Drink Less, Live More

It can be so challenging when you begin doing this work to drink less, because on one hand you are telling yourself you can't stop drinking, and on the other hand you have a thought that says you want to not drink as much.  Our brain likes to be right.  When you start to challenge the way things have been (over drinking) you feel this sense of mental discomfort because you want to make the changes, but in doing so it would mean you are finding evidence to prove a new thought true.  It seems crazy, but it is actually a psychological term called cognitive dissonance; the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude changes.  BINGO - one of the reasons it is challenging for those that want to make a change, and want to evolve to their next best version.  So how can you begin to move closer to your goals?  Remember your brain wants to find evidence for your thoughts.  For ...

Our brains are amazing.  It can be our biggest asset, and yet the thing that holds us back from change.      Your animal brain, your lower brain, is what will hold you back.  Your human brain, your evolved pre-frontal cortex - when managed - is what will be your biggest asset. Our lower brain works on a motivational triad - 1.  Avoid pain 2.  Seek pleasure 3.  Be as efficient as possible So it likes to do what it knows. It likes to do what is comfortable. It likes to continue doing what is known and comfortable. So it is totally normal to feel uncomfortable when trying to lose weight, trying to become a new version of your best self because you are starting new things, which is not always efficient. But you can bring your pre-frontal cortex into the game.  This is the part of the brain that you want to be ruling the decisions when you are looking to lose weight.  This part of the brain is where you decide and plan, on p...

Anxiety is something that pretends to be necessary.  I get it - I have been caught indulging in it myself.  For women I work with, as well as myself, it is often focused around career related issues - will I make my sales numbers, how will I pay the bills, how can I get more clients or customers.  It's no wonder a glass of wine seems like a great idea at the end of the day!  The wine numbs the anxiety, takes the edge off, and you  think allows us to feel better.  It becomes a struggle however, when the next day you are beating yourself up for having the wine, compounding the negative feelings, looking for the next glass of the wine at the end of the day to feel better, and so the cycle continues. The thing is, anxiety is simply a feeling, it will not kill you.  One danger is when you identify too closely with it, just say it's who you are, and you can't imagine living any other way.  It's almost like a bad accessory you continue to put ...

Isn't is fascinating how the start of the year, and now in the bathing suit season, we hear about all different diets?  A diet is defined as the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.  When you "go on a diet" its a way to create awareness as to what you are eating, and removes the option to overeat.  Often times we look at the diet as the enemy - the reason you can't have the cookies, or the candy, or the bread.  But be careful, because in that instance you are giving all the power to the diet, when in fact you are the one in control. You are in total control of what you put in your mouth.  Overeating is what leads to weight gain, and overeating is simply defined as eating more than your body needs.  When you have been eating sugar, flour and processed foods for so long your body doesn't even know when you are truly hungry.  Your body doesn't register the calories the same way, your hormones are out of whack, and this ...

Summer time is upon us and vacations are in full swing.  Beaches, barbecues and booze a plenty!  As a culture we love to celebrate the holidays with cocktails, enjoy the beach with some cocktails, sit back on a nice summer night with a cocktail.. you get the picture.  What is so fascinating to me is when you talk about drinking less or taking a break people question if you have a problem.  So now we feel like we should continue drinking, so people don't thing anything is wrong.  Craziness.   In addition to the challenge of cultural norms, often times it feels like a struggle against yourself when you seem to drink more than you want.  Imagine if it could be different.  It really can be.   We just returned from one of our best vacations ever. If you can believe this, it was also one in which I had the least amount of alcohol. (Yes, I guess since I couldn’t believe it I wasn’t sure if you could 😉).  It can be don...

So many people are in vacation mode and sometimes this can be where people head it "screw-it-ville" with their eating.  Maybe you have been in a diet mentality leading up to the bikini time, and now you figure you "deserve" it.  But be very careful with that line of thinking, because at the end of vacation when you return to the scale you may be faced with the additional drama of a number you don't think like. We just returned from our #happyplace - Nantucket, and the running joke with my sister and sister in law, is when they join us they lose weight.  We do not go crazy with eating off normal plan, using the time as an excuse to eat crazy.  Instead of worrying about coming back and gaining imagine you head into vacation with the idea you are going to to lose.  The thing is instead of putting all the joy into what we are eating each day, we decide to find the joy in all the amazing sights (see above) we have in the new environment.  We take a litt...

Desire, defined as a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen. Desire is something we learn.  This seems counter intuitive because we think we either desire our husbands or we don't, (I do 😉), we either desire watermelon or we don't, and the list can go on.  When it comes to drinking wine we think it's innate - we either desire it, or we don't.  But really, we have just learned to desire the wine through programming our brain. We think we don't have control over it and it seems we drink involuntarily.  When we learn something and repeat it many many times the brain recognizes it as a pattern and moves it from the prefrontal cortex to the lower brain so it can be automatic.  Think back to when you first started driving.  It took a lot of energy to pay attention; both hands on the wheel 10-2, slow down around the corners, stay on the road (well - at least for me it took a lot of energy - I wasn't that good 😂). ...