Inspiration from Dr. Denise Lamothe

A few days ago I received an e-mail from a young man who had been struggling with eating problems throughout his life. His had yo-yo dieted for many years before his weight skyrocketed to 495 pounds. He was dianosed with a debilitating, frightening heart condition and this was indeed his wake-up call. He consented to lap band surgery and began educating himself about his self-destructive eating -- looking at the physical, emotional, spocial and spiritual aspects of this frustrating issue. He was kind enough to write and tell me that reading The Taming of the Chew gave him the hope he so desperately needed to begin walking down his own path to a healthier life. He is working now on loving himself, staying in the present, giving up perfectionistic self expectations and being gentle with himself. He is embracing his challenge and he has inspired me! That's why I am sharing him with you!

Enjoy Spring!

Stopping emotional eating

To be your very best, naturally healthy, vibrant, beautiful self and to stop eating for emotional reasons, you must consider your total wellbeing. It is no longer possible for you to think in terms of calories in/calories out as your guide.

If you think self-destructive thoughts such as “I really am fat. I need to lose these ugly pounds” you will feel bad and you will attract more” bad feeling” thoughts. Then you are likely to get stuck in a loop of negative thinking leading to negative behaviors, extra pounds, increased worries, stronger efforts to diet, more deprivation, discouragement, guilt, shame and fear of gaining more and more weight. This can lead to depression, increased anxiety and eventual apathy. You are likely then to submerge yourself in sugar and simple carbohydrates to shield yourself from these painful feelings for the few moments, hours or days of relief that you know these substances can and reliably will provide.

Going on a new diet plan is likely to leave you more frustrated, discouraged and depressed than before. You know that fad diets won’t work. They cause weight gain.

Make friends with yourself. Don’t expect to be perfect all the time. Stop, relax and really give yourself what you truly want and desire. Once you accept who you are and become gentle and non-judgmental with yourself, you will be able to achieve your ideal weight and vibrant health. Each of you must figure out precisely your own ways to soothe yourself during difficult times.

You can take advantage of the Bach emotional eating support kit which contains three powerful remedies to help you learn to appreciate your body (Crab Apple), remain in control of your eating (Cherry Plum) and to stop repeating your same overeating mistakes over and over again (Chestnut Bud). For more information about this extremely helpful resource, visit www.emotionaleatinghelp.org.

Pause, breathe and substitute positive thoughts to turn around negative thinking. As you courageously shift your perspective in this way, you move quickly towards the life of radiant health and balance that you have longed for. Pay close attention to your feelings. They represent your internal guidance system (which is never wrong). When you identify what you are feeling you will know what to do every minute. If you make yourself number one and heed the messages your feelings are delivering through this system (as consistently as possible) you will move closer and closer to meeting your goals.

Remember that this is your life and your body to do with as you wish. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing, thinking about or telling you. Emotionally eating and keeping yourself murky and drugged with unhealthy foods will never bring you the happiness that you deserve. To be happy, healthy and whole is up to you and the time is NOW!

Educate yourself to stop overeating

Many of us grew up in families where there was little awareness of healthy eating. The media encouraged our mothers to give us “love” by filling our lunchboxes with white bread and sugary cupcakes. One client told me that she had been raised by her grandmother who decorated cakes to make a living. Her grandmother had little money left over for healthy foods and my client would often be given the leftover cake tops and frosting (frosting sandwiches) for her dinner. In my home, we sometimes had what my mother named “assorted sandwiches.” We loved this meal of little sandwich triangles (on white bread, of course) made from various jellies, butter, white sugar, marshmallow, molasses and peanut butter. Fortunately my mother did not feed us this very often. She did have some nutritional common sense, but many mothers did not and many women suffer today with unhealthy habits left over from childhood.

Although many women come to see me having read nearly everything they could get their hands on regarding diet, it is surprising that they often lack knowledge of the basics about food, nutrition and the effects of substances on their health and body size. To change compulsive eating behavior, you must have basic knowledge about ways in which you are impacted by various foods and beverages, exercise and other physical factors. If you do not, you will continue to feel helpless and to eat in an out of control way.

Remember to register for the exciting webinar This Time I Mean It! This will be 90 minutes of helpful information from myself and two other weight loss strategists. Register now and you will receive the information you need to hop on to the call. Hope to have you there.... This coming Sunday at noon eastern standard time, 3 Pacific.

Have a great week! Dr. Denise

Teleseminar notice - This Time I mean it!

Do you want to acheive your weight loss and health goals? Then, please join me for a 90 minute teleseminar, This Time I mean It, sponsored by Bach Flower Remedies
Now is the time to stop doing what you've been doing and start doing something that will actually work! You can get clarity and direction!
On March 7, 2010, three nationally-known experts will come together to an interactive motivational teleseminar:
Scott "Q" Marcus, Motivational Weight Loss Expert
Denise Lamothe, Emotional Eating Expert
and Rich DiGirolamo, Expert on Keeping People Engaged in Process
>>Every person who attends gets SEVERAL FREE weight loss tip booksthe opportunity for a personal consultation...and a FREE download of the entire recording!<<
REGISTER NOW AT www.thistimeimeanit.com

Make friends with your body

Over the years we often become so focused on weight and appearance that we lose touch with the magic of our own movement. Also, our bodies mirror our emotions and if we feel rigid and tense, our bodies will likewise constrict. Moving our bodies is necessary if we are going to take care of ourselves. Remember, to achieve and maintain a reasonable weight, we must change our focus from how we look to how we feel. If we don’t use our body, we can’t appreciate it. If we don’t appreciate it, we can’t love and accept it. If we don’t love and accept it, we will not take the steps necessary to nurture it.

For many of us the thought of making friends with our body is frightening and may sound impossible. It is not. Begin paying attention to the things about your body that you appreciate. Nothing is too little to note. For example, be happy if your eyes can see, your ears can hear, your feet can move and you can walk. We may not all have these abilities but we all can still find things to be grateful for. Appreciate yourself and start being your own friend. Emotional eating will fade into the background!

We need energy

Watching the winter Olympics in Vancouver reminds me of how essential it is that we feed ourselves well. We all need this – not just top athletes! Of course, food gives us energy and we need the right amount of the right nutrients for our body to function properly. We require nourishment throughout the day.

Often, however, we fool ourselves into thinking we need to eat when our body actually does not need more food. For example, when we are tired (i.e. when we need to sleep), we might think we need to eat food to energize our body. Although this may be the case at times, such as in a life or death situation, usually, for compulsive eaters, the food is being used to save us from experiencing our feelings. When we feel tired, angry, frustrated, anxious, bored, lonely, unappreciated or afraid, for example, food becomes a quick and easy way to seemingly perk us up and fill the void we are experiencing. It is easier to tear open a bag of chips or pull a chocolate bar out of the candy machine than it is to sit with those painful feelings.

Feelings of hunger are tricky and often have nothing to do with the fueling of our body. Our body doesn’t need excessive amounts of potato chips, chocolate or macaroni and cheese to function optimally, so when we tell ourselves we need them for energy, we are not telling ourselves the truth. Fats, sugar or caffeine may give us a temporary rush of energy – but this is short-lived, and masking discomfort will leave us feeling even more “tired” than before because we are not giving our body the nutrients it really needs to “energize.” So, when we choose sugars, fats or excess carbohydrates we may not be truly, physically hungry -- we are most likely eating for emotional reasons.

Cravings we experience deliver valuable messages to us about what we really feel and what we really need. Our job is to pay attention to these messages and to give ourselves what we really need at the time. Proper rest, a healthful diet, and a peaceful lifestyle give us energy – not junk foods. They may be what our Chew clamors for from time to time, but they are never what we really need.

Nurture yourself this week! warmly, Dr. Denise

About body image

How do you view your body?

Most of us see our bodies unrealistically. Often we are not even aware of them. We can go through days and weeks never giving a conscious thought to our bodies. It is easy to take them for granted. We don’t always pay attention to how our bodies feel and we don’t view ourselves realistically. Try this: Stand in front of a mirror first thing in the morning before you have eaten anything and look at your body. Now, go eat a bite of something, like a cookie, and come back to the mirror. Do you look different? Does your body look noticeably larger? Most of us will see ourselves as larger than we did just moments before. Intellectually we may know that one small bite of food cannot double our weight in less than a minute, but our perception changes dramatically anyway. This is a clear example of distorted body image and most of us suffer with this to some degree.

We cannot see ourselves objectively. Most of us look at pictures and see only the areas we are unhappy with (and in exaggerated ways). Our hips or bellies may look enormous to us at the time. Later, when we see the same pictures, we may see them differently. This depends upon how we are feeling about ourselves at that time. I often ask women who come to see me to bring in pictures of themselves as children and/or as adolescents. We look at these old photographs together and often women, who thought they were fat at the time, are able to see that they were, in fact, average weight children. For most this is a surprise and, for some, can open the door to looking in the mirror a bit less critically than they have in the past.

How we see ourselves has much to do with how we feel about ourselves. The more we focus on the negative in our lives, the more negatively we will view images of ourselves. It is vital to change negative attitudes into positive ones. Our perceptions of ourselves can be grossly inaccurate and they change as our feelings about ourselves change.

So give yourself a little extra nurturing and see if you don't look just a bit better in that mirror. You may be surprised!

BY THE WAY, YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS THIS EXCITING EVENT!

March 7, 2010
90 minute Webinar: This Time I Mean It!
12 PM EST
to register, go to www.thistimeimeanit.com
$24.95 early bird discount
register now and the number to call for the conference will be sent to you
Hope you'll join us. It will be FUN!