In preparation for the holiday season and the dawn of 2008, take a moment to reflect on your progress and achievements in 2007-not only in the areas of nutrition and health. Achieving physical health goes hand-in-hand with our abilities to understand our emotional, mental, psychological and spiritual capabilities and aspects of character, and specifically how those affect and influence health states. With Thanksgiving only a few weeks behind us, thoughts of what we are grateful for may still be circulating and ideas of how to achieve what we are still in need of and desire most may be at the forefront of our brains. The end of 2007 brings an opportunity to start fresh and take control of our lives to finally achieve the goals that appear year after year on our resolutions list. In the last 365 days, did you finally attach action and intention to your to-do list, or are you stuck in a rut, buried under great ideas that remain un-executed? Do you continue to blame outside forces for the fact that you still have not joined the gym? Did you express your gratitude for high cholesterol and new saddlebags at Thanksgiving dinner? If so, it is time to make some changes and look deeper into emotional and mental patterns that keep you from succeeding. Let’s get to the core issue of why you still cannot resist dessert day after day. Claims of “I don’t know why I do it” just don’t fly anymore….
With Halloween having kicked off the holiday season and subsequent festive food binge, most of us have spun out of control even before turkey time arrived and have done some damage to be not-so-thankful for. Old patterns and habits that allow for us to initiate this downward spiral of bad choices must be broken in order to start fresh this year- this transformation extends far beyond writing resolutions and making empty promises of “never again”, but can start by adopting some new behaviors and learning some tips to avoid the diet disaster this time of year to get a head start on making some positive change in 2008. Most of us find that our inability to say “no thanks” when it comes to over eating and/or choosing the wrong foods, promotes feelings of discomfort, disappointment and disgust with our allegedly “un(der)-controllable” behaviors of over-indulgence. If you are one who has uttered the phrase “but I just can’t control myself”, in defense of eating behaviors that increase your waist size, it is time for a mental shift and evolution- and you can begin by saying “no thank you”. Claiming that you “just can’t stop eating”, or that the cookies in the kitchen cupboard call your name until you eat some, is over. The bottom line is, you are in complete control of these episodes, and saying “no thank you” to subjecting yourself to the rule of your so called “unconscious” and “involuntary” action of bingeing on three helpings of dessert, enforces your powerful position. Unless you have been possessed by the “aimless eater” demon, or the “mindless snacker” spirit, you and your will power, and your ability to say “no thanks”, are in charge here. It is up to you and ONLY you to change these behaviors in order to achieve the results you desire. Nobody will do it for you.
Saying “no” to your impulsion to consume 6 cookies for no reason is as much a choice as is saying “yes” to your unfounded urge. “But I just can’t stop myself”…”I am not even hungry or in the mood for dessert, but before I know it, I have finished a whole bar of chocolate just because it is there”..,-sound familiar? It also sounds helpless, as if an involuntary force were lifting the chocolate with an invisible mini-crane and dropping morsel after morsel into your mouth until 350 calories, 40 grams of sugar and 35 fat grams later, the bar is eaten. Avoiding this inflammatory, fattening event is a choice and it is up to you to make that decision every time you are faced with temptation. Take a deep breath, open your ears, and tell yourself: ‘no thanks”. “No thanks, I do not wish to put off the days to do list by eating myself out of house and home just to find myself right back where I started, still faced with a to do list, but with an additional 2 pounds, high circulating blood sugars and an un-happy pancreas. When at a friend’s for dinner and offered a second helping of candied yams, simply say “no thanks”- repeat after me: “no thanks”. When your friend says, “oh, c’mon, I made them just for you”, reply with something along these lines: “no thanks”. Your friend will get over the rejection sooner than you can say: “no thanks”! When sitting at your work desk, procrastinating on completing the afternoon’s tasks by repeatedly dipping into your snack stash just one hour after lunch, tell yourself “no, but thanks anyway”. There. Not so tough. It is all up to you. Unless Gepetto has you on a set of strings, you are the only one directing your hand-to-mouth movement. Lying to yourself by believing that a higher power is actually forcing your hand to shove m&m’s down your throat is your doom. And, the last time I checked my physiology book for the definition of “motor control”, it read: “coordinated use and movement of skeletal muscles in a goal oriented manner”. It is quite simple. When you put a donut hole in your mouth, you brain thinks, “I want to eat that donut hole”- the goal. Subsequently, your brain tells your hand to pick up the donut and place it on your tongue- the purposefully coordinated movement to achieve your goal. This is all intentional…. So, if your goal is to avoid the donut, isn’t it counterintuitive to your goal to direct your hand to pastry and then pastry to mouth? I think so. In efforts to enforce that you are the sole director of these events, simply practice the following behavior: learn to say “no thanks”! And incorporate these methods to help you resist temptation, assert your power and regain control:
Retrain your palate: every time you crave something sweet, give yourself something salty.
Heal the scrape wound, not the skin next to it: when your heart and mind are in need, do not send reinforcements to the belly. Avoid emotional eating and “filling” a void by writing in a journal, calling a friend, or engaging in any activity imaginable that has nothing to do with eating, Beat boredom with a crossword puzzle instead of popcorn.
And again, simply say “no thanks” to both yourself and anyone who attempts to assume power over your will. Say it and step away from the stuffing.
With these new practices, and your learned go-to phrase “no thanks”, you are initiating an evolution; a permanent change in your patterns to release yourself from your old, bad habits that simply do no good. To complete and support this evolution, a core transformation must take place to integrate your efforts into emotional and behavioral patterning to ensures permanent evolution out of bad habits that keep you stagnant. It is all under your control. Get through the holidays this year without winter weight gain and start the new year by accessing the strength you possess at the core- it is time to look inward.
Core healing goes hand-in-hand with physical detoxification, disease prevention and achieving wellness. Without an emotional, psychological and mental processing and fine-tuning, efforts to maintain physical health prove to be only temporary- which is why sooner than later you find yourself saying “but I was doing so well for a while, and for some reason, I fell off the wagon….” So, before the end of 2007, take complete control of your life and start by looking deeper- not just into the flab around your belly, but into your core, to provide for yourself the space you so deserve to release yourself from old, toxic habits that are holding your optimal wellness hostage. By the end of this holiday season, you can be proud of and grateful for your newly acquired skill: the ability to decline gracefully with a resounding: “no thanks” and the attention to intuition to stamp it a permanent transformation of character. Just keep practicing your words and accessing what is at the core until you realize your power. It is all inside of you- and necessitates your guidance to see its way out!! Please see next month’s publication for an introduction to “core healing”, and how it functions as a foundation for establishing and living a complete, and healthy life. I wish all of you a safe, fun, and healthy holiday season!
This information is for educational purposes only, and is not intended to treat or diagnose any health condition.