New Hope Soap Blog

By Linda Hilliard - Author of the Book
E-mail Your Weight Away - Diet Dialoges for Women

For me, one of the biggest challenges of dieting is food displays. Whether it’s those luscious looking doughnuts where I buy my morning coffee – or the tempting candy bar display at the grocery checkout counter – bad foods are always in front of us. If you are especially hungry when you see those displays, the temptation to buy can be overwhelming.

Food displays can be one of the ultimate tests of willpower. Let’s break it down – one willpower hurdle at a time.

Battling the Chocolate Frosted Doughnut

I haven’t had a doughnut for years, but I am always drawn to them. The doughnut that called to me the other day was not only chocolate frosted, but had some sort of chocolate cookie dough inside. And sprinkles on top. Be still my heart.

As with all willpower battles – there is a nanosecond of truth. The clerk may be looking at you as a calm person order- ing coffee, but a dieter’s inner turmoil when faced with an appealing – but lethally bad – food is tumultuous. In a split second, a dieter can take the high road “just coffee” or the failure road “and two of those doughnuts.”

By Linda Hilliard - Author of the Book
E-mail Your Weight Away - Diet Dialoges for Women

14 Things that Could be Interferring with Your Success!

Here’s the deal around successful dieting – you either want to lose weight or you don’t. This is not complicated. If you keep making excuses, why are you bothering to even be on diet?

This is not about the big stuff (nutrition, exercise, motivation), but how to deal with diet faulty thinking. It’s a random list, but I suspect many dieters will quickly identify with these.

GOI stand for Get Over It. That means accept the fact that as a dieter, you have to make changes, whether you like it or not.

• Cheating (just a little). GOI! A lot of diets allow a cheat day – or a cheat meal – once a week. Personally, I think that’s ridiculous. You’re either in or out. And honestly, why offset a successful week of measurable weight loss with a night of beer and nachos?
  
  
• Deserving a treat. You’ve lost 20 pounds and feel you’ve earned a food treat. GOI. You do not deserve any kind of food for losing weight. You deserve a round of applause and a “well done” (okay, and maybe a new outfit) but you have not earned the chance to go off your diet with food. What are you thinking?!!
  

Health and Fitness tips to get ready for the Wedding

Everyone wants to look their best on their wedding day. You will have these wedding pictures hanging the walls of your home and the homes of your parents and in-laws for all of the foreseeable future. You will forever be memorialized the way you look on this one day. It's too easy to stress out over your body. But here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Plan ahead. If you plan on losing weight, do it months before your wedding. There is nothing worse than realizing the day before that your wedding dress isn't going to fit. Make sure you have time to make the proper alterations. 

2. Focus on the face. Wedding dresses these days are incredibly flattering. Most of what people will focus on will be from the shoulders up. Make sure you are using the right face wash, exfoliates; face lotion, etc. for your skin type, and the right shampoo, conditioner, and product on your hair. Also do trial runs with several make-up options and hairstyles beforehand. 

By Linda Hilliard - Author of the Book
E-mail Your Weight Away - Diet Dialoges for Women

What is it about “I’m going on vacation” that becomes “I’m on vacation, I’m going to eat what I want.” Why do we go on vacation? To get away, relax and refresh, change of scenery. Most people do not set out on vacation thinking “I plan to gain 10 pounds this week” (cruise ships not withstanding!)

Just because you’re sitting on the beach or looking at the mountains, it doesn’t mean that you should throw out your diet commitment and eat everything in sight. But a lot of people do that- they struggle for a year to lose 20 pounds and blow it all in a week of eating abandon.

By Linda Hilliard - Author of the Book
E-mail Your Weight Away - Diet Dialoges for Women

Someone asked me to write about an experience she had while visiting with a friend. Both women are faithful to their diets. They support one another’s efforts and always try hard to choose wisely at every meal.

But every so often, the friendship reward/sabotage mentality slipped in. Knowing her friend loves ice cream, one asks the innocent question: “Do you want to get an ice cream?” The other thinks, “Well, I don’t need an ice cream, but since she is asking, she must want to have one.” So she responds: “Well, I’ll have on if you have one.”

By Linda Hilliard - Author of the Book
E-mail Your Weight Away - Diet Dialoges for Women

This piece was going to be entitled “Twelve Things I HATE About Sticking to My Diet,” but, shish, what would be original about that? There isn’t an overweight person who couldn’t write easily make it a list of 100++ things to hate about a diet commitment.

By Linda Hilliard - Author of the Book
E-mail Your Weight Away - Diet Dialoges for Women

Whether you celebrate Easter of not, that #!@*(!# Easter bunny can be a serious threat to your dieting efforts. Perhaps you never have - or no longer - buy jelly beans to fill baskets (on behalf of that long-eared critter), but it’s just about impossible to pass a checkout counter this season without being tempted by an Easter treat. Whether it’s three chocolate eggs for a $1.00 - or a friendly baskets of jelly beans (“Help Yourself”) this particular holiday is right up there with the major high-calorie temptation holidays.