The Juicy Woman

Just checking in

Hi Gals,

Just wanted to let you know that I'm back. It's been awhile. I got a nasty case of Bronchitis and then one by one the whole family got sick. It feels good to be back up and running again. Keep your eyes peeled for my next Curvy and Confident call. We'll be talking about the 9 No Nos to Avoid - How to Change Your Negative Self Talk to Positive.

I'm off to shop for some great new clothes that show me off and hug my curves. Ah, to be a curvy and confident woman. There's nothing quite like it. Thrive in your curves.

Weight Woes Outweigh Health & Wellbeing for Women

According to a recent article by Daily News Staff Writer, Rosemary Black in the NY Daily News.com health and lifestyle section, "Most Women Are Concerned with Weight than Overall Health." It's a sad state of affairs for women when we care more about the number on the scale as opposed to the state of our health.

This information was determined by a new Associated Press/iVillage poll in which 1000 women participated, half the women surveyed were distressed by the number on the scale, even 26% of the women whose BMI (body mass index) is in the normal range. According to registered dietician, Keri Gans, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, says that "So many women think more about the number on the scale than whether their blood pressure or cholesterol is normal.They really don’t think about disease risk as much as they do about their weight.”

As a professional coach, body image/self esteem expert, I'm so tickled that this
information is coming to light because as women, we've been having the same disempowered
conversations about our bodies for far too long. It's time to recognize that the problem is not
what we're eating; it's what's eating us! We've got to get more serious about dealing with the
stress on our plates and stop obsessing about the food that goes in our mouths.

It's such a crime that there are so many women with negative body images.It's no wonder that so many of us are body haters. Here in the U.S. 4 out of 5 women say they hate their bodies.

The truth is most women don't have a realistic view of what they actually look like. The average

American woman is a size 14 and nowadays a size 10 is actually considered full figured. The curvy size 14 woman accounts for 67% of the population, yet most designers don't

design clothes for the plus size woman. The fall out of that is a huge population of women feeling

fat and ugly, and that only feeds the desire to feed. Emotional eating is the reason why up to 98% of

all diets don't work.

 

As the article says, "the majority of women would rather get a root canal than hop on the scale. But do you stop to wonder why? It's that screaming meanie negative self talk that kicks us in the pants every time we do things that reinforce a fat and ugly self image, such as dieting, talking about being fat, thinking and fearing food, wearing clothes that are too tight, and scale hopping. Most people don't realize that the brain and body are two sides of the same coin and

you just can't get thin if you're acting fat.

Here are 5 quick tips to get you on the road to making peace with food and friends with your body:

1. Toss your scale Every time you step on the scale, you give it permission to tell you what kind of day you're entitled to have. Don't let anyone or anything have that kind of power over you. Step away from the scale.

2. Stop dieting  Eat when you're hungry and stop before you get too full. The wisdom of our grandmothers would call this eating in moderation. Nothing is off limits and everything is okay.

3. Deal with your stress You'll never be able to stop your raging hunger if your life is spinning out of control. I love to teach my clients a stress relief method called Emotional Freedom Technique, a simple tapping process based on the science of Acupuncture.

4. Have more fun  Spend more time each day doing things you love. When you have something to look forward to, you feel better about yourself.

5. Wear clothes that fit you now  Scale the internet for sources for styles for plus size women that
can make you feel good and look great.

Stop Hating Your Thighs and Deal with Your Clutter

I just uploaded a new video and wanted to share it with you. It's been ages since I last blogged and I've missed you all. I've been buried in working on my first book, "Lovin' the Skin You're In: The Juicy Woman's Guide to Making Peace with Food and Friends with Your Body.

I promise. You're going to see a lot more of me lately. I have tons of great things to share with you and I'm eager to promote many of my upcoming products and programs.

Two and a half years when I first made the decision to stop dieting, I had no clue that it would have such incredible ripple effects in my life. In attempting to navigate my way around learning how to eat intuitively, I gained 35 pounds and went from a size 10 to a size 22. It was probably the most humbling and important learning experience in my life.

When I finally found the secret to put a cap on my voracious appetite, I realized that I had to deal with the bugaboos in my life that I had been avoiding. I also finally understood that I would never get out of the loop of emotional eating, if I didn't first accept my body as it was.

By making those two changes, It's transformed the way that I think about my body and how I live my life. Now I realize that it truly is not what you're eating, it's what's eating you!

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As I share in parts of my book, this has been an incredible journey of self awareness and love. Over the past year with all the challenge that I've faced in my personal life, if I would not have given up dieting, I would probably have gained about 100 pounds. Today I'm incredibly thankful to finally love the skin I'm in. As I continue to commit to doing that more and more, taking daily action to honor my thoughts and needs, I watch my body reshape and get smaller. I now love myself more at a size 16, than I ever did at a size 8. That's because I've learned to become my own best friend and accept the good, bad and ugly parts of me.

If you want to know more about how you can love your thighs at any size, snag a copy of my Juicy Woman Lovin' the Skin You're In Sampler. You can also download a free excerpt of my upcoming book. Stay tuned for lots of juicy goodies coming up.

"Love Actually Is All Around"

As a woman now devoted to non dieting as a lifestyle, I've learned that the times during which my life has gotten chaotic again and I begin to judge myself based on my appearance is earmarked by the chaos that I allow to pile up in my life.

I am gradually weaning myself of the need to be a compulsive perfectionist, which means that making mistakes and learning to just be okay with who I am is enough. I've tried to play the perfect card and it has made my life a living hell.

It's kept me focused on all the things that I am not, and by doing that encouraged me to hide my light, avoid shining and becoming too much or letting myself out to play.

During those times of hiding, I find myself focused on the imperfections in my body, judging the size and shape of my face or wishing that my stomach were thinner or perpetually focusing on the size of my thighs. These things don't really matter, because one day they'll all turn to dust anyway. I want my legacy to be one of love. I want to give the same amount of love I've received by some and exceed the amount of some I've been denied by others. My dear friend and colleague, Tuck Self recently referred to me as a love muffin. That's who I am. Only now I've just learned that it's true.

In the days when I was so focused on counting calories and burning up points, trying to get all my waters in, loving myself and the world didn't count for a damn. Now I get it. It really does, and because of that my whole life has changed.

Here's a beautiful quote that I recently snagged from the movie, "Love Actually." It touched me so deeply that when I heard it spoken by one of the actors in the film, Hugh Grant, I started to cry my famous truth tears. Here it is:

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed but I don't see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere, often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the twin towers as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people onboard were messages of hate or revenge. They were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling that love actually is all around."

Let me know what you think about switching your goals of wanting to lose weight to committing to love yourself more.  As you may know, this blog is a companion to my online free Juicy Woman Yahoo group. If you're a gal, in need of support, wanting to love yourself more, accept your body now and reshape your body slowly and gently without ever, ever, ever dieting again, then come see what I can do for you! Come take my hand and let's take the journey together.

My Stuffing Blunder

Every year at Thanksgiving I take it upon myself to prepare stuffing the way my Nana used to, simple bread stuffing with celery and onions sautéed with thyme and fresh butter.

In my former Weight Watchers days, when I was calculating points, I knew that ½ cup was equivalent to 4 points, so I set aside a cup and half and allotted myself those 12 points for my precious stuffing.

Since I’m no longer the dieting diva I once was, I no longer fear food, so I always eat exactly what I want, when I want. Now unfortunately stuffing is not such a big deal anymore because I can make it anytime throughout the year.

As it so happened, I forgot that my stuffing was in the oven and it had dried out. It looked  more like stuffing hard tack than Nana’s rich and buttery delicious stuffing in a beautiful casserole dish.

Don’t ask me why but someone put it on the table anyway. My son said to me, Mom, you love stuffing so much. Why don’t you try it? I told him, “Bleech, that looks terrible. It’s so dried out. He said, Yes, but it’s still so good. Try it.

I took a micro dot of it and put it on my fork and realized that it was still tasty but the texture was awful, definitely not what I was used to. If company was not around, I would have taken my napkin and discreetly spit it out. Rather I swallowed those few hard, crusty bits of bread, and put my fork down quickly. Then without a second thought to my stuffing loss, I continued to enjoy my wonderful carrot flecked mashed potatoes with my home made turkey gravy. I just won’t eat something if I don’t love it. Will you? Share your thoughts with me and let me know what you would have done.