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Home Fitness Tips by Paula Blackwood
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Health & Lifestyle Coaching by Karen Halifax
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 Home Fitness Tips by Paula Blackwood
" A great little exercise for bringing the hip area into line."
Lie on your left side with the lower left leg slightly bent and the upper body resting on the left forearm. Place the right leg behind the left leg as demonstrated in the photograph. Bring the right leg over the left touching the floor with the right knee in front. Then take the leg back behind the left so that the right toe touches the floor. Repeat the knee toe taps 10 times on each side.
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Health & Lifestyle Coaching by Karen Halifax
One of the most critical ways to stop overeating for emotional reasons is to change the way you think and how you interpret events in your life.
What you think determines how you feel... so if you want to change your feelings about something – and the negative behaviour that results – then you much change and reshape the thought patterns that are making you sad, anxious, lonely or depressed. Many of our thought patterns are shaped through individual filters. These filters – our personalities, attitudes, points of view and beliefs are internal screening devices that affect how we see the world and react to it. Largely a product of our past experiences, our filters powerfully influence the interpretation we give to the events in our lives. Those interpretations in turn determine how we will respond to life. The story of David and Goliath is a good example. When the Israelite soldiers first set eyes on Goliath, their reaction was: “He is so big that we can never slay him.” When David saw Goliath, he said to himself, “He is so big that I can’t miss him.” Two completely different
reactions to the same stress situation because of two very different perceptions. You probably know people who, when confronted with emotional situations or stress, are prone to panic or fall to pieces. Life just seems to drive them round the bend. By contrast, you probably know other people like David, who actually seem to thrive on stress and do their best work under pressure. Two massively different reactions can occur to the same situation. Why? Because one person runs the stress through a filter that causes it to be perceived as overwhelming and impossible to handle, while the other person’s filter says, “This is a problem I can turn into an opportunity.”
When you consider the relevance of this observation to you managing your own emotions, you begin to see that your interpretation of the event, not so much the event itself, is the real trouble maker that gets you all worked up. You will always be challenged by stressful situations in your life. You’ve got a flat tyre, the boss is an idiot, money is tight, your partner lets you down. Yes, these things are bad but it is your interpretation of and reaction to them that create the emotional pain. Worse yet, avoiding these emotions instead of dealing with them constructively with them becomes much more damaging to body and health.
There is another type of filter that creates more trouble and stress than you can imagine. This filter is the filter of denial. You might, for example, think that your weight problem is just cosmetic. Yes, being heavy affects your appearance, but you might not want to admit that it puts you at risk for premature death from heart disease, stroke, cancer etc. Denial is a dangerous filter because it suppresses the truth about yourself. Living in denial, you can be like a pressure cooker that’s not allowed to vent its steam. All the pressure builds up inside you until the lid blows off. As information flows through your filters, it takes the form of words. It becomes a dialogue, a conversation you have with yourself and it often contains errors in thinking that can lead to emotional problems unless these errors are dragged into the open and challenged. If you have repeatedly assigned the same meaning to certain events, then your thoughts, your interpretations of those events, are
predictably going to be the same every time. Those thoughts will become habitual and automatic, to the point that you’re not even aware of them.
You’ve programmed and conditioned yourself to think and behave the same way whenever certain situations arise. For example, suppose someone in your family criticises you. Without you ever really being aware of them, automatic thoughts like “They never approve of me” or “they just won’t accept me as I am” start racing through your mind. In response, you feel hurt and before you know it, you’re spooning ice cream into your mouth. You probably didn’t know what you were thinking when you got criticised but the next thing you knew, you were binging. Why? Feeling hurt was preceded by negative, lightning-speed thoughts you have always had, thoughts you internalised long ago when you were criticised by your family. These thoughts are so ingrained and happening so fast that you are not consciously aware of how they affect your behaviour. Your behaviour is being controlled by an internal negative response that you can’t even recognise. The
big question is; what can I do about it? The good news is that these thoughts, like your real time self-talk can be controlled, challenged and changed. By changing the way you think, you can change the way you feel and act. But you’ll have to wait for the next newsletter to find out how!
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Latest News...from your gym!
PAULA NEEDS MORE VOTES!
VOTING ENDS FRIDAY 18TH JUNE!
Our very own Paula Blackwood (Ladyzone’s area manager for Sheffield) - has been shortlisted as one of 6 finalists for the 2010, F.I.A (Fitness Industry Association) Future of Flame Award!
Register your email vote now by clicking here
The FLAME (Fitness Leadership and Management Excellence) Awards recognise and celebrate excellence and best practice within the health and fitness industry. Paula is one of 6 finalists in the ‘future of FLAME’ category which recognises individuals who have shown remarkable dedication and commitment to the fitness industry.
 Paula decided, after 10 successful years of nursing, to adopt a career change and provide personal training and group exercise to people who were not able to use gyms. Subsequently, she built a business targeting adults who needed more help than just a gym membership. Paula then went on to join the Ladyzone team back in January 2009 as a part time fitness instructor and within a year she had progressed to being responsible for running two sites in Sheffield, whilst assisting the directors with franchise openings.
Hurry though because voting ends Friday 18th June!! GOOD LUCK Paula!
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