The Juicy Woman

Tap On Resistance to Release Negativity and Get Moving Again

Resistance is fueled by feelings of hopelessness and negativity. When you are experiencing those feelings of wanting to give up and go stick your head in the sand, it's a natural inclination that we all have as humans. We all want to be safe. Please don't be quite so quick to beat up on yourself. Girl, you don't deserve that nasty kind of treatment. Don't you think you merit more compassion toward yourself?  Instead of kicking yourself in the can, allow yourself to just become curious and be willing to explore and dig a bit further to understand what is making you feel so badly and fear change?

I'd like to invite you to do that in an environment where you can feel safe and at ease with other women also dealing with their fears and resistance. Please join my next free call on Monday, October 1 at 2:00 p.m. We'll be handling those feelings of resistance.

Have you been struggling with emotional eating or are you frustrated by the lack of guidelines and rules, maybe you're having a devil of a time learning the mechanics of listening to your body. Are you feeling tempted to give up and do whatever makes you feel safe? I know the feeling. I can relate to th frustration. It makes you feel so scared inside. You want to give up, don't you?

Hope for Abuse Survivors Struggling with Constant Hunger

Dieting and stress go hand in hand. I don’t think that anyone would disagree with that. If you’re a woman who’s ever been on a diet, you know that if you’re on a weight loss program, then you feel pressured to do it perfectly. Don’t you?

There’s just no room for mistakes, right?  That’s what I thought too.

I started my first diet when I was 11 years old. In 1973, my Pediatrician, Dr. Zucker put me on a 1000 calorie a day diet. He gave me a list of foods to avoid that was probably as long as my arm. It crushed my little soul having to think of never being able to eat those foods again.

Like so many other women, the concept of good and bad foods has followed me around for years. I was taught that when I eat the foods that are on the ‘good’ list, then I’m entitled to feel virtuous and proud of my accomplishments. On the other hand, when I eat the foods from the ‘bad’ list, I tend to feel awful about myself, almost as though I’m a thief or a criminal.

In an attempt to cradle my aching heart after years of being abused by my alcoholic stepfather and many other nameless, faceless men as a kid, I ate in secret, hiding my guilty shame and evil deeds from others.

When I moved in with my Dad and my step mother, Rosie, I’d steal money from my dad’s money clip when he wasn’t looking and stick it in my jacket pocket so that I could buy candy and pizza after school the next day. I took babysitting jobs so that I could raid the cabinets and refrigerators of the women who entrusted me with their children. Yessirre. I would do almost anything for food. I was what you'd call a food floozie.

The Power of Questions - Exposing Obsession

Obsession lives and breathes in eating addiction. Are you a woman struggling with obsession in your life? I'd like to tell you a story about the importance of asking questions.

Have you ever been asked a question that changed the course of your life? I have.

Let me tell you about it.

I’ll never forget the first day of my Coach Certification training at IPEC. It was a beautiful crisp day in October 2004, I had arrived late because I had had an argument with my husband. It was just another in a string of many. We had been on the outs lately. I was certain that we were headed for a divorce. I wondered where the love had gone.

Is Saying Goodbye to Dieting An Admission of Defeat?

Several months ago I cleaned out my closet and was amazed to find that in it, I had clothes that I hadn’t worn for nearly 20 years. Now wearing a size 14/16, I had to come to grips with the fact that the size 6 Betsey Johnson black and purple mesh slip dress wasn’t going to fit me anytime soon.

As I longingly stared at it, draped over the blue satin padded hangar, my thoughts wandered and I remembered the last time I had worn it. My husband and I were invited to his best friend, Ricky's wedding.

It was November 1992, almost a year and half after my son, PT was born. I was still a few pounds away from my goal weight according to weight watchers, but at 137 pounds, I was feeling pretty confident that I looked great.

All day long I stressed about wearing that dress. Although I knew it would look wonderful, I couldn’t do anything to risk having a tummy bulge so I ate like a bird.

Say Goodbye to Dieting: Reclaim Your Power Over Food, Love Your Body and Yummy up Your Life

The past few months I’ve been working on my first book. Say Goodbye to Dieting: Reclaim Your Power over Food, Love Your Body and Yummy up Your Life. In the year that I took to test out Intuitive Eating and figure out how to use energy coaching to boost the effectiveness of this non diet approach to eating, I discovered many things.

One of the most important things that I discovered is that weight issues have little to do with food. In fact, your obsession with weight and dieting is actually what is called a Red Herring. A red herring is a smoke screen. It is something that is designed to divert your attention away from something else. It prevents you from seeing something clearly.

Toss Your Scale Today: Stop Playing the Struggle Game

Weigh ins. Ugh. Saturday mornings used to be a very stressful time for me. When I was a dieter, I used to wake up at 6:30 in the morning so that I could get to the first meeting that opened at Weight Watchers. At 7:15, I stood on line, anxiously waiting for my fate to be determined.

Regardless of what accomplishments I achieved and what personal triumphs I realized during the previous seven days, nothing mattered more than what the scale was about to tell me. Each week I stood on the scale, held my breath, closed my eyes and prayed, as I pinned all my hopes on that miserable bit of scrap metal. All my goals and dreams were put on hold for so long, waiting for that scale to register just the perfect number for me.

Depending upon what the scale said that day, I had to struggle with myself not to let it bother me. If it said that I had lost weight, then I had to struggle to keep it together and to not let it go to my head, eventually falling headfirst into a binge, If the scale registered a weight gain, then I had to struggle to keep up my spirits or I'd find myself with my head stuck in a pint of Ben and Jerry's Mint Oreo Cookie ice cream. If it showed that I maintained my weight, then I had to struggle to find more motivation to continue to play the same struggle game the next week. Girl, I'm so tired of struggling, aren't you?

Give Yourself a Pat on the Back and Say Goodbye to Dieting

As a coach, I know that taking daily steps to create change in your life is essential. Repetition and support is the best way to learn something new. In my Juicy Woman Yahoo discussion group, I often post a challenge or insight on the board to guide my clients to think differently about themselves. It's easy to get in a rut and to do something the same way over and over again. As a woman who has spent years dieting, we often learn to regard the scale as our only benchmark of progress. It's not. In fact, it does more harm than good.

In my upcoming book, Say Goodbye to Dieting: The Juicy Woman's Guide to Reclaim Power over Food, Love Your Body and Yummy up Your Life, I go into depth and explain the link between what we think and believe about our bodies and how we look and feel. You see. Your thoughts are actually making you fat! However, you can change that by changing your negative self talk.

Free Non Diet Support Discussion Group for Women

Support is an essential ingredient in creating new habits. Without consistent encouragement and feedback, it is very difficult to maintain new learned behaviors. If you’re a woman who has been struggling with weight loss for decades and discovered that diets don’t work for you, you need to know that it’s not your fault. You haven’t failed. Your diet has failed you.

As the leader of the Juicy Woman Yahoo Group, I lead discussions that support women to think differently about themselves, their lives and their bodies.

If you’re a gal who is looking to overcome food fear, eat what you love, reclaim power over food and yummy up your life now, rather than later, come join the group.

Free Support Call for Women: Shedding the Shame:

• Are you a woman living under a shadow of shame because you’re overweight?
• Are you hiding your light under a bush because you hate your body?
• Would you like to learn how to be more self compassionate now?

You can. I’ll show you how tapping on those feelings can help unburden you. There’s a theory that for every extra pound you carry on your body, it equals a pound of emotional pain you’re carrying in your heart. One of my colleagues has these brilliant words to say about shame:

There's nothing like a big fat dose of shame to send a woman who feels fat head first into a carton of ice cream. On the other hand, taking a bold stand for oneself, shedding self-shame, REFUSING to continue taking on other people's shame, and actively demonstrating self-acceptance and compassion has a definite slimming effect. In fact I believe that as the shame comes off, so does the weight, almost like they are one in the same.  On my next free Juicy Woman Fabulous, Fit and Free call, join me and we’ll use Emotional Freedom Technique and tap on shedding the shame.