Weight Loss Tip # 10: Keep a community of support at your finger tips.
It won’t be difficult to make friends who will support you on your journey if you put a little effort into it. Build a team of six to twelve support people who you can call at any time you need motivation to stay on track with your food plan and healthy living commitments. You may be able to find some friends who will be supportive at raw food meetup groups in your area. Click here to find a raw food meetup group near you! Your friends don’t necessarily have to share your diet to be on your support team, though. As long as they respect your decision to eat the way you decide to eat and support you in your goals, they could provide useful support. Don’t put negative people on your support team. Look for people who are making positive changes in their lives. Connect with people who have happy relationships. You might find such people at church or synagogue. Perhaps you went through a detox program with them at Creative Health Institute. You might meet them at an exercise class. You might find them in your family. They could even be childhood friends.
Once you have identified the members of your support team, invite them to support you. Tell them you’re making some major changes in your life and you may just need to call for support and encouragement once and awhile. Let your support team members know you will be happy to take their calls, too. Put their home and cell phone numbers in your phone — and if they don’t mind, get their work numbers, too. Find out what hours they are available to take your calls.
Then start making phone calls to your support network on a daily basis. It is good to make two or three short check-in phone calls a day to your support team. If you are at a loss for what to say at first, you can simply say, “I’m just calling you to thank you for being on my support team. How is your day? Is there any way I can support you in being healthier today?” Don’t wait for a crisis to arise. If you are in the habit of reaching out for support on a daily basis, you will be much better positioned to ask for help when a challenging situation arises.
Daily Inspiration: Yes, our greatness as a nation has depended on individual initiative, on a belief in the free market. But it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, of mutual responsibility. The idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity. Americans know this. We know that government can’t solve all our problems – and we don’t want it to. But we also know that there are some things we can’t do on our own. We know that there are some things we do better together.
– Barack Obama
Americans often take a pull-myself-up-by-my-own-bootstraps attitude about solving problems. Bootstraps are useful and self reliance and accountability are wonderful. But when we are in the midst of making major changes in our lives, we really need a community of support. Take refuge in community and your strength will be multiplied.
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Robert Morgan, Naturopath 