Laugh your Ass off…

How to Transform your relationship to your body and food…. and lose the wait!

My Story

• Personal struggle with weight loss and body image.

• Emotional eating/Stress eating

• Yo-yo dieting

• Permanent weight loss = lifestyle and spiritual change

• New ways of nurturing, managing stress, dealing with emotions.

Mind/ Body Connection

Mind

Emotion

Behavior

Brain/Body/Health

Positive Spiral Negative Spiral

Mindsets

Choose your Mindset

• In every moment, we have the power to choose (Tal Ben Shahar)

• Diet do-it (action based behavior)

• Weight loss creating healthy body(health enhancement)

• Shamebody trust and appreciation (self-acceptance)

• Stress and dis-easeenhanced health and well being

• Exercise as drudgerythe joy of movement (finding joy)

• I can-> I can (empowered choice)

• From I am far from perfect -> I am imperfectly fine

• There is nothing good nor bad, but thinking makes it soShakespeare

Cultivate Your Landscape

• Thoughts, behavior, emotions to increase positivity ratio (Fredrikson)

• Social support and relationships• Set up your environment for success.• Positive people.• Get support

• Don’t bring in enemies.

• Habits and Rituals for success

Permission to be Human

• Wabi-Sabi love: embrace imperfections as part of the whole (Arielle Ford)

• Accept the duality of who we are with compassion and understanding

• Ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offeringThere is a crack, a crack in everythingThat's how the light gets in (Leonard Cohen)

• Embrace totality of emotions

Mindfulness

• Mindfulness: Paying attention without judgment.

• GPS for the mind and body: where am I?

• Rewires the brain (Rick Hansen)

• STOP exercise: Stop, Take a breath, observe , proceed

• The power of Pause• moving towards/away from goal?• How will I feel 10 minutes from now; 1 hour and 1 week

• Self-awareness -> Active Acceptance - conscious choice

• What are you really hungry for???

Mindful Eating

• Distracted eating can increase the amount of food consumed by 50% (Erik Robinson, Univ. of Liverpool)

• “Amnesia eating”. We make 221 food related decisions everyday (Brian Wansink)

• Create habits and rituals to narrow down choices

• Hunger Scale 1-5 …. Gas tank analogy

• Emotional Hunger vs. physiological (ABC)

• Stop when you are ¾ full.

Laughter & Humor• Laughter Yoga -Motion creates the emotion-> positive effect

• Laughter is the best medicine

• Acceptance: Laughter allows us to accept what we cannot change

• Perspective: bigger than our situation.

• Release: Laughter helps us face our shadow, and release judgment

• Celebration: Laughter puts us in touch with joy.

• “Laughter is a bubbly, effervescent form of holiness” Anne Lamott

• Fake it till you make it!

Self - Compassion

• Self-compassion is extremely important aspect in weight loss (Leary et al. 2007)

• Self-compassion has three aspects ( Neff 2009)• Self kindness• Common humanity• Mindfulness

• Loving kindness meditation

Movement/ Exercise

• Not exercising is like taking a depressant drug (Tal Ben Shahar)

• 10,000 steps a day challenge. Consistent and incremental.

• Include a social component for accountability

• Movement you enjoy

• Motivational Music

Gratitude

• Emmons and McCullough; Martin Seligman research on the power of gratitude.

• Gratitude Journal; 3 blessings

• Gratitude meditation

• Gratitude appreciates and shifts everything

Connecting to Nature

• Connect to elemental forces: earth, water, air and fire

• Savoring nature and restorative breaks

• Appreciating nature connects us

Meditation and Visualization

• Best possible Self Journaling (King 2001)

• Meditation benefits ( Kabat Zinn; Davidson)

• Meditation visualizations …way of communicating with sub-conscious with mental images

• Guided Meditations

• Quieting the mind

The Journey Continues