by Dana James
When you embody these traits, you will have a magnetic quality that is hard to resist. You will sparkle with pleasure and become a muse for women wanting to live a more sensual life.
THE FEMME FATALE FOOD PRESCRIPTION
Unlike Nurturers, Wonder Women, and Ethereals, whose archetypes usually corresponds to a particular body type, a Femme Fatale can take on any body type depending on her eating behavior. If you carry weight on your hips and thighs like a Nurturer but source your self-worth from your physical body, you are still a Femme Fatale, but one with elevated insulin and estrogen levels that are influencing where you store fat. If you store fat on your stomach like the Wonder Woman, then cortisol is your dominant hormone. If you look more like the Ethereal, then lower levels of estrogen may be shaping your body and contributing to symptoms of depression and amenorrhea.
HORMONAL IMBALANCES: DRIVEN BY BEHAVIORS
When you ascended to your crown, you are not preoccupied with your physical self. You are sensual, playful, and inspirational. You might be a voluptuous woman who brings to mind the Greek goddess Aphrodite, or you might be five pounds overweight because you love the sensuality of sharing a delicious meal and have no desire to change your social life.
If you are out of balance, however, you can resort to problematic eating behaviors that will naturally affect your body and biochemistry. If you are continually restricting food to fit into an itsy-bitsy bikini or using intermittent fasting in the hope of expediting weight loss, you can stress out your adrenals and cause a spike in your levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Elevated cortisol slows down the metabolism by impeding the production of the thyroid-regulating hormone thyroxine. Add this to the stress that you are already prone to feel about your body and you create a recipe for adrenal fatigue and hormonal imbalances, both of which can lead to weight gain. If this describes you, and you have been feeling burned out or fatigued, or if you tend to store fat in the belly area, read Chapter 3, “The Wonder Woman,” to learn more about how adrenal function affects weight gain.
The Femme Fatale’s restrictive eating can also trip an overeating backlash. You’re hungry, frustrated, and irritable and can find yourself drowning in a sea of chocolate wrappers. The shame of overeating can lead to a perpetual shame-binge-restrict cycle. If this continues for long enough, your body will have trouble regulating its insulin and estrogen levels. When this happens, you will store weight all over your body, but particularly on your upper thighs, and your body will start to mimic the Nurturer’s. (For more information about the biochemical reasons behind this weight gain, see Chapter 2, “The Nurturer.”)
This may be hard for the Femme Fatale to swallow (no pun intended), but at a certain point, your body needs more calories if you want to lose weight. If you restrict food to the point that you are not getting enough calories, your body will take this as a signal that food has become scarce, and it will slow down your metabolism by changing the thyroid hormones to conserve energy. Specifically, it increases rT3 (reverse triiodothyronine), an inactive thyroid hormone that blocks the thyroid receptor cells from listening to T3, the active thyroid hormone. This is a double whammy: less T3 and less available thyroid receptor sites. Starving yourself simply makes the situation worse. To lose again, you may need to eat more calories, in particular carbohydrates, to reactive T3 and deactivate rT3. While this goes against current “calories in, calories out” logic, your body is not a robot. You’re a complicated organism with protective mechanisms in place to stop you from starving and ultimately dying from lack of food. If this sounds like you, you may need to eat a little bit more like the Ethereal, with a higher level of carbohydrates, particularly if you exercise a lot.
While Femme Fatales should follow their food plate guidelines, they are notorious overachievers with their caloric restriction. It’s imperative that you don’t dip too low beneath your basal metabolic rate (BMR). Eating 800 calories for weeks on end will backfire. If you’re not sure how much you should be eating, see the box below to determine your minimum daily calorie intake.
BASAL METABOLIC RATE
Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) refers to the minimum number of calories you need to consume daily in order for your body to function while at rest. Your BMR is determined by your height, weight, muscle, and age and is roughly equivalent to ten times your current weight. So if you weigh 130 pounds, you should eat roughly 1,300 calories per day, at minimum, for maintenance. For weight loss, subtract 200 calories. That means, your caloric intake should not dip below 1,100 calories. If you weigh 170 pounds, your BMR is around 1,700 per day, your caloric intake should not dip below 1,500 for weight loss. If you exercise, this number will increase since your body is burning more calories. As the Femme Fatale is prone to overexercising, it’s important that she take her exercise into account when determining the minimum number of calories to eat.
EATING DISORDERS
Her tendency to restrict food intake makes the Femme Fatale the most prone of all of the archetypes to eating disorders. Perhaps you have learned that being skinny increases your confidence, and the more confident you are, the more attention you get, so you begin to restrict your calories in order to get the validation you crave. If this behavior turns into an eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia, which are fundamentally driven by disordered thinking rather than actual appearance, you may develop a subconscious desire not to resolve the disorder. Your disorder attracts attention, and you subconsciously worry that if you get healthy, you will lose the attention. Here again we see how the psychological is inextricably linked with the physical. If this is you, please seek out psychological assistance. Eating disorders rarely resolve themselves without professional intervention.
THE FEMME FATALE MEAL PLAN
The Femme Fatale’s plan closely mimics the macronutrient composition laid out for the Wonder Woman, but there are subtle differences between the two, and these differences speak to the Femme Fatale’s mind-set. The guidelines below will restore balance to the body and improve your ability to lose weight healthily, regardless of your body type. Let go of the notion that restricting food to a minimum will help you attain your weight goal quickly. As explained above, restrictive eating causes a cascade of hormonal imbalances that can slow weight loss. The recovery solution? Get the carbs right. Yes, despite all the fear around carbohydrate foods, the Femme Fatale often needs them to get her into balance. If you’ve been restricting carbs for an extended period of time, you may need to add them back in for weight loss, but if you’ve been eating them for years on end, like the Nurturer, then you’ll need to limit them to stimulate fat loss.
Remember, no matter how much weight you lose, or how many bikini sizes you drop, you will never fully reach your crown until you feel totally comfortable in and at ease with your body. As renowned spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson said, “You can’t be comfortable in your skin if you think you are your skin.” To break this, you will need to practice letting go of the early memories and mind-set that has had a hold on you for so long. When you do this, you’ll find that you don’t care quite as much if you gain a couple of pounds, and you will exude a natural sense of ease, confidence, and magnetism that makes you feel irresistible.
Step 1: Improve Your Daily Eating Regimen
Start each morning with a 4-ounce shot of cucumber juice. Cucumber is rich in potassium and helps to decrease bloating and inflammation so that you can feel more attractive and vitalized. Starting the day with this ritual sets you up for more balanced eating.
Do not skip breakfast. Coffee is not breakfast. Fruit is not breakfast. Always eat some form of protein for breakfast, like a plant-based smoothie, a chia seed pudding, or organic eggs.
Lunch and dinner should each be composed of seven ingredients: three vegetables, one protein, two fats, one carb. These meals should look like the food plate here.
Remember the Rule of 4 when it comes to portion size: a por
tion equals 4 ounces of protein, ¼ avocado (or other fats), up to 4 cups of vegetables, and ¼ cup of carbs. Yes, you must include those carbs!
Don’t skip your four p.m. snack. Use this as an opportunity to eat a radiance-boosting snack. A green vegetable juice, some papaya slices with lime, or a crunchy apple is all that you need. If you skip this snack, you’ll be hungry before dinner, which increases your risk of mindless or binge eating.
In the evening, wind down with a cup of the Femme Fatale’s tea.
Take the supplements outlined in Step 3 below, which have been designed to improve your mood and decease irritability.
Step 2: Choose the Right Foods
These foods will help to rebalance the Femme Fatale’s physical and emotional state, facilitating your ascension to the crown.
Eat orange fruits and vegetables daily. This includes carrots, orange bell peppers, peaches, papaya, apricots, citrus, and persimmons. These support the second chakra to decrease judgment and improve your sense of self. Try orange bell peppers in a stir-fry, freshly grated carrot in a nori wrap, or three freshly sliced apricots as an afternoon snack. But don’t eat five servings a day! The orange carotenoids, when consumed in excess, can make the skin orange. Remember, it’s not “eat this, not that”; it’s choosing the right amount.
Eat 4 ounces of clean animal protein at lunch and dinner. Don’t skimp on the protein. Not only does protein satiate hunger and help the body function, it’s also used to create collagen, elastin, and keratin, which keeps your skin supple, bones strong, and hair soft. Eat seafood at least four times a week for its metabolism-boosting properties. You may eat organic tofu and tempeh once a week but not more than that. Eat two eggs up to four times a week. Choose organic poultry when another preferred protein source isn’t available.
Eat red meat once a week. Femme Fatales with amenorrhea often need to add a weekly serving of red meat to help regulate their menstrual cycle. Grass-fed red meat is not inflammatory. Just pair it with a raw salad loaded with fresh herbs, lemon juice, and a hint of olive oil.
Eat ¼ cup of starchy carbs at lunch and dinner. While eating carbs can feel scary for the Femme Fatale, you will always feel more balanced when you add ¼ cup (4 tablespoons) to your meals. Any resistance you feel to eating carbs is pure fear and is holding you back from a peaceful relationship with food. Since you are only dealing with ¼ cup in total, stick with one type of starchy carb per meal—lentils or quinoa, not lentils and quinoa.
Eat beauty-boosting snacks. Think of snacks as an opportunity to add in more nutrients, not something you do out of boredom. Enjoy fresh raspberries to to bring radiance to the skin or try a turmeric almond milk latte to decrease cellular inflammation.
Consider the other archetypes. If your body looks like one of the other archetype’s, you can layer on some specifics from their meal guidelines, such as a daily intake of cruciferous vegetables if you tend to carry more fat on your upper thighs, or adding a hint more carbohydrates if you look like the Ethereal and have mood and menstrual irregularities.
Foods that rebalance the Femme Fatale: grilled fish, organic poultry, raw salads, cooked vegetables, fresh herbs, orange fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, and a small amount of red meat, grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables.
Foods that should be kept to a minimum: dairy, gluten, soy, and sweets.
FEMME FATALE TEA
This tea is designed to capture the essence of the lovers, muses, and models that inspired the icons of art and literature. Chamomile and lavender are both emotionally harmonizing, while lemongrass decreases exhaustion and bloating. Brahmi, an herb used in many Ayurvedic traditions, helps create higher consciousness to focus on everlasting, etheric beauty. You can find all of the ingredients online. This recipe will make a single 12-ounce serving, but you can mix the tea in bulk and store it in an airtight container.
2 teaspoons brahmi
2 teaspoons dried lemongrass
1 teaspoon dried chamomile
1 teaspoon dried lavender
Combine the ingredients in a small pot with 12 ounces of hot water. Steep for 5 minutes, then strain into a tea cup. Add more hot water if the tea is too strong.
THE FEMME FATALE’S FOOD PLATE
Step 3: Supplement Strategically
The Femme Fatale can support her weight-loss journey by adding in some supportive nutrients:
5-HTP: 5-HTP is the precursor to serotonin, the feel-good neurotransmitter. This can help improve the Femme Fatale’s mood and reduce her desire for sweet foods and late-night binging. Take 50 mg daily before bed. If you’re taking an antidepressant, speak to your physician before using 5-HTP.
B Complex: An activated B complex can help boost the Femme Fatale’s energy levels and regulate her hormones. Look for the activated forms such as L-5-MTHF (folate), pyridoxine HCl (B6), and methylcobalamin (B12). Take one after dinner.
Magnesium: Magnesium can help to decrease anxiety. Take 300 mg of magnesium glycinate (or magnesium citrate if constipated) before bed. Magnesium also improves sleep quality.
Digestive Enzyme: Stress can decrease the Femme Fatale’s ability to digest her food fully. A digestive enzyme supplement can support her own enzyme production to decrease bloating after meals and enhance the absorption of nutrients. Take this with lunch and dinner.
Other Archetypes’ Supplements: If you have a similar body shape to one of the other archetypes, you may want to add in some of their specific supplements until the body has rebalanced itself.
As you ascend toward your crown and abandon the warped eating patterns that have plagued you for years, you can relax some of the meal plan guidelines given above. For instance, you can increase your carbohydrate portion to ½ cup per meal at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. By then you will have come to realize that carbs are not the enemy, and you will trust yourself to consume them in moderation rather than feel you have to maintain an all-or-nothing relationship with them.
EXERCISE SOLUTIONS FOR THE FEMME FATALE
In addition to burning fat and sculpting muscles, the goal of exercise for the Femme Fatale is to help her reconnect with her body through expressive movement. Ideal types of exercise include rebounding, dancing, boxing, swimming, HIIT, plyometrics, bands, and Pilates. Try two dance classes, one intense cardio workout, and one sculpting class per week. On the fifth day, take a yoga class. If using weights, opt for small to medium weights but target a high rep count to help tone and shape your muscles. If you want to build muscle mass, do fewer reps with more weight.
CHAPTER 5
The Ethereal
Juliette is an elite fashion model with a willowy physique, but her stomach is perpetually bloated—especially when she travels frequently for work and doesn’t have time to meditate or eat right. Juliette grew up in a Buddhist family eating vegan meals and practicing yoga with her artistic parents. In high school she was considered “weird” so she was relieved that the fashion world accepted her more celestial ways. She knows that New York City is the best home base for her career, but the energy of the city makes her feel like marbles are being thrown at her, and her stomach seems to become even more distended when she is home. She dreams of opening an organic wellness retreat in Costa Rica or Mexico. Juliette is the quintessential Ethereal.
THE ETHEREAL AT HER CROWN: SPIRITUAL AND SENSITIVE
Ethereals are feminine, whimsical, and enchanting. They’re talented, creative, and highly attuned to their surroundings. They possess a refined appreciation of scents, sounds, art, language, and fabric that instinctively pulls them toward artistic and spiritual pursuits. Words like “cosmic,” “vibration,” and “frequency” are part of their vocabulary. Ethereals are guided through life by their intuition. If something doesn’t “feel” right, they won’t do it. They can sense the subtle s
hifts in the unseen. You can’t lie to an Ethereal; she will sense it immediately. She may even appear to have psychic abilities.
Ethereals have historically been thought of as eccentric, woo-woo, and “out there,” but as society is starting to appreciate the power of intuition, Ethereals are now considered the “cool” girls. The fashion and wellness industries have positioned Ethereals as the girls to emulate with their free-spirited ways. As alluring as the aspirational images of boho beauties lounging in a riad in Marrakech are—particularly for a stressed-out Wonder Woman—the essence of the Ethereal is not about what she wears or how she speaks. It’s about the expression of herself through her intuition and a connection with a higher realm. Ethereals unequivocally believe that there is something intangible guiding and supporting them.
Ethereals see underlying harmony as the structure of the universe. They don’t understand why people argue, fight, and engage in conflict. They look at every human, plant, and animal as connected; when one suffers, everyone does. This makes them very sensitive. But if they do not understand their sensitivity, they can absorb other people’s emotions and become teary for no apparent reason. An Ethereal at her crown has learned to distinguish which emotions are hers and warrant inward investigation, and which emotions are from an external source and can be released. When she is not at her crown, she struggles to discern the difference, and every upsetting emotion can feel like a weight pinning her to the floor.