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If Food Isn’t the Answer to Everything – What Is? Part 4

September 2nd, 2010, No Comments »

My intent in this blog series has been to show that finding peace with food can be the mean to make lasting changes in your life…changes that have, until now, been frustrating and very difficult to achieve.

4.     Peace With Food Takes Support

We live in a food-intensive culture and you may be living your life at a mile-a-minute pace. Food isn’t something you can take or leave—you have to negotiate your relationship with food all day long, every day—in the midst of everything else. Your relationship with food runs long and deep. Many people keep their struggles with food very very private, often because they carry shame or guilt with them about the role food plays in their life. Guess what? The shame, the guilt, and the emotional baggage related to food take a toll. It can be very difficult to escape from these feelings in the privacy of your mind—the same mind that tends to see food as the answer. But make no mistake, if you have these feelings, they can keep you powerfully trapped in a relationship with food that does not work.

It can also be difficult to generate new approaches and new answers to that question: “If food is not the answer, what is?” –especially if you have spent years seeing food as the best solution you could come up with. Someone who “gets it” and who already has the tools and strategies can be invaluable in helping you craft the road map you’re craving for breaking free from these struggles.

The Cost of Doing Battle

Isn’t doing battle what NOT being at peace with food feels like? For most women, the costs of struggling with food, weight, and eating add up. Over time, these battles can erode self confidence, affect your emotional and physical posture, your sense of effectiveness and even your hope and outlook for the future. Struggles with food can also eat up a depressing amount of time and mental energy. Because we learn best by example, they tend to be passed from generation to generation. These battles rob women of energy, vitality, and passion. Finally, as long as food is a tool that helps us cope with life by using band aids and as long as this allows us to avoid creating more meaningful, nourishing, and lasting solutions, our life is simply not as big or as full or as vibrant as it could be.

Quite simply, battles with food wear women down and wear women out. Making peace with food changes everything. Are you ready to take your first step?

Take good care,

If Food Isn’t the Answer to Everything – What Is? Part 1

August 25th, 2010, No Comments »

Does it sometimes seem like food can be an answer to everything?  Had a hard day at work? Why not relax with some creamy pasta? Have something to celebrate? A dinner out is always nice. A heartbreak or disappointment isn’t fixed, but might be comforted with a bowl of ice cream in front of the TV. If you’re tired, sugar is easy to reach for, and munching on candy is a great way to distract yourself or just get through the work you don’t want to be doing.  Got stress? You might not even realize that you reached for the snacks until the bowl or the bag is almost empty.

Yep, for many women with a lot going on, food becomes a convenient, easy, low-maintenance band aid for whatever needs attending to.

So what happens when you want to change that?

Here’s the interesting thing. The biggest mistake that most people make when they want to stop overeating is that they focus their efforts on . . . the food. They develop a plan of what and when and how much they will eat. That’s how diets work (or actually—don’t work—but that’s another story).

You see the problem don’t you? If food is the answer to everything and you take food out of the equation, than you are still left without an answer.

If you are eating for the wrong reasons, the only way to make a change that is satisfying and lasting is to find other answers, solutions or strategies that address those reasons. Preferably ones that work better, address the real problem, and aren’t only a band aid.

This blog series will address the concept of making peace with food and the impact that it has on many aspects of life.

Take good care,

Are You Tired of Riding on the Diet Rollercoaster? Free Teleseminar

August 24th, 2010, No Comments »

Are you one of the many smart, successful, high-achieving women who is BEYOND tired of struggling with food, weight, and overeating—sick-to-death of diets and plans that don’t work out–and are you feeling like you “should” have gotten a handle on this by now?

You are not alone. Heck, look at Oprah (and I mean this with complete compassion).

The truth is that these struggles—which often have their roots in emotional eating and overeating—are major issues for success-oriented women, and unfortunately, they don’t get talked about nearly enough. This means that too many women are suffering needlessly, suffering alone, and feeling bad about the whole thing.

If this is “your struggle,” please know this: it’s not about finding the right “diet” (there is no right diet), it’s about getting to the root and creating a solution that lasts.

Next week I’m giving a free teleseminar to address this very important issue:

The Secret to Ending Emotional Eating & Overeating Battles

In this no-cost teleseminar, which you can attend by phone, via the internet, or by listening to the call recording, I will cover:

• Three reasons women get stuck in battles with food and what to do about it
• Three reasons diets don’t work
• The cost of overeating and emotional eating (it’s not just about weight)
• A formula for making peace with food, taking back control, and taking charge of emotional eating and overeating—for good

. . . and much more (but no diet talk). You’ll also hear the details about the Emotional Eating Toolbox(TM) Take Action Series which begins in September.

The teleseminar takes place:
September 1, 2010 at 2pm Pacific, 5pm Eastern. You’ll want to be on the call live so that you can participate and get your questions answered, but if you can’t make the call, please register anyway. The call will be recorded and all who register will receive access to the recording. Just go here to save your spot: http://toomuchonherplate.com/free-teleseminar/

I hope to “see” you on the call.

Take good care,

You CAN Change Your Body Image! Some Food for Thought

August 11th, 2010, No Comments »

Yesterday, I interviewed Sandy Kumskov, creator of the Body Image Revolution.

If you are a woman who doesn’t like her body, who struggles with body image, who has a hard time coming to terms with how you’ve aged physically, or with emotional eating, weight battles–any kind of physical dissatisfaction–this is a call that is important to hear.

I’m so happy that I met Sandy and have had the opportunity to join her revolution!

To listen to the replay, go here (no opt-in required).

To learn more about The Body Image Revolution go here . It’s good stuff.

Take good care,

Is Being “Productive” Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Plan? A Smarter Approach for Busy, Over-achieving Women

April 28th, 2010, No Comments »

If you are an over-achiever in the area of health and weight loss, it could easily be preventing the very goals that you are trying to achieve. Women who are trapped in a cycle of constant activity and “always doing more” end up being exhausted and less productive. Looking for the “perfect” solution and struggling to make changes that don’t fit with your needs and your life can create stress and overwhelm and can even trigger more emotional eating and emotional eating.

Are you ready to get off the diet roller coaster and create a blueprint for success with weight loss and peace with food?

Here are some tips for breaking the over-achieving cycle and creating a path for enduring change:

Start killing the myth that your constant activity is making you more effective and start to identify the price of being an overachiever. Here are some signs to look for: lack of focus, forgetfulness, feeling overwhelmed or stressed, stress eating, overeating at the end of the day (often because you feel too tired to do anything else), starting and quitting one weight loss plan after another, feeling like nothing works for you, a feeling of stress or overwhelm when you think about attempting to take control of your eating.

Be selective about experts and mentors. Start by asking yourself what you already know about your eating and your struggles and what kind of help you are looking for. Remind yourself what you already know about what works—and doesn’t work—for you. Remember, you have more wisdom about yourself than anyone else. Find an expert, mentor, or plan that respects what YOU know and asks you to access your own wisdom—often. Choose one plan or expert to follow and don’t blindly follow anything.

Carve out time to do nothing. Practice breaking the over-achieving cycle and creating breathing space in your life. When we are busy doing, we aren’t really able to tune in and listen to ourselves. When we aren’t doing that, we aren’t able to stay well connected to what we really need. When we aren’t getting what we need, emotional eating is an all-too-easy way to fill in the gaps.  Learn to listen to yourself and to identify what you are really craving (the things you need that aren’t food).

Take on one plan and one do-able change at a time. More is not always better. Often, more is overwhelming and won’t last. Pick lifestyle changes or new ways of eating that are do-able and that work with your life—one at a time. Beware of the voice that tells you you “aren’t doing enough.” Change that feels easy is change that you can stick with and build on. Look for (or create) a plan that allows you to make changes with small structured steps.

Take good care,

Are you an emotional eater ready to make these changes in your life? The Emotional Eating Toolbox™ Take Action Series starts soon. This six week program is all about creating a lasting blueprint for successfully taking control of emotional eating—in a do-able way that fits with your unique life. You can find out all about the program here.

Are You an Over-achieving Emotional Eater?

April 26th, 2010, 1 Comment »

If you are a stress eater or struggle with emotional eating of any kind, you know how frustrating it can be. Emotional overeating is one of the primary reasons it can be so hard to achieve weight loss that lasts—and ongoing weight loss battles are a huge energy drain. The weight loss industry is a big business, and there are plenty of plans, approaches, and “experts” out there, willing to “help you” in the search for a slimming solution that lasts.

Before you try the latest idea, here’s a question to consider: Do you need more weight loss wisdom, or is over-achieving actually making weight loss harder? In your quest to achieve success, are you creating overload and overwhelming yourself? It’s an important question, because this can create a big overeating and weight trap for busy women with high expectations.

I recently heard a great comment from someone about overwhelm. She said that even accessing the highest quality help, information, and ideas can feel like being hit by an avalanche if we have too much of it.  If you’ll excuse a food-related metaphor: when the portion is too big, even the best help isn’t digestible. And yet, if you are someone who expects a lot from yourself, you are likely to be haunted by a question that can get you into trouble:

“What else can I do?” or “What should I be doing?”

Are you always adding to your weight loss to-do list? Taking action is a strategy that we use to be effective when we feel out of control. And while taking action is the first step in creating success, taking too many actions creates overwhelm. Are you falling into this trap?

Here are some signs that you are an over-achieving emotional eater:

• Are you an emotional eater who has a bedside table heaped with the latest books on the topic?
• Do you know so much about nutrition and weight loss science that you can’t make a decision about what to eat anymore—because you’ve heard so much contradictory advice?
• Do your attempts to lose weight turn into life overhauls and plans for change that quickly overwhelm you and that feel much too hard to stick with?
• When you finish a task or arrive at a “pause” in your day, do you automatically ask, “what should I do now?”
• Do you have a hard time doing nothing?
• In spite of all your effort, are you feeling stuck or ineffective when it comes to losing weight or eating the way that is best for you?

Over-achieving causes overwhelm. It increases the overall level of stress in your life. If you are an over-achiever in the area of health and weight loss, it could easily be preventing the very goals that you are trying to achieve. Women who are trapped in a cycle of constant activity and “always doing more” end up being exhausted and less productive in the long run. Not only do overwhelm and stress lead to overeating for many women, there’s another problem with over-achieving: constant activity can keep you from seeing the real solution.

Here’s what happens when we over-achieve. We can get so focused on “getting it right” and “figuring it out” that we aim all our energy in the wrong direction and we create a cycle of working very hard but not getting anywhere. That’s what yo-yo dieters are experiencing. They are caught up in a cycle of taking drastic action to lose weight, but they are so busy “achieving” that they haven’t created a blueprint that will allow them to create lasting success.

Stay tuned for my next post. I’m going to share my tips for how to break out of the over-achiever cycle and create a path for change that will last–and not burn you out!

Take good care,

Are you an emotional eater ready to make these changes in your life? The Emotional Eating Toolbox™ Take Action Series starts soon. This six week program is all about creating a lasting blueprint for successfully taking control of emotional eating—in a do-able way that fits with your unique life. You can find out all about the program here.

Free Teleseminar: Get Back In the Driver’s Seat With Overeating, Binge Eating and Emotional Eating: How to Stop Struggling and Make Peace With Food

April 12th, 2010, No Comments »

Spring Smart Woman’s Teleseminar: Register Now

I love spring and associate it with freshness and renewal and beginnings. Unfortunately, many women I talk to associate it with bathing suit shopping, and pressures to shape up and lose weight. Right now, they are starting to prepare for another disappointing ride on the diet roller coaster (you know–the ride with lots of ups and downs where you always end up right where you started). There really is a better way. Please know, that if you are tired of struggling with overeating or emotional eating, there is a way out that doesn’t involve going through the vicious cycle or the endless yo-yo dieting that you may feel trapped in.

Just in time for spring, I’m offering a free teleseminar with a big title: Get Back In the Driver’s Seat With Overeating, Binge Eating and Emotional Eating: How to Stop Struggling and Make Peace With Food

Here’s the agenda:

• Find out why diets don’t work and the missing ingredient you need to be effective
• Learn how to identify what you are really craving (if you are overeating—it’s not food) and the problem with “food rules”
• Discover what you should be paying attention to that you probably aren’t
• Learn how you can create your own customized blueprint for making peace with food—once and for all

… and much more.

You’ll also be the first to hear about the new session of the Emotional Eating Toolbox™ Take Action Series, which kicks off  May 11, 2010 and some of the new benefits that I’ve added.

This free teleseminar that takes place Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 3pm Pacific, 4pm Mountain, 5pm Central, and 6pm Eastern. You’ll want to be live on the call so that you can get your questions answered, however, if you can’t make it, you’ll still want to register. The call will be recorded and all who register will receive access to the recording. Teleseminars are easy to attend. You just dial in on the long distance number you will be provided when you register (you will be responsible for any long distance calls). You’ll be given an access code and instructed to punch it in and then you’ll join us on the line. I’ll definitely be taking your questions throughout the call.

Just go here to save your seat.

Take good care,

Overeating and Overwhelmed? I Have a Message For You

April 7th, 2010, 3 Comments »

Someone recently asked me what I would change about my business if I could. Of course, I have a to-do list (grin), but the first thing that came out of my mouth was this:

I wish I could more easily show women how self care and paying attention to the issues I help them focus on isn’t self indulgent and isn’t fluff. Getting to the root of overeating battles, learning how to create a life that feeds you, and crafting a plan to invest in yourself is one of the most important investments you can make in the rest of your life, your business or profession, and your relationships.

The truth: YOU are your most valuable asset. YOU are what you bring to the table, not only in your personal life, but in your business as well. If you are treating yourself like an old beat up clunker instead of a well-oiled machine, the consequences reverberate widely. Not just for you, but for the causes, concerns, and people who you care for as well.

I heard something very sad today. A marketing and business coach said that although “mompreneurs” (moms who are starting their own business), are such a huge and growing group, she advises against starting a business that specializes in providing services to them. Why? Well, she said that her research shows that this is a group that has a hard time investing in themselves, and by relation, in their businesses. “They’ll spend their money on everyone else in their family before they’ll think of investing in themselves or their company.”  Sound familiar? It’s not true for everyone, but I would agree that many women struggle mightily when it comes to investing in themselves. And they often pay a big price for not allowing themselves what they really need.

The lessons to put everyone else first run deep. For some, it’s almost as automatic as breathing. And it can be so ingrained that women become unaware of the price they are paying.

I hear clients and women who participate in my programs saying, “I know this is silly. I shouldn’t need to do a program like this. But I do.” Do you hear how hard that belief makes it to get what you need? –and how brave one has to be to move forward anyway? The truth is that these women are doing something that takes courage—looking a battle straight in the eyes and investing in creating a better way of living and being. Good on them.

Battles with food, stress, and overwhelm are a sign that life is out of balance. They are what happen when women aren’t getting what they really need, what they really crave, and what allows them to run at their best.

Battles with food, stress, and overwhelm indicate that you are out of balance.  You’re not well fueled. And that means you are not able to reliably access one hundred percent of who you are—your creativity, your passion, your wisdom. You’re not at one hundred percent and you probably know it. My bet would be that it impacts your confidence. Your posture. Your mindset. The stand you take in the world. Everything.

You are the choices that you make. And every time you do not stand up for yourself and for what you need, there is a consequence.  That choice echoes through the rest of your life. Investing in YOU is one of the most powerful things you can do. It’s not self indulgent. It’s not silly. It’s not fluff.

Am I making my point?  I’d love to hear your thoughts, your disagreements and your amens. Let’s start a conversation.

Take good care,

Help for Emotional Eaters Who Have Had Weight Loss Surgery

April 5th, 2010, No Comments »

Many people have asked me over the years why I work with women who’ve had weight loss surgery.  I’ve not had bariatric surgery myself.  What I have done, is spend my entire professional life working with women who struggle with their eating and with their weight.

As a psychologist, I’ve seen all sorts of outcomes after weight loss surgery—including seeing women who invested their heart, soul, and a good deal of money, only to find themselves still struggling with weight and overeating.  I’ve known too many women who felt guilty, lost hope, and even blamed themselves (which only makes the problem worse).

If you are someone who has had a bariatric procedure,  you’ve heard that bariatric surgery is only a tool. What I remind my clients is that it’s also only ONE tool. Weight loss surgery isn’t the complete tool kit. Creating peace with food often takes more than a physical procedure.  It requires learning how to use a whole new set of tools to address the emotional reasons that trigger many women to turn to food—stress, boredom, frustration—even a need for comfort or a need to celebrate.

For those of you who have had weight loss surgery of any type and continue to struggle with emotional eating and overeating, I have an exciting new resource for you.  I’ve just released the Emotional Eating Toolbox™ Bonus Series for Women After Weight Loss Surgery. This use-at-home, self-guided program includes the original Emotional Eating Toolbox™ 28 Day Program plus all the bonus material, activities, special topic coaching and information that was shared in my original, live  Emotional Eating Toolbox™ Program for Women After Weight Loss Surgery. I no longer offer this program live, but you can now have all the materials, tools, templates, Master Schedules, and six hours of information and inspiration-packed down-loadable seminars.  You can find all the information here.

Emotional eating after weight loss surgery is such an important issue. Please share this information with others who might benefit.

Take good care,

Are you overeating to calm yourself? Three easy ways to start fixing the problem

March 31st, 2010, 2 Comments »

Many busy women overeat when they are stressed, too busy, or overwhelmed. Eating as a way to calm down is a common form of emotional eating. In my my last post, I gave you a list of three things to stop doing so that you could start taking to begin taking control of this type of overeating. Now it’s time to fill in the gaps. Here are three things to start doing instead.

1. Do get into the habit of asking yourself how you are feeling before you eat. Create a ritual of checking in with yourself before you reach for a snack, stop by the vending machine, or serve up your plate. Ask yourself both whether you are physically hungry, and what you are feeling emotionally. Don’t worry if you don’t always know the answers. Creating the habit of checking in with yourself and paying attention to your emotions is an important first step.
2. 2. Do create a list of other calming strategies you can start to experiment with. When you aren’t in the midst of a stressful situation, brainstorm some quick, easy ways you might try calming or soothing yourself. Write them down and keep your list somewhere where it is easy to access. Not all your solutions will work in every situation, but that’s okay. You are creating a list of ideas to try. Some solutions others have tried: a few minutes of deep breathing, a walk around the block or even the office, changing tasks, a bath or shower, calling a friend, putting on some music, yoga or stretching, or making a cup of tea.
3. 3. Do give yourself permission for this not to go perfectly and tweak and adjust as you go. The goal is to increase your control and you will do that as you become more aware of the reasons and times that you overeat and other strategies that help you make different choices. Don’t focus on making “perfect” changes, focus on learning about yourself and identifying changes that work for you, your preferences and your life.

Take good care,