success secrets for every one

Many clients ask for help with weight management. Below are some of the key tips I share with them:
1. Turn the TV off while eating -- Eating in front of the TV or pc screen tends to induce hypnosis. In this state our critical faculty becomes disengaged, which is why we can cry at a sad movie that we know is not real, and why time can pass so rapidly when in front of the pc. If we eat in this state we miss many of the cues that tell us we're satisfied. To manage your eating, never eat in front of the TV or pc screen.


2. Eat what you feel like eating - Remember, no food in and of itself is fattening - it's the excess of food that puts the weight on. Allow yourself to eat what you feel like, consciously, in small quantities and only at meal times. Denial just isn't the way to go. Being reasonable is.
3. Ditch the Scales - Scale weight can fluctuate wildly depending on many factors not necessarily directly connected with eating. The real indicator of how well you're doing is the fit of your clothes and the way you feel inside. You know you're doing fine when you can fit into that dress or those trousers that were previously bursting at the seams. Focusing on scale weight does you no favours and can even de-motivate you. Let your clothes and feelings tell you how well you're doing instead.
4. Smaller plates equal smaller quantities - The way food is presented to the eye influences the way the mind perceives it. Remember, the average adult stomach is only about the size of a fist. It really doesn't take all that much food to fill and satisfy it. By using smaller plates, we programme the subconscious mind to appreciate and accept a plateful of food, thereby increasing our chances of eating more reasonable quantities.
5. Eat something starchy -- Glycogen is the fuel of the brain and this is produced from carbohydrates. Insufficient quantities of glycogen affect our mental functioning and consequently our mood. And we know that overeating has a lot to do with mood and how we feel. So make sure you eat some complex carbohydrates - whole wheat bread, brown rice, etc - in order to give your brain, and your mind, what it needs. The key here, of course, is moderation.
6. End emotional eating - Eat only when hungry. Easier said than done? Well, it's as easy as A B C. A: When you feel like putting something into your mouth STOP and ask yourself if it's really hunger, or is it boredom, frustration, loneliness or some other emotion that you're attempting to feed? B: Identify the cause of the feeling. Give it a name. Only then can you really do something about it - other than eating. C: Take care of the feeling. For example, if it's boredom, maybe this means you need to challenge yourself a bit more; if it's frustration, perhaps you need to change what you've been doing, so try something else. Loneliness means we have a healthy need for human company: talk to a friend, call someone, develop an outside interest that involves others. You get the idea - A B C.
7. Learn to listen to your inner self - You have your own inner wisdom that knows exactly what you need in order to be healthy. Learn to listen to it. Diets don't usually take this into account. They work at the symptom level - the overeating - and on denial: 'No, you can't have this'; 'No you mustn't have that'. And each time the inner self is being ignored. Then, when the diet is at an end, the weight is put right back on again, often with a vengeance! The fact is that the more we understand our feelings and what they're telling us, the more in control we are capable of becoming. There's a lot to be said for working with a good therapist who knows how to help you in this area.
8. Chew each bite thoroughly - There is a saying in India: 'Drink your food'. What's meant by this is that food should be so thoroughly chewed that it becomes paste-like and easy to swallow. Often, people gobble their food without really chewing it. Needless to say, this does nothing for the waistline! A useful trick is to put your eating utensils down in between mouthfuls. Change the way you treat food in your mouth and you give your body the very best chance of proper absorption and your mind of knowing when your stomach is full.
9. Drink plenty of fresh water - Not only does water re-hydrate your body, replenishing tissue and cells and washing away toxins, it can also provide a pleasant sense of fullness in the stomach, reducing the 'Eat! Eat! Eat! messages that the brain receives. Thirst is a poor indicator of the body's need for liquids and if we drink only when thirsty we end up drinking far too little. Drink more water and notice the improvement in your health - and in the way you feel!
10. Do NOT beat yourself up if you slip - Mistakes are there to be learned from, which is why psychologists call them 'successive approximations'. Each time we make a mistake it's an opportunity to learn how to get it right. So do just that. Then pick yourself up and get on with it. Persevere. You know you can do it!
Peter Field is a Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Health and one of the foremost hypno-psychotherapists in the UK. He holds clinics in London and Birmingham, England. More interesting articles can be found on his website: Peter Field Hypnotherapy

A 56-YEAR-OLD Japanese woman has donated half of her pancreas to treat her daughter's diabetes. It is the first time a living donor has donated part of this organ.
After removing the pancreatic tissue at Kyoto University Hospital in Japan on 19 January, James Shapiro of the University of Alberta in Canada and his colleagues extracted the islet cells and transplanted them into the woman's 27-year-old daughter



The islet cells began producing insulin minutes after the transplant, says Shapiro, who in 2000 developed the so-called "Edmonton protocol. This is a procedure for isolating and transplanting islet cells taken from cadavers or people pronounced brain dead, and a cocktail of drugs to prevent rejection. It appears to cure diabetes - although patients have to take the anti-rejection drugs for life - but so far only 500 people have been treated worldwide because of a severe shortage of islet cells from the usual sources.
"There are more cells in half a living pancreas than from two whole ones from cadavers," says Shapiro. "I personally think the technique could increase availability enormously."
Surviving with half a pancreas should not be a problem for healthy donors, Shapiro adds, though there is a slight risk they may develop diabetes themselves if too much is removed.

EDMC (ARA) - Everybody knows that exercise is good. Doctors have told us for years that exercise can help us lose weight, look better, feel better, and even sleep better. However, exercise sounds like work, and many of us claim that we just don't have time to add more work to our daily lives.

Dr. Bart Lerner (EdD), president of Argosy University, Phoenix, offers guidelines for approaching an exercise regimen than can help everyone benefit from exercise. Lerner says, "Simply stated, sport-exercise psychology can be defined as mental management of physical resources. Staying mentally focused is the most important factor."

To build motivation for exercise, Lerner recommends outlining the reasons why you want to participate in the activity. Some people exercise to improve their performance in a sport, while others exercise to tone muscles, or socialize with friends at a gym. "There is usually more than one reason why we exercise," Lerner says, "The number one reason is weight control. It could be to lose extra weight gained throughout the year or to address health problems that have a tendency to appear in overweight people."

Making changes in your environment can help keep motivation levels high. If your exercise equipment sits in the basement, consider moving it to a more convenient spot in your house. If you don't have the facilities at home, purchase a gym membership. "When you provide for successful exercise experiences, good things can happen," says Lerner, "You don't have to do three sets of 10 from the start. Provide realistic goals. Doing one set will give you success, and you can build on that success each time."

Lerner also suggests making your exercise fun. "People are less likely to see exercise as a chore when it contains elements of fun. Consider adding music as a motivator during the session. Mix it up a bit by varying the content or sequence of the workout. Work on arms and legs one day, and legs and stomach the next," says Lerner, "By setting realistic goals that you can achieve frequently, you feel satisfied along the way. As you progress in the level of your workout, you'll feel better. At that point, the workout becomes its own motivator."

Lerner says that those who seek to benefit from working out should exercise three to five days a week for 25 to 45 minutes at a time. During each session, try to reach 60 percent to 70 percent of your maximal heart rate. A simple formula for figuring maximal heart rate is to take 220 and subtract your age. Each time you exercise, try to reach 60 percent of that number. To find your heart rate, feel your pulse and count the beats for ten seconds. Multiply by six to get the heart rate per minute.

"Exercise can reduce the chances of heart disease and hypertension, and reduce stress," Lerner says, "It releases endorphins in the brain, which can add to our emotional well-being. Exercise also makes one more aware of self, and can build confidence."

Content Provided By EDMC

When working toward goals or striving for success in any endeavor, self-discipline is one vital quality you need to have. Most of us cringe at the thought because it brings to mind instant visions of sacrifice, difficulty and strain.

However, discipline doesn’t have to be so hard. The problem occurs when you try to go from having no self-discipline to forcing yourself to undertake a heavy load of responsibility. Talk about pressure!


Below are three easy ways to become more disciplined with a minimum of discomfort:

1) First, change your attitude about discipline. One reason you may not be disciplined is because you think the activities or chores you need to do will be unpleasant in some way. The most common reaction to thoughts like that is to put the activities aside or avoid them until you feel ready to handle them.

Instead, pump yourself up and get motivated to get them done as soon as possible! Look forward to the challenge and keep affirming how great you’ll feel when you’re finished. Focus on the sense of personal accomplishment you’ll gain with every task and you’ll be much more likely to stick to your plans.

2) Make self-discipline a gradual process. Rather than trying to force yourself into submission with a big list of tasks or activities, go a little easier on yourself to start.

Identify one small task or activity that you can use for practice. Make it something fairly easy to accomplish each day, and then make sure you do it. If you have to, post notes of encouragement everywhere or wear an elastic band around your wrist as a reminder. If possible, get this one task out of the way first thing in the morning before you do anything else. Make it your highest priority and it will soon become a solid habit.

Then, begin adding more tasks or activities – or increase the size or frequency of the original task so you’re doing more each day. Little by little, keep increasing it like that and eventually you’ll find that you’re doing the things you set out to do without excuses or procrastination.

3) Commitment. If you’re not fully committed to achieving your goals, you’ll probably have a harder time pushing yourself to work on them. Make a solemn vow to yourself that you will do what it takes to work on your goals every single day. Write a list of important action steps and make it your mission to do one or more of them each day. Re-commit yourself as often as necessary to make sure you stick to your plans.

More than anything else, self-discipline is a favorable result of a series of wise decisions that you make each day. Choose to be disciplined, choose to be successful – and you will b