Archive for the ‘Change Your Mind’ Category

It is challenging, if not impossible, to consistently take care of yourself when you hate your body.

With poor body image,the directions to eat better can feel like they are outside of the ring you are in, and you are forever trying to escape the fencing, to a freer way of being.

As long as you are focused on breaking the fence, three things are at play.

1) You are reinforcing a disconnection from your real feelings and hunger.

2) You are easily distracted from feeling centered.

3) You have no mental space for the necessary inner work.

These repetitive experiences create neurology that  make the fencing stronger.

Women Food and God, author, Geneen Roth writes, “The most challenging part of any system that addresses weight-related issues is that unless it also addresses the part of you that wants something you can’t name – the heart of your heart, not the size of your thighs – it won’t work.“

Being raised to believe you are the greatest thing since the discovery of macaroni and cheese is helpful.

If you weren’t, you will need guidance to move past your sabotaging thought patterns to begin loving the real you.

You can totally change how you see yourself.

The deepest self-esteem is knowing you are a spiritual being having an experience in a body suit.

You are totally lovable whether your bags are Gucci or a little extra on your hips.

Get a free hypnosis to start celebrating you as a work of art, Love the Skin You Are In

I know that it is human to judge but I try to keep it to a minimum.

However, I do mumble more than is necessary about people who take two parking places,  especially when I need one of them.

I joke about offering FREE parallel parking lessons.
So I am downtown, where parking is precious, to meet a friend for lunch, and I am feeling so lucky to have found a spot right in front of the restaurant.

As  I start to back in, I hear something drop next to the curb. There is a man standing on the sidewalk, but I can only see his feet.

I park very carefully and leave room where I think “the thing that has no name” has dropped.

I open the car door and this very, wobbly drunk guy yells at the top of this lungs, “You can’t paark fur sheeet!”

I start to laugh..because THAT IS MY LINE!

Well, it used to be my line. I have changed my mind. I am going to stop complaining!

And no free parallel parking lesson comments.

Click here to download my free hypnosis, Cloud of Love, for Stress Reduction:

Successful Weight Loss Means Changing Eating Habits

Can you remember a fall in love with food moment?

I fell in love with Minestrone soup in Italy.

I was pregnant, DRAMATICALLY exhausted, and starving. Even now, I can feel the love steaming from the bowl. With the first bite, I felt so much better.

Lisa Crunick loves Marcel Hazan’s Classics of Italian Cooking.

Years later, Marcel Hazan took me into her kitchen, via her book, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, one of my favorite cookbooks.

Now I want you to fall head over heels with how easy this is to make, how delicious it tastes, and how amazing you are to make something teeming with flavor, nutrition, and love.

The vegetables are ones we take for granted. Cooked together they are Mama Mia.

Minestrone Soup

1/4 to 1/2 olive oil
1 yellow onion
You are going to into a nice little relaxing trance as you chop or dice, to please yourself, the following vegetables:
3-4 carrots, 2-3 potatoes, 1 c. inner part of the celery, 2 med zucchini, 2 c.green beans
about a half of a medium size head of cabbage to equal about four cups shredded
1  28 oz can of quality pureed tomatoes
1  15 oz can of rinsed cannellini beans
Beef stock if you happen to have some, and are not vegetarian…. otherwise, water is perfect.
If you have an old and dry end piece of Parmesan or Romano cheese, you could put it to good use here, but it is not necessary

However, you will want freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese at serving time. I also recommend you have some crusty white bread on hand and more olive oil. The more olive oil you eat, the happier you will be. yayaya!

You need a place to chop the vegetables, close to the pot, at least a four quart one and a big spoon.

Dice the onion and saute it in 1/4 cup olive oil until soft and slightly golden.

I like to begin with the carrots. I find the short stubby ones to be the sweetest, and no not the pre-cut ones in the bag, but go ahead if that is all you have. Ahem..Think of the vegetables in regard to your spoon. Do you want a big slice of carrot or do you want itsy-bitsy pieces?

Add the cut carrots to the onions and stir. While this cooks on low heat, chop the celery. The sweetest part of the celery is the inner stalks which are almost white. Use the leaves if you have them. If you are using outer, greener stalks, I would dice them into very small pieces because they can be tough.

Toss in the celery and stir. Let everything continue to cook as you dice the potatoes. Add the potatoes and stir again.

While that is cooking, dice the zucchini, and then add and stir.

Look at all the colors of the vegetables, glistening with olive oil. Your soup is going to be so delicious! I like to add a little salt now.

I also love David Kessler’s book, The End of Overeating

In David Kessler’s excellent book, The End of Overeating, he talks about how restaurants strive to get the fat, salt, and sweet to bliss points. Here, you are in control of your own bliss point!

I confess I rarely use fresh green beans. Frozen work fine. Add the green beans.

Add the can of tomatoes. Add the shredded cabbage. Cabbage is very sweet and like celery, the closer you get to the center, the sweeter it is.
I even grate the core for this reason. Some of will us take sweet however we can get it!!

Add the cannelloni beans and the cheese rind if you have it.

Add water or beef broth. How much? Leave a couple inches from the top of your pot. You want to cook this until the vegetables are soft.
The liquid is going to cook down and you can always add more water if you need it.

You are going to let this simmer until everything is soft and lovely. You won’t eat it until tomorrow because you want all of the flavors to relax into one big happy mouth party!

Add some pepper. Refrigerate overnight.

While you are reheating the soup, pour some olive oil into a frying pan. Add thick pieces of bread. Day old is better, but whatever you have is going to work. Slightly brown the bread on both sides. You can put this in the bottom of the bowls or cut up like croutons and add to the top.
Yes, this is good fat. It adds to your bliss. Enjoy!

Live in Seattle, WA?  Interested in becoming one of Lisa Crunick’s Hypnotherapy clients?

I have two weight loss slots left for the year.  If you are thinking it is your time to mind your magnificence, now is a good time.

Do you eat organic, play soccer, and smoke on your back deck? or something like that?  I am offering a very small group session for people are ready to ditch their habit. Click here.

Image courtesy of  flickr.pointykitty.org

A blogger whose name I will not mention, wrote that she would find it offensive to watch the sitcom actors, Molly and Mike who met at Overeaters Anonymous kissing on TV.

Her comments were offensive and when I read it, I thought, this woman has her own body issues. And sure enough, in her apology, she admitted that she was a former anorexic.

I tell my clients to practice looking at people without commenting on their bodies. We are spiritual beings.

Every one of us is going to pass on and not one of us will take our bodies with us. It is a trap to over identify with something  impermanent, and designed to age.

Have fun in your body? Yes. Enjoy it? Yes. Appreciate it?  Yes.  Take care of it?  Yes Yes.  Be a star athlete, sex goddess whatever,  just remember, you are having an experience in it.  It is not who you are.

I have heard clients say that they feel that thin people assume they are some how superior.

We are bombarded with before and after images of people who have made it. Whether they are starving, living on drinking shakes, or taking drugs is secondary. They are not fat.

On Tweet Deck, you can search a word, and when anyone  uses that word, it will come up in your feed. After following the word obese for a few months, there are two kinds of tweets. People make rude remarks about strangers they see in public places, and young girls talk about how much they ate, and how they are going to be obese. (That is a whole other subject for another article.)

Interestingly, when the blog with the offensive comments surfaced, this tweet stream totally changed. The author was called pricelessly insensitive, a body  Nazi, insane, and she should be fired immediately. Wow!

The tweets may go back to the former trend.

You, however, CAN CHANGE YOUR MIND!

Practice seeing people for who they really are.

You will find that they are kinder to you and you will feel more peaceful thoughts about yourself.

If you waste your precious thoughts on feeling bad about your body, please stop that!

Get my free hypnosis:

Love the Skin You Are In

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