Then January 15th will roll around and there will be less congestion at the gym, and the Food Network will begin airing shows espousing the joys of chocolate.  By the end of the month everything will be back to normal, signaling the end of the New Year’s Resolution season.  It doesn’t have to be that way.

New Year’s Day is a perfect time to hit the reset button on many areas of your life.  This holiday carries tremendous psychic power with it and, if you act appropriately, you can harness that power to bring you happiness and success in 2009!

Review the Past Year

Before you can decide what you want to do differently in the coming year, you need to figure out what wasn’t working for you in the past year.  Get out a piece of paper, or your journal, and begin making a list of everything that didn’t work, went wrong, or could have been better.  Yes, I know we’re not supposed to dwell on the negative, but you can’t go around pretending everything is perfect and expect anything to change either. So make your list.

Now on a separate piece of paper write down these categories:

• Family
• Personal
• Spiritual
• Health
• Financial
• Professional

Go back to your first list and assign the appropriate category to each item on your list.

After you have done this count up how many items needing change you have for each category.  You may find that you have more in some categories than others.  That information will be useful when you set your resolutions as you will want to aim for more change in those areas and less in the others.

Set Limits

Do not set yourself up for failure by making a list of more than ten resolutions.  The technique that Bill and I have used for years has been to sit down with the categories listed above and choose our number one in each area to resolve to change, which gives us a total of six resolutions for the year.  That doesn’t mean that you won’t work on the other things, but this is going to be your priority list.

Be Realistic

Now that you’ve got an idea of what you want to change, you need to determine how much change you want to make.  Setting a resolution to lose 40 pounds by the end of March is not realistic, while setting a resolution to lose 10 pounds by the end of March is totally realistic.

Let’s say that in reviewing the previous year one of your big areas of concern was your level of debt.  Perhaps you owe $20,000 in credit card debt.  Now let’s say that you make $45,000 a year.  Setting a resolution to pay off that debt in this year is completely unrealistic unless you were planning to move back in with mom and dad, give up your car and eat nothing Ramen noodles for a year.

To set a debt reduction resolution you’ll need to create a realistic budget for yourself that makes paying down your credit cards a priority.  Perhaps your resolution should be to pay off the card with the highest interest rate this year and, more importantly, to stick to a budget while only paying cash for all purchases!

Have a Plan

Just making a resolution will not create change.  There has to be a plan for change.  If your resolution is to lose weight, how are you going to do that?  What dietary changes need to be made?  What increases in physical activity are you going to make?  Remember to keep it real!  Saying you are never going to eat chocolate again is probably not realistic.  Maybe you can start bringing your lunch to work and eat breakfast at home?  Careful planning will help you to stick to your resolutions and make them a reality.

Wake Up With Your Resolutions

Another thing that Bill and I did for many years before having Gracie, and will be resurrecting this year, was to make an attractive printout of our resolutions and frame it.  We would put the frames on our respective nightstands, so that each morning when we awoke they were there to greet us.  If you do this for yourself, a quick review each morning will set the tone for the day and remind you of your goals.

Celebrate Your Accomplishments

At the end of each month have a little review of your progress, and celebrate your accomplishments.  Mark the milestones along the way and reward yourself in some small way.  Remember that it is okay to fall off the resolution wagon now and then, you are only human.  Don’t beat yourself up, just re-affirm your determination to stick to those resolutions and keep moving forward.

Never Too Late to Resolve

Just because you didn’t set those resolutions on New Year’s Day, doesn’t mean you can’t resolve.  You can decide to change any day of the year.  Using the steps I outlined for you above will help you to create resolutions that will stick and help you to create positive and lasting change in your life!

Here’s to a healthy, wealthy, wise and happy New Year!!!!!!

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Eating out can be a bit tricky at times, and I do miss being able to dive into the bread basket at a restaurant while they take ten years to prepare my food.  We were at a Christening luncheon on Saturday and they were very slow getting the appetizers on the table.  Everyone around me was happily munching on foccacia bread, including my husband who is off the gluten-free wagon completely.  I was starving, but I stayed away from the bread and quickly got drunk on red wine instead, LOL.  I should start carrying a small bag of nuts or trail mix in my purse for restaurant emergencies!

I have to admit to not being 100% gluten free.  I have eaten the occasional baked goods such as cookies and brownies that are not gluten free.  I do that in very limited quantities and it doesn’t seem to bother my stomach.  I overdid the cookie thing last week, thanks to all the wonderful holiday cookies, and I ended up getting wicked headaches and lots of nasal congestion.  My tummy wasn’t very happy either, but not totally destroyed like the time in October when I ate pizza and suffered for a week!

Health Benefits

I noticed in early December that my back no longer hurt all of the time.  It used to literally hurt at some level constantly…all day and all night.  On a scale of 1-10 the pain would sit between a 2 and a 4 all the time, and then spike depending on the weather, time of the month, and if I had done something stupid to myself.  As I sit here right now I can honestly say my pain level is a big fat ZERO!  That is a miracle!!!  I had read so many stories of people being able to get off of arthritis meds after six months to a year gluten free, so I hadn’t hoped for any quick pain reduction, but here I am, pain free in only four months!!!

My energy level continues to amaze me, as long as I haven’t been hitting the sugar or fats too hard on a particular day.  If I stay consistent with my healthy gluten free grains, lots of veggies and healthy proteins, I feel great.  I don’t go home and slump onto my couch feeling ready for bed at 6pm.  I have the energy to enjoy my time with Gracie, and I can even stay up past her bed time.

Weight Loss

I plateaued in November at a loss of eleven pounds, but I ate terribly in November and December, so just keeping that off is a miracle.  Just because it’s gluten free doesn’t mean it’s fat and calorie free y’know.  So in January, after we get through the food orgy season, I will be getting back to normal with more consistent healthy eating.  Lots more veggies than I’ve eaten in the past few weeks and no more cookies!

Also on my list for healthy habits in January, is to change my workouts to circuit training with calisthenics. My goal is to be able to do 25 military push ups by the end of March, and 100 of those babies by the end of the year, in four 25 rep sets.  I will also be doing three types of crunches in sets of 25 and squats the same way.  In between the circuits I will be on the elliptical for five minutes.

I did a similar type of training with free weights years ago, and I got myself into the best shape ever.  I don’t have room for weights at home and, with my back issues, I need to be careful.  After doing some research I found that push ups are an awesome way to tone your arms and upper back all at the same time!  I love multi-tasking exercises

I am right on the cusp of a 14/16 right now, and I hope with my return to cookie-free eating and the circuit training I will be into a size 10 by Memorial Day.  While it is entirely possible that I might hit that goal sooner, I have learned that it is better to lose weight slowly if you want to keep it off for the rest of your life.

Join Me?

If you have been struggling with weight gain, stomach problems and lack of energy, a gluten free lifestyle might be what you need.  It is incredibly easy to do and even easier if you have a Whole Foods store nearby.  Otherwise you need to figure out what your local stores have and order the rest online.  Amazon has a great selection of items.  I also encourage you to check out the book that started this all for me. Dr. Peter D’Adamo’s Eat Right 4 Your Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight.  In addition to recommending a gluten free diet for my blood type, the book has lists of other foods that are highly beneficial to my type and which foods to avoid.  I follow those lists pretty carefully and I truly believe it has made a huge difference in my health.

Be sure to read the related articles below chronicling my gluten free journey thus far!

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Our amazing Grace has brought so much joy into our lives and each year I have tried to make Christmas as magical as possible for her.  Rather than wax poetic on all of the reasons for us to be happy and grateful this holiday season, I’ll leave you with a look at Gracie through the years.

Have a merry, happy and healthy!!!!!

Christmas 2003, Age 3 Months

Christmas 2004, Age 1 Year

Christmas 2005, Age 2 Years

Christmas 2006, Age 3 Years

Christmas 2007, Age 4 Years

Christmas 2008, Age 5 Years

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!!

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For instance Lisa, a medium who used to work with me, saw my late husband with a boy at his side.  She asked if I had miscarried a child with him.  I told her I had not and she said “he’s telling me that this is his son who passed before birth, and he is so happy to be with him.”  I am one of only three people, including Billy, who is dead, who knows that his previous girlfriend had gotten an abortion without his consent.  It broke his heart and haunted him for all the years after.  No one but the mother, Billy and I knew of this.  So how did Lisa know this?  Either she was really talking to Billy or she read my mind.  The mind reading would be really amazing because i hadn’t thought about the incident in years!  Still I was comforted to think that he had been united with that child that he mourned for in life.

Lynn, whom I met with in November, told me that my grandmother was standing before her with her sisters Mary and Helen at her side.  Not only did she totally nail the names of my grandmother’s sisters, she then went on to inform me that they had both died before my grandma, and were waiting for her when she got there.  Lynn also did the most amazing vocal impression of my father, and used exact phrases he has been known to say.  Very freaky stuff.  While in her presence I did feel a sense of calm, and my brain seemed more quiet than normal.  I felt very at peace and very loved.   I’m not sure if that was due to her energy or because were were being visited from beyond by people who loved me.  Whatever the case, I have to say it was a truly profound experience and I would like to visit her again someday.  It is too soon to say whether any of her “predictions” will come true, but I’ll certainly be keeping my eyes open for any developments.

Most recently I spoke to a woman named Jill who does readings by phone.  All she had was my first name and my work phone number.  She said she walked with my spirit guide for days before we talked, and that she picked up very strongly on my late husband.  Funny aside on that, Billy also showed up in a reading for my mom when she went to see Lynn.  We now joke that he really needs to get an afterlife, LOL.  Anyway,  Jill also seemed very accurate and brought up things about Billy’s childhood that were very true.  She also had a number of observations about me that were very timely.  Her advice really helped me to understand where I’ve been going wrong of late, and I felt so much better after our talk.  She gave me some very concrete actions to take as well as highlighting the direction I should take in 2009.  Her sense of who I am as a person was dead on and it wasn’t because she googled me and read this blog.  The things she said about my skillset were all totally on the money as it relates to my day job and roles I have fulfilled in the past, which I found surprising.  She reminded me about my successes in the corporate arena and really helped me to feel proud of them in a way that I have never experienced.

Of the three people, Jill spoke the least of the dead, but she did get messages from them.  Lynn seemed to be the most accurate; even getting people’s personalities down pat.  All in all, the three women were all very good at what they do.  Still I have no idea how they do it.  If they are really speaking to the dead that would answer so many of my questions about life after death, yet it also opens up a whole new round of questioning.  Such as, why are the dead still hanging around?  How much, if any, influence do they have in our lives?  What do they do when they are not flocking to mediums?  Is my late husband so bored that he needs to show up in the readings of any person who may have ever known me?  Why does my father spend so much time visiting my house? (All three have told me that he does that quite a bit)

If anyone out there is a medium I would love to interview you to find out how you first realized your gift and how it comes to you.  In the meantime I plan to spend some quiet time reflecting on the similar messages I have gotten from each of them and deciding what they mean as I plan for 2009.

Have any of you had any experiences with mediums that you would like to share?  What are your thoughts on how they do what they do?

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His genius absolutely boggles my mind and I have always wondered what kind of person he was deep down inside.  Was he ever playful or always serious?  Over the years I have heard about his rebellious attitude towards authority, and his remorse over the use of the atomic bomb in WWII, but I always wanted to know more.  Hence, my interest in this newest biography, which claims to clear up some misconceptions and myths surrounding this amazing man.  For instance, I have always heard that he was horrible in math, while in school, which it seems was completely fabricated.

Hopefully this book will be under my tree, if not I’m sure to pick it up post-Christmas.  In the meantime I’d like to leave you with some excerpts from an Einsten essay that tell me for sure that this man was enlightened by the gods

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving…

As we enter the new year, we should all adopt Einstein’s attitude towards giving our best in return for all that others do for us.  I will leave you with this other excerpt to meditate upon, as it has been echoing in my mind since I first read it last week.

The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts — possessions, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible.

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When I go back and look at my journal entries and my posts here on this blog I can see  that I am a bit of a maniac at times.  I clearly expect quite a bit from myself.  So my gut reaction to that  is to say “well, if I want to have an exceptional life then I have to expect more of myself than other people do!”

I am walking a dangerous line between my high expectations and self-loathing.  By setting such high standards for myself am I setting myself up to fail?  Is this constant feeling of failure really good for me?

Am I beginning to hate the journey because I am making it so hard?

Isn’ the journey supposed to be fun?

Am I having fun yet?

I am taking the rest of this month to evaluate these questions without preconceived notions, and without knowing what my final answer, if any, will be.  I’m turning off the CD’s and putting aside the motivational books that follow me everywhere.

I don’t know how I expected myself to follow over 100 blogs and get any true value from any of what I read, so I’m downsizing that list big time already.  If you haven’t written anything that really got me going so far this month, you are off my list.

I need to stop running in this race for a bit and catch my breath.

I’m sure I’m not the only one re-evaluating as we come to the close of another year.  Where are you?  Are you ramping up or throttling down in 2009?

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I recently went to a self improvement workshop in Los Angeles, California, which was one of the most insightful and enlightening experiences that I’ve ever had.

On the very first day I was partnered with a 50 year old woman named Diana. Our challenge was to team up and climb a 60-foot tall rope ladder, working as a pair. We were connected at the hip with a four-foot long rope and each fitted with a body harness to catch us if we fell during the climb.

At first glance I thought that I would be able to make the climb on my own, seeing that I’m pretty active and physically fit. When I realized that I would be teamed up with Diana, the voice in my head started to buzz with disempowering thoughts: ‘How the hell are we going to do this?’ and ‘I hope Diana doesn’t have a heart attack!’

Well, seeing that the whole point here was for us to learn something about our own limitations as people, I made a choice to turn things around and take on this challenge head on. I began to ask myself more supportive questions like: ‘How can I motivate and inspire Diana? What are our strengths as a team?’ Before starting our climb, I looked Diana in the eye and I said: ‘I believe in you, just give me your 100%’.

In the beginning, things went pretty well and we eventually reached the first rung on the ladder. Then it started to get tougher. I was up on the second rung and Diana was still on the first rung and our connecting rope was stretched to full length. I heard someone yell to me from down below, ‘You’ve got to go down and help her up!’ That was the first time I realized that even though I knew I could do the climb on my own, it wasn’t just about me. We had to do it together. It was about both of us making it to the top as a team.

I climbed back down and bent down on my knees to support Diana and using all my strength, pushed her up to the second rung. The whole time we were doing this, we were swinging back and forth with a 40-foot drop below us. As soon as Diana got settled above I screamed up to her in support of this massive accomplishment. We were making the impossible possible.

Diana and I continued this way up the rope ladder until we reached the top and we gave each other a big hug - we were both exhausted but hugely delighted. After we got back down to the ground, Diana said to me: ‘I didn’t think we were going to make it to the top.’ I thought to myself, I didn’t think we would either.

It was at this moment I really understood what I learned from the exercise - that in fact this was not about climbing at all. I realized that in my entire life I had always done things for myself in order to feel that sense of achievement and purpose. When I heard Diana say those words it made me realize that it’s very lonely at the top when you do things only for yourself. I learned that life is a lot more fulfilling when you take other people along for the journey. I now know I will never again feel lonely at the top.

For more from Steve Martile, be sure to checkout Freedom Education - Mind Power for Personal Growth.  You will find some great information and entertaining videos to help you on your personal growth journey.  While you are there be sure to pick up his amazing free e-book The Genius Within You - How to Unlock Your Inner Genius, Natural Ability and LIfe Purpose.

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Pretty much everyone in America has noticed that over the past couple of years Oprah has begun to lose her battle of the bulge once again. For a while she really seemed to have gained control through her work with Dr. Bob Greene of The Best Life Diet.  Together with Dr. Greene, she co-authored the best seller Make the Connection outlining how she was finally able to make the connection between diet, exercise and her emotional eating.  I really believed she had gained control of the issue, but then she seemed to lose her way once again and the weight returned.

Today I came across an article, which will appear in the next issue of O Magazine, which was provided  early to the Associated Press.  In it Oprah confesses that she now weighs 200 pounds and that she is “embarrassed” by her weight gain.  Here’s a snippet from the article:

Winfrey also writes that her goal is no longer to be thin; instead, she wants to be strong, healthy and fit. She hopes to get started with her upcoming “Best Life Week,” starting Jan. 5 with an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” during which she is expected to talk candidly about her weight.

As I read this I mused on my recent gaining of four pounds of the eleven that I had lost.  There is no mystery at all as to why I regained this weight.  While I have remained gluten and dairy free, and mostly diet coke free, I have added potatoes and corn, particularly hot buttered popcorn, back into my diet.  My portion sizes have increased again, while my exercise regimen has fizzled out.  Why does this happen?  Why is it so hard for me to be successful in this one area of life?

I love food way too much.  I love to eat.  Food makes me so happy.  It is so hard to find that same kind of euphoric happiness from any other thing in my life.  Basically, I am addicted to food. I believe Oprah is too. Unfortunately it’s not as simple as going cold turkey, pardon the pun.  We have to eat to live.  Perhaps the remedy is to go cold turkey on the trigger foods.  For me that would be popcorn and potato chips.  If I just say no to them for the rest of my life, as an alcoholic would say not to liquor or an addict would say no to heroin, then maybe I can get control.

Gosh, I have to admit that even thinking of never having popcorn or potato chips again makes me feel immediately sad.  It just seems like I cannot eat them in any kind of moderation, and they act like a gateway drug.  Once I have eaten them I move on to other less than healthy foods and a binge soon follows.

For those of you who have lost weight and kept it off, what worked for you?  Did you find that you too had trigger foods?  Oprah and I could really use your advice right about now!  When we meet in a few years and sit across from each other in her studio I want us to both look awesome and even more importantly I want us both to have conquered the demon once and for all!

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Do you believe in reincarnation?  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.  It seems reasonable enough, but so does the opposing view.

What seems really kind of far fetched is that we continue to exist in any way at all, yet I believe that we do.

A recent article by Jesse Bering in Scientific American Mind (my new favorite magazine) freaked me out even further.  The article entitled “Never Say Die: Why We Can’t Imagine Death” basically says that we believe in existence after death because our minds are incapable of imagining a state of non-existence. It’s not an emotional problem, it’s a software issue!

This particular statement made my blood run cold:

Consider the rather startling fact that you will never know you have died. You may feel yourself slipping away, but it isn’t as though there will be a “you” around who is capable of ascertaining that, once all is said and done, it has actually happened. Just to remind you, you need a working cerebral cortex to harbor propositional knowledge of any sort, including the fact that you’ve died—and once you’ve died your brain is about as phenomenally generative as a head of lettuce.

Really makes some sense, huh?

So I am sitting here wondering if we really do continue on in some form after we die or is consciousness just some kind of evolutionary trait, and we do not have souls of any kind.  In a recent meditation I asked my Dad.  He’s dead, and I like to imagine talking to him.  I’ll write about that bit of weirdness some other time.  Basically my dad had two near death experiences that convinced him that there was something after life.  So I asked Dad what he was he said, “I am merely an echo of who I once was.”

Not encouraging at all.  Maybe all that lives on after death is what others remember of us.  Hmmmm….

So, what do you think?  Do you agree with your religious beliefs or do you have some of your own?  Are you as undecided as I am?  Does the whole idea freak you out?

Here’s a link to that article in Scientific American Mind.  Do NOT read this before you go to bed.  I did and I sincerely regret that!!!

Never Say Die: Why We Can’t Imagine Death

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