It’s Not Okay to Cheat

Every now and then you’ll hear these fad dieters talk about “cheat days” when they can sneak away from their hardcore diet of salads and beats to indulge in something that tastes good, like a cheese pizza or milkshake.  While there is some dietary to allowing periodic fluctuations in your diet, the general idea is that you have to reward yourself now and then in order to maintain motivation to keep going with the diet.

The Competence-Confidence Loop

Show Gratitude Daily

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."

-   Oprah Winfrey

10 Signs Your Teen is Using Drugs

Raising a teenager is tough work and, despite your best efforts, there may come a day when you suspect that your teen is using drugs.  There are a number of reasons you may suspect your teen has a substance abuse problem.  Perhaps you read a disturbing text or overheard your teen having a conversation about drugs.  Whatever reason you may have for suspecting drug use, there are a few signs to watch for.

Addiction and Withdrawal Coping Strategies for Teens

There are two types of coping strategies; problem-solving strategies and emotion-focused strategies.  Problem-solving strategies are efforts to do something active to alleviate stressful circumstances.  Emotion-focused strategies involve efforts to regulate the emotional consequences of stressful or potentially stressful events.  

How to Break Your Phone Addiction

Don’t deny it, you know it’s true.  You’re as addicted to your smartphone as the other 200 million people who check them obsessively every two minutes.  We live in a strange new world where half the things you want to pay attention to are streamed to your smartphone and carried with you everywhere you go.

Beware Your Triggers

While you’re slogging it out in the trenches, fighting your own personal battle with something most people can’t and don’t understand, every day is a precarious knife’s edge where anything could set you off toward a relapse.  (Especially early on in your recover!)  In order to stay strong in your marathon challenge, it’s vitally important that you identify your triggers and build in safeguards against those sneaky devils.

Are You a Procrastin-Eater?

Food addictions and unhealthy nutritional abuse are an all-too-common disease plaguing America and many people struggle with controlling their diet.  Unhealthy foods and snacks are so easy to access no matter where you are in the USA.  Vending machines, gas stations, fast food stores on every corner.   We live in a wonderland of unhealthy foods that makes it very difficult for someone struggling with an eating disorder.

Mind over Mind

There’s an old story, you may have heard it before.   A boy asks his grandfather why he feels so conflicted and how to become a good man when there is so much bad in him too.  The grandfather tells him that inside his heart, there are two wolves fighting a vicious battle with one another, each bent on destroying the other.   Whichever wolf wins, will be the man you become.            

Why We Lie