Look Great, Feel Great, Eat Great / Three Tips

It's holiday party season and you want to look your best. Because going up and down like a yo-yo physically and emotionally feels awful, and forcing yourself to follow an eating program that feels like a struggle is awful, it's time to stop. To look great you need to feel great.

When you feel great, you know you look great and that makes it easy to eat intuitively. Here are three tips for turning holiday stress into looking and feeling great:

1. Eye Contact : No matter who you are talking to look them directly in the eye. This relaxes you because it's not superficial. Everyone looks best when they are relaxed.
2. Share Tastes : Pick your favorite holiday food and share a taste with someone you want to know better or with someone you want to renew your sense of connection with. It's almost like starting a conversation with a tease of taste. Begin with eye contact and talk about how good the food tastes. This will cause both of you to smile. You look great when you smile.
3. Soul Food : Deepen the wonder of who you are by letting yourself enjoy music, chocolate (in moderation), dancing, prayer, or being playful. Suddenly, you will remember that the gift of being alive is great and that you don't need to force yourself to do anything that doesn't feel right. The purest soul food is self-respect. It's never abusive or mean. Find a place to sit and don't do a thing. Tuning-in to your soul is liberating. You feel younger and you look great!

When you feel good, there is no emptiness to hide or cover. You respond to hunger easily and enjoy the taste and the pleasures of satisfying your body, feeling great and enjoying this holiday season. Here are three tips for eating great:

• Eat with your eyes.
• Taste with your tongue.
• Love with your heart.  

Laugh more, eat less and fill your heart with sparkle that comes from eye contact, sharing pleasures and honoring your soul.  You will look great! Guaranteed.

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

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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

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.