In my last post, I had just returned from my Ali Brown, Millionaire Protege Retreat, where I had gone   looking for ways to grow my business.  And I came home with the realization I needed to focus on my health first and foremost or it wouldn’t matter what I did with my business, because I would be dead.   I set a plan to focus first on my health every day and I began in earnest and then like so many other good intentions, I started letting it slip away.  I was focusing on my health, just not making the time necessary to improve it.

In April, I also attended the four day Direct Selling Women’s Alliance event in Los Angeles and met so many great entrepreneurs.  One of the panelists, Suzan, shared that she had a morning call every Monday through Friday with the top people on her team to get everyone motivated for the day.  For some reason, this really resonated with me and I committed to her I would implement a similar program within one week.  I did not know what or who the group would involve; I just really liked the idea.  And within a few days, The Healthy Breakfast Club was born!

Now, less than one month later, we have over 60 members which are committed to achieving and/or maintaining a healthy body weight.  And the method we have chosen is to eat healthy well balanced meals and work out regularly.  No magic pills or machines, no fad diets,  no short term solutions.  The HBC is about making permanent life style changes to improve the quality of our lives and the quantity of years we have to live it.

Every weekday morning Monday through Friday, we convene our meeting on the phone from 7-7:30 AM PDT for thirty-ish minutes.  The focus on the call is always positive and celebrating each successful step we take.  Club members call in from all over the country to support, encourage, and motivate each other and miracles are happening.   With support, the members are achieving wonderful results.  Becky ran her first 5K yesterday, Suzzane has stopped eating after 7:30, Carra is working out every day, and this is my 10th day straight without any diet soda.  And for me that is a personal miracle.  I know my addiction to diet soda (and lots of it daily) was the MOST unhealthy habit in my life.  And it has been for 25 years.  At my worst, I would consume two 64 ounce Super Big Gulps of diet coke in one day.   An average was at least one 42 ounce diet coke from McDonalds and and I love when they put them on sale.

I am a smart girl and I know the chemicals and the artificial sweeteners were horrible for me and there was not a shred of nutritional value and yet I kept drinking.  Sometimes I would wake up in the morning and have leftover coke on my nightstand, warm and flat, and it would be the first thing I would drink.  My twins, Patrick and Dylan have asked me for years to please stop drinking diet soda and even for them I could not do it.  Dylan and I made an agreement that he would not eat meat if I would not drink diet soda and that lasted for about two days.  Most mortifying of all was then I found my self sneak drinking diet soda so he would not find out.  How addicted is that?

A week ago Friday, the goal I set for the weekend to my club members was to be aware of and track how much diet soda I consumed over the weekend.  No where did I even allude to the fact that I intended to not drink any - only to track and be aware.  This was on a Friday morning and I worked at home all day until Kevin got home.  And then we set off to Monterey to visit our son Patrick, who the week before had graduated Navy Boot Camp and was now at the Defense Language Institute for the next two years perfecting his Chinese!  On the way up, we stopped at Whole Foods in Thousand Oaks for dinner.  If you have ever been to one, you know they do not even sell diet soft drinks.  For the first time in my life (I swear) I BOUGHT a bottle of water to drink with dinner.  And off we went.

It was not until we went to lunch on Saturday that I realized I had not had any diet soda since at least Thursday.  Hmmmm and I was still alive and not thrashing about or biting any-one’s head off, so I made a decision to finish out the day without any and I did.  Here it is over a week later and I honestly feel I have ‘kicked the habit’.  In fact, I am already making plans to give up the next most unhealthy thing in my diet at the 30 day mark.

Was it easy?  No.  Was it as hard as I thought it would be.  No, which was kind of disappointing as I thought the more I suffered, the more I could pat myself on the back for succeeding.  Sheeshhh…talk about self punishment.  I began posting on Facebook my progress every single day and the members of The Healthy Breakfast Club rallied around in support and encouragement, as well as other friends on Facebook who are not members.  The support and cheer-leading was what inspired me every day to ‘just say no’ to diet soda.

Every step I take and you take brings us all one step closer to achieving our goals.  What step will you take today?

To learn more about The Healthy Breakfast Club or to join us go to http://www.thehealthybreakfastclub.com.  It is free, it is fun and it is about you and your health!