A Personal Note from Me
It’s turkey time. I am already dreaming about the wonderful Thanksgiving getaway I’ll be sharing with my family at the “The Shapiro Local and Organic B&B”. It’s a Pittsburgh gem to where I often retreat. When the going gets tough, I go to Mom and Dad’s.
Being a health counselor, business owner, grad student, girlfriend, sister, daughter, and friend, I get busy. Throw in the holiday season and staying healthy can seem like another stress, even though I know my lifestyle habits keep me enthused and sane enough to see my life as rich with opportunity versus fraught with work.
There are a few great tips I’ve discovered that I want to share to help you during this extremely busy season. These will give you more time now, and when the holiday dust settles, make healthy habits an effortless part of your life. Before I get these tried-and-true tips, a couple of updates:
Upcoming Events with Me
For current and past clients, I am offering a “Staying Sane and Slim During the Holiday Season” teleclass. It’s a complimentary private class for current and past clients only and will be held Tuesday, November 24th at 7:30 p.m. I will send call-in details the second week of November, but mark your calendars now. If you don’t receive the information, please check your SPAM folder or email me.
In February, I will be starting a group program for those who want to learn the basics of healthy living as a moderate lifestyle rather than a time-consuming obsession. It will be a ten-week program meeting from February 2 till mid-April (a week spring break the first week of March) on Tuesday nights from 5:30-7:00 p.m. at Eviama Spa at S.17th Street in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. It’s a healing and comforting space where you’ll join a community of people wanting to reboot from these crazy times by getting back to basics. The investment on your part is only $599, and if you bring a friend, you both will save $50. It’s an incredible value for all you’ll learn and accomplish. More details to come but email me now if you are interested. There is limited space and it will fill up fast. It will change your life!
Lastly, I have some exciting news. Many of you know I went to Sweden this summer to study sustainability. For my final course paper, I wrote an e-book about how our food choices affect global warming. In America, it’s the number one contributor to greenhouse gases, much more than cars. My professor, Dr. Alan Barstow, has asked me to present the book at a kick-off event for the Sustainability concentration in my Master’s program at Penn. In addition, I received an A+ (I’ve always been a sucker for good grades). My book, The Roots of Going Green: Your Power, Your Fork, will be available online on my website for purchase after the event on November 14. It would make a great holiday gift for someone interested in a quick, funny read that empowers readers to save themselves and the planet.
Creating Time for Your Health
Ok, enough shameless self promotion. I’ve been debunking popular health myths in my previous emails (all which can be found here) and this month, I thought it would be appropriate to visit the “Being healthy is hard work. I don’t have time.” If ever there was a time excuse, it’s during the two crazy months from Halloween thru New Year’s. Here are seven ways (four of them being attitude adjustments) to get yourself out of the “time crunch” trap:
1. Being healthy is not hard work. Like anything you start, there is a learning curve. But eventually, it becomes as automatic and addicting as stopping at Starbucks for a grande Pumpkin Spice latte. Feeling fabulous is something you’ll want more and more of, especially if like most Americans, you don’t realize how crappy you actually feel (many clients I work with never realized their lagging energy, stomach problems, and anxiousness weren’t normal). To make healthy habits easy and sustainable, select one thing a week you can do to improve your health. One thing. Maybe eat breakfast at home. Maybe start to eat breakfast. Maybe read a book on wellness. Maybe start exercising once a week. In week two, add something else. In three months, you’ll be brand spanking new. The self-confidence that comes from following through on your commitment will have you dreaming bigger.
2. Know what healthy living means. It’s not beans and sprouts, going hungry and slogging hours at the gym while doing exercise you hate. Being healthy is the exact opposite of being a martyr! It’s indulging in delicious food, working out smart not hard, doing less, living more and having the energy to do the things that make you thrive, not just survive. It’s quite freeing in that feeling great liberates you to accomplish more! Here are some fun and healthy ways to incorporate the flavors of fall I shared with Lori Wilson on NBC.
3. View time management in terms of energy management or time production. We all get 24 hours in the day. This is the only thing that makes us all equal. How we spend that time is what differentiates our lives. Taking time to cook or fit in a work-out usually means less hours exhausted in front of the couch or at the doctor’s office or waiting in line for prescriptions…or even complaining and worrying about your aliments and weight (this is no longer restricted to nursing homes across America!). You accomplish more when you take care of yourself. I think of my friend, Nicole, otherwise known as Dr. Lipkin. She is a maniac in the best way possible. The quantity and quality of her output makes me look like a lazy ass. Nicole does cross-fit five days a week, eats as healthy as anyone I know, makes time for all her friends and just got certified to drive a Vespa, all the while doing national PR for her first book launch, Generation Y in the Workplace. Her time production is through the roof. As Nicole says about making her work-outs, and diet a priority, “It’s not an option for me. Without quality workouts and an ample, satisfying and healthy diet, I don’t function adequately in mind, body or spirit. There are no good excuses for not making quality exercise and good food a priority–there are only bad excuses for not living the lives we want to live.”
4. Think self-preservation versus being selfish. Taking time for yourself and saying “no” to your endless “to-do” is healthy in and of itself. Stop trying to please everyone because you can’t. No one will miss you that much at the 99th holiday party and you’ll stop missing valuable sleep and a chance to recharge. In effect, you’ll also miss out on the sugar binge that keeps you going in the moment yet feels like a hang-over the next day. This goes for all year. Prioritize what nourishes your spirit or what’s the point of all this madness?
5. Cook on weekends. I am not a huge cooking fan, and I hate dishes. I love cooking as long as I’m doing it once or twice a week (which also means one set of dishes!) My fascination with food is how it fuels me to live the life I want to live, not in complicated cooking techniques. So on Sundays, I hit the farmers market, put the Steelers game on and do the two-step: cook for two hours to make two soups, two side dishes and two main dishes. I learned quick and easy ways to cook and add vegetables to all of these meals. Bam! Done for the week! If I get inspired, maybe I’ll cook another night. While I enjoy those couple of hours cooking, I find an added benefit is that cooking this way is faster than take-out or going out to eat (even living in a city where I can walk to a restaurant in two minutes!). I’m always five minutes of re-heating away from a delicious, fuel-powering meal.
6. Invest in a crock-pot. These machines make me know the Universe wants people to cook. You throw in a bunch of ingredients, walk away and come home to a warm, aromatic dinner you can eat for the rest of the week if you wanted. Soups and stews work especially well here.
7. Work-out smart not hard. Long hours at the gym are unnecessary and can sabotage your health goals, particularly weight-loss. Learn about interval and weight training. Find a trainer who understands this; google it; invest in my “Supercharging Your Metabolism” teleclass here where I provide the knowledge and examples of these work-outs; do whatever it takes. You’ll reduce your gym time, waistline and your risk for disease. Less is more.
If there’s a will, there’s a very easy way to being healthy. For those of you who feel it’s more the emotional side of the equation that’s getting in your way, I strongly recommend purchasing the recording of my teleclass, “Divine Secrets of the Unemotional Eating Sisterhood”, which got rave reviews last month. I had several people email me about “aha” moments they had and new perspectives on why they overeat. The holiday season is a huge source of overeating for many of us. If you want to be able to indulge in just one or two peanut butter blossoms or Christmas cookie cut-outs and not arrive January 1 with another five pounds to lose, I highly recommend this call. It’s available for purchase here. And you can download it to your iPod, so there’s no excuse about not having the time! All of the other calls I’ve hosted are also available for purchase here. It could be your one thing this week you do for you and your health.
As we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, remember the gratitude piece of this season. It sometimes gets lost in the turkey, stuffing and too much pumpkin pie, yet it’s especially important during these turbulent times. Life usually cracks us open so the light can shine in. Make this time count. When we know better, we do better and in effect, feel better.
Gobble gobble,
Ali
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This Newsletter is written by Ali Shapiro and www.alishapiro.com. If you have any questions or comments, please send them to: ali@alishapiro.com
