Achieve Your Greatest Dreams - one step at a time.

Sociidot is a new app to help you reach your goals step by step.
I designed the roadmaps featured in the app for:

• How To KickStart Health
• How To Reverse Diabetes
• How To Burn Fat.

Downloadable in the app store.

Breaking patterns, habits and ceilings.

I love this. Breaking habits. Breaking patterns. Breaking blocks. Breaking points. Breaking addictions. Breaking chains. Breaking confinements. Breaking the ceiling. To become what we already are. By breaking through the walls of glass we have created ourselves. So we can walk right over the shattered glass beneath our feet, no longer confining, defining us. No longer able to scar us. It is beneath us.

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!

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.

STRONG is the NEW skinny!

Get fingerlicking recipes for health a-z here.

TEDTalk Peter Attia on Understanding weight loss.

CAUSE OR EFFECT?
What if obesity is the coping mechanism for an underlying cell defect that we are not addressing via aiming to "just lose weight" - this is a profound difference in how to target weight issues.
What if this cell-defect is programmed to store fat rather than burn fat - and what we are eating does nothing to disrupt this message regardless of calorie restriction?

How much vitamin C to combat infection and fatigue?

Drink Green Tea To Control Diabetes.

Change Your Body Set-point.

If you've reached a weight-loss plateau, or even having difficulty losing any weight in spite of monitoring every morsel that passes your lips, you need to change your metabolism and brain chemistry, as these two factors are what will ultimately determine if you are able to keep your body-fat down, get ripped abs and no longer struggle with the munchies. I've said it a million times and I'll say it again: fat-burning has NOTHING to do with willpower, but everything to do with brainpower, and understanding how to harness the power of your brain chemistry and genotype - matching it with the right supplements, amino therapy and dietary strategies for your unique genetic blueprint and brain chemistry wiring.

There are, however, a couple factors that you may not be aware of that are crucial in order to kickstart your body into fat-burning gear:

You can change your metabolism:  A study of sets of twins where one was fat and the other thin found that fat cells in heavier twins underwent metabolic changes that make it more difficult to burn fat.  Physical activity can reverse the effect.

Stress can make you fat: Stressful circumstances can cause cravings for carbohydrate-rich foods. Stress hormones also increase fat storage.

Zac Efron- His physique is not a matter of willpower:
He doesn't stick to a fanatic diet or exercise regime;
it simply flows - because what he is doing,
whether conscious or not about it,
matches his genetic blueprint!

Sleep more to promote weight loss:  Sleep deprivation upsets your hormone balance, triggering a decrease in leptin (a hormone that helps you feel full) and an increase of ghrelin (a hormone that triggers hunger).

Sugar is addictive:  Research has determined that foods people like excite the same parts of the brain that are activated in drug addicts.

Antioxidants are also anti-fat:  Free radicals damage the cells that tell you that you're full. Get rid of them by eating colorful, antioxidant-rich vegetables.

Pine Nut Oil Suppress Appetite: In a paper being presented in an American Physiological Society session at Experimental Biology 2006, "the greatest effect was observed after just 30 minutes, with the 18 women reporting a 29% reduction in "desire to eat" and a 36% drop in "prospective food intake" scores. The experiment found a parallel and significant increase in cholecystokinin (CCK) of 60% and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP1) of 25% that remained as long as four hours after ingestion. CCK and GLP1 are appetite suppressors, which "send signals of satiation to the brain diminishing the desire to eat and food intake usually significantly


To determine your genetic blueprint you can sign up online for a metabolic typing session with The Nutrition Doctor here - the web portal will be online in September.

The fine art of Self-deception.

What's your truth?
The relationship you have with yourself
will determine every other relationship in your life.
Do you love yourself?
Are you honest with yourself?
Do you treat your body with respect?
Being true to yourself is the first step in healing.

I never lie. Never ever. Except to myself. Because... I don't really count. I mean, lying to yourself... it's not really lying-lying now is it. It's not like I'm hurting someone, or deliberately playing games with others. I'm an honest person. I'm a good person.

Is that what you tell yourself?

Allow me to be frank - no, not Sinatra. Although, I too have said something stupid. 

I've been there, done that. All too many times.

I can't stand people who lie, because you can smell it. You can sense it right away, when someone is not telling the truth. And the thing here is, it doesn't matter how innocent that lie may be - something just puts you off. 

Something doesn't feel right. 

Even if they just left out that they went to the library and, say, said they went shopping instead for some reason. This is none of my business, but unfortunately it builds up a wall around that person because we are nothing but mammals, and animals, as with human beings, can sense when something is not right. 

It doesn't matter what is said in words. 

It's a gut reaction, and it's also that same gut reaction that makes for attraction.

In my work with clients suffering from addictions, eating disorders and generally just needing to break the habit of whatever their self-destructive behavior may be, I've found the greatest challenge and most important factor that determines if someone is ready for change is, if they are willing to be honest with THEMSELVES. 

I don't care if they lie to me. 

They are hurting themselves a thousand times more than they could ever hurt me or any other human being by lying to themselves. There is nothing more painful than deceiving your authentic self, putting on a mask every day. Pretending. Trying to legislate your actions. Only because you know better; you just can't put it into action. Or so you feel. Those tricky, tricky feelings. The feeling that tomorrow... tomorrow you'll change your ways, tomorrow, just not today. And tomorrow never dies because tomorrow never arrives.

Are you guilty of this? 

Because if you are, no one on the planet of the earth can help you reach your peak performance in life til you decide to get real and accept your flaws and work with them instead of covering up.

In my work as a coach, I help people once they acknowledge their weaknesses, but if they pretend they have none, there is nothing I can do as a coach, unfortunately.

You have to get to that place of Willingness, Acceptance and Realization yourself, before you are ready to what I call WAR with your inner demons. 

Only then can another human being help you to get where you want to be in life. And it's also crucial that once you accept your weaknesses - once you get to that scary place of admitting you are not perfect - that you lean on another human being, because we are not meant to struggle alone. 

We are meant to support each other in growth.

Whether you are guilty of deceiving yourself is very simple to uncover. 

Simply consider this:

"Making a decision usually means taking one of two roads. One is doing the right thing. To take the other road, you have to sit back and spin a story around the decision or action you are taking. If you find yourself thinking up an elaborate justification for what you are doing, 

you are not doing the right thing."

Wayne Sales

Named the top Canadian CEO in Canadian Business magazine's 2005 All-Star list.

Why the Glycemic Index is a useless tool.

According to the Glycemic Index this is a nono.

Watermelon is one of the few top scores in lycopene.

So, in relations to my previous post on the case for white rice, I want to clarify why the glycemic index is nothing to be concerned about when switching from brown to white rice.

The Glycemic Index is actually a completely useless tool, simply because it is not relevant for how we eat. This is a typical example of something that sounds like a great idea in a lab-setting but it doesn't transfer from the labs into our lives. Rarely do we eat a meal consisting of one sole food, and the moment foods are combined then the GI of the individual foods matter not, but rather the combined LOAD of the meal. So simply by adding some organic butter on top of your long-grain high GI value rice you have a medium GI value for that meal!

Also, without going into any science here, does it make sense that we should avoid foods such as grapes, bananas and cooked carrots simply because they have a high GI value? Does that make them count as junk food? And what about pork rinds, bacon and blue cheese - foods loaded with sodium, nitrites and whatnot, yet they score low on the Glycemic Index. Using this logic, a meal consisting of bacon, pork rinds and drizzled with blue cheese should be healthier than a wholesome ripe banana full of potassium, B-vitamins, and even a bit serotonin?

According to the index you should avoid water melon and cooked carrots – both superfoods with regard to their natural high contents of respectively Lycopene and Beta Carotene. Ultimately, there are a lot of other factors that come into play when determining whether a food is healthy or not. Also, the Glycemic Index does not take into account the amount we eat of the various foods listed; this is where the term Glycemic Load is relevant.

In many of the studies on the Glycemic Index, subjects were forced to eat the same number of calories of various foods - 250 calories of white bread, 250 calories of carrots, 250 calories of potatoes, and so on. Eating 250 calories of carrots equals 1.5 pounds of food! Outside a research lab, it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to eat 250 calories of carrots in one sitting! Studies that take into account real-world eating, such as the one presented in Diabetes Care 2005 vol 28., found so-called high-glycemic foods like carrots and potatoes no longer raise blood sugar or insulin levels any more than many other foods. Nor do they enhance appetite or produce excess calorie intake and obesity.

Furthermore when we combine foods, then the Glycemic index completely loses its value.
Admittedly, there has not been done enough peer reviewed articles on this topic; however, basic common sense will tell you that eating a piece of watermelon which has a high GI is hardly more unhealthy than a lower GI food such as a cheeseburger, which will offset a cascade of chemical reactions in the body due to the contents of trans fats etc. The Glycemic Index is misleading and overly simplified.

That said, if you suffer from diabetes - similar to any other disease - then you do need to match your current health state with a medicinal diet that caters for your symptoms - and that means that you want to avoid certain otherwise healthy foods.

Every disease requires a specific dietary approach as does every genotype - but relying on the GI Index as a universal health tool is quite frankly a disaster.

What we need to focus on is a phytonutrient index, as most Americans are overweight yet micronutrient undernourished.

Obese during pregnancy increase risk 67% of having child with autism.

You may not be aiming for the cover of a magazine, but if you decide to pack on the pounds excessively during pregnancy, this could have devastating consequences for your offspring - far beyond any vanity concerns for your waistline.

Now here's one good reason to stay in shape for more than vanity reasons; especially if you're even thinking of multiplying yourself and giving your offspring a better future:

New study on women who were obese during pregnancy were about 67 percent more likely than normal-weight women to have autistic children.

They also faced double the risk of having children with other developmental delays.

On average, women face a 1 in 88 chance of having a child with autism; the results suggest that obesity during pregnancy would increase that to a 1 in 53 chance, the authors said.

The study was released online Monday in Pediatrics.

Reference:

J American Academy of Pediatrics. Maternal Metabolic Conditions and Risk for Autism and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Krakowiak P. et al.

What owns, controls and limits you in life right now?

"Remember, we are the masters and money is the servant - it's never the other way around. What you fear the most in life, owns you, controls you, and limits you."

John Svalina, Author

So ask yourself, what owns, controls and limits you in your life right now?

And then decide to face your fear. 

But to do that without getting numbed out when the fear factor hits, you need a game plan in order to succeed. And that is exactly what working with a coach can give you: a clear-cut strategy on how to overcome the obstacles in life and move forward, one step at a time til you are, exactly where you want to be.

You just have to reach out and decide to do it. Just do it!

Contact me to sign up for next available coaching session available via Skype or in person in The Nutrition Doctor's LA office.

A strong body comes from a strong mind.
Know what you want: body, mind and soul, and we'll get you there!

YOU ARE FAT! ...yeah, and so what?

Ad to fight child obesity in Georgia.
Is this helping the solve the cause of the issue,
or only  ridiculing it, making it even more difficult to get to the core of the issue.

This ad left me feeling slightly discombobulated, to say the least. 

My initial reaction was, "how dare they!... That is just tasteless!"

Admittedly, working with body image issues and eating disorders, as one of my specialties, by balancing those brain chemistry imbalances that are at play in combination with working with behavioral change modification, I am quite opinionated when it comes to ed triggers and body image issues presented in society.

Even though above ad is clearly crossing the line for good taste by inspiring other kids to make fun of the fat kids in school - I think it would be refreshing, if we could all get to a point where fat is just that: fat. You are fat. Yes. And so what - nothing to cry about. I am not telling you, you are worthless or stupid or unloveable - far, far from it!

Love vs. Lust.

We seem to forget - consciously or not - that being fat has nothing to do with your qualities as a human being or how lovable you are. You are very lovable! Never forget that the size of your derriere has NOTHING to do with how much someone loves you! Don't fall victim to not being able to decipher the difference between lust and love. Everyone can be lusted upon - only few are those who you will connect with on a soul level and love. You are selling yourself short if you aim for lust instead of love. Lust cannot replace love. Ever.

Yeah, you have fat. And I have kidney disease. Same, same but different.

I think a lot of us, when we overreact to hearing the words "you are fat", don't realize that sure enough, this may be said as an insultment, but in the end - it really isn't. It is just like saying "you have kidney disease". That is, if our society wasn't completely brainwashed by unrealistic ideals and a tendency to connect the bulge on your waistline with self-worth.

Health care professionals need to get the big picture of how we are contributing to poor body image and unconsciously sending a message to our clients of connecting bodyfat% with their worth as human beings. 

As a health practitioner or parent it is NOT OK to ignore the fact that someone is fat. 

And it is NOT OK to ridicule it either, of course. 

It is never OK to ridicule, whatever the matter is, so that's really not the point of this post.

Facts are facts.

If someone is overweight, we need to explain this to them in a neutral manner: that this will in fact kill them. And that's a fact. Curves are hot and scrawny is not. But come on now - we all now the difference between having curves and being obese. Obesity is a disease that needs to be targeted as such. Not a freakin' mental illness or taboo. 

Especially professionals working in the eating disorder field get terrified of ever mentioning to a client anything about too much weight, as they fear this could trigger relapse.

But guess what: clients are not stupid. And they are not going to trust someone who tells them that every shape and size is great. Every single one of us knows what size we feel most comfortable being, and we need to connect this with what is realistic considering the demands of our lifestyle.

Nervous Nellies

Messed up and sick body images that can only be achieved by starving yourself on a less than 1500 kcal diet is not something that anyone should aim for. That is where we as health care practitioners must work with the client on a wake-up call. If you are not an athlete or paid to starve yourself like every runway model these days do (often suppressing hunger pans with coke or "getting off" on starving themselves due to genetically elevated serotonin levels, which I have written about in another post on this blog), then don't go there. You cannot lead a healthy and balanced life with a bodyfat% in the single digits or a BMI below 18 (and don't forget the BMI was developed to also cater for small-framed asians - so if you are a of a big-boned caucasian descent, BMI of below 20 is probably not happening without a struggle for it). No - those people who claim that they are naturally that scrawny, often use drugs to mess with their body's set-point - and that includes cigarettes. 

Having too little fat makes you a nervous nelly. Your nerves need a bit of fat on your derriere to be cool and collected. And that's a fact.

But in the end: fat is just that - fat. It's like your doctor telling you, you have kidney disease. And hey, you need to do something about it. Or else, it sure as heck will do something about you.

Reframing our minds to accept the fact that fat is just fat and NOTHING else value based, is probably one of the biggest paradoxical obstacles right now in the health field. This is key to developing a streamlined approach to how we attack this epidemic in a tasteful and neutral manner. Without sweet lies that no-one really believes in, and that only makes for a distrustful relationship between health care practitioner and client.

New Aspects on Obesity: Sodium increases white adipose tissue and leptin resistance!

A calorie is not a calorie, and how you respond to your diet depends on your genotype and how your brain is wired. Nutrition is information that speaks to your genes, and activates messages of health or disease. 

You need to understand the language of your genes to match it to the right diet for you.

Leptin is the satiety hormone in your brain and involved in regulating your fat-burning hormones. Your fat cells secret leptin, and under normal circumstances signals to your brain that you are fine; no starvation in sight. However, when you reach obesity and your leptin continues to rise you develop LEPTIN RESISTANCE. In other words, you no longer react to the message of fullness that this hormone is sending you - so you continue to eat as your hunger/appetite switch no longer functions, and your metabolic rate drops big time. Your body thinks it is in starvation mode as it is not receiving the feedback from leptin telling it that the fat stores are indeed full.

What is interesting is that there are certain nutrients that have an effect on leptin beyond calorie control.

One is sodium: Apart from that it makes you look like a bloated goldfish, raises blood pressure, research now shows that it increases the inactive, cytokine-producing white fatty tissue in your body as well as increases leptin and leads to resistance, which bottom-line means that SALT MAKES YOU FAT!

Again, calorie counting doesn't work - understanding the science behind what's on your FORK is the key to optimize your metabolism to turn on your fat-burning hormones.

Now you can still sprinkle sea salt on your eggs, you do need sodium to keep your electrolyte balance in order, but everything that is packaged, processed and man made is loaded with refined sodium - it's not the calories in as much as it is the chemicals that are adding to our waistlines!

Try using Braggs liquid aminos to season your dishes - it has a rich, salty flavor to it and dense in nutrients as well as being low in sodium.

Reference:

Miriam H. Fonseca-Alaniz, Luciana C. Brito, Cristina N. Borges-Silva, Julie Takada, Sandra Andreotti, and Fabio B. Lima. High Dietary Sodium Intake Increases White Adipose Tissue Mass and Plasma Leptin in Rats. J of Obesity vol 10 2007 

Get skinny with HCG: Pregnancy hormone now also available for men.

HCG or Human Chorionic Gonadotropin is a glycoprotein hormone produced in pregnancy that is made by the developing embryo after conception and later by the placenta. Its primary utility is to provide nourishment to the fetus by burning the fat content from the mother's body. Research on HCG has suggested that it can have large repercussions on tackling obesity, a glaring problem in the modern day. 


First off - the long-term effects of taking a pregnancy hormone (especially for males... I mean HELLO?!) are not clear - so anyone taking it are guinea pigs at this point in time.


Let's say there are no side effects. Great. Inject yourself like another crack addict in your quest for a skinny derriere. What do you think you'll look like next year when your body has adapted to the hormone? The cause of why you got fat is still left untreated - whether it be emotional eating or metabolic inhibition. You are going to gain everything back and also deal with whatever side-effects may occur later on in your life.


HCG is a band-aid at best - at worst it will lead to endocrine disruption and possibly later cell mutation etc.

The only permanent way to shed the pounds for good is to evaluate each patient's brain chemistry and connect the imbalances with the corresponding amino and nutrient therapy program geared at rebalancing those neurotransmitters at play.

For emotional overeaters: typically serotonin - or dopamine/serotonin
For people struggling with sluggish metabolism: typically dopamine. Each of which requires a unique treatment approach. 
Also hormonal balancing must be considered: considering that neurotransmitters and hormones interact: dopamine-testosterone and serotonin-estrogen

Every imbalance can be traced back to neurotransmitters in the brain.

Humans are hedonistic creatures and eventually we will give in to some sort of instant gratification behavior that temporarily balances or spikes those feel-good neurotransmitters associated with mood and reward.

No one can feel good on a 500 kcal diet for more than the temporary appetite suppressant effect lasts.

Frankly, I can't believe we are still giving into this sort of symptom management when the knowledge on how to treat the actual cause is there - we are just not communicating enough between physicians, nutritionists and neuro/ brain scientists.
And that lack of communication - that is an embarrassment to the health care field as a whole. 
Not to mention the patients.


Follow The Nutrition Doctor in this discussion on linkedin here. 


Join The Nutrition Doctor's think-tank here.

Eating breakfast shown to reduce brain signals that when active, lead to reward driven eating behavior.

Check out the texture!
There is nothing better than starting off the day 

licking a bowl clean of ice cream...

 slightly naughty, but it really is good for you! Depending on what I crave, 

I'll top it with berries, shaved dark chocolate, chopped nuts 

or simply drizzle some raw honey over it. 

So. Unbelievably. Good.

New study explains the brain chemical science of what we already know: Eating breakfast in the morning reduced brain activity in the regions associated with motivation and reward, which is also where dopamine is released – a hormone that plays a role in emotional well-being and pleasure. Skipping the most important meal of the day is associated with more snacking and food cravings.

More protein in the morning reduces snacking

Functional MRI (fMRI) was used to look at brain activity related to food motivation and reward. The researchers also measured appetite perceived by the teens, hormonal markers and psychological motivation related to desire to eat.

The adolescents who ate breakfast reported greater satisfaction and less hunger throughout the morning, compared to those who skipped breakfast.

The Nutrition Doctor in The Kitchen is right now making frozen yogurt with just 3 ingredients: Greek yogurt, raw honey and a tiny drop of Amaretto.
When making your own fro-yo, the secret to amazing rich creaminess that just wraps around your tongue like silk is to use 2% Greek yogurt and adding just a drop of liqueur to lower the freezing point and avoid ice crystals. Greek yogurt is a great breakfast choice as it has triple the protein contents of regular, so it satisfies you longer than regular plain yogurt. In the heat of the summer this is one of my breakfast favourites - yes ice cream for breakfast. Rich, creamy... so decadent yet oh-so-good-for you. Lick it, baby!

Reference: Heather J. Leidy et al. "Neural Responses to Visual Food Stimuli After a Normal vs. Higher Protein Breakfast in Breakfast-Skipping Teens: A Pilot fMRI Study”. Obesity (2011) doi:10.1038/oby.2011.108

The Price of Vanity...

30 % of women would trade at least one year of their life to achieve their ideal body weight and shape.

Kelly Brook: Does having a slamming body equal happiness?

Latest research conducted for new eating disorder charity The Succeed Foundation, in partnership with the University of the West of England (UWE), has found that 30% of women would trade at least one year of their life to achieve their ideal body weight and shape.  The research has also found that in order to achieve their ideal body weight and shape:

-- 16% would trade 1 year of their life
-- 10% would trade 2-5 years of their life
-- 2% would trade 6-10 years of their life
-- 1% would trade 21 years or more of their life

The survey conducted at British Universities by Dr Diedrichs also discovered that in order to achieve their ideal body weight and shape, 26% of the women surveyed were willing to sacrifice at least one of the following:

-- £5000 from their annual salary (13%)
-- A promotion at work (8%)
-- Achieving a first class honours degree (6%)
-- Spending time with their partner (9%)
-- Spending time with their family (7%)
-- Spending time with their friends (9%)
-- Their health (7%)

The survey results suggest that body dissatisfaction was common among the women surveyed, with 1 in 2 women saying that more needs to be done on their university campus to promote healthy body image.

-- 46% of the women surveyed have been ridiculed or bullied because of their appearance.

-- 39% of the women surveyed reported that if money wasn't a concern they would have cosmetic surgery to alter their appearance. Of the 39% who said they would have cosmetic surgery, 76% desired multiple surgical procedures. 5% of the women surveyed have already had cosmetic surgery to alter their appearance.

-- 79% of the women surveyed reported that they would like to lose weight, despite the fact that the majority of the women sampled (78.37%) were actually within the underweight or 'normal' weight ranges. Only 3% said that they would like to gain weight.

-- 93% of the women surveyed reported that they had had negative thoughts about their appearance during the past week. 31% had negative thoughts several times a day
-- When asked which celebrity has the perfect body Kelly Brook came top of the list. Let's hope she found happiness and not just another Botox needle addict.


Looking great and feeling great do go together, as it shows when you treat your body with respect. But exchanging years of life for perfection screams out loud that we are not connecting the dots: If you fail to heal your inner wounds and the reason why you are struggling with emotional eating, then you will end up a shallow, hollow shell with little else to offer than firm buttocks. And when all is said and done... we all end up like raisins in the end. So finding that internal happiness before you pursue the body of your dreams should always come as step 1.


That is why a Life Stylist is key to make for lang-lasting change and permanent weight-loss success.
When you radiate happiness from within it shines through. And you will want to treat your body with respect.

Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/221215.php 05 Apr 2011 

No, it's NOT the pants: It's your ass that makes your ass look big.

I have this friend who is always complaining about the size of her ass. Well, actually I have a bunch of friends who do this. Come to think of it, the majority of my female friends' favorite topic is to discuss physical flaws and what they are unhappy with.

A mind-blowingly boring topic, if I may say so.

Because nothing ever changes in the changing room; the question they ask remains the same, "Does my ass look big in this?". Well, if you need to ask darling, then it probably does. And no, it's not the pants: It's your ass that makes your ass look big. Take some responsibility and stop playing the victim. That said, there is nothing wrong with having some junk in your trunk; I think it's hot. The type of fat you accumulate on your rear is inactive fat; meaning it does not produce cytokines, the type of proteins that promote inflammation.

Either own it or do something about it.

Complaining and whining is a waste of precious time.

That, and it is very unattractive.

Fatal attraction starts with feeling comfortable 

in your own skin...

whatever the size of your ass, 

and whether it needs a zip-code of its own or not.

What I do not understand, however, is that if you are really unhappy about something, then why don't you just step up to the plate and change it, and go after what you want in life.

Instead of whining, complaining and trying... always trying. Trying is not going to get you anywhere. Either you commit to doing it, or you don't. Simple really. And yet, admittedly, it is the simple things in life that often are the most difficult to grasp.

Committing to doing something requires planning, structuring and mapping out what drives you and setting short-term as well as long-term goals. And don't think you can do it on your own, because you can't. When it comes to change, everybody needs help and accountability. The first step is admitting that even though you may know what you need to do, you just can't transfer that knowledge into action without help. Yes, this process probably takes a couple of sessions or ten with your Life Stylist, but that enables you to break the habit of being you and sets the fundament for your new life - designed by you, the way you want it.

What are you complaining about?
Write it down as well as a list of all the pros and cons of not changing - if the cons of not changing outweigh the pros, well, then it's time to commit to break the habit of being you.