Health and Wellness Archives - Page 2 of 8

Not all calories are created equal…we have been misled on the weight problem

May 14, 2012 by admin 1 Comment

There is a new documentary about to air The Weight of the Nation. This well researched documentary has come to the same conclusion I have on the weight problem in America. The best way and only way to lose weight and keep it off which to me is the only successful way to lose weight you must treat the way you lose weight as your lifestyle. That means the changes you make must be permanent and not viewed as a diet. This is hard to do because the brain tricks you into thinking its ok to eat this or that and not exercise every day. The problem is before you know it the weight starts to come back.

The other important piece of information you need to successfully lose weight and keep it off is to stop allowing yourself to be brainwashed about how the weight problem is an energy imbalance- you eat too many calories and expend too few calories. The problem is not just with calories in and out but the type of calorie you consume. Gary Taubes has written this in his bookGood Calories Bad Calories and in an article in Newsweek The new obesity campaigns have it all wrong. There is a different theory which says holds certain foods accountable- foods that contain refined sugar and grains which are loaded with them because of the affect it has on creating metabolic syndrome and their effect on the hormone insulin which regulates fat accumulation. These foods also change the way the brain operates by increasing the production of ghrelin and decrease the production of leptin so you feel hungrier and are never satisfied. Sound familiar?

The single easiest thing you can do to put a stop to this is to stop looking at calories and low fat and start looking at the sugar or carbohydrate content in the food you buy. This includes the biggest offender which is soda, including diet soda. The other simple thing is to stop buying packaged food or fast food. This is why the nation is heavy and getting heavier. This is really important that people start paying attention to this. It’s time to wake up. We as consumers can put a stop to what the food and drug companies are doing to us. Just stop consuming it.

Feeding your creativity. What are you really hungry for?

May 10, 2012 by admin Leave a Comment

So how do you ‘grow’ creative ability and lose your appetite for the things that do not serve you in life?

So we are born creative, to be creative and then we seem to lose it. To grow and reconnect with the creative spark within you must be willing to make mistakes, and laugh at yourself. Einstein’s quote is relevant here: “A person who has never made a mistake never tried anything new.”

Creativity can be re-cultivated. Creativity comes from using the “whole brain” that is left and right working together. Believe it or not meditation has been shown to increase creativity helping to connect left and right brain. Meditation and creativity go together and both can become your daily practice. To begin your daily practice check out the meditation made easy program I developed. You can also look at Julia Cameron’s groundbreaking book on creativity The Artist’s Way. Growing creativity is like exercising you have to do it everyday as a daily practice.

Something happens in school that shuts that down, favors and rewards left brain thinking. I remember with my own children growing up and how different it was moving from kindergarten to first grade. My daughter came home from school one day very upset complaining how the first grade and school was not fun anymore. There was the big push to learn how to read and from then on creativity was not honored but marginalized. I also think it has a lot to do with playing… children spend so much of their lives playing. If you can bring more play into your life you may find yourself more focused to achieve your lifestyle goals whether it be to lose weight or find your passion.

Ultimately creativity involves the capacity to see relationships between things that are not related and to “think out of the box.” The problem is if one lives in a box, how does one think outside it? I also think creativity comes from the muses. It is about inklings, flashes of ideas that just pop into one’s head that may not even be one’s own.

Creativity is also about change and transformation. It is the process of bringing something new into being and making something of it. Does that sound familiar? Isn’t that how we change a habit? To that I would also like to add Amit Goswami’s definition: “creativity is the discontinuous exploration of new meaning in new and old contexts(s) of value. Looking for the link between creativity, change and values is a creative act.

What do you want to create? When you give some focus and attention to this drive, you may see that eating healthier food and exercising daily comes more naturally to you and watching TV are no longer interesting. Ultimately tending to our creative side makes us more stress hardy as well.

Tell me how some ways you can begin to activate and tend to your creative side.

Goswami, A. (1999). Quantum creativity. Creskill, NY: Hampton Press.

In search of your Creativity: The Real Hunger Game

May 7, 2012 by admin Leave a Comment

Let me just start out with saying stories and movies like the Hunger Games are not feeding the soul.

If you stopped to think about it, you might ask yourself what you hunger for that you cannot name or do not recognize? Some would say it is creativity that really feeds the sou. Creativity is what we really hunger for and the capacity for creativity comes from deep within… an authentic place the yogis and Carl Jung called the Self. To access this creativity requires you to know yourself differently. Most of us never go beyond the lens of the ego. The ego is a filter thru which you experience your reality that is based on the past, the culture and may not reflect who you really are. As creativity is denied in our culture and marginalized in the educational system, we feel a hunger we mistakenly try to fill by consuming things. For more information on how we are stifling creativity see Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk.

James Hillman the founder of what we call archetypal psychology said that “creativity is in and of itself an instinctual drive just like the drive to eat” This means that the satisfaction of creativity is a requirement of life. We all have the need to fulfill our creative drive. How you go about doing that is what you need to look at. Most of us focus on our work and the roles we play in life such as parenting. This may not feed the creative drive and cause one to feel a sense of dullness about life that also lacks meaning. If so you are not feeding your creative drive properly, this could spill over into other drives like eating, shopping and other escapist modes of behavior that do not fulfill or fill.

So how do you get back on track? First we have to redefine creativity. I love this definition: “The genie of creativity is bottled up for most of us-to liberate the genie is to become a genius” (Goswami, 1999, p. 17). Stay tuned to find out how to become a genius.

Goswami, A. (1999). Quantum creativity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

What does vulnerability have to do with losing weight?

May 4, 2012 by admin 2 Comments

Recently I came across a great Ted Talk by Dr. Bren Brown more on the role of shame as the root of addiction, depression and the tendency to be or feel small in life. Shame is something that is perpetrated by our culture to keep us down. All you have to do is to look at the advertising on that is on TV. Either one is being made to feel small, not being able to keep up the “Jones” or one is offered ways to dull the pain… food, drugs and various other ways to escape.

I would agree with Dr. Bren’s research, the most powerful thing that changed in me is my capacity to be and feel vulnerable. This is what led to be being loveable ironically. I just do not care what people think anymore. How liberating! Really vulnerability is the key to freedom. But then, that is the problem for the capitalistic model, it needs people consuming. Consumption is driven by feeling not good enough. This really saddens me. What I have found is that without shame you do not need to consume as much… you lose weight, want to exercise, take care of yourself….feel happier naturally.

I would not say that guilt is a close second to shame and is no better in terms of its destructive abilities. The irony is that people want to be with other people who are human… vulnerable. This means having the guts and ability to tell your story, be with the emotion, the vulnerability, and feeling like you are not defined by your story. I was given two books years ago when I got on the transformational journey that really affected me: Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw and Power vs. Force by David Hawkins, MD, PhD. The book gives you a way to move out of shame, and the second explains how shame is the lowest human emotion one can calibrate. The lower the emotions with which we resonate, the weaker we are. To me empathy and of course acceptance are the high roads. To me acceptance is the real antidote to shame. I would also add to that laughter… having the capacity to laugh at it all.

Personally, I am still working on vulnerability because I learned to survive by not feeling certain emotions and just being in my head. I am happily still a work in progress and I am ok to admit that is ok. Why not try the vulnerability diet… make sure you add a dash of acceptance!

Values drive change

May 3, 2012 by admin Leave a Comment

Why is it so difficult to change established patterns of behavior especially when those patterns do not serve us? The answer lies perhaps in getting clear about what you value. Recently I made the acquaintance of a website www.kairios.com which has a very helpful interactive way to get in touch with your values. Once you get clear on that, it helps you to tap into the right energy you need to bring about the changes you might be struggling with from losing weight, getting motivated to exercise and putting an end to procrastination.

I recommend you go on the site and take the values assessment. This will help you to see your priorities and understand why we do what we do that we are not always conscious. The clearer you get about what is important to you or what value, the more power you have to change a habit you want to change. This is what gives you the “stick to it-ness” you need to change those habits that are resistant to change.

Values are by definition something you feel is worth it. What is it that is worth it to you to catalyze you to stop eating processed and packaged foods? How can you use the energy inherent in the value of having self-control and self-respect that transcends the need to eat food that is harming you? Getting clear about what you value will empower anything you want to change. Taking action for three months doing something differently can actually help you to change your brain chemistry. What really matters to you?