“It is better to begin in the evening, than not at all”- English Proverb

It’s that perfectionism thing, during attempts to lose weight, that most overeaters struggle with day in and day out (and evenings too!). Do you find yourself caught in black and white thinking, particularly around eating? If you regularly speak of food as good or bad, you do. I have found that these ways of thinking rarely, probably never, do my clients any good in making positive changes regarding eating patterns or weight loss.

Although it’s reasonable to observe patterns in your choices and to look for ways you might improve, the good/bad mindset leads more often to bingeing, or other ways that you revert to uncomfortable patterns. The quote above reminds us that we are better beginning in any moment, rather than getting stuck in trying to do it all perfectly.

What is your experience around this? Do you find yourself waiting for a Monday, or the New Year, or after a certain occasion has passed to make changes? It’s a trap- you may be better off riding the wave of a moment of inspiration, a wish to feel better, or a vision of what it would be like to create freedom for yourself. Choosing an external, such as a Monday or the next morning, keeps the choice outside of yourself, where it will have little meaning, and therefore little holding-power.

Wishing you a lovely day-

xox

Lisa

Hi all-have been having a blast adding all sorts of good stuff to our new membership site, IntuitiveBodySanctuary. The resources page is starting to fill up with recommendations for all of my must-reads, and products that I feel have really enhanced my overall health and wellbeing.

Having a place to put all of my tools, and techniques and the flashes of inspiration I get to share with you is really fun for ME- a benefit I did not expect- it’s become something that I love adding to daily. I have been collecting so many things to inspire myself over the years, and now I am enjoying sharing these with you. My private clients have always been able to borrow books or tapes, or get recommendations for products and such, and now I get to recommend things to you all in a much more global and convenient format- very cool.

If you haven’t yet checked out the Sanctuary, go take a look, and let me know what you think, or if I have left something out that would make things even better.

Wishing you lots of love and every blessing-

Lisa

Hi everyone- we are so pleased to be able to let you know of our new membership site-The IntuitiveBody Sanctuary! This will be a private online members-only sort of club for women struggling with their eating and their weight. We have a private online message-forum where you can receive daily answers and coaching to absolutely any questions you have- whatever’s on your mind, that could be getting in the way of living free of overeating, you will get almost immediate support from me, and from a community of other women - we will all be in fabulous company.

Plus- we will have all of my articles archived and organized there, audio clips you can click onto to hear guided medtitations and relaxation exercises from me, tips to inspire you and support you, recipes, and occasional teleclasses with me and other experts- you are going to get it ALL, baby!! Anything i can dream up to better support your journey out of overeating, it’s yours, for a really low annual fee.

Right now we are giving a special offer to the first 29 women that sign up as Charter Members, with great bonuses, and an annual fee that will NEVER increase- sound good? check it out- this is a really wonderful way for anyone to work directly with me- I even have clients from Europe, plus all over the States joining as Members.

I would love for you to be one of my 29Charter Members but you will need to hurry to get one of the spaces- with the bonuses and special price, they will go quickly. Just go to IntuitiveBodySancutary now and sign up.

Everything you want or need to break out of food-hell will be there, it’s ALL INSIDE. And it’s only going to get better as time goes on, this will be where ALL of my creative energy and ideas go- don’t miss out.

love and blessings to you-

Lisa

It’s true- how many times have you heard “when I lose weight, then I will be happy”… or apply for a new job, start dating, learn to dance, and so on.

Guess what? It never works that way. Losing weight comes when you begin to care for yourself by finding ways to be happy- in other words, you can’t lose weight or go into deprivation-mode in order to make the other changes. You need to find ways to create more pleasure and more happiness and satisfaction right now, so that you can build a solid foundation of wellbeing that will inspire you to take steps to get healthier and release the weight and addictive-eating.

IntuitiveBody is a way to holistically put all of the pieces together so that you have a life that brings you happiness and freedom right now- today, so that you can also take the steps and find the love for yourself that allows you to make the changes to break out of weight and eating misery.

I am about to roll out 3 amazing (if I do say so) programs at IntuitiveBody.com that are designed to support you in brand new ways, to get you powerful results immediately. You will want to stay tuned- I want to help you change your life- It’s totally doable- you know I would NOT joke about this.

Ok- so it seems lots of people are involved inOprah’s online series with Eckhart Tolle, and there is lots of good stuff there.

A former client emailed me part of the transcript on overeating from the course- She wanted to know what I thought. I will enclose the part of the transcript she sent me so that you can see what I am responding to.

Transcript:

Oprah: For me it is always about food. When you eat it and you know it isn’t so good for you. A voice in your head says you shouldn’t be doing this.

Caller: I am 27 years old Ekhart. My question is…how do i manage things that I label; things that
are bad for me. Like eating French fries and potatoe chips. I always eat these and often, overeat
and eat way more than i should have, I know that i shouldn’t and feel bad afterwards.

Ekhart Tolle: A lot of overeating has a lot to do with the ego. Because the ego state lives in a state of ‘not enough’. The need for more that is built into the ego and it gets transferred into the body, much more than the body wants. To eat consciously, is the way out of it. I would suggest
that when you eat your French fries to make a meditation out of it. To eat them consciously.
Without having a 2ndary entity in your head that says you shouldn’t be eating them. Eat them fully and consciously, and at the same time, feel how your body feels while you are eating them and
after you have eaten them.

Then you bring some presence into it. And you may realize, in some cases, you will notice that it wasn’t your body that wanted to eat it them, it was your mind that wanted to eat. Eat consciously is the way out of it. If you eat a sandwich, if you go to the fridge, if you get up in the middle of the night, they open the door and they reach in “I have to get something” you are trying to feed something. The body doesn’t need it.

Stop resisting it. Because the French fries are not bad. It is the thought in your head that has
told you that the French fries are bad. If you sit and consciously make it a meditation, you won’t
eat 2 bags of French fries unconsciously. That you will enjoy every single french frie. You will eat
5 or 10 or 20 and it will be pleasurable. Enjoy it, feel it, sense it, allow your whole body to be with
it and when you are done with the pleasure of it, let it go. You can sense your body and your body will often tell you “no more”

ET: You don’t become overweight or even intoxicated as long as you are acting consciously. It is when you become unconscious, is when you eat too much unconscious, is when you drink too much unconscious, is when you take drugs unconscious, is when you become obsessively indulgent with things. All these addictions are unconscious.

Enjoy your French fries. Enjoy a glass of wine! Consciously.

=======================================

Ok, here are some of my thoughts. I know that every single one of my clients would sell her soul to be able to eat fries or icecream of whatever with conscious enjoyment, as a meditation. But they can’t! And although I understand what Tolle is suggesting and why, I still believe that most  people do not truly understand addictive responses and reactions.

If my clients (or I ) were to try this, we would likely end up feeling like failures. Because in all likelihood we would want to keep eating, and the eating would go from a meditation to a frenzy.

Here is the analogy that I know most will understand-would you encourage a heroin addict or an alcoholic to have just a little “hit”, and enjoy it, really consciously focus on the pleasure? Why not?

You probably would not do this because inherently you understand that there is a chemical reaction or an alchemy that occurs that takes conscious choice and moderation out of the equation- in an instant. Is that because the heroin-addict is “unconscious”? Well he is, he is high and disconnected, but his body will crave the drug regardless of his state of mind.

Many of you with issues of overeating or weight, have tried these approaches- making the table pretty, putting on quiet lovely music, preparing the dinner lovingly and making it sensually appealing. But there is something about the food interacting with your particular chemistry, memories, brain and neural network, personal belief system and more that may cause you to overeat, every time.

I still advocate total enjoyment, as much consciousness as possible, and blessing something rather than judge it if you are going to take an action. But I think for people with longstanding histories of overeating or abusing food, are going to be unable to follow Tolle’s suggestions.

And while I don’t label foods as good, or bad- a french fry is hardly a shining example of a culinary pleasure- it’s a learned taste, with many associations- we might not even be that turned on by a simple french fry if it wasn’t so forbidden.

I believe you are better off savoring the true pleasures and bounties of the Seasons- right now it’s all about greens, and fresh food coming back, and breaking away from the heavier starchier foods of the winter hibernation. I bit into a tiny gorgeous bright red grape-tomato the other day and it was incredible.

So with all due respect to Eckhart and Oprah, I think the advice was lacking.

Hope your local weather is as glorious as here in Massachusetts- we are on a run of magnificent sunny dry days- it was warm enough for me to walk at 8 am.

xox

Lisa