{Guest Blog Post} I am not as good as…

I like to bring new women into the Get Your Girl Back conversation by having them contribute guest blog posts to the website.  We can learn so much from each other!  I met Angie last week at the Younique conference and we hit it off right away.  She has such a powerful story.  Without further ado, here’s Angie!

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I am not as good as…

I was walking the track the other day with my son when a woman ran by us. Immediately, I stopped listening to my son and started an internal dialogue comparing myself to this woman. “Why am I not doing that?” “Wow, look at her figure!” “She is amazing and, because I can’t do that, I am not.” “I wish I could be like her…” Then, the realization of what I was doing hit me! I was doing exactly what I had just told my son to stop doing!

The conversation that I lost with my son was all about being judgmental. He was talking to me about comparing himself to others – either for the better or the worse. I had told him that judging others and ourselves only makes us unhappy. It makes us unable to see the beauty in both ourselves as well as other people. And here I was doing exactly that! As soon as I started comparing myself to this amazing woman on the track, I stopped seeing what was beautiful in me. I began judging myself and believing that I am not as good as she is. Of course, that is simply not true! I am amazing, too! We all are!

Don’t get me wrong, looking at what others have and are able to do can help us aspire to be able to do or to have the same things. However, when we judge ourselves as less than because we aren’t at the same level, we lose the ability to ever have or do those things. We also put a barrier between ourselves and them. When you look at someone else and judge them to be better than you, you create a situation where you cannot learn from them. You put them up on a pedestal and aren’t able to hear their teachings. As a middle school teacher, I constantly tell my students that we are equal, that my position as a teacher doesn’t change the fact that we are all human beings. The students who believe this are the students who learn the most and have the most fun doing so! They are also the students who teach me the most!

Here I was again in a situation to learn from a fellow human being and I was creating that barrier. I put this woman on a pedestal and suddenly put her teachings out of my reach. I decided right then and there that was not okay with me! I decided that I needed to ask her to come to my girl group and talk to all of us. I wanted to learn from her! I will have to do that another time, though, she breezed around me a couple of times while I was musing and I couldn’t find her by the time that I was ready. I look forward to seeing her next time! Of course, now that my eyes were open, I was able to see the beauty in so many men and women around me; I also was not afraid of them!

As I moved into the next activity with my son, stretching out those sore muscles, I saw a beautiful woman on the weight machines. She was tall, muscular, absolutely gorgeous, and covered in inspiring tattoos. I just had to talk to her! I waited until she had finished her sets and then introduced myself. I learned that she started working out 2 years ago, that she had not always been able to do what I saw her doing today, that she had not always felt amazing. She had a story to share. She had once been where I am right now! She agreed to come to my group and talk to me and the girls – yes, we are all women, but we all love and embrace our girl! I am ecstatic to have met her and cannot wait to hear her story so I can learn to do what she has done and then do it myself! I AM as GOOD as!

Written by Angela St-Germain, middle school ESL teacher and founder of Mascara and Muchness. Follow Angela on Facebook (Mistress of Muchnesss or personal profile Angela St-Germain) for more inspiration and ideas on being muchier!

FB: Mistress of Muchness ∙ Instagram: Mistress_of_Muchness ∙ Twitter: @AngieSt_Germain

[Guest Blog] How I Shut Down Obesity

By Guest Blogger Gay Norton Edelman, author of The Hungry Ghost: How I Ditched 100 Pounds and Came Fully Alive  bitly.com/1gg7mId

 

Gay Norton Edelman

Gay Norton Edelman

 

Yes, I loss 100 pounds. Yes, I have kept it off for 20 years.

 

People ask all the time how I got the courage to do this.

 

The courage came from desperation. I had been trying all my adult life to get the binge eating and the weight under control. Diets, support groups, therapy, the works.

 

After years and years of trying and failing, grace finally arrived. That day, my doctor prescribed blood pressure pills. I cried all the way home. I had three little kids whom I loved more than life itself. I did not want to leave them to go to rehab. What else was there?

 

My friend Betty had told me about a spiritually based peer support group. I called her and she took me to my first meeting. There I learned that I am a food addict, meaning once I start eating food with sugar, wheat and flour in it, I can’t stop. I was given a food plan and I made a commitment to weigh and measure all my meals with a cup and scale.

 

It was very hard work. That first year, learning how to eat, read labels, exercise felt like a full time job. But I did it. And along the way I learned the most important lesson of all: to pay attention not just to food and exercise but also to my hungry, hungry soul.

 

I had made food a god. I had made food the solution to stress, loneliness, frustration, anger, despair, disappointment and all the other feelings I wanted to avoid. Instead, I needed to depend on a power greater than myself that was based not in things of the world but things of the spirit.

 

All of this was—and is—a lot of work. How do I find the time? How do I not find the time?

 

I have to come first. The things I do to stay in recovery from food addiction, compulsive overeating and obesity are as vital to my health as regular dialysis is to the kidney patient or chemo is to the cancer patient. This is life and death.

 

I work as hard at it now as I ever did. What comes in the way of my health has to be deleted or delegated. My kids didn’t need to be in a bunch of after-school activities and lessons. They needed their mother. My husband didn’t need fancy meals or his laundry done for him. He needed a wife who was alive, well and happy. I didn’t need to be in the stratosphere of my profession. I needed to have me.

 

I don’t mess around, ever. I can’t be perfect. But I never take for granted any of the things I have to do to sustain life.

 

There’s tons of good information about eating right, moving your body, filling your soul needs. And I’ve just published my own self-help book, The Hungry Ghost: How I Ditched 100 Pounds and Came Fully Alive, to explain in detail what I do, and how you can, too.

 

If you decide you really, really want to live, you’ll keep trying and failing, like I did, until you find the way to eat right, move your body, and nourish your spirit.

 

If there is any secret or magic to what I do, it’s this: You only have to do what’s right for your body, mind and soul one day at a time. Too much to think about? Do it just one moment at a time. Trust me, there are still plenty of days when I live by the saying, “Right foot, left foot, breathe.”

 

Simple, yes. Easy? No. But remember, you are one smart woman. You are not alone. And you are so worth it!  

 

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1 Defining Strategy to Make Room for Exercise in Your Life!

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The theme this month here at Get Your Girl Back is helping our members understand how this movement came about and how you can use it to reinvent your life. Today, the focus is YOU. I want to help you figure out HOW to take better care of yourself, get healthy, find more energy, and feel empowered in knowing you are taking care of you! If you are already doing this, I ask that you chime in and offer feedback, support, and ideas to our members as we are all working together for transformation (on my blog or FB at Get Your Girl Back movement).

STRATEGY

The main reason I find people don’t work out is lack of time. In a busy world where there is always something to do, it’s virtually impossible to make it onto that very important to do list. Here is my solution: Create a system- Here is one idea that will change your life.

TWEAK YOUR SCHEDULE

While this sounds really simple, and it is, take control and move your schedule around: When I hit 37 I realized that working out 2-3 days a week wasn’t enough to keep the pounds from piling on. My metabolism slowed down and I discovered upon talking with wiser people, that I was going to have to work out at least 4-5 days per week. Do I like it? No! Will I do it to see the payoff? Yes!

After trial and error with nothing working because I was always busy, I moved my schedule around. I had to make my health a priority, no exceptions. While I used to drop the kids off at 8:15 for school and immediate hit the office by 8:30-9, I blocked off the hours from 8:15-9:30 for me. I let my staff know that I would not be taking calls or responding to emails until 9:30 most days. While I thought this would put me behind and create chaos, I didn’t miss a beat. I actually felt energized, healthy, and inspired after working out and still do today. I’ve been doing this for a year and it works. Clearly if you work for someone it will be more of a challenge so here are some more ideas:

  • As your employer if you can come in 1 hour later and skip lunch, eating a fruit shake at your desk instead or packed lunch as you work.
  • Or, carve 30 minutes off your lunch hour and stay 30 minutes later.
  • Come in an hour later and stay an hour later.
  • Allow just 30 minutes for exercise instead of an hour and swap part of your lunch out.
  • Ask to come in 30 minutes to an hour later and take the pay cut in exchange for great health.

Crazy right? You may hate these ideas or love them but they are just that- ideas. I don’t always look good at work, due to working out, but I feel great! You can’t find a solution for your life if you don’t start to strategize ideas. Take one of the above and tweak it to fit you. What matters is that you take the time needed to create solutions to make time for your health. Join our movement at http://gygb.com/join-the-movement/ and reinvent not just your health, but your life!  Written by Traci Bild, Founder.