We have been focusing on cravings this month and have mostly been looking at how to master our negative cravings. But how about creating positive cravings? Wouldn’t jonesing for exercise and broccoli be pretty good? Well, let’s explore how to do that, shall we?

TIPS TO CRAVE THE GOOD STUFF

A craving is a desire for something. The brain attaches the promise of reward to things it believes will make you happy. The interesting thing is that the actual having of the thing may not actually make us happy, but if the brain perceives that it will make you happy, it will send a simultaneous shot of dopamine and stress response through your body creating an agitation drive that compels you to fulfill the craving.

The good news is that we can get in the habit of positive cravings just like we get into negative cravings. I invite you to try a few of these tips this week to got your mind primed for some healthy living solutions.

1. CREATE A POSITIVE CRAVING: By pairing something...

In my practice, this is a time of year I often see people falling prey to excess sugar. There just seems to be more sugar around. Have you succumbed or have you remained masterful?

This week’s coaching is so short and sweet that hopefully it will be the replacement for any sugar craving you might get. It is also very effective for dodging that place called “physical craving” all together.

THE CRAVING ZONE: WHY WE FALL IN AND HOW WE GET OUT

In the research I have done, as well as in my clinical practice, there seems to be a sweet spot for staying in a zone - where our body feels nourished and our mind feels relatively free from the obsession for food - especially refined sugary and carb-based foods.

This zone is achieved by eating at least 50 grams of protein a day and keeping your carbohydrate intake under 150 grams per day.

Why?

Protein keeps your blood sugar stable.  Also, by eating over 50 grams a day, the amino acids that are present in the protein...

I was out weeding this week, getting more vegetable beds ready for new seeds in the backyard. I thought I had gotten all of the weeds out, but as I pulled harder, I realized there was a whole deeper circuitry of roots underneath the weeds I had pulled.

If I did not pull those roots up as well, the weeds would be back very quickly. So, I took a hoe and worked to dig deeper to get those roots out.  Now, the weeds can’t come back because the roots that would feed them are gone. Phew!

This week, I invite you to see that your cravings have a whole deeper root system to them as well. Have you ever noticed that once you relieve a food craving by giving into your desire, it often doesn’t satisfy that yearning feeling that you had hoped it would?

That is because most of our cravings have deeper origins and are actually an emotional or self care need that has nothing to do with food, but food has come to symbolically represent that need.

For instance - when I first moved to...

Welcome to April!

I have a case of Spring fever! Do you? I have been out weeding the vegetable garden in my backyard in my few minutes of free time and it feels so good to be out in the sunshine and to feel re-energized-and re-awakened.

This month, I want us to focus on Mastering Cravings. Cravings are a natural part of being a living being. However, when we routinely give in to cravings for refined foods, this craving can become a habit - and a huge obstacle to weight release.

This week, I want to keep it simple with an easy 5-step way to refocus our minds away from those pesky daily cravings, but still give ourselves a treat. There is a huge difference between giving in to a craving and giving ourselves a treat.

A 5-STEP SOLUTION TO RIDE THROUGH “CRAVINGS”

CRAVING definition: A powerful desire for something.

Along the paths of our daily lives, we have many thoughts that pass though our minds. Thousands upon thousands of thoughts pass through the wiring in our...

This last week of March and the last week of our theme of Patience and Persistence, I am going to continue to help you to create a repeatable structure for your meals and exercise in order to stay consistent over time.

Structuring Your Weight Release - Part 2

Last week I talked about my garden and how it took me some time and trial and error to build a garden I love that is very low maintenance. Every once in a while, when the seasons change, I have to get in there and add some things or cut things away, but for the most part, the structure remains year in and out.

The same happened with my weekly exercise structure. Honestly, I have been following the same structure for the most part (except for a few months when I was super pregnant or had just given birth) for years. I definitely have changed up food choices and specific exercises, but the habits that I cultivated and the way I eat and move, the amount of calories I burn and take in, has remained constant over time, allowing me...

I hope you are great and enjoying the wild and wacky weather this spring is bringing in.

I would like to take the next two weeks to look at creating a structure for your eating and exercise within your daily calorie budget for weight release - one that is repeatable so that it can become a low maintenance habit rather than something you have to consciously focus on all the time.

LANDSCAPING YOUR SUCCESSFUL WEIGHT LOSS STRUCTURE, PART 1

I was out in my garden last Sunday.  It was a glorious day and my front yard is coming to life. There are roses and other flowers blooming, but also all the other plants that go all year long.  I love my front garden -- there is no grass and the plants don’t take much water or care -- it is both beautiful and low maintenance. (This is going to tie into weight mastery in a moment - so hear me out.

TRIAL AND ERROR AND TRIAL AND SUCCESS

My garden was not always like this. It took time and trial and error to set up a garden that now I look...

According to the National Weight Registry, most Weight Masters weigh themselves at least once a week while reducing their weight. Now, I know our relationship to that cold slab of metal can be fraught with emotions both high and low when we are stuck in “Fat Thinking”:

• Weighing myself depresses me
• I like going by my clothes
• The scale never changes so why do I even bother?

For years you have been weighing yourself as a dieter and now I want to show you how to weigh yourself powerfully - as  a weight master.  When we use the synergy of our mind, the physics of weight release, along with the environmental measuring device - our weight scale - it removes us from the emotional roller coaster and keeps us focused on facts.  The difference is not on the scale, it’s in your head.

JULIE THE SCALE WEIGHT WATCHER

I want to introduce you to Julie, who came to see me wanting to release a pound a week for a year. That was her goal, simple right? Here was her...

Is it March already? I hate to sound cliché, but these first few months have gone so fast, I can hardly believe it’s almost Spring. Life has become so fast paced hasn’t it?

So it makes sense in this “I want it now, expect it now, and get it now” world why it is hard to have patience when it comes to weight release. Diets, cleanses and fad regimes give the allure of the quick fix but we know that those quick fixes never last and leave us feeling worse than before.

So, this month, we are going to focus on developing patience and persistence with the weight release process—so that we can actually make true and lasting changes that are meaningful to not just our health but to our confidence as well.

BE HERE, NOT THER

When I struggled with my weight, I couldn’t take the weight off fast enough. Ever.

The excess weight on my body that I felt when I sat or looked at myself in the mirror always taunted me, “You are a failure, you are a...

Welcome to the last week of the month and our last coaching regarding trust. We have covered trusting ourselves, our environment and also our body. This week I want to address a topic I know many of you want help with-eating out.

When I started working with clients as a hypnotherapist and weight release coach, one of the most interesting things that struck me is how hesitant, dare I say even scared, we are to trust that dining out can become part of their weight release plan. One of the biggest issues people have is asking the waiter for what they need.

Part of that trust issue may be founded on truth, with studies showing that we tend to eat as much as 70% more when we are eating out with other people. So, it makes sense that if we are going to achieve and maintain long term permanent weight release, we should feel comfortable enough to ask the waitperson, for what we need.

TRUST AT RESTAURANTS

Why is it so hard to ask the waiter for what we need? Is it a trust issue? Do we not...

I hope that you are feeling a little more trustworthy as we enter into our 3rd week of the month of TRUST. We have been looking at the ways we can trust ourselves, trust our body and now it’s time to think about trust and our environment.

One of the ways that we let ourselves down in our environment is by bringing in foods that tempt and trigger us--foods that I call gak, which are void of nutrients and high in sugar or refined flour and fats.

We also do ourselves a disservice when we don’t bring enough healthy foods into our environment to have on hand for when we need to reach for something.

This week, I would like to look at some do’s and don’ts for shopping—which is where we often set ourselves up for success or struggle depending on what we put into our carts and bring home. If you can keep an environment that allows you to succeed, it is one more way to move towards trusting yourself and your life of weight mastery.

Sharpening our Shopping Skills