No, you don’t need a magic wand nor willpower.

You need a game plan.

Tips to win:

• Map out a success plan.
• Focus on meal-to-meal daily steps to maximize bariatric surgery weight loss.
• Get back on the wagon after a slip.
• Review your values and strengths.
• Praise yourself after every little win.

“Winning is not everything — but making the effort to win is.”

~Vince Lombardi

I have learned to make chronic pain my “friend”. Not my best friend, but we are sure as heck acquainted as I am in contact every day!

Powerful Tips to increase your “Life Satisfaction”:

Learn how to focus your character strengths away from the pain or discomfort by actively utilizing:

• Bravery - Remind yourself that you are resilient. You live everyday and need to celebrate all you can and do accomplish.
• Kindness – Do something kind or say something kind to someone else. Don’t focus on yourself.
• Humor - Watch a funny TV show, get onto the Internet and watch funny YouTube videos, or read a joke book.

If you feel anxious or depressed, put energy into these strengths.

• Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence – Use your 5 senses. Savoring what you see, touch, smell, hear, and taste. But be careful with the taste one. That can be dangerous for you needless to say! Put on your ipod or listen to music in anyway you love. You will feel better and will be engagingly distracted.
• Love of Learning – Scout out the Internet or an old book that you loved and dig into it again. Have fun with challenging crossword puzzles, mazes, word searches, and Sudoko if you really want a brain-bender. Just get your brain cells firing.

You don’t need to suffer. Stop and hone in on what you can do. You are courageous and resourceful. Keep on truckin’.

• What if your life didn’t always revolve around you and your weight loss?
• What if you deferred your thinking about food and started using your VALUE of empathy and your strength of COMPASSION?

Why not stretch your GRATITUDE strength and start of the New Year by helping someone else. Be a hero to a hospitalized child.

Check this out: wondercapes.com

Say out loud and with vigor:

“Distract and engage. Put the Fear Monster back in his cage!”

Write it down. Memorize it.

Or try this one, “No fear can get to me unless I let it!”

And always remember, “Never fear. Dr. Judy is near!”

Can you answer one question for 2010? What holds you back from staying on your road to health success? Remember the HALT! from AA. (Not an alcoholic? Who cares. The premise is the same.)

Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?

Maybe you are all four at times.

Try These Remedies

• Make a list of what has worked for you in the past. Review all positive intentions.
• Pick the easiest thing to do at that moment. Walk, sing, duct tape your mouth, call a friend, clean out a drawer.
• Get moving and stop thinking. Re-read your positive self-statements re: how healthy you are and continue to be.
• Meditate, pray or find peace in your own way.
• KNOW, absolutely KNOW and TELL YOURSELF that you have strengths to call upon. Use them!
• Continue to kick your inner critic to the curb. Hug yourself instead.

You are not alone. Everyone I know has emotional issues that need to be vanquished. So give yourself a smile and a pat on your back as you slay the dragons of food desire, one emotion at a time.

1. They found the risk of depression was 30%+ higher when subjects ate a diet of refined foods as contrasted with those eating a traditional Mediterranean diet.

Inverse dose-response relationships were found for fruit and nuts, monounsaturated — to saturated- fatty-acids ratio, and legumes.
Sánchez-Villega, A et al. (2009). Association of the Mediterranean Dietary Pattern With the Incidence of Depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 6, 10.

2. They report two diet patterns: high vegetables, fish, and fruits, associated with less depression. The other pattern, Processed foods:  heavily loaded by sweetened desserts, fried food, processed meat, refined grains and high-fat dairy products associated with a higher  risk of depression.
Akbaraly, TM et al. (2009) Dietary pattern and depressive symptoms in middle age. The British Journal of Psychiatry 195: 408-413

An older but interesting study:

This was a double blind study of prisoners who either got fish oil caps and a multivitamin or a placebo oil / dummy vitamin. Within two weeks, the prisoners on the active vitamins and fish oil had 31% fewer fights.
Gesch, C. B. et al. (2002) Influence of supplementary vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids on the antisocial Behaviour of young adult prisoners. BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY, 181, 22, 28.

Close your eyes and relax. Think of a time when food was NOT involved. A time when life was light and airy and you floated along. Remember that peace and calm?

Maybe when you were floating on a raft, had sat next to a brook or river, or been alone blissfully reading a book. Gently place that image in your mind.

• Did you feel full of life?
• Were your senses on alert?
• Did you notice the freedom of no past anchors nor future worries?

Instead of eating, let your mind wrap itself around the joy of just being. Be your won sweet self in fulfillment. Just this. Food can wait.

Have a joyful holiday season.

Big hugs,

Judy

Today I am going to talk about wonderful YOU. Your self-esteem and how to get more of it.

Maybe you struggled for years but your weight often won. Maybe you’ve had bariatric surgery and have terrifically maintained your weight. If so, KUDOS!

But if you fear Thanksgiving might derail you, and you might slip up, try this:

• Get off the whine wagon! “But it’s just one day!”
• Don’t make excuses! “But it is just one day!”
• Give yourself permission to BE A SUCCESS.
• Map out your eating plan BEFORE you sit down to the table.
• Make an intention that you are a winner at life and make choices that serve you

Use your CRITICAL THINKING and COURAGE personality strengths. KNOW ahead of time that what you focus on is HAPPY HEALTH. Think now good you will feel when you don’t suffer after you get up from the table.

Celebrate yourself and your winning without whining about scarcity. You have wonderful you and many things about which to be grateful. Stop and savor YOU.

Know that I send my love and am thankful that you are sharing time with me.

Big hugs,

Judy

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.

~  George Washington