3 Simple Things To Step Outside Of Your Comfort Zone

Some of us are quite addicted to staying in our comfort zone – because we feel really safe there. Most of the time this means we stay still, in one place and do not accomplish anything. Making a positive change to our lifestyle can be very difficult because the unknown and growing as a person may be uncomfortable and scary.

If you are feeling this way, there are three simple things that you can do to help yourself step outside of your comfort zone more easily and achieve your goal:

Small steps

What holds us back in our zone of comfort is often fear or that facing our fear head on might be overwhelming. Doing things in small steps will allow you to stretch your comfort zone, slowly making it less uncomfortable and frightening to change your lifestyle.

Positive past

It is important to realise that it can be fun to get out of your comfort zone despite what your mind and feelings might be telling you before you get started on your new weight loss journey. Think back to the previous times when you have broken out of your comfort zone. Focus on the positive memories, when you got out there, when you took a chance. And you will probably remember that it was not so bad, it was actually fun and exciting and something new to you. You can do it again – with great rewards!

Educate yourself

Your comfort zone might be protecting you from imaginary dangers. Maybe changing your lifestyle is not as difficult or scary as you are imagining it to be? When we know very little about something then it is very easy to start building nightmares in our mind. A simple thing that will often ground you more in reality and remove a lot of the fear that has held you back is simply to do a bit of research.

Read all the information available and ask someone who has been there before and gone where you want to go all about their experience. By learning from people who have already done the thing you are about to do you can lessen inner resistance and negative feelings and also get some very valuable and practical tips.

Do not let your comfort zone hold you back from achieving your weight loss goal! You deserve it.


Source: Cohen's Weightloss Clinic

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Make A Decision And Focus

Keep your focus on things that are useful

The things that you dwell on in your conscious mind, grow in your experience, so the key to success is to focus your conscious mind on the things you desire, not the things you may fear. This is very important and sometimes clients do not grasp the full extent of it. When your focus is split and you fill your mind with a normal amount of negativity or dwell on times that you slipped up with your Eating Plan, you are using up valuable time, energy and available focus to pull yourself backwards and to make mountains out of molehills. Problems will seem to become even bigger in your mind than they actually are, because you are dwelling on them.
However, opportunities and gratitude work in the same way if you dwell on them. What you focus on is what you will see in your reality (opportunities vs more reasons why “you are never going to get there”). What you dwell on becomes bigger and bigger in your mind and what you think about is what you will act upon. That is why it is so important to keep your focus and your thoughts in the right place and on the positive and useful things in your life as much as you can. If you focus on the negative and irrelevant stuff it is quite likely that you never will reach your goal.

Ask yourself helpful questions

It can be helpful to ask yourself two questions after every difficult situation you face: "What did I do that was right?" and "What would I do differently next time?" The questions you ask yourself in life will determine much of your outlook and success. If you ask negative questions like "What is bad about this situation?" then you are creating a lot of unhappiness and victim thinking. If you on the other hand keep it to useful and empowering questions, then your chances of succeeding and reaching your goal will go up.

Focus on the activities that bring you results 

There are a lot of people who perform activities that are tension relieving, rather than goal achieving. You may like to just take it easy or relieve tension, but you end up creating more of it by procrastinating and complaining instead of doing. It seems easier on the surface but in the long run it tends to cause you more disappointment. Of course, you must take time to relax, but find a good and helpful balance for the two aspects of life and the best ways and most positive ways to relieve tension. You could take up meditation in some form or watch a good movie or just read a magazine or newspaper.

Make a decision and do something

Decisiveness is a great characteristic and usually any decision is better than no decision at all. It is one of the most fundamental things that hold clients back. Sitting on your hands and hoping that someone else will do something for you usually results in a lot of waiting. Just make a decision and take the first step. The sky will most likely not fall if you fail or have a few hick ups along the way - You may just feel bad for a short while and learn a few things by asking some simple questions. Then you make a new decision based on what you have learned and take action again!



Source: Cohen's Lifestyle Clinic

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Making lifestyle decisions for our future generations

There has been a lot of discussion on Facebook given the Biggest Loser is about to air! One of the discussions is about our children, our next generations. What would you do for your child if they had a weight problem? Why did it get to that point to start with? Children need role models, they learn and then follow what you do! It's all about what you put in your mouth. You make the decision to purchase processed food. Those decisions are then made by our children. Eat the way nature intended us to eat. It does not mean you eat massive portions either. It's about teaching our future generations about what is good for their body. Seriously, has a box of cereal on the shelf really got 50% more calcium? I don't think so! if it did, it would not be on a shelf in a box with an expiry date! Processed food is all about economics, making big companies more money! What you do at home sets the example for our next generations! Remember, 80% what you eat 20% exercise. We would never have weight problems if we did this! I had a weight problem, and for me it was about bad habits. I wasn't sitting there eating a stack of food, I was just eating the wrong food or nothing at all! But I learnt these bad habits from home. It's all I knew!

Let's start by setting examples!  Let's get healthy together and change our lifestyles for good!

I now know new habits and my body is loving me!  I will now be able to change what I had been taught and teach my children a new way of life!



I would encourage you all to post comments and examples of how we can do this.


LET'S DO IT! 

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Margaret Homsy's Journey

You live on the verge of healthy. 

You start your 'diet' every other day.

You look at people like me and think - how do they do it and I could never be like that. The truth is getting healthy is easy and YOU CAN DO IT

Health is a mindset! Health is an attitude! Health is what you define it to be. 
There is no one size fits all plan.

You CAN be like me. In fact, you are just like me! 
I dislike getting up early in the morning and doing exercise and watching what I need to eat!
I used to be able to eat a family sized block of chocolate without blinking.
 And I definitely have tried many weird FAD diets too.

Stop looking from the outside and fearing failure.
 Step up.
 Make a decision.
 Create your healthy dream.


You are not alone.

This is part of my story.

I had trouble climbing the staircase and I started to avoid going out unless it was to work.  But I was always the "life of the party", the girl everyone wanted to be around; but was it real?

I was moody and it caused serious problems in my relationships (which would then see me binging). 

I didn't realise it at the time, but now I know I was morbidly obese. What is obese?

The World Health Organisation has termed obesity as a disease of epidemic proportions. "It is a slow creeping killer whose seriousness we refuse to accept. Obesity leads to hypertension, diabetes, heart ailments, joint problems and sleep disorders". In a nutshell, you live shorter and suffer more.

I kept hearing words like you will develop diabetes. You will have a heart attack.  The oddest thing about all those things and to make myself feel better, I would go to the Doctor who would do all the physical tests, like blood pressure, blood tests, and you know what all came back normal.  Who would have thought someone who was breaking the scales at 161kg could be “healthy” according to laboratory statistics.  But in saying that, I was diagnosed with Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome and I was told to take “pills” that are given to diabetics.  I never took the pills!  I was insulin resistant!  So in theory whatever I put into my mouth would end up as stored fat in any case!  Well so I thought….. 

All my life I was a yo yo dieter, could never stick to anything and always blamed someone else for my problem.  I could not even go shopping without breaking a sweat and again to hide the pain and make myself feel better, I would purchase what ‘fit” me, SHOES!

I did the same with food!  I would use it not to fuel my body but to hide the void, cover up those emotions and make myself feel better for a short period of time!

I got to the point in my life where something had happened!  Was it the warnings I was always told about?  YES!  It was that point in my life at my heaviest where I was told: “If you don’t lose weight, you will not be able to have children”.   

The Doctor’s words have haunted me for many years!  It wasn’t enough though as I would lose then, gain, as I would not stick to any type of program long enough to see it through!  In this tornado part of my journey, I had shed 40kg, through everything and anything possible.  I wanted the easy way out; but it was not sustainable!

In 2011, I saw a photograph of myself and realised at that point that I was huge.  I weighed in at 121kg and I HAD ENOUGH.  It didn’t help when our local homeless man had yelled out to me as I rushed home to catch the bus.  They say “honesty is the best policy”, but did he have to say it so loud.  He yelled out: “Hey you, you are so fat, you should go on the biggest loser”.  As I held my head down in shame, I pretended I did not hear him and I had a bucket of tears rolling down my face.  Did this man save my life?  Did he give me the freedom I always wanted?  YES and I am grateful for his honesty!  This wasn’t the first time someone had taunted me about my weight, it happened most of my life, but it is the first time that I actually believed it!

I started seriously researching different programs and speaking with various Doctors about a controlled diet that would fix my insulin resistance. Most suggested I go under the knife and do lap banding, or continue to take the “diabex” (which I never took) but I am a chicken and don’t like prescription pills so I could never do that to my body.

I came across Cohen’s Lifestyle Clinic and by 23 January 2012 I signed up and started my plan!  The first few days were hard as my body was detoxing, but after that I felt the weight fall off.  I felt no more heart burn, I had energy, my skin was glowing, my relationships were getting better and I felt incredible.  I lost 55kg on Cohen’s in 10 months and I have kept it off!!!  I shrunk in height by 4cm so my goal weight has shifted into the 50’s.  So I am on plan to lose a few more to get to that goal!  My god, have I ever been that weight?  

When I tell people I have lost 95kg, I don't know if they are shocked or proud.  I'm still shocked!  The funniest thing is when I tell them I still have a bit more to go!!! Priceless!

I am so passionate about this eating plan that I opened my own clinic in Sydney to help others on this rough journey!  I wish the whole world knew about Cohen’s.  It has helped thousands of people all around the world to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle!

So when you do look at me and think "how did she do it", know that I have had a similar journey and you too can feel as incredible as I do...... 

Stay tuned as my journey continues… 

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