The secret to weight loss is actually the secret to a healthy, happy life.

The first step to losing weight and increasing your health, is to stop making it all about you (aka your ego).

Have you ever said “I need to find myself, or I need to find my purpose?”  If so, please pay close attention to this coaching lesson.

Coaching Lesson 1- Behavior – the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.   After this brief explanation, I think you will understand why as a society we have managed to bury our unique selves and our purpose.

Extrinsic motivation, is when you are motivated to do something because of an external reward, or to avoid an external punishment.  Living a life where most of what you do is extrinsically motivated, leaves you feeling void and unfulfilled.  Examples of extrinsic motivation would be:

1. Studying to receive a high test grade
2. Dieting to lose weight.
3. Going to the gym because you think you are fat or you don’t want to get fat.
4. A need to win when we play a sport.

Intrinsic motivation means you engage in a behavior because it is personally rewarding to you. It means you perform a behavior not for some external reward, and not because everyone else is doing it.  You engage in a behavior because it means something to YOU.  Living a life where most of what you do is intrinsically motivated increases your self-esteem, and makes you feel fulfilled.  I will just shift the above examples to show you intrinsic motivation:

1. Studying to learn.
2. Choosing health because you respect your body and life.
3. Going to the gym because it makes you feel strong and healthy
4. Playing a sport because you enjoy it.

You see the difference? We are living our lives for immediate gratification, external validation, or to avoid external condemnation.  The world is telling us how we should live and who we should be, and we are falling in line.  Under the world’s rules we never come to know our selves, we instead become a shadow of everyone else.

Living to fill these shallow ego based needs leaves us void of purpose and unsure of who we really are.

What we don’t realize is that life is not meant to be guided by external forces, life is only fully lived when we are guided by our own internal compass.  What we don’t understand is that life is not about what we get, it is about what we GIVE.

This is why so many need to consume more, be it food, clothes, cars, or designer accessories.  This is why women feel compelled to look perfect.

This is why over 50% of us get divorced. This is why our kids are stressed and over scheduled.

This is why parents go ballistic while watching their kids play sports.

This is why the American education system is 17th in the world (kids are not taught to think and enjoy learning, they are taught to take standardized tests).

We are extrinsically, not intrinsically motivated in almost all that we do.  It is all about serving our fragile, weak and insatiable egos.

As a Healthy Life Coach, I teach people about food and health, in a way that is designed to motivate them intrinsically.  I teach them about having thoughts and making choices that serve their soul. I believe I show them the path to living life with intention and purpose, mapped by their own internal compass.

I make it okay for them to say no to the demands of the external world that drains their heart and soul.

Here’s something I never knew.  You can make your food choices about a number on a scale, washboard abs, and skinny jeans.  Or you can make your food choices about something far more meaningful. But in order to do that, one must be willing and able to step outside of themselves, in order to see a far bigger picture of health.

You see, every time we purchase food, we are casting a vote for what we want to see more of.  Every food choice for ourselves and our children, will either promote health or feed disease.

When we eat animal foods that come from a system that tortures and brutally slaughters innocent sentient beings, we are supporting and sustaining that system.

I spent 22 years dieting.  When I dieted, it was all about me, my weight, and my disgust with my own body.  I relied on willpower, and I ate and starved in my own little obsessive compulsive world.

When I opened my eyes, and started really studying health, I came to realize that my eating habits were not something that just afflicted me, and my body.  My eating habits affect the entire world because there is a spiritual connection between all that lives on this planet.

I no longer rely on willpower.  I no longer make this about a number on a scale.  I no longer count calories or portion control.  My choices have nothing to do with my ego.

I eat healthy food because it is my social responsibility.  I eat healthy food because I am grateful to have access to it.  I cook for my family because I am lucky to have the means to do so.  The majority of this world, does not have these same options.

I eat healthy food because I care, and I deeply respect the health of people, animals and the planet.

I used to diet because I was fat and I did not like what I saw in the mirror.  Now I eat healthy food because I respect myself, and all other life on this glorious planet.

The secret to increasing your health and happiness is to stop making it all about you.  Because guess what, it isn’t all about you.  There is a far greater meaning to life that your extrinsically motivated ego is blinding you from seeing.

As a Healthy Life Coach, I show people the spirituality of health.  And when people finally open themselves to see it, their ego fades away and their soul takes over, and health becomes them.