healthy living

Winning with Achievable Goals

I have not written a blog post in a LONG time. I keep thinking I need every minute to work on complex client cases. But, writing to share helpful information with clients is REALLY important to me! What has happened? Well, I set a goal that was too big to start with. I wanted to - still want to - blog weekly. However, I need to get realistic and am scaling down my goal so that I can win by achieving it. This is how I'd like for my clients to go about their paths to optimal nutrition, and win vibrant health, confidence and perhaps a taste for new foods by setting achievable goals.

If I asked a client who loves to eat frosted toaster pastry for breakfast, pasta and soda for lunch, and a burger with fries followed by an ice cream sundae for dinner to immediately start making a kale smoothie for breakfast, composing a big salad for lunch and grilling salmon with asparagus for dinner, do you think they'd succeed the first week? Not likely! But they might try three new vegetables that week and decide which ones they like, and learn to cook them. Breaking goals into little bites (tasty ones!) helps people succeed. Then they feel good, confident and empowered to seek a new goal. 

One of my clients is struggling with reducing the truly epic amount of sugar in her diet, but is fighting a battle of wills over her nemesis food: cake pops. She has only clean, fresh food at home, but her workplace is a nutritional minefield blooming with cake pops, cookies, candy and sweets of all kinds. This lovely and resolute young woman has gone from having multiple sugar binges a day to only a few cookies or one cake pop. When she tells me she still feels guilty, I explain to her that actually, she is making glorious success and should be very PROUD of herself. She is an employee of this sugar-drizzled company, but is CEO of her own body!

Eating well is such a journey. My past sugar addiction meant that I moved from eating a quarter pound of assorted, cream-filled chocolates (Fannie Mae and See's!) at one sitting to having a square of organic dark chocolate for dessert after each meal (yes, breakfast dessert is a thing) to being totally satisfied by eating fresh berries once a day. But, this happened over a period of YEARS. And this is OK. I'm proud of my past and my path, because now I can use it to help you. I am in this healthy lifestyle for the long haul and I love berries, winning, and now also blogging. Taking a break from the client files on my desk was not that hard, and maybe your first kale smoothie will be surprisingly delicious, yet nutritious!

Cheers to your health!

Catherine