**this is an excerpt from my book Fit 2 Love: How to Get Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life**

“Your relationship with yourself is the central template from which all others are formed. Loving yourself is a prerequisite to creating a successful and authentic union with another.” Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott

One of the tools that was pivotal in helping me manifest and manage all my relationships since 1998 was Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott’s book, If Love is a Game, These are the Rules. It was the first time I really understood the concept that how others treated me was a direct result of how I treated myself. When I could stand back and be objective about my behavior toward myself and what messages that sent out to others, I realized that the relationship I had to focus on most to get what I wanted was with myself. If I was not willing to treat myself like a queen, then how could I expect someone else to?

Your turn.

How do you treat yourself? When you wake up in the morning, what do you say to yourself? Do you compliment or criticize your body? Do you try on clothes, pinpointing all of the negative things you can, secretly wishing you could have someone else’s body?

If you do, you are not alone. This common practice of most women is the exact behavior that drives the fitness and weight loss industry—and I hate it. We focus on perfect bodies and how can I spot reduce this area so I will like myself, or so someone else will find me attractive and valuable? The underlying emotion here is fear. Many spiritual teachers of mine over the years have all agreed that our actions are motivated consciously or subconsciously by either love or fear.

Fear is defined as a feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by present or imminent danger and a feeling of disquiet or apprehension. Fear can be a good tool when you think your life is in danger, but most people live in this emotion all day long with no such threat. Fear is uncomfortable to be in and around. Fear can also be defined as lack of trust.

Love is defined as a deep, tender feeling of affection and care toward a person, such as that arising from kinship or a sense of oneness, and a person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction. Love feels good, and we seek it all the time. We hold others as objects of our attention to give love to, and we want to receive love from others.

Which of these is activated more in your life when you deal with your body? Is it mostly love or fear?

How many times in your relationship life do you attract people who do the same thing or change the way they treat you as the relationship progresses? They start off complimentary and wonderful in the first two or three months, then the compliments stop coming because you either did not receive them or you argued about them.

You trained them how to treat you.

How often do you deflect a compliment? Someone tells you that you look pretty, and you say, “Oh no, I just rolled out of bed, and I am having a bad hair day.” This blocks a compliment.

Many women do it because they have a hard time receiving. You are not allowing yourself to receive the gift because your inner critic does not believe what the other person says. You want to feel attractive, then someone gives you a compliment, and you reject it. Can you see what message you are sending to that person? Why would anyone compliment you again?

Take out a sheet of paper and answer these questions to see what your body blueprint says about you based on every area of fitness and self-care, including exercise, diet, rest, play, and self-talk. We will then work on creating a new body blueprint that can yield more desirable responses.

1. List all the thoughts you can remember you had today, from the time you woke up to now, about how you look or any judgments on your character. For example, if you made a mistake, did you quickly internalize with a thought like “I am so stupid,” or did you think “Oh well, glad I learned that now?” List all of your thoughts in a single column.
2. Underneath the last thought, write a list all the actions you did today, from taking a shower to eating breakfast. Also include things you would have like to have done or should have done and didn’t. For example, you did not take your supplements today.

You should have one long vertical row that contains all the thoughts you were aware of today and all the actions you have accomplished so far. Now make another column to the right of the first one and answer these questions.

1. Next to the thoughts you had, write down if they were positive comments or negative. If you criticized yourself, that is negative. If you brushed your teeth, that is positive.
2. Next to the actions, write down a brief reason for doing that action and whether it came from love or fear. For example, if you wrote down ‘had a cup of coffee, went to work and skipped breakfast,’ do you think skipping breakfast was an act of love or disregard? You know the body needs fuel, so if the reason you skipped breakfast was because you were too busy, you put work before yourself, which sends the message that you are not as important as your work. Keep going through your list and be honest with yourself about the messages you are sending.

What Does Your Body Blueprint Say?

Answer the questions below and identify the message you are sending with each of your answers.

1. Exercise: How do you take care of your body? Do you exercise regularly? What kind of exercises do you do and why?
2. Diet: What foods do you consume on a regular basis? Are they high energy, clean foods that provide vitamins and nutrients for your body? Are they processed, chemically created foods that contain large amounts of fat and sugar with no nutritional value? Do you consume the amount of water your body needs to function optimally every day? Do you ingest toxins and drugs?
3. Rest: Do you sleep at least seven to eight hours a day? Do you unwind before going to bed? Do you take breaks during the day to relax and recharge your mind and body?
4. Play: Do you have fun on a weekly basis? Do you laugh often? Do you feel joy and do things you love every week?
5. Self-talk: How do you treat yourself with the words you use in your mind? If you talked to someone else the way you talk to yourself, how would they respond?

The thoughts you are aware of and your actions are part of your consciousness. You can change those behaviors starting now. But before we start to focus on the steps of changing your body blueprint to build the kind of relationships you want in your life, let’s acknowledge how some of these habits got there in the first place. Why is it this way? Where did these patterns of thought come from?

___________________________________________________________

To order the book or get your free copy of the 4 Week Fit 2 Love Plan, please visit www.fit2love.info

If you ‘d like to listen to a 60 minute call about Your Body Blueprint, you can download the MP3 for free by clicking here.

To listen to the call online, click here.

You want to lose weight.  So you clean up your diet and you start to exercise.  This sounds like a good plan.

But let me ask you- how did you get to where you are now?  Are you an emotional eater?  Are you someone who does not exercise regularly and lack motivation?

Many people start on a weight loss journey focused on temporary change.  “If I go on a diet, I can lose the weight”.  You have all heard this before.

But let’s look at from an attraction point of view.

If you focus on weight loss, you set up a resistance to food, exercise and a lifestyle change.  Because you are only focused on a number and not the behavior, the thoughts, or the feelings associated with the weight you gained.

As you clean up your diet and exercise more, you may lose the weight you want.  But because you never addressed the beliefs or feelings around how you live, eat and exercise, 9 times out of 10 you gain the weight back.

Problem #1: Temporary change.  You want fast weight loss, you change lots of things.  Then you feel deprived because it was too much change too soon, you consider it a diet and then you rebel and “celebrate” once you have reached your goal-which usually starts the habits and patterns that have you gain the weight right back.

Solution: Clean up your life, not just your diet.  Start to “think thin” like we do on our 6 Week Beach Body Program.  Download the 4 week plan of Fit 2 Love and REALLY do the exercises especially around the food.  Make one change every month so you make it part of your daily or weekly routine.  Post a comment on this blog so I can give you more specific action steps to implement into your life.  I AM a problem solver so let me help you!

Problem #2: Delaying your happiness.  “I’ll only be happy when I lose 10 pounds”.  This statement goes against your inner being and your higher self so your body and spirit say “ then you will never be happy “  and your body says “ if you can’t love me the way I am, then I am NOT changing for you!”  Your “then” never comes.  There is always something else.  You set yourself up to fail IMMEDIATELY and delay your happiness and results in the process.  Accepting yourself where you are, as you are, right now is the ONLY way to make a real shift.  Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time until you and your body go back to the exact state it was in before or worse.

Solution: Find appreciation with your body and health right now. When you do that, you release resistance and your body will shift ad change.  Your body will appreciate the love and positive attention and respond JUST like a person.  You can download the free Fit 2 Love 4 Week Plan and start changing your relationship with your body and practice being happy NOW.  Let’s face it, one of the only reasons you want to lose weight in the first place is because you THINK you will be happy once you get it.  So pretend you have it now and stop delaying the HAPPY PART!  It gets you no where to hold your ground of unhappiness.  You practice that and that’s what you are good at.  So when you get to “happy”, you might not stay there long because you are too good at “unhappy”.

**What you lose, you can find. Don’t concentrate on loss but on transformation and releasing.**

JJ Flizanes is the author of Fit 2 Love: How to Get Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life and Knack Absolute Abs: Routines for a Fit and Firm Core.  She was named best personal trainer in Los Angeles for 2007 by Elite Traveler Magazine and is the Director of Invisible Fitness. JJ’s passion is helping men and women get results with their body and love on the outside as well as the inside. View JJ on video on YouTube or visit her blog at http://www.jjflizanes.com.

This is an excerpt from my book, Fit 2 Love: How to Get Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”                                  Virginia Woolf

We have lost touch with our relationship to food. With at least three opportunities every day to practice receiving the transfer of energy from our meals to our cells, eating has become a source of confusion and conflict, rather than a delightful pleasure. The lack of respect and abuse of food is one of the reasons why our health, as a culture, is rapidly declining. For some of us, the concept of doing anything except ordering in or going out seems like too much work. Our lives are too busy to slow down and prepare a home-cooked meal. Having a food love affair means having a deep, meaningful, respectful, and loving relationship to the food we put in our bodies.

In cultures throughout history, hunting, gathering, raising, and preparing foods was an honored and respected daily ritual. People were in tune with the abundance of each season and the different foods the earth provided throughout the year. Modern living has taken away the need of our attention to this. If you are looking for love, practice these principles with your food first. You have to create a love affair with food to attract the respect of your body and have success with health and weight management. To heal the obsession of dieting and calorie counting, you are going to treat food as your new lover, with whom you see the potential for a committed relationship. Rather than making food the enemy, you want to fall in love with food.

The Courtship

When you meet a man who interests you, the curiosity can be overwhelming. You want to know so many things: Who he is? Where he is from? What does he do for a living? How was he raised? Passion and excitement surround the quest for knowledge about this new person. It is an important step in finding the right partner. I want you to take a similar heightened interest in what you eat. Every day you fill your body with ingredients that make a huge impact on your health, state of mind, emotional well-being, and size of your waist. Take a look inside your refrigerator and kitchen cupboards and ask these questions: How did this get made? How does it affect my body? Where did it come from? Start to be more curious about seeking knowledge of the most vital relationship you already have—your diet. We take for granted what we consume everyday and how it impacts our lives. We are missing the spiritual connection to food.

Imagine you are looking at a red pepper. How does it affect your body? How was it grown? Did the farmers use pesticides on the plants? Was it just picked, or has it been sitting in a grocery store for a few weeks after being shipped from a warehouse? What’s the difference? I chose the red pepper because my husband and I have just started growing our own vegetables, and we have green and red bell peppers. Prior to planting a garden, we were regularly shopping at the local farmer’s market. At the last minute while preparing brunch for guests, I had the direct experience of comparing the shelf life of farm fresh veggies over the grocery store bought version. The store bought celery started to turn brown after two days, while the farmer’s market celery lasted for over two weeks. This confirmed my choice to go directly to the farmers to get my produce as often as possible.

The red bell pepper has many nutrients you want to know about. Studies have shown that red bell peppers have significantly higher levels of nutrients than green. Red bell peppers contain lycopene, which helps to protect against cancer and heart disease. They are a good source of vitamin C, vitamin B6, beta carotene, and folic acid. Peppers contain a large amount of phytochemicals that act as antioxidants to protect against cataracts, blood clot formation, and reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Sounds good, yes? Can you get more excited about eating a red bell pepper and all the wonderful things it can help your body do? If you find yourself more interested in the red pepper, this is good news. You are creating a love affair with food.

In my book, I cover a few more steps and ways in which we engage with food and how it can enhance different parts of our lives as well as our bodies.

I am doing a complimentary class on 3 of these stages at Whole Foods Market Redondo Beach.  Click here to get more info and learn how to register for these classes.

Just like your relationship to a person, food is no different.  Your relationship with food can always be improved and deepened for a more satisfying union!

Let me  show you how to Create a Food Love Affair-The allure of Energy and Superfoods in a 3 part series:

#1 – The Courtship

You want to know so many things. What is it?
Where is it grown? When does it grow? How do I prepare it?

Juicing (green apple, lemon, cucumber, spinach, celery)
Unique Seasonal Fruits
Majool Date

Wednesday, September 7th from 6:30-7:30 pm

Space is limited. Please rsvp sprdb.marketing@wholefoods.com to reserve your seat.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

#2 – The Engagement

You’ve decided to commit, you’ve made a decision to engage. Plant a garden, make regular visits to Whole Foods Market, or the local farmer’s market. Give it your energy.

Soup- JJ’s Easy Veggie Soup (onion, garlic, olive oil, water, zucchini, broccoli, parsely, kale, raw cashews, sea salt, pepper)
Berries with Chocolate Dipping Sauce ( raw, unsalted almond butter, chocolate powder, agave, vanilla bean or extract)

Wednesday, September 14th from 6:30-7:30 pm

Space is limited. Please rsvp sprdb.marketing@wholefoods.com to reserve your seat.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

#3 -The Marriage

When you commit yourself, managing your relationship is what
makes the difference between a healthy or an unhealthy union.

Kale Salad
Nut Cream with Berries (raw macademia nuts, medool dates, 2-3 oranges)

Wednesday, September 21th from 6:30-7:30 pm

Space is limited. Please rsvp sprdb.marketing@wholefoods.com to reserve your seat.
OR sign in on facebook clicking HERE

Fit 2 love final for WF RB class

This week has had many great breakthroughs for me . I want to share this one with you in the format that it actually occurred because I don’t think I could have said it better re-writing it in the blog so I just gave you the whole interaction between JJ and I, with her permission of course.

To give you a quick background…I created a Facebook status update about the content of a guy’s profile I was paired with where his only profile content was that he liked sex and Harry Potter. JJ had a reaction to it. And I had a reaction to JJ’s reaction and so, rather than do my old stuff of binging and withholding, I communicated. It was hard especially because JJ is my coach and someone whom I respect immensely.  Funny thing is, she was coaching me when she probably wasn’t even aware that SHE WAS COACHING ME BIG TIME!

A dear friend brought to my attention last night that even if this lesson is the only thing that I get out of attempting to date, well, that’s pretty damn great! Through this process I have learned that there is nothing wrong with me. I can have an opinion. I can express my opinion and I can stay with myself in the face of disagreement with another. Here is the communication between JJ and myself. I’m proud of both of us.

(me to JJ)

hi JJ,

I need to communicate my feelings about the response to my FB post about sex and harry potter.  First of all on eharmony when you are “paired” with someone it doesn’t mean that he contacted  me or expressed interest in me (he did NOT) it just means that eharmony has paired us based on our profiles that we created for whatever reason so it’s not like these guys are contacting me and i’m declining the invitation. This is not the case, in fact, quite the contrary. I became very angry reading the first two sentences of your response b/c I felt that it indicated that I was getting a lot of interest and i was not giving these men a chance. the opposite is true. I have reached out (made the first move) to about 150 men with two responses. I’m doing my best to stay positive and hold it together and not allow this experience to validate old thought patterns about it being better to be single, etc. so far, my dating experience does validate all of my negative thinking about it and i try everyday to not give up and not give into those negative thoughts so then to read that I need to give THEM a chance was maddening! I’m trying to date but no one is interested thus far!  I would be happy to give them a chance but there’s been no opportunity to do so! I want to go on dates, many dates, to practice. and I’m contacting most people i’m paired up with but I’m getting no response. I will not give up but I think I need more positive comments from you on my dating posts, or no comments, whichever you prefer. but I am trying, I am contacting men and I am reaching out.  That’s the other frustrating thing is that I AM open, I have made my list for my ultimate guy, I had a 2-hour energy clearing on sat. to remove any obstacles from keeping my heart open and to attracting someone. I’m working it as best I know how. One of the cool things that came up for me around my reaction to your post is a stepping into knowing how worthy I am. I took a lot of time and energy to create my eharmony page. Even if mr. harry potter contacted me, i wouldn’t go out w/ him b/c that’s ALL he wrote on his dating page. I wasn’t interested in his profile so I’m not responding and I don’t have to respond just because he likes me (if he DID reach out to me). And what I learned in this thought pattern is that in the past I gave myself to people who liked me even if I didn’t like them. I was attracted to the attention. What I realized today is that I don’t need to do that anymore. I’m worthy of more than that. I’m worthy of dating someone that I AM interested. that was pretty cool to step into today. thank you for affording me that opportunity.
A.

(JJ to me)

Hey Audre
thanks for letting me know.  The way you posted it sounded really judgmental towards this guy and it seemed like contradictory energy to what you said you wanted.(acceptance from others)  It came off very much like you thought he was scum and I didn ‘t think that sounded productive or fair.

It’s a great thing to recognize your self worth, and I can understand what you are feeling. These are challenging times to break patterns and dig deep.  Learning our lessons in life is NOT easy and NOT pretty.

They are EARTH SHATTERING sometimes.  You have a lot of triggers and “old stuff”- most of us do.  That’s why I sent you the info on EMDR.

Didn’t mean to offend you, only here to help and be the mirror.  You were kinda mean about this guy.  You could have just said ” he is not for me” without making fun of him.

I hope you can understand how I am seeing it too.

Sorry to offend.

(me to JJ)

Hi JJ,

Seems like this small interaction is affording us big lessons! good! My two sentences affected you deeply and yours affected me deeply. Light to both of us!

I re-read my post and my experience is very different from yours. I don’t know him so I don’t think he’s scum. I have no judgments about him-I don’t even know him but I DO know that I wouldn’t respond to a guy who only put harry potter and sex as the ONLY content in his profile and no picture or name. I’m talkin’ nothing about what he wants in a relationship, nothing about him, what he does for a living…NADA. Therefore, I think the profile was a joke anyway.  And, I will continue to do posts like this. To me it’s funny and it’s about me coping through this using humor. It’s not about the other person. It’s not personal to these men. Like I said, I don’t know him/them. If this profile was completely filled out and this was a guy seriously looking for a relationship then, you’re right, that would be mean but this wasn’t the case.

I don’t feel I was mean and I didn’t feel like I was making fun of him. Interesting the different filters we have! That’s what makes us all individuals.  Hope we both get great learning out of our deep reactions.

Thanks for your apology but I would like to THANK YOU FOR OFFENDING (which you didn’t offend, you just said what you said and I had a reaction–that’s MY responsibility–and your intentions were loving and supportive which I TOTALLY GET) because it stirred A LOT w/in me and it’s actually having me step stronger into myself more than ever and providing me with great clarity. My biggest issue is being mis-understood. I hate when my intentions are good and they are experienced by others as hurtful. It leaves me feeling sad, angry, frustrated, agitated, and more…and the great thing is that I cannot do anything to fix it or change it for the other person. All I can do is stay steadfast in who I am and stay strong in knowing what my intentions are and, especially now, DO NOT EAT ON TOP OF THOSE FEELINGS! So, all of the above got triggered by your feedback and I have NOT over-eaten. So, again, I thank you. I need this. I need to have differences w/ people and learn to stay in my body and not abandon myself. When I used to have differences w/ people I would make it seem like I’m agreeable to all so everyone will like me—and THEN EAT ON TOP OF THAT SELF-ABANDONMENT. I’m not going to do that anymore. When I have differences, I will hear them, double check w/in myself and either apologize, admit I’m wrong or I will say ok, you have your thought and I have mine but I’m not going to abandon myself to make you (not YOU but anyone) feel better.  Ok, now I’m crying!!! See, your input was a gift!!! thank you again.

I will blog about some of this.  I think this self-abandonment stuff is good for all to hear, especially women.
xo,
A.

For whatever reason last night was a tough night. I was feeling lonely, sad and very very tired. I worked a 13 hour day and stopped at Wendy’s on the way home. I was starving and exhausted which did NOT help in my judgment of food choice.  I will say that there was one good thing which was I ordered a Jr. sized meal and a small rather than the Super Sized adult meal plus the chicken nuggets and the apple pie…ok PIES….as I did in the past.  I felt satisfied after eating it and slept like a rock.

And then…

I could hardly wake up this morning.  It literally took me about 5 minutes just to get my eyes open. My face and eyes were swollen and my body felt like it had a MAC TRUCK sitting on it. I felt heavy, puffy, tired and did I mention HEAVY? It was different than feeling FAT it was a heaviness that made each movement a challenge for me.

YUCK! I LEARNED MY LESSON!

So, this morning the protein bars and apples made it into my purse and will live there indefinitely so that I do not find myself without food easily accessible when I’m tired and exhausted because I know that I will be in that position again. It’s unavoidable with my current lifestyle. So, I need to plan and make changes accordingly.

Feeling very lonely lately and feeling as if my life is passing me by. Sometimes when I let my thoughts get the best of me I start to think that 39 is really old and I wonder if I’ve missed out on a lot of things by letting my weight and my dependence on food stop me from really living how I want to live. Would I have the man and family by now? Would I be in a different job or NO job and be working for myself as I have always dreamed? Would I be more successful on all levels? Would I own a home by now? Would I be more naturally active by now?  Would I be out of debt by now? Would I have written that book I’ve always wanted to write by now? Would I be on my way to being the skinny white Oprah by now?  OY! OY! OY!

Then, I have a choice. I can go deeper down that path and get depressed and go visit Wendy again and again and again or I can choose a new thought and look forward rather than backward.

It’s much easier to choose the more positive thought without a Jr. Double cheeseburger in my belly.

Lesson learned.

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty even keel, even flat and dare I say boring!  I haven’t been having my emotional highs and lows to which I attribute a major reduction in the amount of sugar that I used to eat.  I am also not over eating and not emotionally eating as much as I used to. I’ve been taking much better care of myself in all areas. I’m making sure that I get daily exercise outside and am enjoying this new way of life.  So, since I’ve been feeling boring or settled I’ve been feeling that I don’t have much to say or write.  I’ve been more quiet within myself and been enjoying just “being.” Are you up on your “woo-woo” insurance cause you may need to be for this post! Oy!

I’ve almost come into a place of calm or peace with myself and trusting that everything is going to be ok and that everything that I am going through is for my highest good, learning and upliftment.  There is a peace that wasn’t present before.

Don’t get me wrong! I’ve had my moments!  I’ve had a couple of times when I have eaten because I was anxious, nervous or felt out of control but I have quickly bounced back into my healthy eating which is a huge change from going on a 2-week binge and falling back into, “My diet starts Monday” way of thinking.

Thank goodness for JJ’s support.  Being accountable to her and to myself has been a great help for me.  Consistency has also been the key. Remembering that, yes, I may have lapsed into “bad” eating but I think about how far I’ve come since the beginning of this journey and it gets me back on track.

Something has clicked for me. I don’t want to go back to the old way of eating in the past. I want to be healthy. I want to take care of myself. I want to make myself my #1 priority and I want to treat myself with love and respect and I want to have confidence in how I feel and how I look.

So, I continue with one day, one meal, and one challenge at a time.

Last night was the first night in a long time that I was out with friends and I felt beautiful.  Rather than sitting there and comparing myself to others all night and wishing that I was skinnier or more____ or less______, (fill in the blank…I could think of upteen things!) I was just happy to be exactly who I am and proud of the path that I’m on.  Dare I say, I was comfortable in my own skin (tears).

As for dating, over a week went by and I realized that I had not even checked my online account. I’ve been focusing on me and that has felt so good lately that it’s taken up most of my time and attention.

And I deserve every second of it.

Over the next year and a half, I proclaimed that I was NEVER (ha ha) giving up dairy because I loved my cheese and I was already gluten free.  That was in 2009.  In February of 2010, I decided I could give up dairy for 4 months to clean out my system and strengthen my digestive system.

Did you know that about 80% of your immunity comes from your digestive system?

Several nights a week I would experience congestion before bed so I knew it was something I was eating or drinking that was causing a problem.  After getting the results back of my Alcat test, I made a video to share all the products I picked up in order to substitute my favorite foods as an easy transition into a new diet.

After completing a few months of dairy free living, I added it back in.  It was no shock to have the congestion come back and I realized that maybe I need to remove it from my diet period.  When it comes to gluten, I rarely have it.  Maybe once every 6 weeks-but I plan for it.  I take some enzymes and usually have it while I am on my menstrual cycle because there are days I am more bloated anyway.

I still consume some dairy but I have cut down dramatically. Cheese was a part of my daily diet and would appear in often 2 meals a day.  Nowadays, I probably have cheese once a week.  The substitutions I made when I eliminated it for 4 months have stuck.  I use mostly coconut creamers, almond and coconut milk and buy hemp or coconut ice cream if I want some dairy-like dessert.   The products I have been using have become my favorite products and I honestly don’t miss the cheese.

My friends, before the wedding, would tell you that I was a cheese-a-holic.  And I clearly was not ready in 2009 to even consider it.  But as time went on, I realized that it is ONLY food and at the end of the day, my health and body are important to me.  I found some suitable substitutes and my palate has changed.  Thank god.

Growing a garden has been the best way to enter into a healthy marriage with my food- this reference is from the food chapter of Fit 2 Love: How to Get Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life.

Our garden is small and we don’t currently have enough planted to produce vegetables for lunch and dinner every day.  When we do, I get very excited about finding new ways to prepare what we are harvesting.  But right now we are in mid-season.  The eggplant is growing, the tomatoes are in process and the zucchini is starting to take off but none are ready to eat.

A few months ago, I was interviewed on film for a documentary about Raw Food.  The chapter in Fit 2 Love was a missing piece in the film about our relationship to what we consume and how to nurture a healthier relationship with food.

I consume raw products but I have always thought it was too hard and unrealistic to eat Raw 100% of the time.  But I have hit a point in my life where I love focusing on my food and I need a new goal!  Going raw for a week or two seems like the next step for me.

Here is the trailer for the movie, I am in frame 3:26. The Raw Natural Movie that is due out this summer!

http://www.therawnatural.com/

I have one or two people who are going to be doing this experiment with me.  If you’d like to join me, we start on Saturday July 30^th!

Mark your calendars because I will also be doing a 3 part class at the Whole Foods Redondo Beach in September to transform your relationship with food! Based on the Fit 2 Love principles, get your copy today and look for the emails about registering. The class is limited and it is FREE!

Results are in. After the first two weeks of JJ’s 6-Week Beach Body Cleanse I’ve lost 6 pounds! And that’s even “cheating” for two days of it! Doh!

Feeling much better today. Less tired. 

I was thinking about what I posted last night about how my moods have been much more level.  I attribute that to not eating as much (hardly any) sugar.  Even if I didn’t lose one pound but had the benefit of not feeling like I’m on an emotional roller coaster…THE CLEANSE WAS WORTH IT!!!!

My cravings have decreased immensely. I crave protein over sugar.  Still waiting for more energy to kick in but I think it’s that I still have over 100 pounds to lose and I work like a mad-dog. Long hours-LONG days!

Proud of myself.

So , tomorrow is the last day of my cleanse…thank God! It was easy in the beginning and then got harder toward the end because I grew very bored and hungry!

I do feel SO much better though, more emotionally stable, not so many ups and downs (as JJ likes to call my “drama”).   I feel lighter and I’m eager to see how much weight I have lost.  I wasn’t 100% good on the cleanse.  Mid-way through it brought up a lot of old stuff about dieting and restricting food.  This goes back to as early as around 11 years-old for me.  I remember being at a friend’s slumber party and we were given small cups of trail mix and there I was picking the M&M’s out of the trail mix because I was on a diet and couldn’t eat them.  Yuck. I hate that memory.  I was a kid! Eat the M&M’s at the slumber party for goodness sake!!!!

So, I had a couple of times where I ate, mostly over sadness, or out of boredom or out of rebellion or I was just plain hungry!

I will say, though, that these shakes that JJ has me on are FABULOUS! Even after the cleanse I’m going to continue to use them as my dinner because I get home so late in the evenings and they are so yummy and filling!

Things are generally good. I’ve starting my gym workouts again and I feel so much better already.  Exercising is the key for me to feel better all around.

On the dating front: NADA.  Mr. “almost was the dog killer” is nice but I’m not feeling the connection so I will continue to look.  I am focusing more on me becoming the person that I want to be in relationship with and that feels good.  It’s making me take more risks and be more active.

One day at a time. The weigh-in is tomorrow. Will check back then.