It is now four days since Easter. Have you yet had the courage to look in the mirror at your face, your belly when you step out of the shower? Did you finally get up the courage only to become totally distraught at the image before you?

Two articles on today’s oprah.com caught my eye. The first one said, “Go Ahead and Eat That Easter Candy,” relating that chocolate can be good for us. On the opposite side of the page appeared the title  “Weight Loss Roller Coaster,” the story of Kathrine Lee who in 2002 showed off her 175-pound weight loss on Oprah’s stage. She kept the weight off for seven years, but slowly the weight crept back on.

Four days after Easter I felt more inspired to read the latter article. “Finally, at 300 pounds, Kathrine had an aha! moment. After reading Geneen Roth’s book Women, Food and God, Kathrine learned losing weight is not about punishing or depriving yourself—it’s about embracing yourself. ‘Kindness is actually what heals,’ she says.”

If you keep clicking through the article, you come to an excerpt from the book, which includes the following:

“We think we’re miserable because of what we weigh. And to the extent that our joints hurt and our knees ache and we can’t walk three blocks without losing our breath, we probably are physically miserable because of extra weight. But if we’ve spent the last five, 20, 50 years obsessing about the same ten or 20 pounds, something else is going on. Something that has nothing to do with weight.”

“The bottom line, whether you weigh 340 pounds or 150 pounds, is that when you eat when you are not hungry, you are using food as a drug, grappling with boredom or illness or loss or grief or emptiness or loneliness or rejection. Food is only the middleman, the means to the end. Of altering your emotions. Of making yourself numb. Of creating a secondary problem when the original problem becomes too uncomfortable. Of dying slowly rather than coming to terms with your messy, magnificent, and very, very short—even at a hundred years—life. The means to these ends happens to be food, but it could be alcohol, it could be work, it could be sex, it could be cocaine. Surfing the Internet. Talking on the phone.”

“The Sufi poet Rumi, writing about birds learning to fly, wrote: ‘How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they’re given wings.’”

“If you wait until you have Toni Oliver’s eyes and Amy Breyer’s hair, if you wait to respect yourself until you are at the weight you imagine you need to be to respect yourself, you will never respect yourself. To be given wings, you’ve got to be willing to believe that you were put on this Earth for more than your endless attempts to lose the same 30 pounds 300 times for 80 years. And that goodness and loveliness are possible, even in something as mundane as what you put in your mouth for breakfast.

Beginning now.”

OK, I now make a note in my planner, “Get Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth.”

Beginning now…quit beating yourself up for what you did in the past. Just last night a friend reminded me that the past and future are all about the ego.

Just stay put in this present moment. Now is the new beginning.

An excerpt from today’s message from Neale Donald Walsch gives further emphasis on the now…

“Is it love, or is it fear?

Everything you express emerges from one of these two

starting points. Yet you can return to love, as Marianne

Williamson famously wrote, at any time you wish. For

each day, each moment, offers a new beginning.”

Maria Robinson said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

Here’s the challenge for today: Go back to that mirror. Stand up straight, proudly square your shoulders. Look yourself in the eye and return yourself to love, self love.

Just think, a new beginning…beginning now. How exciting.

This week I have been talking about “releasing weight” slowly over time. A little effort over a period of time = amazing results.

This morning on my walk, I listened to a recorded call by Robert G. Allen, best-selling author of The One Minute Millionaire. Bob explained it this way:

Take $1 a day, each and every day, and put it away under your bed (no interest). In 66 years you will have $25,000. Wow, that’s a lot of money. But wait, what if you compounded the interest?

$1 a day at 3% interest (wish we still had those rates!) would equal $75,000.

But, if you increased the interest just 2% more and made it 5%, now that amount would equal just under $200,000. Big difference from the $25K!

 Now let’s say you decide to double the interest to make it 10%. That amount would grow from $200,000 to $2.75 million – ten times the result!

What if you added just 5% more? At 15%, you would now grow that number sixteen times, taking it from $2.75 million to $50 million.

But now, what if you put in just a little bit more interest to make it 20%? That $50 million would now become $1 billion, or twenty times the growth.

Just a little bit extra, increasing the interest by a third, creates huge multiples of interest.

Now what if you take that interest and look at is as time? And then, what if you compounded the effort? What would happen in your life?

If you figure that you need eight hours to sleep and an hour a day times three for meals and an extra hour for incidentals, then you have roughly twelve productive hours in your day. What if you spent 3% of your time on something? 3% of twelve hours would be about 21 minutes. What if you spent 21 minutes a day on something for 66 years? What would happen?

Now let’s say you decide to put in just a little bit more effort? Say you decide to spend 5% of your day on one particular thing. 5% of your productive hours would come to about 36 minutes. Would increasing the time from 21 minutes to 36 minutes a day x 66 years make a difference, considering the compounded interest example?

Now let’s say you decide to double that effort. Instead of 5% of your productive hours, you decide to spend 10%. Now you are spending 72 minutes a day on your decided project.

Think of all the areas in your life, all your interests, all your dreams. Is there something you’d like to compound the interest on? Back to releasing any excess weight, over time, that one meal at a time, one day at a time, one week at a time, compounds the effort and the results.

Never, ever, ever give up. If you fall off the wagon, pick yourself back up. Just remember the interest rate you are growing. A little effort over a period of time will = amazing results!

I have been writing the past couple days about “releasing” weight. Today my mind is swirling thinking how it all happens. At the 5:30 am Jazzercise class today one of the participants made a comment that me stop and realize that it was the baby steps that led to a noticeable result. “How much weight have you lost? You look great!”

 Two months ago when I started, releasing 20.6 pounds seemed so far into the future. Then, all of a sudden, today it is here. How did it all happen? Baby steps.

 Yesterday’s message from tut.com speaks such wisdom:

 “The real reason that so many have trouble with the baby steps, Rosie—doing all they can, with what they’ve got from where they are, no matter how humble or seemingly futile—is because they haven’t yet grasped that the baby steps trigger unseen forces that throw wide the floodgates of unstoppable momentum, infinite abundance, and eternal life.

 Just some tiny steps,

????The Universe”

 Perhaps the place to start is with self love. Yesterday Dr. Gabhart and I traveled to a spot a couple hours away that reminds me of the Smoky Mountains. We decided we don’t have to always work on our book in an office, we can go to a beautiful place in Nature. 

 While there, in a little Christian bookstore, sitting there for me on the shelf was a beautiful little book titled Your Captivating Heart, Discover How God’s True Love Can Free a Woman’s Soul. I was immediately drawn to the cover. Listen to these words: “Femininity is depth and mystery and complexity, with beauty as the very essence. Every woman has a beauty to unveil. Every woman.”

 You, me, every woman…just as you are, right now, this very minute.

 The next step is to make sure that physically you are in balance, that a hormone imbalance will not hinder you once you decide to release the pounds that you no longer need. I am grateful to Dr. Gabhart for helping me in this regard (www.whitneygabhartnd.com).

 Next comes a faith and a belief. In a little coffee shop yesterday there on the wall was a small beautiful stone wall hanging that now lives on my wall where I can see it every day: “Miracles happen when you BELIEVE.”

 Next comes the courage and determination that I have been talking about this week…and a sensible, healthy eating plan. The one I am following is the one I wrote about in my blog article on July 10, “Only Open Door #1.”

 You know, what comes to me is that every dream is like this, not just releasing those no-longer-needed pounds. It all starts with little baby steps.  In time, bit by bit, those tiny little steps will create momentum and then, sure enough, your miracle presents itself.

 What an exciting time to be aware, to be alive, to take the little baby steps, enjoying each step along the way…

A funny thing happened at the upscale restaurant this weekend. As I examined the menu for the lowest carb item, I asked the waitress for her recommendation. “Sounds like you’re on the same diet I’m on!” was her reply.  Feeling confident I was now in good hands, I immediately took her recommendation and ordered a tilapia dish with a big long name that I couldn’t pronounce.

 Imagine my reaction when out came a big serving of fish completely smothered and buried under a pile of moist bread crumb/tomato/parmesan coating. By the time I scraped off the breadcrumb goop, I had a pile as big as the size of my fish. Wonder how many carbs were in all that mess?

 A couple days before that, I accompanied my granddaughter to the day care on her 2^nd day of school. Sierra was so excited to eat breakfast at the day care. Guess what the breakfast was? I stood in stunned shock as a piece of white bread was slathered in butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. That and a cup of milk was “breakfast.”  

 Sierra was so upset with me when I told her I had to go get her some breakfast somewhere. “No, Grandma! I’m not wasting this good piece of bread!” What nutrition is in a white piece of bread??  Plus, it breaks down into simple sugars…carbs and no nutrition.

 An employee overheard our commotion and offered that Sierra could eat the school breakfast if she wanted. Ah, big relief since we didn’t have much time till the bell rang! What was the menu? Biscuits and gravy, orange juice and milk. Biscuits?  More carbs and more simple sugars and no nutrition. And milk…that’s another topic for another day. Check out what Dr. Joel Fuhrman has to say about milk in Disease-Proof Your Child or Dr. Campbell inThe China Study.

 “Releasing” weight is a S-L-O-W process. Imagine how much slower the process is when you add all those carbs to a meal. It takes courage to search the menu for the lean meats and low carb vegetables, particularly when the people you are dining with order the breaded appetizer, the hot rolls, and the tub of pasta. Try to find a menu anywhere that isn’t loaded with carbs. We have a serious carb crisis in America. Carbs are making us fat.

 It also takes discipline to record every single item you consume in your food journal. What a pain to look up the number of calories, fat, protein, and carbs for each item. The pocket sized Calorie Fat & Carbohydrate Counter makes the job easier, but it requires discipline indeed.

 But you know what? Before you know it, you are pretty educated on the number of carbs and calories in food items, and the process takes less and less time. Plus, there is something about holding yourself accountable to record every single item. Less likely to “cheat” that way…and oh, the reward is so very sweet.

 Yes, it takes time to release 5, 10, 15, 20 pounds, but you’re going to be here 1, 2, 3, 6 months from now anyway. Might as well be 5 or 10 pounds lighter and feel good about yourself. Imagine not having to carry that 5 or 10 pound bag of sugar around with you everywhere you go.

 Tut.com had a pointed comment yesterday…

 “One of the trickiest things about life, Rosie, is that, at times, it happens so slowly.

 Yet…if…it…happened…any…faster…you’d…already…have…everything…you…ever…wanted…without…learning…to…enjoy…the…ride.

Beep, beep…

The Universe”

 Want to hear still yet another blessing of counting carbs? You learn to choose your food wisely, and the flavors literally burst in your mouth. You find yourself having a whole new appreciation for the substances that you put into your mouth.

 Oh, yes, enjoy the ride. The thrill of victory is sweet – even without the carbs!

A friend and I have made a long term commitment to eat a healthy diet, monitor our carbs, and slowly “release” the excess weight. We don’t want to “lose” it. Subliminally speaking, when you “lose” something, you are always looking for it, wanting it back. Not so in this case!

 Now that Dr. Gabhart has my hormones in balance, it’s a doable thing. I have found from personal experience if your hormones are out of balance, the pounds won’t come off. It’s s a slow process, but the victory is so sweet. The following Chinese proverb pretty much sums it up:

“Be not afraid of changing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.”

My friend shared this wonderful analogy with me. Maybe it will be helpful to some of you:

 “I am down another 2 pounds . . .and that alone, dear woman, prevents me from a frozen margarita drunken binge!!!” (Can you tell I am always talking about my Friday night margarita? Incidentally, I find I can still indulge in this one weekly toxin adventure, as long as I don’t consume the entire restaurant along with it.)

 She continues: “I am on the path of weight loss. This morning makes 12 pounds . . . my next tiny goal is 5 lbs from where I am. I do the mental thing like this . . . think of it like hiking. It is uphill. It is a trail. I have a backpack. Every so often I sit down for a couple of minutes. Those are my tiny goals. Next I have my larger goals, and that is where I open up my tent and rest overnight. Then I do the small goals again where I just sit a couple of minutes and so on . . .

 It helps me to break it down for the whole goal which is to reach the destination point where I will have a permanent cabin, with resort accommodations. My goal is to live there!!!! At least at my first plateau, I can pitch my tent for a while and rest!!!!”

 One meal at a time, one day at a time, and darn if the scale doesn’t eventually change. It takes courage to step on the scale every morning and write that number on the calendar. BUT, what sweet joy when you get to write down a number that’s a little lower than the day or week before.

It is a S-L-O-W process, but oh, how your body will love you for the extra care and attention you are giving it. . .

 Your heart thanks you…it doesn’t have to pump as hard to get blood circulated to all those extra pounds!

 Your lungs thank you…oh, how much easier it is to breathe!

 Your hormones thank you…oh, to get back in balance again feels so good!

 Your joints, legs, veins, and feet thank you…the load to carry is so much lighter!

 An eye opening experience for me during this ride has been the incredible carb overload facing us each day, no matter where we turn. Stay tuned in tomorrow when I share some of those experiences!  :  )

Yesterday I listened to call on hayhouseradio.com given by Nurse Practitioner Marcelle Pick on hormones and weight reduction.

At one point in the call, a woman who is vegan called in complaining of weight gain. Marcelle responded that some postmenopausal women don’t do well on a vegan diet. The carbs in a vegan diet are too high and contribute to insulin resistance, a condition in which insulin no longer responds when you eat food. The point she made is that the quality of your food must work for your physiology.

How I can relate to that scenario. That is exactly what happened to me. When I finally went to see Dr. Gabhart, she basically told me the same thing. She put me on a lower carb diet and the weight amazingly started to come off, something that seemed an impossibility for me no matter what I tried for oh, so long.

One additional side benefit of reducing carbs for me was a big decrease in my cholesterol level, a reduction of 50 points over a period of 5 weeks. Imagine the thrill I experience finally, after all these years, to be able to get off the statin drugs for high cholesterol. I don’t know which I am more excited about: the weight reduction or getting off the statin drugs. I think getting off the statin drugs wins!

Dr. Gabhart explains that insulin is the fat storage hormone, and yes, one can reduce weight and cholesterol by monitoring carbohydrate intake. Pick told her audience she recommends 15 – 16 carbs per meal.

In my own case, I started examining the labels of everything I consume. Processed foods of any sort are a no-no. I now replace higher carb protein with lower carb protein. I replace higher carb fruits and vegetable with those with lower carbs.

In my search, what was most shocking was that I found carbs in places that I hadn’t paid attention to. For example, I looked at the fiber supplements that I was using – anywhere from 15 – 24 carbs per serving. Ouch! In addition, I was grinding my own flaxseeds, 12.4 carbs per ¼ cup. I was giving myself a bolus of carbs before I ever even pulled up to the table, all under the impression of giving healthy things to my body.

I switched my fiber supplement to psyllium, powder or capsules, and I went back to using my Arbonne vegan Essential Fatty Acid for my omega 3 supplement.  An important point that Pick made is to not eliminate fat from the diet. Many of our hormones are derived from cholesterol. Therefore it is important to eliminate “bad” fats from the diet, such as saturated fats or trans fats and consume good fats, such as omega 3 and olive oil.

A point Pick made that I want to research more is that she is finding that gluten in the diet seems to be contributing to weight gain. She repeatedly advised to take glutens and carbs from the diet to lose weight. It is important to not eliminate carbs, but to reduce them. The body requires a balance of carbs, proteins, and fats for healthy living.

Another important factor in having the ability to lose weight are healthy adrenals. Stress and emotions affect hormone balance. In addition, as Pick stated, you won’t lose weight if you are consuming 700 calories a day. The body recognizes this as a stressor and, consequently, goes into preservation mode.

Pick went on to say that belly fat is related to one of three reasons:

1. Hormones are out of balance
2. The adrenals are exhausted
3. Insulin Resistance

In summary, if any of you find yourself in a situation where you cannot lose weight, perhaps some of these tips will be the key to unlock the perplexing puzzle.

Tonight is Margarita Friday. Every Friday night, whether I need it or not, we go to the local Mexican establishment, and I get my weekly dose of toxin, i.e., one margarita.  :  )

I look forward to that treat – especially now that I have been following the diet plan that Dr. Gabhart gave me on June 21. Wow, is that plan ever working. There is 10.2 pounds less of me than there was 3 weeks ago, and it has not been difficult to do – and I can still have my weekly margarita.

Thought I’d share it with you in case any of you are interested. I have read about and tried many different plans through the years, and this one is so simple. What I like most about it is I can eat healthy food and feel full.

She basically took an 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper and wrote at the top: 1) keep a food journal, and 2) weigh daily. She then divided the paper into three sections, and wrote the following:

Breakfast: 10 carbs or less

Lunch: 10 carbs or less

Supper: Start with 2 cups of salad with a 1 – 2 carb dressing (Hidden Valley Ranch Light), followed by the following:

Divide your plate into thirds: 1/3 protein, 1/3 low carb vegetables, and 1/3 carbs of choice. The carbs of choice section is where you’d want to put that piece of cake you’ve been drooling over. She said, “If they have cake at lunch, box yours up and eat it with your evening meal.”

How does this system work? She explained that there are two “doors” to the pancreas. “You only want to open door #1.”

At breakfast, you will not have had anything to eat for several hours, so when you consume 10 carbs or less, only door #1 opens.

At lunch when you consume 10 carbs or less, the pancreas only opens door #1.

At supper when you consume the two cups of salad with a 1 -2 carb dressing, the pancreas says, “Oh, here it comes again,” and opens only door #1. While the salad is filling the lower part of your stomach, the remainder of the food enters the stomach, but the pancreas only recognizes the salad part. Interesting how this works, but it does.

Dr. Gabhart recommended I get the little book The Calorie King, Calorie Fat & Carbohydrate Counter. It is a small book that fits easily in a purse so that it can be taken with you when you go out to eat. Not only does it list the content in basic foods, it gives you the counts for various restaurant items.

I was concerned that the carb restrictions for breakfast might be difficult since I love bread. However, Dr. Gabhart recommended I get Healthy Living bread – 5 net carbs per slice. Here’s a tip that I have since discovered: Great Harvest Bread sells a low carb bread that is absolutely yummy – 8 carbs per slice and none of those unhealthy preservatives. I like to use it as my carb allowance for most breakfasts since I love bread so.

The most difficult part of this entire process is initially teaching yourself the number of carbs in various food items. However, after a while, this process gets easier. I am finding that it is has been so worth the effort. I actually look forward to standing on the scale every morning…almost as much as that weekly Friday night margarita.  :  )

Spring is just around the corner, the time to start thinking about putting on a bathing suit. Yikes. Even more challenging for me this spring is that 10 weeks from now my husband and I will be taking a trip to Greece. We have been talking about it for a couple of years and finally made the commitment to “just do it.” The plane tickets have been purchased. What is my first thought? Getting this body into shape. No more excuses!

I shared my weight loss goals and my exercise plan with my Chiropractor yesterday. He had just returned from a conference last week where they discussed many things, including weight loss. He explained the theory they discussed that people can lose weight just by detoxifying the body. When there are too many toxins in the body, the liver becomes overloaded, and toxins are not eliminated properly. Toxins thus become stored in the fat. The thyroid also plays a big part in maintaining healthy weight. When the liver is not healthy, T4 does not break down into T3 (T4 and T3 are thyroid hormones). Sometimes it appears that a person has a problem with their thyroid, when it can be a problem with toxicity and the liver. Detoxifying the colon is also important. Once the toxins are eliminated, the body can metabolize and process food more efficiently.

How do we become toxic? In my upcoming book, The Awakened Body, A Woman’s Guide to Feeling Biologically Vibrant…Naturally, I explain in depth how stress, diet, and environmental toxins adversely affect us. Our discussion yesterday also reminded me of a paragraph in my book:

“Our liver not only detoxifies, but is often called the ‘sentinel organ for hormones.’ Our liver manufactures cholesterol, breaks down hormones, combines/converts hormones, prevents healthy estrogen from converting to cancer-producing estrogen, removes excess hormones, and removes other toxins. It is important to lovingly care for your liver. The following list of items are commonly cited to support liver health: fresh squeezed lemon, beets, dandelions, organic greens, artichoke, lactic acid fermented sauerkraut, high quality protein, antioxidants, including Vitamins A, C, & E, rest, water, exercise, milk thistle, and essential fatty acids.”

I came home from my visit yesterday and put an action plan together to take charge of my health, not just lose a few pounds. Being an Arbonne distributor, I have many things sitting on my shelf that could be of help to me. I decided to pull out all the stops and do a thorough spring cleaning. Here is my plan of action.

1. Consume a healthy diet which includes an abundance of organic, raw fruits and vegetables – not only for the nutrition, but for the live enzymes. (See Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens, M.D. to understand the importance of enzymes in our body).
2. To intersperse a walk-jog program in between my weekly Jazzercise and Yoga.
3. I went to www.canaryclub last night and ordered the “HER AdvancedPlus” hormone test kit which provides a comprehensive assessment of the thyroid, sex, and adrenal hormones, plus Vitamin D levels so that I can assess my hormone status.
4. Include 30 gms of fiber per day. It has been estimated that 30 gms of fiber per day equates to a 10 pound weight loss per year.
5. Daily consumption of my Arbonne Detox Tea which will help detox the liver and kidneys, the main ingredient of which is milk thistle.
6. Take my Arbonne “7-Day Body Cleanse” out of the closet and actually do it! One ounce of the body cleanse is mixed with 32 ounces of water, repeated daily for 7 days.
7. Incorporate the Arbonne Detox Spa hair and body care into my daily regimen.
8. Repeat the “Tree of Life” gallbladder flush. There are many flush programs on the market. This particular program requires 6 weeks of liver and gallbladder prep. I completed my first flush just prior to the holidays and was totally amazed. I would not have believed the number of gallstones I eliminated had I not seen them myself.
9. Make certain I am consuming ample water. The general recommendation is to take your weight, divide that number by 2, and consume that many ounces of water per day.
10. Here’s the hardest one – step on the scales initially, then daily to monitor my progress.

Well, I went public and told my Chiropractor my plans yesterday and now you today, so there’s no turning back! He said he would hold me accountable, so here we go! I intend to start with some spring cleaning, but the ultimate goal is to take this opportunity to modify my overall housekeeping behaviors. : )