Archives 2013

From time to time, I come across a nutritional tip that arouses my curiosity.

I’m all for good nutrition, so for the last six weeks I’ve incorporated this one into my morning ritual, and there’s a definite spring in my step.

It’s easy, it tastes good – and the research supports it.

Here it is….

Every day

Before breakfast, drink a glass of water with a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper.

Yup, you read that right – cayenne pepper.

Who knew? Not me!

Benefits of cayenne pepper

Scientists at Laval University in Quebec, found that participants who took cayenne pepper had less appetite, which lead to a reduced food intake throughout the day.

Aside from the weight loss, cayenne pepper is anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and a migraine preventer. It’s also good at reducing the amount of LDL – the ‘bad’ cholesterol.

And get this – even though cayenne pepper is spicy, it’s been found to heal stomach and intestinal ulcers. It also improves digestive issues – abdominal cramps, acidity and gas – by stimulating the peristaltic movement of the intestines.

Have arthritic pain? Cayenne pepper works on the sensory nerves and relieves pain caused by rheumatism and arthritis.

So, according to the research, plenty of reasons to add a little cayenne pepper to your morning ritual.

The recipe

Recipe = juice of half a lemon + sprinkle of cayenne + glass of water. Drink on an empty stomach.

That’s it! Nice and easy.

I was pretty sceptical about how good a glass of cayenne-sprinkled-lemon water would taste but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not half as spicy as you’d imagine – and it’s very drinkable.

HEADS-UP: make sure you keep the ‘sprinkle’ to a sprinkle. On Day 2, I in my eagerness, I was more dollop than sprinkle…..drinkable, but only just!

Quick reminder about the good ole lemon

We all know that lemons are jam-packed with nutrients: vitamin C, B-complex vitamins, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, and fibre.

But, best of all, lemons contain pectin fibre, which reduces hunger cravings.

Is addition to your morning ritual going to make you achieve your weight loss goal over night? Nope!

But is it quick? Yes.

Is it easy? Yeeeees.

Is it do-able? Heck yes!

Remember, the BIG goal happens one step, one moment and one action at a time.

Why not add cayenne pepper and lemon into your daily ritual so that you too can feel that spring in your step?

Love etc, Avril

PS: Clearly, nutritional tips only make a difference to your body when you apply them! If you find it difficult to apply what you know, hypnotherapy can help get your mind where it needs to be. Why not c’mon over, drop me a line….

After helping hundreds of women lose weight, I’ve developed a 6th sense for predicting those who’ll shift the weight easily, while others ….not so much.

Sure, it’s not 100%, but it’s darn close.

Would you like to know what this seemingly ‘magic’ ingredient is?

Is it luck? Good genetics? Having bags of time, or pots of money? Nope.

It’s actually much simpler than you’d imagine. It boils down to one deceptively simple notion:

Thou Shalt Own It.

Yup – owning it.

‘Owning it’ is the fundamental difference between those who achieve their happy weight easily, and those who, well ….dibble dabble around the edges of their goal.

Owners vs Dabblers

Think about your group of friends. Chances are, you’re friends with someone who’s been super-duper successful at shifting the weight.

She’s busy – perhaps she works full time, has children, and is involved with all the commitments that busy women have. All this going on, and yet she’s ‘made it happen’.

And, I’m guessing, you also know her opposite. This friend is equally busy, smart and capable, but somehow she just never quite, well, seems to be able to ‘get it together’. She b*tches and moans – with breathtakingly fluency – about why she isn’t her happy weight yet.

“I’m working suuuuch long hours,” or “I’m too busy organising the kids / my husband / dealing with my hangover to go for a walk”. Or, “It’s raining / dark / too hot / too cold / too sunny.”

Ms Dabbler

You’ll notice how your dabbler friend is married to her excuses. Addicted to them. She has an excuse for every situation. Hang around her for more than 20 minutes and you want to shake her! Sure, she’s smart and well-intentioned….

……..but a total non-action taker. She points the finger, passes the buck, gives away her power and takes zip responsibility for her own actions.

Ms Owning It

While ‘Miss Owning It’, has divorced her excuses. She is radically responsible for her own weight loss.

After setting her weight goal, she realised that she could either have her excuses OR her goal weight. NOT both.

She takes responsibility for her body. Responsibility for her actions, her outcome.

Sure, Ms ‘Owning It’ has challenges like everyone else – she too gets hangovers, and it rains at her address also – but she’s creative and finds a way to take the next small step towards her goal.

Instead of making excuses, she takes action, solves problems and makes things happen. She has such a high level of ownership of herself, that she gets the results she wants. She knows, that ultimately, the buck starts and ends with her.

Now, here’s where it’s gets interesting…

Nature or nurture?

‘Owning It’ is not a pre-determined trait. It’s not inherited. The good news is that in any given moment, you get to choose which kind of person you want to be.

You can choose to be the kind of person who b*tches, moans and blames others, as to why you’re not where you want to be on the scale (or elsewhere in your life)….OR ,you can choose to take responsibility, and own it, gently, powerfully taking back control.

Steps to Owning It

Ask yourself, where in my life am I currently abdicating responsibility by making excuses? In what ways? With whom?

What am I tolerating that keeps me stuck? In what way do I create drama so that I stay stuck in a spin cycle instead of moving closer to my goal?

In what ways do I ‘get in my own way’? How am I being a “drama queen”, or perfectionist? What emotional “stuff” from my past am I carrying?

In what ways do I blame other people for my challenges? How do I ‘finger point’? Do I pass the buck and give away my power? To my parents? The weather? My partner? My boss? My children? Society at large?

It’s about constantly checking in with yourself and asking yourself this beautiful question – “How can I be more responsible right now?”

Ask this Qn of yourself several times a day. Because, as you become more aware of how you play the ‘excuses’ card, you become instantly empowered to choose something different. You realise more and more that YOU are in control.

Yes…it really is that simple. No magic. Just small, permanent steps to change. So what will you choose? Because the choice IS yours.

Love etc, Avril

PS: I get that we’re all busy women, that we have a lot of stuff already going on. But if you’re aware that you’re using the same old excuses and you’re ready to see a shift in the number on the scale, hypnotherapy might just be the ticket for you. C’mon over….I’m here to help YOU get the result you want.

My heart breaks when I meet a woman on a diet.

She’s usually stressed out of her mind and fed-up with the deprivation.

There’s the look of pain in her eyes. She’s stuck in a mental cage counting calories.

The happy news is that there is a smarter, kinder, gentler way lose weight. One that does not involve gritted teeth or deprivation.

But, first things first….

What’s the toughest way to lose weight?

It probably isn’t what you think.

It begins with ‘W’.

Give up?

WILL POWER. Relying on will power is a sure fire way to fail. You’ve probably tried it a bunch of times already, right?

We fool ourselves by thinking, “If I could just tap into deeper reserves of will power, I could resist that chocolate biscuit.”

But, will power fails us on diets because of this quirky fact

DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING…

What are you doing? I told you not to read this (it’s even in pink!!!).

But, because you’re human, your curiosity is aroused when you aren’t supposed to do something. It’s a natural response, and a major reason why diets fail. As soon as you’re told you can’t have something, it immediately becomes more tempting. And your will power evaporates!!!

True or true!!!! So all those ‘forbidden foods‘ become very attractive, leading to diet failure.

So, what’s the easiest way to lose weight?

The easiest way to lose weight is to harness your unconscious mind. You see, we all have two minds: the conscious and the unconscious.

Your conscious mind houses your will power. It’s about 10% of your mind. It’s the part of you that knows intellectually that you shouldn’t eat that fifth chocolate biscuit.

Your unconscious mind is the powerhouse – it’s the other 90%. It’s in charge of breathing, healing, and it controls all of your eating habits….. including whether you eat that fifth biscuit.

The numbers speak volumes don’t they. At 9o% versus 10% you can see how it’s your unconscious mind that’s in control.

Here’s a cool example…

Try not to understand the following…

Yuor mnid is aimazngly perofwul! Wloceme to a wrold of hddien potential. Brtheae, realx, and konw that cahnge is esay when you use the peowr of your unconscouis mnid, the smae part taht atiutocamally understands thsee wrods.

What??? You still understood? See, how incredible your unconscious mind is? It’s an absolute powerhouse!

As you read those words, you didn’t need to think about how to read. No need to analyse it. You just did it. It was easy, natural, and a wee bit weird – almost magic!

When you re-program your unconscious mind, you can have weight loss without the white-knuckling and gritted teeth and pain

Rather than fighting cravings, emotional eating and bad habits you can re-program in new cravings and habits that will make you the shape and size you want to be.

Remember: chagne is esay wehn you konw how.

To your friends, it’ll look like you’ve got “phenomenal will power” but you’ll know better – you’ve simply harnessed the power of your unconscious mind.

Unconscious love etc, Avril

PS: If  dieting or ‘finding’ will power has failed for you in the past, why not chose a smarter, kinder, gentler option to become the shape and size YOU want to be? C’mon over, let’s get you going…

Today, a little story for you.

This is a story about a woman who scrambled onto her roof to escape rising flood waters.

She was a woman of strong faith. She was certain that a higher power — God / Earth Mother / the Universe — would save her.

She really, really believed that. So she waited patiently for rescue.

As the waters continued to rise, a neighbour in a dinghy comes by and offers to row her to safety.

The woman on the roof says, “That’s okay, kind neighbour. My higher power is going to save me.”

So, her neighbour rowed off.

Some time later the Coast Guard motors up to the house in their big launch. Shining their floodlights on the woman stranded on the roof, the commander shouts, “Madam, it’s time to leave now. Let us help you, come aboard.”

But the woman on the roof is waiting for her higher power to rescue her. She’s waiting for a sign. So, once again, she refuses the rescue attempt.

She waits.
She hopes.
She wishes.

She waits so long, that the flood waters begin to nip at her ankles. Just as all hope is nearly lost, a helicopter appears overhead. A rescue team is on board, ready, willing and able to bring the woman to safety.

But our dear lady refuses the ride and the helicopter goes off to help someone less committed to staying stuck.

Soon after, the woman realises she waited too long. The waters rise, washing her away, and she drowns.

In heaven, she meets her maker and she’s a wee bit cross. So she takes it out on her higher power.

“Blessed Mother /Lord / Great Spirit – all of my life I’ve been a woman of faith. As the waters rose, I waited patiently for a sign that you were there with me, and you never came.”

To which a booming voice thunders, “Madam, I sent a dinghy, the Coast Guard, and a helicopter. What more did you need?”

Yes, well, you might well laugh…..but isn’t that exactly what we do in life?!

For longer than I care to remember, I sat alone on the roof with my emotional eating and food obsession – stuck, waiting, wishing – waiting for a sign.

With the clarity of hindsight, I now see all the ways I rejected the help that was floating by.

Are you like that, too?

Just so we’re clear sweetheart — I am decidedly not your Higher Power. But I can help you get your mind in the right place so that you can be the shape and size you choose to be.

Why wait? C’mon over – it’s dry, warm and comfortable.

Love etc, Avril

P.S. Please don’t wait. There’s no need to squander any more time sitting, waiting, wondering as the flood waters rise.

Who hasn’t fallen into the trap of, “When these lumps and bumps have gone, then I’ll love my body.”

Or, “I’ll start enjoying my reflection when I’m slimmer, sassier and seeeeexier.”

If you found yourself nodding to any of the above, permanent weight loss is going to be a challenge for you.

Here’s why…

When you tell yourself stories like “I’ll love my butt when it’s the perfect peach,” you’re giving yourself conditional love.

And no-one, your good-self-included, responds positively to conditional love.

It stymies.
It restricts.
It contracts.

And, we get so depressed and down in the dumps, we eat.

That’s because love with-conditions-attached unleashes the rebellious, self-sabotaging four-year old in us all.

You know the one!!! That vulnerable inner child who yearns to be loved for who she is, right now…

Not for her dress size.
Not for how she looks.
Definitely, not for how much she weighs.

What is conditional love?

Conditional love is saying, “I don’t love you…. well, not yet anyway…..sure, if you make some changes, then I’ll consider loving you…. but right now, you’re not good enough for my love.”

Ouch.

Imagine if your best friend said those words to you. You’d unfriend them. IMMEDIATELY.

And yet we speak to ourselves like that…. all the time.

Conditional love is about beating yourself up. It’s about judgement, shame, and comes from a negative place.

When you think about it, it’s an odd concept. “If I hate myself enough, I’d end up by loving myself^$#%*!!!”

So what is the answer then?

Permanent change happens when you come from a position of acceptance, knowing that you already are perfect, whole and complete, right now. Change occurs when you inhabit your body with love.

It is this 100% self-acceptance that subdues the rebellious four-year-old, and self-sabotage evaporates.

And this is where Kinnel’s delightful words resonate:

“Sometimes it is necessary to re-teach a thing its loveliness.”

Our broken-ness is learned, not innate. Children come into this world knowing they are already gorgeous and utterly deserving of love. We need to un-learn the illusion of our broken-ness.

Only kindness makes sense. Anything else is excruciating. We need to take care of our bodies with reverence instead of stuffing them beyond full.

Be curious.
Be gentle.
Be engaged.

Without cynicism,  anger or impatience.

Step by step….. by step

We all have days where we trip and fall despite our best intentions. That’s OK.

Why not put down the negative game plan, the beating-yourself-up-stick and take the next small step. One step at a time.

Unconditional love etc, Avril

PS: If you need help to get out of the old patterns of beating yourself up and you’re ready to fall crazily – and with every fibre of your being – in love with yourself, drop me a line. Let it be easy…