From the Heart

So, you have made another New Year’s resolution to lose weight, exercise more, and take time off to relax……You and everybody else!

And now it is already the middle of January, and the promise is yet to begin to be fulfilled and you are thinking, “Oh, no…not again. I always make these promises to myself and then I don’t keep them. I am a bad person! “

What an awful way to face the rest of the New Year!!!

Well, listen to me.  I am a psychotherapist who worked with thousands of patients. You are not a bad person.

Lazy?  Maybe.    Normal?  Mostly!

It is very difficult to change one’s habits, one’s behavior.  At any age!  So, let me tell you some of the suggestions that I made to a number of my patients that worked, more or less. I am adding the “more or less” so you won’t feel intimidated. The point is that when one wants to make major changes in one’s habits, one needs to be lenient, easy, forgiving, soft etc.

In other words, give yourself a break.

For example, if you decide to begin eating different foods, and you don’t exactly meet the standards you have set, it is OKAY.   And this is quite important!  It is important to always recognize that there will be “goofs” but you have already made some strides and give yourself a pat on the back for the strides and know that the “goofs” will be less and the good results will ultimately be more often and satisfying.

The important part of the process is….the process!  Know that it is a process which consists of steps, sometimes big and mostly, small and that is the way that it will happen. Expect that!  After a while, you will begin to “think healthy.” It will become second nature for you to look at labels in the grocery store, looking for good fats, low salt, etc. That is the ultimate goal; thinking healthy!   One day you will wake up and realize that you are actually doing it!

Don’t set a date or time; just a goal; a soft one!   Make it realistic; be honest with yourself!  What is doable and what isn’t.  And even when you realize that you have only met half of your goal; take it!

Your resolution is really not to diet and to lose weight, but it should be to be heart healthy, whatever that takes!