Nutritional Healing + Brain Chemistry Balancing For Eating Disorders

I'll be speaking on Brain Chemistry Balancing through Target Nutrition Therapy® at the International Conference on Nutrition & Food Sciences, Valencia, Spain 23-24th of Sept 2014. Complete Speaker program will be up here.

 

How To Kickstart Health - there's an app for that!

I’ve got some great news today:  Sociidot just launched and I’m in the app as a featured expert!

Sociidot is a tool to help you visualize and achieve your dreams. The Sociidot team built the app with the innate understanding that while many people go after their “big” dreams, they may need some help and motivation to get there. Sociidot is designed to push you to spend time on the things that are really important to you.

As a featured nutrition expert in Sociidot, I provide the roadmap of how to get where you want to go. You simply take one tiny action at a time and move forward. Since I’m a food-as-medicine expert, I know the steps it takes to meet your health goals. So I’ve put together what I know and created a couple of roadmaps for Sociidot’s Health Maven category. The roadmaps outline how to achieve certain health goals, so anyone who really wants to can follow the dots and achieve the goal. Whether it be how to reverse diabetes in 30 steps, how to burn fat or simply kickstart a healthy lifestyle that makes you FEEL great in the skin you are in!

Sociidot is available for download here. Look for my roadmaps in the Health Maven category. It was a lot of fun putting them together, and now I’m looking forward to seeing people follow them!

You don't HAVE to change.

I'm really stubborn if I feel like someone is trying to control me.

Christina Santini coaches health a-z incl. addictions
+ eating disorders in office in Los Angeles + Skype.

Like, I can't even control myself for crying out loud. So I've had to figure out a way to trick myself into doing what is essentially best for me without me getting all rebellious and whatnot. If I set some boundaries I can be sure that it is only a matter of time before every cell in me will itch to go beyond that line. Because I don't like rules. They feel so confining. Mind you, that is even those rules that I have chosen to set for myself because I know I should stick to them. I do like values - and I think integrity and living according to your core values is crucial.

This stubborn 5-year old mentality has led me to tap into how I can use intrinsic motivation to change. The only way I can change and motivate myself to implement better behaviors is to tap into WHY would I want to do this -- because I don't absolutely have to. I don't have to do anything absolutely, in fact. 

Yes, there are consequences if I don't - but then I am doing this because I WANT to, so I can avoid dealing with the consequences. That's valid. 

Do you get this? Because if we simply tell ourselves "well, you gotta stop eating burgers and fries, cos you're fat" - which is in fact, what most of us tell ourselves along with other nasty adjectives daily that we don't even notice because they're on autoplay, brainwashed by magazines, tv and peer pressure - we will get very resentful, focus on the negative and what we CAN'T do - and where focus goes energy flows. So sooner or later we will do what we are focusing on not to do.

Here's the thing, though, none of us like to be told what to do. We like to do stuff because it feels good from within our soul. We like to do stuff that nurtures our core values and resonates with who we are.

That is, when we know who we are.

And that's where the struggle lies for a lot of us: We have no clue who we are, we just know that we feel disconnected, and we have a void that we want to fill. With something and anything - so we try diets to fit into skinny jeans. 

When that gets boring, and we really... like... REALLY... want that double stuffed chocolate cake with a layer of whipped cream, then we decide we binge for a while. 

When that gets boring and our jeans don't fit anymore, we go to the bars and pick up guys, girls or both or many or whatever rocks our boat. 

When that gets old, we chase money. That can sometimes last a lifetime - always chasing something that we can complain about is the root to all our sorrows in life. When in fact we are just using it to project our inner dysfunction onto something external, and remove the weight of responsibility from our own shoulders. Nice, but not so nice - because when we don't carry the weight of responsibility, we can't change, we are stuck in status quo complaining aimlessly over everything and everyone but us. And this leads to resentment and bitterness in the end: We feel that we didn't get in life what we deserved. When, in fact, we didn't really even try. We didn't make the effort, we just hummed along in the herd making a lot of noise, but not really going anywhere, as we didn't want to venture out on new grounds. We just did the minimum of what (we thought) was expected of us to fit in and stuck to the rest of the flock. All humming along to the same old tune. That's the comfort zone. Unfortunately, the comfort zone is not very comfortable in the long run. 

It's a pretty dirty place in fact. 

The key to change is to ask yourself: Why might you want to change in the first place? And why is that reason important TO YOU? 

Remember no one absolutely has to do anything. We change because we want to. We change when we can't stop ourselves from reconnecting with our core values and calling in life. We change when we tap into that motivation within.

We change because we want to become a better person - only you know what that person looks like, feels like and acts like, in your skin.

So ask yourself one simple question: Why MIGHT you want to change?

And why is THAT reason important TO YOU?

Because you don't HAVE to.
No one absolutely has to do anything.
You too have been granted free will, you are not a passive victim being pushed around even if that's what you are telling yourself. You can always choose not to change. It's your decision. 

How To Create New Habits

The biggest downfall when trying to break bad habits is to rely on willpower to carry you through the storms and emotional turmoil that comes with every change.

Simply because willpower is fragile and emotions change with the wind - it's only human to give into pleasure as we are hedonistic creatures baseline. That, however, does not mean that we should tolerate it. What we need to do in order to create the life that aligns with our core values, is to outsmart our tricky mind and create a strong fundament that will support us through change.

When working with any client who wants to change something in his/her life - whether it be breaking an addiction or simply dealing with the stress of life in healthier ways than emotional abuse and/or binging behaviors, I always start out with assessing what they are getting out of their current behaviors, and how we can create a substitute to avoid creating an empty, hollow void when abstaining from their previous "filler". This is CRUCIAL to understand. It is useless to abstain from behaviors without filling the void with something else.

Humans do not like emptiness and we will do anything and everything to avoid feeling that empty space - even create drama that is completely uncalled for. Simply because we get addicted to the feeling of fullness - even if that comes from misery. Also interesting that intense drama and misery actually results in a spike in our natural painkillers, beta-endorfines, kind of creating a natural high/numbness from life temporarily. This is why so many of us are addicted to whining and complaining instead of taking responsibility for our life choices and make a conscious choice to play the cards that we have been dealt differently to make for a different outcome.

Below is a sample of how I work with changing old behaviors and trading them for new ones that will rewire the pathways of pleasure trigger-points in your brain.

And after having worked consistently with this for typically a couple months, you will find that you can let go effortlessly of your old habits.

And you are now free of the chains of whatever was causing you to feel like a victim before.

Do not underestimate the power of small, simple steps - after all that is why staircases are so popular: many small steps lead to mountains of change.

Embrace the change - step into the wind.

Fill out below and put on your fridge as a daily reminder.

My keystone habit:_________________________
My current Cue:____________________________
My current Routine:_________________________
My current Reward:_________________________
My new Cue: ______________________________
My new Routine:___________________________
My new Reward:___________________________

Here is an example of what it could look like for someone:


My keystone habit: Emotional Eating
My current Cue: I turn on the TV and drop into the sofa (to eat).
My current Routine: I skip breakfast, I work overtime and come home and open the freezer to disconnect.
My current Reward: Letting go of control and feeling comforted.
My new Cue: I go straight into the bathtub after work.
My new Routine: Eating 3 square meals and take a swim in the ocean or simply a herbal bath when I get home from work to recharge.
My new Reward: I lower my stress levels, my body+mind gets stronger and I respect myself and my body without the crash and burn from abusing food.

What this simple exercise does is, that it creates for the ability to THINK before you react. And the more conscious you get, the easier it gets to let go of something that initially felt like it was hardwired into your brain. Initially you may still find yourself in the cookie cabinet after your herbal bath, but that's OK - the point is simply to delay the pattern of what you usually did out of habit - because THAT breaks the impulse slowly, but surely until you can effortlessly let go. This is the science of neuroplasticity in practice - how to retrain your brain to form new happy behaviors rather than living a life of deprivation and constant struggle with willpower.

The biggest obstacle is to let go of that black/white thinking where you expect perfection and that your new habits just happen overnight. What you want is to change whatever it is you get pleasure from, so that you naturally let go. This is so super powerful once you start applying it into your life. The thing is, most of us never do, and thus we never change. We tend to think of change, as something that is this big peak to climb, and we feel like we should be climbing it like running a marathon; so we give up before we ever started.

Christina Santini offers life coaching via skype
and in Los Angeles based office.
Read more here. 

Do not let your mind trick you into telling you, that you are not strong enough, not worth enough. Outsmart it by being OK with the process - the journey to change.

In the end, that is all that matters in life. Whether we take the journey, the steps... or we refuse to let go and hang on to that fragile branch hanging over the cliff, which will eventually break, and we will fall so very far.

Take a small step today. Just to show yourself, that today is different - and this will mark the rest of your journey. However slowly you move matters not. What matters is that you are no longer stagnant.

Fat isn't what's killing you, dieting is.

Some surprising truths about weight... Fat isn't what's killing you: Dieting is.
A medical establishment that equates "thin" with "healthy" is the problem. The solution? Stop the dieting madness.

I strongly recommend anyone why is dieting and trying to fit their body into our narrow accepted standards, to read Linda Bacon's book Health at Every Size - what does the statistics really show on health and weight. Our striving for the perfect body is vanity - not a health matter.

Think about it this way. Just because a study shows that bald men have a higher occurrence of heart attacks doesn't mean that it's the lack of hair on the head that's the risk factor - it's the low testosterone! So let's say we tried to fix this issue by giving them a hair transplant - that wouldn't really help one inch on the abnormally low testosterone now would it. And THAT approach is exactly how we are addressing the weight issue. We are telling people to just lose the weight and all things will be fine. Unfortunately, losing weight is no indicator of health or healthy ways. What is CAUSING the weight issues - THAT is what we need to address, because thinner people do not live longer. In fact, research shows that those we categorize as overweight live the longest, while those in the obese category live just as long as those in the normal weight category.

Does it make you happy? That's what we need to ask ourselves - happy people live longer.

What's YOUR relationship with FOOD?

Eating takes us to the CORE of who we are - what we believe we are worth and can achieve in this life. Don't underestimate the importance of the way you eat with the way you carry yourself in life and the results you get elsewhere. How you act in one area transcends to every area of your life - are you present when you eat? Do you listen to people when they talk to you - or are you eating over your laptop and pulling out your iphone whenever at a social setting, stuffing yourself with chips or counting the calories that pass your lips and believe you need to burn off bad calories at the gym.
That is not normal behavior, regardless of how accepted it is in our instant-gratification and vanity driven society. Healthy is not the woman in the gym with the perfect body, who eats the perfect raw vegan or whatever diet. The woman on the treadmill who controls every morsel passing her lips, posting pictures of her abs on instagram and facebook - living in misery. There is no pleasure, and yet our society is praising for that type of behavior - woman and man alike. And it is NOT healthy. These behaviors do NOT make you happy. They make you controlling, restrictive and moody. And yes, this affects your intimacy level and close relationships as well.

Success is being happy, vibrant and well-nourished activating our potential in life regardless of what we look like - it's time to let go of that shallow judgment we all do when we decide whether someone is healthy and successful - because most people with perfect abs are NOT happy - they're controlling and restrictive and severely insecure. We must stop this insanity. We cannot move forward if all our time is spent talking about weight loss and measuring our fat percentages - it has got to stop.

Are you overriding your hunger cues; did your relationship fall to pieces because you didn't listen and pick up the signals that started months, years before? Same baseline qualities manifesting in different ways in life.

If you enjoy food - savor the bites, the flavors of life, usually you will find your connections to humans also deepen, because you have trained yourself to be present and pick up subtle signals in the moment, before they turn into red flags (overeating/restricting/relationship break-ups/etc. etc.).

Our eating is connected to our intimacy, love, money, our values and what we believe life is. That's why HOW you eat is equally important to WHAT you eat. Eating is connected to a primary domain of life... changing your eating, changes your life on a much more profound level than getting healthy, looking good etc. etc.

Do you get how important this is? Changing your relationship with food will TRANSFORM your LIFE!

The online conference for eating psychology is running online right now  - check it out here, it's great stuff.

Your plate is a direct reflection of who you are.

Your truth is in the details. 

Everything you do reflects who you are, what you believe life is. 

Is life beautiful, abundant, something to be worshipped and savored, or is your belief-system based on deprivation (dieting)... or perhaps something that you stuff down, binge on and then feel sick to your core, because you do not savor the flavors (of life)? 

You are what you eat. It's the small things that count.

Your Brain On Sugar - the legal coke?

The reason we love the sweet, fatty ice cream is due to the spike in beta-endorfines - acting like natural painkillers. The very picture of this food invokes a dopamine response, so that the addictive anticipation of the high already starts when flipping through the cook book, looking at the commercial, or passing by the ice cream shop.

You can, however, rebalance your brain chemistry so that your addictive response is not out of your control anymore.

All you need is to be strongwilled - just say no. Saying no doesn't work when you are fighting an imbalanced brain chemistry - it is like driving a car without brakes; you just can't stop (the craving).

Watch Dr. Nora Volkow explain the biology of food addiction vs. drug addiction on CBS 60 minutes.