Weight Loss Motivation Tips by SaraJean Cameranesi, the Coconut World Founder

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 RECAP: Business world of coconut industry is huge. To make a mark on the industry, as well as on the lives of millions of people, is an incredible achievement. SaraJean Cameranesi is doing it every day of her life with her Coconut World company that specializes on production and distribution of the coconut sugar.

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I have a few additional questions to ask you, of a more personal nature.

My blog was originally directed at weight loss motivation. My readers, however, are constantly asking me about healthy products that I may recommend. When I told the story of a woman who struggled starting a business to create a healthy product, my readers jumped in and asked for more.

Of particular interest to my readers is how women who start, or lead businesses dedicated to healthy products, manage their weight issues on a daily basis – especially when juggling the added roles of wife and mother.

So, would you mind sharing with us your weight issues and experiences?

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CelebrateWoman (CW) Have you had weight challenges along the way, especially when you started being involved with your business?

SaraJean Cameranesi (SaraJean) I really did not have any weight challenges in my life. I was an athlete since I was eight. I gained a lot within the first two years of college. That was the only time I struggled with my weight.

Regular exercises and my love for jogging and water sports have helped me to shed those extra pounds and keep me in shape ever since.

CW What is the #1 way you motivate yourself to control your weight?

SaraJean I always thought that whatever I do I need to enjoy it. Same with exercise. Running and dancing are great loves of my life. I also enjoy being outdoors and get advantage of fresh air, water, wild trails. Being outdoors relaxes me and provides energy for everything else I do in my life.

CW What would you tell my women readers who go through their own weight management issues in their busy lives?

SaraJean Getting more fit is hard. Find something that keeps you going and doing it daily. You need to enjoy the process if you want to make physical exercise part of your life. Then, you’re good to go for many, many years.

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If you would like to learn more about business and SaraJean Cameranesi, Please read here:
A Woman Who Never Stops Moving
Healthy Foods Are Great For Blood Sugar Levels
Get Teenagers To Eat Veggies Burritos

PS: If you have any questions to SaraJean Cameranesi, 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 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.

Weight Loss Motivation Tips by Susan O’Brien, The Hail Merry Founder (4)

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RECAP: Susan O’Brien is a raw food genius whose dream is to “create a national brand that can inspire a paradigm shift in the way America perceives and eats snack foods.”

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My readers are always talking and asking about women who are successful in their business careers and in their healthy weight maintenance tips.

Susan willingly opens up on her weight loss and weight maintenance points of view.

CelebrateWoman (CW) Susan, have you had weight challenges along the way, especially when you started being involved with your business?

Susan O’Brien (Susan) Absolutely. I am 45 and fighting my new metabolism is tricky. I eat well, so that helps.

My greatest challenge is finding time to work out. If I don’t practice yoga at least 2 times per week ,I really begin to break down mentally and physically. I made a commitment to myself over 10 years ago to make working out and yoga a priority in my life. I still continue to do this.

CW What is the #1 way you motivate yourself to control your weight?

Susan My motivation is a combination of vanity and wanting to feel good. Feeling good being number one. Besides, we all like to look good.

CW What would you tell my women readers who go through their own weight management issues in their busy lives?


Susan You will never be happy in the other aspects of your life if you are not healthy.

We all carry weight differently. I have never thought a super skinny woman looks good.

When you get to be my age, being really skinny makes you look older. Some plumpness is sexy in my opinion. My challenge has always to keep plump without getting a big belly. Once the belly starts to protrude, it’s time to run.....I love to run with my dog.

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That’s what Susan thinks and does when it comes down to her weight issues. Each of us is unique. But I think that examples of other women who are successful in their lives really help all of us to get motivated and know that we are beautiful when we are Healthy.

Celebrate Susan O’Brien Today!

Susan’s Way to Happiness and Success, more here:

Hail Merry Hypothesis and Living It Out Loud
What’s Easier: Saying Hail Merry Or Eating Raw?
Hail Merry Never Felt That Sweet!

PS: If you have any questions to Susan O’Brien, 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Omega-3 and Omega-6 and Your Weight Loss Goals

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Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids are essential in maintaining healthier body and mind. Of great importance is a proper balance between these two omegas in our diet. Both play a crucial role in healthy brain function and normal growth and development.

As these fatty acids cannot be found in the body naturally, they must be introduced to the body through our food sources.

Medical research and clinical studies show Omega-3 fatty acids reduces inflammation in the body and helps prevent many chronic diseases such as heart disease, strokes, circulation problems, skin disorders, gout, ADHD, allergies, depression, and many forms of arthritis.

The most concentrated levels of Omega-3 are found in the brain and are thought to be an important part of human cognitive and behavioral development. For that same reason, it is essential that pregnant women maintain healthy levels of Omega-3 in order to prevent nerve and vision problems in their developing child.

What are the most common foods with Omega-3 fatty acids?

• Fish (go for Wild, not Farmed, fish sources to avoid mercury and other heavy metal conteminants) – Wild Salmon, Wild Trout, Wild Tuna, Wild Mackerel, Wild Flounder & many other
• Spinach
• Seabuckthorn berries
• Acai palm fruit
• English walnuts
• Wheat/Oat germ
• Some Omega-3 fortified products like Celebrate Chocolate Truffles (2 truffles = 56mg (35%) of the Daily Value for DHA
• Avocado

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? Where is My Instruction Manual?

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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. None of them are your path. Nor were they intended to be. Their purpose is for you to seek some alone time to read them. Then reflect. Come back several days later, re-read a chapter, and think about it again.

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

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

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

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

There is NO roadmap to your weight loss motivational success.

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

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

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

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

The Best Weight Loss Method for Holiday Overeating...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Express your sensual self: Rule 22 To Control Your Appetite

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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.

Gaining weight loss motivation
If your only pleasure in weight loss is seeing the scale move down a little at a time, you are going to suffer motivational set-backs. Especially if you are on one of those diets that make you eat like a rabbit and sacrifice your favorite treats (don't they all?). You are going to feel deprived. Denied. Restricted. Limited. And when you are feeling that way you need to balance it by increasing your pleasure along the way.

Losing significant weight is not as easy as just consuming fewer calories.

Losing a lot of weight, which can take months to do it and still be healthy, is a challenge to your will power to stay the course. No matter what program you are on, your emotional commitment is going to take a strong beating at times. And the ONLY way to get though that is to have already begun a path of rewarding yourself with pleasures each step along the way.

Find pleasure – lose weight
Otherwise, when the going gets tough (and it will at times) the pleasure you will most likely seek in those weak moments is to overeat – to binge on exactly the wrong foods (other than Bugs Bunny, no one gorges on carrots). Plus, you just set yourself back several weeks in your weight loss plan. With that blown, further discouragement sets in, and the cycle WILL repeat.

The preventive measure is to learn, re-learn, permit yourself to find pleasure in living, smelling, touching, tasting, seeing, and being loved again. And to do it now, to make it a habit BEFORE you experience the long haul of trying to lose significant weight.

You need to feed your body's senses, if you are going to be depriving your body of calories.

The emotional process of losing weight, the path to weight loss motivation, to losing a lot of weight, is going to have to go through you being willing to be sensual once again. Joyfully accepting your sensuality.

Your sensuality will lead you to weight loss. A lot of weight loss.

Don't believe me. Try to lose a lot of weight and keep it off without increasing your sensuality. Oh, yes, you've done that already. We all have. All of us. Now it is time to justify you taking the time, and effort, without guilt or apology, to smell the roses, eat great chocolate, to experience once more – to express once more – the perfect kiss.

How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion 22: Express Your Sensual Self

Next article...
How do you control your appetite:
Rule 23: Eat Grasshoppers with your Cereal


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