As we head into the autumn, it is a really great time to think about shaking up what you have been eating. Did you know when we are bored with what we are eating, we tend to eat even more?

As the days get crisp this time of year, I love to pull out recipe books and pore over soups and stews. This year in LA, it’s been too hot to think of hot soup and so I have gone online for some new ideas. I found a great new recipe site that I love that I want to share with you: www.realhealthyrecipes.com
http://www.realhealthyrecipes.com/ 

I also am focusing this week’s coaching on a specific technique to zero in on tastes that you love.  It's a great tool for finding foods that fit that flavor profile without taking you over your calorie budget.

Deconstructing Your Taste Palate

How many times have you been on a diet and have been craving ice cream but instead you forced yourself to eat celery as a snack instead? Think about a dish of ice cream.  What is so great...

I hope that you are enjoying your month. I recently flipped through a book that you may have heard of. It’s called: The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

If you haven’t read it, it’s a very short book about how to de-clutter your life of things you don’t really need. This means paring down your current and overwhelming amount of “stuff” into only the things that bring you joy. In fact, the way the author has you de-clutter your home is by asking the question to yourself, “does this spark joy?”

I thought about how similar this is to a Shift strategy “Thinking it Through” that you can use for the same purpose of seducing your Inner Rebel out of impulsive food choices and overindulging. The basic idea is that while your rebel is trying to seduce you, your inner coach steps in and asks the question…”how will eating this make me feel three hours from now?” Basically asking the same question, ”will...

A funny thing happened when I got on the scale Monday.  We were having someone work on our bathroom and the scale had been put away so I had not weighed myself for a week.  I admit, when I get out of the routine of getting on the scale, it’s always harder to get back on.  That’s why I do it every day, to keep it a mindless habit I don’t even think about.  Part of being in the weight mastery cycle for me is just doing what works for me. Weighing myself and not making it a big deal and  just staying in touch with reality helps my brain and weight stay stable.

So, my thoughts walking to the bathroom to get on the scale were, "just get on.  Yes you ate (and drank, it was a fun Sunday!) more calories than you usually did but overall I bet you are fine because you didn’t overeat enough to gain" (BTW this is a huge benefit of tracking while you are away: knowing for certain where you stand when you get home) "and you exercised. So just...

Welcome to October and the month of sugary temptations. This month we are going to be focusing on the weight mastery cycle. This is the cycle of thinking and habits that promotes weight release and long term weight mastery.

As we have learned, when you are in the weight struggle, you are in the “on or off”, “good or bad”, “all or nothing” mindset. It’s easy to eat a candy or something “bad”, say “I blew it” and then eat everything before getting back on track the next day. This repeats over and over causing frustration and weight gain.

The weight mastery cycle focuses instead on you being a student of weight mastery and the 9 skills of weight mastery which are gleaned from over 200 studies of people who have taken weight off and kept it off over time.  Today, I would just like you to understand the cycle itself and the art of practicing the cycle versus being 'good' on a diet—it is a totally different way...