Express Your Sensual Self: Key to Controlling Your Appetite, Part I

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Your sensuality can lead to weight loss. A lot of weight loss.

Sometimes in the hurry of being a mom, a wife, a person with a job, (ditto for men) you forget that there was a time when you felt sensual. You wanted to feel sensual. Certain people made you feel sensual. You were sensual.

Let me be clear about what I mean when I'm talking about sensual: Of course there is a sexual component to sensuality, but that is not the core of what I am talking about here.

Sensuality is enjoying the pleasure of your senses. All of them. It is the acknowledgment that your body was designed – created – to feel multiple kinds of pleasure. Whether tasting or smelling, whether touching or seeing, whether hearing or combining them all in unique ways (a glass of wine with your favorite music), your senses led you to explore, enjoy and seek new experiences.

The pleasure... of knowing what day it is
So, back to being so busy you don't know what day it is... a lot of that pleasure gets lost when you live that way. It is not that the stimulus for pleasure is lacking. You just don't "stop to smell the roses" any more. Right?

It's not that you designed your life to be so crowded that your needs get lost in the shuffle. And in part, it is not because you didn't see it coming. But the needs of so many others – bosses, friends, husbands, parents, kids – all needing, craving your attention to do something for them, you really do get lost.

As your needs get submerged in the daily grind, you not only lose sight of the day of the week, (is it Thursday? if so I need to get hubby to get the garbage out to the street. Oh, wait, that's tomorrow) you lose contact with your senses.

You eat on the run, you more often smell food to make sure you can serve leftovers to the family than to enjoy the aroma. No, your senses, doing things for the sheer pleasure of them, are on hold while you weave your way through the day.

Facebook and the hoped-for adventure waiting to be lived
Guilty pleasure? Facebook for an hour before you go to bed, while your bedroom partner is watching TV. You need that, that connection. Connection not just to old long-lost friends and distant family members. You need that contact to your old self, your "self" when life was an adventure waiting to be lived.

In sharing with your old friends, if you pay close attention, you are recalling the feelings, the pleasures, even the tastes and smells of those day long gone by. You use the words of pleasure describing old scenes (he smelled of Old Spice, those roses were wonderful, you wished you had grandma's great pie recipe).

Well, you are living that adventure now. What you didn't count on was it doesn't feel like much of an adventure, does it? Challenging. Stressful. Tiring. Satisfying. But, adventure? Nah.

Somewhere along the road to living your dreams you got sidetracked. Something got missed. Not that what you have now is bad. Just that it’s not entirely what you expected. Somehow along the way you dialed down your sensual self. No time for it. No energy for it. No space for it to enliven your day. Certainly no place for your sensual self to bloom and discover wonder in the ordinary, nor experience the extraordinary.

Gaining weight while missing your dreams
Over the years, while you were dialing down your sensuality, you probably were dialing up your weight. If you take some time to fully reflect (of course you may have to wait until late Tuesday evening before you get a break to be able to do so), your weight and your sensuality are connected. Moving in opposite directions. Perhaps you may not have thought about it that way. But, it's true.

Your body is a mirror to your accumulated life experiences, to be sure. But your body is also a projection of your future – what you expect from your next years. If you knew you were going to be running a marathon this time next year, wouldn't you change your body dynamics today?

If you knew you were going to be alone, partnerless, would you begin to focus more on your body now? If you know nothing big is likely to change in your life, what's the moving incentive to change your body today?

That is not to say that you neglect your body. Nor that it isn't important to you now.

Your body reflects your expectations
It's just the realization that your body reflects your future expectations more than you probably realize. And at this point of your life, your body has turned down its expectations of feeling sensual again. But that can be changed.

If you want to lose weight, and keep it off permanently, your sense of sensuality is going to change – has to change.

Why? Because you need to matter to yourself to lose significant weight and keep it off. You need to discover your sensual self, explore and expand it. Your body is more than just something that needs to drop a few pounds. You have to focus on the beauty that you may have ignored for too long. Because sensuality is the route to finding the deep motivation to stay on track to lose significant weight.

To Be Continued Tomorrow...

PS: If you know a woman-entrepreneur who has created healthy product(s), please let me know, so we could spread the word about her and her contribution to this planet.

Disclosure: I only write about products I believe in and/or use personally and the companies who truly advance forward the best traits of the humankind. I am not compensated for my opinions.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
©2011 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Make A Decision To Lose Weight – Then Do It, Not Vice Versa

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When you are fat and 40, you know you are good for 40 more years. When you are fat and 50, you're not so sure any more. If you're fat and 60, you're in real trouble. And if you're fat and 70, you know what I mean.

Carrying around excess weight can seem like just an appearance thing. No one wants to look overweight. Isn't that your first reaction to unsightly, ugly bulges on your own body?

But the really ugly truth is excess weight is a symptom of something that has already started to kill you. Because it kills you slowly, you don't see it for what it is. Thus, you don't give it the same urgent priority that you would if you had an aggressive form of cancer.

Excess weight is a pernicious malady. No one needs to tell you that it leads to heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. You may already know it increases your risk to some cancers. You know all that.

Here are some things you may not have considered about excess weight:

– For every pound you are overweight at the time of your last illness, you will cost your estate, or your family, $10,000.

– For every 20 pounds you are overweight, you will shorten your life by a year.

– Overweight is the leading cause of gallstones and kidney stones, especially in women.

– Excess weight is the prime factor in knee replacement surgery.

– Overweight has the same effect on your life expectancy as being a smoker.

But, these are just things you can face down the road. So, perhaps it is not of interest to you now – especially if you are fat and 40.

The real malevolent character of being overweight is in how if affects the quality of your life, not your body.

If you are overweight, if you are significantly overweight – especially if you have been considerably overweight for a long time, perhaps some of these may resonate with you:

• Feeling trapped by your body

• Not being seen

• Being judged by your size, not your personality, or even character

• Trying to hide your body

• Always feeling you have to make excuses for your appearance

• Feeling out of control of your life

• Being obsessed by food

• Hiding food to eat later, unseen by others

• It's better to risk your health to lose weight (with risky weight loss drugs) than to continue risking your sense of self worth by staying overweight

• Fear of food — hating food — loving food

• Feeling addicted to high fat, high sugar foods

• Losing contact with your inner feelings

• Not looking at yourself closely in the mirror

• Making less money than thin people

• Having fewer job prospects than thin people

• Seldom finding clothes you feel comfortable or attractive in

• Not doing things with your kids, spouse, and friends because they are difficult to do at your present size

• Giving up on your dreams — if you can’t control your weight, how could you ever believe you could fulfill your dreams

• Feeling kids and spouse are ashamed to be seen with you in public

• It feels good to be seen in public with a thin, attractive person — at least you can bask in the positive attention they get

• Fearing the health effects of excess weight in later life (stroke, etc.) will make you incapacitated and physically dependent on others

• Fearing that if you do lose weight your spouse will think you are out to get a new lover

• You spend so much time doing things for others, you have no time for yourself, so food is a comfort

• You might as well do things for other people, at least they deserve some attention and affection, even if you don’t

• Empty stomach = empty heart. Full stomach = full heart.

• Have failed with so many diets, there must be something wrong with you

• Loss of self confidence — if you can’t do a simple diet right, you’re really screwed up

• If you’re screwed up, you can’t possibly have the moral authority to teach your kids right, to act as a good example for them

• Losing all sense of sensuality and sexuality, knowing you’ll never feel sexy again

• Fear of physical intimacy, especially with someone new

• Fear that if you lose this relationship, you’ll never have another one

Have you ever felt any of these things? More than one?

Aren't the things on this list the real, present dangers and costs of excess weight, for you or someone you know?

Permanent weight control, on the other hand, is more than just having less weight. It is the unleashing of a more vibrant life. It is celebrating the life that was born into you – the joyful life you sensed when you were very young, but never quite got around to living as you aged.

Do you clearly see the contrast between the real costs of excess weight, and having a vibrant life – the life of your choosing?

Your excess weight, and difficulty in getting rid of it, is not a character defect. It is not that you lack self control. It is not because there is anything wrong with you.

After years of battling excess weight, you are worn down. You have done everything you knew to do, sometimes to a fault. But it always ends with you adding a few extra pounds. If everything you have been told to do fails you, then there must be something wrong with you. Right?

The real steps to rebuilding your life around a lighter you is quite literally in front of you, and well within your reach.

First, you need to understand that what you have been "taught" to do to lose weight is wrong. Wrong. Dead wrong. You need new, accurate, science-based knowledge, not some well-meaning guru who helped a celebrity get skinny.

Next, you need to know that the most powerful influences on your appetite are "caught" things, not "taught" things. (See How Do You Control Your Appetite: Rule 7: Blame it on Mom.)

Finally, and most importantly, your first step has nothing whatever to do with what you eat or not eat. It has to do with you. This entire, frustrating problem of years of creeping weight-gain has made you lose confidence in yourself. It has torn you down until your sense of self-worth is worn out. Could that be true about you?

In the end, successfully losing weight, and keeping it off, really is a decision.

That decision is: Are you worthy of having a vibrant life?

If you feel you truly have the personal worth to lead a vibrant life of your choosing, then you are on the path to solving your appetite, hunger, and craving problems. You will seek out, and keep searching for the right answers to help you control your appetite. And to eat less. You will succeed because you will not allow another reality to prevail. You will find the answer based on the science of weight loss, not on the endorsement of professionally skinny people.

But, if you feel unworthy of your own, self-directed life; if you feel you lack the incredible vibrancy born into your soul, then you will falter. You will discover obstacles that always seem to take control of your appetite. And, you will find one reason after another that forces you to continue gaining weight – forces that are always outside of your control – until you have run out of time to fix anything. At that point, you will have to leave it to the physicians to repair whatever damage they can.

How do you control your appetite? Start with a decision: Are you worth it?

Whatever you decide, once made, the rest will happen on its own.

It is not about weight. It is not about destiny. It's about deciding if you deserve to be happy.

Do you?

Celebrate Your Decision Today!

PS: If you know a woman-entrepreneur who has created healthy product(s), please let me know, so we could spread the word about her and her contribution to this planet.

Disclosure: I only write about products I believe in and use personally and the companies who truly advance forward the best traits of the humankind. I am not compensated for my opinions.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
©2011 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Weight Loss Motivation by Jama Russano, Peter Rabbit Organics Founder

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RECAP: Jama Russano who has been sensitive to chemicals in skin care, has created a high quality, high organic content skin care line for sensitive skin and all ages. Jama shares her tips and motivation for a healthy weight loss strategy.

*****

CelebrateWoman (CW) Jama, have you had any weight loss challenges in your life, especially when you started your own business?

Jama Russano (Jama)  Yes, I have been having some weight issues due to my medication. However, I do not want to have it as an excuse for gaining more weight.

Though I do work long hours, I remind myself to stop and eat. I love cooking and do my best to eat fresh out of the organic source.

I also noticed that if I do not eat fresh live veggies and fruit, I get sick from the processed foods.

CW What is your #1 tip for weight loss motivation for yourself?

Jama  My ultimate goal every day is to eat lean foods and get some exercise.

I would love to do a triathlon one day. That requires some dedication to the exercise routine to get ready for it.

At this time, I do remind myself take short lunch breaks every day no matter how busy I am.

CW  Any personal word for all my women readers who go through their weight loss and weight management issues?

Jama  There are several things I’d like to mention in this respect.

Your successful weight and health management come from understanding ingredients and what they do to your body. Be aware of this fact, educate yourself, read labels with ingredients list on them. Understanding what you are putting into your body is tremendous.

For example, if you eat margarine, it acts like super glue inside your body. It starts adhering to arteries, intestines. Basically, it clogs your body and prevents it from absorbing good nutrients.

A good guide is if you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.

Also, be aware of estrogenic exposure in various foods and ingredients. A lot of studies point out a direct link between the estrogen content and cancers.

If you are going to lose weight, use fresh foods. Not an easy task, but well worth it.

Another important issue to take into consideration is breathing. How you do it will affect your health overall, including your weight management.

Last but not least, lessen your exposure to plastisizers! These are the chemicals that are used during production of many household items: like chlorinated paper towels, plastic food container, plastic utensils. Use glass and porcelain instead. That will ensure your food’s clean content before you consume it.

*****

Jama has been an incredibly interesting person to interview. She is so knowledgeable about environmental issues that effect our bodies, our short- and long-term health, that I was blown away by the amount information I was able to discover for myself.

We applaud and celebrate women who learn and share their learning through their inventions, discoveries, products.

Celebrate Jama Russano Today!

PS: If you have any questions to Jama Russano, please leave them in the comments below. She will definitely read and answer them.
PPS: If you know a woman-entrepreneur who has created healthy product(s), please let me know, so we could spread the word about her and her contribution to this planet.

Disclosure: I only write about products I believe in and use personally. I am not compensated for my opinions.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
©2010 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

My Instruction Manual for Weight Loss Motivation?

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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 (feel free to get a free copy of this e-Book on the left navigation bar). 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.

You can contact me via my LinkedIn profile

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.

Weight Loss Motivation Support Group

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To all my ScaleDown members: Congratulations to every one of you achieving these marvelous results in weight loss!
On average, the group that started in the first days of January has lost
12.3 lbs of extra weight. That's marvelous!
Let's keep up this good work and keep supporting each other.
Laura

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.

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.

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?

To Learn More & To Stay Current –
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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.

Weight Loss Programs Make You Eat More

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The problem with weight loss programs is they all concentrate, one way or another, on cutting your calories to the bone. In the process they all make you hungrier.

And none of them teach you how to keep the weight off. They tell you to count points. Or jump through magic hoops. Or have you buy their special weight loss meals – that is their preferred option, because that is how they stay in business. Their "special" meals = $360/month.

If you can afford that, and can put up with the inevitable monotony, then go ahead. But, in the end, you will still be just as hungry.

In fact, given the enzymes and hormones their form of weight loss evokes, count on you always having the munchies. And no amount of will power is going to overcome it.

Sooner or later, you will begin to eat based on your old style eating habits. And soon the extra pounds reappear, plus some new ones come along for the ride.

In the long run, do weight loss programs 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
©2010 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Don' Be a Fast Learner in Weight Loss

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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.

Be Worthy of Who You Are and Lose Weight

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For you to permanently control your appetite, to be able to lose weight and keep it off, begin with an inner journey. That journey is to prepare yourself for the challenges of changing your lifestyle.

You already know that losing weight is not just a dietary problem. But why do you keep getting stuck? Why do so many of your efforts backfire, when they seem to work for others (at least they do in the ads)? What keeps happening that makes your weight loss efforts so difficult?

Here are some things you might want to think about.

1. Do you feel you have the POWER to handle life’s personal difficulties — to overcome the obstacles to permanent weight loss — to change what you are doing that led you to this place?

If you already feel powerless to change important things in your personal life, things you ardently feel need to be changed, you are drained of the energy, the confidence, the initiative to take the steps to make new weight loss efforts.

Even if you feel confident in some areas of your life, it is often difficult to have that confidence when it comes to your own self. So, here is a question: Aren't there things you would absolutely do to protect your kids? Let nothing stand in your way? But when it comes to doing things for yourself, deeply personal things, do you sometimes falter?

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. Beginning there, gather the power, the fierce strength you use to protect your children, to change yourself. And insist that others let you make that happen. That is the level of energy you must muster for yourself.

If you have spent a lifetime doing things for others, sacrificing your personal desires and needs year after year for your family, this may be very unfamiliar territory. It is difficult to turn all that energy you have focused on others for so long, and tell yourself you deserve to have it now focused on yourself.

But you must. Once you do, reach deep inside yourself and find the power to make it happen. That power is there. It always has been. It is what has made so much meaningful for your family and closest friends. You have the power. Use it for yourself.

2. Do you feel COMPETENT enough to make the right lifestyle changes, the right way, at the right time — do you believe you have the ability to do better and really make it happen?

If you've tried to lose weight several times before, and in the end you gained it all back each time (plus some), it is easy to lose confidence in your ability to discriminate in selecting what to do.

It is easy getting lost in the plethora of advice, and the constant stream of new and contradictory information in the media – TV, magazines, newspaper. Plus there is all that stuff you learned from mom, with friends and family eager to offer their opinions.

Sometimes, it just seems that you are swimming in so much information that its difficult to keep up. Let alone do anything different that is meaningful.

Then there are those nagging doubts... is this the right thing? Is this really going to make a difference? How do you know? How can you sort it all out?

Plus the biggest challenge of them all – when do you get the time, the alone, quiet time, to think it all out?

So, even when you get into change mode, you can lack confidence in your competence to do something effective.

3. Are you LIKABLE & WORTHY of this change? If you are not likable, if you are not worthy of this change in your lifestyle, you can never be happy. Why?

Happiness is founded on acceptance of yourself — you need self-acceptance to be happy. So, if you’re not going to be happy anyway, because you are not likable or worthy of it, what’s the point of making positive lifestyle changes designed to make you happy?

Your lifestyle changes may be well and good, but if you are still not likable or worthy, what’s the point of the effort, the inevitable pain, your changes will cause?

Besides, if you’re not worthy of it, you probably don’t deserve success, or happiness, or fulfillment – or to weigh less permanently — you don’t deserve the things you really want.

These three things significantly affect:
–Your ability to identify what you really want to do, that would truly make you happy.
–Your belief about whether or not you can change things, or can change them in a positive way, and
–Your motivation in making changes — is it going to be worth it?


If you are going to change your lifestyle, if you are really going to weigh less permanently, you have to look past the "diet" you are considering. You have to do some interior work – go on an inner journey. You have to decide, ultimately, if you are worth it.

Once you get that far, you will find a way to make it happen.

How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion: Be worthy of It


My Associations & Chicklets at the End of Each Post
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.

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.

Mom Was Big. Ideas to Eat Less – to Live More.

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"Mom was big."

You get excuses from your mother.

Your solutions are your own.

You are not a prisoner of your genetics. Unless you want to be.

Do you want your child to be shackled by the same excuse?

It is not an easy life, being overweight. Especially when there seems no upper limited to how high you can go.

And, whatever you may say to yourself about your own weight, you know you don't want the same thing for your children.

The "battle" for permanent weight loss
The difficulty is figuring out what to do – how to lose weight and keep it off permanently. There is a reason it is often referred to as a "battle with excess weight."

The first key point here is that while your genetics may work against you, because you may seem to be losing that "battle," it is not the fault of your character, nor your willpower, nor your restraint.

The second key point is that what you "know" is what is causing your on-again, off-again weight loss. "The "fat" is between your ears. Lose that, and you'll lose weight steadily.

How do you do that? Well, it may be as easy as doing the opposite of what you "know". While I don't advocate that, it certainly can't cause you more harm than has already been inflicted on you by the plethora of bad information you presently hold in your head.

No quick solutions to permanent weight loss
There are no quick solutions here – but there are real ones. Solutions grounded in science. Not some "secret" that has finally been revealed to the world by a self-styled guru, no matter how thin they may be now, nor how much they used to weigh.

The human body is an amazing miracle. The solution to permanent weight loss is to work with the body, not to try to trick it into short-term weight loss. The body will always respond to that by making you gain it back, plus some. Is that what you want?

If all you want is to drop a dress size or two for a special occasion, then there are certainly 101 ways to do that. The Internet is stuffed full of them.

If you want something more lasting, if you want to win the weight "battle" one last time, and then retire from the "war," you are going to have to be a lot more selective in how you choose to lose weight. No miracle herb, tea, food, or exercise is going to deliver what you want.

Nearly every commercial weight loss program is based on one scientific fallacy or another. Just because so many may sound similar doesn't make any of them correct.

The biggest weight loss fallacy – Low calorie diets
One glaring key fallacy: Low calorie diets.

Whether it is Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, HCG, or African bush beans, nearly all are engineered to have you lower your calorie intake to very low levels. You will lose weight every time you do that – it doesn't really matter what program you chose. But, you will also pay the price with additional weight later. Low calories diets are ticking "weight bombs." Is it any wonder that these companies all thrive on repeat customers? Where is the "permanent" in "repeat"?

Which leads us back to you being a prisoner of your genetics. Unlike other wars, being confined within the prison of excess weight is a choice. You can choose to surrender and give up. Most of us, at one time or another, have felt that way... war-weary, perhaps you have felt that way for many years.

But you can break free of the prison bequeathed you in your genes. You can lay down the weapons of war, and walk away, free. Because that long-sought permanent solution is equally encoded into your genes. To take advantage of that, you will have to make a U-turn at the bottom of the hill. And that is the subject of my next article.

"Mom was big?"

You don't have to be.

Does saying your mother was big 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.

Losing Your Panties on the Courthouse Steps. – Ideas to Eat Less – to Live More

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Strange things can happen, sometimes, that can call into question how you view yourself. Like losing your panties on the courthouse steps.

When you look in the mirror you don't see yourself. You see who you used to be. Or how you want to be seen. Seldom do you look at yourself and objectively see what others see – what strangers see.

Even your friends and closest intimates don't see the "real" you anymore. They are blinded by the same image-morphing problem that makes you not see them objectively. Past impressions, personality traits, and affection can get in the way of seeing what is plainly there to be seen.

You don't see your bottom
When you look in the long mirror trying on some new jeans, you see the jeans, and how they fit around your bottom. But, seldom are you looking at your bottom. Nor your waist.

Of course you are aware that your bottom and waist are not what you want them to be. So what you see is what they are "not". Not small enough. Not tight enough. Not attractive enough. What you see is frumpy where frumpy shouldn't be. What you see is too much of this and too little of that, all arranged in the wrong places.

But are you really seeing the body that others are seeing, unfiltered by your personal body judgments?

After a complicated pregnancy (the last 3 months seemed like 9 months all by themselves), and a difficult post-partum recovery, I was finally making real progress on losing my excess weight. I was walking past a row of stores on the way to an appointment. I noticed a woman's fleeting figure reflected in the window out of the corner of my eye. "I want to have a shape like that," I said to myself. When I saw the reflection again I stopped. I did look that way. The reflection was of me.

You have had a similar experience, right?

Phantom limbs and body image
My body image was still pregnant. I was thinner then, not exactly svelt, but a lot thinner. My mind kept telling me I was bigger, although I was trying on new, smaller clothes and feeling proud that I was smaller than I had been in a long time.

My husband had a friend who lost a leg below the knee in the war. He said his friend could feel the sweat dripping from the missing limb in hot weather. He could feel the cold in the Winter. And, at times when he fell asleep on the sofa, he would wake up with the absent leg feeling very much asleep. There were times when he would feel intense pain coming from his lost leg, which would only go away after taking Tylenol.

If phantom limbs can hurt, isn't it like when we don't see our true body image?

Why would it matter if it did?

Part of the problem with eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia) is an overpowering body image that sees cellulite where there is none, that sees the contours of fat-stripped-away muscles and sees excess fat. I am certainly no expert on the treatment of the tragedy that is eating disorders (the #1 risk factor for them is dieting as a young teen). But I see the logic of what my husband's friend was taught to do by the Army rehab people – they told him to bare his leg where the amputation occurred. Then rub the area where the removal scars were. They told him to rub it frequently and long. Over time the phantom limb went away (although it still goes to sleep once in a while).

Crossing the threshhold of 200 pounds
All of us hide our true shape from ourselves, from time to time. Sometimes it is deliberate. Frequently it is a strong hidden desire to see a different reality. Mostly, it is a deeply ingrained subconscious non-reality.

The difficulty is we act each day as if that non-reality is truth. We grow accustomed to what is not there, act in ways that ignore what is taking place in our bodies. It makes it easier to cross one of those psychological barriers – like going over 200 pounds, or moving up 2 dress sizes.

We say to ourselves, "200 doesn't look much different than when I weighed 199", or "I like the way this new dress looks on me." What we don't do is mentally compare ourselves to when we were only 175 pounds. And certainly not when we were impossibly slimmer at 150.

Try the string experiment here http://tinyurl.com/weight-loss-string, as it illustrates how far out of proportion your mental body image may be, versus your true size. And nearly always, if your weight is still moving up, or not moving down, the strings show you truly believe you are smaller than you are in fact.

Rub the phantom limb
Once you have a clear idea of your true scale, you can begin to "rub the phantom limb"– to convince your sub-conscious that your excess weight is really more than just about bathroom scales and dress sizes. You can take responsible steps to change your body shape.

If you don't do that, you will always be trapped in an illusion, an illusion that can prevent you from taking responsible steps to change what so obviously needs to be changed. (Or, in the case of 1 in 6 who cross the 250 pound line, become morbidly obese and need surgical help http://tinyurl.com/have-surgery).

How Leila lost her panties on the courthouse steps
Which leads us back to Leila on the courthouse steps in Honolulu. Leila was nearly 300 pounds when she really got serious about finding a way to healthily lose weight. A wonderful Hawaiian lady, with a great heart matched to an infectious smile, Leila was making great headway in losing weight, slowly, steadily.

Down almost 40 pounds, in a hurry, she decided to take the courthouse steps rapidly, two at a time, in spite of her bright red floral-printed mu-mu. On that crowded sun-lit day, when it seemed half the city had business at the courthouse, suddenly something grabbed at her ankles. As she fell forward, bewildered as to the cause, she realized her panties, her "old" panties, had fallen off and ensnared her.

"My first thought," she said, "was whether or not they had holes in them. My second thought was, 'I'm going to be late.'"

Leila quickly unraveled her feet, stuffed her over-sized panties into her purse, and resumed her rush up the stairs, unfazed by the dozens of curious looks.

Leila had lost weight. She knew it. But she hadn't made the complete shift in her mind. She still dressed as if she were 40 pounds heavier.

Acknowledge the size of your body
An important step in the consciousness raising process necessary for you to achieve permanent weight loss is acknowledging the size and dimensions of your body – how far it is from where it ought to be – where it can be, if you worked at it steadily. It is not an excuse for anorexic or bulimic behaviors. It is your personal call to action, to enliven your quest to unleash the wonderful human energy hidden behind your excess weight.

Be aware, however, that as you lose weight you will be constantly adjusting to the new reality of your slimming body. Watch your body regularly, "rub the phantom limb," and be aware of the real progress you are making. It will be your greatest motivator. And your protection from allowing yourself to regain it.

In the long run, would losing your panties on the courthouse steps 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.