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.