"I love to eat vegetables! They are delicious and make me feel great! "

Welcome to another round of Healthy Living Challenge. If you have not already done so read the RULES and FAQs tab on this blog to help you prepare for our first week. If you are new to the competition please join myfitnesspal.com and friend 3 ladies to give you support. And each week come to this site (hopefully by Sunday-remind me if you don’t see it by then) to read the weekly bonus challenge for the week to come. Here is our first challenge.

I think that sometimes if people could read our minds they would be shocked at our negative thoughts about ourselves. Isn’t it crazy that we can be so kind, loving and tolerant toward others; giving them the benefit of the doubt, easily forgiving their flaws and shortcomings and really thinking they are great despite it all and not offer ourselves the same generosity of spirit. I imagine most of you can relate to self-critical thoughts concerning talking too much, saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, forgetting things, not accomplishing enough, personal appearance etc. etc. etc.

Well we are going to work on that this week.

Several years ago I decided to train for and run a marathon. I have never loved running but just really wanted to do it. At some point during my months of training I noticed how much I had begun to dread my daily training runs. My thoughts were something like “I am so tired. I am just dreading running today. I have so much to do I really can’t afford the time to run. Oh it’s going to take so so so long. When am I going to do it? I just don’t want to do it. I am just dreading it.” I must have heard some things at that time about positive thoughts and mine surely weren’t positive. So I decided to try it out. I RAN these thoughts through my head, “I’m going to feel great after I run today. I always feel such a sense of accomplishment after my run. Look at that person running. I can’t wait until I find time for that today. Wow my run is going to be awesome.”

So what seems crazy to me was I didn’t actually believe any of the thoughts I was forcefully running through my mind but somehow my brain didn’t know that. I actually began to look forward to my daily multi-mile run. (And yes I went on to complete the marathon and no I never learned to like running).

In simple terms, affirmations (sometimes called “self-affirmations”) are positive sentences that you repeat to yourself. When you first start saying these phrases, they might not be true. Often, they are designed to reflect what you want to be true. Over time, the consistent repetition of daily positive affirmations helps to reshape your beliefs and assumptions about yourself and the world around you. This reshaping gives you a more positive perception of who you are and where you stand.

Wow that is powerful. So I would like to first imagine yourself at the end of this 8 week competition. You have followed the program valiantly. If you made a misstep you got right back on track. You are feeling healthier, looking more beautiful, enjoying more energy and really just doing awesome. Your friends and family are noticing and are proud of your accomplishments. You made a wonderful start to 2018.

Now what you need to do to earn the 5 daily bonus points this week is:

1. Visualize your amazing end result after we have completed this competition

2. Write a daily affirmation concerning your new healthy habits or the results of living them.

3. Share the affirmation with your partner and/or repeat it aloud several times each day.

OK ladies- positive thoughts, positive actions, positive results GO!

And feel free to share your favorite affirmations as a comment on this blog.