Healthy Living Inside & Out

Putting Shoulds in Their Place

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:34:00 +0000

Why is it so hard to do as you know you should with healthy eating choices , regular exercise and taking better care of yourself? No doubt, you’ve wondered about this countless times. It doesn’t seem to make sense that if you know what you should do, that you don’t do it or at least not often enough. Yet whenever you don’t do something you intended, there is a good – and valid – reason.

Think for a moment of one thing you know you should do, but don’t. Does the idea of doing it feel inspiring or enjoyable? Or does it feel more like drudgery or a chore? If it doesn’t elicit desire or at the minimum some enticement, than it makes complete sense why you would avoid it. Who wants to do something they don’t enjoy or find distasteful? In fact, to follow through on doing what you aren’t inspired to do takes enormous amounts of energy to overcome the reluctance or resistance. Few people have enough extra energy in their busy and stressful lifestyle to do that. And the guilt of not measuring up to the “should” they carry around on a pedestal further depletes what energy they do have.

When you don’t follow through on a should, this is an opportunity to investigate where the should is coming from and if the rules can be changed or relaxed.

Steps to Dealing with Shoulds

Think of something you should do that you don’t.
What is it about doing it you struggle with?

In what way is that struggle valid, and what can you learn from your reaction?

What might work better for you that is a positive and healthy alternative or solution?

What would you enjoy more or be inspired to do that supports your real objective?

Read entire post

First Steps toward a Healthy Lifestyle – New You 2010 Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:57:00 +0000

Contestants and Groups Selected
This week, four groups began the two-year journey together that will change their lifestyles. I received nearly 100 applications for participation in the contest, and of those I narrowed the applicants down to 40 and then talked with each of them at length last week. Each of them was ready, motivated and committed to making healthy lifestyle changes to reclaim their health, fitness and wellbeing. They all recognized that rapid weight loss and dieting was no longer the answer, and they wanted to finally take good care of themselves.

It was challenging to pick just eight for the contest, so I decided to create three more groups of eight to experience the same two-year program in order to support at least thirty-two of them.

Read more to learn who became contestants.

Getting Started
In our first sessions together, the group participants talked about what led them to apply for a spot in the contest. They shared the struggles they’ve had to exercise regularly, make healthy food choices and make themselves more of a priority. These struggles and the associated frustration, disappointment and pain they created are what motivated them to finally take action. Being inspired to change because of what is no longer tolerable, from a wake-up call or an opportunity to be in a life-changing contest, is often the motivating catalyst that puts people into action, yet that motivator has a short fuse and can disappear as quickly as it appears. The catalyst can get you to make a change, but it won’t keep you motivated to stick with that change or to make long-term changes. For that you need to create long-term motivators based on what it is you will be able to do, feel or experience as a result of the healthy lifestyle changes. These positive outcomes are what keep you motivated to stay on track.

Read more to learn how they selected their motivators and their first week's goals.

See What Contestants Have to Say
I’ve asked the contestants to comment on their experience each week here on this blog. In that way, you will get a birds-eye view of what they are discovering for themselves, which will help you in following the contest and participating on your own. You are also free to comment on your own experience.

Have a healthy and active week.

Follow the New You 2010 Healthy Lifestyle Contestants

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:39:00 +0000

I’m pleased to announce the New You 2010 Healthy Lifestyle Contest for Greater Newburyport – a group of towns along the Northshore coast of Massachusetts. This contest is designed for people who want to finally become a health, fitness or weight loss success story like you read about in magazines. This isn’t a weight loss contest but a contest for greatest improvements in health, fitness and healthy lifestyle behaviors which is the key to sustainable weight loss and finally being free of worrying about weight gain.

I know, because that is how I became a success story. Nine years ago on January 1, 2001, I began exercising and eating better in a way that changed my whole attitude and mindset about fitness and taking care of myself. For the first time in my life I didn’t quit and give up. Instead I stuck with it, and two years later I had dropped from a size 16 to a size 4. It took longer than if I had done a quick weight loss diet or extreme fitness program, but I had succeeded to stick with my new healthy and active lifestyle. More importantly I was discovering a love for fitness and wanting to be even more fit. For a gal who hated exercise and had a long history of yo-yo exercise and dieting, this was miraculous. Yet I discovered a way to get and stay fit that was motivating, so I no longer had to worry I would get off track or gain all the weight back. Nine years later, after going through menopause, I am still fit and wearing size 4s or 6s.

My discovery led to a shift in careers and a passion for helping others create and maintain a healthy lifestyle that feels so good they too can succeed for the long-term. I’ve since become an expert in overcoming the sabotage that keeps us from meeting our goals, staying on track and feeling motivated to exercise, eat well and make ourselves the priority. While I’ve helped hundreds of people individually make changes for long-term success, I realized recently that I could do more by creating a contest here in the Newburyport area where I live.

There are eight contestants who are committed to successfully creating and maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle so they can be in control of their weight and be free of their issues with food and exercise. During the next two years, they will be sharing their experience of creating and then maintaining their new healthy lifestyles on a Newburyport community blog, http://www.newburyport-today.com/ .

At the same time, three other groups will start the same two-year program, and they will be sharing their experience here on this blog, by commenting on my weekly New You 2010 post about the program theme for the week.

Follow the contestants each week on this blog.

You can also participate in the program on your own or in a group with the guidelines I post each week on the contest site at www.aHealthyLifestyleWorks.com/contest.

Here’s to a healthy and active new you!

New Years Mindset for Resolution Results

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:11:00 +0000

If you are like most people, regular exercise and healthy eating is more of a chore than a welcome part of your day. It feels like work, and most likely you find reasons not to follow through on your intention to exercise or prepare a healthy meal, or you find yourself doing yo-yo dieting or yo-yo exercising.

Instead of becoming frustrated, feeling guilty or giving up on fitness when you fail to stay on track, you can change your mindset about what it really takes to have a healthy lifestyle. You can break the rules without any guilt and create a better way to get and stay healthy and fit that keeps you motivated. With a change in perspective, you’ll develop a positive attitude and discover it is actually quite easy to make healthier choices and stick with your fitness routines. Here’s how to do that.

3 steps to Change Your Mindset
Become conscious when you make choices that don’t honor your body or yourself. For example, be aware when you overeat or eat food that doesn’t feel good to you physically. Notice when you choose not to exercise or exercise to the point of overdoing it. A great way to get started with this is to observe for one week all the times you start to feel full. This is eye-opening for most people.

When you do this, do not judge yourself, just notice with interest that it is happening and become curious about why that might be. If you judge yourself, you will see things as good or bad, all or nothing, black or white, and you won’t be able to see what is really driving your behavior.

Consider what is driving your choices and what you can learn from them. Assume you have a good reason worth understanding. Then you can be open to what the issue is, what good reason you have for doing what you did, and what strategies you can put into place that will help you reach your goals.

Most of the time, we sabotage our good intentions because we think we have limited or very rigidly defined options. This comes from dieting and fitness programs that specify what is and is not allowed and expect full compliance. Few people can do these well or stick with them, and the good news is there are many ways to get fit and healthy that are more realistic and enjoyable.

If you find you didn’t go to the gym, take a moment to consider why that is. Perhaps you don’t like going to the gym. If so, what else would you enjoy that gets your heart rate up and moving? What sounds like fun, would be motivating to be a part of, or you’ve done in the past and enjoyed? Perhaps you weren’t prepared to go to your class. What would help you be more prepared? Maybe you need a partner. How can you find one?

If you overate, why might that be? Maybe you didn’t get enough to eat earlier and you were so ravenous that you overate. If that happens frequently, how can you get a snack between meals or eat enough during the day. Perhaps you felt out of control because it was a food you think you shouldn’t have, creating a feeling of deprivation. If so, allow yourself to have that food in moderation, so it doesn’t have power over you. Maybe you kept eating, hoping to be satisfied or feel better, only to feel worse. In that case, find a way to eat what you enjoy in a healthier way so you are satisfied. You will eat much less naturally.

Choose foods or fitness activities that feel good to you physically. And start off easy so you can have success from week to week. If you set a goal you know you can reach because it is realistic, and then you reach it, you will be encouraged and self-motivated to do even more. One small step leads to more steps, and you won’t be fighting it but pushing yourself because it will feel so good. The goal isn’t perfection; it is to increase how good you feel physically and about yourself.

For healthy eating: Find ways to eat what you enjoy in a healthier way, and do this in stages. You don’t have to change everything in a day. You can start with breakfast or start with dinner, and begin using healthier ingredients when preparing foods you already enjoy. For example, make pizza with whole grain crust, low sodium tomato sauce, lower-saturated fat cheese, turkey sausage, and more vegetables. Choose healthier things that make the pizza taste yummy to you.

For regular exercise: Choose activities that get you active and be open to all the possible ways you can do that, from dancing to power yoga, Wii Sport to tennis, or kick boxing to aqua aerobics. There is so much to choose from when you open your mind to more than what you find in a gym.

When you change your mindset from Being Good and trying to measure up to doing what Feels Good to you and your body, you can finally succeed at having a fit and healthy lifestyle you can live with on your own terms. And you’ll be amazed to discover you will naturally choose healthier options because they feel better, and you’ll become motivated to do more than you ever thought possible when you set yourself up for success week to week.

3 Steps to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:09:00 +0000

This is the time of year when every where you turn there are sweets, parties and holiday networking events. It is hard to stay in control and avoid indulging, particularly when you are stressed or trying to fit so much into your schedule you can hardly find time for a decent meal. Yet you probably don’t want to find yourself in January unable to zip up your pants and wishing you had found a way to control yourself.

The good news is being in control is much easier than you may have thought. Here are 3 steps to avoid weight gain during the holidays so you don’t find yourself a size larger in the new year.

1. Notice What Your Body is Telling You
You can’t change your behavior if you aren’t really paying attention to what you are doing at the time you are doing it, and few people are conscious when they put food in their mouths. Eating is something we do without being aware of whether we are even hungry, if something other than physical hunger is driving us, or even when we have already gotten full and are beginning to feel sick.

Most likely you are eating without even knowing why you are doing it, and the only way to be in control is to start noticing the difference between physical and non-physical hunger. It starts by noticing every single you time you start to get full, and to notice with interest – not judgment. Once you start doing that, you may find you don’t like the way it feels. You can also notice each time to reach for food if you are actually hungry and in need of that food. You may also find in many cases that you aren’t eating for physical hunger. So what are you eating for?

2. Get Curious About Why You Are Really Eating That Food
If you aren’t eating because you need the food, something else is driving you to eat. That doesn’t make you wrong or bad. It just means that your behavior is being driven subconsciously, which makes being in control very difficult when you aren’t aware of what is driving your actions.

The most common drivers during the holidays are Mindless Excess, Ravenous Response, Restricted Rebellion, Emotional Repression and Subconscious Beliefs. These are five of the eight common reasons people overeat that I address in my book Inspired to Feel Good.

Read more about these five common drivers

3. Choose to Eat What Feels Best
The most important thing you can do for yourself during the holidays is to avoid dieting, which is a trigger for rebellious overeating when you inevitably blow it.

Instead, eat because you are hungry and then choose foods that leave you feeling good physically without feeling deprived emotionally. If you pay attention to how your body feels, you will know when you need food, when you’ve had too much and when food doesn’t really agree with you. You may even discover foods you thought you enjoyed don’t actually taste all that good.

Give yourself permission to have foods you love without getting full, and ideally pair the sweets and holiday treats with a balanced meal or snack. That way you will avoid getting sugar rushes and feeling sick. You will also keep your blood sugars and metabolism better balanced, and you will be able to feel the difference. Focus on eating what leaves you feeling good physically and emotionally, and you will be surprised to see you may naturally gravitate to healthier choices and combinations.

Have a great holiday feeling free to enjoy yourself without the guilt or the weight gain!

Biggest Losers Face Home Reality Without Keys to Success

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:12:00 +0000

Rudy, Danny, Liz and Amada are the final four contestants, and their last challenge was going home for 60 days and preparing to run a 26 mile marathon. One of them will be voted off this coming week.

What they realized in going home was how much they had changed – and not just physically. At home they came face to face with some of the issues that led to their obesity in the first place. While at the ranch, they focused on physical changes and discovering how much they had let themselves go. Back home, they were seeing that it isn’t just the physical that has to change in order to really succeed. They have to address the underlying subconscious mental and emotional issues that drove their unhealthy behaviors and overeating in the first place.

While this episode was going on, a former Biggest Loser winner, Ryan Benson, failed to return to the reunion show held last week. He had regained most of his weight back and admitted to extreme fasting and dehydration during the show in order to win. And just a couple of weeks earlier, Daniel Wright, who has done the show twice, went home. Daniel now admits he struggles with binge eating and kept that hidden during the show. Most likely it was even worse when he got home, having been severely deprived for the past 10 weeks. Overeating or bingeing after extreme dieting and deprivation is normal, and no doubt many other contestants have found themselves over-indulging once back home. This may explain why half of the Biggest Loser contestants have regained most or all of their weight loss.

Programs, like the Biggest Loser, are failing to address the underlying drivers of obesity that each of their contestants will deal with after the program ends. This is a disservice to those who put their trust in the trainers and dieticians, as well as to those watching the programs. It simply isn’t a matter of extreme diet, exercise and weight loss to be a success and maintain weight loss. If it were, obesity would have been solved long ago.

What drives our behavior are subconscious thoughts, beliefs and feelings, and when it comes to food and exercise these are complicated and unique to each person. Binge eating, for example, can be driven by a subconscious rebellion against food restrictions, an unmet need that is soothed by food, a means of keeping unresolved emotions repressed, or a reaction to not getting enough food and being compelled to make up for that deprivation. The triggers for dysfunctional eating can come from nearly anything, and without understanding how to be aware of them, how to resolve them and strategies to limit them, they will continue.

Rudy, Danny, Liz and Amanda all hope to go home the next Biggest Loser winner, yet they also share a concern about their ability to maintain their weight loss when the show ends. They have every reason to be concerned, because they haven’t been given the tools and experiences they really need to change their relationship with food and fitness from the inside out.

Why Valerie Bertinelli Says What Really Matters Is How You Feel

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:22:00 +0000

Valerie is the poster child for Jenny Craig after losing 40 pounds, yet she says in a recent interview in Health magazine that what really matters to her is feeling good in her body and being healthy. When asked what’s better, looking good or feeling good? She answered, “Feeling good, without a doubt. When I feel good, I look better, because it shows from within.” And that is just what I would expect her to say.

Everyone who succeeds in losing some weight and keeping it off, even if they don’t get as slim as they once thought they wanted, will tell you that what really matters is how they feel, not how much they weigh. Most of them have tossed out their scale, just as I have. In the process of creating and maintaining healthier choices, you discover that you feel so much better, energized and positive. When you succeed at sticking with those choices, no matter how small they seem to be, you feel successful and are more confident in doing even more good things for yourself.

It is an interesting paradox. When you feel fat and out of shape, you will focus on your weight. When you feel in shape, good about yourself and able to maintain some weight loss as part of a new lifestyle, you will focus on how you feel. And that is what really counts.

Rickie Lake Sets an Example

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:07:00 +0000

Obese for most of her life, Rickie Lake is now fit and slim at a healthy weight and for the past three years she has been able to maintain her success. For twenty years as an actor, comedian and TV talk show host, she battled her weight with dieting and at one point starved herself while doing extreme exercising. None of it worked. Instead she yo-yoed in her weight, and did it very publicly, which wasn’t easy.

What finally worked was to stop dieting and extreme fitness. She discovered how to be physically active and eat a healthy diet in a way that was satisfying, easy to maintain and fits her lifestyle. Instead of focusing on quick fixes and rapid results, she focused on having a healthy lifestyle and she looks and feels better than she ever has, and she has been able to maintain it long-term.

What has helped her is getting food delivered by a service, and anyone can do this. There are personal chefs in nearly every community that have reasonable prices that most people can afford – even these days. If you don't know of one, do a search on line. There are many directories for personal chefs.

Rickie learned that the answer is not dieting, and she is a good example of someone who has tried all the diets out there without long-term success. The answer is eating enough healthy food you enjoy, so you don’t go hungry or feel deprived. It is also to find a way to exercise that gets you energized and motivated to keep it up. Rickie discovered hiking and does it four times a week for nearly two hours. She doesn’t need to go to the gym to keep in shape. She is doing it outdoors which she really enjoys.

Instead of fighting her weight, Rickie is now living a lifestyle in which her weight takes care of itself. By now, after nearly three years of living a healthy and fit lifestyle it is a part of who she is. I doubt she’ll ever have to fight the weight demon that those who diet still struggle with. She would agree. I happened to see her interviewed the other day and she felt confident those days were now behind her.

I know how she feels, I will celebrate 9 years of my new fit lifestyle this January 1st, and I never worry about my weight or going back to my sedentary ways and perpetual dieting routine.

The Best Time to Exercise? Any Time You Can

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:45:00 +0000

Clients frequently ask when is the best time to exercise, and while some experts will tell you first thing in the morning, the truth is whenever you can fit it in. I once made the mistake of telling a client that mornings were best, and when her schedule didn’t accommodate time for being active until the evenings she felt like it wasn’t worth doing, got depressed and sabotaged her goals. That wasn’t my intention, and fortunately she got back on track the next week without a problem.

If you create a rule that narrows your chance for success, you are setting yourself up to fail. And that isn’t necessary. Instead you can be more open and set yourself up to easily succeed. Any time that you can make for being active, whether it is 10 minutes throughout the day, longer periods a few times a week or just in the evenings is just fine.

Up until recently I used to always make time in the morning for my fitness activities, but lately it just isn’t happening and I’ve had to adjust to fitting it into my evenings. The toughest part about that is making sure I don’t let other plans get in the way. Last night I was in my basement at 9:30, where I am lucky to have a mini gym set up, and doing a functional training routine. That isn’t ideal, but I knew I’d feel worse if I didn’t do it. My body gets antsy when I go without some type of exercise, so late as it was I was glad to be there.

What do you do when you find yourself having to exercise at night? Skip it or find a way to make it work?

Take Advantage of Your “Back to School” Urge to Get Back into Shape

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:57:00 +0000

So many people find fall a time for getting back down to business, just as kids are doing by returning to school. As often happens this time of year, people are calling me to say that they want to make healthier food choices and get back into shape. They are motivated by the start of a “new year” to ramp up their fitness routine, lose weight and create a healthy diet, and they want to get a jump on the holiday season.

This is a perfect time to respond to that little voice urging you to get moving, eat healthier and take better care of yourself. If you don’t do it now, will the moment pass you by? If you put off the urge to start until October, by letting just one more week turn into just one more month? Will you wait until you find yourself overindulging on Halloween candy, but then think “what’s the point” since the holidays are just around the corner? Many people do, and the next thing they know, it’s New Years and they are feeling fat, uncomfortable and badly about themselves. You don’t have to let that be you!

Decide to take advantage of this time of year, when you feel some motivation to get back into a healthier routine. All you need to do is something small, and let your success at taking one action motivate you to take more small steps. Soon you’ll find you feel so good about yourself and how you feel, that you will stick with your new changes throughout the holidays and New Year’s will just pump you up to see what more you can do.

Judgment of Those with Obesity Doesn’t Solve Weight Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:53:00 +0000

This morning I had breakfast with a friend at a local diner, and she couldn't help but notice a group of people who were overweight and eating huge piles of pancakes and waffles dripping in butter, syrup and whipped cream. She wondered what was wrong with them and criticized them for their choices.

It is so easy to judge people who are obese for not taking responsibility for their weight problem, but until you’ve walked in their shoes you have no idea what the real problem is. It might appear obvious if you see them eating huge portions of food or eating things that aren’t healthy, but these behaviors are a symptom of a greater problem that is not well understood or obvious.

The problem starts with dieting, and most likely everyone who is obese has dieted at least once if not repeatedly. Restrictive diets all have two things in common: they are short term and they limit what you can eat. Once the diet ends, whether as planned or because it was too hard to stick with, there is an insatiable desire to eat what wasn’t allowed and to overeat. This reaction is both physical, because the body has been in starvation mode and works to restore its fuel supply, and it is psychological. When you’ve been deprived, you have an emotional need to make up for that deprivation.

These aren’t conscious, even if you know you just can’t stop eating foods you know you shouldn’t have. They are subconscious drivers of behavior that lead to food obsessions, cravings and bingeing. In 35% of the cases, they become eating disorders.

In addition, most people are stressed out, working long hours, juggling many responsibilities and putting themselves last. This isn’t an excuse, but a reality.

Instead of judging people for their poor eating choices and lack of activity or unhealthy lifestyle, the answer starts with empathy for their situation.

The next step is to help them take a look at these choices and come to understand what is driving them from an objective perspective. It is nearly impossible to take a closer look when they are self-critical and self-loathing. In fact, that is what leads to denial, because it is often too painful to deal with those feelings. Instead, by being curious of their behaviors without judgment, then they can see what is sabotaging their choices and can start to address their subconscious thoughts and emotions. In doing so, they can regain control, be in touch with how they feel, and discover an easier way to create and maintain healthier decisions for the long term.

Seeing the Value in Personal Chefs for a Healthy Diet

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:18:00 +0000

My clients often complain they are too busy to plan and prepare healthy meals, so they can’t keep it up consistently. When they can’t find the time, they end up going back to fast food, cereal, take-out pizza, or a hodge podge of things they find in their cabinets and refrigerator. Seldom are these substitutes healthy and often they are unsatisfying.

It does take some time to plan meals for the week, grocery shop, and then plan and make luncheons and dinners. And there are a number of options when you run out of time on a regular basis.

Find a local place that has healthy meals to go. If you do a little investigating, you will mostly likely find a place near where you live or work that has a healthy line of prepared foods that you can take home. It could be a restaurant, supermarket or carry out gourmet cafe. In my area alone there are five places I can go for really good healthy choices.
Cook extra food, when you do have time, and stock up the freezer for those weeks when you are busy. While you may not think you like leftovers, it may be worth giving it another try. Most food tastes just as good reheated, and some taste even better. Experiment with ways to double up favorite recipes.
Find a personal chef to make the meals for you. This is a great option that too few people consider. The general assumption is a personal chef is too expensive. That is seldom the case. Very often, the cost is very reasonable, and personal chefs are highly flexible. You can have them prepare meals for every day of the week, just a couple of days a week, or on a schedule that meets your busiest times. They will also prepare foods the way you need and like it, and they are well versed in making meals without allergens, to a specific diet or with locally farmed ingredients.

To find a personal chef in your area, check the phone book, do a search on the Internet or go to http://www.personalchefsearch.com/, http://www.hireachef.com/, http://www.pchef.net/. Personal chefs don’t have to be in your town or cook in your own kitchen. They can prepare foods in another part of the state and get it to you without a problem.

Expand your options when you are too busy to cook, so you can maintain a healthy diet more easily. When you've got a home-cooked meal all ready to go, it is easier to sit down to enjoy it. Instead of excuses for not being able to eat healthier foods, create a stress-free positive way to eat healthy foods that are delicious, satisfying and hassle-free. You'll discover how much you look forward to coming home to a good meal.

Kicking Food Cravings, Binges and Addictions with Intuitive Eating

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:46:00 +0000

Many people believe they are addicted to sugar, simple carbohydrates or other specific foods, because they crave them all the time and then seem to go crazy on a binge when they gain access to them. There is a good argument to support this belief in Dr. David Kessler’s latest book The End of Overeating, which puts the blame on the food industry for developing foods specifically to create this uncontrollable preoccupation and compulsive eating.

Yet, having worked with many people who struggle with cravings, binges and a belief they are addicted to certain foods, I know the issue is just as much driven by subconscious factors as bio-chemical ones. I also know you don’t have to give up these foods to be in control of them, as he strongly recommends.

Dr. Kessler’s research findings conclude the reason people crave specific foods is the combination of fat, sugar and salt often used in those foods to stimulate dopamine in the brain, which feels really good. Once you’ve had a food with this combination that stimulates arousal, you’ll want it again and again. This is certainly an important breakthrough in understanding why people are irresistibly drawn to food that isn’t healthy and struggle to stop eating even when they are full. No doubt, the food industry has taken full advantage of this potent combination, putting them in processed and fast foods where you’d least expect to find them, to keep people coming back for more and boosting their profits.

One approach to dealing with this is to simply stop eating all types of desserts, packaged and processed foods, fast foods, and most restaurant meals, and replace them with healthy whole foods with no sugar, fat, salt or emotional triggers. And that will indeed eliminate the cravings, for a while.

But like dieting, very few people can stick with eliminating foods they enjoy long term without feeling deprived. While Kessler acknowledges this problem by suggesting you rewire your circuitry by creating unappealing images of the food, this doesn’t address the real issue of deprivation backlash and the need for food satisfaction.

A better way to address foods that are designed to trigger cravings is to incorporate them into a healthy diet, so they are balanced with other foods to create satisfaction. Satisfaction is an important element of eating, and you are just as likely to overeat in an attempt to reach satisfaction as you are when you are over-stimulated by too much satisfaction.

6 ways to control cravings and binges without giving up favorite foods

1. Pay attention to how hungry, satisfied and full you feel. If you don’t know when you are satisfied physically or when you are full, you won’t realize you are overeating or appreciate how unpleasant it feels to get full.

2. Identify the food for what it is instead of calling it a bad food. Most highly stimulating foods, like cookies, are primarily a simple carbohydrate with saturated fat. It is harder to tell if it has much salt.

3. Balance this food with other foods that have complex carbohydrates, unsaturated fats and lean protein. If you want a cookie, then the trade off is to not have simple carbs or saturated fat in the rest of your meal or snack. When most of what you are eating is really healthy, having a little less healthy food doesn’t throw off the balance or make it unhealthy.

4. Give yourself permission to have this food in moderation when ever you balance it with healthier foods. When you eat food you think you shouldn’t, it creates a feeling of guilt and reinforces the belief that you should be deprived of it. This fuels emotional and rebellious eating, giving the food power over you. To take back your power, you have to stop seeing the food as a guilty pleasure or a forbidden food.

5. Really taste this food to see how much you enjoy it. When you aren’t over-stimulated or concerned about being deprived, you can more easily focus on tasting the food you crave. Most people find it isn’t as good as they thought and that healthier foods actually taste better.

6. Focus on creating satisfying meals with healthier foods. The more you remove the charge of highly-stimulating foods by allowing them in balanced moderation, the more likely you’ll gravitate to choosing healthier ways of being satisfied without feeling forced or deprived.

This approach, which is the basis of Intuitive Eating, addresses the emotional and bio-chemical cravings for foods designed to get us hooked. The less we eat of these foods, the less the food industry profits from them.

Making the Hard Choice for Bariatric Surgery

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:50:00 +0000

A friend of mine is planning to get bariatric surgery, and I support her in making this decision. That may surprise you, but I do believe for some people this is the right decision.

Her goal isn’t primarily to lose weight, but to regain her health and be able to have an easier time being active. This is not an easy decision for anyone to make, and it’s taken her several years of thought. While some would argue that she should have gotten healthy through eating better and exercise, I know from working with her that she tried this to the best of her ability.

For some people, regaining energy, feeling better and losing weight (even if initially done with an extreme solution) is what it takes to embrace a healthy lifestyle of regular activity and healthier meals. It still isn’t easy to change old habits and beliefs, but when you feel better about yourself you want to do more for yourself, and you are inspired to feel good for the long-term. I am confident that she will succeed at maintaining a healthier relationship with food and increasing her level of fitness, because of the work we’ve done together.

Others aren’t so fortunate. Many who get this surgery see it as the solution and don’t realize that they still have to make changes in the way they feel and think about food and fitness. It is not uncommon to regain the weight and require another surgery. More programs are needed to support people before and after surgery on HOW to change lifestyle behaviors and address the subconscious drives of behavior, so they can more easily adopt new habits and strategies when they are most motivated – just after surgery.

8 Strategies for Regular Exercising

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:46:00 +0000

Exercise. For most people that word conjures up unpleasant thoughts and feelings because of past experiences when they struggled with exercise or got hurt, or what they believe it takes to meet the minimum requirement of exercise to lose weight that doesn’t seem realistic for their current lifestyle. For others, it reminds them of a time when they loved being active and having the benefits associated with being fit and healthy. What does the word exercise bring up for you?

It is easy to assume that when you don’t exercise regularly, you are somehow lazy, bad, undisciplined or a couch potato. These are judgments that don’t reflect the real reasons for not exercising. The real reasons are likely tied to one of eight different obstacles, that once understood can be addressed with strategies.

These obstacles are: low motivation, low priority planning, too much too soon, compliance perfectionism, inflexible beliefs, emotional rebellion, derailment resistance and extreme associations.

To create a regular exercise routine in your life, pay attention to what feels best to you, what motivates you and what is really getting in the way of being consistent. We are all different, and our reasons for not exercising are all valid. Respect that you have a good reason and try to understand what you really need to do to get moving and to develop a consistent exercise lifestyle.

Read a longer version of this post for details about the 8 obstacles

How to Feel Great in Your Body - Open Tele-Program

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:31:00 +0000

I’m offering a one hour freebie call – How to Feel Great in Your Body, Wednesday, April 1st at 8pm ET.

Find out how you can feel great and love your body inside and out.

If you are frustrated, sick and tired of feeling out of control, or hate how you look and feel, then join me to learn:

4 biggest mistakes women make to lose weight
18 simple steps to regain control and feel good about your body and your ability to reach your goals

You won’t want to miss this call!

Summer is coming. Now is the time to transform your thinking and your body.

Is Your Wallet Making You Overeat?

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:13:00 +0000

Does it make you uncomfortable to throw out food these days, compelling you to eat it instead? Did you grow up hearing that kids are starving in Africa, to always clean your plate or that throwing out food is no different than wasting money? Many of us did and it hits home during an economic recession, but that doesn’t mean those beliefs warrant eating food that you don’t need or don’t want. Instead it may be time to reconsider the benefits of wasting food rather than eating it.

If you stop and think about it, whether you finish eating something or you don’t, will not save you money and having a clean plate as an adult is really a habit and doesn’t serve any real purpose. To address these beliefs requires a change in thinking and some techniques to change your habits.

While wasting food is not ideal, it is better to look at your options than to carry a black and white belief about waste. The next time you find yourself with more food than you need or want, consider what your beliefs are, if you think they make sense, and what would be better. You have the power to challenge and change your beliefs around food if you stop and look at them. This week take the opportunity to see what your beliefs about wasting food are costing you.
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Have You Discovered Zumba Yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:53:00 +0000

I just discovered Zumba. It’s the Latin dance fitness program, created by a Miami-based dancer and choreographer a few years ago. You can get DVDs for it or you can probably find a local class. There are more than 25,000 instructors around the world, and a friend of mine found one in my own town.

Even though I am not a dancer and usually struggle to catch on or keep up with any choreography, I surprised myself and was able to follow along fairly well my first time there. I’ve been back a few times since, and even though the dances change a lot, I am finding there are a base series of steps used in each class. I’m now starting to get it.

What has been the bigger adjustment is wearing the recommended dance sneakers, which have a plastic sole instead of a rubber one. The plastic makes it easier to turn and twist on the balls of your feet, yet that can also make it harder to keep your feet from slipping a little too much. Of course that is what your core is for. Needless to say, this is fabulous cardio and core exercise that feels a lot more like great fun.

Giving Yourself Satisfaction

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:24:00 +0000

Have you ever noticed that when you aren’t satisfied by the food you are eating, you eat even more in an attempt to get satisfaction?

Maybe you are settling for food you think you should have, instead of what you really want. Or maybe you think you want a food because it is supposed to be good or once was, so you eat it expecting a certain experience. I see this happen a lot with my clients who overeat out of a desire to feel good only to end up feeling disappointed, full and wishing they hadn’t eaten so much. They don’t even recognize this pattern because it is subconscious and they aren’t paying enough attention to how they feel physically or emotionally.

Satisfaction is a genuine need that a part of you (often your inner child) craves and will do anything to get. Instead of resisting this desire to enjoy certain foods, give yourself permission to have the food and fully appreciate it without any guilt. If you are afraid of overdoing it, which is a valid concern at first, be strategic as to how much of your favorite food you can access at one time. If what you really want is Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, see if you can get just one Ben & Jerry’s ice cream bar in your favorite flavor. If you love a certain type of cookie or candy, find a way to get or create packages of just a couple at a time.

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Recognizing and Treating Tendinosis - Lessons Learned

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:37:00 +0000

This winter I have been dealing with an overuse injury that resulted in tennis elbow. At first I wasn’t sure why my elbow was bothering me because there was nothing in particular that I recalled doing to cause me pain. Then after a few weeks of taking high doses of ibuprofen to no avail, I realized what had happened and I learned an invaluable lesson just in the nick of time.

I had spent hours on end vacuuming up leaves with an old leaf vacuum mulcher that required me to hold the nozzle rigidly in place as I vacuumed. Without realizing it, I had overexerted my forearm muscle and created micro tears in the tendon, and that is how I had woken up one day with a painful elbow injury.

I then had another ah-ha. I remembered reading an article about tennis elbow and realized I was doing all the wrong things. I didn’t have tendinitis any longer – if I had ever had it. I had tendinosis, and the worst thing for that is ibuprofen. I was aggravating my situation and making it impossible for the tendon to heal. I share all this, so you can learn, as I did, what to do for tendinosis.

I couldn’t find the article so I started searching the Internet. My memory was right. Tendinosis frequently occurs from overusing a muscle, and it is not the result of inflammation, as tendinitis is. Tendinosis is a chronic degeneration of the tendon due to the failure of proper healing and the loss of collagen. Everything I read said there was no easy or effective treatment. The type of collagen in the tendon is totally different from what is in skin and cartilage, so a collagen supplement won’t help. Instead I learned most people never fully heal. E-gads!

Fortunately, I stumbled across one site that said one way to treat tendinosis was to pump fresh blood into the tendon in order to bring fresh nutrients and reactivate the generation of collagen. The suggested procedure was costly and required a unique series of injections. Yet I knew of an easy way to pump fresh blood into the area. Apply ice for 2 minutes, heat for 2 minutes, ice for 2 minutes and end with heat. I did this 5 times a day for almost 2 weeks before my pain started to diminish. Gradually I went from 5 to 3 to 1 times a day. My pain is nearly gone, and I have been able to add forearm physical therapy exercises and regain full use of my arm.

This was a close call, and I consider myself very lucky to read and know enough to help myself. I hope this proves to be helpful to you or someone you know dealing with tendinosis.

Breaking the Deprivation Cycle

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:17:00 +0000

You know you shouldn’t have that piece of cake, the Girl Scout cookies or the candy that is calling your name, but you just can’t help yourself. You just have to have some. The next thing you know, you’ve eaten more than you wanted and now you are feeling a bit full and guilty. Once again you just couldn’t seem to stay in control around food. Has this happened to you recently – like over the holidays?

Feeling out of control around food can happen to the best of us, and right now it is happening to a great many people who have tried so hard to stick to their New Year’s resolutions and are giving in to their forbidden foods. Succumbing to what isn’t on a diet is inevitable. The more you try to force yourself to resist something you want and believe you shouldn’t have, the more you rebel against that restriction. Have you ever noticed that when you are deprived of something, you want it all the more?

It is when you are depriving yourself that you are emotionally compelled to make up for being deprived. This is true whether you think you should be deprived of ever having the food again, will surely be deprived because of an upcoming diet, have just been deprived having stopped a diet, or were deprived in your past. Many people are overeating foods they were once unable to have, even as far back as fifty years ago. An older man in one of my audiences wanted to know what he could do about overeating desserts every night. It turns out he grew up in the depression when sugar was rationed and he seldom got desserts. He is still compelled to make up for having been deprived of the desserts he wanted as a kid.

This week pay attention to the foods you are trying to restrict and notice how this affects your behavior. Then try giving yourself permission to have that food in moderation and see if you really want all that much of it.

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Inspired to Keep Your Resolutions

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:24:00 +0000

How often have you made New Year’s resolutions that you struggle to keep because they were just too much work? I remember making my lists each year of all the things I should change about myself and the things I should start or stop doing. By the end of the first week in January I was always failing to keep up with my expectations, and by the end of January I had given up on my resolutions all together. How often have you had the same experience?

I now do resolutions differently. Instead of focusing on what I should do differently, I focus on picking a few things I would like to experience or do more of in the coming year, and I don’t set a specific date for getting started. I set an intention that I would like specific things to happen and then wait to be inspired to take action. For example, I decided five years ago that I wanted to try Pilates. A few months later I ran into my neighbor, Adrienne who taught Pilates, while doing errands in town. I didn’t know she was teaching Pilates, and I was excited to find out she was working with clients in their homes and didn’t need equipment to do it. This was perfect, and I was inspired to work with her. I loved it, and I’ve been doing Pilates ever since. It wasn’t a struggle; it wasn’t a chore. It was so easy and effortless to get started and stick with it.

Very often, just the act of setting resolutions and feeling excited about a new year can be the inspiration you need to make a change in your life. When I started exercising eight years ago, it was the desire to take advantage of New Year’s that inspired me to make January 1st the date I began my commitment to fitness. There is something inspiring about a new school year or the beginning of the calendar year, and if you feel this way it is the perfect time to take action.

Resolutions and their start dates don’t have to be carved in stone. They can be fluid and adjustable. They can also be chosen to accommodate what you want to experience so they feel good, instead of being a “should” that is measured against a rigid expectation. This year, set yourself up for success instead of disappointment.

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Getting that Good Feeling

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:37:00 +0000

Have you ever read fitness or weight loss success stories in a magazine and noticed that what each person is most thrilled about is how great they feel? They are happy to lose the weight of course, yet they discover it isn’t how much they lost that makes them feel so good. What is most exciting is having energy, being able to do more things, gaining self-confidence, and feeling more alive and free.

You forget how much it matters to feel good when you take it for granted or it slowly slips away. It is when you get it back again that you realize it is the key to having a good life and to happiness. When you feel good again, you feel invincible and invigorated. You want to stretch yourself to do more and fully participate in what has meaning to you.

Small changes in your lifestyle are all it takes to start feeling energized, replenished and motivated. These can be getting a bit more sleep, getting outside for fresh air, finding 5-10 minutes to yourself, being active with family or friends, eating breakfast, eating when you get hungry and stopping when you start feeling full, having fresh flowers, or replacing some TV time with a more engaging activity. You may have your own ideas to add to this list. Any one of these can have a positive impact on how you feel, and none of them take much time or preparation.

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How to Feel in Control Through the Holidays - Open Tele-Program

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:13:00 +0000

I’m offering a one hour freebie call – How to Have a Healthier Holiday
Wednesday, November 19th at 8pm ET.

Join me to learn how you can stay in charge of your eating and fitness choices during the holidays.

We will talk about:
~ How to avoid overeating
~ How to deal with temptations
~ What works at a party
~ Strategies for holiday meals
~ Recognizing emotional eating
~ How to fit in fitness activities
~ Creating indoor fitness plans
~ Learning from past holidays

Are you ready to fully enjoy the holidays and to start the New Year feeling great about yourself?

Click here to register for dial-in details.

Get the tips you need to enjoy your holidays with confidence.

Recognizing Stress for What It Is

noreply@blogger.com (Alice Greene) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:07:00 +0000

Everywhere you turn right now, there seems to be bad news with potentially scary consequences. The natural reaction is to feel anxiety, a sense of helplessness, and some anger. Do you feel this way? If so, you are likely dealing with a fair amount of stress and you may not fully realize the extent or impact of it. On a scale of 1-10, where 10 is extreme stress, where would you say your stress level is right now?

You may not really know how to answer that, but your body might. Stress starts off as a psychological response to situations you perceive as overwhelming, threatening, unpleasant or beyond your control; and for many people the financial crisis is all of those things. Your perception of and response to this crisis is determining the extent it is taking a toll on you mentally and emotionally. The greater your fear and anger coupled with the feeling you can’t do anything about it, the worse you feel emotionally.

You have a choice as to how you see and respond to external factors in your life. It is when you don’t believe you have choices and feel at a loss that you are most stressed and at risk for physical symptoms. If that is your situation right now, there is something you can do for yourself that will help.

You can take better care of yourself physically by getting enough sleep, increasing your activity, eating healthy foods and doing some stress reduction techniques such as paying attention to your breath. You can also focus on how blessed you really are with gratitude and look for evidence that good things are happening despite all the bad news.

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