Self Discipline

This past week I shared about self-discipline at the Fire Up Club meeting. The first question I asked the group was to define self-discipline. There were many good answers, but I like the definition that I found from the Webster’s Dictionary: the correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement. All the members liked the definition too since we are making changes in our lives for the sake of improvement.

The second question I asked was “how do people get self-discipline?” I think sometimes we are all under the impression that self-disciplined people were born that way or have strong will power. Dr. Henry Cloud disagrees with this. He believes that self-disciplined people are disciplined well from the outside and they internalized it & apply what they’ve learned to their lives. I learned this from the recent Woman of Faith (WOF) conference that I attended in early June. Dr. Henry Cloud was a guest speaker and shared about how we can achieve our dreams in life by becoming self-disciplined. Did you see these words: becoming self-disciplined? This means that if you’re not self-disciplined you can become self-disciplined. This gives me hope.

The third question that I asked the ladies was “What are outside sources to help you develop self-discipline?” Dr. Henry Cloud shared three sources.

The first is God. We all need the grace of God to become self-disciplined and we need to pray and ask God for His help.

The second source is people. Are you trying to make your journey across the desert alone? What are you thinking? People can help you develop the self-discipline that you don’t have. We need structure from other places, we don’t possess structure and discipline because we’re not God. We are the created and not the creator. We need others to help us. Tiger Woods has a coach. Find one.

The third source is what Dr. Henry Cloud called “play the movie.” Every person who reaches a goal plays the movie forward. Every day is not only today only – it is only a scene in the movie and we ask how will this play out? This motivates us. Ask yourself the question: if you continue to not take steps, do you like how the movie ends? How much is your activity bringing you toward your goal? What kind of structure do you need and where will you get it?

At the end of the meeting I gave ladies the following homework assignment:

Dream your dream, “play your movie”. What structure do you need to have your movie end the way you want it (make sure you’re realistic). How can other people help you develop self-discipline? Find areas in your life that you are already self-disciplined and see how you can adapt this self-disciplined to other areas of you life.

I’ll be talking more about self-discipline at Monday’s meeting. See you then.

Fire Up Eating Helps to Lower Cholesterol

A member of the Fire Up Club shared with me that her cholesterol is now within normal range limits after she joined the Fire Up Club in February. Her cholesterol reading was above 300 and it is now 184. She doesn't have to be on cholesterol medicine now.

My cholesterol before I began my lifestyle change was 150. It was 90 when I had it checked last summer. My LDL also decreased by 50%.

I once told myself that I could eat anything that I wanted and that it wouldn't impact my overall health. I was surely decieved. I'm a firm believer now that I need to continue sowing good eating habits today so that I may reap the health benefits tomorrow.

I've been doing a lot of traveling in the past couple of weeks and have missed not seeing all the Fire Up Club members. I hope you all are well and I look forward to catching up with you in a few weeks.

Fire Up Club Approved Recipes

Orange-Vanilla Fruit Dip

1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1/2 cup light, fat-free vanilla yogurt
1 tsp grated orange peel
Fresh Fruit (strawberries are the best)

Combined cottage cheese, yogurt and orange peel in a blender or food processor and blend on high speed until smooth, about 30 seconds.

Spoon orange-vanilla dip into a small bowl and place a portion of fresh fruit on the side for dipping. Serve and enjoy.


Turkey Sloppy Joes

1.5 lbs lean ground turkey
1 cup chopped onions
2 gloves garlic, minced

3/4 cup catsup
1/2 cup chopped green sweet pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup water
1 to 2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey mustard
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1.5 teaspoon chili powder

8 whole wheat mini-squares

In a large skillet, cook ground turkey, onion, and garlic until meat is brown and onion is tender. Drain off fat.

Meanwhile, in a 3.5 or 4-quart crockery cooker combine catsup, green sweet pepper, celery, water, brown sugar, honey mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and chili powder. Stir in meat mixture.

Cover; cook on low-heat setting 6 to 8 hours or on high-heat setting for 3 or 4 hours. Spoon onto toasted mini-sqaures. Makes 8 servings

Pizza Party

The Fire Up Club will be celebrating all the successful changes in lifestyles that ladies have done since Jan 1. For ladies who have weighed in 5 times or more since January, the total weight loss for the group is 184 pounds. As one lady shared at our meeting this week, "this is one whole person." Way to go ladies!!

To celebrate, we are having a pizza party at our next meeting. We will be indulging in whole wheat pizza with salad. This will be followed by a tasteful dessert made with fresh fruit and a favorite yogurt dip of mine. Dinner will be followed by the Nutrition Twin Trivia Game. The game will have questions from the Nutrition Twin's book and other materials that we've covered since January. There will be prizes. Who said that eating healthy can't be fun?

Nancy's Easy Chicken & Rice Recipe

I made the following dish for a birthday party this past Sunday. Everyone liked it and many people have requested the recipe. I hope you enjoy it.

Ingrediants
3 pounds skinless boneless chicken breast
1 cup brown rice
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt or less
1.5 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tablespoon flakes)
dash of pepper
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped celary
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup rasions
1/2 cup chopped almonds

Place all ingredients except for the chicken into a 4 quart pan. Stir and bring to boil. Salt and pepper chicken. Lay chicken on top of ingredients. Lower heat to simmer and cover tightly. Cook 45-60 minutes until water is absorbed and chicken is tender.

Phrases to Help Us Continue On Our Lifestyle Change

For the past few weeks, I've heard or read phrases that can help us to stay on our journey of changing lifestyles and living healthy. I hope they encourage you as much as they do me.

For the ladies - eat like a lady and not like a big man. This is a phrase that one of the Fire Up Club ladies shared. She came up with it one night when she at a buffet with her family. She said the phrase helped her to minimize the number of times that she went to the buffet and helped her to control her portion sizes.

Finally, believe that your body image does not have to be limited to body weight changes only. Body image changes include how we relate to other people, how much we allow our thoughts about our body to affect our moods and how we interact socially.

True change cannot be rooted in external changes that work only as temporary band-aid to cover up a problem, but must be rooted from the inside out. To be successful in body image change, you need to OWN your own body and its ability to change. Begin implementing and maintaining these changes as an on-going lifestyle, not without set backs but always without judgement.

(Source: Rev It Up Manual, Tammy Beasley, RD, LD, CEDSN; 2005).

The Emotional Connection to Eating

For two weeks, the Fire Up Club members have learned about how our emotions sometimes impact our eating.

One of the guest speakers provided the following tips for breaking the cycle of eating for an emotion.

1. Journal when a craving occurs. Explore the particular event and the emotions that are associated with it. Begin to identify the ‘triggers’ that lead to the need to eat. Emotional triggers become patterns.
2. Separate eating from other activities. If you sit in your chair, watch TV or read the morning paper while eating everyday, you will feel like eating during these activities, irrespective or physical hunger.
3. Consider eating as a pure experience. Nothing else should be done while eating and every bite should be tasted (each bite should have 10-12 chews). Activities become a distraction from eating.
4. Follow an eating schedule. Just by changing or planning an eating schedule or controlling the number of times you eat can make a difference.
5. Limit the places where you eat. Places can be associated with eating. Some people can eat anywhere, but the best practice is to have one place in your home where you will eat.
6. Set realistic goals. Being realistic with your goals helps to prevent disappointment and a sense of failure that could lead to breaking your diet. You can sometimes set yourself up for a fall.
7. Make intermittent goals. In other words don’t make goals you can’t maintain, but constantly review where you are and where you need to be, and change the goals as you gain more insight into your own eating patterns.
8. Keep a food record. Record everything you eat. It could get as detailed as when, where, and what you’re doing while eating. This way, you can keep track of how many calories you have in your food account. It’s the single most effective behavioral tool to losing weight.
9. Avoid a chain reaction. Some of us eat because of behavior we’re used to doing and continue to repeat. For example, we get stressed which leads to eating a cookie, which means falling off the weight loss plan, which leads to depression or which leads to eating more or all of the cookies. It’s a chain reaction. In this case, break the chain with a non-food reward. Instead of a cookie, treat yourself to a hot bath or some other activity.
10. Reward yourself. Rewarding yourself for doing well too, but NOT with food helps to give you a sense of accomplishment. Instead of a candy bar, buy a favorite trinket, CD, or read a book, take a bubble bath – give some time to yourself and do some self-nurturing.
11. Do the following if craving doesn' stop. If a craving just won’t stop, then give yourself permission to have a little of something or substitute it with something healthier – even gum can help as it gives us the chewing motion.
    
    MOST IMPORTANTLY: Learn, Understand and Accept Your Value and Worth. God paid a high price for YOU! You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Search the scriptures and see how much value you are, from Genesis to Revelation – it’s all in there.