#1 Diet Resolution : The Best Revenge

The #1 way to know you will be your healthy weight in 2013 is resolve to Be Good To Yourself. You will look good and you will feel good.

Because life is unpredictable, you cannot know what eating challenges lie ahead. Whether you're an emotional eater, a stress eater, a lonely eater or just a food lover, resolving to be good to yourself will keep you happy with your body. Here's how to do it:

• Tune-in to what's pushing your buttons. Eating will never satisfy emotions, beat stress or be your best friend. Instead, when buttons are pushed try this:
• Wait for 3 minutes to see if the urge to eat passes, which it probably will.
• Plan an alternate activity to use to diffuse these feelings.
• Call your mother/cousin/friend to see how s/he's doing. Everyone gets lonely.
• Take a brisk walk around the block to diffuse anger. Focus on what is essential for you and adjust accordingly. If someone is making you angry, it's their problem, and the way to deal with it is to honor yourself.

• Don't let eating be a habit. Volunteer to help others and discover how lucky you are. Helping others is cool. You will make new friends by being good to yourself and end mindless eating.

• When you eat check in with how your body feels for clues . 
• Notice personal changes and respond to them.
• Notice how smelling and tasting what you eat makes you feel.
• Notice when you're no longer hungry.

• Feed social and emotional hunger as often as you feed your body.
• Talk more, eat less.
• Share portions.
• Feed others. 

Being good to yourself is choosing to deal with the changes happening around you by going with the flow, but not compromising your priorities. You don't need permission to trust yourself, because you know what feels good and what doesn't. Trust yourself.

Intuitive tools will always protect you, as long as you use them. So, for 2013, here's how to be the #1 star in your life all year long. 

• Be curious before you eat to notice how your body feels and to respond to it.
• Use foresight as self-defense to think about how you'll feel tomorrow if you binge today.
• Connect with dignity when someone or something pushes your button. It takes energy to take the high road, and that burns calories. It has been said  "Looking good is the best revenge". Be determined to look good!

Feeling good and looking good go together. Take time to know your body. Share the pleasure of  enjoying tastes and the comforts of relaxing with someone you love. Have a Happy New Year and remember, you are #1.

For practical intuitive solutions that are common sense for maintaining a your healthy weight, download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

Eating Habits & Emotional Eating

Eating habits are a rut you get in from letting someone else dictate what your body needs to be a healthy weight. You gain weight because habits are not a response to your body.

Habits cause emotional eating, which is you rebelling against what doesn't feel right.

So for the New Year, make a resolution to Be Your Own Boss. It takes time and energy, but so does everything worth having. The cool thing is the energy burns calories.

The way to do it is by paying attention with your senses and your mind.

Here's how:

• Think with your senses. Do this by checking the way your body feels before and while you're eating. If you see a huge piece of cake in front of you and check-in with your body, your brain may put up a red flag saying: cut it in 1/2 & put what's okay to eat on separate plate. Or your body may already be full. This means you are free to leave the table. 
• Feel with your mind.  Do this by using intuitive tools like foresight, courage, dignity and curiosity. Before you eat ask, "How will I feel about myself if I eat this?" It's intuitive to respect and protect yourself, but if it's not your habit, you won't do it. Once you use your intuition by doing this, you will feel liberated because you will be in control.

Using your senses makes you feel fresh, while mindless habits make you feel old and trapped.  Open up your life by thinking with your senses. Feel with your mind.  You'll look younger because you will be happier. Don't be in a rut.

Here's the bottom line about eating habits that cause emotional eating:

•  Eating Habits limit choices and kill spontaneity, which makes you look drawn and wrinkly, even if you're overweight.
• Habits Avoid letting the moment unfold in the present, which means you stay in the past, which is full of emotional hot-spots.
• Bully & bluster often justify habits that age & delude you into eating when you're full.  
• Habits Ignore problems and inhibit the truth, which - like doing drugs  - is a temporary fix. It wears off; then you get the nudge, the gut feeling, the inability to sleep. Ignoring self-control doesn’t mean abandoning self-respect.  
• Habits are Traitors to your soul. Habits turn a blind eye to possibilities and ignore problems. 
• Stuck is how habits make you feel, and that feeling creates anger, frustration, loneliness and emotional eating. 

Take a breath and take the time and energy to give yourself a chance. Stay in the present and don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it - because you absolutely can! By this time next year, you'll look at holiday parties and yourself in a whole new way. 

Food Plan That Works

The perfect plan is at your fingertips and tattooed on your DNA. Use your senses to connect with your body and watch it work!

How To Start:  Learn from your past. Take time to see yourself and live in your potential.

• Live with your weight goal. Remember what matters to you. If you're happy but could lose a few pounds, post a reminder where you will see it on your computer/refrigerator/bathroom mirror. If you need to lose 20 pounds, go out and buy 20, 16 oz cans of soup. Carry it around to be clear about what you want to lose. When you lose the 20 pounds, give the bag of canned soup to a homeless shelter.
• Losing or maintaining weight is not a choice; it's a decision. Balance what you eat with what you need. Do this by tuning-in to your body, not emotions around food. Tasting food more with every mouthful guarantees that you eat less. To drop weight effectively, give up regular desserts and drink more unsweetened drinks. 
• Don't be ruled by ideas or emotions when you eat. Overeating is  psychological hunger. Your senses are your natural physical inner guidance system. This includes your 6th sense which we often call common sense. Respecting your body is how you are in control - by taking control.

How To Stick With It:  Respect your soul because only you can understand it.

• Focus with your intuition, not your mind. Intuition is physical, so you feel it, you don't think it. **Be curious about how the food you're eating will impact your body. Curiosity is intuitive; you feel it. **Connect with dignity before eating a plate of food - How much feels dignified, and how much feels like a pig? You know your answers. **Use the 3-minute rule when you feel the urge to binge.  For 3 minutes: Notice your state of mind, notice what's triggering your urge and use your 6 senses to notice if you are physically hungry. 
• Feed your social appetites to maintain your weight. As often as possible, change the topic away from food! If the topic is food, use conversation to talk about how good it tastes. Everyone likes to share ideas and experiences about pleasure.
• Don't compromise because of social pressure to eat. People respect a person who respects herself. Don't make a fuss, but be firm. 

What About Calories, Exercise, Food Choices?  Thinking with your senses and feeling with your mind is the food plan that works. Am I Really Hungry has the eating plan for this. 

• All calories are not equal. Think about quantity, not calorie count. 
• Exercise is personal. If you move as little as possible and find you're watching TV a lot, chances are you have some personal pounds of fat that would melt off if you gave yourself a chance. Exercise doesn't have to mean sweating or going to a gym. Take 5 minutes to focus on enjoying every day by taking a 5-minute walk. This will exercise your mind and your body.
• Food choices that are common sense plus convenient, are intuitive. Choose for energy and health. Don't eat what doesn't look or smell good, or when you're not hungry. Beware of portions that put on pounds. Take control by asking for a second plate or container to remove half of the portion from your plate; then either put it away for another meal or give it away.  

Get practical intuitive solutions that are common sense for maintaining a your healthy weight, download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

Addicted to Food

You may think you're addicted to food, but you're not!  Knowing why you're hungry and what you're hungry for, is as important as realizing when you're hungry. Then you know what you need.

• Food isn't addictive, emotions are. 
• Fear and doubt are sharks that devour inner grace and cause bad choices.
• Don't eat when you feel emotional. 
• Emotional food addiction happens when you eat to soothe, hide or vent.

You can stop letting your emotions rule your life.   

Use intuition instead, to take back self-control.

Make social and personal pleasure a priority at mealtime.

Addiction doesn't happen if you focus on enjoying food as a way of nourishing your body and getting the most out of living. It's intuitive to enjoy eating. Eat for the pleasure of taste, touch, smell and physical comfort. That's how to love your body. Thinking about food as love makes fear and doubt small.

•  Food is love, when it's shared and when it's savored. 
• You eat less, when you talk about how your food tastes. 
• You don't gorge, when you share eye contact during a meal. 
• Take time to breathe between bites, and you'll discover your body is responding to the food.

Because eating brings physical satisfaction and takes the edge off the anxiety of starving to death, you may confuse eating with love. It's natural to be addicted to love because real love brings out the best of who you are. 

"Just as food is needed for the body, Love is needed for the soul." Osho

• Feed your soul with music, eye contact, conversation and laughter.
• Be grateful for little things and you will eat less. That's a promise.

"Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be." Grandma Moses

Get practical intuitive solutions that are common sense for maintaining a your healthy weight, download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

Beat Emotional Holiday Eating

Do the holidays push your eating button and make you wanna gorge? You're not alone. Because of diets, we use food as a reward, a consolation, a weapon, an obsession and even a place to hide. 

Don't let it happen this year!

Media urges us to gratify every craving, without gaining weight.  Media blows life out of proportion and we become addicted to the myths it creates. 

Get help before being sabotaged by holiday eating by tuning-in to your intuition .

 Holidays are coming. Why not learn to connect with your body now so you can enjoy the parties?

The point of holidays is to celebrate living.  

It's intuitive to celebrate life!

Our senses provide physical cues  24/7. These cues are for protection. What you sense connects with your heart, your mind and your body. Protecting yourself is intuitive.

The reason why diets don't work is because your intuition is more powerful than any diet.

Diets demand rigid eating. Life is unpredictable and healthy eating is flexible. Instead of rules, use intuitive tools like curiosity and self-respect to stay aware of messages from your body.  Trusting your body and your intuitive values tunes you in to your healthy weight.

No matter how hard a program tries to make you ignore your body's messages,

your intuition -  with your senses, always guides you to recognize your unique needs.

• A big limit of dieting is that it's generic. You and your best friend - who have totally different body issues - may decide to do a certain program together. Does this really make sense? Do you have identical physical and emotional needs?
• Holidays are the perfect time to respect and celebrate your body. Overeating or starving causes dissatisfaction that leads to binging. 
• When you share the taste of pleasure with family and friends, you fill the void of emotional and social hunger.  When you talk about how food tastes, you connect your mind with your body and your emotions and you will discover satisfaction. Guaranteed!

Prepare for holiday party challenges this year by keeping aware of your senses to stay in control of your choices. Be loyal to you at holiday parties. It takes courage.  Fortunately, courage is intuitive. That's why people surprise themselves when they are brave. 

Holiday help is in your mouth and comes through your nose and eyes. Courage comes from your heart. Don't let your holidays be sabotaged by rigid mental attitudes. Be flexible. Tune-in to your attitude and intuition and Have Fun!

Get practical intuitive solutions that are common sense for maintaining a your healthy weight, download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

 

Stop thinking about food.

Get rid of fat from the inside out. Stop thinking about food. Instead of focusing on what you're putting into your body, think about how your body feels when you eat.

Learning to respect your body is part of the rite of passage from dieting to intuitive eating. Rites of passage are life changing. Change your life by changing your eating habits.

Getting rid of old habits gets rid of old fat.
Your body is more important than what you eat.
Start connecting with your body when you eat - instead of thinking about food. 

When you tune-in to how your body feels, it's automatic to make food choices that keep you feeling comfortable. As a result you will:

• Stay clear about your priorities. 

• Respect and protect your body by acknowledging it when you eat.  

• Develop healthy eating habits.

Lose fat from the inside out with these simple intuitive tricks:

•  Eat less by chewing more. Chewing burns calories. It helps you get more benefit from what you eat because digestive enzymes in your mouth prepare food for your stomach. The result is you feel full sooner.

• Make it a point to put down your fork or spoon between bites. This gives you time to chew. It also makes it natural to talk to the person you're eating with. Talk about how good the food tastes. It's a sexy topic for everyone. You will eat less.

• After you tune-in to your body, only eat what you really want. Check in with how you feel between bites. Notice if your food tastes good because this helps you stay in tune with your body. You will discover you are not always that hungry. Stop when you feel full. Soon, you will notice old eating habits that ignore your body, and now you can stop them.

When you do these simple tricks, your clothes won't feel as tight.
You'll have less indigestion and less insomnia.

Being overweight is often the result of stress and the self-defeating habits it creates. Intuitive eating  guides you beyond the diet mentality to experience a common sense way of eating and body awareness. It's common sense that if eating habits are making you fat, it's time to get rid of them.

Get practical intuitive solutions that are common sense for maintaining a your healthy weight, download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

Feel Good Food Connection

You want to have a certain look. You need to eat, too! What's the connection?  It's you!

When you feel good about yourself, it's easier to have patience with your eating choice. Feeling good tunes you into being kind to yourself.
 
Intuitive eating is all about you. Being unhappy with the way you look means it's time to change the way you treat yourself.

• Binging is a way of beating yourself up.  It's like banging your head against the wall.
• Rushing through a meal is like inhaling calories. When you rush, your body doesn't have time to feel full.
• Sneaking a bag of cookies is like poisoning yourself. It's doing to yourself the opposite of what will make you feel good.

You deserve respect. The first person you need to get it from is you!

• Eat for energy or do not eat.  This is different from eating just because you're hungry. Try it!
• Share the pleasure of eating. When you really like what you're eating, pause to taste it better. Then, talk about the satisfaction you feel.
• At parties, put something you don't like on your plate. Instead of eating, carry it around and talk to people. BUT don't talk about food or eating. Parties are for feeding social hunger. Don't let food get in the way of finding social satisfaction.

Still not happy with what you see in the mirror? 

• Wear a different color.
• Smile at yourself.
• Vow to respect your body and your heart at the same time. Since your body is the home of your heart, this makes a lot of sense.

If you feel like you've gained weight, you can be sure you're gained some bad habits. Bad habits are often created by stress.  Take the pressure off by giving yourself a chance to eat intuitively. Time is your tool. Take time to notice what makes you feel good about yourself.

• Eat less, chew more.
• Take control by being kind to yourself.
• Recognize self-defeating eating habits and decide you've had enough!

Dealing with Frustration Around Food, Try Ice Cream!

Feeling deprived is not the same as feeling hungry. Give yourself a chance to notice if you're hungry before  you eat.

Intuitive eating means paying attention to your senses and ignoring emotions when you eat. If you're not hungry, you don't need to eat. But don't wait until you  feel starved, because that makes your body think you need to gorge or binge to survive.

Relate to genuine physical hunger when you eat by noticing taste and smell. This is the only way to tune-in to healthy physical comfort.

Because you have been training to diet for years, it will take time to undo all of that 'training'. It takes calorie-burning effort to stop rebuking yourself for what you eat. Remember, you owe yourself some kindness because you are working hard to reconnect with your natural appetites.

Natural hunger is a gentle feeling. Trust that you can learn to recognize it.

Try this: Pretend you're very young and give yourself the pleasure of tasting flavor. Notice texture and smell what you eat. If you feel like having ice cream, act like a kid who never tasted ice cream and lick it. Intuitive eating is fun. When possible, eat with a friend or relative to share enjoyment. The result of focusing on what you're enjoying is:

• You will eat less. 
• You will eat slower.
• You will recognize when you're full.

It's important to give yourself permission to smell and taste your food before you decide if you're hungry. 

• Smell food at mealtime and if you feel turned off, don't eat.
•  If it smells good, take a bite. 
• When you taste it, make it a rule to chew and savor the flavor. This will connect what you're tasting with your mind, and your stomach will respond. If you still do not feel hungry, you are not. But if you are hungry, it's important to enjoy food by really tasting it while you're eating.
•  When you enjoy your food, you burn more calories. 
• When you really taste food, you feel full sooner. So only eat what you feel like having, and stop eating when you feel comfortable, but not stuffed. 
• Feeling "filled up" is usually a signal of overeating. Feeling comfortable is the signal from your body that you're full.

Read how to  Create Your Plan in Am I Really Hungry, which is available on amazon or kindle.   This will help you when you're slipping and protect you from destructive choices like binging. You need tips and tricks to fully understand yourself and to free yourself from dieting, binging or over-exercising.

You are already building a caring foundation for the rest of your life. Use the key for long-term success. Be kind to yourself. The only thing that matters around eating is what you're doing now. Yesterday is history.

Get practical intuitive solutions that are common sense for maintaining a your healthy weight, download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

Food Fight!

Is every meal you eat a food fight?

You can throw food into your mouth, but not be fighting. You can throw your hopes away, but not be eating. The point is, you are in control of what you fight with, what you eat and how you socialize.

Ever been so frustrated at meal time that you would rather throw food than eat it? Food fights are usually emotional, but eating is always physical. Some people don't know how to connect with what they really want.  The next time someone throws food at you, give them a gentle kind hug.

Stop throwing food. Make love, not war the next time you eat. When you reject your body, you're fighting with yourself.  It's the kind of food fight you can't win.

If you're in the habit of food fighting, here's how to get juiced instead of junked around food.

• Before you start a meal or snack, be honest with yourself, Do you really physically feel like eating? If not, then leave the food fight and do whatever you want - as long as it's not eating.
• If you are genuinely ready to eat, look at what's on your plate and decide you will taste every bite. 

Leave emotional fights out of eating. Learn to connect with your body by eating intuitively.  Your common sense solution is sensual.

• Be determined and tenacious. Do not let yourself down.
• Don't take food for granted. Be grateful that you are able to eat.
• Really taste your food. Make tasting a priority.

To really taste your food there are rules:

•  Eat only for physical pleasure and the opportunity to socialize.
• Let people you eat with know that you will probably be eating slower and as a result, eating less, because you are going to really taste every bite that goes into your mouth.
• Chew with your mouth closed. This way, your taste buds can give you real physical taste satisfaction. 
• Swallow before you add food to your mouth.
• Do not talk with food in your mouth. Even if someone asks you a question, keep your mouth closed and taste your food. They can wait for you to speak.

When you're fighting with yourself,  zig-zag thinking makes you look at your body when you eat as if it's alien. Eating intuitively keeps you in touch with your body, because it's a response to physical cues like hunger. You feel satisfaction.

Take your time. When you respect your choices, you will notice that others do, too. Don't let a food fight block common sense.

 

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Parting quote: When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. Tecumseh

Self-Empowerment for Losing Weight

How can I help myself lose weight?

The easy way is: be true to yourself. That means be honest with yourself. Only by being honest can you have the kind of self-discipline that is empowering. It's intuitive to take control of what matters to you.

When you honestly want to lose weight,  use the drive of determination and be patient with yourself.  Self-discipline's a natural way to connect with yourself and have the pleasure of feeling good. It's worth the effort if you honestly want to like your body.

Patience is the secret of real satisfaction. I don't get satisfied when I give up. The truth is, I want my body to be healthy. I don't feel good when I ignore my truth.

When I hold my stomach in and stand up straight, I already look like I lost weight. Try it and look in the mirror.

Do you have the courage to live your truth? If you truly want to be your healthy weight, follow these tips:

• Eat Less; chew more.
• Put your sandwich down between bites and don't pick it up before you swallow.
• Put your fork down between bites and don't pick it up before you swallow.
• Notice how your food tastes. Learn what tastes too sweet or too salty.
• Notice how your body feels. Learn what fills you up and what causes bloat.
• Wait at least 15 mins before you have dessert to make sure you really want it. Then, if you do, eat only half - and enjoy every bite.
• Drink water while you watch TV.
• Eat a hard-boiled egg or a handful of walnuts or almonds before parties to take the edge off your hunger. Then, socialize more while you hold your stomach in.
• Talk More; eat less.  Feed yourself emotionally by socializing at mealtime.

Self-empowerment begins with being true to yourself. 

• Don't abuse yourself by binging.
• Don't punish yourself emotionally. It's a vicious cycle you can end.

Self-empowerment happens when you trust your truth. Being patient means you respect yourself and what matters to you. You have the power. Use it!

Get practical intuitive solutions that are common sense for maintaining a your healthy weight, download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

Lose weight - the 2 Minute Solution.

This is not a dream.

The one way to lose weight consistently is to be in tune with your body. You can connect with your body by daydreaming for 2 minutes before you eat. Take that time to tune-in to your dreams and rediscover with the big picture of who you are.

Daydreaming helps you stay in touch with how you want to see yourself.

• It's body image power. 
• Allow yourself to visualize how you want to appear and how you want to feel.

Reconnect with simple daydreams and your self-esteem will change. You will  respect yourself differently.

• You'll discover a new found patience with who you are. 
• The result will be a new relaxed way of eating

Remember the art of leisurely dreaming when you were young, a time of innocence, of privately listening with your senses to the rush of your life. Noticing what you're looking at and smelling is normal. It’s still important to do this. Appetites are personal.

• Do this for 2 minutes before every meal and watch emotional habits and your body change.

Binging as a physical "solution" to emotional stress is like putting a band-aid on a  broken heart or rubbing butter on a burn.  It's a mountain of tension with nowhere to go.

• Allowing yourself to daydream relaxes tension. 
• Get ready to be surprised.

According to diet and nutrition experts, an apple a day can help fight being overweight.  Other experts publish lists of healthy snacks. Experts everywhere are telling you how to stop binging or start dropping pounds. Obviously, there are so many experts because there is no one answer.

• Daydream to relax and regain your perspective. 
• Then tune-in to your body.  
• You'll recognize what's right for you.

Your senses have always been the way of being in direct touch with your world. Listening to intuition is not daydreaming. It’s staying in touch with the present. That's where your appetite is.

For practical intuitive solutions that are common sense for maintaining a your healthy weight, download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

Binging - Getting Intimate

Let's get personal and talk about intimate relationships. The most intimate relationship you have is with your own body. 

• You sleep with it every night, dress and feed it. 
• Your body gives you pleasure and physical power. 
• You wash it, touch yourself, use your body to get places and use it to be noticed.

Maybe you work out or maybe you hide your body with certain clothes. Everyone has an intimate relationship with their body. It's an emotional connection. 

Classic diets insist you focus on a plan and ignore physical messages from your body. 

• That's why people binge. 
• When you ignore what you feel physically, you stress out your body. 
• The result is an unhealthy emotional relationship with food. 

Binging happens because you lose your natural connection with physical satisfaction. It's the result of an emotional sense of confusion and isolation.

• When you binge, taste is not on your mind because you are thinking with your emotions, not responding to physical hunger.
• Binging is a desperate, very personal plea for comfort.

Your body is the power source of your mind, your heart and your soul. Pay attention to it. 

• Eating intuitively is a natural connection with satisfaction.
• Use dignity and courage to respect yourself.
• A healthy emotional connection is protective, not abusive.

Eating intuitively is relaxing when you eat, so you taste your food and notice how your body feels. Stay intimate with yourself. Stay connected with your body.

Get off of the diet dogma treadmill of emotional isolation and notice your intimate needs. You can use your senses to connect with your body.

• Stress around eating impacts every physical pleasure you might enjoy. 
• It's not good for intimacy in any part of your life.

Being intimate starts with respecting yourself. Honor yourself by forgiving binging and then, give yourself a chance to listen to your body.

• It's a skill you can re-learn.
• Enjoy your body; don't abuse it.

Make Love

Making love is not abusive or thoughtless.  Everybody wants love and lots of us eat to get it.

The truth is, no amount of food will satisfy emotional needs.

Be bold and imagine eating is making love to your body. In fact, when taste is the focus at mealtime, emotions that sabotage eating choices go away Try it. Nobody has to know about it. But, you will feel thrilled because you will be honestly relating to yourself when you eat.

Tuning-in to the taste and flavor of what you're eating, relaxes your whole body. It's a secret of good health and weight control. You digest food more efficiently and get a new perspective about why you're eating.  This keeps you in control.

• F stands for fulfill. Fulfill your physical needs by tasting what you put into your body. This will spare you the pain of overeating.
• O stands for occupy. Let eating occupy a place of pleasure in your life. Don't rush or force it. Pleasure is another word for relaxing. Tense eating makes you gain weight.
• O stands for overcoming old habits that disconnect you from your body. Habits are a sign of aging. Let go of what hasn't worked and taste your food instead.
• D stands for discovering your determination.  Do it. Make the taste connection with your body and respond to it.

Savor flavor.  Emotional eating is the result of losing this important connection with your body.
It's old news that food is Love. But it's still the truth. Share what you taste with others; savor the pleasure together. Stay young in your mind by connecting with your body.  Tune-in to the pleasure of being in sync with yourself.

The next time you eat, make the love connection with your body. Take control of how much you eat by tasting your food and be sure to have some fun.

Stop choking and lose weight!

"A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew." Herb Caen

We are supposed to learn from experience. Biting off more than you can chew means gaining weight, choking or feeling bloated after you eat.

Wisdom is slimming because it lightens life's burdens. This means when you take control of  eating by noticing how much food you're putting in your mouth, you will lose weight. It's easy to be wise.

Common sense is intuitive. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Use taste to enjoy what you put into your mouth. Talk about the pleasure of it. Pleasure of taste and texture is much sexier than calorie count for dinner conversation.

So what's stopping you? Old habits. Habits are like old age. They creep up and bend us out of shape and dull our minds. A habit that chokes is a monkey on your back. Shake it off.

The habit of focusing on negative thoughts about eating during mealtime will actually cause you to gain weight! Instead, eat sensually:

• Look at the colors on your plate. If they are not appetizing, don't eat it.
• Smell the food on your fork before it enters your mouth. Does the smell make your mouth water? Your mouth is the beginning of eating. 
• Talk more. Feed your emotions and your mind by being social at meal time. Time is all we have. Don't ignore opportunities to feed your soul as well as your body.

You will stop choking on your food and choking on your life by taking smaller bites and noticing what you're putting into your body. Losing weight is easy when you stop the diet habit and use common sense to be wise.

Bite off exactly what you can chew and focus on personal satisfaction. Don't let habits choke you! Be wise for yourself and lose weight.

You're too young to be a victim of habit. Plus, the victim mentality is so yesterday. 

You're never old enough to give up on yourself.

Comfort Food Time Capsule

Everyone knows food is a kind of love. You've heard about food that nurtures or about aphrodisiacs or even love potions. Eating is comforting because it nourishes us physically, emotionally and spiritually. Everyone has food imprints connected with memories that help us feel better.

When you eat to find comfort, you want to experience those memories again. That's what you're looking for. That's when enjoying comfort food makes sense.

Comfort food is a kind of intuitive time capsule. It's the experience of bringing a 'taste' of well-being or comfort back to you from the past so that you experience it again. 

Wanting comfort is intuitive.  Protecting yourself is too.

The trick of intuitive eating comfort food is to use intuitive tools  to think with all 6 senses to keep clear about your priorities. Then, please, eat and enjoy a refreshing time capsule experience. 

Here's how to safely enjoy the comfort in comfort food eating:

• Accept that you are going to have a comfort food.
• Commit to enjoying it by savoring the taste and how it makes you feel.
• Limit the size of your portion to the size of your fist.
• Smile after every bite, whether you want to or not. 
• Come back refreshed.  

 Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Stress Eating

Chronic stress is a habit of the 21st century that keeps us out of touch with our genuine priorities. It's a physical out of sync feeling we identify as fear, anger, anxiety or general insecurity.  If you're chronically stressed, eating food will prolong your suffering because it won't release the stress. Chronic stress eating includes:

• Turning to the freezer for ice cream  - This makes problems worse. 
• Jamming food down your throat without tasting - This it is totally unsatisfying.
• Eating a huge mound of food because it's available but not because you feel a physical hunger - This is like shooting yourself in the foot.

When you're stressed, your whole body tightens up and hormones tell your body to hold on to fat cells just in case you're about to be attacked! By holding on to a habit of allowing chronic stress around eating, you are holding on to fat.

Chronic stress is physically released by sleep, sex, exercise and laughing. Music is also a way to release and relax your body. Tune in to music, feel your body relax and tune in to yourself.

Stress is the opposite of relaxing. Relaxing tells your body it's okay to lose weight!

Eating is supposed to be relaxing. When food is tasted and enjoyed, eating becomes a prelude to other pleasures. It opens the doors to zero calorie conversations, self-affirming eating choices and mutual excitement.  This is how to eat to nourish your whole self.

When you eat, enjoy a nice relaxed meal. You'll eat less, talk more, feel better and look your best. It's amazing how treating yourself with respect works like a vitamin!

• Eat for pleasure, 
• Eat because it feels and tastes good and
• Be happy and relaxed with yourself. 

Stress eating is chronic eating that doesn't make sense. It's a response we learn and unfortunately adopt as habit.  Don't gain weight because of stress eating.

• It's not fun.
• It doesn't feel good
• You don't like yourself when you do it.

Don't let stress be a habit. Stress as a reaction to danger makes sense. Natural stress has a clear beginning middle and end: You're threatened, you avoid the threat and the threat passes. It doesn't have anything to do with eating. 

On April 16th, I will be talking about How to Break the Cycle of Stress Eating at 9:30am central time,  streaming on www.wqqx1490am.com.  The show with former East St. Louis, Illinois Mayor, Carl E. Officer is called "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", which is a good thought to focus on when you enjoy your next meal.

Find Love.

When love is in the air, can you recognize it? It feels like tenderness and passion at the same time. It's a combination of wanting and expecting and it's a signal to be good to yourself.

Feed your soul by honoring your body. We honor our body when we respect it. It feels like love.  Notice what you sense with your eyes, ears, nose, mouth and heart. That's the beginning.

"April showers bring May flowers." Everything we do has a result. The result of being good to yourself by honoring your body is: liking the way you look and feel. Flowers of satisfaction bloom when we're true to ourselves.

Satisfaction connects with self-respect. You can't have one without the other.  Eat for satisfaction. You will like the way you look and feel in the morning.

Intuition is about satisfying yourself. Dieting is about denying yourself. When you satisfy yourself, you respect your body. When you deny yourself, you ignore your body. Stop denying yourself and find some love.

Love, Respect and Satisfaction are all intuitive. Think with your senses, feel with your mind and be true to yourself. Eat and dance to the music in your soul. Find love.

Here's Aretha Franklin singing R-E-S-P-E-C-T. 
Respect yourself and recognize the love.

What are you craving now?

Cravings are personal. They hit emotionally and physically and can feel confusing.  We're hungry for more than food. We feel:

• hunger for comfort
• craving for love
• passion to understand who we are
• thirst to protect ourselves and live well

When you ignore these appetites and just eat instead, it causes physical and emotional stress. This happens because you're ignoring what you sense from your body and your heart! Using your 6 senses reconnects you with feelings of self-control.  Self-control feels like balance.

Why not protect yourself by using your 6th sense - intuition - to know what you're really craving?

Your body and senses are designed to relieve stress by focusing on the present. This keeps you in control of choices.  Here's how to do it:

• Notice what you see, smell, taste and hear. This puts you in touch with your body.
• Notice how your body feels. 
• Your body tells you when it's tired and when it's hungry. 
• Your heart tells you when you're frustrated or lonely. 
• Although the clock may say dinner, your body may not be hungry. Don't enslave your body to a clock. 
• You are not always hungry. 
• Never force yourself to eat. When you feel full, you feel comfortable. Use your senses to notice what feels comforting. 
• What you need to feel satisfied could be a good nights sleep, or you may need to call a good friend and vent, or just hear the sound of the voice of someone you miss. 

Use your 6th sense to respond:

• Are you craving love or companionship? Do something social.
• Are you famished for sports or excitement? Watch a game or find someone to play with.
• When was the last time you ate a relaxed satisfying meal with a friend? Maybe sharing the pleasures of eating and communicating will bring you satisfaction.     

Intuitive tools make it easy to recognize what you're craving and get it: without having stress. Your 6th sense always leads  to what's good for you. What's good for you, feels good, and will satisfy that craving.

Use Spring Fever to Lose Weight

Spring is a time of enthusiasm and a time of new beginnings.
You feel Spring fever in your body. Use that feeling to change the way you eat.

Begin to taste every meal,  savor every bite in your mouth,  share the enjoyment of it with others and stay connected with your body. Get sensual and lose weight with enjoyment, instead of diet-stress. De-stress means:

Don't Eat Simply To React. Eat Sensually and Slower.

Do Eat to Satisfy, Taste, Relax, get Energy and Satisfy yourSelf.

Stress is in your head. Digestion is in your body. When you're stressed it inhibits your body's abilities to get the most nourishment from what you eat. Stress impacts your ability to think clearly and it can release a hormone into your body telling it to hold on to fat!

De-stress and eat less. Forget diet dogma and tune into your body and your personal priorities. You know what feels good.  If you want to lose weight, make a commitment to yourself to trust your body and be honest with yourself about what matters, before putting something into your mouth.

Feel Spring. Let the enthusiasm of new beginnings free you from old regrets and old self-defeating habits. Today is your day to begin the rest of your life. Do it with dignity and self-respect.

Use intuitive tools to get liberated from extra weight and old patterns that are so 'last year'. 

See yourself in summer clothes looking happy, healthy and feeling fit. Feed that person! She's as real as you allow her to be. Go for it, it's Spring!  

Nature is forgiving, it begins anew each year. Forgive yourself for bad decisions and shed them with your weight by eating intuitively. Spring fever is a time to feel light with joy!

Start now by smiling. There's a billboard in Texas that says: "If you see a man without a smile, give him yours."  Do it and spread the fever.

The reason the new iPad is Sexy.

Have you seen it yet? It's sensual, a visual orgy. The new iPad will literally enhance your vision by stimulating your eyes. Anything that massages our senses, and doesn't tell us what to do at the same time, is sexy.

We are so used to media bombarding our senses and telling us what to do, that we absorb it emotionally and ignore it physically. The result is we experience a kind of intuitive shutdown.

The iPad gives us the opportunity to see intimately and draw our own conclusions. The allure is sensual. Using your senses connects you with your body and your intuition. Intuition is the 6th sense. Like our eyes, we take it for granted. It's not intellectual, it's physical. The new iPad is an opportunity to recognize your intuition. It's a feeling.

That's why the new iPad is sexy.

When you sit down to a meal, it should be a visual orgy. Why not look at food and draw your own conclusions? If it doesn't excite your senses, there's a reason. Something's out of focus; things aren't what they seem. Use your eyes, and see if you like what you're looking at.

Eating is intimate, personal and sensual. You should like what you're feeling. The goal of eating is to refresh your body, mind and soul. It's normal to feel intuitively drawn to your food. The body is your source of stamina and strength; the mind is your hard drive, and intuition opens a connection with your soul. Healthy eating includes feeding all three.

Why not get in focus when you eat and notice what you see? It's time to start thinking with your senses. It will relax your body and free your mind, and you can draw your own conclusions.

1 Day a Week Challenge

One day a week, use your 5 senses with the intuitive tools when you eat. If you do this for at least 1 month and write a comment  about it, then, for a limited time, you can receive a free copy of Am I Really Hungry?

If you want to be an intuitive eater for bathing suit season, try eating intuitively every other day. Watch what happens. Buy 3 copies of Am I Really Hungry? for your friends and spread the word.

Morning After Binge

Recently, I've been asked about Intuitive Eating and binging:

• Why do I feel so hungry in the morning after an evening of non-stop eating? Shouldn't I feel full instead?

You feel hungry because the food you binged on was not what your body needed for nourishment. When you eat for emotional reasons because you're stressed, frustrated, angry or bored, it has nothing to do with nourishing your body. Imagine if you put the wrong gas in your car, even if you overflow the tank - it won't run.

• Why does my body feel so sluggish and bloated? What happens physically?

Physically, you've clogged your pipes. When we eat without noticing how our body feels, we abuse ourself. Because our body,s efficient, it works to sort through, digest and get rid of the evening's onslaught.

• Why does this affect my mood, outlook and self-esteem? I feel like I'm a failure, have no self worth, and that this negative downward spiral seems to be my destiny - a life of self-inflicted ups and downs - all caused by abusing food.

It's frustrating to feel out of control. Your mood, outlook and self-esteem are not the result of abusing food. Instead they are the result of abusing yourself.  Your body is not an object, it's a very real connection with your heart and psyche. The first rule of intuitive eating is to protect yourself. It's part of your survival instinct. 

Use the intuitive tool of patience to give yourself grace. When you're patient- instead of angry with yourself, you can understand what pushes your button and how to protect yourself against it the next time. Once you use patience, you will discover you feel more peaceful. Then use the intuitive tool of foresight for self-defense. Make a plan to protect yourself.

• Why do I want to punish myself by abusing my body and my heart?

You don't! However you have been programmed by diet programs to believe eating certain foods is "bad" and that you are "bad" for craving them.  Programming whether it's from our parents, media or programs is inner dialogue that runs like a script in our heads. Your inner voice is your intuition. It may warn you with a gut feeling but it will never lead you to punish yourself. Read the sections Body/Mind/Soul Food: Intuitive Eating that explain how to know the difference between your inner voice (intuition) and inner dialogue (media/parents/programs). Use the index and get in-depth answers.

•  Why is so hard to regain control after several days of overeating? 

You may have all kinds of chemicals and sugar in your system keeping you out of touch with your body. If you're finding you're uncontrollable, treat food like a drug. If this drug is screwing with your body, it's destroying your health. Without your health, you cannot live.

Confusion caused by a chemical imbalance is hard to deal with. It's time to use tough love which is doing what is right instead of what is easiest. Read the chapter called Satisfaction to get intuitive ways to do this.

• How can I get back in touch with my intuition and break this cycle?

Life is always going to have unexpected stresses. Forgive yourself and allow yourself to get back in sync with your body and mind. Focus on using your 6 senses when you're around food. When you feel an emotional drive to binge, take control by giving yourself 3 minutes to use your intuitive foresight and patience. Make a commitment to honor yourself. Every day, every meal is a new opportunity to recommit to protecting yourself.

Listen to your body. Ultimately your body has a 'mind' of it's own and is clear about what feels satisfying and what foods make you physically at peace.

Get easy intuitive eating tips for getting in sync with your body and maintaining a healthy weigh. Download: Body/Mind/Soul Food, Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

The Inner Game of Eating

Imagine eating what you want, knowing when you're hungry and feeling happy with your body and yourself. It's all part of the inner game of eating self-control. The inner game keeps your head in tune with your gut feelings and your body with simple intuitive tools.

• Our head is the hard drive where we store experience and where our values connect. 
• Our gut feeling is the connection that protects us by staying clear about what we sense and long term priorities. 
• Our body is the source of energy, health and pleasure. Naturally, we want to tune in to that! 

Intuition is having an open mind and a flexible attitude. Sitting down to eat without a plan is having an open mind. This arms you with an awareness that you drives you to feel curious about choices. Part of the inner game of eating is realizing that there is always an option.

Having a flexible attitude gives perspective. For example, If I eat this whole pizza, will I like what it does to my body?, If I slam this sandwich down my throat without even tasting it, will I feel satisfied?  The inner game of eating keeps us in charge of what we do.

• Perspective is how you know yourself. 
• It allows you to get out of your own way to see where you're going. 
  
  
  The inner game of eating includes checking in with your body with all 5 senses before you put food in your mouth. Doing that is your intuitive way of showing self-respect. Our senses give us an intimate reality check. What's real is not a plan or a number on a scale.  What's real when it comes to the inner game is how you feel, what you sense and personal priorities. 

Listening to your 6th sense teaches you about yourself. The better you know yourself, the easier it is to be good to yourself by maintaining eating self-control. It's surprisingly natural to get through the maze of eating challenges and diet stress to discover satisfaction with yourself by knowing the inner game of eating self-control.  Intuitive tools include:

• curiosity: is noticing what you notice with your senses and your mind
• prudence: reminds that we always have options and the ability to choose what feels best
• foresight: is thinking about the results of our choices, first, so there are no regrets.

The inner game of eating connects with what we value long-term in our life. You can stay clear about what gives you satisfaction and away from what fills you with regret. It feels like common sense.

Self-control begins by recognizing what pushes our buttons. When we master this, self-control becomes a natural focus that empowers all of our choices. Download Am I Really Hungry? 6th sense diet: Intuitive Eating, and learn how to recognize what you really want. It's the natural way play the inner game.

On Thursday, March1st at 1PM EST, I will be doing a teleseminar about how to re-invent personal dieting by connecting with your inner game of eating self-control with Holistic Nutrition Coach, Nancy Desjardins. Registration is free. Sign up and get some answers! See you there.

#janebernard

Intuitive Magic

A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch. ~George Bernard Shaw

Curiosity is intuitive. It's something you feel, not something you think. The more curious you are, the more satisfaction you will discover with yourself and in your world.

Working to live intuitively is going to change the way you eat and feel. Trusting your intuition is being true to yourself. It's respecting your body, listening to your heart and not letting your head be bulldozed into someone else's thinking pattern.

Eating is about pleasuring your body - not in a lewd or sexual way, but in a way that fills you with the excitement of living. A satisfied body feels vibrant and alive. Real satisfaction around eating is nearly sacred. That's why there are so many rituals around food and eating.

When you diet, you develop damaging rituals around eating. These lead to binging and purging. They  create a mind-set of defeat. It's subtle until you realize you've gained 20 pounds or worse. Stop eating to fit in a mindset and start eating to fit in your own mind and body!

There is a simple ritual around eating that's intuitive magic. It opens your eyes and your heart. Doing it feels like common sense. The intuitive ritual around eating that I urge you to use is the ritual of Gratitude - before, during and after you eat. It will change everything.

Right now, stop looking at your watch and start looking at what you're doing. If you're offered a serving that's huge, there's no pleasure in packing food in as if you're a box to fill.

• Instead, savor the flavors. 
• Take a deep breath between bites and allow your body the space it naturally needs to relax and let the digestive juices flow.
• Pamper your inner health so that you can depend on it later.

Don't think of calories; think of the pleasures of great health. Don't look at the clock; be in the moment. Tune in to the magic. Bon Appetite!

Intuitive magic is easy to tune into with a little bit of help!  Download Am I Really Hungry? 6th sense diet: Intuitive Eating for helpful insights and practical tips that connect with feeling good about yourself and how you eat. When we connect with intuitive magic, every decision becomes easier.


#janebernard