Are YOU In?

On Monday December 4th, I am starting my “14 Days of Wellness” program. I’ve already got a whole whack of people joining me, ready to put themselves first and prioritize their health, and we’d all love for you to join us!

No Challenges. No products. No gimmicks. No diets. No cost.

Just an invitation to say YES to yourself and to your best health, starting on December 4th.

Here is why I am doing this

I often see people posting and talking about their busy lives and crazy schedules along with their frustration with their health, their bodies, their energy levels and the number on the scale.

Believe me; I get it. It takes planning and effort to make sure I have meals prepared so that I’m not tempted to eat out. It takes a decision and a plan to get my butt to the gym and do a workout. It takes a commitment to my self-care to draw myself baths and diffuse essential oils and read good books and sleep when I am tired.

But does it require sacrifice? Well, I guess that depends on how you look at it.

If I prepare and bring my meals to work, I say “no” to lunches out with my colleagues. While I am sacrificing that experience with them, I am sticking to my goals in order to achieve my desired result.

If I decide to work out 3 mornings a week, I don’t get to also stay up late the nights before watching TV. I sacrifice couch time for gym time.

If I commit to caring for myself better, then I devote the appropriate time and effort to do so. I sacrifice time and energy I could spend elsewhere to take care of myself.

The thing is, the sacrifice doesn’t have to feel negative. In fact, it can’t feel negative or else we will just “white knuckle” our way through it until we inevitably resent it so much that we go back to our old habits.

It’s just how things work.

With this 14 days of Wellness, my hope is to encourage people to experience just how wonderful it feels to nurture ourselves using food, mindfulness and movement. It’s incredible what happens when people begin to truly accept that eating well helps us feel our best! To me, it is just so simple, but I also understand the pull of less-than-healthy foods that can trap us in a vicious cycle of addiction.

I am on a mission to change that for you.

Real Life Economics

At college, one of my favourite courses was economics. What I loved about it most was that everything just started to make sense and I began to truly understand how the world operates. The definition of economics is, “the social science that studies how people use scarce resources to satisfy unlimited needs and wants”.

So if we take this view when it comes to making new decisions around our health, then, YES, we have to give things up in order to receive other things; anyone who tells you differently is lying. It’s a simple economic principle called an “opportunity cost”, which refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action.

Another economic problem we face is that of relative scarcity, meaning that we have relatively scarce resources–in this case, time, money and energy–to do all the things we want to do, and so we must make choices for ourselves that provide us with the highest rate of satisfaction.

We see this in the real world. We eat the chocolate cake because it tastes good right now and gives us tremendous satisfaction. But what about when we eat the chocolate cake after we’ve made the decision to eat healthier? What if we eat the chocolate cake even though we had hoped to do different? We have sacrificed our health in order to satisfy our taste buds. And what happens to our level of satisfaction then? We feel that rush of dopamine when we eat those first few bites, but by the end of the piece, we might feel sad, depressed, guilty, ashamed, sick, bloated and tired.

And, to me, “the apple ain’t worth the tummy ache”, as they say. Or, in this case, the cake.

How Does It Work?

So, how do we “have our cake and eat it, too”? (I’ll stop with the clichés now, promise). 😉

Here’s how I do it. I plan for the cake. I know when it is going to happen and I gain excitement around the thought of that delicious piece of cake…but only after I’ve worked for it.

You see, in today’s crazy world, chocolate cake isn’t more than a coffee shop or restaurant or grocery store away. If we want cake, we can eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

And that is a huge part of the problem.

Because junk food is cheap, accessible and delivers us with the sugar rush we are craving, we feel an intense pull towards it. And, for those of us who are trying to make healthier changes, this causes problems. We have to develop ways to remind ourselves of what we really want (good health, feeling better, pants a little looser), rather than what we want right now (that slice of chocolate cake).

If we we can reframe our choices to be positive rather than negative, we can help ourselves to continue to make the choices that have us feeling our best.

And when we have people to help us stay accountable, our level of success dramatically improves.

So, what is this “14 Days of Wellness” all about?

Again, it’s not a diet or a Challenge or anything overly restrictive, but here is how I plan to do it:

Every day, I will eat well.
Every day, I will move my body and break a good sweat.
Every day, I will be mindful of all the goodness I have in my life. 
Every day I will share my experience with others on the journey.

Because I want you to love your life one bite at a time.

P.S. Remember, all you need to do is type “I’m In” below and I will add you to the group. That’s it! 

P.P.S. Speaking of healthy habits, on April 21 & 22, 2018, Roger and I, along with our team, are hosting The Healthy Brain and Body Show for the second year. We are so pumped to bring this show back even bigger and better! We would love to see you there as an attendee, where we will have so much cool stuff to show you. We can't wait to explore, connect, learn and shop at the show WITH you! Please say hello if you come. Roger and I will both be there the entire weekend. It would be a thrill to meet you. 🙂

And if you--or someone you know--might be interested in being an Exhibitor with us, feel free to send them here where they can view/download the Exhibitor/Sponsor Package. Note that we have SOLD OUT of Sponsorship spots and we are over 50% sold out of booths!

We can't WAIT to serve you, so remember to save the date! 

P.P.P.S. Let’s be friends! I’d love to connect on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram. Plus, if you haven’t already subscribed to my blog, you should! That way, you won’t miss anything. For joining, you get my personal meal plan, shopping list, and a week’s worth of easy, tasty recipes. https://sarahtalksfood.com/