Nirvana Diet

A Diet For the Mind

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Keys to Successfully Changing a Habit

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woman-on-rockDo you feel you are constantly repeating unwanted unhealthy patterns you can’t seem to break? No matter how hard you try, you never get anywhere except more unhappy.  This makes you feel like you are lost, stuck in a rut, a negative loop going nowhere. Or maybe you have accomplished what you thought would make you happy and instead of feeling happy you feel empty. I have built my practice around helping people  get unstuck, re-create themselves and find true fulfillment and joy in their lives… from that place I help them go places to they ever thought they could go.

I know how you feel because I have been there and have done it. I recreated my life and  spent over ten years helping people do that too. I have successfully developed a unique approach that helps you take charge of your mind which is the gateway to your willpower so you can change any habit or pattern, and create a more satisfying or healthy one.

Most people who come to me say they  either they know what they are supposed to do only to lose focus and not do it, or they don’t know what to do anymore because nothing really works or sticks. This emptiness and sense of disillusionment is what leads to all of our subtle addictions in life. Overeating and numbing out is one of the biggest ones. The reason most people don’t just “do it” is because they are using a limited amount of their willpower. Because change has to come from within, and it is only when you understand how your mind really works and how to make it work for you that you can make meaningful change become a reality. Change requires effort and determination. People are unfortunately looking for a magic bullet or a pill.  There are things you can learn to do.

Here are some of the keys to successfully to changing a habit:

  1. Knowing how to eliminate the automatic pilot way many of us live our lives.
  2. Create and build a vision that is consistent with your true joy and happiness
  3. Take action small steps towards it everyday
  4. Be unrelenting, persistent and yes never give up.
  5. Learn how to master fear.

The problem is that the human personality is naturally resistant to change without the necessity of need, nothing changes. The truth is that change and the having the qualities that lead to success takes will power. Willpower is in your head. So there is really no way around it –you have to learn how to take charge of it and undo the conditioned aspects of you mind that keeps you locked in a stuck position in a feed back loop repeating what you do not want.  It is a mind set.

How do I help my clients change their mindset? By changing the way they approach life. People who are successful are not smarter, they just look at things differently. By successful I also mean, happy and fulfilled. This way of looking at things includes the ability to use your imagination, the creative part of your brain, to visualize, see the bigger picture, and not give up or go to the negative when things are not going the way you thought or intended.

If you were not born like that you can develop them. There are proven techniques I teach that can show you how to change the way you look at things and from that place guess what…everything changes. Its magical. I know because I used to be a negative person, glass half empty, and always thinking if things were good  it never lasts. This process is based on the powerful mind training techniques of yoga and meditation and taking it into your daily life…it is like yoga for the mind.

This meditation and  refocusing practice I created… how to be Sexy, Smart and Sane changed my life. It makes meditation easy and gives you the  ability to recreate your life by gaining control of the power that is within you that is lying dormant.  Order  the Home study program I developed How to Make Mediation Easy and start taking charge of your life now. I am also available for private coaching, to teach this to groups and for public speaking engagements or workshops.

Why you should start meditating and stop thinking?

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LillyIf you were a vibration of energy wouldn’t you want to vibrate at a high frequency, just like beautiful music, perfectly coherent? That is what meditation does, it raises your vibration and helps to undo the old patterns of the brain that keep you locked in a less desirable frequency. If you want to take charge of your health, lose weight, and get off auto-pilot learn how to meditate.

Meditating daily is like putting money in the bank. You are able to deal more effectively with stressful situations as they come up without having them be harmful to your health. People are attracted to you because we all respond to wave frequencies without even being aware of it. The higher the frequency the more attractive you become. It was once said to me by someone very wise, I don’t care how much Botox you use to clear the frowns on your forehead, if it doesn’t get rid of your anger, it won’t work.

I tried for many years to learn how to meditate. I am very appreciative of the training I did with Jon Kabat Zinn who created MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) Meditation. I am also grateful for the work of Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz who developed an awareness practice very similar to what Jon means by mindfulness that is taught at UCLA. This practice helps people to overcome anxiety and OCD without the use of medication. This process is also helpful for anyone who is stuck in a negative pattern or mind state which is everybody at some point in their lives.

Mindfulness along with meditation is of course two of the steps in the Eight Fold Path as written by Buddha. The Eight Limbs of Yoga written by the so-called father of Yoga, Patanjali, also includes breath work and mediation to assist in the journey towards more enlightenment.

I also studied with Sherrie Wade creator of Transformation Meditation. But, it was my “initiation” experience with Brijendra, who resides with Sherrie at an Ashram in the Himalaya in an area called the Valley of the Gods that helped me to turn the corner and make meditation a way of life. Part of the gift he gave me was his personal breathing practice and how he gets into meditation. He told me I was free to share it with who ever wanted it. So I decided to create my own version of this and it is now available for on my website.

Any diet or health approach you follow will be made easier if you meditate because meditation is a mind training exercise. You will also find it easier to do follow a healthy lifestyle because you will begin to vibrate at a higher frequency. Our thoughts feelings and emotions have a vibrational frequency. This has been proven by Dr. Hawkins’s ground breaking work which you can read more about in the book Power vs. Force.

The program I developed for home study also includes the mindfulness practice I developed based on the all of the above is called the Pausing Technique. This is how you start to train the brain, so that when you find yourself in a stressful situation, you are able to drop into what in meditation we call “the space.” By doing that, you strengthen your ability to act consciously and not automatically. This is how we find our power, live consciously as opposed to being on auto-pilot. The following quote by Viktor Frankyl explains this beautifully:

“Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. In between stimulus and response there is a space, in that space lies our power to choose our response in our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Through the practice of mediation and observing your thoughts, you develop the power to be more conscious and decide what you want to think, feel and do and thereby gain control over the automatic reactions of the brain. This is the beginning of how you cultivate mind power. This is the real secret, you have to be able to have a high vibration to your thoughts and feelings. Put another way you get what you think, but it is not easy to change your thoughts if you don’t like what its getting you.

As with anything it requires that you do it for at least six months to build a habit. To read more about how change or create a new habit read this.

 

Start Your New Year’s Resolution Now…10 Tips to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

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dreamstimecomp_mygoalsLosing weight is always the number 1 New Year’s resolution.  The problem is that each year the  holiday weight that is gained sets people back and does not go away.

In a recent study conducted by the NIH (National Institute of Health), it was concluded that while the amount of weight gained during the holidays will vary from person to person, and is probably less than the popular belief of an added five to ten pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. The problem is that the cumulative effects of yearly weight gain during the fall and winter months are likely to contribute to the substantial increase in body weight that frequently occurs during adulthood.

In a study conducted with 165 volunteers, the extra weight gained during the holidays was not lost during the year, and each ended the year heavier than they were the year before.

The study further concludes “promotion of weight stability during the fall and winter months may prove useful as a strategy to prevent age-related weight gain in the United States.”

“Because losing weight is so difficult, it is important to learn when and why people gain weight so that effective strategies to prevent obesity can be developed”, says Dr. Susan Yanovski, Executive Director, National Task Force on the Treatment of Obesity.

Here are some tips I hope will help:

1. Plan Ahead  It is best not to go to a party if you are hungry. I recommend that people know their habits and their bodies. Usually if you eat three meals a day spaced over three to four hours that should be when you are hungry. This assumes you eat the right food, because it is a known fact that eating foods with a high glycemic index will cause a quicker return of hunger. So that’s why you have to plan. Don’t go to a party starving. It will be easier to lose control and eat mindlessly. If it is hors d’oeuvres that are being served try to make it into a small meal.

2. Be aware and avoid mindless eating. During the holidays it seems that food is everywhere. Be aware before put anything into your mouth if you are really hungry if not it is mindless eating.

3.Bring your own healthy snack. The best snack is a portioned controlled amount of nuts, with a small fruit or vegetables ideally with some protein such as a hummus dip. I personally also really like the Think Thin bars.

4. Limit Your Alcohol. Alcoholic drinks can lower your guard and are basically like empty calories that are loaded with sugar. In one study, people who drank an alcoholic beverage consumed about 200 more calories in the 24 hours afterward than those who did not.  Most importantly,  alcohol inhibits your ability to burn fat for 48 hours by lowering your metabolic rate and can also interrupt sleep patterns.

5. Drink lots of water. Drink water, especially if you are drinking alcohol. One extra glass of water is needed for each glass of wine. Water not only helps you feel full, but it keeps you from becoming dehydrated. Dehydration can be confused with hunger. Plus, water boosts metabolism, helps you to detox and avoid becoming constipated. Plain or sparkling water is a “win/win”! Try drinking sparkling water with a twist or a splash of cranberry juice as a healthy party drink, and as an alternative to alcohol.

7. Make salad and greens your main course. Most people do not realize that salad and vegetables are carbohydrates. This is consistent with the post I made about Dr Fuhrman’s eating concept. They are the best carbohydrates because they also contain fiber and protein. This is the ideal way to eat…balancing the nutrients. To this add your portioned controlled protein and you have the ideal way to eat.

8. Keep up the  exercise so you can have your cake and enjoy it, Stay committed to your exercise routine. Exercise not only keeps the pounds off, it reduces stress and gives you more energy. If you can’t find time to exercise, walk fast and far. Mentally missing a workout permanently breaks the habit of exercising, so do your best to commit to a routine and stick to it.

8. Remember how uncomfortable it feels to wear tight clothes. If you do overeat or drink, the dress will let you know. What better reminder than a zipper that won’t zip? Ouch.

9. Eat for the right reason.  Most people who have a weight problem also have some issues with how to deal with their feelings. The holidays and also make life more stressful so learning how to deal with your feelings and neutralize stress by planning your time better is critical. See the post I made on how to neutralize stress.

I also recommend the MP3 hypnosis downloads I created that deal with many of these issues. Try Ending Emotional Eating, or Motivation to exercise. Whatever your issue is you will find one to suit your needs and give you an extra boost. If you want to permanently change how you deal with stress, I recommend you start a meditation practice. It is like putting money in the bank.

REMEMBER HOLIDAY WEIGHT GAIN MAY LAST A LIFETIME

Myth Buster: 21 Days to Make a Habit Change? Think again

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Woman with orange slicesWe all know how difficult it can be to break a habit and create a new one. If you do a Google search on how long it takes to create a new habit you will get somewhere between 21 and 28 days. No one has really proven that to be the case. The ‘21 day myth’ may well come from a book published in 1960 by a plastic surgeon. Dr. Maxwell Maltz, who wrote a classic book called Psychocybernetics. He noticed that amputees took, on average, 21 days to adjust to the loss of a limb and he theorized that people take 21 days to adjust to any major life changes. The problem is that it really is not relevant to building a new habit.

Psychological research on how habits are formed was recently published in the European Journal of Social Psychology  by Phillippa Lally and his colleagues from University College London. The question was asked after how long did it take for running 15 minutes a day  to become automatic? The answer was, after about sixty six days, it seemed to become a habit.  So it seems as if the 21 day rule of thumb is unrealistic and we need to think more in terms of 3 months with repetition being the key. I would add to that it is best not attempting something too big so that you do not set yourself up to fail.

The research also suggested that:

  • Missing a one day did not reduce the chance of forming a habit.
  • Some people took much longer than the others to form their habits, perhaps suggesting some people are ‘habit-resistant’.
  • Other types of habits may well take much longer…like those that involve addictive substances.

So how do you get less ‘habit resistant’? It comes down to willpower. Something you should know about willpower is, research that conducted by two professors at Stanford including, Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford, is the author of “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”confirmed that your willpower is limited by what you think about it. When you succeed and resist temptation, you feel strong, if you feel or think you are weak, you will be that way too. Their conclusion and I might add my experience has been that “willpower is in your head.” You are what you think and believe.

I have found the key to changing how you think is a mindfulness practice I developed I call the pausing technique. In between the action and your thought to act is a space. Your willpower lies in what you do with that space. To learn more read the blog  I wrote on this. This why I use hypnosis as well, it helps to increase your will to change. Check out the home study program downloads in the shop area for one that matches what you want to change.

What Dr. Joel Fuhrman, MD Says We MUST Follow to Be Healthy

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Holding appleGuess what happens when you focus on eating healthy?

The other night I was watching Dr. Joel Fuhrman, MD and you written the Eat to Live on a PBS special. His new program “Three Steps to Healthy Eating” was very easy to follow and right on. In the past I have tried to follow Dr. Fuhrman’s eating approach which is essentially a plant-based eating approach that includes seeds and beans as an everyday staple. The deterrent to me was the absence of animal protein which for creates satiety and keeps me from feeling hungry too soon after I eat.

I loved his simple new approach he calls GOMBS which stands for: greens, onions, mushrooms, bean/berries and seeds. It is that simple. Make the greens the mainstay of your meal, use onions and mushrooms daily because they are super foods, use the beans for protein and a dash of seeds.

What is remarkable was that Dr. Fuhrman’s and my experience is very similar. We are a food addicted nation partly because we have been fed the wrong information. It is not about eating less, exercising more, and having more willpower. I have written extensively about how food is our biggest addiction. It is also not about calories in and out. It is about the quality of the calorie and eating foods that are nutrient rich.

Guess what happens when you do that? You get more energy, you feel less hungry, you enjoy the food more, you lose weight but most importantly your ailments and propensity for disease goes away. I loved the comment he made about how addicted we are to using pills to solve our problem when eating the right food is the best medicine. He said it’s like hitting yourself over the head with a hammer everyday then going to the doctor to get a pill to make is stop hurting.

When are we going to wake up? We have been sold a bill of bad goods not only on the information we receive, but the food we are encouraged to eat that then addicts us and makes us sick. 80% of the illnesses we have are lifestyle induced. That means it’s up to you. If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.

The first step is to get informed then take a look at The Nirvana Diet™. It teaches you how to have the mind control to change your habits.   Feels like an abrupt ending. How can I find out more? What’s the first step I should take with the Nirvana Diet™? Maybe a free consult? That’s only a phone call away.