Here are three simple truths that can change your life – your body – and your health. You might think the order should be body, health and life, right? Nope. That’s why most people can’t lose weigh or then gain it back. We’ve got the order wrong. So start with these simple truths:
1. You are not a failure.
2. It is never too late.
3. You can learn to love yourself enough to change FOR GOOD.
Number 1. The most important part of my mission to empower others to create healthy bodies from the inside out is that it begins on the inside, not the outside. In order to support that this holiday, I want to tell you that you are not a failure. No matter what your weight, your body, or your body image, you are simply not a failure based on what you did or didn’t do yesterday.
Number 2. What you get, right now, is the opportunity to not fail YOURSELF today.
It is never too late. You can make ONE change today that can, like a string of dominoes, change every day that’s headed toward you. What that one change might be is huge. Will you sign up for a course to help empower you? Will you create life-changing support? Will you visit websites to create healthy meal plans for you and your family? Will you take a walk for 10 minutes? You can choose to NOT fail today. Even if it’s half over – start your day right now, right this moment because every moment is an opportunity for a new beginning.
Number 3. You can learn to love yourself enough to change – so learn this one thing, right now: Food is not love or comfort. Food can be comforting and nurturing however, it will never cure your soul sickness. It will never fill what you really need. Although it might feel that way, believe me, I know first hand, it is not true. Food is energy, and that’s it. It is a consumable fuel source that sustains our bodies. And how well the engine works depends primarily on what fuel we provide. If we shovel in sugar, they’ll still run, but wow – what a price to pay. If we offer our bodies, fruits and vegetables and healthy proteins and whole grains, well, you will FEEL the difference in only a few days – or even hours.
Number 3 Continued! While food is NOT love and comfort, mealtimes CAN be. You can create rituals of love and comfort at your meals. In fact, the word companion literally means “to break bread with.” Who do you invite to your table every day? Are you setting a beautiful table and eating lovingly prepared meals? Are you TOO BUSY to create this expression of self-love? Because this is NOT a luxury. For centuries, mealtime was a staple of healthy bodies and healthy families. We ate together. Meals were a cherished event.
So when you go to this Thanksgiving’s meal with friends and family, I wish for you one thing: to stop and look around. Do you feel the love at that meal? Is it the food, or is it the people? Is it the setting? Can you smell the LOVE? Because I’m betting you can. Now, can you allow yourself to create this, in some small way, every day? Because THAT is a 1-2-3 great start.
I am grateful for YOU in my life, and if you need a helping hand getting started or over the rough spots, give me a call at 415 464 1234.
Laura Fenamore
CPCC and Body Image Mastery Mentor
www.LauraFenamore.com
Monday, November 24, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Fat Chance – Two Tips to Navigating Tricky Holiday Horrors for Food Addicts
For some, having a happy holiday may as well be called, “fat chance.” It seems that no matter how hard we work to insulate ourselves against the issues of our childhood and the home and family who reared us, the tunnel from Thanksgiving to New Years is a mine field loaded with hidden traps, double agents and slim chance of survival without self-destructing or ripping open old wounds and old injuries.
How are we to protect ourselves from harm and mental injury? Do we amputate our past and the people in it? Are we to avoid holidays and celebrations altogether? Perhaps, but at what cost? These are your holidays, and if managed carefully, YOU can create new traditions of love and family.
You DO bring the most wonderful ingredient to that new recipe, after all. That would be YOU!
Your holiday season can look however you want it to. You can bring a healing and vibrant heart and rock solid self-love.
So what is next? And what will your roadmap look like this season of Peace and Love?
As a Body Image Mentor, if I were to offer only two tools to use to build a beautiful, magical holiday this year, they would be support and planning.
Tip #1 = Support Support, Support and more Support. Do you get the picture? Remember, you are building a new experience with the holidays – one where food will not be a double agent – appearing as comfort and haven, but underneath only offering guilt, shame, and blame.
Your new building needs strong supports. It needs a long list of like-minded travelers who will listen, laugh and help you through the rough moments. If you can literally bring one of those people with you to events and places that feel more like combat zones than “home,” that would be terrific. If that’s not possible, perhaps there’s one person at home who does support you. Let them be your oasis. Do not focus on those with whom you must "work” to earn approval or love. Stick with your support person, no matter what.
Before the holidays even begin, start to talk about your fears and your pitfalls with others who walk the same path. Finally, remember that there is an endless stream of love and a strong foundation running through our Earth, through our universe, through every cell of your body. You are a precious child of this life force, and all the support you need is present if you find yourself feeling isolated, or even abandoned, in rough enemy territory.
Tip #2 = Planning Okay, here’s where the real work starts. First of all, plan your food. PLANNING IS POWER. Call ahead, ask what will be served. Bring something you feel good about eating that is in your plan just in case nothing at the party or event works for you. You are not a victim of anything that you choose to do, or any place you choose to go. Do not put yourself at risk to binge, purge or starve. This is the most basic and self-loving action you can embrace.
Next, have an escape hatch and get-out-of-jail free card, even if it’s only for a few minutes. (A loving exit strategy is your highest goal, of course). Have a vehicle or a rescue squad at the ready. Remember, one person might let you down, but a squad, well now you’re talking!
At the very least, feel free to step away from an uncomfortable situation and call someone you feel safe talking to. Keep calling people to reach someone on the other end of the phone. People want to connect with other people and often we are helping the person we are calling just as much as they are helping us. Go to a nearby quiet café haven to retreat, if things get crazy. You can always retire to a quiet room (I have been known to hang out in bathrooms or closets, wherever I can get quiet space), and pray or read some centering affirmations or a spiritual book. Remember food for the soul is what will sustain and nurture you.
These are the basics. They are only the basics. They are the absolute minimum that all of us should consider and achieve if we plan to truly enjoy our holidays for 2008. And why not? The Earth is revolving, and we will not see these days again. By filling our two hands with these two tools, we will find ourselves empowered to keep the food in its right place. A place of healthy sustenance. To fuel us from one beautiful day to the next, creating a lifetime of holidays and celebrations strung together on the golden threads of self-love, self-care, service and camaraderie.
Here is what I want for you.
On January 1st, 2009, I want you to look back at Holiday Season 2008 and say, “This holiday season was like no other!” It was the best holiday season ever because I stood up for myself and for my needs; I followed my heart, said “no” when I needed to, and took better care of myself than ever before. I did things differently this past holiday season, and as uncomfortable as it was for me at times, I did it anyway. I enter this new year feeling freer and better about myself.
That is what I want for you.
I invite you to get started now!
In health,
Laura Fenamore, CPCCBody Image Mastery Mentor
www.LauraFenamore.com
www.BodyImageMastery.blogspot.com
How are we to protect ourselves from harm and mental injury? Do we amputate our past and the people in it? Are we to avoid holidays and celebrations altogether? Perhaps, but at what cost? These are your holidays, and if managed carefully, YOU can create new traditions of love and family.
You DO bring the most wonderful ingredient to that new recipe, after all. That would be YOU!
Your holiday season can look however you want it to. You can bring a healing and vibrant heart and rock solid self-love.
So what is next? And what will your roadmap look like this season of Peace and Love?
As a Body Image Mentor, if I were to offer only two tools to use to build a beautiful, magical holiday this year, they would be support and planning.
Tip #1 = Support Support, Support and more Support. Do you get the picture? Remember, you are building a new experience with the holidays – one where food will not be a double agent – appearing as comfort and haven, but underneath only offering guilt, shame, and blame.
Your new building needs strong supports. It needs a long list of like-minded travelers who will listen, laugh and help you through the rough moments. If you can literally bring one of those people with you to events and places that feel more like combat zones than “home,” that would be terrific. If that’s not possible, perhaps there’s one person at home who does support you. Let them be your oasis. Do not focus on those with whom you must "work” to earn approval or love. Stick with your support person, no matter what.
Before the holidays even begin, start to talk about your fears and your pitfalls with others who walk the same path. Finally, remember that there is an endless stream of love and a strong foundation running through our Earth, through our universe, through every cell of your body. You are a precious child of this life force, and all the support you need is present if you find yourself feeling isolated, or even abandoned, in rough enemy territory.
Tip #2 = Planning Okay, here’s where the real work starts. First of all, plan your food. PLANNING IS POWER. Call ahead, ask what will be served. Bring something you feel good about eating that is in your plan just in case nothing at the party or event works for you. You are not a victim of anything that you choose to do, or any place you choose to go. Do not put yourself at risk to binge, purge or starve. This is the most basic and self-loving action you can embrace.
Next, have an escape hatch and get-out-of-jail free card, even if it’s only for a few minutes. (A loving exit strategy is your highest goal, of course). Have a vehicle or a rescue squad at the ready. Remember, one person might let you down, but a squad, well now you’re talking!
At the very least, feel free to step away from an uncomfortable situation and call someone you feel safe talking to. Keep calling people to reach someone on the other end of the phone. People want to connect with other people and often we are helping the person we are calling just as much as they are helping us. Go to a nearby quiet café haven to retreat, if things get crazy. You can always retire to a quiet room (I have been known to hang out in bathrooms or closets, wherever I can get quiet space), and pray or read some centering affirmations or a spiritual book. Remember food for the soul is what will sustain and nurture you.
These are the basics. They are only the basics. They are the absolute minimum that all of us should consider and achieve if we plan to truly enjoy our holidays for 2008. And why not? The Earth is revolving, and we will not see these days again. By filling our two hands with these two tools, we will find ourselves empowered to keep the food in its right place. A place of healthy sustenance. To fuel us from one beautiful day to the next, creating a lifetime of holidays and celebrations strung together on the golden threads of self-love, self-care, service and camaraderie.
Here is what I want for you.
On January 1st, 2009, I want you to look back at Holiday Season 2008 and say, “This holiday season was like no other!” It was the best holiday season ever because I stood up for myself and for my needs; I followed my heart, said “no” when I needed to, and took better care of myself than ever before. I did things differently this past holiday season, and as uncomfortable as it was for me at times, I did it anyway. I enter this new year feeling freer and better about myself.
That is what I want for you.
I invite you to get started now!
In health,
Laura Fenamore, CPCCBody Image Mastery Mentor
www.LauraFenamore.com
www.BodyImageMastery.blogspot.com
Monday, November 3, 2008
What’s more painful than chronic pain? Three Simple Steps To Self-Care
What’s more painful than chronic physical pain? The pain that lives inside, that’s what. Can you imagine being 100 pounds overweight and living with all of the stares, comments and agony that goes along with that? The inability to buy a beautiful dress, or the fear that now goes with flying on an airplane? Now can you imagine losing that weight, and still coming up short? Still feeling, deep inside, that you were not good enough. Never believing, for more than a few moments at a time, that you were beautiful and valuable.
Those are the every-day feelings that attach themselves to thousands and thousands of men and women who suffer from eating disorders – even after they recover. Even after they lose the weight, the inside agony continues. We fill the overweight person with Cinderella dreams of becoming a swan, after feeling like the ugly duckling for so many years. Who remembers that television show devoted to makeovers named “The Swan.” The sad thing is that all the nose jobs, liposuction and hair weaves can’t heal a broken body image.
I know first hand being in agony both fat and thin. And I am happy to report that today I have freedom. None of these things have power over me anymore. Self criticism, the scale or food.
Body image. How we see ourselves from the inside out. The irony is that very few of us don’t have a distortion in our “internal mirror.” Like the reflections in a fun house, we’re all out of wack. Obese people often live in eternal (and deadly) denial, and perfectly healthy people harm themselves through starvation, compulsive exercise and purging. And there’s no easy fix to this. There’s no exiting the fun house with a few laughs at the experience. The ride goes on and on.
The simple truth is that getting off that wheel starts with what we eat, how we live, and how we feel. The more we can simply surrender our love affair with self-criticism, the more room we have to learn self-care and self-esteem. And learn it and learn it and learn it some more.
After a lifetime of taunts, teases and put downs from everywhere we look (the media, the magazine covers and the world at large), we now have to learn a whole new way to love ourselves no matter what. AND forgive ourselves for the hatred to begin with!
We can’t love ourselves and chastise at the same time. It’s got to be the whole shebang if we’re really going to change. And why not? Change is all around us. Our entire nation is seeking a change. Our seasons change. The world keeps revolving. And WE are allowed to change. Human beings are remarkable. We can survive. We can survive torture, trauma, decades of abuse within our childhoods and homes, and the self abuse that came from those things.
We can come out of the other side of self hatred and discover an experience as beautiful and magnificent as falling in love. We can LEARN to love our selves and our lives.
Step 1. Start your day with a prayer to remember that you are powerful and precious. On your knees, ask the power around you to remind you to love yourself today. No matter what. Let every negative comment or thought simply float away unjudged. If you want peace, you must give up the idea of conflict entirely and all the time, this is our goal.
Step 2. Take the TIME to do loving things. How do you build self esteem? You DO esteemable things. Let that materialize as loving actions toward YOU today. We’re talking the basics here. Rest, downtime, company and healthy food and movement. Those are the basics. How long since your day revolved around those things? Too long, I bet.
Step 3. Love is a two-way street. So treat yourself to time with those who LOVE YOU. Recreate your childhood (whether yours was happy or not) and run, skip, jump, climb and play with those you love deeply…and who love you.
The simple truth is that YOU have the right to be honored and comforted, fulfilled and LOVED today – from the inside and the outside. Allow this into your life today.
To your journey of self-love and self-care,
Laura Fenamore, Body Image Mastery Mentor
www.LauraFenamore.com
Those are the every-day feelings that attach themselves to thousands and thousands of men and women who suffer from eating disorders – even after they recover. Even after they lose the weight, the inside agony continues. We fill the overweight person with Cinderella dreams of becoming a swan, after feeling like the ugly duckling for so many years. Who remembers that television show devoted to makeovers named “The Swan.” The sad thing is that all the nose jobs, liposuction and hair weaves can’t heal a broken body image.
I know first hand being in agony both fat and thin. And I am happy to report that today I have freedom. None of these things have power over me anymore. Self criticism, the scale or food.
Body image. How we see ourselves from the inside out. The irony is that very few of us don’t have a distortion in our “internal mirror.” Like the reflections in a fun house, we’re all out of wack. Obese people often live in eternal (and deadly) denial, and perfectly healthy people harm themselves through starvation, compulsive exercise and purging. And there’s no easy fix to this. There’s no exiting the fun house with a few laughs at the experience. The ride goes on and on.
The simple truth is that getting off that wheel starts with what we eat, how we live, and how we feel. The more we can simply surrender our love affair with self-criticism, the more room we have to learn self-care and self-esteem. And learn it and learn it and learn it some more.
After a lifetime of taunts, teases and put downs from everywhere we look (the media, the magazine covers and the world at large), we now have to learn a whole new way to love ourselves no matter what. AND forgive ourselves for the hatred to begin with!
We can’t love ourselves and chastise at the same time. It’s got to be the whole shebang if we’re really going to change. And why not? Change is all around us. Our entire nation is seeking a change. Our seasons change. The world keeps revolving. And WE are allowed to change. Human beings are remarkable. We can survive. We can survive torture, trauma, decades of abuse within our childhoods and homes, and the self abuse that came from those things.
We can come out of the other side of self hatred and discover an experience as beautiful and magnificent as falling in love. We can LEARN to love our selves and our lives.
Step 1. Start your day with a prayer to remember that you are powerful and precious. On your knees, ask the power around you to remind you to love yourself today. No matter what. Let every negative comment or thought simply float away unjudged. If you want peace, you must give up the idea of conflict entirely and all the time, this is our goal.
Step 2. Take the TIME to do loving things. How do you build self esteem? You DO esteemable things. Let that materialize as loving actions toward YOU today. We’re talking the basics here. Rest, downtime, company and healthy food and movement. Those are the basics. How long since your day revolved around those things? Too long, I bet.
Step 3. Love is a two-way street. So treat yourself to time with those who LOVE YOU. Recreate your childhood (whether yours was happy or not) and run, skip, jump, climb and play with those you love deeply…and who love you.
The simple truth is that YOU have the right to be honored and comforted, fulfilled and LOVED today – from the inside and the outside. Allow this into your life today.
To your journey of self-love and self-care,
Laura Fenamore, Body Image Mastery Mentor
www.LauraFenamore.com
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