It’s been a rough couple of days.

The situation with my friend got worse yesterday. To make a long story short and to save you from the boring details, she had given me some feedback about me that I didn’t like. The content of the conversation isn’t as important as how I was left feeling. A lot of shame, judgment and self-doubt came up.  SHAME is a huge emotion that seems to have a strong hold once it comes up. And it’s one that I tend to eat and eat and eat on top of. 

When taking a bird’s eye view of the situation, I really don’t have anything to be ashamed of so I think this presence of shame is old. It’s an old pattern that stems from my childhood about me not being good enough and not doing things perfectly. I never thought I was the perfectionist type and I don’t think that I am on the outside but when sitting with these feelings for the past 24 hours or so I think that I approach how I relate to myself with  perfectionist expectations. I would never relate to anyone like this especially someone I cared deeply for so why am I so mean to myself? (Crying).

It feels so confining. This feeling is what makes me stay stagnant. I don’t want to try anything new, go beyond my comfort zone, go for what I REALLY want, be vulnerable, put myself “out there” for partnership, release weight…whatever the new challenge is I don’t want to do it for fear that I will fail. I’ve learned that it’s much easier for me to think/believe that I can be successful at whatever I put my mind to without actually having to try and test that belief. I really do believe this but I have spent much of my life stuck thinking this rather than actually living it and I think a big part of this is because of my perfectionist expectation of myself. YUCK! I even hate the word!

So, I have more work to do. I’ve got some serious self-forgiving to get moving on.

Yesterday was tough. I ate and ate and ate and ate. And I ate crap. Chocolate, candy, carbs. I felt like shit at the end of the day.

But today is a new day…

I promised JJ that I would be coachable. I would do everything she said even when I didn’t feel like it and I will keep my word to her.  So, I’ve been listening to my hypnosis sessions from the “6 Week Beach Body Program” and even with the current stress in my life I have slept like a friggin’ rock the past two nights! I don’t know what’s up with that woman’s voice but she starts talking and I’m out like a trout and I stay asleep all night.  I haven’t even stayed awake through the end of the session yet. I really hope that I’m not going to start clucking like a chicken or something because who knows what she ways saying to my subconscious mind! LOL!!!!! In all seriousness, if you have trouble sleeping, get going on this hypnosis stuff. It works!

And today I start my “6 Week Beach Body Program Detox.” Which means no coffee.  Oy. And I think I’m PMSing. I sure hope I don’t kill someone this week.

I am looking forward to feeling better and healing on all levels. Starting my gym workouts again tonight too.

Detox Day 1: 277 pounds.

On the dating front (this is the part that makes me sick to my stomach). Met another nice guy through eHarmony. We finally got to the point in the process where we can email each other on our own. I feel like we’ve been dating for 6 months because it takes so damn long to get through all of those steps! Geesh! Anyway, I found out his last name so, in true “times of technology” fashion, I Googled him and what I found, or potentially found was horrifying.

A man with the same first and last name and middle initial and same career but different part of the country had been brought up on animal cruelty charges for kicking and killing a dog. THIS IS MY WORST NIGHTMARE. I wanted to throw up when I saw this story pop up.  And if you don’t know me the one thing you would know within 5 minutes of meeting ms is that I’m the crazy dog lady. I love animals more than humans! (Issues? We’ll re-visit this another time)

So, I have a feeling it’s the same guy but I didn’t want to make any assumptions so I just sent him an email asking if he had practiced in this specific part of the country last year. We’ll see. If it’s him I will NOT be able to move forward with things even if he was protecting his dog from another. I just can’t be with someone with that much anger that they would kick a dog that hard to create a blood clot and kill it.  I hope I’m wrong on this one.

So, I’m feeling, once again, beat down on the dating front BUT I will stay true to my commitment and continue kissing toads until one of them surprises me by being a prince.  Someone had given me great feedback on this blog suggesting that I should stay open to dating but not make it the main forefront of where I put my energy. I think she’s exactly right.

In “Fit 2 Love” people tell amazing, transformational stories about how they prepared themselves for partnership and how the partner then showed up. Some of the stories are truly miraculous and inspirational. The common theme to all of them was to be the person that I want to be in relationship with.  That’s a challenge that excites me because the person that I want to be with has similar values but lives a much more active lifestyle. I guess I need to get into action!

So, here I go. I continue to forge on.

More to come…

If money was not the issue, would you take 2 days to go inside and make some shifts in your relationship with your body and love life? Have you been single too long, not able to find the right man?

Are you unhappy in your relationship and can’t seem to make it better? Do you yo-yo diet and sporadically exercise wishing it would just be easier?

Are you letting your body not being perfect stop you from dating or embracing the love that already exists around you?

When I was writing Fit 2 Love, married friends and colleagues of mine begged me to write the book for them. They wanted solutions on how to improve their relationships and lose weight at the same time.

However, I focused first on the single man or woman who wants to lose weight, feel better about their body and is searching for the love of their life because I have been there and I know that. But what I also know is that these principles can make ANY relationship better once you apply them-single or married. They have worked in my relationship as well as many others who have already applied them.

I have created the space for only 5 very lucky people to receive a scholarship to the Fit 2 Love Workshop which is selling for $397 but valued over $1000.  You may know someone who is unhappy with their body and wishing they could find love- I would encourage you to pass this onto them.  This weekend could change their life forever.

***DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS IS APRIL 20th*****

Click here to download the application and instructions

Different Kinds of Detoxing

You want to lose weight safely?  You want to improve your relationships?

A detox may be necessary in four areas of your life:

1.      Your Physical Body

2.      Your Physical Environment

3.      Your Emotional Baggage

4.      Your Current Relationships

Your Physical Body

At a physical level, proper detoxification strengthens our body’s tissues and enhances the function of its systems. This can result in fast weight loss, better sleep, improved mood and focus, as well as a decrease in appetite. Detoxification is a process of removing chemicals and toxic substances from your diet, while entering into a cleansing period by eating foods that help the body eliminate built-up toxins. Not only will you be cleansing your body, you will also have the opportunity to create a new relationship with food.

Hunger is of the mind, while appetite is of the body. During a detox, you have the opportunity to become aware of the difference between hunger and appetite. Keeping a journal throughout a detox can help you become mindful at a conscious and subconscious level of how, when, what, and why you eat. With mindfulness, you get to take back control over your relationship with food.

All cleanses are not created equal, and some are not safe. I would recommend trying a detox on your own with the guidelines  found in Fit 2 Love or contacting me at 6weekbeachbody.com to find out when we host the next virtual detox group.

Your Physical Environment

When it comes to your physical environment, you should be aware of two points of view to take into consideration.  The first is the organization of your space, and the second is the energy it creates, also known as Feng Shui.

Having things in order, for some people, equates to feeling in control and safe. Being organized has the potential to remove underlying anxiety that may plague you from day to day.

Feng Shui taught me that clutter blocks energy and flow in the area of your life that correlates with the space your clutter is in your home. Clutter had never bothered me before, until I learned it could have an effect on different areas of my life, such as relationships, money, and health.

Clutter impacts our emotional, mental, and spiritual state. It affects not only how we feel, but also our ability to be effective. Clutter takes away our power.

Your Emotional Baggage

You may have negative thoughts and emotions that clog your mind and dampen your spirit. These are old ways of thinking and habits that you might not be fully aware of at this point in time. You may be holding onto emotions like resentment, anger, and guilt, which can stand in the way to your natural energy source: your body. Negative emotions can settle into our bodies and manifest physical symptoms. What thoughts and feelings do you have that are toxic to your health and well-being? Do you feel depressed and overwhelmed by the amount of stuff around you? Is your life filled with incompletion, both in work and relationships?

Your Current Relationships

As we grow and change, so will our relationships. Just like reviewing your financial statements each year to see how you are doing and what to adjust for the following year, cleaning house may be necessary in your relationships to allow you to grow to who you want to be.

Make a list of all the people in your life and note whether they are a positive or negative influence over your life. Without blaming them for how you feel, notice if they have healthy, positive attitudes and habits in their own life, and how they treat you. Are they a complainer, and do they quickly negatively judge those around them? Are they calm, peaceful, and positive? This is a hard exercise because of all the potential history you may have with each person. Sleep on this one; choosing who you surround yourself with will affect you on every level.

Which kind of detox do you need to do first?  What other tools might you need to make this happen?

Remember that getting results IS important but if you don’t clean up what’s causing the problem, you WILL remain doing this over and over and over.

For more information on how to do the detox, check out Fit 2 Love. We also have a 2 day workshop where you implement these strategies and walk out a new person with a new plan to get the real results you are looking for.

800 571 5722

invisiblefitness.com

fit2love.info

Here are some fun facts that aren’t so fun about detoxing and why we need to detox our bodies. There are over three new chemicals introduced into the planet each day.  In fact, we enter a world with over 200 chemicals in our body.  The environmental working group found that samples of blood taken from the umbilical cord of newborns contain an average of 200 chemicals that can cause cancer, brain damage, birth defects and other serious illnesses.  Now although our bodies do have a natural detoxification system, it is necessary to assist our liver and our body at least twice a year so that it can work more effectively to eradicate these toxins from our bodies.  I recommend 4 times a year on our 6 Week Beach Body program.

Step 1: Cleaning House. I want to talk about cleaning out your house, but I want to do it in a way that has you think about energy.  If you’re in a room full of people that are very happy and very positive, you know that you’re eventually going to feel happy and positive because you’re going to “calibrate” to the people around you because they’re going to lift you up.  You’re going to want to be at their level.  Not only because feeling good feels good and having positive energy feels good, but because you’re in the minority and the dominate energy in the room is happy.  So you will find yourself sort of sliding up the scale to feeling better just because of the people that you’re surrounded by.

Now on the opposite side of that of course if you’re in a good mood and you walk into a room full of very upset angry people you can pretty much guarantee that you, over time, whether you ever get to the level of anger and negativity as they are is not important but you will definitely slide down the scale from where you are which was happy to the dominate energy in the room which is negative.  It’s the same thing in your body and it’s the same thing in your environment.  When it comes to your space (office, home, work), de-clutter, move things around to shift the energy and identify any energy vampires in your environment and eliminate them!

Step 2: Your Kitchen. In your kitchen, I want you to be really honest with yourself and look in your kitchen and cabinets.  I want you to identify your stress-eating foods, your boredom foods and the snack foods.  If you were on my 6 Week Beach Body Program, I would be telling you to pack it all up and give it away. I’m not a big fan of wasting food and I definitely am not encouraging anyone to waste food.  You have the option of throwing out the things that you know you want to get rid of or the alternative choice would be to package it all up and take it to a friend’s house or donate it.

Step 3: How many days? How long should the detox last? The detox program I facilitate on our 6 Week Beach Body Program has a duration of nine days. Some detoxes last 14 days or even 30. I suggest starting with 9 and working your way up depending on your goals for a detox.

What is the cost? Of course doing a detox will cost something to get the proper products and supplements but you should think of this as your food budget for 9 days. You would need to eat for 9 days so use that money to invest in a good detox program. There are a few books out there about detoxing, one of them I used in helping me to create the one for our program and it’s called The 7 Day Detox Miracle by Bennett and Barrie.If you are doing this on your own, let me give you some tips.

Step 4: What to avoid?

• dairy,
• caffeine
• alcohol
• sugar
• meat
• fried foods
• packaged foods
• salt

Step 5: What to include?

• a protein shake
• eggs
• salmon and low mercury fish
• fruits
• vegetables
• rice
• kefir
• nuts,
• Seeds
• green tea
• and lots of water!

You want to sweat everyday for at least 10 minutes, sleep 6-8 hours and focus on something that keeps you inspired and your mind occupied.  When people do a detox for the first time, they often focus on a lack of food or restrictions causing unnecessary stress.  However, I am sure we can all find days in our lives where we didn’t eat because we were too busy- it’s all about the mental focus.

For more info on the 6 Week Beach Body Program, visit http://www.6weekbeachbody.com or call JJ at 800 571 5722 x 84 to find out how to get your detox started today!

Since our 6 Week Beach Body Program uses MIND TOOLS such as EFT, hypnosis and meditation, I wanted to share with you WHY and HOW you can lose weight by changing the way you THINK.

For some of you , the idea of hypnosis is being told to act like a chicken.  Wrong.

This article was written by Susan French, C.Ht.

Hypnosis is a powerful tool but exactly HOW does it work? The real magic is that hypnosis works as both a “magic wand” and as a “snowball gathering snow.”

Let’s take a look at each separately and then how they work together.

The magic-wand effect is when you have a hypnosis session and your issue is solved instantly and without further effort. Magic!

The snowball effect is what you experience with several hypnosis sessions, in which each session reinforces and enhances the relief created by previous sessions.

The reality is that both effects create permanent change. Hypnosis creates the initial change. Reinforcement ensures that the change lasts.

Reinforcement occurs when you regularly use a reinforcement CD made by your hypnotherapist, induce self-hypnosis, or through continued subsequent sessions with your hypnotherapist. Your hypnotherapist guides you in creating the initial change and reinforcing it, thereby accomplishing your goal of permanent, positive change.

Now, let’s look at it a little more closely.

We use hypnosis to change responses and behaviors. All responses and behaviors are learned. All that hypnosis really does is cause very rapid learning (or relearning) to take place so that new responses and behaviors become automatic.

Hypnosis allows this rapid learning to occur by interrupting the conscious, critical factor of the mind/brain. For reasons of survival, the critical factor of the mind/brain slows down the learning process. However, when those initial survival reasons are no longer necessary, it makes sense to interrupt or bypass the critical factor, which is precisely what hypnosis does – painlessly, safely, and effectively.

We know that no learning is INSTANT. You didn’t learn to ride a bike instantly. You didn’t learn to speak instantly. You didn’t learn to read or write instantly. You were taught the initial ideas and methods and those ideas were repeatedly reinforced until they become automatic.

Hypnosis allows that learning or relearning to happen more rapidly. However, as with any learning process, it needs to be reinforced. Thus, hypnosis is both a “magic wand” and a “snowball gathering snow.”

Let’s take a look at Joanna’s experience to get a better idea of exactly how hypnosis DOES work:

Joanna was sitting in the waiting room at the Hypnosis Motivation Institute. She was waiting for her first hypnotherapy appointment. She was desperate to lose weight. She had lost and gained at least three hundred pounds in her thirty-two years. Now, here she was, seventy pounds overweight again. She had tried everything.

She had heard some say that hypnosis could be like a magic wand. She had heard others say it didn’t work at all. Her best friend Martha had just lost fifty-five pounds using hypnosis. She said it was easy and it worked, but that Joanna would have to do her part too. Would it work for her?

If this reminds you of your own questions about weight loss and hypnosis, keep reading.

We can call the habit of overeating a food addiction, compulsive overeating, or a self-destructive habit. Whatever we call it, though, once that kind of behavior takes control, you will need to unlearn old, destructive behaviors and relearn new, constructive ones.

Joanna followed through with her hypnosis for weight loss. She learned the reasons she ate for comfort and she altered those behaviors. She learned that eating good, fueling foods were essential, and she incorporated those ideas into her daily life. She also learned that she needed to move her body more. Exercise became her oasis. It became her “me-time” every day.

Joanna lost her seventy pounds easily and happily and has maintained her new weight because she created a new relationship with food, with her body, and with life itself. That was five years ago.

Hypnosis makes the process of transforming counterproductive behaviors to productive behaviors easy, effective, and empowering. Any behavior that does not serve your goals and dreams can be changed using hypnosis.

Hypnosis accelerates your learning process so that what might have taken you twenty years to “learn” can be restructured in four to six sessions.

Hypnosis is being used in major medical institutions, such as, Harvard Medical School, UCLA, Stanford, Kaiser Permanente, Beth Israel Deaconness Hospital, and many burn centers, to ease pain, fear, and treatment [, and accelerate healing] for their patients.

Hypnosis is approved by, both, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) for Complementary and Alternative Medical Treatment and as an adjunct to traditional treatments.

The moral of this story is this: if you are wondering if hypnosis is a magic wand or a cumulative change response (snowball effect), it is both!

If all else has failed and you are ready and committed to achieving your goals, it is time to try hypnosis. It works!

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And that’s why we use it as the foundation for changing your MIND on the 6 Week Beach Body Program.  We want you to have long lasting change, not temporary results!   http://www.6weekbeachbody.com