Smokers. Overweight Individuals. Twins.

"I am so ashamed that I smoke."

I received those words the other day from an avid reader and close friend in Canada.

I have also heard that same phrase from a thousand readers who say they are ashamed they are excessively overweight.

Let's tackle the two related ideas that flow from those conversations.

Smoking is an addiction.

We all know that smoking is an addiction. We accept that. We know that there is a substance in tobacco that hooks smokers, and makes it very difficult to get unhooked.

So, while we may not enjoy being around people while they are smoking, we give them a certain "pass" because we know they are addicted. We usually don't think of smokers as having a character defect.

Smokers get a "will=power" pass. We know that smokers can delay smoking for only so long. Then the urge to light up is overwhelming, and they have to give in and smoke. No one has to tell us that. We just know smokers are a special case – they are addicted.

Being overweight, however, is too often viewed as a character defect. Most people think overweight people choose to overeat. The thinking goes that if they would just push themselves back from the table, or eat differently, they would not be overweight. Sadly, men especially believe this way, about women, and about themselves.

In fact, I belong to a LinkedIn group of weight loss professionals that just had that discussion. They all agreed that overweight people lack self-discipline – (mostly only men commenting, I might add).

But what about overweight people? Don't most people just assume they willingly over-eat? Don't most people blame excess weight on some kind of character defect in the overweight person? There is even a very old and well-recognized group called Overeaters Anonymous that was founded on the premise that you can "just say no" to over-eating.

The biggest problem with this "lack-of-self-discipline" thinking is that many, perhaps most, overweight people believe it. They have bought into the myth that being overweight is simply a problem of lacking self-restraint.

It is a false premise. And a damaging one.

Overeating is an addiction.

Eating too much, or eating the wrong foods, is the result of chemicals acting on your body in exactly the same way that smoking does. It is an addiction. Some of the same body chemicals are involved. Said another way, overeating is an addiction in the same way that smoking is an addiction. It's being hooked on a chemical – a chemical dependency that is extremely difficult to overcome.

Because of the chemical dependency, you can't just delay eating any more than smokers can delay smoking, and expect the urge to go away. It doesn't. The longer you delay eating to fight the urge, the larger your appetite becomes. Sooner or later you will have to given-in, and when you do, you will over eat much more than if you hadn't delayed eating in the first place.

So, if you want to understand why you are excessively overweight, you have to start there. You have to understand it is a problem of chemical dependency – it most certainly is not a problem with your character. And if you don't start there, you will end up in the wrong place. You will regain lost weight every time you try to lose weight.

The path out of addiction.

Which brings me back to my smoker friend. The route out of smoking addiction begins with a commitment to self. It starts with an overwhelming reason to want to quit. Absent that, every route to permanent smoking cessation will be stymied. The withdrawal from an addictive substance sucks out your will-power. It destroys your good intent. It makes a mockery of your self-control.

Overcoming smoking addiction has to begin with getting very clear about your reasons to quit. It is all about finding not one, but many very strong reasons to quit – then understanding them deeply. It is about visualizing very vividly how your life would be different by not smoking.

The research shows that there are only two kinds of reasons that work as sufficient motivators to break free of addiction. Both are deeply personal:

(1) How do you view yourself, and and how you feel about your self-worth. And...
(2) How you think your present actions, and your future success in changing them, will affect significant others in your life

If you can't find enough personal reasons to quit smoking, if they are not deep and personal enough, you will TRY to quit. With the destructive force of chemical dependency working against you, TRYING to quit is the prescription for failure. You cannot try. You can only do. Or not do. (Thanks to Master Yoda for that clear distinction.)

Kicking the addiction that leads to excess weight.

Successfully losing significant excess weight is precisely the same process. In fact, all the best research shows that the emotional and psychological path to losing a lot of weight, and keeping it off, is precisely the same as for kicking smoking addiction.

You have to have a reason beyond pounds to lose weight permanently. You have to have a reason beyond health to take the weight off.

Overcoming smoking and overcoming bad eating patterns begin in finding increasingly strong reasons to do them.

Overcoming these twin addictions is about increasing your sense of self-worth – and about openly understanding your impact on others – both when you are not successful in achieving your goals, and when you are.

Yet these actions alone do not always equal success. You MUST take into account that you are battling a chemical dependency. You CANNOT fight chemical withdrawal by will power along. You need help, and helping relationships.

You need accurate information about what you are up against. Most of all, once that is all "on board" your mind, and firmly secured for the stormy passage ahead, you need a science-based strategy that can deliver you to success.

All the will-power in the universe cannot get you past chemical dependency by itself.

We all know that about people who need to quit smoking. We know they need help overcoming chemical dependency. We accept it is not that they just lack character.

You need to know – you need to accept – that losing excessive weight and keeping it off permanently is exactly the same as smoking cessation.

You need to overcome chemical dependency, and for that you need help, and helping relationships. Quit blaming your lack of will power for your repeated failures at keeping the pounds off. Quit thinking you have some special kind of character defect.

You may have been overweight for a long time, but there is nothing wrong with you that accurate information and a correct "overcoming chemical dependency" strategy won't cure.

Smokers. Excessively overweight individuals. They are twins.

There is nothing to be ashamed of in being either. You are hooked on a chemical dependency. You are in the process of overcoming that dependency. You are to be applauded for that effort – you need to give yourself credit for doing something about it, instead of wrapping yourself in self-described shame.

Self-shame, in fact, lowers your self-esteem, giving yourself reason to fail yet again.

Get past shame, and get on to your success.

Once you start thinking about being overweight is like being a smoker, you are on the path to permanent weight loss success. Isn't that what you want?

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

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Lose the Weight Loss Battle. The Top 5 Reasons.

If you have battling your weight for years, it's time to give up on it. Surrender. End the war. Let peace begin.

You see, that really is the key to permanent weight loss... ending the battle.

When you are constantly at war, when there is no peace, you get lost in the battle, and lose your ability to raise up your head and see the far horizon. And when you can't see far enough ahead, into your own future, you get lost where you already are.

Weight loss efforts are too often spoken about using the language of war, the soundings of endless battles, the din of combat.

That is where the language gets you sucked-in to the wrong analogies. And you start believing the words, and not see there is a different way. You get locked into the language mentally and start acting as if the weight loss war is real.

You start thinking in terms of winning and losing battles.
You start relating to "being in the trenches". The incessant drum of the words of war assault your sense of peace, and you find none. No peace, at least not on this front (see, even "this front" is a term borrowed from wars).

When you are at war you gather 'round you the weapons of war, the accoutrements of battle, and equip yourself for the struggles ahead. You prepare yourself daily to fight, and perhaps lose skirmishes and big battles for your weight. You never leave it behind, whether at home, at work, at restaurants, at parties, or at a friend's house. You are vigilant to make make sure you are not surprised by having to eat something you know you shouldn't.

With all that clang and bang and confusion of battle rattling inside your head, you lose the ability to hear yourself. You no longer have the ability to filter out what is true and right for your body. That is where your struggles get you lost, without you understanding the best solutions for yourself.

You look to the battlefield ahead to see what can help you lose weight better, this time. You go from the "new breakthrough this" to the "old familiar that," to your friends' suggestions, to your wondering if the late night infomercials really do have something for you. Or perhaps that sexy woman online from the TV fat loss contest really does have something that works.

How can you sort all that junk out and make sense of it, if you can't hear yourself? If you can't hear yourself well, you lose your trust in your judgement, because so may things you once thought were good for your weight loss, all turn out to be worthless.

War. Battle. Weapons. Winning. Losing. Struggles.
Whew! No wonder you are tired when you wake up. Almost as tired as when you went to sleep. And you are certainly no further ahead in your ability to lose weight and keep it off permanently.

It's time to lay down the weapons of war. It is time to lose the battle.
Time to stop the insanity of pursuing the same things over and over, and never getting a better result.

Take off the instruments of fighting. Drop your weapons, and come home. Come home to you. Where you are safe and it is quiet. And peace reigns.

In a place of quiet you can hear yourself. It may be a bit unfamiliar at first, but your voice is in there. Just let your inner voice bubble to the surface. Then listen. Listen to your heart beating. It's beating right now. Listen... ... ...

Hear it? That amazing sound is your heart beating, amidst amazing silence. Peace.

You have to begin in peace if you want to be in touch with what your body is saying about your weight loss efforts. In your place of peace, you can really hear the difference between truth and bs. When you really want to energize your weight loss efforts, peace is the only way you will ever be able to know the difference between what will work for you, and what will not.

You have an amazing body. It knows a lot.
Your body knows when you feed it garbage. It knows how to make you feel great when you eat healthy regularly. You just have to listen to it.

But, after years in the trenches, at war, struggling, fighting, winning, and ultimately losing the weight loss battle, you get disconnected from your body. It's difficult to know when you are really hungry, or if something else is going on. It is difficult also to know how to deal with the cravings, and what to do to get rid of them. It is especially difficult to know when you are full, and understand why you can't put down the fork, even though you know you don't really need more food.

The war with your weight leaves scars that run deep.
Every combat veteran will tell you that the biggest, most frightening scars are the ones unseen by others – unsuspected by others – often unknown by you for many years – your very personal form of weight-loss-delayed-stress-syndrome. Like most war veterans, you won't admit it, or don't see it. Nevertheless it is real. And you will only be able to deal with it by leaving the war behind. Permanently. And know it is permanently behind you.

To a veteran, war fades slowly from memory. Your quick reflex actions of defense and aggression from the war zone are automatic for a long time. They preserved you in battle, but in a place of true peace, they are out of place, not needed, and almost always the wrong thing to do to control your weight, and make it drop permanently.

Are you a weight loss veteran, you may ask? Seem like an extreme analogy? Over-wrought?

No. Absolutely not. That may be difficult to see when you are still in the war zone. But after you have been out for a while, you will see just how difficult all those war years really were. Plus the toll it took on you emotionally as well as physically.

So, at this point of time you just need to step back, see the weight-war that is being waged around you – within you. And accept that it is time to lose the weight loss battle. That is your path to VICTORY.

The Top 5 Reasons You WILL Have Weight Loss Victory

5. YOU WILL STOP DIETING
• Dieting is the #1 reason for long term weight gain – the more you diet, the more you will gain, long-term
• Dieting disconnects you from your normal feelings of hunger, and fullness
• Dieting is the #1 cause of eating disorders
• Dieting makes you feel deprived, which increases your chance of binging
• Dieting causes your body to retain fat, and lose muscle mass

4. YOU WILL FIND REASONS TO EXERCISE 4-5 DAYS A WEEK
• It will relieve your stress
• You will burn excess calories and body fat
• It will make your body build muscle, which helps you burn more fat
• It will combat osteoporosis

3. YOU WILL STOP CHASING THE WEIGHT LOSS FADS
• You will stop believing all the hype about the latest popular weight loss programs
• You will stop looking at short term weight loss as a valid criterium for evaluating weight loss programs
• You will begin researching the world of science-based, permanent weight loss

2. YOU WILL FIND A PLACE OF PEACE
• You will engage with supportive friends, and de-stress twice a day
• You will get 7-9 hours of sleep every night, and make it a priority

1. YOU WILL STOP BELIEVING YOU CANNOT SUCCEED

Lose the weight loss war. Find peace. Achieve victory. And finally believe you will succeed at permanent weight loss.

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

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Dare to Dream -- about Real Weight Loss Now

(This article is about an amazing "thought experiment" -- to consider what it would take, what it would be like to lose ALL your excess weight. My thanks to Emily for suggesting it. LG)

It is difficult to get to know who you are.

It is easier to know who you have been (at least until an old acquaintance finds you on Facebook and tells a very different story of who you used to be).

But the real difficulty is in knowing who you really want to be in five years, or ten. Or twenty.

Yet that thought about your future is really not a useless or fanciful excursion. That act it is a key to your ability, your willingness, the depth of your passion, to lose weight now.

It begins with who you are when you are alone. It ends with a commitment to crafting the future you ardently desire. In between, well, that is the gray area, the amorphous "I am just being who I already am."

Do you dare think how different your life would be if you lost ALL your excess weight?

If you have been 25, 50, 100 pounds or more overweight for a very long time, if is difficult for you to imagine weighing much less than you do now. You probably even have a weight loss goal defined by how much you weighed just a couple of years ago, not when you were 18 or 22.

But seldom do you even dare think you could ever get back to where you started, what you weighed before the serious pounds started accumulating.

Why not?

Why not dare to dream the unthinkable? Why do you not allow yourself the freedom of imagination to project yourself into the future weighing what you know you should, instead of what you are willing to settle for?

Sit back for a long moment and linger. How would your life be different if you weighed the correct weight for your height? How would your primary relationships be different? How would your friendships be affected? What would you do differently? How would you be different? How would you feel about your life?

You see, your ability to lose most of the excess weight you have had for many, many years is directly tied to your willingness to see how your life would inevitably be different. If you can't imagine that hoped-for world, you, of course, can never get there.

If you do not find the prospect of weighing the right weight an exciting possibility, an enticing opportunity to re-invigorate your life, you will lag in your motivation to get there.

Permanent weight loss is more about what you feed your heart and imagination, than what you feed your body.

And that has to begin with you knowing not only who you are, but how you want to live out the remainder of your life.

If you are content with losing 10 or 20 pounds, it will help your health -- every pound you lose does.

But that amount of weight loss is not going to change your life. When you achieve significant weight loss, 40-50-75 pounds or more, many things WILL change in your life, whether you want it to or not. And it will change a lot more than just your wardrobe.

When you learn to grasp that change in reality, and begin to shape it, begin to mould it around all that you have wanted to do and be, and be seen as, then you will begin to take control of your weight. The more you shape your dream of the future, the more you will reshape your body today.

These are connected wholes -- who you are, and who you strongly desire to be. Both are real. You need to shape your future more clearly, more carefully, less haphazardly. You need to accept ONLY that you can achieve what you greatly desire, what you fervently deserve.

Weight loss success is not about money, nor those who love you...

Nor is permanent weight loss even about those who don't love you the way you wish, or need them to. It is not about finding the perfect time, or way, or program to do it. It is about accepting the imperfect you, who nonetheless, is doing something more very day to get your weight where you know it can be, where you really want it to be.

This type of life is not about shaving calories from your meals, nor fat grams from your food choices, nor worrying if you should have cheated on yesterday's food exchange points.

This type of life is measured in the real steps you take every day to grasp your desired future by the reins and lead yourself, step-by-joyful step.

It is not about sacrifice, nor giving up, nor turning away from old enjoyments.

It is all about building a new reality around the beautiful core that is you. It is about what you are gaining in your quest, not what you are giving up to achieve it.

Dare to dream the unthinkable dream. Make it real and alive and vibrant in your mind. Let it become your living reality. And leave the tired and older and overweight you far behind. Not because it was bad, but because your future is so much better.

Dare to dream.

You have one life to live in this body. Where will it take you the rest of your days?

The decision is up to you.

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

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Weight Loss Motivation? Where is My Instruction Manual?

It is easy to lose your way on the road to permanent weight loss. Very easy to get stuck. When you want to lose much more than 25 pounds, it is a process that takes months, not weeks. As the weeks wear by, as the days droll on, it can be dreary, monotonous, annoying. And lonely. A journey not shared with others.

No matter how many pounds you lose there is always this fear that you will slip, and gain most of it back.

Of course there are those moments of joy when you reach one of your interim goals. Certainly there are rewards when others tell you that you're looking slimmer.

But in the alone minutes, in the times when so much is happening and you have to eat on the run, or over a pile of paperwork, it's tough to know what you are really doing – are you doing the right things? It's also easy to find a ton of excuses why this meal, this snack, this day, this week, etc., you have a very good reason not to eat like you know you should.

Permanent weight loss is more about what you feed your brain, than what you feed your body.

Permanent weight loss is more about your belief in your ability to do it, than it is in which program you use to do it.

Permanent weight loss is about learning to connect the dots between what you do each moment, and what happens to your body a year from now.

Permanent weight loss is about commitment to a principle and never backing down. It is about accepting that you don't do everything correctly, and don't do it every time – but you are doing it.

Permanent weight loss is visualizing your body the way it should be, then letting nothing, (including you momentarily falling off the path), stand in your way.

Permanent weight loss is relentless devotion to your ideal body – emblazoned – seared, into your conscious thought – you will NOT be denied.

Permanent weight loss is – or it is not.

There are no half measures on the road to permanence.

So how do you get there? How do you increase your motivation to make all that happen?

How do you achieve the never-fatigued inner resolve to let nothing stand in your way?

How do you get that day-to-day, moment-to-moment motivation drilled into you, pounded into you, convincingly persuaded into you, until you achieve your lifelong goal?

In other words...

...Where is the instruction manual to your weight loss motivation?

The short answer is...

There isn't any. At least none that any other person can tell you, or give to you.

The difficulty with weight loss motivation lies in its inherent contradiction:
a. You can only find the answer to the riddle of your motivational challenge within yourself
b. But you don't really trust yourself to stay motivated

What you don't realize is that your motivation is something that boils up from inside of you. It is not something imposed on you from the outside. It can't be. Besides, it is already there. Dormant. You just need to get all your blockage out of the way, to let your inner motivation escape into the open, then guide your daily actions.

Beset with a record of past weight loss failures, you doubt that is going to happen anytime soon. So you reach instinctively for someone else's opinion. A friend. An expert. A person who has successfully done it. Maybe even Oprah.

What you desperately want is a checklist. A crutch. A guide. A great video series. An inspirational book. A carefully structured way to "find" your everlasting motivation.

An outside guide to weight loss motivation that works, doesn't exist.

None of them. Never has. Never will. And those who tell you otherwise have something to sell you -- perhaps some modern-day snake oil. Or a large swamp outside of Las Vegas that just needs to be drained before you can build a billion dollar hotel on it.

Not that checklists and structured paths (those done with sensitivity and professional skill) can't take you a way down the path of lifting your motivation. A few can. The trouble is, they just can't get you to go all the way to your success. Because that can only come from deep inside you, and no one can tell you how to do that.

So, when these guru's get you part way there, and you ultimately fail, you blame it on yourself. Then you lose even more precious confidence in yourself -- and you had none to spare in the first place.

Reflect and find your way to weight loss motivation success.

Sustaining weight loss motivation, especially if you weigh 50 pounds or more than you should, is exceptionally difficult to maintain month after month using anyone's system. In part, that is because in the really tough moments that always happen, when the pressures can really get to you, you come to realize the "system" you have been relying on is NOT YOU TALKING TO YOU. And that gives you the perfect excuse to reject it. Once rejected, you can never again rely on it. It has been discredited. Then you are back to square one: impaired motivation, with nothing to replace it.

That is why you must find your own way to weight loss motivation.

The purpose of my book "How to Curb Your Appetite – And Stop Your Cravings" is to give you 36 different views of how others have done it successfully. None of them are your path. Nor were they intended to be. Their purpose is for you to seek some alone time to read them. Then reflect. Come back several days later, re-read a chapter, and think about it again.

Personal reflection, repeated often, is a re-building process. No single idea (or chapter) will get you far. No single idea is going to jump out of the page and smack you alongside your head, and have you say, "Eureka, now I've got it!"

As I look back at the faces and remember the stories of those who have been through the process you are going through now, every one of them will tell you that at some point they wanted to just shake me and say, "Laura, just tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

And, in the end, each one of them who made it through successfully now tell me, "Thank you Laura for not "giving" me answers. Thank you for making me think more carefully about myself. Thank you for having the patience to allow me to keep experimenting until I found my own unique way to stay motivated every day. Thank you that I now can trust myself, and know that I am the author of my own success."

Unknowingly, they were not thanking me. They were really just thanking themselves. They did all the interior work and deserve the full credit for their success.

There is NO roadmap to your weight loss motivational success.

Your success is who you already are. You need no map to take you somewhere. There is nowhere to go. Everything you need, everything you require, you already have. You just need to accept that. Then live it.

Reflect and learn one piece of your inner truth at a time. Each piece will build the mosaic of your future, your lifelong, your permanent, weight loss success.

If you want weight loss success, consider what you may not have considered, this way, before

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

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5 Minutes. 4 Doughnuts. 3 days of dieting down the toilet. 2 late to change it. And you can't rewind.

It's not the big binges that get in the way. It's the little ones. The ones that creep up on you unawares.

Your body needs energy, first of all. It needs nutrition, second. When you don't feed your body energy, it produces uncontrollable hunger. When you don't feed it nutrition, your cravings speak loud and long. They will be satisfied.

This is the world of the dieter, driven between faminous hunger, and persistent cravings.

The time to stop these diet destroyers is BEFORE they happen, before they creep up on you and without warning take remote control of your body until you feed it what it is desperate for.

When are you going to get the message – the one your body has been consistently telling you every time you diet?

Never starve your body. Always feed it the quality nutrition it demands. And you will neither have mini nor maxi binges. You will have peace in your food wars, You will lose weight naturally.

So, why do you insist on dieting? Why do you think that short term starvation is a ticket to anything but delayed weight gain?

There are foods that feed you nutrition. There are food combinations that will help you lose weight. So, why do the opposite? Why be starved of nutrition? Why insist on eating food combinations that nature designed to make you add on weight?

In this case ignorance is neither bliss, nor defensible. Take control of the life energy that fuels your body. Learn to eat right. Then do it.

When you know there is a weight loss technology out there based on the science of your body, why do you ignore it?

When you know Nature crafted your body to eat directly from its fields, its trees, its forests, oceans, rivers and lakes, then why do you insist on eating food out of boxes, and think that something served through a car window is anything but poisonous to your every cell?

If you are not going to feed your body correctly, who is going to do it for you?

If you are not going to do it now, when are you going to start doing it? There are no cows to come home any more, but is that roughly your timetable?

If all it takes is 5 minutes to down 4 doughnuts, maybe you shouldn't have been on a diet for 3 days. Or any days for that matter.

Eat whole foods from Nature's bounty. Your weight will do what it's supposed to do.

No one is going to make a whole lot of money off of you for diet foods, but, hey, it's time for someone else to sacrifice.

It's time for you to be at a healthy weight. Do it now while it is still fresh on your mind.

Are you ready? Can your hear that "moo" coming your direction?

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

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The Best Weight Loss Method for Holiday Overeating...

Here is the best weight loss method for holiday overeating...

Everyone sort of goes off-diet during a holiday weekend, especially the 3-4 day long weekend type of holidays that pop-up too infrequently on the calendar.

Even when you are not on a "diet" diet, but just trying to eat sensibly, holidays are a huge invitation to allow a lot of off-menu foods onto your menu.

Do you know the #1 strategy used by most people to compensate for over-eating during the holidays?
-- Not eating breakfast, or skipping other meals in preparation for the holiday. Most people usually skip 2-3 meals during the holidays, or cut back on the appetizers. The idea is to "save" some calories now to make up for the extra ones you know you will be eating later.

-- Does it work? Nope. It just sets you up for binge eating later in the day, which adds a lot more calories to your body than the ones you "saved."

Want to know the #2 thing people do to handle the extra calories of the holidays?
-- Promising themselves they will skip some meals AFTER the holidays to make up for it.

--Does it work? Actually, these promises are almost always broken before they get started.

And the #3 thing people use to handle holiday culinary excesses:
-- Just eat whatever, and worry about it later.

-- Does it work? Can't really call this one a strategy, but a lot of people prefer it.

The only proven strategy to handle weight loss for holiday over-eating?
If you don't put it on you won't have to take it off.

OK, I know that was not what you were wanting or expecting. But, you know it is true.

Desiring, even planning to overeat, or eating the wrong foods during the holidays, is a great old cherished tradition. It is also one where a weekend can set back your weight loss goals for a month or more.

Let's say you were losing a healthy 2 pounds a week. If you are like most people, you'll gain 3-7 pounds over a 3-day weekend holiday.

Thus, you didn't get your 2 pounds of loss for the week, PLUS, you added 6 pounds. So, the total change in your weight is 2+6 = 8. You just set your weight loss back 8 pounds -- a month. Is 3 days of eating wrong really worth losing an entire month's worth of renewed weight loss efforts?

If you indulge in any form of the #1, #2, or #3 strategies for weight loss Or have your own special form of suspending sensibilities during a long holiday weekend, then you might want to consider a different approach...

Would you seriously consider changing your relationship to food?
Is overeating really a requirement to enjoy a great weekend?

Is eating the wrong foods worth the extra pain and renewed efforts it requires for true weight loss?

While holidays involve having fun with family and friends and having lots of new, luscious foods available, do you have to think in terms of "denial" when you see the vast buffet? Just because all that yummy food is calling out to you by name, and saying, "eat me, eat me, have an extra helping of me," doesn't mean you have to actually do it.

It is really possible to ignore all the loud voices clamoring for you to consume what you know you shouldn't.

Isn't it possible to take a small portion of each food you "really" want to try, and savor them in small quantities?

Isn't it possible think of the buffet spread as a chance to taste new and favorite foods, instead of an invitation to overeat?

You will feel great, and in control of your life, if at the end of the holiday weekend, you know you didn't gain anything. Or better yet, you lose 2 pounds. If you've never experienced that sense of weight loss victory, you're really missing something special. You will achieve a sense of personal satisfaction that can really rev up your weight loss motivation for weeks on end.

That result is the best win-win: Weight loss now, plus renewed weight loss motivation for the future. It is a real confidence builder. You really ought to try it.

Remember, the only proven strategy to handle weight loss for holiday over-eating?
If you don't put it on you won't have to take it off.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

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Has Food Defined You?

Is food defining who you are?

Is food an obsession? Do you fear food? Absolutely love it?

Does food creep into your thoughts when you should be thinking of something else?

Do specific foods make you crave them? Does just thinking about certain food combinations make your mouth water?

Do you knowingly overeat today, telling yourself that you will fast tomorrow to make up for it?

Did you eat excessively this week, telling yourself you will start dieting next week?

Do you lie to yourself about what you will and won't do about food, and dieting? Or consider purging?

Do you worry about what others may think when they see you eating in public, and change your food choices because of it?

Is food obsession a large part of your day, starting with when you first wake up and barely ending when you fall asleep at night.

Do you grab a bite to eat late in the evening, sometimes just before bed, even though you know your body doesn't need it, and you really aren't hungry?

Are you being defined by food?

Let me know about how food has defined you, in one way or another.

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

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Eat with a Baby's Fork. Ideas to Eat Less – to Live More

Have you ever eaten with a baby's fork? Or spoon? I'm sure you've nibbled a bit on the journey to baby's mouth.
It can be fun to feed a high-chair bound kid a meal using those diminutive utensils.

But can a baby's fork help you lose weight?

Would you be willing to eat an entire meal with them? Try it. You'll discover something quite interesting. I've recommended this fun idea to a lot of people. They always come back with one of two reactions.

The first reaction is many quit using baby's plastic flatware rather quickly. They get frustrated with the slowness of shoveling the food in.

The second reaction is that those who stuck it out all reported eating less in the meal.

Your body is amazing. When you eat fast, your body just lets you do it. When you eat more slowly, your body has the time to react and send your brain a signal that tells you to eat less.

That is exactly the point. Eating more slowly curbs your appetite. When you do that regularly, you will lose weight steadily.

So, if you really want to eat less in every meal, use whatever strategy you can. But a simple one is to eat with a baby's fork or spoon.

Would eating with a baby's fork really make your day lighter?

(BTW, Celebrate Premium Chocolate Truffles were designed from scratch to curb your appetite and stop your cravings by taking advantage of this phenomenon – plus some other equally powerful ones. Just savor them 20 minutes before your meal. See the reviews. It really works.)

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved. Sphere: Related Content

Don't Eat Like a Hummingbird. Ideas to Eat Less – to Live More

(Photo Courtesy: MDF/Wikipedia)

"She eats like a bird." How many times have you heard that said? And
what better model for that than the itsy, bitsy, tiny hummingbird.
"She is so tiny, I bet she eats like a hummingbird."

Maybe you ought to eat like a hummingbird to lose weight. Right?

Well, let's explode that myth.

Hummingbirds are tiny beautiful creatures. And they eat like a horse. Several horses, actually.

Tiny bodies. Tiny tongues. Tiny stomachs. You wouldn't expect them to have horrendous appetites. Yet, despite their small size, hummingbirds consume their body weight in food daily. Flapping their wings up to 90 times a second requires a lot of energy. On the build-up to their annual migration they can double their body weight in fat. Flying in excess of 30 mph, they have been known to fly over 500 miles non-stop migrating across the Gulf of Mexico.

So what do hummingbirds have to do with my weight loss problem?

Have you ever watched hummingbirds at a feeder? Birds, as in "several." They are intensely aggressive feeders. Never more than a few hours away from literally starving to death, they need their food in huge, never-ending quantities. Having found a good source of nectar they are not going to let another hummingbird consume the scarce commodity found in a feeder without a fight.

So they dive and attack, retreat and pursue each other. Every few minutes they return to the feeder to drive off a competitor, quickly get their beaks into the juice, then suck as fast as they can before they are interrupted by a rival. The contest over food goes on all day, and begins again at first light.

There is more than a little irony here. The red liquid food in the feeder is not scarce. It is virtually unlimited. Humans always refill it before it is empty. The same birds come to the same feeder every day, all day long, all Summer long. They even return to the same feeder after wintering in Mexico – they come back because they know there is no end to the food available to them.

However, hummingbirds don't trust their own experience. Their instincts, their genetic programming, tells them not to trust their daily, yearly experience of plentifulness. So they compete for food like there will be none left for them if other hummingbirds are allowed to eat even a tiny bit.

Do you eat like a hummingbird?
Trouble is, humans are more than a little like hummingbirds. It's less of a competition thing between people, and more of a scarcity reaction. We eat like there may not be enough food for us tomorrow. So, we consume tomorrow's calories today. Even some of the next day's calories.

Then, having eaten like we are getting ready to fly 500 miles non-stop to Mexico under our own power, we take a nap. Not to sleep it off, but to store it all up... never know when you might need to use up 6 months of fat stores, right?

The hummingbird gets away with having a voracious appetite because it is exercising like a self-made mini-hurricane the entire time it is hovering and eating. You could do the same. If you are going to eat like a hummingbird, exercise like a hummingbird. Alternatively, don't eat so much.

You don't have to starve yourself, nor should you. But if you have stored several days, or weeks, (or months) worth of food under your skin, then perhaps you know by now that:

(a) food for you is not likely to be scarce anytime soon, and

(b) you could safely eat less than you have been, with no ill effects

(c) you don't have to worry about your neighbor eating all the food in your cupboard, and

(d) you ought to "unpack" some of your fat reserves (since you're not going to be flying to Mexico any time soon – at least not under your own power)

Don't eat like a hummingbird
Like a hummingbird, you need to override your instinct to eat voraciously.

You also need to know that eating like you have been is a waste of money, a waste of good food, (and a consumption of non-sustainable packaging and transport). It is an indulgence that ends up settling around your waist. And sooner or later it is going to cause you life changing, even life-threatening health problems.

Hummingbirds have an excuse for eating the way they do. Hummingbirds also exercise vigorously to keep their "energy in:energy out" ratio in tight balance – have you ever seen a fat hummingbird?

What is your excuse for eating the way you do? What is your reason to not use exercise to keep your "energy in:energy out" ratio in tight balance?

In short: don't eat like a hummingbird unless you are going to exercise like a hummingbird.

So, are you ready to eat like a bird, a hummingbird?


Would not eating like a hummingbird really make your day lighter?


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved. Sphere: Related Content