Hey all! I found an awesome book, once again at the Lifeline Bookstore up here on the Sunshine Coast! It’s called “Lighten Up – 365 Ways to Lose Weight and Feel Great” by Andrew Cate. I will save the book review for another time but you can check out and buy the book too if you’d like, I’ve put some info at the bottom of this.

For today’s blog, I wanted to share with you one of the tips in the book that reminds you that you are responsible and held accountable for what you do and don’t in efforts to being a healthier, happier you.

Day 58: Motivation and Mindset – Commit yourself to a better body (contractually)

Make a commitment to your new, healthier lifestyle by putting it in writing. Take a blank piece of paper and write out the following:

1. Your long term goal, for example – compete in a marathon, walk or cycle between distant towns, complete a fun run and beat a set time, join a bikini challenge, climb a mountain, exercise a certain amount of days a week etc.
2. Two of the reasons you’d like to achieve your goal – think of positive things/benefits that you want from reducing the level of stored body fat
3. I hereby commit to (write down at least two of the following, or add your own like I did):

• Making health and fitness a priority in my life
• Not letting slip ups defeat me (I preferred to change these sentences into more positive sentences, using more doing, that using words like ‘not’ or ‘don’t’ and use more ‘I will’ and ‘can’ it’s all in the power of language I believe)
• Looking for solutions to support becoming healthier; not making excuses
• Call on others to support me while I try to achieve my goals (again why not just say while I achieve them? skip the ‘try’ because you will achieve them if you set your mind to do them!)
• Not letting outside influences interfere with my determination to achieve my goals (again, I like the point of that sentence but try re-writing it to use positive language)
• Not using food to help deal with any problems or stress (I think you know what I’m going to say…)

Then Sign and Date it.

Once it’s signed, stick it on your fridge or vanity mirror as a daily reminder, I decided to use mine as my laptop desktop screen wallpaper as I use it all the time and can see it during work too. Here’s mine:

The photos are from what I believe was my ideal body and health at the time (when I was 19-21, in the photos on the right) and from the beginning of this journey in May (the photos to the left). I’ve lost weight since those May photos, but they are there to remind me what I looked like and felt like being overweight and ashamed of my own body. I guess I don’t look too bad, but its bad in comparison to what I want to feel like, I was 73kg at the start of this, am currently 65kg and want to get down to 52kg or somewhere around that, but yes I want to be toned, energetic and glowing at my first lifestyle goal – Our wedding in November. But I don’t want to stop there. I want to keep a healthy lifestyle for life and my future babies And I will do it, I accept there will be hard times, there already has, but I’m commited and excited. Let’s do this!

I’ll be sharing a few other cool ideas from the book another time, but to get the most out of it, I highly recommend you give it a read yourself.

Here’s a link to buy/look up reviews for Andrew Cate’s book: