Yesterday’s post was all about the importance of being personally committed to your weight loss and fitness goals instead of making a resolution to lose weight just because it’s a New Year. Well I haven’t given you an update on my personal progress for a couple of weeks because of how the holidays fell on the past 2 Mondays, and I’d like to bring you up to date.

First I’d like to mention that I didn’t make any resolutions for 2008, however I did set some goals. What’s the difference between resolutions and goals? The goals I’ve set for myself are not new and I know that I can accomplish them because I previously was living a healthy lifestyle until I got back into my unhealthy ways and my sugar addiction. Now I am committed to achieving these goals because I am sick and tired of feeling sickly (and tired!).

Yes, when I eat processed, dead food I don’t feel well at all. In fact I rarely get sick when I’m eating clean like I learned from the Six Week Body Makeover lifestyle, and I feel just wonderful. The problem is my sugar addiction (also addicted to white flour, added salt, unhealthy fats, and dairy) and the fact that I’ve been in denial about it. The result of my denial is that I have a resistance to getting back on the healthy track, but you know what? Either I do this or I may as well stop writing about my passionate beliefs that the processed food industry is a core component of the obesity epidemic. If I don’t live the example of how excellent you can feel by getting off the processed, sugared, fatted, salted foods, then how am I helping you?

It is also true that a main reason that I am getting back to healthy eating and exercise is because I want to improve my quality of life. My entire life I’ve been reading, studying, and doing inner work on myself and I strongly believe in the power of the mind and the spirit. If I do not clean up my physical self however, it’s a bit difficult to raise my vibration to higher levels of consciousness.

The processed, dead food really brings you down, that’s just how it is. It doesn’t vibrate at a high level and since refined sugar is so addictive, that definitely drags a body down. I want to clear and release the old thoughts and emotions that don’t serve a higher purpose and as long as I continue to eat as I have been, I have a hard time getting in to the highest space possible. The dead food filled with chemicals, additives, preservatives and sugars just keeps me wanting more and more of the same and keeps me in the whirlpool of addiction, which is not a positive space to be in!

Now that I’ve given you a bit of background, here are my health related goals that I’ve set for myself in 2008:

1. Eat clean, whole, tasty foods like I have learned to do with the Six Week Body Makeover lifestyle plan.

2. Stay off the processed, dead foods that only help me to gain weight and feel lousy.

3. Do The 5 Rites every morning. The 5 Rites aren’t exercises as far as being cardio or strength training, but I always feel better when I include them in my daily routine.

4. Maintain a regular exercise schedule of paced walking at least 3 – 5 times a week (preferably 5) in my target heart rate zone for a minimum of 30 minutes each time, and 2 sessions of body sculpting exercises per week. The body sculpting is also strength training and I use resistance bands instead of free weights.

Here are two more goals I’ve set for the year. These will help me in a spiritual/emotional/motivational aspect, which can especially help me since I’m an emotional eater:

1. Complete A Course In Miracles. I started The Course in 1992 and have picked it back up off and on since then, however I have never completed it. I believe that overeating and overweight have much more to do with other issues besides food, spirituality and your thoughts playing a very large role. I’m not completing A Course In Miracles because I think it will help me lose weight so much as it’s a part of the bigger picture of my life that will positively affect my overeating and emotional eating habits. Emotional eating is often done to fill a void, which food can never fill.

2. Complete the Anthony Robbins’ Personal Power series that I started before the holiday season began. I had completely forgotten that Tony Robbins was an emotional eater until I unpacked that series. He teaches you how to get leverage on yourself so that you take action and complete your goals. Since I’ve had ups and downs with my motivation in the past, completing this series will give me more leverage to keep going and complete my weight loss goals.

I have additional goals for the years, a major one including growing this weight loss and fitness blog. Like I mentioned above, I do passionately believe that the processed food industry is a key component in the obesity epidemic, and if I can help motivate anyone out there by providing an example of what getting off the processed food can do for you, then I feel like I am doing something positive. Additionally, I am working on getting completely organized. This might not sound like it relates to weight loss at all, however I recall reading something about how this ties into sugar addiction in the book The Sugar Addict’s Total Recovery Program.

If you’d like to stick around and see the transformation on my end I invite you to. I also invite you to take an inventory of where you stand today and where you’d like to be 6 months from now. Are your goals in line with getting you what you want, or are your actions taking you further away from where you want to end up? Do you have a purpose and a plan for your health and weight in 2008? I’d love to hear what your plans are and where you want to be 6 months from now. With a plan, goals, motivation and a purpose, we can get there together!

My recent stats as of Tuesday, January 1, 2008 – Weight – 163 Inches – 294.25