Eating is an "Ethical Statement?"

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An old friend dropped by the other day. She's changed a lot in the years. Led a very interesting life, with more than her share of challenges along the way.

She just got back from a trip to Asia and the Middle-East. Her last trip was to Africa.

As we gathered in the kitchen to prepare a light lunch together, and mixed up a bunch of our mutual old-time favorite snacks, she said,

"You know, the food we eat is an ethical statement. What we eat, or don't eat. How it is packaged. Where our food comes from. Who grows it. How it is grown and prepared. These are all ethical statements."

Now, days later, I've had some time to contemplate what she said. It really made me think:

"Food is an ethical statement."

Is it? What do you think?

In the long run, would "eating ethically" really make your day lighter?


Ideas to eat less – to live more.

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2010 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Food Is About Relationships.

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A nice dinner with wine. A movie with a good friend, sharing a tub of popcorn. Eating a hurried lunch across a desk at work with a co-worker. Preparing a nice family meal. Thanksgiving. Tasting someone else's ice cream cone. Bringing a treat to a small get-together. A dinner-date in a new place.

Eating alone sucks. Food, when you are alone, can possibly nourish your body, but what you crave is nourishment for your social-soul.

You eat together because it creates its own mood, its own pleasure beyond the food itself. Food is more than just eating.

So, how do you uncouple your need for human interaction with your need for food? You don't. You shouldn't.

What you need is to uncouple relationships from the pleasure of eating the wrong food.

Too often you eat too much, and you eat the wrong food when you are with someone else. The closer the relationship, the more likely you are to not follow the sensible rules you have made for yourself.

You get into one of those: "I won't follow my rules if you won't follow yours." "It's such a special occasion, I'm going off Weight Watchers for this meal, how about you?"

What we need is permission to say, "How can we both find great pleasure in this meal, and keep on the path of our weight recovery?"

Are there no pleasure foods that can keep you both going in the right direction?

Perhaps, at the end of the day, that is an important quest you and your friends can go on together: "Let's find a dozen GREAT PLEASURE FOODS and WONDERFUL MEALS we can really enjoy together."

If you don't, you will always be battling the results of the wrong foods and meals. If you don't, and, you "stay on the wagon" together, you will each have a sense of being deprived of the joys of great food with enjoyable people. Which leads to wrong food choices later. And will deepen any unhealthy relationship you may already have with food.

So, a key activity is to search for, experiment with, and enjoy new comfort and pleasure foods with your friends. Do it together. That kind of support you can each use.

When you do that you will have not only a new relationship with food, you will share new experiences with dear friends.

In the long run, wouldn't that make your day lighter?


Ideas to eat less – to live more.

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2010 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Take a Bowling Ball to Work. Ideas to Feel Great in 2010.

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Take a bowling ball to work. For real. Go to a garage sale and pick up a bowling ball with a bag. At work, keep it on your desk. Take it into the stall when you go to the restroom. Haul it into the conference room. Put it in the shopping cart on your way home.

Lay it atop the counter while you're fixing dinner, and set it at your feet when kissing your kids goodnight.

You've worked hard today, soak it off with a nice bubble bath – but don't forget the bowling ball has been everywhere with you, so have it hop into the bubble bath with you.

And, as gently as you can, roll it into place between you and your bed partner.

When you get up in the morning, drop the ball into the toilet. That is where it belongs. Now you are free. Have a nice day without the bowling ball.

Losing 15-16 pounds is like that. You've been hauling around a lot of dead weight and it goes everywhere you go.

Just imagine what it would be like to lose 2 or 3 bowling balls.

In the long run, does taking a bowling ball to work really make your day lighter?

Ideas to eat less – to live life more.


VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2010 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Healthy Skin: Prebiotics are a Must

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Top dollar for a “miracle cure” cream or lotion is what many people opt into. However a healthy-looking skin does not have to be tied to an expensive skin care product. Your way out could be in your fridge!

Fruits and vegetables in your diet are known for their anti-inflammatory properties. A variety of them in your daily diet is a great way to get clear skin. If you throw in some nuts and seeds then you are already on you way to fabulous looking skin. Whether you choose to make a tasty smoothie with ripe fruit or eat at least one salad per day, these are perfect options to clear up your skin. A handful of Brazil nuts and pumpkin seeds on your salad would add more selenium and zinc that work against the deficiencies of vitamins and minerals in your body that often cause acne.

Drinking plenty of water is another way to maintain a healthy-looking skin. By drinking at least eight 8-ounce glasses per day the skin becomes rehydrated and the dead skin cells are shed opening up your pores and clearing up your acne. Your skin will look fresher and cleaner then ever before, and you can expect your acne disappear in just a few short days after starting the water treatment.

One more way to clear up your skin is by adding a high quality prebiotic food to your diet. Prebiotics are especially vital to your healthy gut flora and your total body health, If you are currently on any antibiotics for your acne. Antibiotics are destroying the friendly bacteria in your digestive system leads to poor digestion and constipation, plus they deplete your body of essential vitamins and minerals that are causing more acne because the toxins are being expelled from your skin rather than through waste.

Therefore, you may look great for a little while but the acne will come back unless you replace the friendly bacteria with prebiotic foods that feed that bacteria and allows it to multiply. It is easy to add fresh fruit and vegetables to your daily diet so that you can effectively clear up your acne.

With simple daily regimen of fresh produce, water, and prebiotic foods you can take control over your acne problem. Simple step like eating a variety of fruit and veggies that are a rich pantry of minerals, vitamins, enzymes, and organic acids, shall make a huge change in your looks. And how you feel.

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2010 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Smell Your Food. Lose Weight.

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Smelling your food is automatic. Food just has to be in the room, and you will get a whiff of it. Of course it makes you hungry.

Scientists tell us that even a hint of a scent of a luscious food can make us feel hungry. Even when we don't realize we are smelling it. It's kind of frightening to know that your body is so responsive to influences without you knowing it.

I can remember as a child going to my grandmother's small farm in the country. Just before lunch I could smell her cooking eggs and pasta, mixed with vegetables and fresh herbs cut from her garden. Then we would all sit down and eat from a common pot, as we talked and laughed. I loved those times, and even now, many years and half a world away, the smell of pasta and eggs and herbs instantly arouses the beauty and wonder of those simple times, when I was a little girl.

Do you have flashes of memories tied to the food of your youth?

Food is not just nourishment. It feeds our soul's memories, making us remember times and places – with just one sniff, suddenly it is like it was just yesterday.

Our bodies remember food more by the smell than the taste. There are moments when we suddenly want a glazed donut, or a steak covered in onions, a cup of freshly brewed coffee, bacon and eggs in the morning, mashed potatoes for dinner. When we suddenly crave something, most often it is triggered by the indelible aroma that lingers in our memories – feelings locked deeply into our subconscious. We remember those feelings and the comfort we felt when eating them. We crave the lost feeling, and eat to recover what our heart needs most at that moment.

Aroma. Memories. Feelings. Food. We cannot separate one from the other, when the smell first hits our subconscious minds. They flow together like an irresistible tide. And we cannot refuse to feed the hunger of our soul.

In her later years Grandma had a series of small strokes, and somehow lost most of her sense of smell. Slowly she wasted away as she ate less and less. Her doctor said that 90% of taste is actually smell. So, he said she was eating less because food didn't taste good.

Looking back, I don't think that was the reason she ate less. It wasn't taste she was missing. It was the memories. It was the missing sense of those beautiful times with her husband finally back from the cruel war, the quiet meals with her kids growing up, the great dinners with families and friends when we fried fish new-caught from the Volga river. The excited questions of a little girl shared over a pot of eggs and pasta and herbs from her garden.

Food is memories. Food is love. Food is raiment for the soul.

What are your memories from the aroma of food?

What memories are you building for the curious little boy, the inquisitive little girl sitting at your table?

In the long run, would remembering old times and food and fun really make your day lighter?

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VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2010 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.