How Did We become So Insatiable?

I think that we can all agree that in today's society, we have never been more overweight, sick, and unsatisfied than we've ever been. We have never had the technology that we currently have, we've never had the recourses that we have, and we over consume food day in and day out. So if we have everything we could possibly need and more, why are we as humans so insatiable? When it comes to our priorities, we are a mess. We place money, fame, and ego at the forefront, and everything else that truly makes up who we are on the back burner. I noticed this while I was walking in the mall the other day. Now I have to admit, I am really into fashion and absolutely love getting new clothes, but I find my insatiability for clothing comes the more I set my first and most important priority on looking good or seeking outward approval.

While looking at Summer 2015 fashion, I noticed that Fall 2015 fashion is already coming out. In fact, they were having "sneak peaks" at Fall 2015 in May! Now I know that in the fashion industry, you have to be "fashion forward", but it's getting ridiculous. While I appreciate Fall fashion as much as the next girl, I also appreciate enjoying the summer as well and not rushing though it. So as I'm trying to enjoy and relax in my Summer attire, I'm being bombarded by consumerism saying that "I need the next best up and coming wardrobe"...for a season that's 4 months away?? This is what I call insatiableness. We are never satisfied with what we have and we are always looking for the next best thing. We are rushing forward and forever living in the future (or the past), but never being here, being in the now. How did we get here?

I guess you could blame a lot on the media, and sure, the media plays a key role, but I believe it's our priorities. The trouble we face when we simply blame the media, is that we take zero responsibility for our own actions and behaviours and pin the accountability on someone or something else. The truth is that no one can make you feel or do anything, you consciously or subconsciously make the choice to allow or permit others to make you feel a certain way or do certain things.

The outcome of insatiability can come in many different circumstances and vary according to behaviour and mindset. Someone who puts their first priority on outward approval may chronically over exercise and in turn will become insatiable with that particular action. They are never strong enough, fast enough, thin enough, etc. Their diets reflect their insatiability by displaying extremity and an eternal dissatisfaction. They can never find the "right diet" and will be forever searching of new ways to cleanse and rid their bodies of toxins they believe they have all in efforts to achieve the "perfect body" and gain the worlds approval.

We all want people to like us or "approve of us" to some extent or another, but when we place our first priority on it, we become insatiable. Money can be the same, when our first priority is money we predictably become insatiable for it. We never have enough, we always need more. What we place our priorities on will become either building blocks for our success or something that will tear down our inner peace and joy for life.

One thing that I find interesting is that when I am done writing a blog, helping a client, or having a deep and meaningful conversation with someone, I don't feel or leave "hungry". In fact, I leave full. Full of life, full of energy, full of compassion, and ready to take on the world. I feel satiated. How can that be? Because my focus is not on me. When we focus on Me, we live in our ego, and our ego is insatiable. When we focus on others, we live in our spirit instead.

At the end of the day you have to ask yourself what your priorities really are. You have to ask yourself and look deep down inside in the areas you feel insatiable. Are you forever unhappy with your body, with your marriage, with your diet, with your job? If you answered yes, then the problem is not what you're unhappy with, the problem is that your priorities are solely on you.

If you are unhappy, you've made your entire world about you. It revolves around you, the sun rises and sets on you, and you put yourself before anyone else. You blame your unhappiness on what others do or think and you make everything about you. It's time to grow up and see the world for what it is. If you are insatiable in any area, you've missed the mark.

What areas are you insatiable in?

What are your top 3 priorities in life?

Do they contribute or detract from your insatiability?

Our focus needs to be greater than just put own needs being met. We have relationships and community for a purpose, and it's a purpose that's greater than just you. You play a role in society but you aren't the be all and end all of it.

Letting Go of the Things That Don't Serve Your Journey

Throughout our lives, we learn lessons. Some people call them Life's Lessons and some call it Soul Lessons, the two are interchangeable. The more work I do on my inner world, and the more I work with clients, and their inner worlds, I  see a consistent pattern of this particular Soul Lesson: Letting Go

At some point in time as we go through life, we will have to "let go". We have to let go of relationships that no longer serve us, beliefs that no longer serve us, behaviours, actions, jobs, careers, money, addictions that no longer serve us, and we will eventually have to let go of our lives.

If we do not let go of old ways of thinking and behaving, we forfeit evolution and we forfeit expansion. We will stay in a contracted position and ultimately start to regress. There is no maintenance, there is only progression or regression. The thought of "maintaining" something is like the thought of the "perfect diet" or the "perfect body". We can get stuck in a mindset where we think we can achieve this optimum result and stay there.

This is what happens when people try to follow a specific meal or diet plan for too long. They think that, "If I could just find the holy grail of a way of eating then I will be perfect, my health will be perfect, my body will be perfect, and I will just stay here and never leave or stray or go off my plan. All will be good and I can just maintain my perfect life".

Letting go of the "perfect diet", the "perfect body", the "perfect heath", etc, are all essential for us to evolve into something greater.

Sometimes life is asking us to let go of relationships that no longer serve us anymore. They don't contribute to our Soul's growth, and they don't contribute to our journey. Sometimes, life is asking us to let go of a job that we've worked for years that no longer serves our journey anymore. Whatever it is, it is consistently being asked of us to let go.

The Hard Part

As human beings, we like to give ourselves labels. We like to identify with positions, financial status, the friends we have, the kids we raise, the sports we play, you name it and we will identify ourselves with it. The problem with doing this though is that when we have to let go of something (which is inevitable), we also then tend to feel like we are losing our identity along with letting go. We often see this in situations like when a mother says goodbye to her children when they leave for college, an athlete going through an injury and asked to give up their sport, or the business man who has worked at his career for 20+ years and is now retiring. The mother 'loses her identity" because she identifies solely as a mother, the athlete identifies with being an athlete and the businessman identifies with his job.

If we eventually have to let go though, who do we become, what happens next?

The Benefit

The good news is that when we let go of what Life is asking us to let go of, we can be certain of one thing: we have room to receive, and we have room to expand. Wen we let go of labels and situations, places, people, etc that we find our identity in, we end up finding out who we really are. Your identity is not dependant upon anyone or anything but you. Who are YOU? You could say "well I'm a vegan, or I'm a mom", but that's not your identity, that's the way you eat and that's one of the things that you are, but who are YOU?

Life will always ask you to let go of labels and with the things you identify with. It's not because life is mean and the world sucks, it's because Life is asking you to evolve. We lose our jobs, our kids move out, we get injured, because Life is trying to get our attention, and it's asking us to find our true identity. When everything else seems to crumble and fall around us, Life is showing us who we really are.

What labels are you identifying with? 

What kind of person are you inside?

What are some of the labels you need to let go of and what are some positive words you can start to identify with?

Some of the words I identify myself with are these:

Bold, courageous, forgiving, giving, faithful, loyal, creative, healthy, caring, intuitive, worthy, successful, a force to be reckoned with...

It's time we stop identifying with the things that will pass away, and start to create a new identity in the things that will remain forever.

The Beautiful Gift of Fatigue

For as long as I can remember, I have been on the go. Forever on a mission to "do something". I am always looking for the next goal to accomplish, the next certification to get, the next job, the next whatever. My days consisted of working out for as long as my body could stand, working for as long as my body could stand, and partying, eating, drinking, smoking, and so on...for as long as my body could stand. Almost 5 years ago I felt the urge to "rest" more. I didn't know what that looked like though. Rest? Who has time for that?! How would you get anything done? When I thought of rest, I became uneasy and agitated. Rest meant being still, and being still meant I actually had to sit alone with my thoughts and stand confronted with everything a busy schedule hid in the dark. When the body becomes fatigued, we fight tooth and nail to "fix" our fatigue problems. We will take vitamins, supplements, injections, and any other prescription drug we can get our hands on that promises us more energy. The thing about energy though is this:

Energy cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed.

This is The Law of the Conservation of Energy. We learnt about it in science class and it is a fundamental truth. If energy can't be created or destroyed, why are we synthetically trying to gain "more" energy? Human beings are not machines, we are organic and we need time to rest. The body can only do so much and the psyche can only handle so much. When we run ourselves to the ground in all manner of ways, the body fights back and displays fatigue. FATIGUE then is not the issue, its the solution. Instead of looking at our fatigue as a beautiful gift, we look at it as a problem that we need to get rid of. We fight it, resist it, and try to mask it with substance, and by doing so we cause even more fatigue.

I say fatigue is a beautiful gift because it helps us to slow down. When we are fatigued, we are forced to take a step back and look at our lives. This is a beautiful gift. When we are fatigued, the body has no other option but to slow down it's pace which then causes us to be present not only in our bodies, but in our lives as well. I have said this numerous times to family, friends, and clients, being overworked and busy is a badge of honour in our society, predominantly in the West. I was at a work function for health professionals and the trainers who were awarded with the highest esteem were the ones who worked painfully long hours and sacrificed their lives for the almighty dollar. This is success? This is health? What has the fitness industry come to? And as a health professional, I disagree now. I disagree with overworking yourself, I disagree with sacrificing your most valuable asset (your time), just to make money. Does this mean that I don't think people should work? Of course not. But I think we have been deceived.

We have been made to believe that the more we do, the more we gain. This is only half the truth. What I have learnt is that less is more. By doing less, I get more. By letting go, I gain more, by giving I end up receiving, and he I withhold I end up losing everything. I believe in being the person you were created to be, by doing a good job at what you do, following your passion, and ever evolving into something greater, being something greater each day. But that doesn't mean running your body into the ground or racing through life and missing out on it all the while.

Since I started to adopt a slower paced living style, I have lost weight (by walking and doing Pilates instead of killing myself at the gym everyday), I am able to contribute fully to my relationship with my fiancé like never before, I get more school work done, I am better at my job, I make better choices when I eat, I sleep better, my digestion is better, I am happier, I am not always hungry, and I have energy. By doing less, by moving slower, I gained my life back.

Fatigue is a beautiful gift. Without my wonderful body screaming at me with fatigue as a plea to change, my life would still be turbulent. We must not fight our fatigue but welcome it with open arms. Fatigue says "look, I need to get your attention, something isn't right, you need to heal"! I finally get why I need to rest and to stay in a place of rest. When we are asleep, the body heals. When we are at rest, the body heals. If you have any kind of unwanted symptom that you need healing from, you need to be in a place of rest. You need to get out of striving in order to get what you want and what you need. You need to let yourself be fatigued in order to heal.

Treating fatigue means treating it with honour, and trust. It means giving fatigue room to expand and to show you things about your life and about how you use your time. What is your fatigue telling you? What areas of your life are draining you and what areas of your life energize you? What areas of your life are you controlling out of fear? What feelings or realities are you afraid of if you slow down? Take the time to honestly answer these questions and give yourself permission to slow down and most importantly, give yourself permission to live.

The Sex Appeal of Chronic Dieting

I'm sure I can speak for most women, and more recently men as well, that dieting has drawn you in one or more times in your life. I used to religiously diet on and off for years. From the age of 18-25 I have been on some type of "special" diet. High protein, low carb, high carb, low fat, high fat, low protein, vegan, vegetarian, paleo, ketosis, pescetarian, cabbage soup, elimination diets, you name it, I've tried it.

This is my consensus, which one is the best? All of them and none of them. Which one works? All of them and none of them. Which one would I recommend? All of them and none of them (but particularly none of them). All of these diets will work and then all of these diets will fail. You will for sure lose weight, and you will absolutely gain it back. Chronic dieting (CD), is a virus that is sweeping the nations and has been "winning" for the past 5 decades.

Chronic Dieting Definition:

Someone whose world is ruled by constant, long term, on and off dieting and food restriction.

Chronic Dieting is:

• destructive
• seductive
• anti-life
• anti-nourishment
• anti-embodiment
• anti-pleasure
• anti-natural
• pervasive
• viral

Chronic Dieting demeans us, it keeps us small, affirms that we are not enough, that we are unlovable, it disembodies us, and is a waste of our Life energy. If dieting worked, why would we need to be on them continuously? "There is absolutely zero clinical or experimental or accepted research that validates long term on and off dieting as a sustainable weight loss strategy".

The truth is that dieting may seem to make sense, but we have been deceived into believing that something that causes so much harm to the body is actually good for us. CD is a gateway drug to shame, it takes us out of the present and puts us into an unattainable future. CD makes us believe we are a part of a special social club, it's like a competitive sport. It makes us feel like we have something to work towards, and yet our goals are rarely reached or barely maintainable.

CD is it's own religion. It has it's own set of rules, it asks a lot of us, it asks us to have faith, and we must perform daily rituals to meet the requirements of it. Religion of any sort binds you. Relationship is the antidote for religion, whether with soul, spirit, body, or food.

CD causes unwanted health challenges. "A great number of food and health issues, such as fatigue, poor digestion, low mood, immune problems, headaches, constipation, binge eating, inability to lose weight, and more"...

CD is anti-weightless because of protein and essential fat deficiency that usually follow the protocols. CD or food restriction puts the body into survival mode and creates a stress response. When the stress response is activated our digestion is impaired because blood is shunted away from the stomach and towards the extremities to prepare the body to fight or flee.

Increased stress means:

• Increased: cortisol, insulin, fat deposition, neuropeptide signalling for appetite
• Decreased: mitochondria number and function, thyroid, growth hormone, sex hormone, oxygen intake and utilization, muscle building

More often than not, when we CD we cut out fat because we are made to believe that fat makes us fat. This couldn't be further from the truth. We NEED fat, without any fat on our bodies we would die. We need EFA's in our diet to promote cell function, brain cognition, hormone production, thyroid support, vitamin absorption, brain nutrition, plasticity, weight management, and more. We often tend to cut out protein which leads to decreased muscle building, decreased thermic efficiency, decreased immunity, brain chemistry imbalances, low mood, low energy, low vitality, low sex drive, etc.

If you are struggling with unwanted eating habits such as:

• Overeating
• Binge Eating
• Emotional Eating

You are in luck! One of the major keys to overcoming unwanted eating challenges is to discontinue chronic dieting. These challenges are predictable when we restrict the body's natural appetite, when we artificially feed our bodies, or when we are calorically or nutritionally starving. Something like binge eating is absolutely necessary when the body is deprived of necessary macronutrients or micronutrients.

We spend so much time and energy dieting, hating our bodies, trying to find the "right" way, all while failing to tune into our bodies own wisdom. Your body knows what to eat and what not to eat. It knows how much to eat and when to stop. We need to trust that the body knows what it's doing. When we are in a state of trust or faith, we kick the body into a relaxation response, which is the opposite of the stress response. Parasympathetic dominance takes over when we trust and sympathetic dominance takes over when we are in fear. Fear of food, fear of fat, fear of pleasure...all activate sympathetic dominance (aka: stress response).

Here are a few remedies for chronic dieting:

• No weighing yourself
• No dieting
• Adopt movement, let go of exercise
• Increased fat intake- as needed
• Increased protein intake- as needed
• Slow down with food
• Fully nourish yourself
• Let go of artificial sweeteners
• Moderate your caffeine intake

I truly believe that we are meant to live an abundant life. We are meant to have space, be able to flow, to create, to use wisdom, to embody, and to overcome. Chronic dieting is the road to contraction and will rob you of your time, energy, and life. It's time to let go of a set of rules and regulations that hold no merit for YOU in particular. You are not a set of systems and guidelines, you are a person with individuality, who needs something specifically for you. I will leave you with this question:

Where would your energy go if it didn't go to dieting or controlling your food intake/body?

*The ideas presented in this blog have been used from my studies at The Institute for the Psychology of Eating, and Marc David, Founder and Author. Two of his books that information has been taken from that I highly recommend are The Slow Down Diet and Nourishing Wisdom.

Fed Up

I've had this scratching feeling on the inside since I started my studies through The Institute for the Psychology of Eating. The feeling that leaves me so deeply moved to say something is the feeling of being fed up. I'm fed up with all the lies we've been fed and manipulated to believe around food and body, I'm fed up with mass producing companies claiming to be healthy, low fat diets, eating less/exercising more protocols, and focusing on weight loss first before focusing on what's happening inside of us. I'm fed up with a lot, but most of all I'm fed up with people hating their bodies, beating themselves up in the gym, starving themselves, not diving deeper into themselves, tricking, playing, restricting, measuring, weighing, pinching, poking, and dismissing themselves. When will we all get what life is really about? We teach what we need to learn....

I'm at fault too, no one is immune to this way of thinking and behaving, not even me, especially not me. I have been through physical, emotional, and verbal hell against myself when it comes to my body and the way I eat. You name it, I've tried it, all in the name of "something greater". Ask me about any diet, I've done it and I've put countless people on programs just like them, all in attempt to finally be happy. That's the goal isn't it, To happy? Though we continue to learn and progress in our knowledge everyday, this I know for certain:

Happiness is not in the future

Happiness is not in the extra 0-25lbs you want to lose, happiness is not in the gym putting on muscle, it's not in the new shiny car, or in a pair of skinny jeans. Happiness doesn't come when, happiness comes now. This is what we've been made to believe, that happiness will only come when .... you fill in the blank.

I've been so skinny and still hated my body, I wanted to kill myself at one point I hated me so much. I may have been ultra thin but it wasn't because I was the poster child of health (even though that's what I claimed to be). I would workout twice a day and claim to be this big health nut, but then go and sniff coke and throw up everything I ate at the end of the day just to keep my slender figure and my inner world numb. Does that sound like happiness? What kind of life is that? Do you want to live like that if it would mean you were this unrealistic size or shape?

I'm fed up with people believing that every skinny person walking around is the most happy, vibrant, sensual, loving person they can be because more often than not, this couldn't be further from the truth. Does that mean all skinny people are unhappy? Of course it doesn't, that's not what I'm saying, but I am saying that whether skinny or bigger, if you hate your body now you will hate your body then, regardless of it's shape.

There will always be something for you to pick apart when it comes to your body, always. Every time we flip through a magazine or turn on the tv we are reminded of how unworthy we are, not matter what you look like. There's always someone who's thinner, prettier, richer, taller, shorter, more symmetrical, has nicer hair, bigger muscles, a small nose, straighter teeth, whiter teeth, nicer clothes, bigger house, nicer car etc... The list goes on. When will you finally be happy?

Happiness is not when, happiness is now. If you live a life of comparison, or with your appearance being your most important goal, you've completely missed the mark and your life is as shallow as a bed pan. When will we all get past the surface and get deeper with ourselves, with our lives?

I am not immune to it either, just so you know that I know that I'm not. I'm just fed up with an unending strive for something that never comes. I'm done letting the world dictate how I should look, think, feel, act, or talk. I'm fed up with conforming for the sake of pleasing people who don't truly care for me and who have no interest in seeing me for who I truly am, which is more than my body. Your body is an expression of you, it doesn't define you. If your identity is solely in the way you look, it's time to grow up and open your eyes. Life is more than just creating your appearance, life is about creating happiness as you are right now.

Perfectionism Leads to Self-Abuse

When we think of the perfect person, we often tend to envision a person who gets everything done on time, always has a clean house, a perfect marriage/relationship, the perfect job, and the perfect body. We think of a person who is free from all constraints surrounding food and we think of a person that isn't affected by stress. If we were "perfect", we would never emotionally eat, we would always practice self-control and choose the right foods, and we would love to exercise and strive to have that hollywood physique day in and day out. Not only would we be perfect with our diets and exercise, but we certainly would know how to manage our emotions better. We wouldn't let the "little things" get to us, we'd laugh in the face of adversity, and any stress or conflict that came our way would be fought head on and head strong. This is the perfect person....or is it? This is not perfection, this is a fantasy. 

You see, we want fantasy but what we need is reality. Reality is this: you are a human being, you have emotions and compulsions, and you have needs. We want to play out like we need nothing in life or that anything we do need, we can get it ourselves. This perfectionism mentality will always lead to self-abuse. For instance, say someone wants the "perfect body" (if there is such a thing) and goes through extreme measures to get it. If indeed the person gets this perfect body (which they probably won't because of an underlying negative body image), what have they done in order to get it? You can go to extreme trainers who put you on macronutrient and calorie restricting diets, who force their ways of exercising on you, and you could very well lose the weight, but that weight loss comes with a cost. Overtime we try to shrink the body, force the body, or restrict the body, but the body will always fight back. You can absolutely lose the weight by extreme measures but it will be with extreme measures that you will have to take or keep to sustain that weight loss. For the majority of people this is unsustainable, and for the people who can sustain extremity, they will live their lives in fear, shame, guilt, and misery over their bodies.

Perfectionism is not a badge of honour, it's a ball and chain. Perfectionism keeps you in a state of chronic low level stress because everything you do will never be good enough. There is a difference between having a mentality of excellence and striving for perfection in everything you do. Again, perfectionism will always lead to self abuse in every area of your life. In the area of eating psychology, when a person strives to have the "perfect" diet or the "perfect" body, they focus on a goal that is extremely shallow instead of making their goal instead to walk in their purpose and to live a life of fulfillment. I hear clients say all the time "I just want to feel good about myself, have more energy, look good in a swimsuit, etc.." and that's all fine and good, but these things can start to take place before weight loss occurs because these goals don't require the loss of body fat, but a transformation in our thinking. When we focus inwards, the outwards follows suit. As Marc David says, "PERSONAL POWER=METABOLIC POWER".

Start to let go of perfectionism and welcome every imperfection that you believe to be there as a vehicle to grow and learn more about yourself. Perfectionism leads to negative self talk which puts the body under stress and triggers the stress response, which in turns inhibits digestion, activates sympathetic dominance, outputs insulin and cortisol, and signals the body to store fat and inhibit muscle growth. Perfectionism=Stress. Let go of perfectionism and you inadvertently let go of guilt and shame and you will start to adopt a new way of thinking. The body will have no other option but to transform when the environment is conducive to it.

The Masculine Vs The Feminine

Archetypes are vastly underrated but are deeply important and make up the polarities of the world. The masculine and the feminine are the same as yin and yang, sun and moon, emotional and mental, earth and sky, and so on. Each archetype plays its essential role in the world and is needed in equal parts to create harmony and optimal function. The problem that we face, especially in the society we live in today, is that masculine traits and how we approach living and eating are overpowering the more feminine approaches many of us are internally seeking.

"The field of nutrition and the field of eating psychology both suffer from an intense, lopsided, and imbalanced masculine approach".

Heres are some terms that have been used throughout centuries to describe each archetype:

• Masculine: left brain , logical, linear, one-pointed, straight, to the point, goal oriented, intellect, mind, hard, heroic, purpose, clarity, systems, hierarchy, protection, boundaries, order, commitment, will, strength, information, science, numbers, calculating, measurement, penetration, problem solving, directional, singular, war, combat, fight, muscle, metal, survival, king, prince, father, brother, warrior…
• The feminine: right brain, creative, nourishing, embodied, artistic, circular, emotional, musical, unpredictable, chaotic, flowing, watery, colorful, connecting, associative, soft, loving, caring, food, body, fat, earth, soil, procreative, communicating, inclusive, intuitive, no boundaries, open, receptive, spacious, non-linear, curvy, sensual, touch, pleasure, images, pleasing, surrender, yielding, dance, birth, earth, mother, queen, princess, devouring mother, sister, goddess, unknown, mystery…

With our focus solely on nutrition and ways of feeding ourselves, do you notice how when you look at the terminology above that we are wired towards a more masculine approach? In a masculine approach we focus on numbers, grams, measurements, systems, more muscle, heroic exercises, the "right way", or the "perfect" diet. I'm not saying that these methods are wrong or bad, but what it shows for women is that it is an approach that simply won't work long term.

Men and women are very different, we may be equals but make no mistake, we were not created the same. All you have to do is look at the general anatomy of each and see that it's not rocket science to realize we aren't the same. So if we aren't the same, why are we told to use the exact same, cookie cutter methods of dieting and exercise programming regardless of gender?

You can fight me on this one but the fact of the matter is that women are not encouraged to embrace their femininity when it comes to eating. Adopting a more feminine approach when it comes to how we feed ourselves would look more like this:

nourishment over nutrition, pleasure over feeding, mystery over scientific certainty, flow over meal plans, movement over exercise, eating over will power, body wisdom over body knowledge, fat over muscle, garden grown over laboratory grown....

Until we start to embrace a more feminine approach to food, women especially will continue to struggle with body image, disordered eating patterns, and re-bound dieting. I want to just say again that masculine approaches aren't wrong or bad, but that for your average woman on planet earth they will not work long term because the woman will not feel embodied and will not be encouraged to find her natural appetite. Notice that the feminine approach is not only for women, but for men as well. Finding natural appetite, using self love rather than self loath as motivation, and letting go of the scale and this "perfect" number you may have in your head that you have to be, that has no real scientific basis, is essential for an overall healthy practice when it comes to the psychology of eating. Everyone would benefit from eating more naturally and freely regardless of gender.

Homework:

1. Start to tap into your own body wisdom of what to eat and what not to eat. You know your body better than anyone else so let go of searching for the perfect diet because it doesn't exist. Eat foods that fully nourish you on every level, not just the foods you think you have to eat to meet nutritional requirements. Keep in mind that the body will always naturally gravitate towards foods that build it up if you allow it to. Even though you may crave certain foods out of circumstance, the body actually craves nutritionally dense foods.

2. If every exercise burned the same amount of calories, what would you do? Whatever your answer is, do that. This is called embracing movement rather than just simply exercising.

3. Go on a No Diet diet for one month and see what happens.

Information in this post was taken out of the lectures: Feminine and Masculine Psychology by Marc David, Founder of The Institute for the Psychology of Eating.

Getting Acquainted With Rhythm

Hello all my faithful followers, I apologize I haven't blogged for a few weeks. Thank you all for your patience while I continue to learn through my psychology studies.

I want to talk to you about rhythm today. Life is all about rhythm, and rhythm is life. Everything we do follows a particular rhythm, from the sun rising to the sun setting, from our blood pumping in and out of our heart, and from the breath that goes in and out of our lungs, we as humans, are rhythm.

Our bodies are created to follow rhythm in everything we do, and in terms of eating, our bodies follow what science calls "bio-circadian nutrition". Circadian rhythm refers to our sleeping pattern, or our rhythm with the sun and moon as we sleep, so bio-circadian nutrition, like circadian rhythm, also works in tandem with the sun.

Our metabolisms are organic, and we are organic as humans. We live harmoniously and are closest to our homeostatic level when we flow with nature.

In the morning our metabolism is like a small fire, if we put too much wood on the fire, we will snuff it out, but if we give it small amounts, our fire can ignite. Eating a smaller, nutritious breakfast is the best way to stoke the fire. As the sun rises to its highest point, our metabolism also rises to it's highest point, this is between the hours of 12-130pm (high noon). Knowing this, we can then gage when our biggest meal should ultimately be. As life ebs and flows, so our metabolism follows throughout the day. Between the hours of 2-4pm our metabolism starts to drop, which then shouldn't come as a surprise that most people start to crave sugar or caffeine around this time of the day. This is very good news because it means that you don't have a willpower issue, your body is actually just following its natural rhythm! Between 5-9pm your metabolism starts to rise again signalling the time to eat your last meal of the day. Lastly, between the hours of 1-5am, your metabolism is at it's lowest, which means calorie burning potential is also at it's lowest.

Now I know that life gets in the way and we can't always eat our biggest meal at noon, but we can use the information about an ebbing and flowing metabolism to help us understand our physiology better. Remember though that the most important thing about eating is to be in a state of relaxation. Eating a big meal at noon while talking over a stressful business meeting compared to eating a larger dinner in a peaceful environment will not win due to meal timing. I believe that in the long term bio-circadian nutrition is an extremely helpful and beneficial concept to grab hold of if for nothing else but to work in harmony with nature.

Working night shifts are not natural or organic to the body, nor is eating a bunch of food very late into the night (or early depending on how you look at it). I'm not saying not to work night shifts, especially if that is your job, but I am saying it is not a natural way for the body to conduct itself.

Start to experiment with bio-circadian nutrition and see how your body responds, and start to notice all the areas in your life that follow a natural rhythm.

Eating Set Backs: An Avenue to Know Yourself Better

Many of you most likely equate a set back with failure, but I want to propose a different view point. What if every time you "screwed up", "fell off the wagon", or "relapsed", that it was actually a good thing? Struggling with bulimia for 6 and a half years taught me that set backs will happen. Being addicted to drugs and alcohol also taught me that set backs happen (or relapses as they call them in the substance abuse world). With every set back I used to get really down on myself because I did exactly what I didn't want to be doing, or what I said I didn't want to be doing. When we say one thing and do another, it is very frustrating because we view ourselves as hypocrites and failures. With every set back that I came face to face with, I got angry with myself. What I learnt about anger was this though: when anger is channeled appropriately, it can be a driving force, and a very successful driving force. There is belligerent anger but there is also a very healthy and passionate anger, and when you learn to direct your anger for something that truly bounds you in a passionate way, and out of love for yourself, the potential for success is astounding.

In the start of bulimia, I was motivated by a hatred and anger for my body. I hated the way I looked, I picked a part my body piece by piece, and nothing was ever good enough. As I grew to love myself and appreciate my body, flaws and all, I was motivated by an anger towards hurting myself because I truly began to love what was. Can you can see how passionate anger spawned from love can be a driving force now? We have been made to believe that anger is bad and that we have to shove down intense emotions, but in my case, singing koom-bi-ahh around a campfire wasn't going to motivate me to change. I guess you could say that love was my main motivator, and you'd be absolutely correct, but it was also deep passion, and the anger towards self-injustice that drove me to get better.

With every set back, I learnt more and more about myself, and after a while, it was almost if I welcomed them because it would cause me to dive deeper into getting to know me better. If you don't have the desires to get to fully know and understand yourself, your triggers, your fears, loves, hates, desires, etc, every set back will keep you knocked down. It's time to get to know yourself better and the things that set you off. It's time to get angry and passionate for your own sake. If someone was treating your best friend like garbage, and you could see the hurt it was causing in your friends life, you would probably have some intense emotions (like anger), towards that or those individuals. You would be angry because you love your friend more than anything else. Now see your friend as you.

Learn to love yourself like you would a best friend and I promise you that your body will transform. Your body will have no other option but to transform because you've created the appropriate breeding ground for shape shift to take place. Your body will not let go until you let go of perfection or the belief that every time you fail, you're a a failure. When you start to view each set back as the opportunity to get to know yourself better, you won't be stressed out when you fail, because here's a helpful piece of advice, you're going to fail...over and over and over again. If you can't handle failure, you are not prepared to be a human being on planet earth. Failure is not a bad thing, but an avenue to learn. Life prepares us and teaches us that we are more than the labels we place on ourselves, like the label "failure". Although you've failed at something doesn't make you a failure, and although you've encountered a set back, doesn't mean you're not going to overcome in the end.

Eating challenges prepare us for life because the are direct reflection of our life. Look at each set back with food as a way to learn more about the life you live now. For example, if you failed at trying to eat more slowly, take a bigger look at the pace of your life and see what areas you may be going light speed in. If you over indulge or struggle with disordered eating patterns, what areas of your life may be in disorder? The way you eat is a direct reflection of the way you live.

I want to thank everyone for following my blog and all the feedback I've been getting. Everything I write, I write for you guys, and for everyone who truly wants life transformation and a new relationship with food.

What if Your Symptom Was Actually Your Cure?

In today's day and age we are made to believe that if we have a symptom, like heartburn or a stomach ache, that we have a problem. Although these ailments can be frustrating, they are at the same time trying to convey information to you. When we can take a step back and analyze our symptoms and actually welcome them as a message, we can move forward to find a solution. For example, let's take a look at heartburn. Heartburn is usually caused by one of four ways:

1. Stress

2. Fast eating

3. Consuming too much food in one sitting

4. Poor food quality

It's important to note that the latter two are usually a result of the first two. So when you take a step back and start to analyze your symptom of heartburn, which areas in your life may be contributing to it? Maybe right now you have been stressed about money because the economy isn't doing too well so you work long hours trying to prove that you are worth keeping around. You take little time for yourself throughout the week to do anything that satisfies you, let alone to eat a proper meal,  and when you do eat, it's in front of a computer screen where you sit stressed out looking at your next big project deadline. As you eat in front of the screen, you are completely unaware, not present, and more likely to consume too much food. You choose meals that are quick and that can be eaten very quickly (which adds to the stress response you're already in). And as we've learnt about stress, let me remind you, that blood is shunted away from the gut towards the extremities to prepare the body to fight or flee. So now not only are you in a stress response from being stressed about money and work, you add to it by eating way too fast, way too much, and choosing poor quality foods to satisfy your need for speed, to be a workaholic.

Now let me ask you, is heartburn the problem? Is heartburn the problem, or is it a solution to a bigger problem? Maybe heartburn, in this case, is a solution or the cure to fast paced living. Maybe fast paced living, being a workaholic, not taking time for yourself or your family is the problem and not the heartburn.

Maybe you've had digestive issues for the past week. Look back to a week ago and see if anything has changed in your life, not just diet but life. Maybe a week ago you got into a fight with your spouse and haven't reconciled it inside of yourself even though you both said you were over it. Maybe you are still holding onto some unforgiveness. Unforgiveness creates bitterness, strife, and anxiety which quickly turns into a full blown stress response if we don't tackle it head on. So your digestive issues are not the issue, maybe unforgiveness is the issue and digestive complaints are the cure to tell you that you're harbouring feelings of unforgiveness that will always lead to unwanted symptoms.

These are just two example of how life and diet are so closely related. When you are dealing with a symptom, just know that it is the cure for something else. Something else is going on in your inner world that is manifesting as symptom. Start to go Sherlock Holmes on your symptoms an do some self discovery when something comes up instead of self medicating. Don't put a bandaid on the cure to the real issues. Am I saying that every upset stomach is caused by resentment or strife, no I'm not. You could have eaten a bad piece of sushi and now you have a tummy ache, that's completely different and not what I'm talking about. When a symptom persists or is chronic though, we need to take a deeper look as to why it's there.

Slowing down and listening, and becoming in tune with our bodies, is one of the most powerful weapons we have. No one knows your body better than you do, so it's high time you start listening and discovering what you are trying to relay to yourself.

When Deprivation Rebels

Hello everyone! I know it's been a couple weeks since I last blogged, but life gets busy and that's just the way it goes. I'm back at school and learning some very transformational stuff that I've not only been applying to the lives of my clients, but to my life as well. So without further adeau, let's jump right in to todays topic, today I'm going to be talking about deprivation. Deprivation is an interesting paradox in the sense that when we deprive ourselves of something, we expect the loss of whatever that something is in our lives, only to find that we gain more of it in return. Let me explain. Say Jane Doe deprives her body of food that contains fat because she fears weight gain. Her mentality is "if I eat fat, I'm going to get fat". While she deprives herself of what nutritional science calls "essential" fatty acids (being essential for a reason), she begins to experience symptoms such as redness around the eyes, dry hair, brittle nails, skin that lacks luster, anger, fatigue, depression, inability to lose weight, and even weight gain. She deprives herself thinking she will lose the very thing she deprives herself of, all while gaining it at the same time. This is only one example, that's obvious to most health or nutrition professionals, but not the only one.

Let's take a step away from food for a moment, and look at another example, desire. A lot of the time we suppress our hearts desires, out of fear, loss of control, anxiety, or whatever. We see a desire within us but at the same time, we try to deprive ourselves of that very desire thinking that it will result in us getting what we want in the future. If I desire to be loved, often times I will be doing things subconsciously that drives love away, all while desiring it at the same time. You often see this happen in people that have experienced abuse in some way throughout the course of their lives, and more times than not, sexual abuse. They desire to be loved but will adopt behaviours that in turn, deprive them of love, or what they think will deprive them of love.

When we deprive ourselves of anything that our body needs or desires, it naturally rebels. In the case of the woman depriving herself of essential fats in her diet, the body rebels by storing fat and getting irritable. When the person who desires love, but deprives herself of it, the body rebels in compulsive manners. She may over eat, binge eat, become depressed, irrational, moody, etc. Whatever we shove deep down, comes back up in different ways, commonly coming out as food issues. Why does it come up as food issues (more times than not), you ask? Because on a psycho-physiological level, whether we deprive ourselves of food, relationships, experiences, emotions, or whatever, we are depriving ourselves of nourishment. 

Nourishment is different from nutrients. We feed ourselves nutrients, but are not necessarily nourished by them. Nourishment goes so much deeper than just the food we eat or don't eat. You could have the "cleanest" diet on earth but at the same time live a life where you hate your job, sit at home lonely, are stressed out about finances, and feel like you have no purpose. You may be putting nutrients into your body that would build it up, but your life is deficient in the most nutrient dense substance on earth, nourishment, and nourishment on every level. Just because you may be feeding yourself foods that are healthy, they don't actually have the environment that's conducive to them assimilating at an optimal or efficient level and therefore, you're still starving. And not only are you starving, but you live in chronic low level stress every day.

When we deprive ourselves of true nourishment, not just food nourishment, but life nourishment, the body and mind will naturally rebel because our need for nourishment is the same as our need for air. Without nourishment, we live a life of starvation. When the body senses starvation, it grabs for the easiest and quickest source of "nourishment" there is, food. It doesn't realize that subconsciously it's starving for affection, it just knows that it's starving. When you're hungry, you eat, this is a natural thing. It's nothing to be ashamed of, we wouldn't shame a baby for crying because it's hungry and yet, we shame ourselves when we cry out for nourishment. We deprive ourselves, or try to beat ourselves into submission, we guilt and shame ourselves, and we don't honour what our bodies truly need. This is going to look different for everyone, but just realize, if you are over eating, binge eating, or battling compulsive behaviours and moods, it may just be because the body is rebelling out of a need for nourishment.

Your Homework

What are your desires in life?

What nourishes you on a food level, and what nourishes you on a life level?

What is your body hungry for?

What behaviours are present in your life that are unappealing to you and do they link with a need for nourishment in an area where you're depriving yourself?

I'd love to hear your answers to these questions, so please feel free to contact me! Have a Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Why Your Diet May be Failing

I have officially begun my studies through the Institute for the Psychology of Eating and I am already learning so much. I am excited to share all of my newfound knowledge with you guys over the next year and beyond. When you see yourself, what do you see? Do you pick yourself apart piece by piece, do you hate your body, or do you have a genuine love for yourself while knowing you're not perfect? Statistically speaking, 95% of women are dissatisfied with their body. That's basically every single woman walking around planet earth! And whether a women has, to society's standards, the "perfect" body, she is still unpleased by her appearance. I'm focusing in on women because the number is simply too big to ignore, and because  almost every single woman is dissatisfied, they are also in a constant state of stress response because they are in a state of self-loath.

I have talked to you about the negative effects of stress on the body when it comes to your metabolism, but let me give you a few key notes to refresh your memory. When the body is in stress response it has:

• decreased metabolism
• decreased digestion
• increased blood pressure
• increased cortisol and adrenaline production, which leads to excess weight gain

What do we do now with this information though? The problem that many of us have is that we see our end result but want to take a completely different path to get there. Let me explain. We see a body or diet that we deem perfect, we see ourselves laughing and happy, trying on clothes that always fit, having coffee with friends in our skinny jeans, great love transpiring out of physical connection with someone, and just being in love with ourselves. We then use strategies that enforce deprivation, self-loath, and hatred towards the body through numerous ways such as: starving oneself, over exercising or using exercise as punishment, and by trying to beat ourselves into submission, all while thinking that a path of un-love will give us the result of something we love. Your destination will be the same as the road you take. If you take a path of hate, you will end up (even if you lose all the weight), still hating yourself.

You see this time and time again with rebound weight loss clients. They lose a bunch of weight through extreme measures and gain it all back. 99% of all weight loss clients on a weight loss diet or program will gain their weight back within one year. Again, that's a huge number! Why is this happening? Because they haven't learnt to love themselves now and everything that comes with that. When you love yourself and start to walk in fulfillment, true metabolic power breaks through because loving yourself, means letting go. Once you let go of the "perfect diet" or "perfect body" and you start to relax into who you truly are and what you were created or purposed to do, weight loss will be a by product.

It's time for you to love what is. Love yourself and watch your body transform!

Birds of a Feather Vs Opposites Attract

It's interesting how many times you hear the phrase "opposites attract" when talking about relationships. While this does happen a lot of the time, I think there is a certain danger in surrounding yourself closely with people who have views, opinions, and lifestyle choices that are opposing to your own, or to where you want to get to in life eventually. I'm not saying that your views are the "be all and end all", and that you shouldn't listen to anyone that talks outside of your views (because that would be very narrow minded), but what I am saying is to be conscious of how close we get to those who are not headed in the same direction in life as we want to go. This isn't being cold or mean to people, but it's about knowing what you want and the route you need to take to get there.

I battled a drug/alcohol addiction from the age of 17-21, and the more I surrounded myself with people who were using drugs, the more I in turn wanted to use. This is not rocket science, because I am the sum of the people I hang around with. If I am trying to change my lifestyle, eat healthier, exercise more, spend more time with family, meditate or pray more, or whatever your goal is, then wouldn't it be more advantageous to surround myself with people who are doing those things? This sounds like common sense, but as my friend Ashley said last night "common sense isn't so common anymore".

In a successful relationship, be it romantic or plutonic, both people have to relatively be on the same page. I believe that we are truly attracted to those who possess qualities that we want more of in our own lives, and that we gravitate towards those who challenge us to be a better version of ourselves. To then get into a serious relationship with someone who is completely different from who we are, and the way we conduct ourselves, is a recipe for disaster.

What does this all have to do with nutrition? If you want to be successful in your eating and lifestyle choices, you have got to surround yourself with like minded individuals. If you wanted to stop drinking, you probably wouldn't be hanging out in bars every weekend, would you? The key to success is creating an environment around that supports the growth of your goals, while at the same time, not making provision for temptations. You get to create your own environment, no one else chooses that for you. If you're not finding the success you want, then maybe it's because you've created a lacking environment.

It's time to take some accountability for the choices you have made and the responsibility to change what isn't benefitting you. I'm not saying that you should stop talking to people who don't eat healthy or exercise, please don't think I mean that. Just be careful who let close to you because, you are the sum of those you hang around with. Birds of a feather flock together, so choose your flock wisely. Opposites attract, but choose opposites that possess qualities you already have, but want more of.

Week 8: Know Your Triggers

It is the final week of the 8 week challenge, and I hope everyone has gotten enlightenment in some area or another. I've had many different comments about each week and I appreciate all the feedback. Thank you all so much for following and supporting my blog. This week I want to talk to you about triggers when it comes to eating. Triggers are feelings, situations, events, etc, that propel you into an episode of disorderly eating. Triggers can cause you to either overeat or under eat, fear food, love food, use food as a drug, or use food as an excuse. Triggers come in all forms because they are different for everyone. They are dependant on circumstance, history of the individual, and time of occurrence.

Everyone has triggers, not just with food, but within life. For example, the feelings of anxiety may trigger an alcoholic to drink, or the situation of eating a meal may trigger a smoker to want a cigarette after. Christmas time may trigger an individual to eat baked goods, or the event of a wedding may trigger feelings of loneliness. There are thousands of triggers and they all mean something different to each individual. When it comes to eating, it is imperative that you know your own personal triggers.

When I was in the 5th year of my eating disorder, I finally started to get acquainted with my very own triggers. I finally started making the correlation between specific feelings or events that triggered me into either binging or severely restricting food. As I started to connect the dots, true healing started because true self discovery started. Instead of pushing my feelings down or to the side, I started to deal with them instead of turning to or away from food as a form of control.

The feelings that trigger most of the clients and people that I have counselled are the following: anxiety, fear, doubt, inadequacy, guilt, shame, loneliness, hate, lack of purpose, and excitement. Of course there are many others, but these seem to be the reoccurring ones. When these feelings come up, it is important then to counteract them before an episode of disorderly eating commences. How do you counteract a trigger though, especially when you are in the thick of a specific feeling or event?

1. Breathe- First I tell my clients to breathe. Because the stress response occurs in the body when any of the above mentioned feelings come up, breathing will help your body to "calm down" and help you think more clearly and rationally. And because increased oxygen means more oxygen to the brain, you will also be able to problem solve more efficiently.

2. Pause- Stop whatever it is that you're doing, and let yourself process what's happening in or around you.

3. Feel- Let yourself feel emotion. It is familiar with human beings to not feel what they're feeling. "Suck it up, stiffen your upper lip, or be a big girl and don't cry" are sayings we know too well. When you don't let yourself feel the emotions that come up, that energy will be directed elsewhere and manifest in different (and usually not optimal) ways.

4. Know- Know that every feeling or situation eventually passes. Some may take longer than others, but eventually, all things comes to an end. Deeply knowing this will help you get through an episode when a trigger sets you off.

5. Experience- Experience every aspect of the emotions that come up. Experiencing is different from feeling in the sense that through experience we gain a greater understanding of our situation, and feeling we gain a greater understanding of our innerman, or our soul. When you experience something, your eyes open a little wider, and see a little broader than before. When you truly feel something, you're then able to empathise with yourself or others more effectively.

6. Let go- After all is said and done, we eventually have to let go and move on. Like letting go of a loved one that's passed away, or a friendship that's ended, we need to let go of the feelings that control us and hold us back from moving into freedom. If you do not let learn to let go of fear, anxiety, loneliness, the feelings of inadequacy, or any other trigger you may have, you will never win the battle with food which starts as a battle in your mind.

I trust that each one of you reading this will get through your battle with food and into successful eating. Like always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me!

Week 7: Guiltless Eating Equals Successful Eating

I had a request from a client to talk about guilt in my next blog, and after our session, my mind cannot stop going over a comment that he made. While I was explaining how it is more beneficial to the body to eat any kind of meal without guilt, even if what you were eating wasn't necessarily the best choice, his response was: "But I just like guilt so much". I was shocked at first and then in awe. At first I couldn't understand how anyone could possibly like guilt until he explained his "light saber story". His son was playing in the living room with his new light saber that he got for Christmas when all of a sudden, the toy swung and hit my clients very big and expensive flat screen tv. The screen cracked and the tv was ruined. Because his son knew better than to be playing by the tv, my client was obviously fairly agitated (for lack of a better word), at the whole situation. They went and bought a new tv but a couple of times a day, my client would say to his son "do you like the new tv, isn't it nice"? He said that this approach works because it makes you feel bad so you won't do whatever you "shouldn't" have done again.

If anyone grew up in the 90's or earlier (or even today), you've probably been raised with the guilt approach. I'm not trying to be mean or say parents were bad parents, I'm just being honest. Most people, including myself, grew up with our parents using guilt on us, and it's not their fault...it's their parents fault, and their parents parents fault, and so on. This is a very well acquainted approach to problem solving that actually doesn't work as well as we thought it would.

"Eat all of your food, there's starving kids in the world that would love the food that's left on your plate".

"I made this specially for you and you won't even have a taste"?

"That's all you're going to eat?! I spent all day cooking this meal and there are lots of leftovers".

These statements may all seem harmless but what they really say is "I don't know how to get what I want from you, so I choose to use guilt in order to make you do, or act, like I do". My client used guilt on his son (and yes, he is totally fine with letting me ere his laundry), because guilt was used on him as a child and in his mind, it worked. But I questioned him and asked, "did it really work"?

Guilt uses negative willpower to try to force us into changing. It pushes us instead of draws us towards what we want, and it uses fear instead of love and acceptance. When it comes to the way we eat, when guilt is present, our metabolisms are directly affected. Guilt creates an environment of stress because the more guilt we have, the more we focus on how bad of a person we think we are. When the body is under stress, all of its vital functions to promote life and healing are inhibited by the fight or flight response (which we talked about in week 2). Not only are we under stress now, with feelings of low self-worth and inadequacy, but our "happy hormones", like serotonin and dopamine are at an all time low. When we have this hormonal irregularity, we instantaneously reach for things that we know will heighten it as soon as possible. What elevates those hormones the quickest and easiest? Sugar, or refined carbs that turn into sugar. And as we eat our sugar, fat-laden "comfort" foods, we eat it with a heaping pile of guilt, which in turn, keeps our metabolism depressed even further and leads us, yet again, to eating even more. And thus, the cycle of guilty eating continues.

As a human being, you will have to eat. If you don't, you will eventually die. If we know that life comes with constant change in every area, especially our diet, and we know that we may not always make the best choices for what we eat, then wouldn't it be better for our overall metabolisms to let go of guilt when we sit down for our meals. You choose to eat what you will eat, and whatever your choice is, is your choice. If you are eating foods that hinder your body, assess why you're eating them and what effects they have on your body once consumed. Note your energy levels, your feelings of satiety, and anything else the meal might have affected. If the meal you ate didn't help you in life, recognize that and move on. When you allow yourself to first eat, then assess the responses that food gave you, your body will naturally draw away or move towards that specific food again. You will begin to subconsciously choose foods that give you energy, mental clarity, or foods that will fully nourish you. There is no advantage to eating your food with guilt, unless you'd like to develop an eating disorder.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to eat every meal this week completely guilt free. This may be challenging for some of you, but decide within yourself to not only eat, but to eat and live.

Week 6: Letting go of the "perfect" diet

Hi everyone! I hope you are all finding great success by incorporating the strategies we've gone over in the prior weeks. Not only will these strategies transform how you feel on a deeper level, but I am convinced that when you focus on how you eat before what you eat, weight loss is sure to be a by-product.

As we move into week 6 I wanted to share a little bit of my dieting history with you. From the age of 15 I have been dieting, and it was at the age of 15 where I first became unsatisfied with my body. Being a teenager, I ate how most teenagers eat so there was room for improvement, but I chose to diet out of fear and out of a deep self-hatred for myself. Dieting was one of the many outcomes of low self-worth and with each diet, I chose to rob myself of freedom in eating. The diets I was trying were all very unsustainable and subconsciously I think I knew that.

When you are dealing with low self-worth, you will inadvertently do things in your life you know you will fail at just to reiterate that you are indeed, a failure. So when people try to find this "perfect" diet that will get them the results they so desperately want, they feel that all their dreams will come true. I will say this though, you may lose weight on a diet, but if you do not have a genuine love for yourself, you will eventually find a way to prove you're a failure and you'll end up sabotaging your efforts. You see this time and time again, a person will go on a strict eating plan that has foods she doesn't really like, or expectations she couldn't possibly meet for various reasons. Most diets don't take into account though that people have different lifestyles, likes and dislikes, and that everyone goes through times where certain foods will benefit them more than others. Eventually, the dieter will fail because she deliberately chose a plan she could never follow on a long term basis.

There is no one diet that will always work because life is constantly changing. If the one constant we have in life is change, shouldn't the way we eat reflect this too?

For example, when you're sick, would it not be more beneficial to have foods that sooth a sore stomach like bread or crackers and soup, even if you think a grainless diet is the only way to eat? Or when it's a cold winter day, wouldn't a meal of meat and potatoes be more satisfying than a cold salad, even though the potato has starch and for some reason you believe that starches weren't ideal? The point I am trying to make is this: there is no cookie cutter, perfect diet, that will work for you for the rest of your life because change is always going to come up. If you moved to a different country, your eating would change. If you moved to South America, you would eat more fruit, even if you thought fruit wasn't the best option. Different climates call for different ways of eating.

When you finally let go of all your lists of "good" and "bad" foods, and diet plan after diet plan, you will experience your greatest success. So am I going to give you lists of what to eat and what not to eat in this 8 week program? No I'm not. Marc David took this approach and when I followed his own 8 week program it aggravated me at first because I not only wanted that false sense of control I thought a list would give me, but I subconsciously wanted something that I would fail at just prove myself "right". True freedom in eating comes when you let go of the rules this world has placed on the way you should view food.

No list will ever give you what you truly need, because what you truly need, your body already knows. This is where self exploration comes into play. When you sit and listen to what your body needs specifically at different points in your life, your way of eating will nourish you on every level. The fear of "if I let myself eat whatever I want, I won't be able to stop", will quickly bare itself as false. When you restrict yourself, you will rebel against yourself. Forbidden foods have been a temptation since the beginning of time.

This week I want you to really ask yourself what would fully nourish you each day. What foods are best for you specifically this week? What are you craving? What are your cravings telling you? Does not having a list of "good" and "bad" foods feel stressful or freeing to you? Ask yourself why if it does or doesn't. And as always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Happy eating everyone!

Week 5: Fill Your Tank With Premium

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas that was filled with lovely meals, eaten with complete satisfaction and enjoyment, surrounded by loved ones. As we move into week 5, I want you to reflect how your eating habits, and even more importantly, your thought patterns have changed. I want you to think about how you view sleep now opposed to before you started the program. Are you sleeping better? Are you making sleep more of a priority? Are you doing anything differently to insure you get longer hours of sleep each night?

Now I want you to think about breathing. Are you learning to breath more? Do you fully understand the importance of breathing in terms of metabolism and overall health? Does anything change physically when you breath deeper opposed to shallow breathing?

Are you learning and applying ways to manage yourself under stressful situations or feelings? What are some of the things you're doing to help you when you feel stressed out? Are you aware of the physiological responses your body goes through when stress starts to creep its way in? How do you combat them?

Lastly, are you letting yourself enjoy life, and enjoy food? Are you learning to let go and listen to your body before listening to anyone else? Are you asking yourself what specific foods and specific amounts your own body needs throughout each day, instead of looking to magazines and diet books to tell you and plan out your meals? And are you exercising in a way that celebrates the bodies movement, instead of using exercise as a form of punishment?

Because we are going into a new year, it's the perfect time to do a little reflecting on the things you've accomplished, and the things you'd like to do better or differently next year. It's also a good time to give yourself permission to feel whatever feelings come up, whether they are positive or negative, and channel that energy into your plan of action moving forward.

Week 5 is all about celebrating you, and honoring your body. This week we focus on quality. Now quality can mean various things and it's completely contextual. Mainly, I want you to focus on quality food, but also I want you to focus on a quality eating experience. Let me explain what I mean by that. It's one thing to choose organic or local foods (which I am 100% in agreement with), but the way you prepare your meals is just as important.

Imagine making yourself a meal, it doesn't have to be anything fancy, but you really take your time to prepare it. You may decide to bake some chicken in the oven. You get fresh chicken breasts, cover them with rosemary and thyme, and place them neatly in a baking dish. While that's cooking, you prepare a beautiful salad full of mixed greens, nicely chopped peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, and finish it off by dropping handfuls of luscious berries and slivered almonds over it. Then you toss it gently as you drizzle in olive oil, and dash it with some sea salt and pepper. You set the table for you and maybe a guest or two, setting out each plate with its accompanying utensils perfectly placed. Everything is ready and it looks and smells delicious. You are proud to feed this not only to your guests, but to yourself. It looks appetizing, so it is appetizing. The production of the whole meal has literally increased its nourishment.

Now imagine rushing in, frustrated you're home late and have to cook. You take the same ingredients but this time, you throw some frozen chicken breasts onto a tray and shove it in the oven. You take the salad and stuff a few handfuls into a bowl. You chop up the same vegetables into thick chunks because you can't be bothered to take your time, and finish off by rushing though your meal, stressed out that it's late, and not taking the time to appreciate the fact that eating is a necessity. While you eat, you are angry and, your whole eating experience negates quality in every way. Same ingredients, completely different experience. Can you feel the difference and how it would even effect your digestion differently, even though it's the same ingredients?

This ties into what I was talking about last week, and the previous weeks as well. Quality of a meal and how it's prepared is essential to healthy eating. There is a lot of questioning surrounding organic vs. non organic and all I am really going to say about that is, pound for pound organic and local varieties are nutritionally more dense than non organic. If you want to truly eat clean, you will choose foods that are pesticide free, hormones free, and have been grown or raised in an ethical manner. I personally choose organic or local whenever I can, which is about 90% of the time. I also choose high quality places to dine out at, and choose the freshest foods that I can on their menus. Quality looks different to everyone though, so here are a few questions to ask yourself with eating throughout the week:

Are you taking time to prepare and present your meals in a way that is pleasing to the eye and to the palette?

Are you cooking your meals from whole, fresh ingredients?

Are your meals rushed or made to be an enjoyable experience?

Are you reading ingredient labels? Do these labels have ingredients that you can't pronounce or is it  filled with chemicals?

Start to treat yourself like a premium gasoline car. Choose to put only the highest quality food in your body because you are the most important thing in your life. That's not being narcissistic either. If you have a family you need to care for, how can you care for them if you aren't healthy? Treat you, and those around you, by celebrating you every time you eat. Take your time to prepare meals, present them nicely, and choose the best ingredients that you know how to. This is a sign of true health, being able to say "I choose only the best for me, because I am worth it".

Week 4: Be Pleased And Start to Achieve

We are on to week 4 and I hope everyone has gotten enjoyment out of sleeping more, breathing deeper, and stressing less. I am super excited to talk about this coming week because, since practicing myself, as well as having other clients practice what I'm going to talk about, goals are being achieved faster than anyone expected. I also want to give a shout out to Marc David, founder of The Institute for the Psychology of Eating, which I will be attending in January, and author of one of the books that has revolutionized my life and the way I work with clients. It's called The Slow Down Diet. I recommend this book to everyone with no discretion, and have gotten a lot of my blog information for my weekly challenges from it. Week 4 is all about presence and pleasure. In the fast paced world we live in, we are rarely present for when we eat. We eat in front of computer screens as we work our way through lunch, we sit in front of television screens as we eat dinner, and we rush through every meal, eager to get onto our next task. During the day we eat while we are doing all these things but the question is, have you really eaten?

There is a response in the body called your cephalic phase digestive response (CPDR), which is the term scientists use to describe the visual stimulation, tastes, aromas, and pleasure derived from eating. This is the "head phase" of digestion (cephalic meaning head), and it literally accounts for 30-40% of total digestion. If we are not aware when we eat, we massively cut down the potential of our digestion.

The simple awareness of a meal ignites chemical responses in the body, like increased saliva, gastric, and pancreatic enzyme secretion, and forces blood to the digestive organs to prepare the body for incoming food. Lack of attention means we don't get the oxygen we need from that increased blood flow to the digestive organs, which in turn, slows down our metabolic rate and can lead to digestion issues, lowered immunity, and fatigue.

If you don't let yourself fully experience the event of eating, the brain interprets this as a "missed meal" and is left hungry. Even though you may have consumed enough calories, or maybe even too many, if you  didn't pay attention, you haven't really fed yourself. This is where weight gain happens, when we fail to realize we are eating as we stuff ourselves full. Failure to pay attention results in over consumption more often than not because we are designed to relax, enjoy, process, and experience each meal. Have you ever sat in front of the tv and eaten a whole bag of chips? Try eating a whole bag of chips sitting at your kitchen table with nothing on in front of you. My guess is, you wouldn't...ever.

CPDR is required whenever we sit down to eat, it is essential that we fulfill this natural, God given desire the body has for food. We need food to live, and our bodies need satisfaction when we eat, that's just the way it is. You can be on the strictest of diets but not achieve the body (or mind for that matter) that you want on a long term basis, because you aren't meeting this requirement. And if you are miserable when you eat, nutrient absorption is drastically decreased.

Imagine now, going through a holiday where family and friends get together to enjoy each others company around the dinner table. Imagine stressing out about food that you don't necessarily deem "healthy" or "on the program", and missing out on a truly enjoyable and loving experience. Imagine missing out on the pleasure of dining around those who's hands have lovingly crafted your meal, and around those who love you as you are, also knowing that by not enjoying the pleasure of food and letting go of your fears, that your body is pumping out stress hormones and your metabolism is slowing down. Fat is being stored, and your CPDR is not being fulfilled.

This week, it's time to sit back and enjoy eating. I'm not suggesting to binge on whatever food you like. What I'm suggesting is that you let go. I challenge you to enjoy eating a meal and not beat yourself up about it or punish yourself in the gym the next day if it isn't the healthiest meal. Because this week is over Christmas, I think it's quite fitting. When you relax about eating and eat in a way that builds the body, you naturally stop eating when you've had enough. This takes self awareness and intentional eating. Listen to your body, and slow down and enjoy your meals.

Week 3: Transform Your Health by Stressing Less

I'm sure it doesn't come as a shock when stressful times come into your life. Everyone gets stressed from time to time, so the old adage "stress management", has a flaw. We cannot manage life's stressors, but we can learn to manage ourselves under times of stress. If you don't know much about the stress response, let me give you a little lesson (the coles notes version). Fight/or Flight is the technical term for the response our body goes through when we face something stressful. Thousands of years ago, fight/flight helped us in natural disasters, confronting attackers, or running away from anyone or anything. When the stress response is activated during an event, your heart rate speeds up, blood pressure elevates, stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol are released into the circulatory system, respiration quickens, blood flow is rerouted away from the stomach and transported towards our extremities to give us the necessary power to either fight or flee. What also happens during stress is the digestive system shuts down. Digestion is not needed when you are running away from a hungry lion who's looking for lunch.

Fast forward to 2014. You are anxiously rushing through your morning trying to get to work, meetings, etc. You may or may not eat breakfast, maybe you have a coffee and a muffin on the run. Then you rush through lunch or sit in  front of your computer eating while you work, not being present for your meal, which should actually be an event, not just something we need to get through, to rushing through the rest of the day. Have you ever felt after a meal, that wasn't relaxed, that your food is still sitting in your stomach? It's because it is. All your bodily energy went to fight/flight instead of digestion. That means you could be eating the healthiest food on the planet and have your digestion dramatically reduced because you ate it on the run or when you were anxious. The same part of our brain that turns on stress, also inhibits digestion, and vice versa.

Do you ever wonder why European countries have some of  thinnest and healthiest people, yet none of them count calories or exercise in gyms like we do in North America? In fact, lots of them smoke cigarettes, drink everyday, and eat bread, pastries, butter, cheese, cream etc. The one big difference between us and them is pleasure and stress. In France, eating is an event to be enjoyed and a event that takes time. Meals span out over hours, food is savoured and eaten slowly, and most importantly, no one is worried that their lunch might make them fat.

The more you worry about your weight, the more cortisol you pump out, which in turn stores fat, especially around the midsection Quite literally, the more you worry about fat, the fatter you'll become. Clinical study after clinical study have shown that an excess in cortisol is strongly associated with fat accumulation because one of cortisol's chemical response is to store body fat and inhibit muscle growth. The bottom line is we need to relax, and we need to be able to digest the food we put into our bodies. Your objective for the week is to slow down when you eat, and slow down in life. Here are a few things you can do to help you:

1. Breath deeply. We talked about how important breathing is last week and it trickles into this week for sure. When you are stressed, breath deeply. You can trick your body into thinking it's relaxed by your breath. Breath deeply while you eat to encourage digestion.

2. Slow down your exercise. This is important if you do high intensity workouts more than twice a week. Stress is stress, and chronic stress, which is a result from excessive impact with anything (including exercise), does and will take it's toll on the body. If you don't exercise at all, get out a few times this week and just walk for half an hour.

3. Meditate on what is good. If you don't think you're into meditation, think about the last time you worried over meeting a deadline. That worry is a form of meditation, only geared in the wrong direction. Spend your day thinking positively, and about how you're going to reach your goal of renewed health.

4. Love yourself. When you love and value yourself, you will naturally gravitate towards foods and activities that nourish the body and build it up. When you love yourself, you will remove unnecessary stress that has dominated you, and you'll reclaim your life. When you love yourself, you won't force feed yourself, starve yourself, or yo-yo diet. You will listen to what your body actually wants, and that will be different for everyone.

Marc David says, in his book The Slow Down Diet, "By including more time with food, you can elevate yourself from a mammal that feeds to a human being who eats".

Week 2: Breath Your Way Into Health

I hope you're enjoying getting more sleep and all the benefits that come with it! This week we are going to focus on boosting your overall metabolism, on every level, through something so simple and inexpensive, but yet needed to support every function we have to sustain our life. This week, and optimally from here on out, we are going to focus on breathing. So you're probably thinking, "how can breathing help me get healthy or even lose weight"? Let me explain. From his book called The Slow Down Diet, Marc David talks about how breathing affects our digestion and therefore affects our metabolism. The way we breath is in direct concordance with weight and weight management because it is linked to stress and the fight/flight state we go into when we are under stress.

When we are stressed, we adopt a shallow and short breathing pattern, which then kicks in our sympathetic nervous system that says "I'm in danger, run"! When this fight or flight/sympathetic response kicks in, one other major thing happens, our digestive/parasympathetic system turns off. This system is responsible for telling our tummies to digest the food we've eaten and to relax and recharge. If we are constantly stimulating the sympathetic nervous system, our breathing remains shallow and any food we have in our stomachs end up sitting there without being digested until we come back to a homeostatic level.

If you look at calories as something that needs to be "burned", what do you think burns them? Oxygen. If you want to be a metabolically burning machine, you will adopt a deep, full, and relaxed breathing pattern. The more food you eat, the more you need to breath because after a meal, the parasympathetic system kicks in and the brain automatically increases air intake to supply the demand for more oxygen needed to digest your food. So if you are on a low calorie diet, your body will adapt to the smaller portions and decrease the amount of oxygen needed, thus decreasing your overall metabolism.

This is where exercise helps the body to burn fat, by increasing the demand for oxygen, and by helping the body to better utilize that oxygen. If you practice breathing deeper, you can reap some of the benefits of aerobic training and increase your bodies ability to burn it's internal fuel source, fat.

Ron Teeguarden says in his book The Ancient Wisdom of the Chinese Tonic Herbs, "Regardless of the amount or the quality of food we consume, it will not energize the body if the breathing is insufficient, just as a candle will not burn if there is no air available". It is imperative to your overall health, and the health of your metabolism to breath properly. Not only will increased oxygen supply all the demands of your internal organs, it also helps us mentally to stay relaxed and composed in times of stress. You can trick your body by adopting a relaxed breathing pattern when you're stressed.

Tips to help you breath your way to health

1. When you eat, consciously think about how you're breathing. Putting your fork down between each bite and taking a deep and quiet breath in through your nose, holding for a moment, and exhaling out through your nose, will ensure you are helping your digestive system to function optimally.

2. When you feel stressed, breath in deep and quiet through your nose, hold for several seconds, and exhale out through your nose. Repeat this process 10 times.

3. Maintain an upright posture as you eat to allow for fuller and deeper breaths.

4. Take breathing breaks throughout your day, even if it's only for a few minutes. It will help to reduce stress and increase mental clarity.

5. Dine in a relaxed and peaceful environment where you can enjoy the company you're with. Eat slowly and breath while you eat.

As always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns! Happy breathing :)