Monthly Archives: September 2010

Stop ‘Weighting’ and Start Living

(I originally wrote this article for The Beauty Message Challenge website, but wanted to share it all with you too.  I hope you find some insights & inspiration from it.  Enjoy!)

For the past couple of years I have had the chance to help women around the world with find peace with food and their body. They come to me out of frustration, stuck, and wanting to have a better relationship with food…and with themselves.

Many of the women I work with email me or tell me their stories and asking for help and guidance in trying to be and feel better around food and with their weight.

All of them at some point have dieted – most of them dieting for years.  Going on and off diets so many times they’ve lost track.  Or maybe they’ve tried every diet and self-help book out there, yet can’t lose those last 20 pounds.  Or sometimes they’ve lost weight and fearful of gaining it all back.

They are trying to live a life with purpose, a life that goes beyond thinking about food all-day and worrying about their weight and body size.

During this process I’m constantly amazed by just how many women suffer from this.  The food compulsions, self-hatred and body obsessions that keep many women trapped in a prison that for them has become intolerable.

And I know as I’ve done my time….I’ve served my sentence.  I’ve lived through the destructive and damaging impact of being in this prison, so I am well aware of how easy it is to believe that your worth is tied to your weight or body size.  And that your beauty is defined by the number on the bathroom scale, or the size of your jeans, or the number of calories consumed (or not consumed) in a day.

We keep waiting to get to some destination (a pants size, or weight), wondering when the heck we will ever arrive – and how many calories or pounds lost it will take to get there.

But I’m here to tell you to stop waiting until you reach some destination before you start living. Before you start looking at yourself as someone beautiful, no matter what your size or weight.

Because beauty doesn’t come once you arrive at some number.

Beauty is already there.

If you’re waiting until you reach that ‘perfect’ weight before you see that, you are really missing out on life.  Don’t wait.  Live now.  See your beauty now.  Because once you see your own beauty, it’s like wiping off glasses that were full of mud and dirt.  You can start to see clearly.

Everything becomes more beautiful around you, including yourself.

Don’t wait until to reach some number to feel beautiful.  Don’t let your weight hold you back from pursuing some dream.  From living a life of passion, love and full of excitement.

If there’s one thing I know for sure it is this:  No weight is perfect enough to do the unique job of creating happiness.

Because no matter what your pants size, or what the scale says, or the number of calories you consume in a day – none of it will ever make you happy.  Or beautiful.

In my own journey I’ve learned that hating myself, my weight, and my body hindered me instead of helping me.  For years I thought if I could get to that “perfect” weight, I would like myself and be happy.   I’d finally be and feel beautiful.

Yet that perfect weight doesn’t exist.  And when I look back at photos when I thought I was ‘fat’, I only to see pretty girl with a beautiful smile.

Luckily I got to a place inside myself where I stopped “weighting” – I stopped waiting to be at that perfect weight before I started living and feeling beautiful.

Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have traveled to far-off places like Italy, Portugal, Greece and India.  I wouldn’t have lived and worked on the beach in the Caribbean, or on the ski slopes of Colorado.  I wouldn’t have lived in France where I ate amazing foods, met wonderful people, had awesome experiences, and met and married my husband.

And if I waited to reach that magic number — I wouldn’t be living the amazing life I’m living now helping hundreds, if not thousands, of women who want and need to have a better relationship with food and with their body.  That makes me feel more beautiful than any dress size.

So go out and live, and be the beautiful woman you already are.  Because your life, and your beauty, is happening now, not 10, 20, or 150 pounds from now.

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What Is Your Food Legacy?

Though at first it might be hard to believe, but your thoughts, feelings and attitudes toward food began a long time ago.  Probably when you were a child.

“But wait,” you might be thinking.  ”I ate normally as a child.  I didn’t have any problems with food back then!”

On that point, you may or may not be right.  Maybe you were overweight as a child.  Maybe you weren’t.  But that’s not the (main) point here.

You see, attitudes toward food begin at home.  The environment in which you were raised has subtly but powerfully influenced your current attitudes toward food. They became part of you whether consciously, or unconsciously….but how your parents and your family viewed food is probably still with you today.

For example:

  • Did your parents ever tell you to finish your plate, even if you were full?
  • Was your mother, father, or sibling ever on a diet when you were growing up?
  • Did anyone in your household go from diet to diet, always trying to lose weight but never comfortable with their body image?
  • Did your family eat mostly “healthy” foods  – to the point that they never kept junk food or sweets in the house?
  • Was food used to comfort you if you feel down and scraped a knee?
  • Was anyone  in your household always picking at food or snacking, and rarely sitting down and enjoying a meal?
  • Did your parents ever pressure you or a sibling to go on a diet?
  • Were there any foods that were forbidden or only served on special occasion?
  • Were there a lot of ‘diet’ or low-fat foods kept in the house?
  • Did your family regularly sit down in the kitchen and eat a meal together, or was it more like eat when and where you want?
  • Did you have a sibling who was overweight and teased or picked on because of it?

Now this isn’t meant to blame your parents, your environment or your family.  But rather to help you become more aware of how you were raised in relation to food. We all have a food legacy.  I mean, food is such an integral part of life and a part of family.

There are many other factors involved in our relationship with food, but our first relationship begins at home.  And we often forget how children are very keen on picking up on things, especially on an unconscious level.

Depending on how your family viewed and treated food, those message can still be with you today.  This is true for most of my clients and I know is true for me.

As we get older, there are many more messages that influence how and what we eat.  From friends, our culture, magazines, television, etc.  Today it’s almost impossible to not be influenced in some way by all these factors.  Turn on any morning or evening news show and there’s often something about food, weight loss, and the obesity ‘crisis’ going on.

It can be challenging to look in the mirror and see your food habits and attitudes.  Yet they really are important in the journey to having a healthy relationship with food, and with your body.

How has your food legacy influenced you?  Did the way your family, culture or environment viewed food affect your current food habits and attitudes?

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What Would You Do If You Were Thinner?

What would you do if you were Thin (or Thinner)?

Seriously.  Think about it.  If you were at that “number” — you know, the one you keep dreaming about, working towards, and is maybe even taped onto your bathroom mirror for inspiration “30 more pounds to go!” (or maybe that was ME years ago…)

Anyway — image yourself at that place.  Close your eyes and imagine — okay, actually finish reading this post, then close your eyes and do the exercise!

Imagine what it would be like at that ‘number’, your number (whether it be on the scale, the size of your jeans, cholesterol level, whatever it is for YOU).  So imagine what life would be like at that number.  How would it feel?  How would YOU feel?

What does it feel like?  What emotions do you feel inside?

Pretty good, huh?

Now image what you would DO with your life if you were already at that number?  What would you do that you’re not doing now (or be doing more of)?

Would you:

Travel more?  Go on more (or some) dates?  Buy nicer clothes?  Speak up more at work, at parties, or with your family?

Would you:

explore more?  Either in your hometown, in your country, or go somewhere you’ve never been but always dreamed of seeing?

Buy and WEAR in public that bikini?  Or maybe it’s just a dress you envy each time you walk by the store window?  Would you go to the theatre?  Ride a horse?  Get out on a bike more often and SEE and spend time with nature?

Would you have more dinner parties and invite friends over more often?  Maybe you’d take that painting class you’ve always wanted to take?  Learn a new language?  Visit foreign places?

Maybe you’d even go as far as leaving your job and following your REAL passion (whatever that is)?

Would you fly a kite?  Take a hot-air balloon ride over the French countryside?

Play more with your children?  Take a bubble bath?  Have more sex!

Really — what would you DO, or what would you do MORE of?

What would you SEE, DO, or BE?  That’s my question for you this week.

Close your eyes.  Feel it.  Think about it.  And feel free to share below….

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How to Fit Real Food Into Your Busy Schedule

Have you heard of Kelly the Kitchen Kop? She’s a “real food” blogger who has just opened up enrollment in the Real Food for Rookies class and it’s a GREAT way to see how easy cooking and healthy eating can be.

This class is a crash course that teaches you in 12 weeks the principles it takes most people years to implement in their lives.

Find out what hidden junk to look out for on food labels, which oils or sweeteners to use in your kitchen instead of the ingredients that can make you sick, how to find sources for the most nutritious meat and dairy products, what are the “superfoods’ and how to get them into your diet, easy and fast meal ideas to prevent last-minute trips to the drive-thru, healthy lunches and snacks, and much more!

Even if you’ve been eating real food for a while, this will be the nudge you need to get you out of a rut and back into a healthier lifestyle!   Watch Kelly on video here as she explains, “The Top Ten Reasons to Take the Real Food for Rookies Class”  Click HERE  to see it and what it’s all about. Or just click on the picture above.

I dare say this is a class that is not to be missed!

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