If you’re considering setting a goal for this New Year (and there’s still plenty of time!), take the advice of APOGEE life coach Persephone Zill and create a resolution that’s built to succeed.

What else makes a goal work?
You also need to gather the right tools, including classes, equipment or the right foods in your fridge; visualize success, taking time each day to picture yourself overcoming obstacles and enjoying the benefits of reaching your goal; and plan rewards for progress–a massage, new clothes, short trip or time with friends, for example.

What’s a good timeframe for my resolution?
It takes 21 days on average to change a habit. Set your finish line at least three weeks in the future so your resolution results in lasting change.

by Staci Rosenberg, APOGEE Life Coach

Many of my life-coaching clients have a wish list that looks nothing like their to-do list. They wish they could spend more time with family and friends; wish they had more time for fun; wish they could develop a long-term, loving relationship.

But their calendar says work, work, work. Even their family time is all about chores.

My prescription: Have a summer fling! There is no time like summer to loosen up, expand your horizons and live the life you dream of. Whether you want to meet people, spend time with friends and family, exercise more or just relax and read a book or knit, now’s the time. But how?

1. Schedule a date for your fling.
If you find time to complete work projects, answer e-mails and stay current with TV shows, you have time for a summer fling. Take out your calendar and make an appointment with yourself or friends: Plan a walk before breakfast or after dinner; block out a Saturday morning for a hike or bike ride. Make your fling as important as an appointment with your boss or doctor.

2. Change something about yourself.
If your wishes aren’t coming true now, you need to change. If you always wear black, choose a color. If you always look serious, try smiling in public for a day or two or wear a silly t-shirt to your exercise class.  If you never go to art shows, museums or concerts, now might be the time to start.

3. Take advantage of the summer warmth and light.
Just go outside! Once you’re out of the house, office or car, it’s easy to make an evening or afternoon—even your coffee break—special. You can sip a cup of tea or dine outside, plan a picnic in a park, walk to your destination instead of drive, or stroll your neighborhood until dusk. Slow down and experience the space you’re in.

4. Connect with people who are already having a summer fling.
It can be tough to invent a summer fling by yourself, so join one already in progress. Accept an invitation; attend a free outdoor concert, play or art opening; join a hiking or bicycling club—invite friends, your spouse or child. Try a Zumba class at APOGEE. Once you’re in a group, look around, join in and have fun.

Need inspiration? Follow the words of Henry David Thoreau , who wrote, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” 

Have you ever said, “I’m going eat well, starting today!” Of course that’s an admirable goal: Your health, energy and weight will benefit from a diet of whole, natural, unprocessed foods. But such a sweeping, all-or-nothing plan is hard to achieve.

Don’t get us wrong: It’s important to have a target to motivate you and provide a focus. But goals without practical steps may set you up for failure. At APOGEE, we make sure clients’ goals are are SMART –that is, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. And once you’ve reached your goal (and I promise you will), you can build on it.  Here’s how to make sure your plan is SMART.

Specific
Your goal is specific if you can ask yourself: what will happen, where and when. For example,  “I will eat a healthful breakfast of fruit and yogurt at home four days this week,” and  “I will bring a salad to work for lunch two days this week” are specific. A non-specific goal is, “I will start eating better lunches.”  The what is the food, the where is at home or at work and the when is four times this week.

Measureable
Your goal is measurable if you can ask yourself: How will I know I’ve reached this goal? The simplest way to quantify your goal is to include a number: Three lunch salads a week or four breakfasts. Then, choose a timeframe: “I will eat a healthful breakfast of fruit and yogurt at home four days this week.” If you achieve the goal, extend the timeframe—for two weeks or until the end of the month, for example.

Attainable
Make your goals small-scale and you’ll achieve success. For example, it’s tough to go from never eating breakfast at home to always eating breakfast at home. Instead, try the new behavior two days a week. Succeed at that, and within a month you’ll be more likely to be practicing the new behavior most days of the week.

Timely
A goal should have a time frame—so there is sense of urgency to complete it—and a beginning and an end. “This week, I’m going to eat a salad at lunch on Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” is timely and specific. Plus, success will come quickly when you have an end date in the not-too-distant future.

Realistic
Be certain that you are willing and able to make the changes you need to in order to achieve your goal. It’s not realistic to say you will never eat cake or chips again! Instead, look at your life: If you’re eating cake every night now, perhaps you can cut back to cake once a week and fruit on other nights. If you’re snacking on corn chips every day, perhaps you can switch to crunchy vegetables on weeknights and corn chips on the weekend. Being realistic sets you up for success.

Good luck being SMART! Let us know how this style of goal-setting works for you by posting a comment here or on our Facebook page.

With change being such a constant, it’s important to take a look at how you negotiate the cycles and evolutions of life. “If you’re self aware, you can use times of change as positive, transformative experiences,” says APOGEE life coach Persephone Zill. But the twists and turns of life can be stressful for many. “How you dealt with change in the past is a pretty good indicator of how you will deal with it in the future,” says Persephone.

How you cope now: Your most valuable asset is your attitude about change. “You need to be able to recognize how you cope with change so you can develop ways to help yourself that work best for you,” says Zill. “Look at something like the recent economic downturn—how did you react to that?” Perhaps you were able to make adjustments, dial back in certain areas, or find satisfaction from simpler things. But if you tend to run away and hide out—by watching TV, surfing the internet, overeating, drinking alcohol, or overworking—then you may be missing out on opportunities to embrace change and find satisfaction from new behaviors and new ways of being. Mind-body exercise, such as yoga, Pilates and meditation, can help you develop more of an observing self-awareness of yourself and your attitudes about life events.

Identify your resources: To be certain you have a full range of tools to negotiate change, Persephone recommends looking at six areas of your life: physical/nutritional, family, social, mental, work/ finance and spiritual. (You can draw a circle and make each area a section, like pieces of a pie.) If each area is vital and satisfying, it has the potential to be a resource for you to draw on during times of change, says Persephone. But if an area is dormant or even a source of friction, it can deplete your energy and throw the whole pie out of balance, limiting your ability to deal with life’s shifts.

Achieve balance: As a life coach, Persephone helps women identify goals for areas of their life that are currently lacking. Paying attention to one or two neglected areas can enrich and energize the rest of your life, she says. “Exercise can help you sleep better and be more aware of how you react to stress,” she says. “Pursuing a hobby or a creative interest can create additional energy and open-mindedness that you can then use at work or with your family.”

Develop your life balance, says Persephone, and you’ll have the resources to adjust to change—or at least recognize that difficult situations will pass in time.

To learn about exercise, nutrition and life-coaching tools that will help during mid-life, peri-menopause and menopause, attend our free workshop, Embracing Change, on June 22 at APOGEE Bedford Hills. Learn more.

The key word is passion, says APOGEE life coach Staci Rosenberg. “Lack of passion and uncertainty about what it is you want—those two things combined lead to lack of success.” says Rosenberg.

For example, you might consider that exercise is a route to a shapely body, especially at this time of year when bathing suit season is right around the corner. But if you never put on a suit, then it may be hard to truly care about how you look in this year’s bikini. Likewise, it would be hard to make time to train for a marathon when you don’t have one on your schedule.

Instead, dig deep to discover what it is you truly desire. “Ask yourself: what will this mean to me? You have to identify the personal meaning for you—through writing or dialogue with another person,” says Rosenberg. Look at the other benefits you get from exercise: People who exercise regularly fall asleep faster and sleep better than those who don’t. Exercise is also as effective as antidepressants in lifting mood and can help you moderate stress. Those benefits may be more meaningful to you.

Then, says Rosenberg, create a personal statement that includes your passion and the steps you will take to attain it. Here’s how.

1. Connect your goal to your passion. Create a statment; here’s a sample: “When I exercise regularly, I sleep better and can handle stress during the day.”
2. Identify the specific steps to get to your goal. “I go to Zumba class on Monday and Wednesday; cardio on Thursday; and take a long walk on Sunday.”
3. Put your goal statement in front of you. You might write it on a sticky note and put it on the visor of your car or make it the wallpaper on your cellphone, Blackberry or laptop—put it wherever you will see it several times a day. Then it gets absorbed, Rosenberg says.

Of course, you may want to make time for more than exercise: Painting, writing, reading, playing a sport, hiking, traveling, or playing music may be your passion. “When people make time for something they really love, it affects their entire life,” says Rosenberg. Inserting passion into your life creates balance and makes every hour of every day more enjoyable.

Get more tips from APOGEE life coaches at our upcoming open houses: March 25 in White Plains and March 31 in Bedford Hills.

The health benefits of expressing thanks have been studied extensively. “Research confirms what many spiritual traditions tell us: regularly expressing gratitude increases well-being,” says APOGEE’s integrative health advisor, Woodson Merrell, M.D. As an integrative doctor, Merrell considers the emotional, spiritual, dietary, environmental, and lifestyle influences that can affect health and healing. “A sense of well-being has been found to positively affect good health and immune function,” says Merrell. “Well-being enhances the release of antibodies responsible for fighting off viruses and improves important markers of cardiovascular health.”

The key is to identify and write down one thing you’re thankful for, whether it’s the fact that a grocery store clerk was helpful, your brother has offered to bring dessert to Thanksgiving or just the fact that the sun is shining and warm. Write your gratitude statements anytime and anywhere that’s convenient: on the back of your shopping list, or in your calendar or send them to yourself via e-mail. It’s best if you don’t analyze why you’re thankful—just acknowledge it.

We’re thankful for this opportunity to spread the word about simple actions that can make people feel good. We’ll post more messages about the healing power of gratitude this week. Feel free to write your gratitude statements as comments on this blog or Facebook page, or via Twitter.

Learn more ways to turn on the calm in your life in our Unwind workshops, starting in January 2011.

By Jennifer Vagios, RD, APOGEE’s Dietitian

Many APOGEE members ask me how to include more vegetables in their diet. Here’s one way: I make a quick and nutritious dinner using spaghetti squash instead of pasta.

In local farmer’s markets right now you’ll find a colorful spectrum of winter squash, including spaghetti squash. Yellow, smooth, and cylindrical, it’s what’s on the inside that makes this squash so versatile: When cooked, the flesh separates into long, tender strands, perfect for topping with your favorite traditional pasta sauce.

How to prepare spaghetti squash: Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Cut the squash in half lengthwise, scrape the seeds out, then place both halves cut-side down on a baking sheet. Roast for 40 minutes, or until a fork easily pierces the squash. When done, flip it over and pull out the strands with a fork.

I top the cooked squash with my favorite tomato sauce and, for protein, vegetarian meatballs. Like grain-based pasta, spaghetti squash is a good source of carbohydrates, but because it’s a veggie, it also contains fiber, Vitamin B6, potassium, and Vitamin C.

Westchester County has many good farmer’s markets; this site may list one near you.

By Jennifer Vagios, RD, APOGEE’s Dietitian

Food is all around us—gigantic muffins at the coffee shop, neverending office snacks, tempting commercials during your favorite TV programs. It’s no wonder that we often eat when we’re not truly “hungry.” But research has shown that “intuitive eating”—tuning into your hunger cues rather than things like emotions, food availability, social environment and eating in front of the television—is better than dieting when it comes to losing and maintaining weight.

Do you eat when you’re truly hungry? Here are some some tips to help you start eating intuitively:

·    Keep a log of when, what and how you feel when you eat (don’t forget the piece of chocolate at 3 pm because you were “bored!”). Start rating your hunger level on a scale of 1 to 10. If you typically eat when the numbers are low then that is a sign that you may not be eating when you’re actually hungry.

·    If you often find yourself munching on something while watching television, take note of that action and behavior and replace it with something else; for example, only allow yourself to eat while at the table, and not “out of a bag!”

·    When co-workers bring donuts/sweets/fast food to the office and you’ve already eaten a meal within a few hours, it’s likely you’re not hungry. To avoid this situation you can either have a pre-planned healthy snack available such as yogurt with fruit, and/or find a way to avoid the food and situation all together.

·    Keeping “trigger” foods out of the house is one easy step to avoiding eating when you’re emotional, stressed and/or bored. Once you’ve taken notice of your own personal eating style you will be more able to handle these situations. If you typically eat when you’re emotional, find an alternative other than food such as yoga, going for a walk, reading a book, calling a friend!

·    Think long-term: Every healthful choice you make contributes to a healthy future. It’s like a bank account. Along the way, you’re bound to make some choices that aren’t so great, but don’t judge yourself harshly. Part of being healthy is keeping things, including food, in perspective.

Today, having a life coach is as commonplace as having a personal trainer. “Sometimes you feel like you’re stagnating or having difficulty setting your priorities,” says Staci Rosenberg, LMSW, CEC, APOGEE’s Life Coach. “We can help you see all the possibilities for the future and help make them happen…now.”

How Does Life Coaching Work?
Typically, you and your coach identify your objectives and the obstacles that get in the way of achieving them. In order to do this, it’s important to take an honest look at yourself and your life and decide what is and isn’t working—from why you can’t commit to a relationship to what direction to take when your career is at a crossroads. These preliminary steps of self-assessment are some of the most important ones you’ll take on your journey toward successfully attaining your goals.

Staci’s approach is action- and solution-orientated, and focuses on the future. She will help you create a road map to help you succeed. Together, you design a realistic plan of action with homework assignments and check-in periods between sessions. At your meetings, you chart your progress, discuss any new challenges and benefit from the input of a professional with a more objective perspective.

“It’s amazing how asking a few simple questions can put someone whose life has de-railed back on track.” Staci says. “My mission is for my clients to become the best version of themselves.” That’s APOGEE’s mission, as well.

Staci’s Life Coaching services are available in 1- and 3-session packages. To get started, she’s offering free 30-minute consultations. Appointments can be scheduled with APOGEE’s Wellness Concierge or Reception staff by calling 914.644.8884.