PEERtrainer

New Article By Joshua Wayne: Let Your Light Shine!

Joshua's newest article ends with this great quote from Nelson Mandela:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Nelson Mandela in his inaugural address, 1994 

read the full article: http://www.peertrainer.com/let_your_light_shine.aspx

How To Be More Powerfully In Control Of Your Choices By Living Without Apology

We were recently sent the following question:

"I feel like I'm always apologizing for everything. I apologize when I order a salad instead of a cheeseburger by always saying, well I have a big event coming up, so I really need to watch what I’m eating".

I see other people do this as well. They "apologize" for their order with this: "I'm ordering a salad with grilled chicken because you should see what I ate last night! Margaritas, chips and salsa - I must have eaten three bowls of chips alone!" Why say anything?

It's everyone's dream to live without apology but no matter how many quotes we see, we take a step in that direction and we get hit so hard with a snarky comment that we go back to making excuses and "living with apology". How do you start to have the confidence - what is the first step to living life without apology?"

Joshua Wayne has created a detailed response to this question. Here is his answer:

http://www.peertrainer.com/how_to_live_without_apology.aspx

Do You Feel As If You Are Truly Capable Of Losing Weight?

This is something we emailed out Sunday, May 2nd: We are working on a "mission statement" at PEERtrainer, and in the process trying to hone in on "the thing we do best." It is a tough question to answer because we do a lot of things in response to the needs of different people.

From Habib's perspective the thing we do best is simply foster communication and conversation. Ideally we ask questions in a way that really gets you thinking.

Joshua Wayne is focused on the coaching aspect of PEERtrainer, and his response was very interesting. We had asked him "what is the single thing we do best with the coaching program and what have been the results?"

As an exercise this Sunday, read his response, and then think for a few moments about the question asked in the subject of this email:

"One of the key things we have set out to accomplish, from my perspective, is helping people feel like they are in control of their relationship to food so they can get where they want to go.

Feeling out of control is one of the worst feelings in life. Desperately wanting something, like to lose weight, and not feeling capable of getting there is a terrible feeling. Feeling like you'll always be overwhelmed by your lousy habits and that you'll never really be in control of them. Feeling like no matter how hard you try, and no matter how many times you try, that your negative emotions will ultimately derail you. These feelings build and build and build which leads to hopelessness.

So one of our main goals was to help people get back in control. One of the key ways we do that is to teach them to start being easy on themselves - not beating themselves up endlessly. People add insult to injury when they beat themselves up after they "screw up" on their diet. We see that many people have this "perfectionist"streak and we start to break that up by teaching them to be patient with themselves.

Simultaneously we're giving them REALLY good diet info. Not fad type stuff - in fact exactly the opposite. We help them lay the foundation for healthy, sustainable lifestyle change.

We also really embed this whole program smack dab in the middle of their lives too. This is crucial. We're not forcing them to create an alternate reality in their life where they can get healthy. They have to be able to do it in the middle of the crazy day with job, boss, kids, husband/wife because that's their reality and that's where they live.

If they have to attend to all that stuff, AND THEN have to go and carve out time for 3 elaborate meals per day (plus all the shopping and prep) so they can eat pistacio- crusted tilapia with carmelized onion asparagus consomme for dinner it's just not going to happen. Same with the exercise piece. It has to be centrally located in their life.

Not an alternate reality where they have to now squeeze 5 trips to the gym into their life.

Building on that, they have to be able to deal with: work dinners out, frenemies sabotaging them, the "crappy" food inertia of their family when they go home to visit. All that comes up and you have to have a "tool-kit" to deal with it. We give them that tool-kit.

Lastly, we provide consistent support. We're there for 12 weeks, at least a couple times a week. Sometimes with an email saying hi and a friendly reminder to look at the bright side, sometimes with a video or an article and of course the weekly calls.

Everyone needs consistency to make things happen, whether it's building a business, making a relationship work well or losing weight. We provide that consistent support which helps people internalize this optimism and get back to that place of self-control.

Fostering self-control is the key."

I thought that this was a very helpful observation for us, and a great question to ask everyone. This "Tip Of The Day" list that you are reading right now is designed to communicate with you and get you thinking.

And if you are one of those people looking to get in control, I would highly encourage you to try the first month of the Point Of No Return, and let Joshua work some of his magic. We often find ourselves "soft-selling" his work, but as we go through all the feedback from people who finish the program we see that he is very good at accomplishing his objective.

This isn't the kind of situation where we are promising this crazy quick weight loss. This is the complete opposite of all that. Joshua helps you take a step back, and helps you examine all of your assumptions.

At the core it is really about your relationship to yourself. So often at PEERtrainer we soft pedal what we do. But this is something we are doing well, and for many people it is the most important thing in their life that they can be working on.

When we help people to make better decisions for the rest of their life, the ripple effect that has is powerful. Frankly, if you are struggling with food and then do the work to gain control, there is almost nothing in life you cannot successfully tackle. The belief that you develop in yourself will be the new fuel that you can use in all parts of your life.

-Jackie 

P.S. One more thing I want to add here. Joshua wrote a book about emotional eating based entirely on what he saw in the PEERtrainer community, and we turned it into a downloadable digital guide. We sell it for $27, but we thought it made sense to offer it free to people who have opened this email and read the whole message for the next two days or so. If you are still reading this particular email, we have said something that has resonated with you.

Even if you decide to opt out of the program during the $1 month one trial period, Joshua's guide to emotional eating is yours to keep. The book is 175 pages, so there is a LOT in there to digest. Lots of ideas.

When you sign up via this link for the program, you will be sent the book in three days. There is a lot we throw at you, and we want to make sure you get acclimated.

http://www.peertrainer.com/coaching

"Why Am I Not Losing Weight??"

Hi There-

 

We have been sharing some older articles from Joshua Wayne recently where he shares some of his "mind secrets." Please keep the feedback coming- we know we are really connecting with this.

 

Today we pleased to tell you about a new article that we have from him that we just published on the site. We hope you enjoy it:

 

http://www.peertrainer.com/why_you_are_not_losing_weight.aspx

 

 

We also just uploaded a new video from the series I did with Dr. Joel Fuhrman. In this video he starts to answer the question: "is is better to eat raw or cooked vegetables?"

 

This is an increasingly common question, and as usual Dr. Fuhrman has a unique insight into this subject because of the deep amount of research and study he has done in the field of nutrition.

 

Just below the video is part of an article he wrote where he goes into much greater depth about the raw vs cooked debate. Very interesting:

 

http://blog.peertrainer.com/health/2010/03/is-it-better-to-eat-raw-vegetables-or-cooked-vegetables-dr-joel-fuhrman-gives-his-perspective.html

 

 

-Jackie

 

 PS- we continue to get a lot of feedback and insight from the articles we have been focusing on. This blog post contains an email we got from a reader with a very good tip on how to indentify and fight the foods that sabotage your efforts:

 

http://blog.peertrainer.com/tip_of_the_day/2010/03/interesting-strategy-to-combat-weight-loss-sabotaging-foods.html

 

 

 

Weight Loss Self-Sabotage: How To Break The Cycle

We just published a new article on the site that serves as a guide to help people identify the ways they sabotage their weight loss efforts. Here it is:

How To Stop Self Sabotage

Become Friends With Your Body

Joshua Wayne, in week 4 of the weight loss boot camp, asked the following question: 

Are you friends with your body? 

If you don’t like your body, in fact if you don’t love your body, you’re not going to take the best care of it.  You’re not going to be patient with it and do everything you can to make it healthy. 

If you’re not friends with your body you’re going to neglect it.  Think about it…what do you do with people you don’t like?  You avoid and neglect them.  Well, strange as this may sound, you will do the same with your body.   You’ll avoid and neglect it by not taking care of it with good diet and exercise.  It’s the only one you have…you’re stuck with it.  You’re either going to be friends with your body or enemies with it.

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The Relationship Between Losing Weight And Happiness

We all want happiness in life. It really doesn’t matter where you come from, how much money you have, what neighborhood you live in- what you ultimately want in life is happiness. You want to feel good about yourself, the people around you and you want to feel positive and optimistic about what life has to offer.

If you’re reading this, then it’s also likely that at some level you believe that losing weight will help you get closer to your happiness. You want to lose weight because you believe it will bring you closer to being happy.

Happiness can be a bit of a tricky topic, though, for 2 reasons:

1. It’s such an individual thing, and means something different to everybody.

2. Because very often the things that we think will bring up happiness in reality will not. They might even bring us greater frustration and unhappiness.

When it comes to understanding and mastering the connection between weight loss and happiness, I have found that there are three different things you need to look at that can really make the difference. You may have found that just one of the three will apply to your situation, or elements of all of them may be necessary.

1. Courage- Sometimes there are some significant emotional issues that stand between you and losing weight. I particularly find this to be true among people who have a lot of weight to lose. Ultimately, what you need is courage to face these issues. Finding this courage and working through your issues will bring you so much closer to not just the health and body you want, but true lasting happiness.

2. Discipline- You may have a strong drive to lose weight, but you just don’t follow through. Maybe you’re good for a few weeks or a month, but then you lose your focus. Developing discipline to stay focused on your goal can get you over the hump and on track to the weight loss and happiness you desire. You don’t have to go after all bad habits at once- in fact, it’s probably not a good idea to do so. But it is a good idea to start gradually building your discipline for focusing on one or two things at a time.

3. Self-acceptance- Sometimes the things we think will bring us happiness in actuality will not. Be careful that you don’t get caught chasing perfection. Sometimes we think losing those last 10 pounds will make us happy, but then we think it’s something else that will do the job. I’m not saying don’t go after the last 10 pounds, but be careful that you’re stuck chasing after goal after goal thinking each one will bring you happiness only to find they don’t. What may be necessary is to work on your self-acceptance, and accepting yourself as you are- not endlessly chasing a sense of perfection that doesn’t exist.  

In the following video I explore these three categories and further explore this connection. I would be very interested in your experiences, and please share on this PEERtrainer thread.




The relationship between weight loss and happiness is something we go into in depth in the Point Of No Return Program. We are currently offering the first two weeks for free. You can learn more here.

Joshua Wayne is a Personal Development Coach and Trainer who focuses on weight loss, fitness and mind/body wellness. He is the co-creator (with PEERtrainer co-founder Jackie Wicks) of the “Point of No Return” training program that helps people adopt the thinking and behaviors necessary to finally get “un-stuck” and overcome frustration and hopelessness in their weight loss efforts.

Getting Motivated To Lose Weight

This is another key component to the basics of long term weight loss, how one gets and sustains the motivation to lose weight. Joshua Wayne continues his series of clips on some of these very basic and elemental things. Just so you know, I work to add a very practical layer to his clinical layer and we find the two very effective. These blogs, videos are all part of the free PEERtrainer Tip Of The Day weight loss coaching program.

We Live Up To Our Expectations Not Our Desires