Hi everyone, welcome to the Love to Live Healthy show. I’m Josephine Fitzpatrick. Today’s episode is Feeling Overwhelmed. It’s summer and we are all feeling overwhelmed right now. 

00:43

Life can often feel like a series of challenges, so you’re not alone if you feel stretched, thin and exhausted. You know, between work, family, social schedules, let’s not forget taking care of your mental and physical health, which, for an overwhelmed person, will always take a backseat when we have busy schedules. And you know, when we feel this overwhelmed, that’s when that little voice, that little anxiety whispers in your ear. You’re dropping the ball, you’re letting people down, you’re just not good enough, you’re not strong enough to get through this. But you are strong enough and good enough. But sometimes It helps just to know that overwhelmed feeling is only temporary. I tell you all the time you’re so much stronger than life’s challenges, even if it seems impossible at the moment. I can’t tell you how often I will have a client come into my office that is just overwhelmed in their life and they don’t connect it with why they can’t stay on program. They will say things like what is wrong with me? Why can’t I do this? And I have to tell them. You have to just continue to take it, one day at a time when you feel overwhelmed in your life. It’s going to affect you trying to take care of yourself. It always does. You know our lives are full of responsibilities, right, like I said before, work-related, family commitments, social obligations. And then you put summer on top of it, when we expect to get so much done and we’re not getting it done because we’re busy doing everything else. You know we get drained. It’s like having the browser tabs open on your computer. Eventually it’s going to crash or your batteries run out and you can’t find your charger. Everything in that moment of time just feels so hard. 

02:18

To give you a great example I have a client who is doing amazing on program. She was doing amazing for the longest time and then she had some really hard challenges go on in her life. It just completely threw her off. She just couldn’t get back mentally on program and with the school year ending and kids going to camp, and she had social vacations planned, to her It all felt like a waste of time to even try. But to me, I know her better, which, honestly, a lot of times I know my clients better than they know themselves and they don’t realize that and it’s because I’m looking at them from a completely different mindset. I know they can do it even when they don’t think they can. So every week she would come in and she started feeling like coming in week after week was even more frustrating. You know all the challenges she went through was so difficult. She kept thinking Is it really even worth coming in? She was maintaining or gaining a pound here and there and it was so frustrating for her she just couldn’t bring herself to be a hundred percent back on program. 

03:12

But let me point out one thing that I was very happy about she knew she wasn’t being a hundred percent and I can’t tell you how important that is. When someone is trying to move forward, you have to be honest with yourself. You know that’s what living in your truth is. It’s like AA. You have to admit you’re not doing the right things in order to stop doing them. You have to admit you’re not doing the right things in order to move forward. So for me, I was so proud of her for coming in and admitting I’m not 100%. I know why I’m maintaining or gaining, but of course that doesn’t make it better, doesn’t make it feel better. It doesn’t make it less frustrating just because she knew she wasn’t being a hundred percent. It still felt just as frustrating. For me it meant that she was being honest with herself and eventually, because she was being honest with herself, it would work. 

04:00

She would get back to that mindset and, sure enough, after a couple of weeks she kept coming in and all of a sudden she lost. And then she lost again, and then she lost again and she was back. She was back mentally. She had control back. And you know it was so uplifting and important, because when she was coming in every week when she wasn’t 100% and wasn’t losing she was contemplating stop coming and she would say should I keep coming and I was like you have to because if you don’t what is the alternative? The alternative is you gain every week and you never get to your low again. So it was really a great feeling when she started seeing and losing every week and now, two weeks ago, she was at her new low. I mean, that’s amazing. She never felt better. It was more than just the weight loss it was feeling so accomplished she did it. 

04:47

The point is when she was coming in even when it was frustrating It kept her mindful, knowing she was coming in kept her in control even when she wasn’t 100%. That’s a big part of it. Like she didn’t go crazy, she didn’t go off the rails. She knew, okay, I gained a pound, but it would have been five if she wasn’t coming. So being mindful is really important when you know you don’t have that 100% control yet, and I can’t tell you how many times this happens with clients, because we will not always be in that mindset to do it. We will not always be in the mindset to be 100%, but if we keep working at it, I promise you it will all click, it will all happen, and I have so many clients to prove that it does happen. 

05:21

So keep moving forward, because we have to remember we live in such a hard world today. Okay, it doesn’t help at all that the modern world constantly bombards us with images of successful people. You know, through social media, tv ads, even peer comparisons. You know it’s sometimes so unrealistic, the standards, and it can lead you to a sense of inadequacy and the feeling that we’re not doing enough, which that’s what pushes us into the state of being overwhelmed to begin with. So the bottom line or lesson that I’m trying to get across to you today is no matter how overwhelmed you feel when it comes to losing weight or taking care of your health, the best thing you can do is keep doing things to move you forward, especially this time of year, when you’re feeling extra challenged. 

06:05

I want you to try practicing some of these helpful tips. One, breathe when you feel overwhelmed. Breathe and think before you grab so many times we grab for something to take our thoughts away from the present, or we grab because we were just mindlessly eating. Either way, breathe and ask yourself what am I doing right now? Do I really want this? Am I even hungry for it? Or am I trying to distract my thoughts from where they presently are? Always be honest with yourself. Only you can control your results, because you are the only one who will be honest with the answers. Two, write your food down for the day, Good or bad. Write it down so you know what keeps triggering you when you go off. Maybe it’s the time of day, maybe it’s when you’re tired, maybe it’s when you’re bored or stressed. Write it down so you can reflect back to what it is, and you can get out of that concept of all or nothing. It’s going to be life-changing for you If you go off for one thing get right back on, don’t waste the whole day. 

07:11

Someone said to me yesterday I was having a really stressful morning at work and I ended up having a bagel. What should I do for the rest of the day? I said continue on with your day, have the rest of your meals, have your snack and move on. What’s done is done. You can’t change that. But don’t make it worse by having the whole day off. Just get right back on program. Finish the day strong, because it will make the next day so much easier and it really did. She got right back on, she finished the day strong and the next day was even so much easier for her mentally to continue. 

07:40

Another good one is to seek a change of scenery. Sometimes just changing your surrounding, even if it’s just moving to a different room, can really provide a fresh perspective. Go for a walk, take a step out in your backyard, feel the ground, go play tag, go do laundry, do something that is different from where you are currently struggling. Just change your scenery when you’re feeling overwhelmed. It really will make a difference. Five, and my favorite always practice gratitude for what you do have right now. I can’t tell you how the attitude of gratitude is one of the best things you can do with helping yourself when you feel overwhelmed. It brings us back to a sense of I have so much and although I may not be where I want to be, I’m in a good place and will work hard to get to where I want to be. We have to remember this is all an ongoing process of growth, understanding and consistent effort by you for yourself. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. For your mental and physical health it’s so worth it, I promise you. 

08:39

By using these tips in your life, you will find yourself better equipped to handle the feelings of being overwhelmed, and you will develop a healthier mindset in which you can approach life’s challenges. I say it all the time life is hard, but it’s also fun, loving, happy, exciting. Embrace it all. Keep moving forward. It’s the very best thing you can do and it’s the most important thing that will help you get to where you want to be. I hope this helps. I’m wishing everyone a very happy, healthy week full of love. Hugs from me to all of you. 

~Love to Live Healthy with Josephine Fitzpatrick

00:33 – Speaker 2

Hi everyone, welcome to the Love to Live Healthy show. I’m Josephine Fitzpatrick and I’m recording from beautiful Fire Island. Today’s topic is being prepared for the 4th of July weekend and, regardless if you’re home or on vacation, I want you to take a moment and remember how hard you work to get to where you are and whether you were at goal or not, think about how good you feel going into this holiday weekend. 

So many of you are feeling beyond amazing, better than you have felt in years. I get the text messages every day that make me so happy. I get the pleasure of seeing you in studio and feel through your text how excited and good you feel when you are on program and feel amazing in your body when you’re doing all the right things. But that’s what this holiday weekend is about how quickly that can change, because I also see and feel when you are not doing the right things and don’t feel good when you are off program. It affects everything about you and everything around you. 

The point is, I know sometimes both feel like struggles. It’s a struggle to stay on program, but it’s also a struggle to be off program. What you have to think about is which is worse? I see the clients who go off program for many reasons. It could be a holiday weekend, it could be the struggle of peer pressure, their own emotional eating or just simply the temptations of life and family. But when they go off program, as many of you know and have experienced yourself, it doesn’t take long at all to not only gain back what you lost but even more than you lost, and the feeling of not having control is the worst feeling. So while in the moment you feel like going off might feel so good, I promise you, within a short time you will wish you were back on and never went off. 

Being on program is a struggle for sure, especially around holiday weekends, but you have to remember how, while you are struggling, you are also feeling so much better, lighter, healthier, thinner, in control, just overall happier. 

02:23

What I want to remind you before this holiday weekend is, if you are not mindful how fast everything can change. You have to have a plan and be prepared for your weekend. There is always a choice and you have to make the one you can live with and be happy with, not just in the moment, but also when the holiday weekend is over. I want you to focus on how you feel, but also what you want. 

This weekend, focus on the control, the accomplishments and the scale. I want you to think about these things because after this weekend, you still have a whole summer to get through and enjoy. So you must go into the weekend mindful and planning, because the results will determine how your summer is going to be. Of course, I want you to plan your good days, but you must plan your cheat days too. I have clients texting me restaurants they’re texting me if they should do detox on a cheat day so they can balance out the day. That’s planning. You have to know what you’re doing before you do it, even on your cheat days. When you can plan your cheat meals in advance, it helps you determine what you are doing each day and that will put you in a positive mindset to keep yourself in a good place and on program, and that’s what we want. 

03:30

We have talked about mindset this year and how important it is. It always comes down to a decision, and not just a decision, but following through with that decision. Do you want to maintain your current weight or continue losing? Decide and manifest it by focusing on the outcome you want, whether it be from the day, the week, the month or the whole summer. One of the biggest things about manifestation and accomplishing your goals is you have to know what you want in order to actually accomplish it and be successful at it. 

03:58

July 4th weekend is four days long and we want to either lose or maintain, but gaining should never be an option. If you want to maintain for the holiday weekend, you will eat on program all day and you will pick two to three meals throughout the weekend. So say, thursday, friday and Saturday, or Friday, saturday and Sunday it’s one cheat meal and the rest of the day on program. Of course, if you only need two out of the three, that’s even better. Every clean on program day you can incorporate is just going to get you back faster to your number. Remember it’s cheat meal, cheat desserts, or cheat drinks. Whatever you do is up to you, but try to keep your days 100%. Only choose one each day. 

04:35

A good thought to have is to treat meals like appetizers and have taste instead of full meals. Sometimes when you do this, you get to enjoy more but actually eat less. Regardless of however you decide to enjoy your cheats – Monday you get right back on to a solid week of 110% week. And if you want to get back to that number even faster, You do the five-hour or the detox for five days straight.  

If you don’t want to maintain this weekend and want to continue losing it’s very simple. You stay on your program you have been doing and you eat on program six days and you only have your one cheat meal. 

05:06

It’s not as hard as you think. If you plan and prepare, you can go into any barbecue, any restaurant any holiday weekend, have a clean meal, fruit for desserts, drinks for your snacks. You can do it if you really want to, but you have to know what you want and that’s what you have to follow through with. Sometimes we make things so much harder than they have to be. If you don’t want the results of maintaining or cheating, then stay on program. If you are okay with maintaining, then follow the maintenance. 

05:33

We’ve talked about choosing your hard and being responsible for your results, and this is one of the times that will make a big difference. If you are amazing this weekend, you will wake up Monday feeling really good and continue to go into the summer feeling in control and amazing, continuing on your weight loss path. If you decide to maintain and are happy with your choice, do the right thing and get right back on 100% Monday, then, after a full week, you will be thrilled to be back to your pre-holiday weight. 

But remember there’s always temptation. You have to go into any holiday week with a plan and a positive mindset because if you don’t, you will cheat your way through this weekend and come Sunday you will be miserable with the outcome. Monday morning you will not fit in any of your clothes and you will take it out on everyone around you and nothing you can do will change the outcome. 

06:18

We always talk about planning and how important it is. What is even more important is being happy with the outcome and happy with your decision. So if you want to continue to lose this weekend, that’s awesome. Be happy doing it, but don’t make everyone miserable around you because you can’t eat what everyone else is eating. If you want to stay on program and continue to lose weight, make your choice to stay on and own it, embrace it, love it and enjoy it. If you want to maintain, be happy about it and enjoy what you can indulge in and have fun. 

06:46

But again, have a plan. If you go into the weekend with a plan and you stick to it, that is a successful weekend, and that is what should make you super happy and proud of yourself. There are all kinds of control, Maintain, losing, even cheating. Plan for them, prepare for them and follow through with them and you will have a very successful and happy holiday weekend. 

This 4th of July Weekend, celebrate life, celebrate freedom and enjoy the love you have in your life this weekend. Always love who you are and what you choose.

I hope this helps and I’m wishing everyone a happy, healthy and safe holiday weekend. Hugs and love from me to all of you. 

~Love to Live Healthy with Josephine Fitzpatrick

INNOVATION WEIGHT LOSS

AND HEALTHY MARKET

8025 JERICHO TPKE

WOODBURY, NY 11779

516 802-5055

Innovationweightloss.com