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#56, Make a Deal with Yourself

10/25/2022

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Today I’m going to break down a tool called an “If-Then Contact” that I developed for emotional eating. I could see this helping with some other bad habits as well, but you will have to be the judge of that and how it fits into your life. In order to fully dive into this strategy, I want to review emotional eating and then I’ll give you the steps for to implement the “If-Then Contract” making a deal with yourself for those moments when  you feel like you are a hairs breath from giving in. 

An “If-Then Contract” is essentially a deal you will make with yourself whenever your brain wants to do some emotionally eating.

Let’s review Emotional Eating:
  • You want to eat but you aren’t physically hungry.
  • You are asking food to do something for you:
    • Give you pleasure
    • Make up for a rough day
    • Keep the good times going
    • Replace what you were hoping to get out of a relationship or activity.
  • You are actually thirsty or tired 
    • Your brain is asking for food to give you a burst of energy (usually sugar)
    • Your brain is asking for hydration and it will give out hunger signals.

What an “If-Then” Contract does
  • It allows you to stop the cycle of emotional eating.
  • It stops the arguing and negotiating that occurs when your toddler brain wants to emotionally eat.
  • It allows you to build up confidence that self-care actually works.
  • It eventually will have your toddler brain asking for the self-care instead of food because a new habit has been created. 
    • Toddler brain likes habits.

How to make and use an “If-Then” Contract.
  1. Identify the time of day or situation that pushes you to emotionally eat. 
  2. Write that time/circumstance into the “If” side of the contract
  3. On the “Then” side of the contract, list 2 or 3 activities lasting five to ten minutes each. 
  4. Post the contract somewhere easy to see such as your refrigerator, bathroom mirror, pantry door, etc. 
  5. Let at least one person know what you are doing that can support you even if it is just a friend via text. (Note: A supportive person that lives in your home is the best). 
  6. When the time/circumstance happens, follow through with your contract. After you have done the activities you may revisit whether or not you want the food. If you do, eat it. 
Warning: Eat the food on a plate, at the table, and not while you are watching TV or on your phone. Enjoy it. Think about it. If you don’t, you will want another serving, and another, and another … 

Below is a link to a PDF of a If-Then Contract that  you can print and fill out. Enjoy!

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To download the PDF, click on the image above.
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#55, Habits vs Goals

10/18/2022

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I use both habit change and goal setting in my life. I truly believe that both provide guidance and help me understand the processes that work or don’t work. Today we are going to break down goal setting and habit building and then I’ll leave you with one of my juiciest pieces life coaching advice. 

First, let's look at goal setting. For most women this is the only tool in their tool box. They set the goal of reaching their ideal weight or completing a 5k race. Awesome. 

Pros:
  • Goals can be very motivating. A properly set up goal has an easy to see finish line. You know when you have crossed over into success. 
  • It is easy to include others in goals. They can understand what you are working toward and it is simple to say that you have or have not accomplished it. 
  • Goals are easy to tie to a reward and the reward is often built in. For example, if you have the goal of getting a job with your dream company, the reward is the job and the position you have been fighting for. 

Con:
  • Results are often black and white. You either succeed or fail. Positive changes are often overlooked if they were only a by-product of the journey. For example, if you get down to your goal weight, you might feel successful, but the focus has been on the scale, not your habits or mindset and you might not keep that success long at all. 
  • The motivation ends when the finish line is crossed. You need a new goal in order to maintain the healthy changes you instilled to get you where you are. The void of energy and time will be filled with something. 

Habits

Pros:
  • Create sustainable change. Developing a habit requires you to do something consistently over time and creates true lifestyle change. 
  • Develop self-esteem. A goal can create self-esteem, but that can fade pretty quickly after the goal has been passed. However, seeing yourself follow-through day after day makes you feel like you can weather life’s storms and still show up for yourself. 
  • Habit changes can metamorph into more habit changes, spreading your growth outwardly. 
Con:
  • Habits are more difficult to tie to a reward. For example, you have to dig deep to feel rewarded for drinking eight cups of water every day for the last thirty days. 
  • You can feel unseen as you fight to change something and instill a new habit. Afterall, we don’t wear a sign on our body showing our streak tracker. 

So, there you have it and you might see where I’m headed with this juicy piece of advice: Set up a goal with habit change. Essentially, marry the two tactics. 

Okay, so, let's say that someone wants to be able to run a 5K race. I would suggest that they write down the date of their race then pick two new habits they would like to instill as they work toward their goal. This might mean that they run/walk daily and drink their weight in ounces daily. They could set up a streak tracker for these two goals and consider what makes them successful to complete it and how it makes them feel physically and mentally. After the race is run, the streak tracking continues, creating the bridge between their goal and their lifestyle. The reward is completely the race with careful attention paid to how the new habits affect their life. 

This is the work I do in my weight loss group. We build habits and practices my ladies can use for the rest of their lives while they work toward their weight loss goals. It is the work I had to do to stop the cycle of binge and restrict and get in control around food. With God’s grace I brought down a stronghold I had around emotional eating and developing incredible self-care habits in its place. 

Today, I want you to take a good look at the goals you have in your life. What are you trying to change in your marriage, health, faith, parenting, finances, or career? Consider setting a goal today and couple it with two new habits that would support that change. Watch yourself cross a finish line with new practices that continue to support that beautiful life. 

Many blessings to you, my dear.

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#54 The Weekly Meal Plan

10/11/2022

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Most of you more or less know how to make a plan. But it is like going for a walk. Something happens between our intention and us actually putting on our shoes and leaving the house. 
Motivation.
Meal planning is incredible. It is key  to so many health goals and habits. The benefits outweigh the cost of spending some time with our pen or tablet out preparing for our eating choices. 

The truth is, meal planning saves us in five key areas of our life: Our finances, our time, our pantry & refrigerator, our health, and our mental space. 

Meal Planning SAVES
  • Saves money
    • Less eating out
      • It is so much easier to say no to driving through when you not only know what you are cooking for dinner but also have all the ingredients at home. 
    • Less spontaneous purchases
      • How many times have you grabbed a doughnut from the vendor at work because you made no plan for breakfast, or went to the grocery story to figure out dinner and ended up buying many things you never used or even over-ate. 
  • Save Time
    • No deciding what to eat or cook
    • Less time making extra trips to stores for ingredients
    • Less time spent waiting for food to arrive or driving to get food
    • **Meal planning** Takes time, but it is nothing like the time we waste.
  • Saves our refrigerator & pantry
    • You stop wasting so much food. 
    • You use what you buy.
    • You buy what you need
  • Eat Healthier
    • You support your health goals
    • You plan and prepare for food choices
    • You stay committed because you actually have a plan
    • You made all your choices for the week at a time of low stress and low hunger. 
  • Mental peace and space.  
    • You don’t have to decide what to eat when you are tired and stressed
    • You don’t have to continually plan and make choices about what you eat
    • You create a habit over time that you follow through with--no renegotiating 
    • You don’t beat yourself up for not following through with our health commitments
    • We can enjoy showing up for our family the way we want to. 
      • ***Note***Showing up can be simply planning so that your spouse and also shop and help prepare meals. 

There you have it, pick your favorite 2-3 reasons to start meal planning today 

Meal planning is another way to guard your mind and life against the temptations of the world, doing for your body and your family what you know will serve you best. Romans 12:2 says: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

And sign up for the webinar when I break down the simple steps to getting started and staying committed to meal planning so that you can support your family and your health.

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Meal Planning Webinar
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#53, The 24 Hour Plan and How it Can Save Your Waistline

10/4/2022

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This is such a huge pain point for almost every single lady I work with. You probably feel the same way. You know exactly how to eat to support your body, but there is a huge disconnect between that knowledge and the actual follow-through that would make you successful and have you losing that extra weight. 

Today I want to walk you through how to make and successfully follow a 24 hour plan. This simple habit is a life-coach hack that has helped thousands upon thousands of women get results. 

A 24 hour plan is a written list of what you will eat and when. 

First I’ll tell you how to make it, then we’ll discuss how to stick to it. 

Making a 24 hour plan. 
  1. Pick a time of day that you have low amounts of stress, cravings, or desires for food. For example:
    First thing in the morning.
    Before you go to bed. 
  2. In an easy-access location like your planner or notes app on your phone, start a list of what you will eat. Write down what you will eat and when. This might look like, “Breakfast: Burrito, Lunch: Salad with chicken, Snack: Trail mix,  Supper: Lasagna and steamed Broccoli” Don’t worry about quantities. Most ladies' eating issues come from spontaneous and reactive eating, not the quantity of the food they planned.
  3. Make this plan reasonable. You don’t want to ridiculously restrictive. For example, if you tend to try and eat only salads and walnuts, but then find yourself binging on sweets in the afternoon, purposefully plan to have and completely enjoy one candy bar in the afternoon. Planning and portioning those treats really helps. Plus, follow through is KEY.

Sticking to your plan.
  1. Decide in advance that you will say no to anything off your plan. 
  2. Prepare a phrase that helps your brain switch from reactive mode, to higher function thinking such as, “We can always have that tomorrow.” or “Our plan is great, we don’t need to torture ourselves by agonizing over everything else.”
  3. The more you do it, the less negotiating or arguing that will happen in the toddler part of your brain. Habits are powerful. 
What are the benefits of a 24 hour plan?
  • Easily track what you ate and how it made you feel.
  • Learn from your patterns of cravings and desires.
  • Force yourself to deal with life in a real way that actually guides healing. 
  • Lose weight and stay healthy. 
  • Less decisions to make at times that you are stressed or upset. 

Next week, I’ll be discussing the benefits of making a weekly meal plan which can make this 24 hour plan even easier. 

Don’t forget to sign up for that meal planning webinar. It’s free and it might just give you the leg-up on your health goals that you have been needing all along. 

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    by Lora Armendariz

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    You Can Do It!

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