First I love my Step DVD. I am not having a problem with exercise, it is food. I realize this is a mental issue. I start out doing good and by bed time I have blown it all to pieces. Any tips or suggestions.

Hi Pam,

I think this is not just another question, but this could be the question of the century when it comes to EATING for any binge or compulsive eater who has weight loss as a goal.

I am exercising but why am I sabatoging myself at night time?. This behavior is very deep emotionally as well as psychologically. It is not so cut and dry as one would think. There are many reasons we do this to ourselves but at the top of my list is this — we are dealing with a long history of this behavior in which food has become friend, enemy, lover and comfort. At night, when we are all alone, it is so easy to reach for something because the day is finished and you want what you want and you will deal with it tomorrow but for now you will have it. We do not stop to think that we certainly do not need it but old actions certainly come back to haunt us on a daily basis. I know, as it happens to me all of the time. Sometimes I give in but most times I do not.

I have realized over the past 10 years or so that larger women are working out now more than ever but weight loss is not always the final prize. While more and more women realize that exercise is important to achieve any weight loss I am not convinced that they have a clear perspective on how important an effect food has on long term results. And yes, you are right, food for most of us is MENTAL. We eat too much of it, we think too much about it and we spend too much time eating it.

One thing I learned many years ago was to make sure I eat enough during the day because if not I gave myself the permission to eat what, where and whenever I wanted to. I had no boundaries and just did what I did because that is all I knew. Well, it is time to come to terms with eating and food. Once food becomes fuel for your body and not an instant gratification for our sorrow or lonliness we can fully begin to understand that we can take control of this and while yes you may think you blew it right then in reality it is a tiny piece of the puzzle of your life.

It is time to think about your actions, be accountable to you and realize you have complete control over your choices and even if the better choices do not happen all of the time make it most of the time!

Hugs,
Debra

Think that you’re fit? Maybe, maybe not. Regular exercise has far more benefits than fitting into a smaller dress size for your next family reunion. Did you know that being your desirable size has nothing to do with your fitness level? While eating right is a wonderful way to get healthy, combined with EXERCISE, you have a powerful defense against ailments.

Exercising:
• Helps Stabilize Cholesterol
• Lowers Blood Pressure
• Burns FAT QUICKER
• Combats heart disease
• Burns Calories
• Raises your metabolism
• Improves Sleep
• Controls Stress
• Increases Endurance

So the next time you reach you reach for that healthy snack, exercise afterwards. Going for a swim, taking a walk through the neighborhood, riding a bike through the park, and trying a new dance class are all fantastic ways to get moving and improving your body. Get UP, Get MOTIVATED and Get MOVING!!!!

Love,
Debra

While taking on a new exercise regimen may seem like the last thing a cancer patient feels up to doing, this may be the very commitment that provides a cancer patient with enough strength and energy to successfully complete treatment. There are numerous benefits that can potentially stem from a cancer patient getting regular amounts of moderate-level exercise. These benefits range from better weight management, increased physical strength, stamina, better outlook on life and improved levels of energy.

Exercise Can Upgrade the Quality of Life for a Cancer Patient

The American Cancer Society released an informative online publication that provides helpful information about increased quality of life for people suffering from various kinds of cancer. The publication states that lifestyle changes that include consistent exercise can help patients to gain balance, reduce blood clots, and can also lessen the amount of fatigue a person feels.

When people go through cancer treatments that include surgeries, chemotherapy treatments and radiation, fatigue is almost always a given. Fatigue settles in and can be a difficult obstacle for any cancer patient to overcome, from those battling breast cancer all the way to mesothelioma. If a person experiences this and is able to make small lifestyle changes that include walking two or three times a week, or going for a bicycle ride, the fatigue has a greater chance of decreasing. This will leave the patient with a renewed sense of mental and physical refreshment that can lead to more exercise and improved overall strength. The stronger a body is, the better a person’s chances are of fighting the disease and continuing with necessary cancer treatments.

Helpful Things to Keep in Mind When Beginning an Exercise Regimen

Before committing to a specific type of exercise routine or schedule, it is helpful and important for a person with cancer to speak to his or her private physician or oncologist. The medical professional can observe progress and also can make suggestions as to specific types of exercises that may be the most beneficial to the patient and their diagnosis.

Drinking a lot of water and getting plenty of rest between exercise and treatments will also help to improve the results of exercising and will provide the patient with renewed stamina to maintain a moderate exercise schedule. Adding in healthy foods such as fresh spinach salads, berries and low fat meats will also provide great nutrition to support a person’s strength and energy levels.

Submitted by Melanie Bowen
http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/melanie/

As the New Year is here many of us are looking forward to a new year of promises and a chance to improve ourselves through many of the New Year’s resolutions we made in the past. We spend time thinking and reflecting on the past year but somehow we tend to be enormously self critical of what we have not done, finished, conquered and lack in our lives. Our society is so fixated on finding faults and that trickles down to self-defeat for many of us. We tend to question our own beliefs, allowing others to make critical decisions for our lives. So, how could we create any empowering New Year’s resolutions when we are already critical of ourselves and who we are?

Instead of focusing on how far you still have to accomplish, it is very important to take the time to acknowledge how far you have come. Take some me time and think about any accomplishment that has moved you forward. Ignoring the “big picture” will rob you of the joy or sense of success that you have finished. Celebrate your personal accomplishments – those times you responded to difficult times to help someone, and build on this. Starting out the year on a positive note will motivate and inspire you to things you never thought possible in this New Year.

Life is full of mountains, challenges and setbacks. I am sure this New Year will be no different. When you understand that YOUR life is a journey and we are all given the opportunity to learn, grow and evolve from our experiences it just gets better and the past seems just that.

No matter where you are in your life right now, this is the time to learn, grow and evolve but more importantly move forward. Take this year and see how far you can go in your life. I am praying that each one of you realizes the importance of your life in the “BIG PICTURE”!

Hugs,
Debra

I found Debra Mazda and ShapelyGirl Fitness at a point where I needed it most in my life. I was recently dumped by my first love and tipping the scales at close to 350 pounds. My ex was kind enough to use the fact that I had never succeeded in losing weight for the 2 and a half  years we were together as one of his reasons for leaving me.

When I was on my own I made a decision that I couldn’t stay how I was. I was so unhappy and unhealthy. I had seen a discount ad for classes at ShapelyGirl Fitness before and I decided to look into it further. My best friend and I decided to come one night and check out the weight loss support group that was held at ShapelyGirl on Tuesday nights. We felt so welcomed, I loved the atmosphere. Everyone was so warm and loving towards us…we signed up for memberships that night.

It has been a long road since then and I have had my ups and downs but I am down 70 pounds so far and I know I’m doing it the right way with Debra’s help…slow and steady.

I’m not always perfect, I’ll never be, but I have learned not to allow myself to get lost in my mistakes. In prior weight loss attempts I’d give up so easily. I’d get to a certain point and gain all the weight and more back. This time I am beyond any point of weight loss I had achieved before and I know I never could’ve done it if I hadn’t found ShapelyGirl Fitness.

I used to hate to exercise, I would get angry and quit at the first drip of sweat, the first twinge of pain. I’m doing things I never thought I’d be able to do. Coming to the gym is a happy time for me, I get to see my friends, we laugh and dance and actually have fun working out. At this gym I get unparalleled love and support…what other gym can you say that about?

Whether you live across the country and connect with Debra only through Facebook and her DVDs or you are fortunate enough to be able to physically attend her gym….The ShapelyGirls are a family and I know I’d never have succeeded the way I have anywhere else. Here’s to another 70 pounds and beyond…. I have immeasurable amounts of love and gratitude for Debra and all the ShapelyGirls! We can do it!

Colleen

Have you ever felt fat? If so, join the millions of women of all shapes/sizes who go through this on a daily basis.

You lost weight and try on some new clothes in a smaller size but you are feeling fat and hating everything in the store.  You have to lie on the bed because you cannot zipper a pair of pants that fit yesterday due to water retention, or perhaps your hormones are fluctuating and everything feels tight and doesn’t look good. Too many carbs getting the best of you?

This thinking can snowball into thoughts of ‘I am ugly, fat and nobody loves me’ and this can certainly lead into an eating frenzy.  Now you think you have every right to feel fat and fatness starts to become your reality.  While you may think this is extreme thinking this behavior is reality for a lot of women.  This is how quickly we can act out our thoughts without thinking rationally or mindfully.

In my own personal life this kind of thinking tortured me for years and I remember journaling somewhere that I had to come to terms with this or it would drive me insane. As a kid, food was the excuse for my existence.  I was fat in elementary school and I was reminded of my girth on a daily basis from other kids, friends, family and teachers. People were so cruel to me and never left me alone.

I grew up thinking, living and knowing that fat was a part of my life that followed me around from sunrise to sunset. In fact when my weight escalated to over 300 pounds not only did I feel fat I was fat.  Most of the time I could not even look in the mirror because I was reminded of my enormous size.

After having a now or never rude awakening over 25 years ago I lost over 130 pounds, however my thinking needed a major adjustment because I still felt fat all of the time.  In fact, some days I felt fatter than when I weighed over 300 pounds.  No matter how small I was getting, I felt fat. I realized then that I was going to have to work on changing the negative way I felt about myself to a more positive me.

I am happy to say that after years of mental skills training, visualization and journaling I learned that I am much more than a three-letter word. Today, those negative words, “I feel fat” are rarely part of who I am.

So, where does this thinking come from?  While it most certainly can start in childhood from parents who might be weight obsessed, it can also begin in elementary school, being labeled fat from other kids or even teachers. Girls can begin to believe that if they are not the perfect Barbie Doll there is something wrong and most likely begin to diet to lose weight. Some girls think they are fat at any size.

Let’s face it; we all will begin to believe negative thoughts about ourselves when we are bombarded with messages that thinness and being skinny is better at any cost. Every time we look at magazines, newspapers, TV and Hollywood there is not an ounce of fat to be found and these venues dictate how most females think about themselves. When we do not fit that mold we begin to see ourselves as fat at any size.  If it does not match up to what we see, we internalize feelings that line up with unhappiness and we internalize feelings of I am not worthy.

Is feeling fat the same as being fat?  Feeling fat is just what it says it is, a feeling. It won’t be reality unless you make it become your reality. While your feelings are your feelings, some of us are so driven by our feelings and emotions and if we’re not careful, those misguided feelings can create issues that distract us, discourage us, and trigger past pain that starts taunting us. They can fill our minds with thoughts that are not accurate.  You cannot let your life, world and daily existence be driven by emotions, as you will then have no basis for reality.

Do I still have fat days? You bet I do! Today I know that is not my reality, it is only a passing challenge that I can either move out of the way or let beat me up.

Hugs,

Debra

I would drive by the gym every day and watch people going in and out all of the time. I would always wonder and say to myself, “What do they do in there?”

Back in the 70′s and 80′s running had become a very popular way to get fit and lose weight. I would see people jogging and running and since they were all skinny I figured they were all doing something right to stay that way. I knew nothing about fitness, exercise or how to eat healthy, but deep down inside I knew a change was coming.

I sat in my car for about 3 weeks, all 300 plus pounds of me, thinking about going into that health club. I would just sit outside for the longest time and watch people go in and out wondering what they did, I was so curious. I remember my head saying “GET OUT OF THE CAR AND JUST GO UP THERE!”

Day after day I would tell myself to do it but I would panic and drove home. On one particular day, I remember it clearly, I made up my mind that today was the day, just do it — if I thought about it anymore my mind was going to explode.

Right there, something clicked inside of me and I knew it was either now or never. I think it might have been some kind of self-preservation instinct. I was being emotionally and mentally battered by my boyfriend and living around alcoholism, violence, anger and rage daily. After a really bad argument on New Year’s Day, he had thrown me out of the house in my underwear in freezing Denver weather and he locked all of the doors. My neighbors had to take me in and the humiliation was more than I could live with. A week prior to that, he had driven his car right through the garage door. It was time to make a change in my life!

Debra

From as far back as I can remember my mother never asked me about what I ate despite the fact that my weight was escalating before her eyes. She never asked me where all the food had gone, never. This has always amazed me because when I do health/fitness coaching with women most of them tell me at some point their mother’s confronted them about their eating. Mine was just the opposite, she totally ignored this problem altogether. There would be bowls of candy around at any given time in my childhood. I can see the bowls as I write this. Every time I turned M&M’s, Reeses peanut butter cups and peanut chews were staring at me. When the candy was gone she would just fill the bowl up again.

Today, I realize that she was unconsciously sabotaging me and did not care enough about me to address this. If she wanted to be fat, then let her be fat and leave me alone! However, on her behalf I am not sure she knew how to address my life as she had her own issues to deal with that I was very unaware of at that time, even though at family dinners I ate as much as I wanted and the silence from my mother was putting me at a higher risk for the emotional death I would suffer in future years. My mother was gorgeous and always kept her weight down but she had a fat daughter. While she never came out and said she felt embarrassed, there were many times she made comments about my body and what I wore, but never about what I ate despite being enormous by age 10. It was never an issue.

Debra Mazda, Excerpt from “EATING MY SECRETS” due out Fall 2012