During this week of exploring our theme “Loving Yourself Down the Scale”, I want to look at how we are presenting care to our bodies and how we cultivate the habits to serve and protect ourselves.

When we come from our old diet mentality, often we are looking at punishing ourselves down the scale. "I have to be 'good' and deprive myself in order to get to where I want on the scale". Because we are presenting information to ourselves in a negative way, telling ourselves we need to fix ourselves, and whip ourselves into shape with a diet, we are working against, rather than with ourselves, and the plan often backfires.

When we love ourselves down the scale, we can put the focus on caring for and nourishing ourselves, instead of focusing on deprivation and losing weight. From this place of honoring ourselves, we develop sustainable habits that work best for our body and that will allow ourselves to reach and stay at our ideal weight long-term.

"SERVE" HABITS

When I...

Welcome to August! It is the month of embracing the final carefree days of summer, vacations for many.  As we head into the month, I would like to invite you to think about embracing yourself as we explore this month’s theme of loving yourself down the scale. So often when we struggle with weight, our attempts to actually release weight are focused on our negative beliefs about ourselves:

• I’m fat.
• I’m out of control.
• I‘m lazy.
• My stomach is ugly.
• I can’t look like this, I have to lose weight!

All of the negativity causes stress and inner tension, and guess what happens when we are stressed and tense? We eat! What if, instead of struggling with ourselves and our weight, we focused on actually loving ourselves down the scale?

When we appreciate ourselves and come from a loving place, with a desire to give ourselves the best health and best life we can, it allows our mind to feel relaxed and inspired. It also changes the tone of our weight release...

I have really enjoyed this month of “Bouncing Back” with you. One thing that came up in the mastermind and the meeting was our need to forgive ourselves in order to bounce back. Many people said they couldn’t forgive themselves, or at least didn’t know how.

I have outlined a few steps that help me to forgive myself and then understand and learn from my mistakes: overeating episodes or even going off-track for a week or so and gaining some weight. If we don’t learn, we will just keep making the same mistake over and over. Forgiving yourself opens you up to learning and learning shifts you back into mastery out of the struggle.

FORGIVING YOURSELF FOR AN OVEREATING EPISODE

1. SAY 'I FORGIVE MYSELF' EVEN IF YOU DON’T MEAN IT: Since you want to begin a forgiveness process, say “I forgive you” to yourself to start the ball rolling.
2. OWN IT: Own what it was that you did that you didn’t want to do, specifically. Just saying "I was...

Our focus is on the skill of bouncing back when we get off-track or overeat.

So far, we have looked at preventing going “off”, intercepting “I Blew It!”, and how to physically pull our mind and body out of “overeating” mode. This week’s lesson is going to focus on the inner game of bringing ourselves back from feeling off track or having binged or overeaten.

I can’t emphasize how important this month’s lessons are for long term success.  Consistency is the cornerstone of weight mastery. Being able to build the muscle of getting back on track, mentally and physically, from a food fallout, is key.

The three steps I am about to describe are each tools that you can apply separately or all together to pull yourself back from the mental and emotional stress that comes from being off-track.

3 STEP INNER GUIDE TO BOUNCING BACK

1. FORGIVE YOURSELF: Our relationship with ourselves creates either stress or power.  When we are...

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me! Fool me multiple times,shame on sugar and carbohydrates!

During the time of my almost two decades in clinical practice, I have seen many weight mastery success stories. Over this time, I have also seen many successful weight masters get delayed or thwarted on their journey to weight mastery and often the major culprit is consuming too much sugar and/or carbohydrates.

To me, the defining distinction of someone who finally masters their relationship with weight and themselves is the person who learns the skill of consuming less than 150 grams of carbohydrates a day. And, if these masters wind up going over that amount and eat too many carbs, even over multiple days, they know how to quickly shift their food intake and bounce both their mind and body back from the influence of too many carbs and move forward on their journey with very little damage.

This week, I would like to explore that skill of noticing you have gone too far...

Happy July everyone and welcome to our theme of “Bouncing Back”. This month we will be looking at developing the incredibly powerful skill of how to bounce back after binging, or losing focus with your weight release, or even if you have gained a few pounds. Being able to build the muscle of recovering as quickly as possible from any overeating episode is vital to not only reaching your ideal weight but keeping it off for the long term.

This week I would like to begin with looking at three of the best ways I know to keep from “falling off” in the first place. Obviously, it is much easier to stay focused rather than to recover and get it back, so let’s focus on working that muscle first!

PREVENTING “GOING OFF”

I want to invite you to see that there is a science behind weight mastery that goes beyond writing your food and getting enough exercise. The science involves working with your brain in a way to keep it on course with your weight...

As we dive deeper into June and into our topic of social eating, I want to look at how we allow others to influence our food choices in social settings, and how we can become better at sticking to our dining out goals. This is a huge topic that many clients struggle with!

IS THAT ALL YOU ARE HAVING???

The desire to please others runs strong in us.  The instinct comes from our caveman roots when, if we didn’t go along with what everyone else in the cave was doing, we got kicked out into the cold night air with the animals.

Nowadays, getting kicked out of the cave may not be so obvious, but the urge to please, not rock the boat and do what everyone else is doing when it comes to social eating, can be dangerous to our long-term, permanent weight mastery. So in that case, it is serious!

Here are some tactics to stay true to your goals by not giving in to pressure:

1. Think about what you really want to eat BEFORE you go: Often, we show up at a social event with the...

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, many people are of asking waiters for what they need when dining out. As masters, we need to be in charge of our environments and that means restaurants, too. This week we are going to focus on the restaurant experience.

SHIFT YOUR ORDER

We live in an eat-out society where most of us spend a few meals a week sending a waiter to the kitchen with an order for some food that we are going to eat.  Many offerings on many restaurant menus, served as is, will be covered in fat or fried in grease or will be too big or too starchy—just too darn unhealthy and caloric to be put in front of us in our vulnerable and hungry state at a restaurant table.

Studies show 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...

Hey there! Are you ready to party? This week, we explore how to think through our social eating budget. Yes, how can I afford my social life?  Not money-wise. That matter is between you and your financial manager. I mean your weight release budget. How can you carry on a life in the real world of people - restaurants, parties and social gatherings - and keep moving towards your weight release goals? Let’s explore!

HOW CAN I AFFORD MY SOCIAL LIFE?

Life never lines up for us to ”be good”. Diets may demand strict structures and regimes and life just comes along and laughs at these “be good” plans. Sure, if we lived on “the ranch” or in a monastery, that would be one thing, but I have noticed my life isn’t like that. I eat out, entertain and get invited to parties and I don’t plan to stop doing that - and neither should you.

Weight Mastery is about living in the real world, so I would like to give you some calorie budget...

It’s official—the summer is now here. I can feel a part of me relax just by writing that. There is nothing like the idea of summer to bring back the kid in all of us, warm sunny ideas and letting our hair down and relaxing.

This month, we will explore social eating and the tools and strategies that masters use to stay true to themselves while being out in the world connecting with others. Being social is a very primal core part of who we are as descendants of cave men (and women) and our wiring to “let down our hair” runs deep. This primal wiring can create definite challenges and we will tackle them head on  this month. We don’t have to feel deprived and “on a diet” when we are hanging out with others and can truly learn to enjoy going out, from the inside out.

PREPARING FOR A GOOD TIME

When we think about going out and having fun with friends, family, or co-workers, our brain sends out a shot of the neurotransmitter dopamine...