Use these tricks to small-size your super-sizes:
•Eat with chopsticks. It is impossible to take big bites or eat fast with this handy utensil.
•Use smaller plates.
•Use smaller utensils.
•Eat half of what’s on your plate. Really. Push it away or ask for it to be wrapped up if you’re eating out. Give your stomach time to adjust to the volume of food you just ate. Chances are, you aren’t still hungry—you just think you are.
The Power of No in the Now—for Food
As you learned, the Power of No in the Now means you’re not saying yes simply because someone else wants you to. With food, it means you are addressing the craving and that your willpower is stronger than that craving.
I have students who find themselves in the kitchen, opening the cabinets in search of an unhealthy snack, who then stand in the middle of room, give themselves a jolt, jump up and down a few times, shout out “NO!,” and then leave the kitchen.
Doing regular exercises gives you muscle memory. Saying No in the Now gives you mental muscle memory. Once you know your no works, it gets easier and easier to say it and to stick to it.
If, for example, you’re eating out with friends and someone offers you a taste of something, or orders a bunch of desserts for the entire table, don’t get pissed off at them (especially if you think they’re jealous of your determination to eat well and trying to undermine your evening out). Simply use this as an opportunity to practice No in the Now with what I call the One-Bite Technique. If you’re longing to try something scrumptious and calorie dense, go right ahead. Have one bite. Appreciate it. Then say, “No, thank you, I’ve had enough.” Because you know you have!
Saying No in the Now also means you’re acknowledging what is going on in your head at precisely that moment in time. Now is such a powerful word. (Just ask Eckhart Tolle—he is the master of now.) You aren’t thinking about what you ate yesterday and you aren’t thinking about what you’re going to eat tomorrow. This is a great focusing technique. It shuts off the “Why did I” and the “I’m going to” thoughts, and makes you deal with the situation at hand. Getting better at being fully present in the moment will help you in so many other aspects of your life, too.
Ready to move on? Great! I’ve given you the tools you need to set your intentions, and it’s time to apply them to the most important situations we all deal with in life. In the rest of the book, I’ll show you how to Love, Eat, Train, and Repeat. You’re going to learn how to mean it when you do it, full of determination to change your life. You’re going to go for it, right now, because today is a new day. You’re going to finally believe that this is your universe, and you were born into it for a reason. You’re here, you made it—now do something! Let’s rock this universe together!
PART III
ACTION
“Easy doesn’t change you.”
SIX
LOVE
You might wonder what love has to do with living a healthier lifestyle, losing weight, and getting in shape. The fact is, the only way to truly come into your own and find your Ultimate Center is by loving yourself first. That means accepting your own power, forgiving yourself for your faults and mistakes, and acknowledging that you deserve to live a healthy life full of joy. That’s what I did when I found my own healing through the power of exercise. Let me show you how to move toward more self-love and acceptance so you can radiate confidence, courage, and charisma, and fill your heart with joy.
I know it’s not easy. In fact, it can be excruciatingly tough. The emotional component of life is something that most of us don’t like to talk about. We’d rather just avoid talking about feelings in general when they involve vulnerability, intensity, sensitivity, pain, or anything uncomfortable. But because everything good you want to be and to have in life has to do with love, you have to figure out a way to talk about it. If you know you need a certain kind of love (romantic, professional, purpose, children, friendship) but you’re not getting it, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’re undeserving or that something is wrong with you.
Typically, when one of my students is going through a rough time and not loving themselves, I can tell. I see it in their posture, I see it in the expression on their faces when a specific song comes on; I see it in the way they handle themselves in the stretch, when everyone else is energized and they are drooping with tension or sadness. Often I am secretly excited to watch a person change their entire being in a matter of minutes. I know I’m about to open a door for them that they can run through. I always believe I can do it for them—the question is, do they?
In general, the way you are feeling inside shows up on the way you look on the outside. If you have let your appearance slide—you’re really not into the clothes you wear, you don’t bother to look good, and you aren’t making any plans for yourself socially—chances are you’re in an emotional rut with yourself, as if you’ve given up on love . . . and it’s time to get out.
But how? How do you mentally pull it together enough to make the changes you need in a way that makes you happy to be living your life, regardless of your circumstances (especially if they’re stressful circumstances like job loss, a painful breakup or divorce, or the loss of a loved one), and to be able to look for the love you need or keep the love you have alive? How do you not let tough circumstances zap you of all your will and your desire to love?
I believe you can handle any life stress with an inspiring coach who believes in you (here I am!), the knowledge that you need to keep on moving, and a healthy way of eating. You already learned that in order to find your confidence level and your happiness, you have to have purpose. You have to have a reason to live. A reason to get up. A reason to believe in love.
Because love is there for you, whether you believe it or not.
FIRST, LOVE YOURSELF
What is love? It’s so many things to so many people. According to my trusty and well-thumbed dictionary, it’s an “intense feeling of deep affection, warmth, intimacy, attachment, endearment.” Love isn’t just about romantic love—it encompasses all members of your family, especially your children if you have them; your friends; your passions; your pets; your causes; your hobbies; your home; and all the things that engage your senses, like music, art, books, the handwoven little rug you haggled over in a Turkish bazaar, your childhood teddy bear, the blooming peonies in your garden, the way fresh bread smells when it comes out of the oven.
Finding love can make you feel more alive, more exhilarated, more enchanted than practically anything else on earth. It makes you feel as if you’ve discovered your true authentic self. Losing it, on the other hand, is like losing everything you’ve ever known and cared about.
In order to attract and keep the love you want in your life, you need to start with one basic thing: You must love yourself.
The cliché of this is the one you already know . . . and that is you have to believe you are lovable in order for love to find you. I’m not saying be narcissistic; I’m saying you need to feel your inner mojo if you expect that someone else should, too!
Your family, your work, your friends, your partner—you only attract love in your life if you love yourself. Your vibe is what attracts your tribe to you. The vibration of not loving yourself is so negative, people won’t want to be next to you—it’s that powerfully subliminal—without you even having to say a word. You won’t be putting out the kinetic energy that is like a leaf blower, sending it out into the universe. In fact, when you don’t love yourself, your aura shifts. You lack vibration as opposed to having a strong one that people can feel when you walk into a room. Instead of exuding happy and enticing pheromones (which are chemicals all animals exude to try to change the behavior of others in their species), you’re wafting out what I call fear-o-mones.
Believe me, I know how hard it is to give off the love-myself/love-me vibe. When you’re having a bad day or a bad time in life, it’s almost impossible. And when you’re not getting
the love in your life that you need, you can get depressed or anxious or sad and then stuck in your negative feelings, so you give off a gray vibe. You feel stuck in place.
That’s why exercise is so important when you want self-love. You get up and get moving. The endorphins flood you and your mood instantly improves. Your face gets a healthy flush, and you begin to sweat and detoxify immediately. You look like you just got out of bed after a few hours under the sheets with your lover. You’re glowing. In fact, it’s such a palpable glow that I call it the Chi Glow—chi being the life force or the energy inside your body. In my Chi Glow workout, you hold on to glow sticks and do all the exercises in the dark. Talk about love!
When you love yourself, you have confidence in your very being. I mean, I know I have a certain look. I like sneakers. I don’t wear heels. This is me. If you don’t like it, then that’s too bad; it doesn’t faze me. The last time I went through security at the airport, the TSA agent looked at me with a frown and called me sir. When I corrected her, she felt so bad. Her supervisor then looked at me and said, “Do you go by sir or ma’am?” I replied, “I’ve never been asked that question, but I go through my life as a woman.” And then flashed them a saucy smile, which I could do because I am at ease with myself.
As an aside, do you know how many times a day I get called sir? All day long. Sometimes I think it’s a sign that maybe I was meant to be a guy. When I walk around in my life I don’t identify as a girl or a boy—I just am. I don’t try to look like a girl or a boy. I don’t have a gender identity; I just look like myself. But it took me most of my life to become comfortable with saying that. After all the years of abusing my body with addictions, I worship it now. I take the best care of it. I love what it is and how it makes me feel.
I only learned how to love myself when I learned how to forgive myself for all the things I messed up and mistakes I made and people I hurt. For instance, I had to stop blaming my dad for leaving when I was little, making me feel abandoned and worthless. In my little girl’s mind, I thought he didn’t love me, so that meant I wasn’t loveable—feelings so deep and buried I didn’t even know they were still there. I thought I was doing everything wrong in his eyes, but it was actually just opposite parenting values. My mom was very chill with rules, and my dad was very strict. When I would go to his house for the weekends, I had to switch gears, which made it really hard for me. Rules were not my strong suit. Looking back, I can see how this could have been totally manageable, but that was then and this is now . . . ! But I didn’t recognize the depth of this pain until my late twenties, when I started using drugs to mask my pain. Now I’ve moved way past that. Part of healing is also forgiveness for anyone who’s hurt us, and I’ve forgiven my dad. I love him more than ever. I understand him. And all we can do is move forward toward an even deeper closeness, which feels so unbelievably good.
Another empowering way to self-love is to embrace your body and spirit when they let you down, as they do if you get sick or have a potentially fatal illness. Maria Pargac is one of my longtime students, and she was given a diagnosis of late-stage breast cancer that had spread to some of her lymph nodes. Her oncologist told her it wasn’t looking good, that it was likely terminal. During surgery, most of her pectoral muscle was removed, and she was told that due to the trauma, she’d never have muscles there again. She’d be deformed, and weakened, and there was nothing her medical team could do about it.
Maria was determined to get better, and she asked me for help. Before class, I would tell her to visualize her pec muscles coming back, to see herself as whole and strong again. I told her to use her brain to see her body literally pulling the tissue back out and giving her the definition she’d lost during surgery. It worked. Why? Because she took thought and visualizations and backed them up with action, motion, faith, belief, and, most of all, love. She manifested her thoughts into reality, physically changing her body with positive affirmations, physical action, and belief in herself. Maria loved herself and she even loved her cancer for forcing her to confront her mortality and focus on the now. All I had to do to help her was acknowledge her hard work, and support her courage and bravery. I am in awe of her courage and drive, and she knows it, which further fueled her determination. Maria is now totally ripped and looks amazing. Her doctors still can’t believe it—but they can’t argue with the evidence.
What I knew and what Maria learned is that all exercise is a form of repair. It’s all about healthy, deliberate damage to your muscles—creating microtears that, as they heal, make your muscles stronger. Every time you move with intent, you “damage” your body and repair it. That’s how you build yourself.
You also want to do something similar to your skin. Did you know that the topmost layer is nothing but dead skin cells linked together in the barrier that protects you from harm? Well, it is! That’s why you need to exfoliate regularly—you need to slough off the dead skin cells with acids (good acids, like those found in fruit or milk) so the fresh, healthy new ones underneath can come to the surface. It’s like a controlled burn that sounds scary but does you good.
It’s the same thing with your emotions. Slough off the old ones to let the healthy new ones show up, like more love for who you are!
Visualization for Self-Love
This is an empowering visualization to help you love yourself and give you confidence. Remember, read through this entire visualization at least once before you start. Then try to remember the steps without looking back at the book.
1.Sit in a quiet place and focus on your breathing for a minute. Close your eyes, then picture the words I LOVE YOU in your head. Spell out the letters, all eight of them.
2.Make sure you’re thinking positively. Make sure you are totally into your breathing, and feeling yourself on a super-sensitive level. This is not about anybody else but you. This is your time.
3.Feel your own power, the power you were born with, the power that brought you into this world. Suck your power in and lock it down and hold it so tight. It’s you. Hold on to you, hug yourself from the inside out. Sometimes there’s no one around to give you a hug when you need it, so you hug yourself. Tighten your abs, and squeeze the tops of your opposite shoulders by crossing your arms. This is a self-hug!
4.Open your mind, open your heart, and feel yourself. Really feel yourself. You know that if you can’t feel yourself, no one else will ever be able to feel who you are. Feel yourself and love yourself so others can love you, too. This is about a true vibration in your heart.
5.These last few breaths you take are so connected. With your eyes closed, take an above-view look and observe yourself from where you’re sitting with your eyes closed. Be proud of your commitment to become connected to who you truly are inside.
6.Open your eyes and come back to the world. Get up and look in the mirror and smile. Because you are loveable. And you love yourself. It’s kind of weird to say this if you’re not used to doing it, I know, but honestly, you won’t have to do it that much once you get to the point where you actually do love yourself again. It’s that in-between stage when you doubt yourself where you really have to focus on doing it.
As I write this I’m trying to remember the last time I said that. Yep, it’s been a while—so I’ll be right back! I know that you actually have to do this exercise if you want it to work; just reading about it is not going to help you.
If you’re finding yourself struggling with any of the exercises in this book, ask yourself why. Is it ego? Do you not believe in yourself? Do you not believe that positive meditations work? This could really be the key to unlocking your emotional blocks. They’re all about you. Just do them. You have nothing to lose and so much love to gain.
PLAYLIST
FOR LOVE
Some of my favorite love songs are on this list. Make your own list, too, to reinforce how you feel about your loved ones—and about yourself!
Aurora
“Dreaming”
Crayon
“Give You U
p”
Disclosure
“Help Me Lose My Mind”
Calvin Harris
“How Deep Is Your Love”
Imogen Heap
“Not Now But Soon”
Massive Attack
“Protection”
Christina Perri
“Thousand Years”
The Weekend
“Earned It”
Flo Rida ft. Robin Thicke and Verdine Whit
“I Don’t Like It, I Love It”
RY X
“Only (Kaskade X Lipless Remix)
GOOD, LOVING RELATIONSHIPS ARE LIKE A GOOD JOB—YOU HAVE TO SHOW UP AND DO THE WORK
Relationships are not easy. I burned through so many relationships when I was younger because I’d been taught by the adults in my life that easy was the way to behave. Easy might have been the default to allow them to get by when they were struggling, which in retrospect I understand, but it messed up my head and caused me to always look for the way out because the way to stay in was just too hard.
Real love means you have to show up. What I finally learned was that real love takes work.
Because my love is so real, I struggle at times with the work with my girlfriend. I can’t say I have always been good at it. We’ve been a couple for eleven years. Sure, it can be frustrating, but it’s so rewarding on every level that I can’t imagine not doing the work. My girlfriend has a very high bar for life—and it’s not where I was used to living. But I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her raising the bar on us as a couple. I’d fall back into my old bad habits and patterns. I would not be as busy as I am. She knows that it was in the space between being busy that I’d be tempted to fall backward. It’s so easy to get sidetracked. So I keep on doing the work. I have made countless mistakes in our relationship, but we keep going in to make things better all the time. That’s where the work pays off.
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