The Holiday Season is upon us and that means that the holiday parties and get-togethers are also here.  While this can be a joyous time of year, the average American gains 7-10 lbs during the Holiday Season.  Here are a few tips to help you avoid weight gain at your parties this season:

1. Eat before you go out:  By filling up on something healthy, like a salad before you head off to a party, you’re less likely to overindulge on things you would normally pass up.    

2.  Get a plate:  If you’re eating fingerfood all night, the tendency is to overeat if you never get a plate and see how much you’re eating.  If you’re talking all night, you might not even remember half of the things you ate.  But if you put your food on a plate, you can be more conscious of what you’re eating.  And hopefully there will be a little bit of green on your plate.   

3.  Throw that plate away when you’re done and stick to it!  After you’ve eaten a plate of food, throw it away and enjoy the rest of the party.  If you ate something before and a plate of food at the party, you’re most likely satisfied.   Anything else that you eat will just be mindless, social eating and is going to make you have to make that dreaded New Years resolution of losing weight again next year.

It is said that the average American watches 4 hours of TV per day! That is astounding! When is the last time that a television show changed your life for the better? The TV can be a huge distraction and can hinder your progress and dreams in any area of life. If you want to stay on track, avoid the TV during times when you could be exercising or being more active. Hiding the remote control, unplugging the TV, or even putting the TV in the closet can help lessen the possibility of avoiding your exercise, eating foods, and watching hours of TV instead. The fewer distractions and temptations in your home and surroundings, the better your chances are of reaching your healthy goals.

So, to sum it up -

Don’t let the TV (or anything else for that matter) keep your health and wellness dreams from becoming reality.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve counseled numerous people regarding weight loss, proper nutrition, fitness and general well-being. It’s interesting, because as I delve deeper into the lives of people, I find a general undercurrent of worry, fear and frustration manifesting itself in many physical, emotional and even spiritual ways. At the core of many health problems is a lack of balance in life. And, in the midst of trying to help others, I found that the very same issue was plaguing me as well.

This leads me to #1 in our health tip series that we call the “Transformation Top 10″. Basically, following these 10 guidelines will help you TRANSFORM your health AND your life in ways that you never imagined. The Transformation Team will be elaborating on these “Transformation Top 10″ over the next several weeks, sharing one a week through our blog series. We all know that you’ll find these 10 tips extremely useful in rennovating your health and life – moving into a state of wellness.

#1 – Live a Balanced Life

Managing Stress

Stress kills. But before it does so, it will knock your life out of whack. In my case, in the midst of striving to learn to be a fit and healthy person – I severely neglected the mental, emotional and spiritual side of the equation. I was eating right for health, but was not nurturing my soul. I soon found myself overstressed, anxious and quite literally, out of balance. I constantly felt physically ill and soon found myself worrying and stressed about everything – namely work, relationships with others AND my health. It seemed that my life was spinning out of control. The interesting thing is that the more I tried to control it – the worse it got and the worse I felt. I adjusted my diet a hundred different ways; I increased and changed the dietary supplements I was taking; I did research, perusing the internet looking for solutions for everything, including work and my health; I went to the doctor repeatedly to find out what was wrong with me; and I’m even ashamed to say, I began drinking a glass or two of wine in the evenings just to relax (which I rarely did before). Ultimately, I developed a very severe case of gastritis that was misdiagnosed, resulting in a lot of pain and unnecessary intestinal surgery.

I tell you all of this to demonstrate how lack of balance in my life completely threw things out of whack and caused me a lot of sickness, pain, worry and frustration. In case you didn’t get it,

A life without proper balance isn’t living and it’s NOT good for you!

Balancing the Mind, Body and Soul

Life is a juggling act. And quite frankly, most of us are NOT very good jugglers. I know I wasn’t. In the midst of my attempts, I was dropping things left and right. No matter how hard I tried to fix things, they continued to get worse and I just got sicker and more frustrated. I was missing the big picture. For those of you who are visual, look at this diagram that I created below, which I believe to represent proper balance in life:

Ideally, this is where we should be – having proper balance in life between these three main areas (Body, Mind, Soul). Think of it like a wheel that rolls and bounces easily, because all areas are full and in balance.

Many of us, due to neglect to our “circle of balance”, have a mushy ball or circle, like what you see below – deflated, unfulfilled (lacking air or inspiration) and won’t roll or bounce.

This was my deal last year. To put it simply, when you have a life out of balance, chances are some or many of the following issues may describe what you will experience:

• Poor health, malaise or sickness (headaches, nausea, acid stomach, ulcers, or even worse)
• Anxiety or Stress
• Obesity, weight gain or even weight loss
• Insomnia or perhaps too much sleep
• Relationship problems (have trouble relating to others)
• Depression
• Self-doubt

These are just a few symptoms of a life out of balance. And, if your personal life balance is representative of the deflated, uninspired diagram above, just imagine how it must affect everything in your life.

Changing Your Perspective

If your life is like mine was, like the above wheel or ball that won’t roll or bounce well, here are three fundamental things to remember that may help inspire you. They are not so much about action as they are about your perspective. You may not be able to change your situation right away, but these may actually add some air (inspiration) to your life (tire, ball, wheel) so that it at least keeps rolling forward:

1. Stop focusing on your problems and worrying yourself sick about them. Worrying will not change one thing about your situation, in fact, it will only make it worse. Here’s what the Bible says about it in Matthew 6:27 – “And who of you by worrying and being anxious can add one inch to his stature or to the span of his life?”
2. Change what you can. Ok, so you can’t control everything, but there are things about your life that you can control. Many times in life we obsess and worry about things over which we have no control. Stop doing that and refocus on what you CAN control and change. Consider your diet, among other things. That’s easy to change.
3. Focus on the good, the positive, the right things about your life. Ok, so I know I’m sounding a bit preachy here, but I am a minister. And again, the Bible does give some great advice. Here’s what it says: ” Whatever is true, whatever is good, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, focus and set your mind on these things. This practice will give you God’s peace.”

If you practice the above three suggestions, your ball will be rolling in no time. Meanwhile, keep working on solving the problems in your life, and

Don’t forget to get plenty of rest and relaxation!

Before you know it, balance will return and joy will abound.

Next week, we’ll discuss why drinking lots of pure, alkaline water is number 2 on our Transformation Top 10 List.