HOW TO BREAK A FOOD TRANCE (Issue 7)

by Sharon Livingston and Glenn Livingston

G: Hey, Sharico.

S: Hi, Sweetheart.

G: How are you, today?

S: I’m good. I was looking at the letters that we get. And we get like tons of letters every day. And I try to peruse them quickly to see what the themes are where people are just commenting. They’re not asking for response. They’re just talking about what’s going on with them. And a very typical theme is I’M OUT OF CONTROL. I can’t stop myself. I don’t know why I do it. I just put the stuff in my mouth.

Sometimes, they’re very cruel to themselves the way they describe it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and trying to think about how to help people with it. And what I’ve come to recognize is that that kind of eating is like being in a bad trance.

G: In a negative trance.

S: It’s a negative trance. Do you know what I mean by that?

G: I do.

S: So, talk about it from the way you experience it.

G: I have bought myself a pizza. And thought that I’m gonna have four slices. And I taste the first couple of bites. And then I go into a kind of an automaton routine. And then I look down, and almost all four of them are gone. And I don’t remember having slice number two, slice number three, or even the bites in between there. I don’t remember the experience. I’m very angry at myself for doing that. And because I wasn’t really there, I’m still hungry. And, so it keeps going.

S: You’re still wanting.

G: Right, not physically hungry, but still…

S: Feeling like you missed something.

G: Exactly. Like the aliens came and took Glenn away and just put on this food machine.

S: Yeah, we were talking about it as though it only happens with food that’s not so great for you. But, it could happen with a salad, too. Right?

G: Ya.

S: Like, I put the salad down, and I got involved in doing something like working on the computer or watching something on TV or getting in a conversation with someone. I felt like I needed another bite, and I looked down at my plate. It’s all gone. Like, where did it go?

And that’s one of the elements of trance. From the way were taught about hypnosis in school. There’s a sense of timelessness. Like time had stopped, and we don’t know how much time went by. Did you eat it in 5 minutes, did you eat it in 10 minutes. Did you eat it in 1 minute? I bet you couldn’t tell. And that’s one of the signs of being in a trance. There’s no sense of time.

G: Absolutely, true.

S: And also, because you were in this trance, instead of being there, you didn’t taste it. You didn’t feel the texture; you didn’t smell it; you didn’t experience yourself swallowing it. All of that has disappeared. It was as if you hadn’t eaten it. And you still are wanting.

G: It’s a horrendous thing because I’m still wanting, but I know that I shouldn’t have, and I’m feeling somewhat bloated. And feeling like I shouldn’t be wanting. And you just don’t know what to do. And, because that’s a painful realization, the easiest thing is to go right back into the trance.

S: Exactly. And, so then, more ends up on your plate, and it all disappears, and you repeat the process, trying to get the experience and never really having it.

G: So, what’s the solution?

S: Well, it’s a very simple one, actually. It’s to, at least, for when you are starting that particular food experience, is to be totally present.

I see you do it a lot, actually, where you’ll say,

“Honey, do you want to come and sit at the table while we have this food?”

Because  I’m very often quite willing to go and eat at the computer or eat in front of the TV. I know we both do that, but if I really want to savor my food and experience it, I’ll have a much better experience of satisfaction of having eaten it if I sit at the table, and I take a bite, I smell it, I kind of roll it around in my mouth a little bit, so I can savor the flavor.  I can get the texture, and maybe even just pause for a second with it in my mouth before I start to chew it so I can get the full experience of the food.

G: What do you think this has to do with our early table experiences? Eating at the table in my house was not very comfortable. It’s something that I learned that it’s really helpful to do as an adult and, actually, not all that long ago.

As a kid, there was a lot of competition at the table.  I didn’t always get along so well with my dad and my mom and my sister. The food wasn’t always so good. So I tended to have more peace all by myself. Yet, even if I am all by myself, my eating is much healthier when I take the time and sit at the table.

S: What happens is people aren’t paying attention to the food. They’re paying attention to everything else but the food.

I want to go over the anti-trance, mindful kind of eating experience…

G: Uh-huh.

S: Where you’re really paying attention to it. Recently, we hear a lot about mindful eating, and you’ll hear people talking about that. It’s something that’s been around for a very, very long time. And I remember going to a workshop when I was an older teenager where we were taught how to eat an orange. And really savor it. And it was the best orange I ever ate in my whole life. And so I’m gonna talk about that more in a moment. I’m also wanting to come back to what you’re saying ‘cause it’s a different thing about early eating experiences, and, you know, I’m one of five kids, and my grandmother lived with us, and we had a lot of people around me at the dinner table.

G:  So, you took the time to pay attention to your food, it would have been gone from your plate ‘cause someone else would have taken it, in my house.

S: Right. Your dad would have eaten it. I had to compete with my brothers. To this day, I’m a fast eater. Right?

G: Very fast. Ya.

S: It’s easier to have digestive problems if you’re gulping down your food.

G: Right.

S: If you take your time, which I rarely do, I have to really, really, really talk myself into doing that,  if I take my time, I’m more likely to digest it properly and have less of a chance of putting bubbles in my tummy or making myself uncomfortable.

G: How do you do that? Do you have a specific set of instructions to help us to do that?

S: Yeah. Going back to that orange exercise, I think everybody should do this. Do it with an orange. Do it with an apple.

G: Something that you have no ambivalence whatsoever about eating. You know it’s healthy for you and it’s totally on your plan.

S: An orange is a particularly wonderful thing to do or like a tangerine. Something that’s easy to peel. The first thing to do is to take a look at it. You want to experience this food with all your five senses. You’re going to take some time, maybe 20 minutes, to fully experience this orange, or an apple, whatever it is.

What you’re doing here is tuning your brain to pay attention to what you’re doing. So, when you have that orange and the first thing you do is you start to peel it. Isn’t this the most incredible thing anyway?  Like, whenever I’m in the kitchen and you decide you’re gonna to have an orange, and you start to peel the orange. Like, I want some. It just smells so good. So the very first thing is when you start to peel it. You know, you feel the little bit of spray that pops out from the peel. You feel it on your fingers. You bring it to your face. You’ll smell it very intensely, and that starts you appreciating the orange or the tangerine or whatever.

And then taking your time to peel it and take a wedge of it, and smell it, take a little bite, and just experience it in your mouth, fully, what’s the temperature of it, what’s the texture of it, what’s the taste of it, even before you start to bite and chew and then take your time chewing a section before you swallow it to make sure that you’ve gotten it to the right texture – what that feels like, and then fully feel the swallowing before you start with the next bite.

So take your time to go through as much of this orange or tangerine as you want to eat. Smell it, feel the texture, experience the sensation of it, how it is to chew it, how it is to swallow it, with every bite, the sweetness, the tartness. It’s gonna be a totally different orange than you’re used to eating because most of us take a couple of bites and just kind of swallow it without having chewed it very much. And then, you’ve inhaled this orange only having experienced a tiny bit of it.

G: That’s why I would imagine that if you do this a few times, that that experience starts to translate to what you are eating throughout the day without consciously doing that exercise.

S: But you can consciously do that exercise with every single thing you’re eating. And I don’t mean that you’re gonna spend 20 minutes with every thing. But, if you could slow yourself down enough to truly experience and taste the first bite, that kind of sets the tone for being mindful about eating it. I mean, you’re not gonna take the full 20 minutes for every food on your plate, but, you will be slowing yourself down, and you will be appreciating or not appreciating – you might find there are certain things you like more than others, and why am I even bothering eating this. Unless there is some real major reason why you have to, you really don’t have to.

The other thing is to pay attention to where you are when you are eating it.

And, if you’re forced into a situation where you have to be at your desk and eat, to take 10 minutes, that’s just 10 minutes, for whatever food you have in front of you. That’s the hardest thing to do is to slow ourselves down enough to pay attention to what we’re doing.

I know that even though most weight loss, and dietitian and nutritionist experts, would say the best thing is to eat at a table, totally dedicated. For you, that was a painful experience. Having dinner in front of the TV is very soothing sometimes because the TV is keeping you company.

Important is, still, to taste your food. It’s important to take one bite at a time. There are times when I’ve stuck things into my mouth because I want to get it down ‘cause I think I have to do something. That’s one of those times when the food really has disappeared. Like I’m trying to get it out of my hand so I can do something with that hand. And then I go to have another bite of it, and it’s gone.

I hate that. There are some other things you can do to slow yourself down. You always ask me, “Why do you get the chopsticks,” in the Chinese restaurant? ‘Cause it slows me down. That’s why I do that.

G: Interesting.

S: Another thing some people do is they eat with your non-dominant hand. So, if you’re right-handed, eat with your left hand. That will naturally slow you down.

G: That’s interesting.

S: If possible, try to avoid doing other things. Or, even if you’re in a conversation with other people, make sure that, in between talking with them, you’re actually looking at your food and bringing it to your mouth in a mindful kind of way like knowing that you’re doing it. I know that when I eat standing up, I’ve inhaled it. I have a better chance of slowing myself down if I’m sitting down.

So those are a few things. The other thing about that, and we all know this, if you eat something in under 20 minutes, your body doesn’t know that you ate it. It takes 20 minutes for you to register that you actually had the food. So, if you can take your time, and slow yourself down, put your fork down in between bites. Now if you’re eating an ice cream cone or handfuls of food, like snacks, you don’t have a fork to put down. But to make some space and pause between bites.

Anything that can serve as a pause breaks the trance.

G: Gotcha. Did you want to say anything else about the early table memories and how that influences people’s ability to eat mindfully and avoid going into the food trance?

S: I wasn’t thinking about it so much as a trance. It was an important consideration about what we learn when we are kids.

G: As you do this, you’ll probably have memories about what your table experience was.

S: Like we just did now.

G: Which is very interesting for you to look into.

S: Yeah. I hadn’t thought about it, that, wow, I better get that food down quickly or there won’t be any to have. To have three big brothers who were much bigger and, you know, much hungrier and all that testosterone and they were like a pack of moose who constantly had to eat, feed themselves. And there wasn’t much room for a little girl.  And then, of course, there was my grandmother who was just like this human eating machine. If it was on your plate and she thought you weren’t gonna eat it, it disappeared. So you had to eat it quickly; otherwise, it was gonna disappear.

G: Well, OK, sweetheart. The summary here is what?

S: Break the trance.
The other thing is that when you come out of that trance and you realize all that stuff is gone, like maybe the whole bag of potato chips is gone, or the whole bowl of popcorn is gone, or the whole bowl of cookies is gone. People coming out of a negative trance feel horrible. You know, when you’ve had a good hypnosis experience, you come out of it feeling refreshed and vibrant and awake.

G: But if you wake up from a one-night-stand, you feel like you don’t really respect yourself for what you did.

S: Exactly. And that’s how it feels when you’ve had a bad eating experience that you …

G: That you’ve compromised your value. When that happens, what you should do is …

S: Dedicate yourself to paying attention. All it is is a matter of paying attention. It doesn’t matter what you’re eating. Pay attention to it, and slow yourself down.

G: So you can always use the present moment to be healthy, and the way to do that is just pay attention. No matter what you had before. No matter how full you feel. No matter how long the trance was.

Thank you, Sweetheart.

S: That was great.

G: Yeah.

S: Thanks for listening. Now, to gain more confidence in your ability to enjoy guilt-free, stress-free eating with delicious food, please visit http://emotionaleatingrelief.com. Got it? That’s http://emotionaleatingrelief.com. Thanks.

AUDIO VERSION

How-To-Break-A-Food-Trance.mp3

SHARON LIVINGSTON, PHD

Sharon (S, in the transcript, above) holds a PhD in humanistic psychology from Kennedy Western University. She has interviewed over 5,000 people about emotional eating. In addition to her private coaching, she has done psychological research for companies like Weight Watchers, Atkins, Kraft and more and has published articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The American Bar Association Journal and many others. She is available, as above, at http://emotionaleatingrelief.com.

GLENN LIVINGSTON, PHD

Glenn (G, in the transcript, above) holds his PhD in clinical psychology from Yeshiva University. He has previously practiced as a marital and family counselor, seeing approximately 1,000 patients in nine years. He also consulted for many major corporations in emotional eating pertaining to advertising. You can reach Glenn through the same link as above.

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MEDITATION FOR WEIGHT LOSS (Issue 6)

by Diane Gold

Meditation for weight loss is a huge topic. You might be saying,

“It seems impossible that if I meditate, I will lose weight.”

“How can meditation help weight loss?”

“After all this time, all I have to do is meditate, and I will lose weight?”

The statement is quite powerful, as it is sincerely meaningful. Meditation is the act of focusing on “no thing” through a study of focusing attention on one thing. This article will look at meditation as a solution for many where “other” systems have had minimal success.

The obvious secret weapon that meditation offers is that it doesn’t require working out or body motion, often dreaded when we want or need to lose weight because we feel too uncomfortable to move or we’re dismal.  There’s no big effort to get it started. The only thing moving is internal, it only takes a minute and it makes you feel good.

So what is this meditation for weight loss? We have to recognize that, for every system of our body, there is some type of release valve, like on a pressure-cooker, radiator or properly operating oil rig. We, humans, have our own pressurized systems resulting in nerve pressure, blood pressure, intestinal pressure, bladder pressure, eye pressure, brain pressure and so on. The body has a specific way of relieving excess pressure, or we start to break.

The mind is a human system of conscious experience and intelligent thought. It, too, feels pressure and needs a relief valve or else. It is very hard work to spend a full 24-hour period without giving the mind a break, especially if the day includes worry, anxiety, poor self-esteem, frustration, stress. We all experience all of these emotions from time to time. However, weight losers who are having trouble doing it have these emotions while they also have the pressures of a day-job (corporate or independent), going to school or mothering. The exhaustion and stress caused by the weight issues is enough to make you want to do what?

Specific to our topic, I will say the word: “eat.” There, I said it. To let off steam as our release valve, we eat. For people with weight gain issues, the opposite is true, too. The strongest minds with “bad feeling overload” may end up with no appetite and become unhealthy because of it.

Here’s what we know about the mind, that fragile piece of real estate that we know so little about:

1)    we function more successfully without pressure
2)    we can train ourselves to focus to remove pressure
3)    we can choose to live in ways that can minimize pressure
4)    we can train ourselves to recognize the signs of pressure before it is there
5)    we can awaken deeper levels in ourselves

With that in mind, is it clear how meditation is connected to weight loss? When we meditate,

1)    we give ourselves a personal place of stillness
2)    we learn to stand still
3)    we learn to have a focus
4)    we allot time out
5)    we evolve

Imagine if every time we felt stress of some sort, we could do half a minute of meditation, and the stress would go away. Our emotional eating would reduce once we learned that a tiny taste of the meditative mind could give us a different perspective which could help reduce food cravings.

As we said before, meditation is focus. The more we practice, the more adept we become at having our mind follow the path we design for it, rather than having our mind follow its own, undirected whims. It is not simple to rein in the mind, but some ways are simpler than others.

When I was 21 years old, living in Washington Square Village, I followed a philosophy that included two-and-a-half hours of meditation a day. For 5 years, I sat in two prescribed positions on a daily basis. Did I meditate? The answer to this question requires understanding that meditation is not a physical action. The mind has to cooperate through being trained to do it.

My answer is that I almost never “meditated,” even though I spent 2.5 hours in meditation position. The method prescribed concentrated on more than one thing at a time, and my mind was easily distracted. To this day, as a positive result of that training, I teach a simple method where focusing on one thing is not impossible. No mantras, no looking at clouds, no techniques that can split the mind. We are scattered enough.

The trick to weight loss meditation is to change your reaction to the urge to eat or the urge to eat what you have decided you would prefer not to eat at the time. Where your reaction used to be to get instant gratification, be sad, be mad, be hasty; you can change your behavior by standing in meditation position for 30 seconds. This act may give you an opportunity to grab your mind away from that urge when you want to eat and it is not time to eat, or when you want your mind to lead you well, rather than comply without choice.

Here are steps to follow once a day for a month at the time of hunger, when you would like to postpone your eating, eat less, lower your urge level or simply change your perspective. This certainly will slow you down and give you a moment to be your own boss.

By the way, if this is not an impactful experience the first time, do it again. At least for two weeks. It might grow on you. You might start to be able to see another aspect of yourself. How much fun would that be!

1)    Stand with feet shoulder width apart.
2)    Bend the knees.
3)    Tuck the butt.
4)    Straighten the back.
5)    Lean forward 2 inches from the waist.
6)    Make sure arms are relaxed with palms at side of thigh, hanging.
7)    Take the left hand and semi-point the index finger from the relaxed position.
8)    Slowly, meditatively, draw a counterclockwise circle from the right side of the body to the left, 3X, 3/4 of an arms-length in front of you.
9)    Place arm back at the side, dropped arm position, no tension.
10)  Relax a second or two.
11)  Take the left hand and semi-pointing the index finger from the relaxed position
12)    Slowly, meditatively, draw a clockwise circle from the left side of the body to the right, 3X, 3/4 of an arms-length in front of you.
13)    Place arm back at the side, dropped arm position, no tension.
14)    Relax.

This meditation affects weight loss through the body’s working to pump the blood through the legs in the standing position. Most of the result comes from taking your focus away from other distractions, including food. You are undoing stress in yourself, so you will be better equipped to proceed and succeed at weight loss.

CONCLUSION

There are many ways to meditate, and there are a myriad of programs on weight loss. This particular combination of meditation for weight loss uses 30 plus years’ experience at stripping down to basics the act of meditation and the act of changing an urge. As with any meditation, it is very personal. There is no wrong. There is also no comparison chart for you to use. This is for you.

Your questions and comments are always welcome. Particularly for this article, if you would like to ask a personal question about your experience, please do.

YOUR FEEDBACK

Always feel free to share your stories by commenting below and by email at: 1 [at] warriorsofweight [dot] com.

DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music pro and stress expert and a dedicated mom. She says, “Any action changes our perspective. The simpler we make things in preparation, the easier they will be. The more we repeat the same action, the more we will understand it.”

A WINNING COMBINATION: GRADES IN SCHOOL AND SELF-ESTEEM (Issue 5)

by Florence Bernard

It’s the fact that the better the grades are at school, the higher the self-esteem is in the student. This goes for good students, failing students, big-sized, medium and small students.

So there is really one

COACHING FOR EXPERTS: A RESOURCE FOR MOMS AND THEIR DAUGHTERS (Issue 4)

by Diane Gold

I wanted to talk about how prudent it is to consider a coach, no matter how much education we have. Often, experience, rather than formal education, can make a great coach.

It is brave for us moms to consider being coached. Why? Because we are supposed to be experts, know how to do it, and getting a coach could negate our perfection. Or would it show our willingness to grow and evolve? Of course, I think the second.

It is fairly common for athletes and musicians to work with a coach for the length of their careers. As Atul Gawande mentions in his article, Personal Best, in the New Yorker, coaches can be our extra set of eyes (in the case of Gawande, himself, who did cardiac surgery) or ears (as Itzhak Perlman says his wife is for his music performance). What stops some of us deemed “experts” from obtaining a coach in our field are (1) ego, believing we are the queen of wisdom and highest authority on a subject (like motherhood) and (2) exposure, not willing for another to watch over our shoulders and see our mistakes.

MOMS = EXPERTS

Moms fall into the category of experts. They have experienced growing a child inside the body and giving birth. They have made decisions about the environment of their child which require lots of rapid judgment calls. Since the road to mastery is through repetition, moms get their expert label. When they bond with other moms in social conversations or mastermind groups, the benefit each gets from the other’s stories is informative and helpful. Although it is not coaching, many techniques are passed on through word of mouth (or electronically through webinars and group video calls).

Almost as infrequently as you hear about doctors getting coaches, how often do you hear that a mom is going to get coached on parenting? What is fairly common is psychological counseling or psychiatric services. Neither of these is the same as coaching. The therapist or counselor may advise. The coach, on the other hand, comes up with action steps and motivates the client for immediate action and future use.

More often, families wait until their behaviors get so stretched out of their comfort zone that dysfunction sets in, before doing something about it. In more traditional cultures, getting a coach is deemed inappropriate because like Vegas, what goes on in the home stays in the home and tradition teaches that it is wrong to discuss home matters outside the home. More modern cultures accept coaching and counseling in more areas than sports, music or severe mental issues and recognize its merit.

COACHES AS PROFESSORS

In my mother’s day, it was unheard of to need a coach whether for a mom or a daughter (and Mom had a degree in psychology and I frequented a therapist, which was uncommon and thought of as drastic). In modern days, we still have a stigma around the proactive decision to go for help and still think of the need as admission of failure to perform well or lack of prowess. If we thought of coaches or counselors as mentors or professors, the stigma would disappear.

Most moms would never consider finding a coach for themselves, especially for parenting or communicating. They, along with everyone in the United States for the past 50 years, know about the therapist, the psychologist, the psychiatrist. But, the coach? That’s only for sports and music, right? But let’s get back to experts.

It is common to have a scholastic team to support us during our PhD work. We have our own personal advisors who walk with us as we analyze our subject and write our thesis. In order to differentiate between an expert and an amateur, we get an advanced rating and are proud to place a PhD or a DVM on our wall. We may choose more study, emphasis on another subject or an intricate part of the same subject.

What we don’t do, yet, is keep a coach once we graduate with our special diploma:
a.    because we have just finished 15 to 20 years of training, and we are tired of being evaluated.
b.    because we are under the illusion that reaching black belt status means we have reached the top. In fact, such a designation signifies the beginning of a long-term study, the achievement of basic understanding and having absorbed 10% of a subject rather than its mastery.
c.    because our egos, in a similar manner, want us to be the authority now that we have worked so hard and are no longer the scrutinized one, but the scrutineer.

How many times have we, as moms, resented our own moms’ putting their two cents in? Maybe when we were setting parameters for our daughters or teaching them values, having our moms step in was not to our liking.

Having our moms invade our territory is akin to how our daughters feel about us, at times or all the time. I remember the territoriality reversed, one day, when I tried to give my mom driving directions from her suburban home to a New York City location near my New York City apartment. (Of course, she had been nearby hundreds of times, but I knew exactly where she was going and knew current construction and thought I would offer help.) The instructions were refused, politely, because my mom was protecting the domain of expertise her husband had. She felt challenged on his behalf such that her acceptance of my help might minimize his expertise and, in turning down the directions, said something that paraphrased like, “Oh, let’s leave it to your stepfather; he’s an expert at that.” I understand completely because he was one of her heroes and they held each other on mutual pedestals.
How many times have we, as moms, resented our own moms’ putting their two cents in? Maybe when we were setting parameters for our daughters or teaching them values, having our moms step in was not to our liking.

Having our moms invade our territory is akin to how our daughters feel about us, at times or all the time. I remember the territoriality reversed, one day, when I tried to give my mom driving directions from her suburban home to a New York City location near my New York City apartment. (Of course, she had been nearby hundreds of times, but I knew exactly where she was going and knew current construction and thought I would offer help.) The instructions were refused, politely, because my mom was protecting the domain of expertise her husband had. She felt challenged on his behalf such that her acceptance of my help might minimize his expertise and, in turning down the directions, said something that paraphrased like, “Oh, let’s leave it to your stepfather; he’s an expert at that.” I understand completely because he was one of her heroes and they held each other on mutual pedestals.

I can also recall a similar attitude on my part when my mom was giving me advice. I felt challenged because I wanted to do”it” my way.

THE SOLUTION

So what’s the solution to closing the gap between being an expert and being an expert who can use a coach? Like anything else, behavior and social attitude change take time. The more commonplace it becomes for doctors, lawyers, teachers, and, yes, moms, to get coached and share their stories in hopes of getting constructive criticism to make them better, the more we are acclimated to the idea that we are only as expert as our current training, and coaching is a good and fruitful idea.

Having a coach for moms could be the next fiery niche. What if we could discuss how to approach our daughters when they consistently said they didn’t want to talk about their recurring problems with a professional? Or if we knew how to show our daughters our concern over their weight habits without their seeing us as judgmental, how great would that be? Fleshing out these types of situations can help us personally and for our daughters.

It is important to realize that getting coached can make you better. Finding a coach doesn’t mean you have failed. It shows you are open enough to look for continued excellence in yourself and are not afraid to take steps to achieve it. At all costs, if you resist the urge to defend yourself, you might excel exponentially.

FIVE ITEMS THAT MAY COME UP IN YOUR COACHING SESSION

Here are five ways a coach might help a mom.

1.    A coach could point out ways the mom forces her will on her daughter. Sometimes, it is hard to see what we do because we are involved in it.

2.    A coach could point out easily how the mom is using language that antagonizes, humiliates or defeats her daughter and causes her to close up, give up or become distant.

Well, you might say, can’t we look in a mirror and do these things? Yes, but when a professional coach observes and speaks, we are more heavily impacted. It would be hard to justify how this objective observer could be calling shots that don’t exist.

3.    A coach could point out how the mom asks the daughter to behave in a certain way, but acts the opposite way herself. Sending double messages, “ Do as I say, not as I do,” is a no, no. Most of us, as adults, find it hard to remember how we felt as kids.

4.    A coach could point out sensitivities in our daughters that we might not even be aware of: how nicknames hurt, how low self-esteem prevails when mom compliments daughter, how low grades sting. The coach is objective, an extra set of eyes and trained to bring out your best.

5.    A coach could facilitate realization, creativity, personal development, family development. These are why you thought about a coach in the first place.

CONCLUSION

Whenever we jump into a situation and truly immerse ourselves in new training, we come to new understandings. Whether we need a new stereo and have to research what we can buy or we take a course in human communication; whether we join a local forum to discuss mom and daughter issues or we start a physical fitness regime as a catalyst for our daughters; we grow and learn. We always learn. So, it should make perfect sense that moms need coaches, even though moms, by experience, are supposed to be experts.

What makes us experts is not so much that we have begun a journey of knowledge. It is that we are willing to become coachable because we have discovered that we can always learn more. That wisdom shows true expertise.

________

Does any of this strike you as familiar? The fact that experts don’t get coached for ego’s sake? It is time to put the pride where it belongs and better ourselves for our daughters. If this involves coaching, good. If not, also OK.

YOUR FEEDBACK

If any of you have come across any of the five points above in your conquest to be the best mom for your daughter, please share your stories  by commenting below.

NICKNAMES, ROLE MODELING AND PARENTING, OH, MY! (Issue 3)

by Allison Agliata

“Oh, my gosh, aren’t they so cute? Just look at the adorable, chunky thighs on that baby!”

We say it with such affection and genuine adoration. At 6 months old, these conversations may be perfectly acceptable and end without emotional trauma, but as our children quickly grow we need to be mindful of the message we send. The way children feel about their own bodies is easily influenced by how we address them  and how we feel about our own physique.

I may not be sharing any earth shattering information when I tell you that parents are the most influential adults in a child’s life, but I am going to hone in on some specific information. Did you know that fathers are ranked as the number one teaser in girls’ lives, followed closely by brothers? Now, I am not out to crucify the male species, but let’s think about the obvious difference between the male and female species. We clearly relate differently. Men often having a less direct way of communicating their affection to others. Often fatherly and brotherly love comes in the form of adorable little nicknames that begin when our children are small and then something happens; the nickname sticks!

Other family members join in and your children are torn between the affection that is associated with their nickname and the negative connotation it carries. It may not even occur to us when they are little that the nickname is, at the very least, unflattering; but as they get older and are more self-conscious about their bodies, some names can be downright demeaning! Girls’ self-esteem can be fragile during adolescence and is often significantly impacted by these seemingly innocent jests, so please be careful about what names you pick and how they affect your children.

Now, let’s talk about Moms. It has been written that same-sex parents are the most influential, so let’s see what some real power can do. Unfortunately, we feed the same problem by placing so much emphasis on appearance for our children. Our language surrounds what we see,

“Aren’t you cute?”

“Don’t you look beautiful!”

“I love that new outfit.”

“You look so slim in that.”

Really? Are those the important qualities we want our children to be concentrating on? Particularly, our daughters, suffer from this emphasis on external beauty, and they internalize a long standing need to feel accepted and approved.

Women are stereotypically described as perpetually dissatisfied with their bodies, and we role model this discontent. We read fashion magazines filled with people who look nothing like us, follow diets that rarely work, constantly talk about what we should or should not eat, and express general disgust with our physique. This, my female friends, is the social norm for us. How very sad that we must walk around spewing unsatisfactory comments about ourselves to be accepted. In fact, do you know anyone who talks about how happy she is with her body or who does not negate an appearance-related compliment?

“What, this old dress?”

“You really think I look slimmer? Just 10 more pounds to go!”

Even if we do feel good, we feel the need to dismiss it or reach for more. What happened to just being satisfied with what we have currently?

With such role modeling, how do we expect our children to feel any different about their bodies than we do about our own? It starts with our changing our tune, appreciating our bodies for what they allow us to do: exercise to feel strong physically and mentally, bear and play with our children, and participate in enjoyable life activities. If our focus changed from our exterior appearance to what our bodies provided for us, think of the impact.

Here are a few suggestions on how to put our parental influence to work:

1)  Watch Our Language: Yes, this one is painfully obvious, but not always as easy as we think. Be careful about the nicknames. It may seem silly, but I can tell you it is brought up over and over again in therapy sessions. Save yourself the money and choose a name that is healthy and appropriate!Try to curb your appearance-related comments. I know this is not going to eliminate every comment regarding appearance and there may even be times when a, “Wow!  You look amazing!” is totally appropriate (shall we say prom night?), but on the whole, ensure that your focus is on your child’s character and accomplishments. Try this on for size, “You must feel great about [accomplishment, ex.: getting that award]. That shows real [character trait, ex.: courage].”  After all, isn’t that what we really care about?

2) Be Active: First and foremost, role model appropriate levels of activity. Having your children watch you incorporate any kind of physical activity into your daily routine will help them realize it is a priority to you and will help them internalize this message for their future health.  The goal, however, is to be consistent! If you are constantly battling between forcing yourself to do 2 hours of cardio a day versus doing nothing, the message becomes that exercise is a chore. Being an extremist makes things complicated and rarely sends the intended message or helps you physically. If you could find a happy medium of an activity you enjoy and can stick to, the more positive your message will be that this is your chosen healthy lifestyle.

Try choosing an activity that is more in line with something you enjoy, for example a sport you love or walking with a friend so you can socialize. You are far more likely to keep up a consistent model if you are genuinely benefiting from the activity. Additionally, this might create some interest from your child, whom you could try to include and create quality time with…bonus!

3) Talk Positively about your own Body: I know, I know. It seems hardly possible for some of us, but let’s just try it.  Let your kids catch you talking about how good exercise feels, not because it keeps you thin, but because it makes you strong and healthy. Discuss how confident you feel when you appear professional rather than how pretty you are or are not. Express appreciation for being able to take an active role in your child’s life when playing with them. These comments may not come naturally and may seem minute, but with practice, they can become affective statements that help alter your child’s self-perception and instill a sense of…wait for it..Self-Satisfaction! Imagine that!

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Dr. Allison Agliata spends her days as counselor at the prestigious Carrollwood Day School, an International Baccalaureate School in Tampa. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, has served four years as psychologist in the U.S. Air Force and spends her free time as a mom, wife, baker and traveler. Check her out in our experts section: warriorsofweight.com/experts.
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GET YOUR WISH: 10 STEPS TO DISCOVERY (Issue 2)

by Diane Gold

Early on, I can remember marketing coaches asking me what I wanted. On more than one occasion, I would answer them by talking about one project idea after another, not focusing on one idea. I had an expert at my fingertips and no crystalline vision on my tongue. If I couldn’t come up with my own desire, how could someone help me with it? Having multiple creative projects in my head, as a rule, led me to understand how important it is to focus on one idea and have a priority and to-do list to execute.

This brings me to the topic of our main essay in this issue: Knowing Your Wish And Getting It. I talk about what it can mean to pinpoint direction, and I include a 10-step to-do list to get us there. The steps should take no more than 5 minutes. Some of us will only use 8 steps, so let’s go.

I’ve been working with many moms and daughters through martial arts and personal development training. What I’ve found is that focus makes winners; consideration for self generates strength and follow-through.

If we could have one wish to change one thing about ourselves, what would it be? Would we wish to look like “eye candy” that sells media headlines? Maybe yes, but would that be our primary wish? Would we wish to know our daughters more completely? Would we make a wish of health for our daughters or ourselves? Would we wish to give our wish to our daughter instead of ourselves? Or would we wish to work to eliminate hunger in our life time? Which would we choose?

To be faced with deciding our path, when there are so many avenues, can leave us stumped, unsure and even stuck. The interesting thing is that many of us would jump at the opportunity for a free wish but have not selected what it would be. Knowing the direction we want to go is half the achievement and certainly a motivating force. Getting it is the rest.

Here’s a parable about the wish collector, who can give out wishes, a woman who walks the earth helping people with their wishes, and the girl who wants a wish.

The wish collector comes to visit the girl as she is walking up to her doorstep. She says,

“OK, my wonderful girl. You have 30 seconds to make a wish to change something in or for yourself. Are you ready?”
The girl says,

“Well, Ms. Wish Collector, that is a tough question because there are so many wishes I have considered.”

Ms. Wish Collector says,

“That’s OK, dear girl. There’s no rush. I’ll be back another time after you’ve had time to think about it.”

One month passes and the wish collector doesn’t come back. The girl is patient because she meditates to music, but she notices eight months have passed, and the wish collector has not been back to visit her. All of a sudden, the girl hears her name. It’s the wish collector calling from the driveway. The collector is asking the girl whether she has decided on her number one wish. The girl says,

“I am so happy to see you, Ms. Wish Collector. I was busy being concerned about whether I would ever get another chance to make my wish. But, here you are.”

The girl smiles and looks happy but makes no attempt to speak. The wish collector asks,

“So, what did you decide?”

The girl says,

“I never took the time to really find my priority because I didn’t know when you were coming. I’ve been too worried about whether or not you would come back. I will pick anything that comes to my head because I know I only have 8 seconds left to make a wish and don’t want to lose my wish altogether or wait for you to come back again.”

The good news about this story is two-fold: we can figure out what we want, how valuable it is to us and what we are willing to give up to achieve it and the wish collector who leads us to contemplate our objective is within us. It is we who get to decide on our most precious goal, although we might want to keep it small enough so that we can succeed at it small increments at a time.

Here are some examples of reasonable wishes:
1. wanting a new mirror that will show your beauty and power. This requires going into the bathroom, getting your old mirror, washing it with some mirror cleaner and giving yourself a giant hug before you look in it.
2. having your daughter look forward to your phone calls or visits in her room. This requires not asking her a bunch of questions about her life: (author’s note: guilty of daughter question bombardment).
3. beginning to love the person you are. This requires winking at yourself and smiling afterwards. The act in itself will begin the movement.

Here is an example of a poorly thought-out wish:
the chance to walk down the runway in a Milan fashion show, today, if your only means of transportation is your feet, you are not in Milan and you don’t know anyone in the fashion industry well enough to drop in on a show.

The great news is we are worth the preparation of discovering our most important wish. We are smart enough to proceed to achieve it. And we are wise enough to reach out from our own journey and ask others to walk alongside us in partnership, as mother and daughter, as global women and as fellow human beings.

The conclusion here is this: in order to reach our ONE WISH, which is the path we choose for right now, we must consider what is most important to us. There is no rush, so we need proceed at our own pace. As long as we don’t procrastinate or consistently stray away from a decision through distraction. Writing down ideas helps a lot. Every time we cross one off or delete an idea, we are one step closer to having that one wish present in our mind. Once we have “it,” we can take a tiny sliver of an action that will take us a centimeter closer to achieving “it.” Big steps are OK, but we must be polished swimmers to jump into deep ocean. Most of us can do massively well by first stepping off the sandbar and proceeding slowly. Please be patient as I outline steps for finding the right wish for you now. They may seem easy and obvious, but going through the exercise of writing them down and proceeding one at a time builds momentum and keeps us directed.

1. Make a list of 10 wishes you would like to become reality now.
2. Eliminate those that cannot be started in one week’s time, down to 5. We can edit our wishes so that we pick one step of a wish that can be started in one week’s time.
3. Prioritize the 5.
4. Get rid of 3 by considering what would happen if we had 30 seconds to decide what our wish would be. Pressure usually helps, but not always.
5. Say out loud the first of these 2 as if it is our priority. Record it, and listen to it.
6. Do the same with the second of the 2.
7. Decide which one sounds as if we like the outcome.
8. That is the one. Say it LOUD in the mirror. We have it!
9. If that doesn’t work, tell ourselves we are going to flip a coin, and we do it.
10. If we are upset with the outcome, then we pick the opposite wish. Now, we have our wish for the wish collectors that we are.

How many times can we remember deliberating for so long that an opportunity passed us by?Taking too long to start can equal missing the boat. Please let us know how you did with this simple 10-step system (or maybe we were finished in 8 steps).

We would like to hear about your journey, so feel free to go online to warriorsofweight.com, click on this one under articles and leave a comment. Or go to our contact form at warriorsofweight.com/contact-us. Or email 1[at] warriorsofweight [dot] com.

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, site for Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music pro and stress expert. She says, “Making a wish is a three-step process: knowing our wish, committing to it and taking one step forward.”

Welcome to Warriors Of Weight – Change A Habit is the only website and inbox magazine focusing on habits and how to replace the ones that don’t support us.

Our missions is to supply you tools that can give each one of us a philosophy from which to move: take one step, and we will succeed.

To change a habit, all we need do is step. Once we have taken that one action step, we are in a new place with a new perspective. We can always take another step. And another.

When we focus on one step and only one step, we don’t complicate the action. It may not be easy for us to make that one-step move, but it is right in front of us should we choose it.

Please join us on this wonderful journey where we will learn from each other and give the ultimate gift to our ourselves and others, that of understanding with compassion and love, how to change a habit.

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Love, D

MAKING A NEW DECISION, DECIDING NOT TO DECIDE OR DECIDING FOR ONE HOUR ONLY (Issue 1)

by Diane Gold

Warriors of Weight offers some insights on making a new decision, deciding whether to decide and realizing that most of our decisions are not forever. Most of us don’t realize that once we make a decision, we can re-negotiate that decision. Changing our decision does not mean failure to succeed. It means change for success. Often, the revelation that we are free to re-decide gives us enough freedom to proceed with no fear.

It came to me about a month ago, this simple and wonderful lesson on decisions, when I was speaking with my good friend, Glenn Livingston, a psychologist and marketer, with a compassionate and practical mind. So what does this have to do with decisions and Warriors of Weight? All day, we make decisions, some big, some small, that shape our path and that of our loved ones who are affected by them. Here’s what happened to me.

I was working on a project that needed a direction. Do I cross bridge A or take Bridge B? Glenn verbalized the brilliant idea that I should decide not to decide yet. Although I had been weighing the pros and cons of each of two courses of action, Glenn’s idea hadn’t occurred to me out loud. It was just what I needed to hear. Out loud. So, I went for it. In announcing to myself my choice not to decide, I saw the pressure I had created in thinking I had to decide. The pressure evaporated. I felt the freedom that comes from affirming a decision, in this case, deciding not to decide.

This determination led me to relax my thinking and my feelings on the issue. It also cleared my processing machine so that my decisions were based upon strategy, not pressure. Not too long after my proclamation of deciding not to decide, (an action, not an indecision), I came up with a simple new direction which, I knew, could be changed. I made the decision for one hour only, saying that, after that hour, I would weigh my decision. If it still made sense, I would keep it. If not, I would make a new one. As is usual, it took about 48 hours for me to remember to re-consider my decision. As it happened, my project started to morph, so my decisions morphed with it. But, I was able to get smoothly to that point by deciding not to decide and deciding for one hour at a time.

Here’s a simple example of deciding not to decide in action. In choosing an email address that woul

d express the flavor of this site targeted at weight, moms and healt

hy daughters; I came up with the customer support email address of 1 [at] warriorsofweight [dot] com, which seemed the simplest and expressed the idea that readers, moms, daughters and experts, alike, would be one community. The second thought I had was how very important it is to have inner peace to be healthy and happy. This concept is paramount in dealing when moms dealing with their daughters on health issues. It seemed as though peaceIN [at] warriorsofweight [dot] com expressed the flavor of the site also.  So, which one should I choose?

The integral community as one OR the inner peace that we must have in order to walk the straightest path to our goals? I had to choose one. OR, I decided not to decide.Rejoicing in the freedom of having made a decision not to make a decision, Warriors Of Weight will have two email addresses, based on your personality: the first, 1 [at] warriorsofweight [dot] com and, the second, peaceIN [at] warriorsofweight [dot] com. And here’s the great news. I can change this decision at any time. And that would be all right. It is one of the gifts we often have in our lives.

Let’s talk about deciding for an hour. What is the significance of this? Let’s say I want to help my daughter to achieve one of her goals, but she has told me she is sensitive about the subject and that she wants to handle it without my input and achieve her objective in her own way. So, in deference to her feelings, because I want to help her, have no need to prove that mom knows best; I will decide not to engage myself in the topic: for one hour only. At the end of this hour, if the topic is still at the forefront of my thoughts, I will re-evaluate my decision. I can:

1. Maintain my decision to honor my daughter’s wishes and allow her to proceed on her own, which will grow my relationship with my daughter because I will be considering her wishes and her feelings; and it will allow her to face the consequences of her actions on her own which will help her to grow into a good decision maker.
2. Approach my daughter gently and tell her I am available for that issue and check to see that she would still like to pursue her goal without my interference or help, however she perceives it.
3. Change my decision and walk into her issue because I am the mom, I have the right, I have been through circumstances like it or I must show her the way. This could weaken the relationship with my daughter, would force her to follow my wishes, could show her my ability to help, could weaken her skills in independent action, and might cause her to close me out.

The way decision making usually works is that, once we have made a decision, we settle into it. We are relieved that we have made it, and we have a party that we no longer have to make it. Usually, we will not have the urge to renegotiate the decision in one hour. So, it might be a day or two or a week before we even think about it again.

The one hour interval is an arbitrary time slot that helps us with our original decision. Rather than thinking our decision is made for life, such as I will never eat popcorn again or I will never help my daughter again, we realize we can change our decision in as little as 60 minutes, and this makes our decision easier to make. After all, what’s an hour?

We can always write a journal article for an hour until it is time for us to examine our decision. And, in an hour, we may decide not to change our decision or forget completely we were letting an hour pass.

Since we spend more time with ourselves than with anyone else, we know lots about ourselves. We use whatever we can to make the most sensible decisions. Sometimes, there is a rush. But, often times, in working on relationships, in working on ourselves, we have time to wait before a final countdown occurs. At least an hour. So stepping out into a new decision becomes easier if we remember we can change it back in an hour.

Decisions can be fun. Knowing we can change them back keeps us pliable, loose and stress free. The one-hour decision concept might just give us the power we need to motivate ourselves up the ramp and out of the rut we have stepped in so that we can excel through our own actions. We have inner strength which decision making uses. Long live the ability to decide for just an one-hour.
Try this experiment: next time you are thirsty for a drink other than water, forfeit the drink, and go drink a glass of water. Resolve that you will wait on having your drink of choice for one hour. See how you feel in 60 minutes. The urge will probably have changed. You many not remember about it, and don’t set your alarm. The idea is to notice how inconsequential the original urge becomes. And you have controlled your destiny rather than your urges controlling it.

Now that we have spoke about decisions and a small experiment, why not share any insights. OK, you can wait an hour and see how you feel. Do the experiment, and share the results. Do you have any other stories to share about a decision that you made for a minute or an hour, one where you made a discovery, employed a strategy or all-out changed your life- path? We would like to hear about you by email to: 1 [at] warriorsofweight [dot] com, peaceIN [at] warriorsofweight [dot] com or through our online form at: http://warriorsofweight.com/contact-us/.

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, site for Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music pro and stress expert. She is also writing a book called Urges. She says, “As we understand that decisions can be changed, we develop an ease and a confidence in making them.”

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