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

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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.

Your tongue is hungry? Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

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The things your tongue is hungry for are the things, that if you eat them, will spike your blood sugar and make you hungry again.

In the long run, would not giving in to your tongue's hunger 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 – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Food is about relationships. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

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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 life more.


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

Lose the fat between your ears. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

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Scientists have long known that 90-95 % of all fat accumulation is between your ears.

If you can lose the fat between your ears, your weight will come down steadily.

In all your efforts to lose weight, it is not what you don't know that is causing your weight gain, and inability to get it off.

What is sabotaging your weight loss is what you already know, that is wrong.

If you are thinking about going on a diet to lose weight, and you want to keep it off permanently, you need to go on a diet that loses the fat between your ears first. Otherwise you will just yo-yo your weight.


In the long run, would losing fat between your ears 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 – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Don't be a fast learner. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

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Sometimes when faced squarely with a problem you want to solve, you jump right into researching it and learn all you can. You're like a sponge. After a few long sessions with Google, you're googled out.

A few days later you remember the key points you think you've gleaned. But like most people, you can only hold so much new information in your brain at a time. It's sort of like a small scratch pad with just a few pages.

Actually, most of what you learned, or could have learned is rapidly forgotten or glossed over.

The key to learning fast is to learn slow. Learn in short bursts of energy. Then wait a few days. Not only will you remember more, and understand more, something magical happens.

When you go to sleep, when you "sleep on it," all that "new" information mixes with all your "old" information. And that's the secret to really learning. When new mixes with old, new connections occur. New ideas spring up. Contradictions between old and new appear. Insights occur.

Then, the next time you jump into learning even more "new" stuff, you have a different point of view to discover and understand the newest "new" things. Your next bout of research will go in different directions.

Most importantly, you comprehend the new information and YOU CAN MAKE BETTER USE OF IT.

And that is the secret to making a new lifestyle change stick.

Do you want to make your new lifestyle stick? Be a slow learner.

In the long run, would learning slower 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 – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Eating is an "Ethical Statement"? Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

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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 life more.


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

Get a new crutch. Ideas to Eat Less – To Live More.

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You need a crutch. It doesn't matter if it's Weight Watchers, HCG, or the Everlasting Cleanse Diet. They all get down to two things: eating less, or getting it out faster. The rest is just window dressing – crutches.

When you know that, you can start choosing better crutches. More attractive crutches. Fashionable crutches.

After a while you realize you've been paying someone else a lot of money for a bunch of different crutches. At some point, shouldn't you realize you could be paying yourself for your own crutch?

Or make the decision you don't need a crutch at all.

In the long run, does getting a new crutch 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 – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Butterfly Wings: Rule 11 to Control Your Appetite

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Are you worthy of having a different life?

Do you feel you have the power to overcome the obstacles to permanent weight control.

Do you feel competent to make the right lifestyle changes?

Are you likable and worthy of the change?

Start by believing you are worthy of having a different life, a better life. Not just that you want it, but that you deserve it.

Now...
I want to tell you a story. Afterwards, I would like you to share your thoughts with us about it.

This is the story of one woman's struggle to change, to lose weight, and handle the unexpected effects it has on her family.

*****

Rebekah was fat. At least that‘s how she saw herself in the mirror every morning as she prepared to shower in the pre-dawn light. Her friends always said she looked great, but, as she squeezed the water off her long hair, she knew they were just being kind. Hadn’t she also told those same white lies to support a friend?

Rebekah turned 43 last Sunday. The Friday before, she used the last day of her 90-day fitness club membership. She won it at the law office where she worked as a paralegal. The coincidence of these two events started her thinking.

Rebekah’s oldest, Tom, 16, has his father’s infectious smile. He is trying to get onto the high school football team. Cassi, 13 going on 19, is more of a handful everyday. (Wow, was she that tuned-in at 13?) Then there is Franklin. The surprise child of 5, and as sweet as they come, he is every bit a daddy’s boy. Daddy was off in Baton Rouge for one more day.

Driving the long rainy commute into Memphis that morning, Rebekah became reflective. They lived in the county because it would be better for the kids. But it meant a lot of driving time with precious few moments left for herself. As she turned onto the freeway she began to think about her weight again, and how she’d lost 14 pounds the last 3 months. She was proud of that. But it had taken its toll in other ways.

She had one of those tense conversations with Luke the morning he left for Baton Rouge. He was concerned about her staying longer in the city 3 nights a week to go to the club. Then there was the extra cost of the “new” food she was buying for herself, because he and the kids preferred the “old” food. Plus, she was spending a lot of time reading after the kids went to bed. She didn’t use to do that. It all added up to less time with the family and more money. As she dropped him off at the airport she told Luke she was considering buying a one year membership to the club. With a quick flash he said they would have to “discuss it all” when he returned.

On the drive home in traffic that evening, Rebekah began formulating a letter to Luke. She needed to write it down. He was so strong and impatient when they talked about difficult things. So, in their 18 years together she had learned it would come out better if she wrote it down first.

Late that night, after the kids were in their rooms, she propped herself up in bed and thought. Then she began to write on her laptop...

*****

My Dearest Husband, I love you and the kids so very much. Everything I ever wanted I am experiencing now with you, and them. I love taking care of you. Each of you is so special, and so different. But, somewhere along the road I lost sight of me. I’m not sure where I went, but I got lost. I have been so busy for so many years doing so much for my family, I’m not sure who I am any more. And I need to know that.

When I started losing weight, I began to see just a little glimmer of me. It was part who I was when we were young together, and who I am now. I began to wonder who I would become in the next few years. And it made me think about you, and how I relate to you, and what it is you still see in me.

When we parted at the airport, I saw this pain and boyish fear in your eyes. Plus a bit of hidden anger. I know that you have been concerned about our money issues. And my time away from the family. Plus, my late night reading. But, for the first time, really, I have needed to concentrate on me.

I feel like a caterpillar about to unfold from a cocoon after a long winter. I don’t yet know what kind of butterfly I will be, but I know I will be one. I can’t wait to find out. I know I will be beautiful.

But, looking into your eyes that morning, I sensed you were threatened by my changes… and whatever future changes may be in store.

Then I thought, does my way of being with you give you what you need? If it doesn’t, I’ll have to reevaluate how I relate to you – what I thought I meant to you. And that is where I get stuck.

My dilemma is that by discovering and choosing what is right for me may look like a threat to you. And I don’t want to threaten you.

There is the possibility that, in changing, I may not value you in the same way, that I may not need you as much. The very effort I use to change my life requires me to feel my own needs more strongly, to give them greater weight and priority. In doing this I may end-up lessening my dependence on you, as I am becoming more dependent upon myself. This doesn’t mean that I care less about you, or the kids, only that I care more about myself.

Does caring more about myself have to mean I care less about you? Do I need to think that it does? Do you have to feel that it does?

Is there some way for me to change lifestyles such that both of us see it as a positive challenge to create a deeper relationship, instead of a negative threat to whatever kind of relationship we have now?

Must I deny my need to find a greater affinity with myself, so that I have to relate to you with a former, paler version of me? A version that is less me, but more acceptable to you? If it is the old, less me you want me to be, where does that leave the full, unfolding me?

Do I have to choose between finding, discovering, experiencing a more real, meaningful me, and a peaceful existence with you?

And if the person you experience is not fully, really me, then who or what is it that you truly love?

I really love you. I faminously need your love. But I need me too. I need to invest time, a little money, some late-night reading, and a lot of unconditional conversation to discover what type of butterfly I am. Maybe I’m no type at all… maybe I’m my own original type.

Can we both find ways to have patience while I discard my cocoon and unfold my radiant new butterfly wings?

I love you.

Rebekah

Rebekah finished the letter, then read it all over again. Tears flowed unexpectedly. She had never been able to clearly articulate this before. Seeing it on paper, all at once… her deep breath pushed out the tears.

Would Luke understand? Would he be hurt? Couldn’t she just hold it inside and find a better way — a safer way to handle it? Maybe she shouldn’t give the letter to him.

She folded it up and put it on the nightstand. She would sleep on it. She would decide whether to give it to him in the morning, before she left to pick him up at the airport.

With that, she turned out the lights and closed her still-moist eyes.

*****

What do you think Rebekah should do? Should she give the letter to Luke?

If you were her very close friend, and after she shared the letter with you, she asked your most honest advice, what would you say to her?

Please share your thoughts with us.

How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion 11: Unfold Your Butterfly Wings

Next article:
How do you control your appetite?
Rule 12: Lower Your Expectations

CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Making Love is the Antidote: Rule 6 to Control Your Appetite

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A few years ago, Geneen Roth wrote a book about "Empty Heart, Empty Stomach" or something like that.

It really is true. We eat emotionally. Then use rationality to justify it.

We eat because we feel unsatisfied with so much in our life. We can't blame it on bad sex, because...well, you know the reasons we can't blame it on that.

Unsatisfied, sometimes fearful, sometimes vaguely discontented, we search for comfort. Food, especially the kind that is fattening and sugary, makes us feel comforted. At least until the first serving is gone.

But we can't tell anyone about our dissatisfaction, can we? "I am Woman", as Helen Reddy sang:

I am woman hear me roar
in numbers too big to ignore
I know too much to go
back and pretend,
cause I've heard it all before

So, you see, if we are going to be roaring, we can't be complaining. So, we eat the second serving.

Life can hurt sometimes. Disappointment can run deep. Third helpings on the way? But joy can run deep also. Deeper.

Love can hurt. But love also heals. Enlightens.

Making love creates anew a sense of fulfillment. A deepened sense of self. Satisfaction.

But in our daily lives we forget about making love. We go on a love-making diet. We become love-famished. We run on love-reserve. Run on love-empty. We are love-anorexic. So we become food indulgent. Almost food gluttonous at times. It's not because we love food more. It's because we feel less love.

Make love more. Eat less.

How Do You Control Your Appetite?
Conclusion 6: Making Love is the Antidote

Next to come...
How do you control your appetite?
Rule 7: Blame It on Mom

CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Eat Less: Rule 1 to Control Your Appetite

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If you desire less weight, then eating less has to be your goal.

All the science and advice, special diet strategies and weight loss programs, take dead aim at having you eat less. They just have different ways to get you to do that. Most fail.


So, if you are already surrounded with that key "eat less" information, why don't you do it? Why can't you control your appetite. Why are you frequently giving in to your cravings?

It's not that you lack self control. You are a responsible adult – of course you have self control. So, why can't you control your appetite?

Because what you are already eating compels you to eat more. And what you are not eating creates strong cravings.

Your diet, especially restricted calorie diets like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and NutriSystem, all set you up for failure, even if some give you short term results. Long term, after being on a diet, you not only regain your lost weight, if you are like most people you add an additional 10 pounds within a year.

Controlling your appetite is where successful weight loss begins. Cutting your cravings is how you keep in control of your life.

So, how do you control your appetite and cut your cravings?
Rule 1: Eat BEFORE you are hungry
Rule 1A: Always follow Rule 1

Once you are hungry you will do two things, and you won’t be able to stop yourself. First, you’ll eat more – probably about 300 calories more. Second, you’ll store those extra calories as fat. (Of course there is science that amply prove that, but we are just giving you the shorthand version here).


Why can’t you stop yourself from overeating in a meal you started when you were already hungry? Basically, real hunger is your body telling you your blood sugar is too low. And since your brain needs a constant supply of blood sugar, it puts an enzyme in your blood that COMPELS YOU TO EAT MORE, AND DO IT NOW (I don’t want to pass out, dummy)!

At that point, forget your will power. Your body is on remote control. YOU WILL EAT NOW. YOU WILL EAT FAST. YOU WILL OVER EAT. AND YOU WILL STORE THOSE EXTRA CALORIES AS FAT.

How do you control your appetite and cut your cravings?
Conclusion 1: Eat BEFORE you get hungry

Next to come...
How do you control your appetite?
Rule 2: Don't Eat Appetizers

CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Cut Your Appetite – Control Your Weight with Whole Foods Nutrition

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Cut Your Appetite – Control Your Weight with Whole Foods Nutrition

It is unfashionable today to talk about weight control in personal circles. A whole new generation has been born since the weight loss industry was addressed as a socially acceptable, openly talked about topic.

The few companies that still sell weight control approach it from the old discredited method of capsules and pills, or counting calories or fat grams, or weighing food or making exchanges… it’s all so exhausting to figure it all out and remember. Read the entire article >

At best, they don't work, or don’t work for long. Worse, some actually cause real harm – remember chromium picolinate, or ephedra. Or the high protein diet? How about the Fresca and Bacon Diet? Did you try the 90 day grapefruit and grape nuts diet?

In every case, people who use these programs, whatever their initial weight loss success, always ended up months later weighing more than when they started. Where is the integrity in selling that approach?

What happens to their customers' need for a longer, healthier life? There has to be a better way.

There is a better way. It's called whole food nutrition. That doesn't come in a capsule or pill. It comes from eating what's right for your body instead of what's compelled by your hunger.

Strong hunger and cravings are your body's way of telling you it really needs something that's missing. And it needs it now.

When you are fully nourished those persistent hungers and cravings go away. So, too, do those extra pounds.

When you are fully nourished, when your nutrition is complete, you literally eat your way to less weight.

Natural weight control from Celebrate comes from responding to your body's insistent need for live, whole foods. Natural weight control comes by honoring your body's design, feeding it all that it needs. It happens by celebrating life in every bite.

You need total nutrition starting with the enzymes in a prebiotic of your choice

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You need vital, living foods to nourish your body daily. You need them to lose weight, to build strength, to increase your alertness and energy. You need them to enhance your health, to ward-off sickness. To combat health challenges. You need them to rebuild the parts of you that aren't working as well as they should. You need vital, living foods to live a longer, healthier life. And you need them now.

For you to get consistent, quality nutrition is a major challenge today. Nearly all of the foods you eat are devoid of the natural enzymes they contained when they were raw food. Every natural food is full of the enzymes your body needs to properly digest them. But the processes that manufacture food and deliver them to your table destroy the enzymes. Without natural enzymes your body is challenged to receive the nutrition your body absolutely needs.

Lack of enzymes in your body is not a small thing. Consider carefully what happens when your body lacks the enzymes it needs:

Symptoms of Lack of Enzymes

* Tiredness after eating
* Excess intestinal gas
* Heart-burn, nausea
* Diarrhea, constipation
* Rough skin
* Irregular menstruation
* Muscular stiffness
* Headaches, insomnia

Illnesses from Lack of Enzymes

* Gastritis and colitis
* Inflammation
* Insufficient stomach acid
* Hemorrhoids
* Throat Inflammation
* Rheumatism
* Asthma
* Cystitis

You need a prebiotic in your daily diet, like fresh fruit and vegetables, because you need its vital, natural living food nutrition to nourish your body daily.

Eating More Plants Means Higher Antioxidant Levels

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Your body is designed to consume a lot of nutrients you are not getting in your regular diet. It knows when it needs those missing nutrients. And when it is not getting them, your body tells you in the only language it knows:

• Your body says, "Eat more food - perhaps I'll get what I need from your next meal."
• Your body says, "Crave this food - perhaps I'll get the specific nutrient I really need right away."
• Your body says, "Eat now - even if you're full, because I'm not getting what I need."

Hunger and cravings are your body telling you to feed it a much wider range of nutrients. When you succumb to your body's insistent demand for more nutrition, you consume more calories than you really need. And you gain weight.

Adding more food groups into your daily diet does a wonderful thing. First, it increases the intake of nutrients by the body. Second, it adds more disease fighting properties to your internal system. A greater variety of plants adds a higher antioxidant level to your body.

It is so easy to add extra vegetables to your salad, and some more fruit to your smoothy! Do it for your health! Do it for a smoother skin, and silkier hair.