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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 2

August 27th, 2010, No Comments »

To summarize my last post:  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.

Real Change Means Making Peace With Food

In the Emotional Eating Toolbox™ program, I teach a process for making peace with food. Peace with food is different from losing weight (although people who make peace with food often lose weight), enduring a diet or food plan (peace with food is not about doing something with food you don’t want to do), depriving yourself and going “without,” or feeling out of control and resigned to a life where food is “the answer to everything” (except that it really isn’t). Peace with food happens when you can move past the food struggles and toward more satisfying solutions.

The Path to Peace With Food

It’s important to know that peace with food is available to anyone. Really. No matter how long you’ve fought with food or your weight, no matter how much you struggle with emotional eating, it’s possible to create a new and improved relationship with food. Just like any change, it’s a process of taking the correct steps and making adjustments and changes—in a way that works for you.

1.     Peace With Food Requires New Answers

Peace with food only happens when you move beyond the food and start creating better, more effective, more satisfying answers. When you have a range of strategies to comfort yourself, to celebrate, to cope with anxiety or stress or boredom or loneliness, and when you know how to really zero in on what it is your spirit is needing or craving (the things that are not food)—guess what happens? Food loses some of its charisma and its importance. Oh sure, it still tastes good, and sometimes you’ll want to eat more than is really good for you, but the struggle to NOT eat and the drive to overeat or keep eating, is transformed. Because food doesn’t have the power that it once had—and—because you now have some higher quality solutions.

In the next post, I’ll go into more depth on how to successfully make peace with food and will show you how it really can make a difference.

Take good care,

Free Teleseminar: The Body Image Revolution: How to Make Peace with Food, Our Bodies, and Our Lives

August 2nd, 2010, No Comments »

Too many women are spending too much of their time, energy, and focus feeling bad about their bodies, their weight, their eating and themselves. Not only is this a tragic waste, it’s a reality that keeps far too many women stuck and feeling less effective and powerful than they could be.

If you know me, you know that this is a topic that I am passionate about.

Recently, I was honored to be a participant in an exciting venture created by holistic counselor and body image transformation coach Sandy Kumskov. The Body Image Revolution brought together 13 body image experts, speaking on an incredible array of topics. The result was outstanding–and deeply moving.

Now, I’m thrilled that Sandy has agreed to be interviewed by me and to allow you to listen in–and even ask questions.

Would you love some new resources and tools to help you stop fighting with food, your body, and your weight?

Join me when I interview Sandy Kuskov. Here’s just a bit of what we will cover on this no-cost call:

• The cost we are paying when we don’t feel good about our bodies–and how to improve your body image
• The topics that weigh heavily on women that no one is talking about (until now) and what you can do to stop suffering
• Surprising and do-able ways you can start to shift your own feelings about food and your body–and the impact this can make

The information that we are covering is so important that Sandy and I coordinated our schedules across the international date line to make this call happen.

The call takes place:

Date:  August 10, 2010 (United States)
Time : Tuesday 4pm Pacific | 5pm Mountain | 6pm Central | 7pm Eastern | midnight UK
Friday 1am Johannesburg | 9am Australian Eastern | 11am New Zealand

To check the event time in your timezone, go to The World Time Clock

You may attend the interview via phone or webcast–we’ll send you all the details once you enroll. You’ll want to do everything you can to be on the call live so that you can get your questions answered, but don’t worry if you can’t make it. We’ll be recording the call and all who register will receive access to the recording.

Get all the information you need to attend this free call here.

Take good care,

Is Facebook Making You Feel Bad?

May 10th, 2010, 2 Comments »

The other day I was updating my status on Facebook. I shared about a great run I’d just enjoyed on a particularly beautiful Saturday. As I posted it, and read tidbits about the fun my friends and colleagues were sharing, it occurred to me once again what a skewed view of the world tools like Facebook and Twitter can provide. I was reminded of someone who was telling me about her adventures in online dating (okay, I’ve heard this story a lot more than once). The talk began, “…well, his profile picture was at least 20 years old…”

Social media sites like Facebook provide powerful opportunities to connect, reconnect, and stay connected in ways that are (or used to be) unique.  They also provide an almost unparalleled possibility to tweak and censor the view of ourselves we present to the world. If we do enough of that (tweaking and positioning), it’s possible to start believing that version of reality is more authentic than it actually is.

Years ago, studies revealed that women who spent as little as twenty minutes looking at certain style magazines experienced decreases in their self esteem and increased self doubt and worry about their own appearance, body image, and size. The hypothesis was that even a short time viewing women who were portrayed as unrealistically “perfect” (at least physically), left readers feeling like they didn’t measure up. Could this “feeling bad by comparison” be happening to us?

There is so much of real life that rarely gets posted on Facebook or Twitter.

I don’t know about you, but I’m unlikely to post about my skin breaking out from stress or if I’m feeling unsupported and alone, or if my latest project completely tanks. My profile pictures (yes, they’re recent) show me smiling and relaxed. I don’t see a lot of updates about people worried about money or doubting their ability to succeed. Most of us aren’t revealing our moments of despair and self doubt. Oh sure, there are some self-deprecating shares, but we don’t tend to go deep or admit that we’re really scared or insecure, or feeling like a failure.

And yet, we all have these moments.

What’s my point? I am NOT suggesting–at all–that we stop filtering what we share on social media. Facebook and Twitter and their cousins aren’t private conversations and we don’t need to (and shouldn’t) share everything with everyone.  I believe it’s important to be clear (especially if you use these services for business) what the goal of your participation really is. I’m wondering though, about how we are influenced by what everyone else is sharing or presenting–and what they aren’t. And I’m wondering if all the happy, joyful, optimistic, or even the digging-down-deep-in-the-face-of-a-challenge updates and tweets may be intimidating us or increasing our own self doubt.  Could they be making it even harder to admit our own struggles or ask for help with what we need?

It’s so important to remember that there are a lot of conversations that aren’t happening via social media–or at least not often. Unfortunately, what isn’t being said doesn’t show up in your news feed.

On a related note, a few women have shared with me that they’d like to follow the Too Much On Her Plate Facebook Page, but they are wary about other people seeing that they experience overwhelm, overload, or overeating. I absolutely get that (and please, take charge of your privacy settings to control what you choose to share). I also hear the other side of this type of concern–every day.

One of the biggest reasons savvy women get stuck and don’t get where they want to go–in their business, their life, their relationships, or with their health and weight–is because:

a) they feel alone and embarrassed about whatever isn’t coming easily for them, and

b) they are stuck in the mindset that being “strong” means being able to do things (especially personal health and lifestyle things) without help.

The truth? Being and feeling alone and unsupported means it’s up to you to reinvent the wheel. Every time. It could be so much easier.

So, this post ends with two questions–and I’d really like to hear your thoughts. Do Facebook and Twitter ever leave you comparing yourself and worried that you come up short?. . . And how can we have some of the other nitty gritty conversations? How can we talk about what we struggle with, what’s not working, and what keeps us up at night without giving up our privacy and our boundaries? Is there a place for this kind of authenticity on Facebook? Should there be? If not there, where are you finding this opportunity in your life?

Take good care,

Want to join the Too Much On Her Plate page? Come visit and help us create a more rounded conversation. Click on the “wall tab” and let us know how we can help you be your best self and not fall into the comparison or “image” trap.

Working late? Work it out!

April 29th, 2010, No Comments »

Another resource for busy women: Over the next month, I’m going to be sharing some guest posts from Brigette Polmar and Jenny Hein, Co-Founders of SqueezeItIn.com. Jenny Hein is an ACE Certified Group Fitness Instructor and Brigette Polmar is a journalist and published author.  Both are real moms working to develop real solutions for busy people who struggle to find time to exercise.  Their production company Multitask Productions, LLC, recently released the SqueezeItIn.com Workout DVD available through SqueezeItIn.com and Amazon.com.

If working too hard has you skipping your regular workout, SqueezeItIn.com can help you work smarter, not harder, and turn those long days into a good workout right at your desk.

Multitasking exercise – or functional fitness – is a great way to work in a workout when you’re just too busy to hit the gym or when you can’t find a 30-minute block of time to work up a sweat.  According the American College of Sports Medicine three 10-minute bursts of moderate intensity exercise performed throughout your day are equivalent to a single 30-minute workout.  Bottom line: it all adds up.  So the ladies behind SqueezeItIn.com have developed dozens of clever and effective exercises you can do while you’re cleaning the house, at the office, in your car, and even while traveling at 30,000 feet – so you can “squeeze in” a workout no matter how busy your schedule.

Here are three office moves sure to stop the dreaded desk spread (just click the graphic to access a short video):

Want to learn more ways to squeeze in fitness? I’m going to be getting tips from the women of Squeeze It In on May 5 and I’m sharing the interview with you.  Join me when I interview Brigette and Jenny–it’s free!

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,

Free Smart Woman’s Teleseminar: Resolving Email Overload

March 14th, 2010, No Comments »

Are you up to your eyeballs in emails?

Is your inbox elevating your stress level and sucking your time and energy?

What exactly IS the answer when you have 3,000 emails waiting for you to deal with them?

Certified Professional Organizer® Lorie Marrero is the author of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life. She is also the creator of ClutterDiet.com . Her organizing books and products are sold online and in stores nationwide, and she is a sought-after expert for national media such as CNBC, Good Housekeeping, WGN News and Woman’s Day.

Lorie has agreed to let me interview her about what she calls “Inbox Obesity” and how to take control when you have “Too Much In Your Inbox.”

I’m inviting YOU to listen in–at no cost. The call will take place Thursday, March 25 at 11am Pacific, noon Mountain, 1pm Central and 2pm Eastern. Register even if you can’t make the call–I’ll be giving everyone who registers access to the recording.

I am really looking forward to hearing Lorie’s wisdom. Let’s get out of email overwhelm together–just go here to register.

Take good care,

What Are Your Gold Medal Excuses? Emotional Eating and Success Traps

March 2nd, 2010, No Comments »

Did you watch the Olympics? I did, and, as usual, I was amazed. I am heading into March feeling inspired and energized by the examples of people stretching and achieving in the face of incredible challenges and odds. The key piece—most, if not all, of those athletes are pursuing their passions and taking them beyond the level most people even dream of.

When I coach my clients, I see one of my roles as that of helping them stretch the boundaries of their comfort zones and create a bigger picture of possibilities for themselves. The interesting thing is, when we stretch and expand—the right way—it doesn’t create a feeling of overwhelm or overload, it actually makes things feel more expansive and creates a sense of ease and freedom.

Sometimes we play too small (or we don’t play at all) because we feel stuck in scarcity—we don’t know how to get beyond that feeling of not having enough time or energy or resources. It’s a big mistake, and one that just keeps us working too hard on a hamster wheel where we never exactly get where we want to go.

This week I’m going to be blogging about places that busy women get stuck and my tips for stepping off the hamster wheel and moving toward those things you want to achieve.

Stay tuned—and let me know what you think. Leave a comment if you have a Gold Medal Excuse you’d like me to address.

Take good care,

Running a Business, Running in Circles, and Running to the Fridge

January 21st, 2010, 2 Comments »

It’s a refrain I hear a lot:

“I am SO busy – I just started a business/have a successful business/hate my job and want to start a business/times are tough at work and they just keep piling on the responsibilities and projects – there is so much to do – I can NEVER catch up – my email consumes me – I’m always working but I feel pulled in so many directions – I’m stuck and I don’t know where to begin – I don’t feel like I accomplish what I want to – I’m snacking all the time/overeating/bingeing in the evening – and I’m putting on weight – life feels out of control but I don’t know how to break the cycle – I have so much to do – I know I should exercise but frankly I’m too darned tired – and I can’t get control of my eating. Help!”

Sound familiar? If so, this is important. Overwhelm, stress, lack of self-care, and emotional eating are intricately connected for many smart busy women with too much on their plates (the pun there is always intended). Breaking out of this vicious, damaging cycle requires being respectful of all these components. No low carb/high protein/liquid/fill-in-the-blanks diet addresses these crucial pieces. Frankly, it’s about so much more than the food.

Each part of the cycle perpetuates the others. Overwhelm can contribute to cutting back on time for self-care; stress (and exhaustion) fuels your appetite, impacts your metabolism, and triggers emotional eating, which in turn increases feelings of overwhelm, stress, and just-plain-feeling-out-of-control.

Breaking the cycle requires a pause (yes, I know you are busy, but you really do need to stop and disengage), some deep breaths, and then a plan of action so that you can take the wheel of your life (and then your business or job) instead of running along frantically behind it.

Sound good?

Now is the time to do it. Because if you don’t, you will either stay stuck where you are (I’m betting you don’t have any extra energy right now to grow, think, play bigger, or hoist yourself out of the pit you see yourself in), or worse, as a new client described to me this week, you will crash and burn. And then you will HAVE to stop.  You deserve so much more.

If you can do nothing else, commit to the following steps. They will help you start to see some daylight.

1. Give yourself 15 minutes a day. It won’t take away from your productivity, it will increase it. Journal, walk, meditate, soak in the tub. Connect with yourself and pay attention to how you feel. Don’t do this at the end of the day when you are too tired to move and your brain has stopped working. Pay yourself first or take a break during your work day.
2. Adopt the following mantras: “I’m doing my best,” and “I can’t do it all.” They are true.
3. Each evening, identify your top three action items for the next day and call it an accomplishment when you have knocked those out. If possible, do them early in the day.
4. Plan for food that fuels you. Don’t skip breakfast, have a plan for lunch, and don’t starve yourself before dinner. Make sure you have the groceries that you need. Choose foods that are appealing. No starvation diets.
5. Cut the multitasking. It stresses us out and makes us less effective. Really practice focusing on doing one thing at a time. You won’t get it perfect, but that’s okay, remember step number two.
6. Take emotional eating seriously. That doesn’t mean beating yourself up over it. Emotional eating happens when our spirit or our life isn’t getting fed the non-food things we need or crave. We have to pay attention to that and develop other ways of caring for ourselves. This can be complicated but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. If you feel stuck, consider an emotional eating program or coach. There is so much more to life than this vicious cycle.
7. Don’t skip #1 (you’ll probably be tempted).

There are more steps, but hearing them now might just add to your overwhelm—and it’s okay not to know all the steps before you get started. Do what you can, give yourself credit, and let me know how it’s going.

Take good care,

Busy Women: How Can I Help?

November 20th, 2009, No Comments »

I have a favor to ask. I’m doing some planning for the year ahead. I’m very excited about the ideas I have for upcoming programs, products, services and blog posts. But here’s the thing–we’re all busy. I don’t want to put anything on either of our plates that isn’t going to be helpful and a worthwhile investment of our time and energy.  Before I move forward, I want to make sure that the projects I pursue are exciting and valuable to you. Will you help me?

I’ve put together a very brief (I promise it’s really brief) survey to help me understand what you are really looking for. Will you take three minutes to fill it out? In appreciation of your valuable time, I’ll pass along an audio of my recent interview: Emotional Eating: Don’t Let it Sabotage Your Plan.

The survey is completely confidential. Just go here to fill it out. If you prefer not to complete the survey, feel free to leave a comment to this post sharing your thoughts about what programs, topics, and services would be most appealing and helpful to you.

Take good care,