This week Charly and I had an amazing conversation with Gillian-Hood-Gabrielson whose specialty and passion is to teach women about “Living now, instead of waiting to lose weight” , “Taking back power over food” and to “Re-ignite the relationship with your body”. This is very much in alignment with yoga – living in the present moment, becoming aware of your body and establishing a good, healthy and respectful relationship with it are some of the foundations on which yoga is built.

Gillian comes from a personal training background and her relationship with food was fraught with difficulties from an early age. She finally discovered “intuitive eating” and has been on that journey ever since.

A lot of us have a love-hate relationship with food, we know what we should be doing and eating and yet – somehow it just doesn’t work, we don’t manage to follow through.

Intuitive eating is not a diet, healthy eating or lifestyle. In a nutshell it means “eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full”. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? For a lot of us it is not simple because we have been conditioned to believe that we have to “Finish everything on our plate”, to “eat because otherwise the cook is unhappy, we don’t love her any more when we don’t eat lots of her food” or similar things. Often food is used to suppress emotions. “You are hurting – go and get an ice cream, it will make you feel better”. These childhood patterns continue to shape our attitude towards food and our behaviour around food all through our adulthood. Often we are not even aware that this is happening.

Intuitive eating means to become consistent – to eat when we are hungry and to stop when we are full. It is that simple. All food is permissible, there is no guilt. We gain gradual freedom.

Gillian also talked about the hunger-scale from 0-10. When we reach 0-1 we are extremely hungry, our blood sugar levels are low and the brain goes into emergency mode. When we are in this state we are most likely to overshoot the mark. We eat too much and instead of getting to  a 6-7 which gives us a good feeling of satiety and just enough food for our needs we overeat and end up at number 10, feeling awful. The lesson here is to try and avoid to get to this 0-1 level. It is interesting that yoga should not be practised when we are extremely hungry or after eating a huge meal. The body should be balanced and in good condition when we start our session so we can gain the most benefit and the body and mind do not distract us too much.

We talked about other interesting matters relating to food, eating, tiredness and stress management.

Listen to the full interview to find out.

 You can find out more about Gillian by going to her website which is http://www.healthieroutcomes.com

At the moment she is selling her e-book “Four Weeks to a New You” for 50% off. Grab it before the end of September for that price.

Here is to a New You!

Connie,

Your Yoga Partner

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com

Recently I listened to an interview with Lenore Miller from http://www.stretchyourmindandbody.com/blog/outrageoushealth

During this interview she described 5 steps we need to take to get us to lead the life we want. I love the way Lenore laid all the steps out – she uses very graphic images.

Step 1 – the Dream

It all starts with a dream, an idea, some thoughts. You might call it a vision.

Step 2 – the Mountain

As soon as we have a dream we also have “mountain” – all the obstacles (real or imagined) that stand in our way. Yes, I would like to lead this happy life, BUT…..So we need to dismantle, analyse and overcome this mountain.

Step 3 – the Magic Wand

Write out your life as you would like it to be, in full detail, using all the senses. What do you see, what do you hear people say, what smells are there, how does it feel?

Step 4 – the Pandora’s Box

Contains all the tools you have at your disposal. There might be things in there you don’t even know about yet. Create new tools and put them into your box.

Step 5 – the Gift

Life is like a glass of bubbly champagne – top up your glass every day – it only needs 10-30 minutes of “me” time – a walk along the beach, getting out into the backyard, a bubble bath, lighting a candle….

Want to know more? Go to:

http://www.stretchyourmindandbody.com/blog/outrageoushealth

Till next time

Connie

Your Yoga Partner

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com

A couple of days ago my business partner Charly and I had a most interesting chat with Lenore Miller from “Outrageously Healthy”
http://stretchyourmindandbody.com/blog/outrageoushealth

Lenore Miller is the founder, host and coach of “Outrageously Healthy”. Her passion is to help as many people as possible live their best life. She launched outrageously healthy with the aim of bringing together tools of the conscious and unconscious mind to help others create the Outrageously Healthy Life they deserve.

Before becoming an online entrepreneur, Lenore started a women’s fitness studio where she began noticing a pattern amongst her clients. Lenore says “that these gorgeous women of all shapes and sizes would arrive looking for the solution to their problems. Mostly they would want to lose weight or change shape. However, what they really wanted, was the feeling they thought being a certain weight or shape would give them, they wanted to feel good about themselves”. (more…)

One of the places I worked at had a cartoon of Garfield (the happy, round stripy cat) on the wall.On one side of the page he was round, happy, smiling and the caption said: “Before Work”. On the other side of the page he was skinny and scrawny, deflated, frazzled, the fur sticking away from his body. The caption read: “After Work”.

I think we should reverse the sides and put “before Christmas” and “after Christmas” as the captions…….

Here are 14 hints how to come out the other side of Christmas looking more or less the same as before.

The hints are in no particular order, just take note of those that appeal to you and really apply them! No results without action!

1. Lose weight before Christmas, join a boot camp, build up “Christmas Credits”. This is really good advice – maybe too late for this year – but you can always mark your calendar for next year already (or build up Easter credits!)
2. Eat or drink something before going out to a party so you don’t arrive starving and devour the whole buffet.
3. Take small portions and a small plate to start with. Wait 20 minutes after finishing your plate before getting more. (20 minutes is about the time it takes for your body to signal that no more food is required or that more is needed).
4. Use a small wine glass and stick to dry white or red wines. Avoid dessert wines.
5. Move away from the buffet, dessert table or cheese and nut platter. Talk more, eat less!
6. Avoid anything with pastry – yes I know, it is painful, all the fun stuff is gone….
7. Don’t eat the crackling – easy if you happen to be vegetarian
8. Avoid the gravy
9. Avoid fatty dips – stick with ricotta and yoghurt based ones, hommus and baba ganoush.
10. Use plain crackers, dry breadsticks or raw vegetables with your dip
11. Avoid deep fried entrees, and anything crumbed or battered – have steamed or grilled dishes instead
12. Have mainly fruit for dessert
13. Drink plenty of water
14. Go for a brisk walk, swim or visit your local gym before or after each party.

I know you heard it all before but prevention really is better than cure. It is so hard to lose weight – it is truly easier not to put it on in the first place.

Good luck on your journey.