Do Your Expectations Sabotage Your Success at Achieving & Maintaining a Healthy Weight?

When women talk about their biggest obstacles to successful weight and health management, we often hear about hurdles like not enough time or knowledge to prepare healthy meals. Or frequent social occasions that involve food. Or hectic schedules, or stress in their lives, or transitions they're currently going through. The list goes on. But if you're like many of us, it's really none of these. Instead, our biggest obstacle is unrealistic expectations.

All the menu planning, exercising, and positive behavior change in the world will not help the woman who has set goals that are impossible to achieve. Unfortunately, too many of us are that woman – driven, all-or-nothing, compulsive perfectionists. Because of feelings of insecurity or inferiority, or simply because we've internalized someone else's standards, we hold a very limited definition of what it means to be successful. We try to mold ourselves into "perfect" people with "perfect" behavior.  The irony is that this strategy leaves us feeling worse about ourselves. The more perfectionistic we become, the less likely we are to adopt these changes long-term.

It's easy...

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Our New Year’s Resolution for Healthy Living and Healthy Weight

Make it a Best New Year! For our New Year's resolution, notice we said 'best' instead of 'happy.' To us, best exemplifies our philosophy for successful living...making the best of each opportunity rather than striving for unattainable perfection. Learning how to look for the best in each situation is what makes and keeps women successful in managing their stress, their life, and their health and weight. Think about the pursuit of a healthy...

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Mindful Holiday Eating, Eat What You Love

  Don’t Worry, Be Happy!  Eat What You Love this Holiday It’s not the New Year yet, but it is a perfect time to toss those old ways of doing things in favor of ones that really make us feel great.  What we’re talking about here is the typical holiday eating advice that’s all about treading carefully for fear we’ll overdo.  For...

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Holiday Hassle or Mindful Moments? Ways to Reduce Stress during the Holidays

Is it possible that more minutes are crammed into a day in November and December? Or is it just that we expect the days to expand because our lists of things to do are impossibly long? Clearly, time management rules during this season of doing and going. It's one of the best ways to reduce stress during the holidays. Ways to Reduce Stress: Give Yourself the Gift of Time Management Strategies You might want...

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7 Steps to a Better Body Image

Body image.  These two small words sum up so much of the struggle around eating and weight. Because we don't feel good about our bodies, we treat them in ways that perpetuate the struggle.  We diet...and binge.  We overexercise...and injure ourselves.  We do both...and burn out.  So that self-care isn't on the docket anymore. It's odd that starting to feel better about ourselves can...

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Do You Need to Go Gluten Free?

If we had to pick one trend in healthy eating that seems to be showing up almost everywhere we look, it would be gluten-free eating. From popular books, magazines and websites to grocery-store shelves and restaurant menus, it seems everyone is jumping on the gluten-free bandwagon. If we had to choose a reason, it would be the notion that cutting out gluten can help with weight management. Is there any science to support that claim? ...

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