Archive for Weight Loss

Want To Be Lean & Healthy? Get Normal!

0422161434aQuestions I’m often asked:

“How do I ramp up my metabolism?”

“How do I make my immune system strong?”

“How do I get a flat stomach?”

“How can I have more energy?”

(BTW, that’s Shelby and I on Marco Island a couple of weeks ago )

These questions are expressed from the perspective that if we could take a special supplement, cut a bunch of calories, walk a certain amount of steps, or find the right exercise, the things we hate about ourselves would go away and we’d be golden.

Really though, what we need to do is become normal.  God made our bodies spectacular; we just need to eat the right foods, think the right thoughts, sleep, and move often, to keep it so.

It’s not rocket science, but it’s tricky, because we’ve been inundated with terribly bad advice on diet and health for several decades now.

All those words of wisdom from our doctors/government/pharma, along with commercials and advertising, have us sicker, fatter, and more depressed than ever.

How to pull yourself away from 40 years of being told you need to count calories, shun fat, and take pills to feel good?

Educate Yourself!  We’re a chemistry set, not a math equation.  Work with your chemistry, and you become NORMAL (lean and healthy).   Here’s some wisdom:

Read here to learn how excessive Stress Hormones mess up your gut, your immune system, your sex hormones, your brain, and cause heart disease and weight gain. (Manage Your Stress = Think About What You’re Thinking About).

Read here about studies showing that Rosemary is effective against estrogen dominant breast cancer, and here to learn about studies showing how much more effective Turmeric can be than radiation and chemo, with none of the side effects.  ( Eat medicine foods daily!)

Read here to learn why award-winning cardiologist, Dr. Assem Malhotra, says we need to watch our sugar instead of fat when it comes to heart disease and weight.  (It’s not about the calories.)

Read here to learn how a lack of iodine can cause cancer and disease in many parts of our body.

Please, read, invest your time in learning about how your body works and what it wants. None of us are “low in medicine”; but we’re often full of crappy food, crappy thoughts, and lack of movement.  That’s all poison to the body, and your body will respond accordingly.

Eat Real Whole Foods, control your thoughts/manage your stress, move a LOT, get regular sleep.  It’s truly that simple.

Do You Ride The Diet Roller Coaster, Weekend Binge, or Punishment Exercise?

Two big steps to weight loss are at the end of this Post, but I want to start with a client email.

Most important lesson I have learned is I now have a more balanced life w/ exercise and eating. Always needed to have both diet and exercise to feel good.

Now, if I don’t make the gym, I don’t feel guilty, just make sure I am eating good food. And the scale is not topsy curvy on me. So used to gaining extra weight over the weekends. Now eating mostly at home, the scale is my friend on a Monday morning. Might be up very slightly, but due to maybe eating bigger portions on Sat and Sunday nights vs weeknights. Between hearing it from you, and also reading it in more than one article, I was able to put it into practice.

Beautiful weather yesterday, skipped the gym, we went for long walk around the neighborhood, then cooked burgers and hot dogs on the grill, w/ salad and tons of veggies. A nice relaxing night before another busy weekend.

Alan’s still amazed at all the good food we are eating, not hungry and he no longer has his sugar cravings.

So glad we decided to do this w/ you, and not doing it on our own. Well worth every penny. You make it so easy.

I’m a recovered Chronic Dieter-Weekend Binger-Punishment Exerciser; that whole “so used to gaining weight on the weekends/ balancing my eating and exercising”, spoke to me.

Can you relate?  Maybe you have a touch of my old diagnosis, here’s some clues:  The scale goes up and down, a lot.  You convince yourself you “need” a treat because you’ve been so “good”/you have major craving/ or after all, it’s the weekend.

You wake up mornings determined to (1) barely consume a thing, and (2) burn thousands of calories via workouts.  You believe this will burn butt or belly fat.

You LIVE by the 80-20, rule, which only makes sense because since calories rule, and weight is a math issue; a 20% indulgence can easily be nullified by starving/excessive cardio.

I could go on and on, but you get it, right? It’s a miserable way to live, it’s ineffective – especially long term – and consuming.  Who wants to be consumed with their weight or their body?  Not me!  Thank goodness for wake up calls, of which I had many.

One of them was when Mark gave me Dr. Perricone’s book, The Wrinkle Cure, for my 40th birthday. (Don’t judge – that’s my kind of book and Mark knows it.) The book preached eating fats for good skin. That was a conundrum for me as I thought fat was the devil.  At 40, I was deep, deep into chronic dieting and excessive exercise. It seemed to be working, except for the constant bloat, stomach problems, asthma, blood clots, varicose veins, and total disgust I had with myself after the weekend binges.

Dr. Perricone had a lot of science in his book, and the whole “eat fat” message was being preached more and more.  It was getting hard to ignore.

Next wake-up: The “eat fat” paradigm was joined by the “eat Real Whole Food” paradigm.  Another shocker! And scary. I loved my Diet Foods.  I couldn’t imagine life without Diet Ice Cream, Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Crackers, Diet Pizza, Diet Cereal, Diet Wraps, or Diet Desserts. (They’ve been gone for years now and I could care a less. Shows how wrong our thoughts can be.)

Further fueling my fire: I was a devout reader of all books and magazines Diet, like Oxygen/Muscle&Fitness Hers/Shape. All those women exercised like crazy, starved themselves for days, and had a cheat day.  They looked amazing and were definitely my role models.

I was brain washed.

I dropped all my subscriptions a few years ago. (Another thing I don’t miss – at all.)

Thank you God!

Thank You for the multiple wake up calls, because I’m someone who apparently only learns the hard way.

If you’re stuck in this vicious pattern, here’s a wake up call: Dieting doesn’t work.  Science and studies show that almost 99% of everyone who Diets gains their weight back.  99%!

Exercise – which is WONDERFUL – doesn’t take weight off.  Sucks, but true.  If it did, I’d weigh 50 pounds instead of 130.

Want to lose weight? Or at least get off the Roller Coaster of weight up and weight down?

Stop dieting, and stop the punishment exercise.  Eat Real Whole Foods, exercise smarter (not more), prioritize sleep, and put effort into managing your stress. Really.  But I said I’d give you 2 specific steps to weight loss.

1) Drop the grains.  White, whole wheat, quinoa, whatever.  If you have weight issues (and health issues) stop eating them.  You’ll live without your sandwich, your cereal, or your pasta.  Honest. I thought I’d die without those foods, but they’re not even a blip on my memory radar.  Try it for 3 weeks and see how you feel; watch your stomach flatten; access your energy levels/skin condition/immune function.

2) Quit the excessive exercise.  Studies have shown that it’s counter-productive for weight loss as excessive exercise (and punishment exercise) raises cortisol, and cortisol makes belly fat and prevents fat loss from fat cells. Besides, it’s impossible to out exercise a bad diet, impossible.

Lift, practice yoga, limit HITT workouts to a few a week, walk with a friend/dog/sister, or compete in your favorite sport because you love it.

Punishment exercise doesn’t work.

Two more tips:   Drop the unrealistic images -that we all hold- of what we should look like.  Magazines are photoshopped.  Actresses and models go through herculean efforts to be skinny because their living depends on it.  It’s not natural nor healthy.

Let’s be natural and healthy!

Finally, Action and Effort are necessary.  We’ve got to Plan, and then Stick To Our Plans.  Plan our shopping, cooking, packing, and workouts.

Got kids? Got a job?  Got a commute? Hormonal Issues?  Those are just details to be factored into your Plan, not excuses. They’re like the zombies on Walking Dead: we have to work around them.

That’s all for now.  If you want help, get in touch with me.  I LOVE this stuff!  You’re not doomed. You’re not destined to be overweight, or sick, or tired.  If you are, it’s just where you are right now, now where you have to be in a few months.

You could be a whole new you by Christmas!

Will Crunches Give You A Six Pack?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’m away at my annual fitness convention, the DCAC, So Fun! I’m here with my sister Christy, who’s a trainer and pilates instructor; and my daughter Macy, – I love it!  Macy plans on becoming a yoga teacher after graduation, and this place is a great intro to the industry.

I’ve been in this business for 28 years.  Things have changed!  We’re having a greater awareness of why we need to exercise, which I’ve written about in a few recents Posts, here, and here.  We all know we’re in a stressed filled environment, and that exercise helps that, tremendously.

(Stressing about our body fat can make us fatter!)

Why do so many still pursue the 6 Pack? Why is weight loss still the number one goal of new gym members?  Smart marketing; promising weight loss hooks people.

It’s a lie, trust me, because weight loss and 6 packs come from the kitchen, not the gym.  It’s FOOD!  Food is so important!  Not just for losing weight or getting lean, but for how we feel day to day.

You know my mantra:  eat clean proteins, good fats, a TON of vegetables, some fruit, some nuts, some beans, good dairy if you tolerate it, and stay far away from flours, sugar, chemicals, and hydrogenated fats.

But about that 6 Pack, and weight loss: what negative goals, honestly!  Exercising to pursue those intents is just so…….. gloomy, and stressful! Delete!  Exercise for your mind. Exercise for your mood.  Exercise for your longevity and immune system and hormones.

It’s the same with eating well; eat Real Whole Foods because you’ll feel so darned good afterwards!

Guess what happens if we eat well and exercise every day? We lose weight. We become healthier, we feel more energetic, we’re happier, we cope with stress better, and we sleep better.  Why would we NOT eat right and exercise everyday?  It’s the consistency of our good habits, the repetition, that make us who we are.

Back to my conference:)  Have any of you ever taken Piloxing Barre?  O.M.G! What fun!

Sluggish or Fatty Liver? Could Be Why You Can’t Lose Weight or Feel Energetic. Recipes For Detoxing and Renewing Your Liver.

20150627_172301If you struggle with weight loss, bad skin, lack of energy, pain, and everything from headaches to chronic disease, but can’t understand why, this Post is for you. Medications that you’re currently on, or have been on, could very well be the culprit.  Medications have consequences, always, despite being FDA approved and Doctor prescribed.    (Pictures of Healing Foods are sprinkled through-out. Recipes at the end. This pic to the left is Chipotle Sweet Potato-Zucchini pizza – DELICIOUS!!).

Did you know that the biggest portion of health care costs – 88% – are spent on Life Style Conditions.  That means that the majority of our symptoms are brought on from our foods, medications, actions, sleep, and thoughts.  All of which we have control over.

Food is Medicine or Food is Poison, that’s one of my favorite sayings.  Pharmaceutical drugs are Poison too, and I don’t say that enough.  Drugs are expensive (and getting more-so), loaded with side effects, and often prescribed unnecessarily or excessively.  ****

There’s a good chance that if you’re on any prescription or OTC drug, it could be interfering with your metabolism through either liver or gut disturbances, or nutrient depletion, or both.

Did you know that prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death in the US?  Unfortunately, before the death happens, there’s weeks, months, or years of adverse reactions chalked up to age, circumstance, or un-luckiness.

Everything we put in our mouth has profound effects on our health, our energy, our looks, and our weight.  Food affects our mood, our sleep, and our personality.  So do drugs.

Let’s focus on the Liver.

OUR LIVER BURNS MORE CALORIES THAN OUR MUSCLE TISSUE.  A LOT MORE.  Our liver performs hundreds of functions every day, and thru the night too. It’s important that we not over stress the liver with chemicals, toxins, alcohol, or sugar/flour. A toxic liver is a sluggish liver, and a sluggish liver is compromised in it’s ability to do all it’s jobs/do it’s jobs fully.

20150217_172852 (1)Fatty liver disease has become such a problem that it now affects 1 out of 3 people – 1 out of 3!!!

We need to keep our liver humming, so here’s some suggestions.

1) Access your meds, even innocent seeming meds like TYLENOL.  Tylenol, which we give to our children without a second thought, is the #1 cause of acute liver failure in the world!  Not alcohol, but TYLENOL.

Statins absolutely cause liver damage.  Anti-depressants, auto immune and cancer drugs, and pain killers/narcotics cause liver damage.

Alcohol causes fatty liver disease and sluggish liver function.

For a very large percentage of people on prescription drugs, a change in Life Style, could get you OFF your prescription drugs.  Get in touch with me.

2) Processed Sugars and Grains are tough on our liver.  Our liver is highly involved in blood sugar regulation.  Processed foods, like bread, pasta, cookies, cake, that kind of junk, send the blood sugar skyrocketing.  The liver has to go into overdrive dealing with all the extra glucose.

What does the liver do with the extra glucose?  IT CONVERTS IT TO FAT/TRIGLYCERIDES, and directs them to be stored in our fat cells. Look straight down and do a gut check to see if this is happening to you.

Another job hampered by a slow or fatty liver?  Estrogen detox, or removal.  Our liver is supposed to get rid of/eliminate, old, used estrogens.  Whether those estrogens came from our own glands, or foods like soy (huge ingredient in most processed foods) or chemicals ( personal care products, cleaning products, plastics, etc.), the liver is supposed to break them down from a fatty molecule to a water-based molecule, and then send them on their way out.  Toxic, slow livers don’t do this well, estrogens stay in the body – stored in fatty tissue, and we become “estrogen dominant”.

Men, this happens to you too.  No man should be estrogen dominant.  Look at your boobs and belly to see if you are.

3) Become a Liver-Loving-Fool!

I tell my clients what I tell myself:  think of ways to help and nurture your liver every. single. day.  Seriously.

Even if we try hard to eat clean, our world is full of toxins:  all municipal water is loaded with chemicals,  our air is polluted, there’s carcinogenic chemicals in dry cleaning solvents, make up, body care products, baby wipes, plastics, artificial sweeteners, pesticides and fungicides on fruits and vegetables, and I could go on and on.  The point is, our liver is responsible for dealing with and eliminating all this.  It needs our help.

4) Eat Liver-Loving-Foods every day:  beets, lemons, asparagus, olive oil, good whey protein, leafy and bitter greens, garlic, milk thistle, cilantro, parsley, cucumbers, ….  basically, Real Whole Foods. Vegetables, herbs and spices, healthy fats, and clean proteins, all contain thousands of nutrients that nourish, cleanse, rebuild, and help the liver do it’s many, many jobs.

Remember earlier when I said that our liver burns more calories in a day than our muscles?  If we’re debating about how to spend any extra time we have, shopping, chopping, and cooking is just as important, as exercising.  Don’t negate one for the other. Schedule in both.

5) Try these No Recipe Paleo Meals to load your body with nutrients that make your liver20150603_072541 function well and your metabolism hummm:)

Eggs and Leftovers

This is left-over vegetables ( zucs, yellow squash, onions, and purple cauliflower) mixed with kerry gold butter and 3 eggs.  EASY no brainer.

CHIPOTLE SWEET POTATO-ZUCCHINI PIZZA

(from the picture at the top)

1 lg sweet potato
1 large green zuc, ring out water by twisting in a towel
1 heaping tbsp chipotle powder
3 eggs, beaten
5 tbsp coconut flour
1 tsp salt
Mix all ingredients in a bowl, and pat onto a pizza pan.  Bake at 325 for 40 minutes.  Top with tomato sauce and cheese.

I’m making this again tonight and adding sausage, corn sliced off the cob, and cilantro, with shredded swiss.  THIS IS DELICIOUS!!

GREENS WITH HOMEMADE SAUSAGE, AND SAUTEED PLANTAINS

(from middle picture)

Ground sausage
Swiss Chard
1/2 an Onion and 3 Garlic cloves
coconut oil

Mix and saute in one pan, add the swiss chard last since it doesn’t need to cook as long.

Plantains:  slice, and saute in a pan with Kerrygold Butter, salt, and then put in a 250 oven for 20-30 minutes.

**** I’m not totally anti-drug; but I think it’s irrefutable that most drugs are prescribed or taken for conditions that could be fixed or managed with LIFE STYLE changes.  No one has high cholesterol from lack of a statin.  No one has a headache from a lack of Advil.  No one has high blood pressure from a lack of Lasix.  No one has diabetes from a lack of Metformin.  No one has depression from a lack of Prozac.  These are symptoms that happen from the actions we choose every day.

Summer Shape Up Part 4: You Don’t Deserve A Treat/Moral Licensing/Tomorrow Logic.

20150620_125014 (1)Hello from Aspen, Colorado!  Mark and I lived here in the early 90s, and we’re back for a long weekend.  I’d forgotten how majestic the Rockies are!

Pictures that have absolutely nothing to do with this Post will be randomly sprinkled throughout:)  You’ll see Maroon Bells, Ajax Mountain, and a 20150619_195723Food Festival – OMGosh.  Grilled Gizzards are now my new favorite food.

Did you catch my title?  If you take my group fitness classes, you’ve heard me say this a 1000 times at the end of the class.  Then I usually say, “it was just a workout, we didn’t do anything to make the world a better place.”  And therein lies my purpose in today’s piece.

There’s a theory called the “Moral Licensing Loophole”;  I learned that term in Gretchen Rubin’s book on Habits, called Better Than Before.  ( I’m ALL about habits.)  The Moral Licensing Loophole means that we give ourselves permission to do something “bad”, because we feel we’ve been “good”. (This is a continuation of my assertion that our thoughts are more important than a food plan.)

In my 28 years of working in health and fitness, I see this theory used all. the. time.  Heck.  I’ve used this theory!

Here’s some examples:

*That class was so hard, I can definitely afford wine tonight.

* That run was so long, I deserve ice cream.

* I just did 100 lunges! The french fries and cookies won’t even register with my body!

* I’ve worked out every day this week – I must have Calorie Deficit going on, potato chips and beer won’t even bring me back to normal!

* I’m going to overeat today and just work it off tomorrow, and probably the next day too.  So this doesn’t really count.

20150620_171446(0)Actually, that last one also falls under the “tomorrow logic” category.  As in, Now doesn’t matter because I’m going to follow good habits Tomorrow.

I’ve even fooled myself into thinking that extreme indulgence today will give me extra self control tomorrow.  Does that sound familiar?

Here’s some facts, followed by thoughts we need to cement in our brain:

1) Studies show that Rewards inspire TEMPORARY behavior.

2) Everything we do counts. We are the culmination of our every day habits.

3) Tomorrow-logic doesn’t work, because our actions and behaviors cause brain chemistry that perpetuates more of the same behavior, not different behavior.

Let’s look at these points a little deeper.

“Rewards only inspire temporary behavior”.  That’s a well studied, well 20150619_203249documented fact, yet rewards are used so often to motivate behavior change that you’d never know it. Think about all those 12 week weight loss contests.  Or attempts at losing weight before a wedding or a beach vacation. Who do you know that’s actually kept the weight off once the designated time frame is over?  I have to keep beating this drum:  weight loss is NEVER a big enough motivation to eat healthy and exercise forever.  If it was, 95% of everyone who goes on a diet wouldn’t gain their weight – plus a few extra pounds – back.

A “reward” implies an “end”.  When this is about weight loss, that translates to a temporary, and often heroic, effort at Deprivation, feelings of Sacrifice, and a sense of Hardship.  All of these are Negative Values.  They make us feel as if we deserve some sort of Prize at the end, usually a food prize.

SOLUTION:

20150619_200732Change your thoughts about the food you eat.  This was what my last Post focused on, but there’s more.  In addition to looking at Bad Foods as potentially cancer causing, or migraine causing, or heart disease causing, what about framing Good Foods and Good Choices in a positive light.

*”Thank goodness I don’t eat after dinner anymore, I sleep so much better now.”

*”Thank goodness I don’t drink alcohol every night, I sleep better, my face isn’t puffy, and I have better energy in the morning.”

*”Thank goodness I started packing lunch every day.  I can’t remember the last time I felt sleepy in the afternoon.”

*”Thank goodness I’ve gotten rid of the starchy and sugary carbs, my stomach is so flat!”

Positive Assertions!  Friday night we went to a food festival, which was amazing!  We both ate a lot of food, and felt pretty full.   Alright, we probably ate too much, BUT, no bread and no pasta.  ( there were no desserts, so that wasn’t even a temptation)  We got back (walked home up a mountain!), feeling stuffed, but our stomachs looked fine – honestly.

Not being bloated and sick and gassy, it’s WONDERFUL. That’s our motivation for not eating grainy, sugary carbs.  We Feel So NORMAL and good that it’s worth it.

“Everything we do counts. We’re the culmination of our every day habits.” 20150620_171508 This is why I counsel my clients to start eating well RIGHT NOW.  Don’t wait for Sunday, or the 1st, start now.  It’s not about weight, it’s about whether you’re putting foods in your mouth that make you feel good or make you feel like crap – in the long term.

No fooling ourselves that a little bit of poison doesn’t matter.  Or that falling off the wagon won’t hurt.  Everything counts.  Look down at your stomach – is it flat or puffy?  Are you energetic and clear thinking, or tired and foggy?  How’s your skin?  How’s your sleep?  Do you digest without bloating, farting or burping?

Everything counts, and here’s why:

“Tomorrow-logic doesn’t work, because our actions and behaviors always cause brain chemistry that perpetuates more of the same behavior, not different behavior.”

When we tell ourselves that we’re not going to drink the wine or eat the pasta or have the chips, and then we do, we STRENGTHEN the habit in our brain.  We don’t weaken it with our actions or our pledge to be better tomorrow, ever.  The action creates chemicals that create substance -matter- in our brain. The action makes it harder to resist next time, not easier.  If over indulgence was a deterrent, we’d have no obese people, no alcoholics, no drug addicts, no gamblers, etc.  

Indulgence begets more indulgence.  Always.

Solution:  In addition to changing your thoughts about what makes you feel good and happy, access your circumstances and surroundings.  What do you need to change there?

Could you:

*Keep your home a junk free zone.

*Pack a lunch every day.

* Make enough dinner that you have leftovers for lunch.

*Pledge to quit depriving yourself, and eat 3 meals a day of Real Whole Food.

*Make butter, olive oil, and coconut oil regular additions to each of your meals so that you’re not starving.

*Set aside time to plan your whole week, so you can schedule grocery shopping, packing, and cooking, and power cooking.

*Want a sweet or a salty?  Make It Yourself.  Learn how to bake cookies with almond flour, honey, and dark chocolate.  Learn how to bake homemade french fries in your oven. Learn how to make homemade ice cream, with real cream, swerve, and vanilla or cocoa powder.

Back to the word “deprivation”, that’s not what being healthy is about, but that’s the term and the attitude that’s been instilled in all of us since the 1970s, right?  “If you want to be healthy, you need to eat boiled chicken and steamed broccoli.”  That’s such bull crap!

I still remember Mrs Poland from my high school saying, “if you’re not hungry, you’re not losing weight”.  I believed that for decades, and it’s so wrong! Hunger and deprivation set us up to Fail, not Win.

Hunger’s the enemy, and we can keep it at bay by having hearty meals full of good fats, good proteins, and a TON of vegetables; not over exercising, and working hard at getting enough sleep.

Those are the secrets and the tricks to being a Normal Weight, feeling good, being healthy, and having nice skin.  Honest.  Get in touch with me if you need help. 

Part 3 Summer Shape Up: Change Your Thoughts About Food to Change Your Body

change aristotleYes!  to constantly working to have better thought patterns!  Yes to not accepting that we’re stuck with where we are, because we’re not amoebas – we’re humans, and our brain is literally capable of changing and growing until we die.  Or not.  It’s up to us.  Taking control of our thoughts by focusing and being intentional is exercise for the brain.

Deliberate, studied, conscious thinking keeps our brain young and vital!  This is how we grow new neurons and thought patterns, this is how we determine whether positive chemicals or negative chemicals flow through our brain.

So what are our thoughts about food?  My aim for these last few Posts is to convince you that our thoughts are more important than a particular food plan when it comes to our weight and our health.

Counting calories, tracking food, weighing, measuring, diet meals, diet this could be the daydesserts, diet pills, diet plans… their long term success rate is an abysmal 1-5%.  This stat shows that the desire to lose weight isn’t a strong enough force to change our habits permanently, and temporary changes are useless.

Unfortunately, the HABIT and PATTERN of thinking of our body as the end result of how much we diet and exercise is fairly fixed in most of our brains.

It’s so untrue.  Let’s change that!

Our body’s not a Math Equation, it’s a Chemistry Set.  Start THINKING about our body that way, start looking at food as chemicals that send signals and have consequences as to how we function and feel and perform, and we can change our body, forever.  Losing weight, getting fit, becoming healthy, that happens when we care about every bite that goes into our mouth because we understand that food’s consequences.

My last Post was on stressing about our food, and how counter-productive stress is to our weight and health.  So I’m not suggesting hours of research, or logging everything we eat on to FitDay.

I’m talking about sitting with the thought – the fact – that our food becomes us. Not just our weight, but our mood, our skin, our hair, our energy, and every cell in our body.

Our thought patterns and habits dictate what we eat.  When we believe that certain foods give us energy or heal our body or give us pretty skin, it makes us more likely to seek it out and eat it.

When we believe that certain foods cause cancer, heart disease, migraines, fatigue, diabetes, and allergies, it’s easier to avoid them.

Put “consequence facts” in your mind that allow you to make good choices:    howlongdoyouwantotcontin

– White flour raises blood sugar, insulin and triglycerides; it’s also been sprayed with chlorine gas. The EPA sites this gas as a dangerous irritant that can be lethal.  It also has gluten, which damages the gut and the brain.

– Sugar is cancer cells favorite food.  The same with High Fructose Corn syrup.  They’re both very, very easy for cancer cells to metabolize.

Garlic reduces plaque build up in the arteries.

– Sugar is pathogenic bacteria, virus, and fungi’s favorite food. So sugar feeds the bugs that make us sick.

– Avocados have fats which are great for our skin and vitamins which are good for our eyes.

– Sugar and processed grains cause high blood sugar which causes “glycation”, which damages our skin by causing age spots and wrinkles.  Alcohol – even wine! – causes glycation.

– Leafy greens are loaded with nutrients that make our skin and arteries healthy.  Beets have ingredients that help our liver do all it’s many jobs.  Cruciferous vegetables prevent cancer.

– Sugar suppresses the ability of white blood cells to kill pathogens. Sugar and our immune system are highly connected.

– Saturated fat and cholesterol make up our glands, our hormones, and 60% of our brain.

– Proteins make up our muscles, hair, skin, nails, ligaments, and organs. Proteins become the connections between the fatty parts of our brain that allow messages to jump from one neuron to neuron to another.  They also build our chemical messengers, neurotransmitters:  dopamine, serotonin, GABA, etc.

When we eat sugar and flour and hydrogenated fats and toxic chemicals, we damage our heart, our brain, our liver, our kidneys, our skin, etc etc etc.  Damage.  It’s slow, it’s subtle, it might be mistaken for “aging”, or a bad mood, or fatigue, but it’s damage, and it’s inevitable.

Damage is also revealed in an inability to lose weight.  Our bodies should be masters at burning fat for fuel,  and using nutrients to rebuild our cells.  When illness, chronic fatigue, and resistant weight loss happens, there’s our proof that Damage is Done.

habittilobserve then choiceThank God it’s possible to reverse the damage by changing our habits. Here’s an Action Plan:

– Set aside time every week for planning, as in write down your schedule.  Your work, your kids schedule, your errands, your workouts, everything, including Food.  Schedule your grocery store, keep a running list all week, make time to chop and prep, power cook a few meals and put them in the freezer.

Does planning sound stressful? Studies show that organizing and scheduling REDUCE stress.  Living by the Seat of the Pants increases stress.

– Don’t buy your trigger foods. This is a no-brainer!  Keep foods that tempt you far, far away.  Convenience of trigger foods makes resisting really tough, so don’t let them be convenient. Worried your family will object to no chips or cookies in the house?  Junk food is Poison food.  No one in our families needs that crap.  No one.  All those above listed facts on sugar and grains and their links to cancer and immune function, they apply to children too.

There’s a great study on Flight Attendants who smoke, and the desire they feel for their cigarettes while they’re on their flights. The study revealed that it didn’t matter how long the duration of the flight was, whether it was short or long, their desire for their cigarette rose as they got closer and closer to the end of the flight.  Smoking was about to go from “Not Allowed”, to Convenient, and the craving appeared.

– If shopping is your albatross, take advantage of shopping on line, or having your groceries delivered, or buying the precut vegetables or prepared meats at most grocery stores now.  At least have a list ready!

bo bennett quote– Commit to 5 minutes a day of reading information that trains the brain to think of Food as Medicine or Food as Poison.  Please.  To beat the drum again: wishing for weight loss isn’t enough to inspire permanent habit changes.  Believing our food can make usfeelgood healthy and vibrant or sick and old, can.

One of my favorite sites, based solely on studies but written for succinct, easy reads:  Green Med Info.

Need help with your habits and thoughts? Get in touch with me! I have skill set of tricks to change behavior. Imagine yourself a year from now; you could be a whole new you, you could be the same, or you could be worse. Make the choice, take the action.

 

 

Part 2 of Summer Shape Up: Stressing About Our Body Fat Just Makes Us Fatter – Really.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERALet me say that again:  Stressing about our body fat just makes us fatter. It’s true; and as woo-woo as that may sound, it’s very grounded in science.

Remember in my last Post  I said that when it comes to weight and our health, our thoughts are more important than a food plan?  If a good food plan was all it took, no one would be fat and sick.

One of my favorite quotes is:  “Our body isn’t a math equation, it’s a chemistry set.”  This is why low calorie, low fat diets don’t work in the long run.  We upset our chemistry when we eat that way.

I’m continuing my series on taking control of our thoughts to get control of our body.  Many of us constantly bemoan our butts, our stomach’s, our thighs, and our batwings. Constantly.

How’s that negative thinking working?

A favorite quote, “What we think about, we bring about.”   More science, more chemistry; our brain LISTENS to our words and creates chemicals and structures in response to those words.  Seriously.

Constantly bemoaning our weight and our shape and our health is called STRESS.  “Stress” is a chemical state in our body that’s really only good if we need to run away from a bad guy or perform a heroic feat.  Other than that, it works against us. (Actually, there’s more to the stress story.  “Temporary” stress can help us solve problems and get out of jams. It’s “Chronic” stress that hurts us – and makes us fat.)

A stressed-out state, for ANY reason (mental, physical, emotional, REAL OR FAKE), causes the same chemical response: an increase in hormones that dump lots of SUGAR into the blood stream.  Nothing is easier and faster for our cells to use in an emergency than sugar.  Not fat, not protein, but SUGAR.

When we feel stressed from a kid or a spouse or a co-worker or traffic or from agonizing over our weight or stressing about food or exercise, our glands squirt FIGHT AND FLIGHT HORMONES (chemicals) into our blood stream.

These hormones do a number on us:

– they inhibit fat burning in cells (never good for healthy body weight!)

– they dump loads of sugar/glucose from the liver into the blood

– they break down muscle tissue to convert to glucose (fitness friends, take note – we want that muscle!)

– they make us hungry and crave more sugar – just in case the stress is chronic (“stress eating”)

– they slow down the thyroid (not a priority), slow down digestion (not a priority), slow down sex hormone production (not a priority)

– they suppress the immune system (not a priority, and this is why stress is associated with being sick more often)

And that’s just the starter list!  The gist:  Stress Makes Us Fat and Sick, not lean and healthy.

I know I already said this, but I’m saying it again:  stressing over our weight or our food or our workouts is EXACTLY the same as stressing over a bad guy or money or a fight.  Stress is stress is stress is stress.  The same chemicals are released into the body.

Action Plan to Combat Stressing About Our Fat:

1) Quit comparing ourselves to any woman on a magazine cover.  I quit buying women’s magazines 15 years ago.  I didn’t want my 4 daughters influenced by those faked and unrealistic images. Woo-hoo! FREEDOM.  Seriously, have you ever googled what they do to those cover images to make them look so perfect?

Having those images around is like having our favorite trigger food in the pantry.  Bad stuff happens.  Set yourself up for success and control your surroundings as much as possible.

Temptations CAUSE stress.  Get rid of them.

2) Quit comparing ourselves to anyone at the gym, or in our circles, who has a better body than us.  STOP IT.  What a waste of a brain space!  And it’s stressful!  We have friends and family who need our help and our prayers.  We have a home and jobs and people who need our attention. There’s turmoil and starvation and war going on, and we’re stressing about our butt and our weight?  Let’s focus on important issues.

The Bible says to focus on Love, Joy, Appreciation, and Gratitude.  Meditation books say the same thing.  What we focus on has a CHEMICAL CONSEQUENCE.  (Hey!  Food also has chemical consequences!)

3) DEEP BREATHING.  Humming.  Singing. Breath Patterns.  Yep, really. For weight loss!  These actions stimulate our Vagus Nerve, the nerve that runs from the brain stem to every organ in our body.  When we stimulate it with deep breath, humming, and singing, it releases Happy Chemicals.

This is the polar opposite of our Fight and Flight/Sympathetic nervous system, which is the system that releases cortisol, adrenalin, and more.

The Vagus Nerve releases chemicals that actually benefit our DNA, and make our brain more creative, problem solving, and powerful.   Fight/flight chemicals (chronically produced) damage our DNA and inhibit problem solving and creativeness.

Fight/fight chemicals also deplete our willpower.

The Vagus Nerve meanders all the way into the belly; spreading fibers to the tongue, pharynx, vocal chords, lungs, heart, stomach, intestines and glands that produce the anti-stress enzymes and hormones: Acetylcholine, Prolactin, Vasopressin, and Oxytocin. These chemicals make digestion, metabolism and relaxation BETTER.

They even make us poop better!

4) Gratitude, appreciation, love for your body. Yes, you need these for weight loss.  Honestly, even a year ago, I wouldn’t have written that.  I’ve read this, been taught this, for years, but it never sunk in.  I’m wired pretty happy, so I never thought I needed this advice.  I was wrong.  We all need this advice.

Again, stressing over our body, picking apart it’s “defects”, is just “stress”.  Stress is a chemical state that inhibits fat loss, and encourages fat deposition.

I really believe this explains the strict diet and exercisers, who are just doing it for weight loss – not health, who never seem to lose weight.  

When we eat for health, our thought patterns are something like this:  “I haven’t had any fish in a few days and I really need that Omega 3.”  Or, “My throat hurts, I need some garlic.”  Or, “If I eat that, I’ll have bloat and foggy brain the rest of the day. Better stay away.” Eating for health means looking at food as Medicine, and it’s empowering!

Counting calories, measuring, white-knuckling up some willpower – NOT empowering.  At all.  It’s draining.

Try this: next time negative beliefs about your body consume your thoughts, stop them, and replace them with 5 different gratitudes about your body.

If you have difficulty thinking of 5 gratitudes, you’ve got a bigger problem than your weight!

Resource for improving your mind:  Battlefield of the Mind, by Joyce Meyers.

Learn more about the Vagus Nerve here.

Reinforce Food is Medicine here.

Go think about what you’re thinking about!

Part 1 of Summer Shape Up: Train Your Brain To Work For You.

20150530_094024I’ve been absent for 2 weeks from my blog and it’s killed me!  We’ve had 2 big graduations, parties, and extra travel; but the real reason has been that my computer died.

( Pic of our youngest daughter, Shelby, after her HS graduation, with me, and Amanda.)

Well, actually, my computer was killed by a coffee spill:(  But I finally have a new one and it’s working and all is well!

All is not well for several women who’ve emailed me in the IMG951389past 2 weeks, wanting a diet plan that’ll whip them into shape for Bathing Suit Season.  

(Pic of me and brother-in-law, Bryan, at the Juvenile Diabetes Walk in DC)

I’ve got “plans”; as that’s my job.  But here’s part of my goal: To teach that our thoughts are more important to health and weight loss than a food plan.  Honest.  Really.  It’s true.

Does this sound like you:  “I’m so fat, I’m barely going to eat.  I’m going to start every day off with either a fast, or a juice.  I’m going to workout at least 5 days a week, with sprints!  Lunch and dinner will be miniature!  Boiled chicken and steamed broccoli!  The weight will pour off, and I’ll look just like all the women on the magazine covers by the end of the month.  Woo-hoo for diets!”

Reality check:  statistically, about 100% of EVERYONE who goes on a diet gains the weight back; more than 50% gain more.

Have you heard the phrase, “Stop the insanity!” ?  STOP THE INSANITY!  Would the above plan take off weight?  ABSOLUTELY!  Would it stay off? No.

We’ve got to work on our mind; the mind’s the priority.  If we don’t train our mind to work for us, we’ll never stick to a healthy food plan, ever.  We won’t even make a healthy food plan;  we’ll make a dumb food plan that guarantees failure.

Real health and fitness, being a great weight, is about the actions we take every single day, cumulatively.  Little bursts of starvation or action have no positive results.

To stick to a healthy plan, we have to BELIEVE that food and exercise and thoughts matter, that they create us, because they do.  They really do.

20150530_094802(0)Bad foods (processed flours and sugars, chemicals, hydrogenated fats) make a bad body and a bad mind.  Nothing works right, and I’m not just talking fuzzy thinking or a big butt, which stink.  I’m talking Cancer, Heart Disease, Auto Immune Issues, Neurological Problems, Diabetes, Pain, Headaches, etc. You get the point.

( Meg, Shels, Macy, Manda after graduation )

I’m on a mission!  Food is Medicine or Food is Poison, and I want everyone to believe that so much that it affects our behavior.  This is important.  A belief that we need to lose weight is NEVER enough to effect permanent behavior change.  Never.

But a belief that Bad Food causes Cancer and Disease, in us and our children, now THAT can cause behavior change.

You know what else Bad Foods cause?  Bad decisions.  Our thoughts are actually structural.  Our thoughts and memories are literally made out of proteins.  They’re not little vaporous words floating through our mind, like in a cartoon.

Quality in, quality out.

These protein structures, aka memories, affect our decisions and attitudes.  Again, quality in, quality out.

Want productive thoughts that lead to healthy actions?  We need to be Intentional and Discipled about our health.  To be intentional and disciplined requires knowledge and application.  This is where most of us struggle, right?  Every single thing we give attention to, that we practice and focus on, grows.  If we practice and focus on training our thoughts to lead to healthy actions, we’ll lose weight and get healthy.

Honest.  It’s that simple.

But it’s not easy.  Most things valuable and good aren’t easy.  Should “easy” be a criteria for what we do?   Is that what we teach our kids?

The next few Posts I do are going to be on Training Our Brains for Healthy Behaviors – Every Day.  Not because I’m an expert at it, but because I’m a student of it.   Habits, behaviors, practiced and learned attitudes; I LOVE THAT STUFF!!  I can’t get enough of it!

When we train our mind to work for us and not against us, you know what we lose (in addition to weight!)?  STRESS.  If we believe that what we put in our mouth is going to make us tired, depressed, bitchy, bloated, sick, and fat, then there’s no decision-making-stress when that temptation is put in front of us.  A trained mind allows us to easily choose foods that are good for us.

Join me over the next few weeks as I really zero in on developing habits that lead to a lean and healthy body.  Anyone and everyone can do this.  Let’s commit to becoming the person we’ve always wanted to be.

“Take Control Of Your Habits, Take Control Of Your Life.”

“Successful People Are Simply Those With Successful Habits.”  Bryan Tracy

Part 2, with concrete action steps and mind-bending facts,  coming soon!

Ditch The Starchy Carbs and Paleo Indulgences to Get Rid of Winter Fluff

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’ve had several questions on “safe starches” and paleo indulgences. Here’s a Post with the 411 on both, and advice at the end for making it easier to get rid of winter weight gain.

If our starch is coming from a grain, as opposed to vegetables or fruit, I don’t think it’s safe – for most people.

If the grains contain the protein “gluten”, we’re ingesting one of the most common allergens out there. If we don’t see typical symptoms, like stomach ache or stuffy nose, that’s because food allergies, or food sensitivities, often manifest in sore joints, headaches, skin problems, fatigue, and auto-immune conditions.

The gluten protein is incredibly difficult to digest; humans don’t even have enzymes for gluten. Gluten goes thru the small intestine IN-completely digested, perforates the intestine wall, and leaks into the blood stream as a large protein. When our immune system sees the big proteins in the blood, it mounts an Immune Attack, and this can manifest as joint pain or an attack on different organs or systems. Pretty serious stuff.

What about gluten-free grains, such as kamult or spelt? They still contain “gliadins”. Gliadins, once digested, become “exorphins”, which are morphine-like compounds that bind to opiate receptors in the brain. Their effect is to cause Addictive Behavior, and Appetite Stimulation. This explains binges and eating way past full.

What about “healthy whole grains”, like buckwheat, quinoa, or millet? Look at their carb counts:

1/2 c oatmeal 29g carb

1/4 c wild rice 34g carb

2 oz wheat pilaf w orzo 40g carb

1/4c barley 32g carb

1/4c quinoa 30g carb

2oz whole wheat pasta 44g

Note that these serving are really, really, small; I mean, who eats a quarter cup?  Have you ever measured 2 oz of pasta?  I have.  It’s miniscule.

4 grams of carbs = 1 tsp of sugar.  2 ounces of pasta is 10 teaspoons of sugar.  Think about that.

Excess blood sugar is ALWAYS repackaged as triglycerides, always.  I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but high blood sugar is tied to every disease out there through the inflammation and glycatation it causes.  It’s also a big cause of Weight Gain.

Next, Paleo Indulgences.  I’m talking treats made with almond or coconut flour, plantains, honey, molasses, Swerve, chocolate, cream, nut butters, etc.  I’m going to call them P.I. for short, and if you need recipes, search Pintrest.

P.I.s are wonderful for kids. They’re practically a necessity when transitioning from a SAD ( standard american diet) to RWF (real whole food).  I LOVE a good paleo cookie or homemade ice cream. But unfortunately, and this is where I am right now, for weight loss, or just leaning out the Junk In The Trunk after a long winter, they need to either go, or be strictly limited.  Sad.

But summer clothes just don’t have the “hide the poochy stomach” ability that winter clothes do!

What to do? Set up your house/office so that temptations don’t trigger you.  Don’t buy anything that tempts you, because tempting food calls to us, loudly.  No lying that we’re buying something “for the kids”.  If it’s a temptation, it’s banned.  Treats need to be “treats”, and the definition of treat is: “an event or item that is out of the ordinary and gives great pleasure.”  Once or twice a week is an out of ordinary event.  EVERY DAY IS NOT OUT OF THE ORDINARY.

Girlfriends, thanks to estrogen, a propensity for slow thyroid, very little testosterone, and high cortisol, we just don’t have tons of leeway for jumping off the path of a RWF, fairly low carb diet, if we want to be a healthy weight and feel great.  It’s the price of being a woman.

It doesn’t mean we have to starve or exercise a ton – as a matter of fact, that plan slows down thyroid hormones and raises cortisol – exactly what we don’t want.  But we do need to pay attention to the details:  TONS of vegetables, plenty of good meats and eggs, healthy fats, some fruit, some nuts and seeds, and some real dairy if we tolerate it.

Hours need to go by between meals so that Sugar Burning stops and Fat Burning happens.  Avoidance of foods that cause headaches, stomachaches, and skin problems is important; those symptoms are signs of inflammation, which raises cortisol, which inhibits fat burning.

So there’s my Sunday take on grainy carbs and paleo treats.  Have a wonderful Mother’s Day, and eat smart!

 

I’m 50! Here’s my Diet and Body Image Story, See If You Relate.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERATomorrow I turn 50, woo-hoo!  Big day, and I thank God for all my blessings.  One of those blessings is that I’m healthier at 50 than I was at 40, and even 35.  Are my abs leaner? No. But that’s about the only health marker that hasn’t improved in the past several years since I gave up Dieting and switched to Real Whole Food.

Confession:  I used to be a food addict; and I had an obsession with wanting to be thinner and leaner. Now, after 28 years in the fitness and nutrition business, I can definitely say that way too many women feel the same way, and those thoughts rule the mind, and ruin the body.

It doesn’t have to be like that!

Here’s my story of dieting and negative body image, see if you relate.

I was a typical female teenager. I’d read Teen Magazine and Seventeen, stare at the models, and dream of looking like them. My first diet started when I was 15. I’d busted through the 114 pound weight limit I set for myself in 9th grade, which compelled me to sneak home a pack of Dexatrim – it worked, for a while. Til it didn’t. Next, I tried the Fruit Only diet; which worked less well than Dexatrim. In 12th grade I bought a pair of special pants that – for real here – attached to our vacuum cleaner, and I had to wear them while exercising – while the vacuum was running. I believed in those pants, but they didn’t work either. I still just looked like me.

Reality Check: at 5’6 and 128 pounds, I wasn’t overweight; I just didn’t look like the girls in the magazines, or on TV. And it bugged me.

Fast forward to 1987, I’d graduated from college and married Mark. My 4 years of college had me totally committed to the world of fitness,  I loved exercising!  Not only did I get a serious endorphin rush from workouts, (and still do) but I fully, deeply believed that exercise would keep me slim; the whole “calories in – calories out” theory. I took a full time job managing the Aerobics Department at a local gym, and my career was born. Through the rest of the 80’s, and the 90’s, my desire to be fit – and weigh less – never waned.

Well, actually, after my first baby, Megan, in 1990, between heavy nursing and working out, I got down to 114, my 9th grade goal weight! Let me tell you all: Happy. Days. But then she quit nursing and I got pregnant again (Amanda), and again (Macy), and again (Shelby).

Through constant diet efforts, I managed to stay around 128, but I never looked like Cindy Crawford. It bugged me. I wanted that thigh gap.

Sometime in the mid 90s, I switched from reading regular women’s magazines, to body builder women’s magazine. This did so much for my self esteem! Now my dream shape wasn’t just thin; it was ripped, lean, and muscular. (Strong is the new skinny.) Since I was a group ex instructor, and personal trainer, I had the opportunity to workout hours a day. I fueled myself with frozen diet meals, diet desserts, diet drinks, cereals that had more fiber than hay, and (thank you mom! ) vegetables. Meat was a rarity, and fat was an absolute no-way. I ate 5 to 6 “mini-meals” a day, carried my protein bars with me everywhere (I was scared I’d get hungry), and counted the hours to the recommended “cheat meals”, which sometimes consisted of a whole pizza and a pint of ice cream. No, actually, and honestly, that was just starter food; because I was never full from crap like that; I was just triggered to eat more.

Anyway, I thought it was such a great Diet Plan! Just like the women in the magazines! Except for when I fell off the wagon, which happened all the time. And not for a meal, but for a day, or two, or more. I lived on what I call the Diet Roller Coaster: Starve – Feast – Starve – Feast, for years. My weight actually averaged out, but it was all so consuming that I started to worry about myself. I didn’t want my 4 daughters disliking their body, or obsessing about food, like me.

I began to see the insanity of this cycle, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted to stop, badly, but I literally couldn’t. I went to a counselor sometime in my late 30s to describe what I guessed was bulimia, or food addiction. He told me I was probably either depressed or anxious, and did I want a prescription. I was neither, and I was pissed he’d even suggested that.

(Ever notice how often a doctors default with a woman’s health issues is, “do you want an anti-depressant?” )

This is when my health started to take a nose dive. Really, it started to go downhill at 30, when I developed asthma, but it took 10 years for me to see what was happening. (Inflammation from the crap I ate) The asthma came on quick and strong, and I was put on 3 separate daily drugs to “manage” it.

Then, after my 4th baby at 31, severe IBS began. Severe. Like, sometime starting in my mid 30s, my stomach would bloat every afternoon to the point of me looking 5 months pregnant.  And.. I had bad gas. It was awful. I thought it was a side effect of eating so healthfully….

Right around then my period stopped, for the first of many times. My GYN ran a blood test which determined I was so low in estrogen that the lab listed me as “post-menopausal”. I was 34. The solution? Put me on The Pill to force a period, and make me “normal” again. I did it, but it kept happening, for years. (Today I know that low estrogen isn’t normal, and it’s fixable.)

At 36, fatigue and low energy set in; a test showed my thyroid hormones were low, which meant daily thyroid meds. At this point, our medicine cabinet was loaded with drugs to deal with all the symptoms I considered completely normal: Gas X, Beano, Tums, Seravent, Advar, Fast Acting Inhalers, Armor, the Pill, Midol, and Advil. I popped these things in my mouth every day without a thought. I carried them in my car…. Now I carry systemic enzymes and “bitters”.

The final straw, my Ah-Ha moment, came at 40. I got my second blood clot. My doctor told me that since this was my second one, I needed to go on Coumadin, a blood thinner. OMG. Grandmas take that stuff! Thank you God for the clot, because THAT was my wake up call. Instead of Coumadin, I went to a Functional MD, and was put on systemic enzymes and big doses of fish oil, (actually, those were my starter supplements). Every blood test I’ve had since then has shown zero “sticky blood”, just normal blood.

For the first time, I started to look and connect what I ate, with the health problems I was having. Up til then, I’d just Dieted, which I thought was supposed to make me healthy, but it hadn’t. The big shocker: I realized that the majority of what I put in my mouth wasn’t actual food, it was Pretend Food that looked real and tasted great, or at least I thought it did at the time. But except for pretty big daily serving of vegetables, I lived on processed foods high in carbs, chemicals, and bad oils; in other words, pure crap.

I served COMPANY frozen diet dinners with vegetables added, topped with slices of fat free cheese! I thought I was a smart Gourmet! I wasn’t.  Those “foods” slowly made me sick, and kept me constantly hungry.

Over the next few years, I morphed from a “Diet” based paradigm, to a Real Whole Foods paradigm, eating (seriously) copious amounts of healthy fats, healthy meats, and absolute loads of vegetables.

I quit eating grains, then sugar. That was hard because I was addicted, but I preserved, and thank goodness! Today I use ZERO effort or will power to stay away from that stuff.

The “no grain/no sugar” scares people, but consider this. Imagine what it’s like to never have gas, bloat, or constipation. I said my stomach’s not as lean, but it’s flattish! Or to not constantly think about food.  Or to have more energy at 50 than at 40? My asthma’s gone. My thyroid labs are normal. My estrogen’s still low, but I made it through menopause, fully, without one hot flash or night sweat.

Best part? My weight’s not an issue. Not because I weigh 114 or 128, but because the obsession is over. The Diet Roller Coaster, which was caused by dieting, is over. I don’t gain every weekend and lose every week. I don’t promise myself every Monday morning that “this will be the week I lose weight.” I’m just…. stable, and normal. There’s still no thigh gap. I don’t for a moment look 20, but, I look fine.

I’ve stopped being so ridiculously hard on myself.

I feel like I used to live “Under The Dome”, but now I see how I was manipulated into wanting someone else’s unattainable ideal body image. Those images are just Temptations, trying to entice us to spend our money on products!

This brings me to the point of my piece: Women, I think many (most?) of us are the victims of slick marketing created to make us feel bad about our looks.

I think said marketing conspires to convince us that we’re too fat, too busy, too depressed, too stressed, and too inadequate to handle life with out special diet food, diet pills, diet aids and diet groups. Science Daily reports a study that says 75% of American women surveyed report unhealthy thoughts, feelings or behaviors related to food or their bodies.

Really? 75% of us feel badly about ourselves and/or food? Is this what we’re teaching our daughters? Talking about with girlfriends? We’re being duped into wasting most of our lives stressing and obsessing about our weight! This is criminal, and the efforts aren’t just making companies money (billions!) while we continue to gain weight; they’re making us sick, which leads to pharmaceutical drugs, which have side effects, which leads to more drugs.

Yes, I’m a conspiracy theorist. Here’s a few statistics that I base my conspiracy theories on: In 1960, about 10% of Americans were obese and an overweight child was a rarity. Today, we have 68% of our adult population either overweight or obese, and 1 out of 3 kids. In the 1970s, new Federal policy stated that Americans needed to lower their intake of fat and cholesterol from animal or tropical sources, which they did. Butter decreased and margarine and vegetable oils increased. Weight, Heart Disease, and Cancer rose.

In the 1970s, the same policy recommended that Grains comprise a majority of our diet, up to 12 servings a day, which we did; consumption of grains – and sugar – skyrocketed. Weight, Heart Disease, and Cancer rose. As weight and heart disease and cancer continued to rise, our doctors medicated us for the ills, and told us to eat less and exercise more. We have. Weight and disease continue to rise.

In the 1980s, weight loss centers, diet foods, and diet drugs, as a business, were booming. Today, Dieting is a multi billion dollar industry. We’re all dieting, and yet weight and disease continue to rise. This makes us feel pretty badly about ourselves.

Meanwhile, in 2015, 1 out of 4 American women are on a psychiatric drug. Read that sentence again. It doesn’t have to be like this. Women, we don’t have to be fat, bloated, tired, and unhappy. We’ve fallen prey to companies and foods that cause addictive behavior, that lead to weight ups and downs which cause depression, and Moms, if we don’t stop the cycle, our kids won’t just be on the same boat we are, they’ll be on a worse boat.

The Surgeon General says that there’s a strong possibility that todays children might be there first generation of American children to have a shorter life span than their parents.

I started by opening up to you about a decades long body issue and food battle. I put myself through some crazy crap, which I know from my work with other women is not unique. I don’t do crazy anymore, I changed. You can change. Anyone can change. Everyone can break cycles and habits.

If you’re ready to change, evaluate what you’ve been doing. Get in touch with me. The definition of insanity is doing the same old thing and expecting a different outcome, right? Change your belief system from Calories In Calories Out, Low Fat blah blah blah, to Food Is Medicine, or Food Is Poison.

Understand that good fat is good for us; starving ourselves backfires; our hormones always rule; and small plates and baby forks for weight control are Dumb. Come on! We can be positive examples for our kids; we can be the one in our circle to stop the cycle and start a trend; and let’s not waste another minute lamenting our stomach, thighs, butt, or weight. There’s so much more to life than that.