What will be your metamorphosis in 2014?

 So long 2013.  As I look back to the last 12 months, I have a lot to be thankful for.   Now I look forward to seeing what 2014 has to offer.  Each New Year is a birth of possibilities.  We get a fresh, untarnished year as a blank slate on which to create.   Most people make New Year’s resolutions.  This year my resolution for the New Year is simple.  I want to stress less and be good to myself more.

We wear stress like a badge of honor.  We believe we aren’t really working if we aren’t overwhelmed.  Life can come at us from every direction.  There is the family, the kids, the messy house, the demanding boss, the horrible bumper to bumper L.A. traffic and a million deadlines.  On top of that, there is the voice in our heads telling us that we aren’t doing enough, we aren’t trying hard enough and that if we only could work a little bit more we wouldn’t be letting everybody else down.

All this stress is downright unhealthy.  As a food and weight loss coach, my job is to help people live a healthier lifestyle.  Yet I struggle with one of the unhealthiest habits.  Stress is bad for the entire body.  It causes inflammation and puts us into fight-or-flight.  The whole body from our immune system to our digestive system to our metabolism shuts down creating a disastrous situation.

I want to be good myself and forgive myself for not having everything under control at all times.  I want to appreciate taking time for myself to just enjoy moments.  I want to stop during the day and just feel myself breath.  Conscious breathing is good for our health and reminds us that we are so fortunate to be alive at this very moment.  Because no matter how many stressful things are happening in the moment, we only get one life. 

I urge everyone to make improved health one of their New Years goals.  This can mean handling an illness, eating better, exercising more or being supportive of yourself emotionally.  Making yourself a priority declares to the universe that you matter.  It is finding the greatness that already exists within.

Now that seems like a great way to fly into the New Year, don’t you think?

Knocking out your Cold like a Heavyweight Champ

It is a normal hectic day.  In the midst of juggling your report for work, the traffic, the kid who forgot  her school lunch and the dog who got himself wrapped up in toilet paper, you feel a tickle in the back of your throat.  It is ever so slight but persistent.  Then the congestion builds up.   It’s probably just allergies.  Then there it is…a sneeze!  And you think to yourself, “Nooooo…I don’t have time for a cold!!!”

For many people the start of a cold also translates to the end of their diet.  Either they stop eating, or they resort to comfort food to get them through.  My favorite part of being sick as a kid was soda!  When I was sick my mother would pull out the sacred two liter that was out of my reach on most days.  Soda was my reward for feeling miserable.  This has translated today to me wanting to drown myself in Venti sized sugary fun as soon as I get the sniffles.

The problem is that it is even more important to eat healthy during times of illness.  You need lots of vitamins and minerals to fuel your immune system.  That way it can go nine rounds with the pesky virus until it is thrown right out of the ring.  Antioxidants, which are found in highest concentrations in fruit and vegetables, are especially important.  So if you eat a colorful salad, you are basically giving the virus invader a one two punch.  On the other hand, processed, refined fatty foods like a bagel with butter and jam, a greasy hamburger or cheesy nacho chips will actually deplete the body of the vitamins and minerals it needs to stop the virus. 

Do you know the ingredient that really depresses your immunity?  It is lurking in the tea with honey, cough drops and orange juice that for many are the main line of defense.  Give up?  The answer is sugar and it will actually reduce the reactivity of your immune cells.  These cells have the job of fighting off the virus.  When you consume soda, honey and a pint of ice cream, you are basically welcoming your virus to give you a smack down!

So the bottom line is you should eat healthy fruits and veggies, good quality protein, lots of whole grains and plenty of water.  You can pop vitamin C pills, take Echinacea as well as Astragalus.  Supporting your body and your health during times of illness will keep you on track to continue on your diet once you recover.  

And now you that you've recovered like a champ, you'll be ready to fish your iPhone out of the toilet, finish that unexpected work project, avoid that drunk text from your ex and deal with all the other craziness that enters the ring.

Losing at the Game of Perfection

I meant to start this blog entry 2 weeks ago, then last week, then a couple of days ago and it was still on my to do list today.   I was waiting to find a time where things would be perfect.  I would have the best idea, be well rested so my writing would be sharp and have my words flow onto the page as if Maya Angelou herself were dictating them to me.

The end result of my trying to be perfect: I never even typed my first word.

Where did this idea originate that things have to be flawless to be worthy?  When did we start thinking that success meant a straight path from point A to point B?  When did a small pebble in the path translate into an inescapable avalanche of rocks and boulders?

As a weight loss coach, I see so many people label themselves defeated from one day or week of eating “bad foods”. To me, foods shouldn’t be labeled as good or bad anyway. There are better choices and less good choices but no food should be completely off limits.   Too bad many people consider their diet a failure after one less than ideal day.

Here’s a novel thought.  What if the first step of any diet would be to write ourselves a forgiveness letter?  This letter would give ourselves permission to stumble, eat a fattening food, and have a bad food day.  We would promise to pick ourselves up, love ourselves, and keep going in the morning. 

At the end of the day, a mistake, failure, hiccup or whatever else you want to call it is a valuable gift we give ourselves.  Anyone who has achieved greatness has fallen many times first.  Failure allows you to learn from your mistakes.  Think of it like airplane turbulence.  Just because your ride is bumpy doesn’t mean you don’t get to your destination.

For better or worse, I finally wrote this blog entry. Surely there is a typo somewhere.  Maybe a fragmented sentence. It might not be perfect, but who said it had to be?  I kept going, and that is the true sign of victory.

I'm too healthy to take vitamins!!!!



You eat your fruits and vegetables.  You try to eat balanced meals.  Hey, you might even eat a little more than you should from time to time.  Sure that means extra calories, but that translates to extra nutrients too.  There’s no need for a multi-vitamin, right? 

Wait!  Don’t answer that yet!

First, the classic argument goes that throughout history people got all the nutrients they needed through eating a balanced diet.  All we need to do is drop the deep fried ding dongs and stuff ourselves with seaweed.  Then, like people who lived before us, we won’t need vitamins.

Great!  So I don’t need vitamins?

Whoa, before you start a bonfire with your Flinstones chewables, keep reading.

The fallacy in that argument is that our lives have changed in more ways than just what is on our plates at dinnertime.  We live in a world with over 70,000 manmade chemicals in circulation.  You would have to hide out in a bunker in Antarctica to even attempt to avoid this modern phenomenon.  Our bodies have the arduous task of detoxifying from all these chemicals.  I’m not talking about the type of detox where you consume nothing but turnips and tree bark for a week.  I’m talking about the detoxification done by our livers on a daily basis.  This detoxification requires large amounts of nutrients.  In the past, nutrients were reserved almost exclusively for helping carry out our basic bodily functions like digestion and hormone production. 

What is a body to do with so many extra demands but without extra nutrients?  Well, it can’t stop carrying out basic functions so it stops detoxifying.  As toxins build up in our bodies, we feel and look worse.  A lack of detoxification can lead to things like headaches, fatigue and eczema.

“What do I care?” you say.  I’m full of energy and I haven’t had an itch since 2003! 

Well, this imbalance can make our insides sluggish and can lead to inflammation.  Eventually the imbalance may make its way to metabolism and be a hurdle in any attempt to lose weight.

Hmmm, so maybe these vitamin things might be valuable after all.  Vitamins are a good option for most people.  This doesn’t mean you get to turn your nose at broccoli and carrots in favor of Frappuccinos.  Vitamins go hand in hand with a balanced diet.

Oh, and it goes without saying, you should always speak with your doctor first before embarking on any new health program.  Even if you live in a bunker in Antartica.

What? I Can't Start my Diet During the Holidays!

Are the Holidays Bad Luck for your Waist Line?
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Yes, the holidays are coming.  In the next few months you will be frolicking in piles of turkey, stuffing, pies, chocolates and fruit cakes.  Why oh why would you start a diet now when you just know you are going to eat your way through November and December?  Doesn't it just make sense to indulge now, and start over in the New Year?  After all, you only live once.

Well, in the spirit of the ghost of Christmas past, let’s go back to last year and take a peek.  Sure, you might have wonderful memories of drowning in egg nog and Hanukkah gelt with friends and family.  The question is, do you remember how you felt?  There are the memories of wanting to take a nap at 3pm every day as you crashed from your sugar high.  There was that uncomfortable feeling of your pant button pushing against your stomach.  There was the indigestion for the third time in a week.  There was the insecurity that maybe that outfit didn't look as good as it did a month ago.  There was that haunting feeling that maybe you weren't in control because you overate yet again. 

Then January came and, holy crap, you were 10 pounds heavier than you were in October.  So you went on the first crash diet you could find.  By February you thought, ugh, all this deprivation and you are not even back to the weight you were in October.  If you were like a lot of people, you said “screw this” and went on a binge of leftover candy canes from your Christmas stocking.  The few extra pounds that lingered were a constant reminder of the holiday fun.  No wonder there is such a let down after the holidays.

Now lets look forward to this holiday season.  What if I said you could be part of the celebration, eat and still lose some weight without gimmicks?  “That sounds like a gimmick!” you scream.   Ok, hear me out.   A good diet shouldn't be about deprivation.  It should be a slow process of learning how to eat to feel good.  It should be about finding nutritious foods you love and balancing them with the comfort foods that you don’t want to give up.  It should be about creating new habits.  This might mean bringing a dessert to the party sweetened with raw honey or stevia.   It might mean drinking lots of water so you don’t create a complete imbalance when you have a glass of wine.  It might mean having a scoop of stuffing, but balancing that with a scoop of freshly steamed vegetables.  Diet change should be about being good to yourself body, heart and soul.

Find a form of support to get you through the holidays, and you could be 10 pounds lighter come January.  This could be a friend, a weight loss buddy, a motivating exercise class or a food coach.  Find someone who will be able to support you in balancing holiday indulgences with wholesome food.  Find someone in the know about making food choices for health and satisfaction.  Find someone who will teach you how to lose weight without complete deprivation so you can start now!   In January, while everyone else is bemoaning what became of them in December, you will be running to the closest mirror to celebrate what has become of you.

Why You Shouldn’t Eat While Fleeing a Stampede and Other Food Lessons

Aah, the good old days.  I’m talking about the really old days.  Back when your great, great, great, great, great, great (well, you get the idea) grandfather spent his days hunting game for the tribe.  Granddaddy never ate at his desk.  Heck, who had time for a venti, half-calf, soy, no whip mocha while running from a stampede.  He certainly didn’t eat in front of the television.  He was too busy oohing and aahing over the invention of the wheelbarrow. By the time he made his kill, he was so exhausted and excited that he kicked off his hide, relaxed and enjoyed the feast.

Why should those of us living in the modern age care about good old granddaddy?  Well, because as different as our lives have become, we share the same biology.  We aren’t computers that can be updated with the latest software.  For better or for worse, we are stuck with our original design.

And now some science.  I’ll make it quick.

Our bodily functions (you know, like breathing and stuff) are controlled by the two branches of the autonomic nervous system. The sympathetic branch is responsible for the fight or flight response and can save our lives.  Granddaddy was in sympathetic mode while chasing down a wild boar.  The sympathetic nervous system also gave him the adrenaline to flee to safety if he ran into a pissed off bear instead. On the other hand, the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system is responsible for rest and recovery.  It takes care of our bodily functions like digestion…things that take a back seat when our lives are in jeopardy.  Granddaddy didn’t have available food until after the kill.  By the time he ate, he was relaxed and in parasympathetic mode.

Flash forward to modern day.  We are racing to work with a donut in one hand, a makeup brush in the other and an iced latte between our knees.  Even baby strollers now have multiple cup holders.  Eating on the go or habitual stress confuses our prehistoric derived bodies, putting us in fight or flight while simultaneously having us digest.  Would you expect to make a phone call after putting your phone in airplane mode?  No?   Well, once you put your body in sympathetic mode, your body thinks it is running away from a crazed bear. This shuts down digestion for more life threatening matters.  There goes the $10 you spent on your hemp seed, bee pollen smoothie.

Constantly being in sympathetic mode turns us into 24/7 adrenaline pumping machines. Adrenaline is supposed to help us in short bursts only.  Too much can lead to things like adrenal fatigue and bad digestion.  I know…science talk again.  Snore.  Here is why you should care.  Since cortisol (stress hormone) affects insulin and blood sugar levels, a constant influx of cortisol can increase how much we eat and weigh.  The faulty digestion that is associated with excess cortisol can also lead to inflammation and further weight gain.

But let’s get real.  We live in the modern world meaning that life is going to have lots of demands.  Just keep things in perspective.  When 1:00pm rolls around and you have been frantically multitasking since 6:00am on a big project, stop and reflect.  Biologically, your body thinks you have spent 7 hours chasing a wild boar.  Take a moment, put your feet up, breath deeply and eat.  You can always start chasing the boar again at 1:30pm.

How to be Sexy - Starting from the Inside

There are lots of weight loss option out there.  Many will try to lure you by flaunting pictures of chiseled, skinny and sexy men and women.  They tell you that all you have to do is take a pill, count points, buy exercise apparatus, purchase pre-packaged food or eliminate carbohydrates, and this will be you.  You want to look hot, so you ask yourself what you have to lose by trying besides weight?  More about this later.

First, your friend is just melting fat by eating all protein, so you give low carbohydrate a try.  Your first impression is optimistic as you lose weight eating more protein than you can stomach.  People even tell you that you look like a stud.  This is how it looks from the outside.  From the inside, your cells start to starve from lack of carbohydrates for energy.  Eventually, your brain becomes foggy.   The lack of fiber leads to a backup of waste in your colon leaking fecal toxins throughout your body.  Ummm wait, that really doesn't seem so attractive anymore.

Being a logical person, you abandon low- carb and turn to weight loss pills instead.  They must be good since they worked for the woman frolicking in a bikini on the box.  You lose a little weight at first so it doesn't seem to matter that the caffeine, chemicals or other substances in the pill aren't healthy long term.  Then the energized feeling turns to anxiety and insomnia and shockingly enough you have developed gas.  You wonder if the bikini woman is sleepy, smelly and stressed like you.  Then you discover that the same substances that speed up metabolism can give you high blood pressure.  This means possibly heart disease, stroke or erectile dysfunction.  Now that definitely isn't sexy.

Deciding you are going to do it right this time, you opt to do a cleanse.  You find lots of information online for a cleanse with cayenne pepper and maple syrup, so you decide to give that one a try.  I mean, if detoxing for a day is good for you, detoxing for a week will solve all your problems.  You look fabulous right until your body realizes that it is literally starving.  It goes into survival mode, stripping glucose (energy) from your muscles and organs.  You are consuming no protein which means that your liver can't properly detox.  Now toxins are flooding your body, leading to headaches and acne and worse.  On top of that the cleanse ended.  Now that you're eating again you are regaining the weight.  Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

You start to realize that through all these diets, you are losing everything but weight.  You decide to give sexy one more shot.  You do some research and start to understand how food nourishes your body.  You say wait a second.  You never considered that calories, fats and carbohydrates weren't the enemy. You are shocked to learn that saturated fats are an integral part of building your cell membranes.  You start to understand that the brain can't control the body properly without carbohydrates.  You also discover that vegetables and fruits have healthy things called phytonutrients that can't be found in a pill.  The list goes on.  Having properly educated yourself, you throw out the gimmicks and start eating a diet full of varied nutrient rich foods. You no longer feel like you are starving and you just feel good

Next thing you know, you go to the doctor and she tells you that your insides look smoking hot.  Inevitably, your outside starts to follow.  Now that is sexy.