Just so you know: You won't go to Hell if you decide to enjoy Thanksgiving.

I have to tell you that I am ANNOYED and IRRITATED.  It seems like all the Fitness Pages I follow are promoting fear, paranoia, and stress surrounding food and dieting during the Thanksgiving Holiday.  

I think it's stupid.

Yes, the truth is that many Americans gain weight during this time of year and they never lose that weight so it accumulates and leads to the yearly weight gain.  I will not dispute those facts but how does promoting fear, self loathing if you eat the cake Anna Mae, and language about punishing yourself help?

There's a saying: "Thoughts become things" and the thoughts that many in the Fitness Industry are promoting are that you're bad for enjoying the food this holiday and you need to be punished, be paranoid about Thanksgiving food, and it's wrong and sinful to enjoy this festive time of year.

I think that is stupid too

Re-evaluate  Priorities and Regain Perspective

There is more to life than diets and workouts.  Earlier this year it was brought to my attention that Fitness had become a distraction.  It had become a distraction because I had allowed it to take up way too much space in my life.  I enjoy working out and being active but I had taken it to a level bordering on self obsession.  I was very uncomfortable with some of my behaviors.  I was participating in conversations sometimes that sounded like an Eating Disorder support group and I was heading into the territory of being self loathing.  It wasn't until I took a step back, re-evaluated my priorities, and regained my perspective about what was REALLY important that I put fitness back into its proper place.

With this Thanksgiving Holiday, I would encourage you to re-evaluate your priorities.  This time of year should be spent reflecting and giving Thanks for your life.  A lot of people will have empty chairs at their tables this year because they have lost family members due to death or because life happened.  While you're freaking out about the calorie count of  Pumpkin Pie this year, some family will wish they had some canned pumpkin to pass around.  Is food really your biggest priority?  If it is, then I encourage you to re-evaluate your priorities and I would also encourage you to get help.  

While I am on the topic, being obsessed with food is not a joking matter.  It's not something to laugh off.  I see fitness people who are constantly posting about food, junk food they are going to eat, posts about hoarding food, and food food food posts all day long.  This is not healthy and it is not something to encourage.  If the thought of food is giving you anxiety, then please consider getting help.

Regain your perspective by pouring your energy into your relationships, friendships, hobbies, passions, and your life goals.  The more I have focused on what TRULY matters this year, the less priority I have given to worrying about food and exercise.

Stop The Insanity and Start the Gratitude

This time of year is where we need to start being THANKFUL for what we have.  If you're reading this, then you have computer access and many people in the world don't even have clean water.  

Be grateful for even being ALIVE. You have breath in your body and that is MORE THAN ENOUGH to be grateful for.

From Dec. 21 to Dec 31 every year, I do a Top 10  moments of the year in no particular order and I start thinking about it during Thanksgiving.  What are your Top Moments of 2015?  What are you most thankful for?

Stop this Insanity of Thanksgiving is a sin and you're going to Hell for eating Pecan Pie.  The more you focus on restricting yourself and trying to atone for your Thanksgiving meal, the more likely you are to binge and to start sneaking food later.  The healthy mindset approach is to say: "I'm going to enjoy some of everything and not feel bad about it."  If you go into it with that mindset instead of white knuckling and punishing yourself, then I guarantee you will be a lot less likely to over eat.

Stop the Insanity and Start being Grateful if you even have a family or friends that you can celebrate the Holidays with.  This time of year is so hard for many people because they are isolated

Stop listening and following these Fitness Pages that are promoting self Loathing and Fear Mongering.  Point Blank and The Period.

Inspiring Pages

I was really touched to see the Page Ripped Goddess start a positivity chain for women.  She recognized that this is a rough time for many people and wanted there to be a space for women to live each other up.  I was so moved that I PM'd her to thank her for digging deeper and encouraging people to lift each other up instead of encouraging them to come up with more ways to declare war on themselves.

Scott Abel is another that I am thankful to see spreading this type of message.  The page Go Kaleo as well

These pages are run by people who actually understand that there is more to life than food, exercise, and obsessing about your body.  This is the type of healthy mindset that we need to encourage.

In case you missed it:  Here are my Keys to Avoiding Excessive Holiday Weight Gain.

So can We Stop The Insanity and Start the Gratitude?  You won't go to Hell if you decide to enjoy Thanksgiving.  Enjoy and move on.



  Pass the Sweet Potato Pie y'all!!!

5 Reasons I decided to Stop Dieting and why you may want to consider it too...

I have recently put an end to the fruitless quest to find the PERFECT DIET that will rid me of all of my woes.  The other day I was looking at photos  from two years ago before I started on this quest be a figure competitor.  I was actually doing all right.  I wasn't dieting, I didn't have food issues and I was eating the same foods that I am now...the only difference now is that I am 20 pounds heavier and I am also armed with the answer to the question that I had for many years of my life.

Losing weight did not make me any happier.  It didn't make me more successful and it really had nothing to do with anything that had any substantive value in my life.  As a matter of fact, I was hungry, tired, developing disordered eating tendencies, and feeling very unlike myself.  As I continue to say, I will take the 20 extra pounds over feeling like I did last year.

So I've made the decision to stop dieting.  I've done this before and it was called living.  2 years ago I was living and didn't know how good I had it but I thought there was something better and perhaps there was:  There was this message, this knowledge, and this truth that I can now say, "This much I know is true"

Dieting and Weight Loss isn't the Real Issue

Your issue is the one you don't want to acknowledge

It's the issue that causes you to turn to food when you feel lonely or empty 

OR

It's the Issue that causes you to be desperate enough to go from diet to diet, person to person trying to find the cure to save you from your thoughts that you aren't enough.

You're going to be hearing this a lot from me in the coming months because I think it bears repeating.  I have come up with 5 Reasons I decided to stop dieting and hope that you take some time to consider it as well.

1.  It doesn't work

If a plane had an  over 80% failure rate would you get on?

If there was over an 80% chance that by taking a pill you could get very sick or even die, would you take it?

If anything was designed to fail over 80% of the time
, would you consider it successful?

My guess would be No and so why don't we want to believe this when it comes to dieting?  

Some of these companies have wised up to the fact that diets don't work and are now calling them challenges.  It's still the same stuff.  Food restriction, shakes, and a diet.  I'm not here to argue but why don't you call it a 365 day challenge if it's a lifestyle thing?  Why can't people continue with it after the allotted time?  Easy because it's designed to provide quick results to the desperate and get them to believe THIS is the answer.  If it was sustainable and long term, then why not call it the Lifestyle challenge?

Well I guess that's not as sexy to be able to tell people that _____ lost 8 pounds in 7 days.  Yes because most of that was water retention and on low calorie diets people tend to lose fat AND muscle which will slow down the metabolism....BUT carry on.

Diets don't work.  At my lowest last year I was almost 40 pounds lighter than I am at this moment. Some of that was water lost due to low carbohydrates but my body has definitely rebounded from my experience.

Diets don't work.  You know it and I know it.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same result.  Remember that woman from the 1990's Susan Powter?  She was right!  STOP THE INSANITY.

2.  Dieting doesn't attack the REAL issues because it's not about the food.

It's not about the food.  The food is just a SYMPTOM of what the REAL issues are.  The issues that you don't want to face.  My issue was that I never thought I was good enough.  I was never enough just being who I was so maybe if I worked harder, if I FIXED MYSELF, then things would change.  

They didn't and they never do.  I'm going through this Mindset Performance Institute Training right now and when I tell you Brian Grasso read my mail, he read my mail!  My mindset was all screwed up.  I thought that if I worked hard enough, if I suffered enough, if I put myself through this enough THEN I would be worthy of my life.

Welp didn't happen.  Yeah we can say it was because I never ACTUALLY accomplished my goal but that wasn't it.  When I finally got to "THERE" nothing changed because my internal environment was toxic.  No matter what it would never have been good enough.  It was a moving target because I never thought I was enough.

This year I have done a lot of fun things, I have stepped into doing thing I have always wanted to do in the fitness industry, and I'm doing it 20 pounds heavier.  Nobody cares and dare I say that I don't care either.  What I care about is telling the truth and preaching what I'm practicing.  I am here to tell you that you don't have to wait until you "get there" to LIVE.  You can do all of that now!

3. I'm not falling for the tricks of the diet industry anymore.

Leave it to the diet/fitness industry and all of the answers to our problems are in six pack abs and looking perfect.  Whatever product they are peddling is the answer to all that ails us.

But....It's not about the food. Yes I am going to continue saying it. Nobody can answer the question about why you emotionally binge eat potato chips and cookies when you're sad, stressed, empty, lonely, or whatever except for YOU.  Having a #fitspo tell you to, "Suck it up buttercup" isn't a strategy and will not change anything.   No supplement or coach can solve those internal problems. YOU are the only person that can flip the script on that one.

There is no one perfect diet and I have heard many people say that the reason everyone is jumping from diet to diet is because they refuse to believe in simplicity.  It's too simple to eat when you're hungry, have a routine, eat fresh food, drink water, and such.  No you want complicated diets, magic beans, and such to make you think that it's really working.

If all these diets and supplements worked and were sustainable, then why do we have so many?  Why is the fitness industry a billion dollar business, yet obesity and chronic diseases are on the rise?  Why are less people active than before?  Why is the overall diet of Americans still rated as poor?  

It's because it's all lies to get you to buy the latest products or services.  No trainer, no nutritionist, no supplement guru can do for you what you can do for yourself which is to ask yourself some hard questions and get to the ROOT of the Problem.

4.  It Encourages More Self Loathing and a Failure Mindset

Sorry y'all but I'm tired of these fitness martyrs going in to do battle with Dumbbells and barbells.  I'm tired of listening to self proclaimed #FitFam soliders going to be CRUCIFIED with the weights.   I'm tired of listening to people FIGHT TO THE DEATH FOR CARDIO. I mean For Real?  

I don't buy it for one minute.  I believe that a lot of the validation seeking selfies and this overly dramatic language is to mask self loathing and low self esteem.  

When you like yourself you  tend to use words like INVIGORATING,  ALIVE, VITAL, HEALTHY, STIMULATING, OVERCOMING.  

When you don't like yourself and think punishing yourself is a good thing,You use words like SUFFER, KILL, FAILURE, DEATH, ANNIHILATE.  Yes..words do matter.

With a self loathing mentality, whatever you do it's not good enough.  You were in the gym for an hour?  NO! If you're on a diet, then you should be there for 2 hours.  Let me tell you I got a life to live and my workouts are pretty intense these days.  45-75 minutes tops and I'm sweating, heart rate is up, full range of motion (BUTT TO THE GROUND), and I have to sit for 5 minutes at the end but doggone it I feel ALIVE.

When I eat, I'm eating foods that fuel, nourish, and help me to feel energetic and alive.  I'm not hoarding cookies, suffering for the sake of chicken breast, or any of that nonsense.

I believe that dieting just encourages those that already feel like crap about themselves to find something else to complain about how they're not good enough.  Plus once you inevitably fail at the diet or fail at whatever you thought you were going to get at the end of the diet, you're back to square one and eating the Ben and Jerry's or off to find the next answer.

Without dieting, I no longer have the time to focus on issues that encourage me to feel bad about myself and really have no bearing at all on my success or contentment.  

5.  Once you take away the restriction....you don't care anymore.

Every day I tell myself that I can eat WHATEVER I want.  Whether it's the Cheese Danish and Full Fat Latte or the Pizza and wings.  Whatever I want.  

I don't eat them.

Why?  Because I don't really want them but when I was in restrictive mode I ate things that I hadn't eaten since I was a child like Pop Tarts or I would crave things like Nilla Wafers.  I couldn't imagine eating those things now.

Halloween was just a few weeks ago and truthfully, Halloween Candy does not turn me on but I do like Mini Snickers.  Since one of the instructors from the gym was handing out candy that morning, I took ONE Mini Snickers.  That's all I wanted.  Had I spent my time obsessing about the mini Snickers I probably would have bought a bag, and finished the whole thing after vowing only to eat one.

My other example of this is Justin's Vanilla Almond Butter that I now buy at Target because I refuse to pay $15 at Whole Foods.  I eat  the almond butter on an apple, rice cake, or Ezekiel English Muffin and guess what?  I can keep the jar in my house and it lasts longer than a week.  Truthfully I forget about it a lot of the time.  Honestly, if I was sitting up here obsessing about NOT eating the Almond Butter I would probably eat it way more.

Once you take away the taboo, the restriction, and this obsession with trying to control every single thing a funny thing happens: You just stop caring and you allow yourself to let food nourish you and sustain you. You stop being a slave to food because you know it's not about the food.  You can address the real issues.

Some people have the opposite problem:  They eat everything because they've given up and have determined themselves to be a failure.  So why even bother?  The fitness landscape on social media doesn't help.  You're a horrible person if you're overweight and emotional problems?  Forget it!  Go lift something and then take a selfie!  That will cure your problems.  

You need to stop dieting because diets don't work and you're just going to go around and around the same mountain.  Even if you do lose weight, most likely you will gain it back plus some because you've failed yet again.

It's time to stop and get off the diet crazy train.

Won't you Join Me?

So I ask you:  Won't you join me?  Will you stop dieting?  Will you confront WHY you're doing what you do when it comes to food and your health?  Will you answer why you don't think you're worthy of taking care of yourself so you stuff yourself with food to make yourself feel better?  Will you talk about why you come home and feed yourself to try and feed the emptiness you're experiencing?

I am starting a Holiday Support Group and we begin Dec 1.  I still have a few spots available.  The purpose of this group is to help people navigate through this stressful and emotionally charged time of year. The majority of weight gained by Americans happens through the holiday season and they never lose it.  This group will provide tips, workouts, but most importantly help you to pinpoint and empower yourself so that you don't let yourself be controlled by food.

It's time to LIVE BETTER

20 Pounds Later and the War is Over: No More Dieting

Suppose  you were sick and the doctor told you that if you continue your current behavior and lifestyle that you would have an 83% chance of getting sick again. Would you STOP what you are doing or would you continue on?

Let's say that you had money to invest and your financial planner told you that he had an 83% FAILURE rate.  Would you invest with that person?

I am guessing that you would STOP your current lifestyle and you would not invest your money with that broker.

CONSIDER THIS

In her book women food and God, Geneen Roth cites an April 2007 UCLA Study of the effectiveness of dieting, researchers found that one of the best predictors of WEIGHT GAIN was having lost weight on a diet at some point during the years before the study started. Among those who were followed for fewer than two years, 83% gained back more weight than they had lost. Another study found that people who went on diets were worse off than people who didn't.

I gained 20 pounds and I did not freak out

As many of you know, I have been off of the scale since about August and this past Saturday for the first time in about 2 months I stepped on the scale.  I was semi surprised at what I saw.  I was 20 pounds heavier than when I started this, "You want to be a figure competitor" journey.  Now I do have my hair braided with two packs of hair so I'm sure that accounts for some of the gain but I did not lose scale weight from the summer.  I did lose inches though but not scale weight.

I put the scale away and then left to go to the gym.  I was surprised by my own reaction.  I did not freak out.  I did not think about what was the next diet I was going to go on, what coach I should sign up with for a new meal plan, or what I needed to do in order to get the scale down to where it needed to be.

I just moved on.

Ending the War With Myself

I have officially called a cease fire on the war without end that I've imposed upon myself.  I'm reading Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth.  We discussed a lot of her work in the Eating Psychology group I went to during the summer.  Her work is about discovering WHY we compulsively eat when we are not hungry for food.

The chapters I read this past weekend summed up the last year or two of my life perfectly.  Being obsessed with meal plans, workouts, and all of that gave me something to do.  It gave me a distraction from facing the real issues.  Earlier this year, a woman named Ingrid told me that all of my distractions were going to be cut.  I realized that Fitness had become a HUGE distraction.  It's great to be busy obsessing about food plans and exercise so that you don't have to confront the bigger issues in your life.  Since this year I have confronted those issues, faced them head on, and released a lot of the toxic mindsets that drove those unhealthy behaviors I just can't get that moved about the scale.

The truth is that it is going to take time for my body to heal itself and go back to homeostasis after 15 months of caloric restriction and exercise.  It's not going to be any quick fix or 21 day challenge.  It's going to take TIME and since I'm alive...I still have Time on my side.  However I am not going to put my life on hold until my scale gets back to where I want it to be.  I will not let my life pass me by.

Dieting and Exercise as Punishment

While Reading Women Food and God this past weekend, I had what Oprah calls an A-ha Moment.  It was this line in the book that screamed at me:

"As if punishing themselves with dietary rigors will make up for something inherently damaged, fundamentally wrong with their very existence." Being thin becomes the test.  They must suffer humiliation and torment. "

That is what I had been doing.  I will be honest.  I HATE the current fitness motivational psychology on social media.  It's based around shaming, extreme vanity, self obsession, and punishment.  Listen to the way they talk:  KILLING themselves in the gym, being MARTYRS for their diets,  GLORYING in feeling like they are PUNISHING themselves.  

Look at this meme.  Punishment.  You have earned your pain?  For someone who doesn't feel good about themselves, this is a TERRIBLE message. Self Loathing people perpetually beat themselves up for not being more.  It's the mindset of, "I suck.  I'm a loser so I deserve to beat myself up in the gym."  According to this meme you've won when you're in pain? GIVE ME A BREAK!  If you're in pain every workout, then it won't be long before you won't be able to work out.

I love the great Lee Haney's saying, "Stimulate don't Annihilate." That has become my fitness philosophy and it is the truth.  I have felt more worked cutting back on weights, going Full Range of Motion, and really stimulating the muscles than just throwing weights around.  There seems to be all of this annihilation going on in the Fitness industry and for what purpose?  How is this helping people?  

I have jumped off of that train.  My message is to LIVE BETTER. Watching all those people who trained crazy for years barely being able to move in their 40's and 50's because of multiple surgeries is enough to let me know that if I want to be the raunchy woman into her 70's and 80's that is not the way.

A Cease Fire on Myself

I'm done fighting this pointless and useless war on myself.  We as women will never be happy. We see women who supposedly have it all still get nitpicked.  Gorgeous Gigi Hadid got it from the body fascists not too long ago because she doesn't look like all the girls. She had to speak out about having boobs, butt, and thighs!  She's a woman for heaven's sake! I mean really?  If 20 year old supermodels aren't safe, then the rest of us may as well give it up!

After the Nor Cal Fitness Summit, I know that I have bigger projects to complete that are more important than immersing myself in the war without end on my weight.  To be honest with you, I am doing everything that I advocate in my programs.  I am eating real food, I have an eating routine and I don't eat between meals, I exercise 5-6 days a week (workouts are shorter and more intense), not taking too many stimulants (other than coffee), getting plenty of sleep, and drinking water.  I refuse to put my body through more stress of dieting and too much exercising. 

No More Dieting

Think about this:

one of the best predictors of WEIGHT GAIN was having lost weight on a diet at some point during the years before the study started.

I have read other studies that said that the people who gain the most weight in adulthood are those who went on the most diets. 

I believe it!  Right now I am 20 pounds above where I was when I first started this whole thing.  When I started, I was eating the same way I am now, worked out because I enjoyed it, and could fit into my clothes.  I go on a diet to try and get onstage, lose 18 pounds and now I have gained it all back plus 2 pounds more, and cannot fit into a good portion of my clothes.

The solution is not another diet.  The solution is to eat real food, exercise, not stress out about weight and let the body heal and recover.  It has only been six months since I stopped the insanity so I have to be patient and give myself time.  I'm doing the right things and I have to let nature take its course.

I have talked to people who have lost weight and kept it off for good and all of them tell me that they don't diet.  Now that's not to say that they don't cut back if they're going on a vacation or have a big event to do but they don't live their lives on meal plans because you can't LIVE that way.

This past weekend was Halloween and I had just one piece of candy.  I had a Mini Snickers that I got from another instructor at the gym.  It was great because that's my favorite candy and that's all I wanted. I didn't need to restrict myself about the candy because Halloween Candy doesn't really turn me on but I do like Mini Snickers and Mini Twix.  Not having restrictions makes a big difference which is something that I want people to understand.  The more restrictive you are, the more you end up focusing on food.

Announcement: Support Group

Starting December 1, I will be forming a Facebook Support Group for Women revolving around nutrition, exercise, and body image.  I am getting feedback from women that they do not have support and encouragement.  The Holidays can be tough with all of the stress, emotions, family, loneliness, and grief. Sometimes you need a place where people know your name and you can receive encouragement.

Until Next Time,

LIVE BETTER!