simply
because that is what you are trying to lose.  The body is very
efficient at turning a fat into fat on your body.

You must take the time to learn about food.. Most of the whole
grains also have some protein, so get a food book that has fat
and protein grams in it.

I strongly promote vegetarianism, which is my personal
choice.  Consider the idea of eating less meats-no red meat or
pork, and adding perhaps more fish, if you are not quite ready
to go completely vegetarian.  Beans, low fat cheese and tofu
are wonderful low fat protein sources.


The one thing that all successful dieters have in common is
their determination.  They decided that they would accomplish
their goals and nothing would stop them.  This included
planning their day out, writing it down and changing bad
habits.  There are a few tips to keeping you determined

When you find yourself in a familiar situation with food.  Ask
yourself if you are responding with your usual negative
patterns?  You must break your old habits and create new
positive eating behaviors and turn them into habits.  
Remember if you can practice something for 30 days, it
usually becomes a habit.

Another way to insure your determination is to write down your
goals and what you are going to do, and give it someone who
cares about you, and will help you.  This establishes it in your
mind, and it also hold your feet to the fire, because someone
else is watching you too.  This should be someone who cares
about you and wants the best for you, not someone who will
make you feel guilty if you slip.

Make exercise a part of your life-both aerobic and resistance
Losing weight without exercise is a bad idea. First of all you
need exercise to stay healthy and being fit should be included
in your weight loss goal.  You want to keep your metabolism
revved up and active to make losing weigh and keeping it off
easier.

Let’s look at what happens when you lose weight without
exercising.  You lose muscle and fat, which in turns lowers
your metabolism, which makes the weight loss harder to
maintain.  Muscle is metabolically active!  

The larger the muscle mass, the greater the amount of energy
that must be released from fat cells.  This is why it is important
to have an exercise program that increases your muscle
mass, as well as one that works you out aerobically.  

The person with more muscle, expends more energy and
greater fat release while performing work and while as rest.  In
short, it increases you body metabolism.  

Aerobic exercise will increase your cardiovascular health,
lungs and circulatory system as well as burning calories and
fat. Walking, jogging, cycling, aerobic dance and stair climbing
are all good aerobic options.

By exercising and eating right you will put on muscle as you
lose fat and thereby keeping you metabolism active and
burning lots of calories to keep the weight off.

Plan ahead and be prepared at all times
Probably the number one pitfall that gets us off track is our not
being prepared to eat right.  This takes planning.  We plan
more for work and school than we do for our bodies, which
should be our priority.  Failure to plan is probably the number
one reason for weight loss downfall.

Everyday plan it out.  Where will you have lunch?  What will
you have?  How about dinner?  Do you have healthy
ingredients at home?  These are all important everyday issues
that must be addressed.  WRITE IT DOWN.  Writing it down,
helps you plan, as while also burning it into your
subconscious.  Every morning or the night before, take a few
minutes and write out you eating plan for the next day.  Take
this opportunity to go over your plan from the day before. Did
you stick to your plan?  If you didn’t, where did you go wrong?  
If you learn from your mistakes, they can be helpful and
should not be a source of guilt.  If you don’t learn from them,
then they just stay a part of your cataleptic bad habits.

It is easy when you are hungry to just give in and grab what is
easily available, even if it is unhealthy.  That is why it is
important to always be prepared.  You must learn to manage
your eating habits.  It takes effort and planning.  Don’t eat
unconsciously.  Your job probably takes a great deal of
planning.  Put the same kind of effort into your health.  Always
have some healthy snacks with you so that you won’t be
tempted to opt for fast foods.

Use Creative Visualization and Stop Negative Self-Talk
Your mind is the most powerful tool you have in controlling
your weight. We are constantly learning more about the mind’s
ability to heal the body, and how we create our own reality. If
you can see it in your mind, you can make it real.  

Get an image of exactly how you want to be in your mind.  
Make it real and be able to pull it up whenever you want.  
Take a few minutes every morning and every night to put this
image in your minds eye. Whenever you are tempted by
unhealthy foods, pull up this image and let this image say no
for you.  Whatever the mind sees as real, the body acts in
response to, either negative or positive.

Which brings us to the point of negative self-talk?  Pay
attention to how you talk to yourself.  If I asked you why you
are overweight?  Would you say because I am lazy, or some
other negative response?  How do you talk to yourself all
day?  Your subconscious will interpret this negative
expression as reality and will respond in a detrimental manner.

Affirmations and positive self talk are some of the most
influential tools we can utilize in weight control management.
Your body reacts to what your mind thinks.  If you tell yourself
you are fat and lazy, your body will react in way to reflect that.  
Pay attention and stop yourself when you notice that you are
making disparaging self-assertions.  If you believe you don’t
deserve to be healthy and fit, your body will react with an
unhealthy effect.

Practice morning and evening mini meditations of creative
visualization.  Open the communication between your mind,
body and higher self.  Sit in a comfortable position with the
back straight. Breathe deeply and relax.  Notice your breath.
Visualize a healing white light, radiating love through and
around you.  Repeat your affirmations for what you want to
accomplish over and over.  

Just as an example:  “I am a strong and loving person.  I am becoming fit
and healthy.  I deserve to be fit and happy. I choose to eat healthy foods
and exercise. I am creating my life here and now.”  Make sure you put the
picture of the “ideal you” in your mind at this time also.  Make up you own
affirmations- Something that has significance and creates energy for
you.  When you release negative emotions and replace them with loving
ones, you free the mind and body to work together to manifest health and
happiness.

Some finale tips:  Eat slowly, chew your food well, drink plenty
of water, do Yoga, be happy, love yourself, don’t weigh
yourself more than once a week, adopt a pet, de-stress
yourself through breathing and meditation, laugh a lot, let go
of the past, ignore advertising for fast food, Let go of anger,
guilt and fear,