Tag: diet tips

Why I became successful keeping a New Year’s resolution once I stopped trying to lose weight…

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Happy New Year, Readers! Thanks for stopping by today! It’s been a while since I posted. In June I started working on a new amazing daytime talk show called The Mel Robbins Show. If you haven’t seen it yet, please take a look! As I focused on launching this amazing new show, I focused my attention on work, being a mom and continuing my degree and put this happy place of mine, Monday Dieter, on hiatus. But I missed you! I hope you didn’t miss me too much. I had a couple weeks off from work and was inspired to write.

My inspiration to write came as I was leaving the grocery store today. I went to the grocery store to get ingredients for a three bean turkey chili i was making for the first time. I was making this because my New Year’s resolution this year is to try and cook more. I even quantified the resolution so I had a roadmap. 1 new recipe per week. So essentially 52 new recipes this year. Literally recipes could be as simple as “a baked potato.” Because that’s something I’ve never ever attempted to cook before. Not complicated but the payout for me was huge.

Well it’s 5 days into the New Year and I am already 5 recipes in, that’s how much I am enjoying this resolution. As I walked out of the grocery store today with my bag of ingredients, I wondered when New Year’s resolutions became fun for me and actually achievable. Then I knew the exact moment, it happened about 5 years ago when my New Year resolutions stopped being “to lose weight.” That was my resolution for WAY too many years. And I always took this to the extreme. I will never eat sugar again, Id convince myself on Dec. 31. I will never eat a processed food ever again, I will lose 700 pounds this year and all my problems will begin to be solved the minute the clock strikes midnight. I always woke up on New Year’s day with a little hope and a whole lot of dread. That’s because I lived my whole life in two settings. Setting 1, eating a salad with 3 oz. of grilled chicken and 1 tbsp. of salad dressing for diner or setting 2, 7 slices of pizza, a sleeve of Oreos, a bag of candy and a small child.

When I stopped living in those two settings, I also stopped making extreme New Year’s resolutions. When I stopped making extreme New Year’s resolutions I stopped failing at every resolution. Resolutions became fun and actually beneficial to life when I was actually able to do them. About 4 years ago a resolution of mine was to start a face washing anti-aging regime a couple days a week since I was never consistent. It’s now a part of my daily life. It was easy to achieve, I didn’t dread it and I loved the results. One year it was to floss 3 days a week (don’t judge) and I’ve been flossing for 3 years now.

So today, if you are reading this and have already given up on your resolution, I encourage you to change it to something more achievable, more realistic and more doable. If it feels exhausting, it’s too extreme. Everyone talks about setting your standards high. When it comes to making a change, I disagree. Set your standards low and exceed your own damn expectations. And reevaluate constantly. If its not working, change it, tweak it, make SOMETHING work for you, anything. “Losing weight,” “getting healthy,” “being successful at work,” these are NOT resolutions, these are generic statements with no game plan. Resolve to a portion of your plan that leads you to who you want to be in 2020. This will change your year! I promise!

Happy Monday!

You need to clean your closet NOW. Here’s why!

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First, let me bust some major clothing myths that I believed for way too long…

  1. If you wear tighter clothes, you’ll be reminded to eat less.
  2. You should always keep smaller jeans within eye sight for motivation.
  3. Throw away all clothes that are too big so you never gain weight back.
  4. If you’re in between sizes, buy the smaller size as motivation.

All 4 of these are lies. And when you believe these myths we’re left with a closet full of clothes that don’t fit and a mad dash every other day to clean the two pairs of pants/leggings that do fit. If you’re anything like me, you have 700 articles of clothing, but wear the same 10 things in a weekly rotation.

My closet and drawers lately have been a disaster and I’ve found that getting dressed and getting out of the house has been stressful. I’ve gone back to the days of trying on 9 shirts before settling on the same one that always looks good and leaving my bed piled high with discards each morning.

This weekend, I did something about it. I decided to build a weight loss friendly closet. And that doesn’t just mean donating any and all clothes that don’t fit, it’s means organizing them in a way that you always feel happy and healthy when deciding what to wear.

Here’s what I did:

First, I laid everything on my bed that I don’t wear at the moment.

Then, I made piles. Pile 1 was for all the jeans and pants that for whatever reason at the moment don’t fit or feel good when wearing. However, since I have an emotional attachment to them I can’t just give them away. Some are smaller and I secretly hope to fit back into them someday. Some just have happy memories and are associated with times that I love thinking of. And others are just expensive and I can’t justify donating. But regardless, since at the moment, none of them fit, I don’t need to look at them everyday.

The next pile was for what I call, forever friends. For whatever reason certain shirts or dresses I can’t get rid of because of the slight chance I’ll need them again. These are the clothes that have a specific meaning and purpose. That outfit you may need for New Years.  That shirt you may need for a holiday party.  The dress you could possibly wear last minute to another wedding. Your high school sport shirts that you can’t possible throw away. And even workout clothes that are either expensive or might serve a purpose one day. It’s OK to keep all these clothes, but day to day, they cause clutter and chaos.

The next pile was simply seasonal, no big surprise here but I am someone who can go the entire year with jean shorts in my drawers.

The last pile was simply formal dresses. I always assume they belong in my closet but I decided I could neatly get them under the bed to make my closet less of a mess.

And of course, I had an ongoing donation pile.

clothes on bed

Then I focused my attention to detail and threw away all the random hangers I had, you know, the wire ones from the dry cleaner or the hangers from target with colorful sizes on them.

I then, organized all of these into my under the bed containers from Target so the are in my life, but aren’t in my eye sight each day.

clothes in containers

By the time I was done, I had neat drawers, and a closet filled with all clothes I wear on a regular basis RIGHT NOW. This morning I got dressed in point 4 seconds. And I also realized the exact thing I really need to shop for. The exact article of clothing that I DO need to bring more outfits together.

clothes in drawersclothes-in-closet.jpg

It’s important to give yourself permission to find ways to be the best version of yourself. We’ve all spent too much time wearing the size we think we should be. Trying to get to a weight  we think will make us happier. And wearing clothes that we think we’re supposed to wear. But keeping clothes and sizes in eye sight that don’t fit is completely causing the opposite of motivation. It’s causing stress and anxiety and that only triggers emotional eating more. Your clothes will always be there if you need them, whether under the bed like mine or in another place in your home where you store things. The same way we make a trip to storage to get our holiday decorations once a year, you can make that same trip to get an article of clothing you need once a year.

Happy Monday!