Tag: lifestyle changes

Posted on by

How To Stop Procrastinating and Reach Your Goals

The weekend is over, Monday morning has rolled around and you know you should be up by a certain time and heading for your walk or to the gym, but instead you do what you have been doing for the past five weeks since you set your goals — you procrastinate. Later, you feel badly, like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. This article deals with how you can stop procrastinating and reach your goals.

Procrastination is the habit of putting things off. What are some of the things you put off on a regular basis? Check all that apply.

Procrastination is another form of excuse. The reason you did not get dressed and go for your walk is —- fill in the blanks. That’s your excuse.

So naturally the next question is why did you make that excuse? Maybe you don’t like walking. Maybe you find it boring, tiring, tedious, whatever. These excuses, say the experts, may be the result of “task aversion.”

So, how can you cure this habit of procrastination? Note that it is a habit, a practice of doing something else instead of what you know you should be doing. Therefore, instead of doing something else, anything, other than walking, can you think of an activity you enjoy that will produce the same results as if you walked for 30 minutes?

Walking the dog, pushing the baby in a stroller are all forms of walking that you may find more enjoyable. Also, walking with a buddy or walking while listening to music or an audiobook will make the time seem to pass more quickly and may even make you look forward to walking every morning. If this doesn’t work for you, try breaking it down into a shorter period, say fifteen minutes.

So far, I’ve only talked about walking, but what about other things you keep procrastinating? Like adopting a new way of eating or preparing your food? How do you avoid putting these things off? Here are three suggestions:

  1. Write the activity somewhere where it’s always visible — like on your fridge, mirror, or planner. Do not make a long list of things you should be doing. Just the main one you want to work on.
  2. Think of the end goal. What do you hope to achieve when you stop procrastinating? Weight loss? Lower glucose levels? More energy? Keeping the benefits in mind will motivate you to move toward your goals.
  3. Enlist the help of others. If you are trying to change your eating habits, and the rest of your family is not, then you have a problem. Look for flavorful recipes that the whole family can enjoy. When dining out, choose menu items that cater for those who are on low-carb, nutritious diets that are pleasing to taste and satisfying.

Procrastination is a habit that can seriously derail your goals if you don’t overcome it. You can do so by writing your goals down, focusing on the benefits of achieving your goals and enlisting your goals. How do you beat procrastination? Drop us a line and let us know.

A diagnosis of type 2 diabetes can send your life into a tailspin. It can leave you feeling alone and overwhelmed, but it doesn’t have to. Join my type 2 diabetes network group and get the help and support you need.

Posted on by

5 Ways To Embrace Change And Benefit From It

For the past five months, since my grandson began preparing for college, I began to feel stressed. Even though Jayden doesn’t live with me, he is my daughter’s first child and I’d helped raise him from a baby. I watched him grow into a tall, handsome young man, who had set certain goals as to what he wanted out of life. And now, I watched as he surmounted all the hurdles of graduating, meeting with coaches, pushing his body to the max, weeding through all the offers that came his way, and finally, selecting the college he felt best suited his aspirations.

And so, while he took all of this in stride, this grandmother was a bundle of nerves. Why was he going so far? Couldn’t he stay right here in Florida where he could come home more often or we could visit whenever we felt like it? Jayden is something of an introvert; how would he cope with living with strangers?

I was never one to be afraid of change. I had moved to a lot of different places in my lifetime and, as a therapist, I always encouraged my patients not to fear change. But as the time drew near for Jayden and his parents to leave for Iowa, I found myself praying more and more and looking to God to give us all the courage and strength to cope with this new reality. Along with prayer, I reminded myself of the following:

  1. Change is inevitable for all of us. We grow up, leave our childhood home, go away to college, or get married and begin a new life.
  2. Change is not always bad. Many times the change we dread is the very thing we sometimes need to propel us in the right direction. A new job, new neighborhood, and new friends can help us uncover certain traits and abilities we never knew we possessed.
  3. Change can be as stressful or as smooth as we make it. My perspective on Jayden moving to Iowa can determine my stress level or lack of it. And my stress level can also influence the way Jayden feels about what he was about to do, so if only for his sake, I had to look at this change in a positive light.
  4. Successful past changes. I had many successful changes in the past. Everything seemed overwhelming in the beginning, but once I got used to the change, I even enjoyed it.
  5. Change is a challenge, not a threat. It gives us the opportunity to get out of the same boring routine and grow and develop in ways we never imagined possible.

So far, this article has focused on change in general, but for someone with a chronic illness like type 2 diabetes, what does change mean to you? How do you cope with the new normal —taking medications, going to the doctor regularly, monitoring your glucose level, and just making lifestyle changes? One way you can cope with this type of change is to join my Type 2 Diabetes Network Group. There you will find the help and support you need through networking with other individuals like yourself.

A diagnosis of type 2 diabetes can send your life into a tailspin. It can leave you feeling alone and overwhelmed, but it doesn’t have to. Join my type 2 diabetes network group and get the help and support you need.

Posted on by

Do You Want To Get Well?

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [b] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5: 1- 6)

Courtesy morgue file

This story in the book of John always makes me wonder exactly what Jesus meant when he asked the man, “Do you want to get well? The passage begins by letting us know that this pool was the place where disabled people hung out in hopes of being healed. So for Jesus to ask the man if he wanted to get well seemed like a hypothetical question.

If you have been struggling with some kind of disability or illness – such as type 2 diabetes – and I asked you if you wanted to get well, what would you say? I’m almost sure you would say, “Of course.” However, you may not stop there. You might go on to say, like the man in the scripture above, “I have no one to help me get better. I have been struggling with this for years. I have to live on medication.” Or, you might say, “My mother was a diabetic, my sister is a diabetic, my brother is a diabetic, I guess I can’t help being a diabetic.”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Jesus listened to the man’s excuses then said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

I know there are some people who have been sick for a long time. Doctors may have even told them they will never get well. As an occupational therapist, my job was to help my patients regain their prior level of functioning. If they were independent before their injury, then I had to do my best to restore them to independence. However, if someone came to me who needed assistance for years to shower herself, then I couldn’t hope to get her to function independently.

The man in the Bible story had been disabled for thirty-eight years! That’s a very long time. He’d given up hope. He’d no doubt learned to accept his fate and had decided he would just lie there and watch others get their healing. But Jesus was having none of that. We know the end of the story. Jesus commanded the man to get up and walk, and he did.

Well, you might say, “That’s just a Bible story. Jesus won’t come and heal me.” Maybe He won’t come physically and heal you, but He might require you to do certain things that will bring about your healing. First, you can pray. Amazing things happen when you pray. Through prayer you receive insight, knowledge, and wisdom about your condition and the steps you must take in order to be healed. Maybe God will show you that you need to change the way you eat, how you can become more active, quit smoking or make some simple lifestyle changes.

Notice, Jesus didn’t say to the man, “Wait a little longer. Someone will come along.” Or, “Call a little louder and someone will hear you.” All He said was, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” Why? Because it was crucial for the man to seize the moment. It was time to stop waiting and take action. This man waited thirty-eight years! Think of what he could have accomplished during that time. You could be losing precious time if your illness is keeping you from being all you can be. So, why not start now? Why not get up, take your bed and walk to your recovery? Don’t wait a second longer.

Posted on by

This Is American Diabetes Month

Walking is a great form of exercise

Did you know that November is Diabetes Awareness Month? It is a time set aside in the United States to bring awareness to this very common disease and to educate the public on what we can do to help ourselves and/or our loved ones deal with it. Diabetes is a devastating illness, but the good news is, it is controllable.

Diabetes is a disease in which blood sugar (glucose) levels in your body are too high. About 15 million women in the United States have diabetes, or about 1 in every 9 adult women. I am a health coach who helps men and women who struggle with uncontrolled diabetes cope with the illness so they can get off medication and lead a normal life. For the remainder of this month I will be focusing on causes, risk factors, how diabetes affects your overall health, how it affects men versus women, and how you can cope with this illness.

So first, let us look at the different types of diabetes. The three main types of diabetes are:

  • Type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, meaning the body’s immune (defense) system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. If you have type 1 diabetes, your body does not make insulin, so you must take insulin every day.
  • Type 2 diabetes. This is the most common type of diabetes. You can get type 2 diabetes at any age, even during childhood. With type 2 diabetes, your body does not make enough insulin or is not able to use its own insulin correctly. When this happens, blood glucose levels rise.
  • Gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes that happens only during pregnancy. Gestational diabetes can cause health problems for the baby and the mother if not controlled. Although gestational diabetes goes away after your baby is born, having diabetes during pregnancy raises your risk for type 2 diabetes later on.

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease caused by high levels of blood sugar (glucose) in your body. This can happen when your body does not make insulin or does not use insulin correctly.

Insulin is a hormone made in the pancreas, an organ near your stomach. Insulin helps the glucose from food get into your body’s cells for energy. If your body does not make enough insulin, or your body does not use the insulin correctly, the glucose stays and builds up in your blood.

Over time, this extra glucose can lead to prediabetes or diabetes. Diabetes puts you at risk for other serious and life-threatening health problems, such as heart disease, stroke, blindness, and kidney damage.

One of the ways you can fight diabetes is by incorporating more physical activity into your daily routine. Take the simple quiz on the right and see how you can do this then drop me a line and let me know how you are doing. If you are interested in learning more about diabetes or know someone who can benefit from this article, please share it with them and sign up for my newsletter where you can get more information and updates.

American Diabetes Month

Posted on by

What to Do If You Feel You’re Getting off Track


Sometimes we have the best intentions but still slip and get off track. Is it a mindset problem? Or was the goal too big? Did you lack support? No matter what the reason, don’t give up! You can return to working on your resolution.
Decide if the goal really means something to you, and if it does, you’ll want to follow this simple process to get back on track.
• Review your plan. Did you set your goal a little too high? For example losing 50 pounds in 3 months? Aim a bit lower. Set your target goal to a more attainable one. So for this example, losing 10 or 15 pounds in 3 months or changing what you eat and scheduling exercises would be a better resolution.
• Break down your goal if your original goal is too large to accomplish easily. If your goal is to lose 50 pounds this year, then break it down into smaller tasks. In this example, 50 pounds a year is less than a pound a week. Then set up an eating and exercise plan to lose a pound a week.
• ¬Focus on one resolution at a time. Choose the most pressing one – losing weight, eating healthy, changing your mindset—and concentrate on it until you achieve it. Trying to change more than one habit at a time can be overwhelming.
• Get an accountability partner. Enlist the help of a friend or professional to keep you accountable who can advise you on what you need to be doing.
• Be flexible and willing to change how you approach your resolution. Lengthen your timeline if necessary.
• Work on smaller goals at a time that lead to your ultimate goal.
• Create new milestones if you feel like you’re just too far off track. Modify your original goal for a new more attainable one that fits in the remaining time. That way, at least you’re making some progress towards your original goal.
• Get more specific if you created a very broad and grand resolution. Maybe your goal was to get healthy. That’s great, but it is without an action plan and specific definition of what healthy means to you. Does it mean eating clean foods? Or exercising three times a week? Does it mean controlling your diabetes?
Just because you find yourself getting off track doesn’t mean you’re going to fail, or you should give up. We all need support and guidance at times. I can help you achieve your goal of making those lifestyle changes in order to achieve optimum health. Just fill in the form below so we can schedule a time to talk. Talk to you again soon.

[contact-form][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /][contact-field label=”Message” type=”textarea” /][/contact-form]