Welcome

Before I added Intuitive Eating coaching to my services, I mainly focused on exercise and fitness, both as a personal trainer and then as a fitness coach. Much like they know about nutrition, my clients generally knew what to do to improve fitness and how to exercise. There was and still is no shortage of information if you want to get fit, just like if you want to eat healthy. I'm sure you, too, could teach the courses in nutrition and exercise, right?

I found the main problem for those who wanted to exercise was how to get motivated to start, and even harder, how to stay motivated once exercising. For this reason, I became interested in exercise motivation and worked with my clients on finding and maintaining that motivation. Interestingly enough, around the same time, many researchers, including a few at Stanford University, began to study exercise motivation and adherence and have provided health and fitness professionals a lot of information on the "art and science" of exercise motivation.

I could go on for some time discussing the different elements necessary for continued motivation, but the reason I wanted to write about motivation today is one of my readers recently shared with me one of her ideas for staying motivated to exercise, and it occurred to me that many of you would benefit from her experience.

She gets bored fairly easily with her exercise (as do many!) and she really doesn't like the monotony of the usual cardio machines, like the bike, treadmill, etc. She likes exercise classes and she discovered that her local library carries a good variety of exercise DVDs. So once a week she gets a different DVD and has a whole new routine! If she finds a particular workout that she really enjoys, she will then purchase the DVD at the bookstore so she can use it whenever she likes. It not only has helped relieve her exercise boredom, but her body never knows what's next, which is great for increasing fitness.

Continuing reading below for more information on exercise DVDs and how they may help increase your own motivation to exercise. But first, please be sure to check out the Self-Help Gifts Giveaway going on right now - tons of gifts for you to choose from, all at no cost to you!

Thanks as always for being a subscriber! If there's anything I can do to support you in your health and fitness efforts, just let me know!

Lots of Exciting Happenings:

The Self-Help Gifts Giveaway is open - so jump in now, it is open only through July 3rd!

The topics are as diverse as parenting, relationships, health and fitness, stress management (always a good one!), working from home, business management, confidence building, and quite a few other self help categories. Not to mention, I have three of my own gifts - one of which I charge $17 for on my website!

Here is just a small sample of some of the more than 450 fr.ee gifts that stood out to me as different and possibly interesting for many of my readers:

Quick Focus Plan * How to Stop Smoking * Developing Intuition *
Allowance Secrets for Kids * Beginners Guide to Yoga and Meditation *
Strengthening relationships * Boosting Self-Esteem *
Secrets to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence *
How Dieting is Destroying Your Sex Life (hey - ANOTHER reason to give up dieting!)

http://selfhelpgiftsgiveaway.com/giveawayevent/go/69

Please help me support you! Special survey and thank you gift!

The survey I recently created for me to find out how I can support you is still open. If you have already completed it, thank you very much! I will be in touch soon to schedule your strategy sessions. If you haven't taken the survey yet, I would greatly appreciate your help. I want to create new products and services that will help you in dealing with your health and fitness challenges.

5-minute survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GVCVF3K

In return, I am offering anyone who completes the 5 minute survey a complementary Strategy Coaching Session to discuss anything health, fitness, or self-care related. It's my no-strings gift to you! In addition, all who complete the survey will be entered into a drawing for a special package of three of my favorite books! I'm not telling which they are, it's a secret! :) Just follow this link and take the 5 minute survey. On the very last page, you'll be able to sign up for the Strategy Session as well as enter the drawing.

5-minute survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GVCVF3K

Help Evelyn Tribole get her show on Oprah's New Network!

Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD, is one of the authors of the book, "Intuitive Eating". Not only is she an excellent writer on intuitive eating as well as many other nutrition and health topics, I know from personal experience that she is a great speaker and instructor. She is currently pursuing another role - that of television star and host of her own talk show on Oprah's new network, OWN.

Evelyn has submitted her audition for her show idea, called "The Stealth Health Show" and you can cast your vote to help the show become a reality! Just go to Evelyn's page, watch her 2-minute video, and click the big green Vote button to cast your vote! According to the site FAQ, you can vote as often as you like.

Let's support Evelyn in getting her own show and getting her message out to potentially millions of people!

Need a Boost of Motivation?

I love the idea of using exercise DVDs. There are so many different kinds of workouts from which to choose. I've actually used recorded workouts for years, way back when they where on VHS videotapes!

There are many benefits to using exercise DVDs at home. Here are just a few:

• DVDs are great for when the weather is bad and you can't exercise outside or can't/don't want to drive to the gym
• You can do them anytime, day or night, there is no closing time!
• There are DVDs for almost any kind of activity you desire: aerobic dance, step, indoor walking, yoga, pilates, weight training, sculpting, chair exercise, stretching, kickboxing, even things like belly dancing and pole dancing!
• If you find a particular instructor you really like, he or she may have a whole collection of additional workouts
• No one is watching you - You can modify the exercise to fit your needs or fitness level without worrying about other people watching you or having an instructor single you out in class
• You can take them when you travel
• If you have trouble with a particular move, you can rewind it and keep practicing until you understand it

Another great reason to use exercise DVDs is how accessible they are! Here are just a few ideas of where to browse and find exercise DVDs at no cost, for rent, used or brand new!

• Without a doubt, the best place to research and purchase exercise DVDs is Collage Video. They have the best selection and all videos are used and rated by their customer service staff. They give detailed descriptions, breakdowns of the videos, and tons of other info so you know exactly what you are getting.
• Many libraries are now carrying exercise DVDs that you can borrow for no charge or for a very nominal fee. You can also rent DVDs at your local movie rental store or from online rental sources like Netflix. Renting or borrowing is a great way to test-drive a workout before purchasing it outright.
• Another option that will cost you nothing, is Swap a DVD - swapadvd.com. This is a place where you can list your DVDs (any kind, not just exercise) you no longer want. After you've listed your DVDs, you can check what DVDs others have available and order them for no charge! The only charge for this service is paying postage when someone orders a DVD you have available. I don't use Swap a DVD myself, but I love their sister sites, PaperbackSwap.com and SwapaCD.com.

What is Your Biggest Eating Challenge?

Question: I know a lot about nutrition and the way I should eat but currently I don't have much choice in what I'm going to eat or how to prepare it. I have two teenagers still living at home as well as a husband that was raised on "meat and potatoes" meals. Even though I do most of the shopping and cooking, I am outnumbered when it comes to what we have for dinner. The kids and my husband don't want to eat my "healthy" food and they especially don't want to have even a single meatless meal!

I feel like I won't be able to eat the way I want unless I cook a separate meal for myself along with dinner for the rest of the family. This really isn't a realistic option. Besides, if I were to eat my healthy meal along with my family, I know they will relentlessly tease me and I will feel deprived anyway, seeing the food they get to eat.

I don't think I can ever be on any kind of program unless I have full control of the kitchen and the meal choices. Therefore, eating healthy and losing weight look like impossible dreams until the kids move out - I may be able to handle cooking my own meals and my husband's if it's just the two of us, but that remains to be seen.

Answer: I appreciate your challenge, it is a common one for many women, and especially mothers. You may feel like you are stuck until something in your circumstances change, but the good news is that even if they don't, changing your mindset and your approach to eating will give you the help you are seeking to take care of yourself while you take care of your family.

It sounds like you already have extensive knowledge of how to eat in a healthy manor. I am assuming based on your desire to lose weight that you probably know a lot about diet programs as well. You mentioned not being able to be on a "program". With intuitive eating, or the non-diet approach, which is how I live and what I teach others, there is no program. It's a way of life. It's about changing the relationship you have with food from "good" and "bad" foods, to simply making choices. It's also about eating because of physical hunger and stopping when you are full. As you already said, you know a lot about how to eat, but when you address why you eat, you can eat the things you like and still eat to support your health. In addition, eating based on your hunger and fullness signals on a consistent basis will allow you to return to your natural weight, without deprivation, strict diets, or excessive exercise.

Keep in mind that what I'm talking about isn't a diet, or a program, and it also isn't a "lifestyle change". That's just a fancy and deceptive term for diet. When you get back your intuition about food, you will want to eat when you're hungry and stop when you are full, and you will actually feel these physical sensations as well. And you get to eat what you want without guilt, shame, overeating, overexercising, going on another diet, etc. Most likely when you ask yourself what you want to eat, it will be those foods that you consider healthy. Even better, eating intuitively can be done anytime, anywhere, without any special foods or food preparation, and the most important thing is you get to live your life fully, and live it now, not after you lose weight, or whatever other changes you may be waiting to happen.

A big part of eating intuitively is letting go of the diet mentality. I know this sounds crazy, but it is possible to lose weight this way. It's not super fast but it's effective because you are dealing with why you eat, not just following some rules that someone else created. This leads to a permanent change in weight as well as a better relationship with food. I've been there, done that, and I was a huge skeptic - although I really didn't know what else to do when I hit diet bottom.