TABLE OF CONTENTS

Tip 1     Don’t Start Running at 60 MPH                       
Tip 2     Lower Your Stress Levels                                
Tip 3     Forget About Waste Not, Want Not                  
Tip 4     Remember One Thing                                   
Tip 5     Intuitive Eating – Learn Your Body’s Triggers            
Tip 6     Hara Hachi Bu                                               
Tip 7     Slow Down, Savor the Flavor and Enjoy Each Bite      
Tip 8     Get an Accountability Buddy Who Reacts Quickly!     
Tip 9     How to Avoid Emotional Eating                    
Tip 10   The Work® of Byron Katie                            
Tip 11   Take a Vacation from Your Guilt Trip          
Tip 12   Play an Empowering Role                              
Tip 13   Stop Crying Wolf                                          
Tip 14   Say No to Peer Pressure                              
Tip 15   Exercise Regularly with a Personal Trainer              
Tip 16   Drink More Water                                        
Tip 17   Eat Breakfast                                                      
Tip 18   Eat Smaller Meals with Power Snacks in Between        
Tip 19   Food is Not Your Friend                               
Tip 20   Ask yourself: “Do I really need this?”           
Tip 21   Get a Box and Split it in Half                        
Tip 22   Decide Before the Appetizer Arrives             
Tip 23   Cover it with a Napkin                                 
Tip 24   Get Your Hand Out of the Bag!                            
Tip 25   Take After-Dinner Conversation Away from
              the Table
Tip 26   Stay Away from Trigger Foods                      
Tip 27   Visualize Yourself Doing the Right Thing    
Tip 28   Discover What Your Body is Really Telling You             
Tip 29   Think in the Third Person                           
Tip 30   Make a Menu and Put on an Apron                   
Tip 31   Shop the Perimeter of the Grocery Store             
Tip 32  Going Green Yet?                                        
Tip 33  Conclusion - Never Give Up                        
Journal                                                                               

Index

anger, 26, 30, 106 breakfast, 22, 55-56 Byron Katie, The Work® of, 26, 30-33, 100, 108 calories, 17, 48, 51, 55, 95, 98, 97 classical conditioning, 82 compassion, for oneself, 40, 95, 100, 107 consistency, 2 cooking, 95, 97 cortisol, 4 diet, 13, 42, 55, 98, 97 digestion, 13 eating disorder, 106 eating, impulsive, 26, 91-92 eating, intuitive, 13, 65 eating, social, 46, 69, 74, 91, 100, 108                                  emotional eating, 26-28, 30, 32, 63, 66, 89 energy, 2, 4, 14, 27, 37, 55-56, 60, 88, 89, 91, 98, 103 exercise, 4-5, 27, 48 fatigue, 26, 89 food, healthy, 55, 58-60, 92, 96, 98-99 Freshman Fifteen, 26 friendship, 23, 42, 61-66, 106 Gandhi, Mahatma, 54 grocery store, 58-60, 82, 95-99 guilt, 7, 10-11, 26, 31, 36-37, 105 habit, how to change, 2, 19-20, 27, 30-31, 39, 42-43, 52, 58, 82, 102, 105, 107 Hara Hachi Bu, 17, 45 listening to your body, 13-14, 26, 77, 89-90, 102 loneliness, 62 meal planning, 58, 95-96

metabolism, 55 nutrients, 97 patience, 118, 79-80 Pavlov, 82 peer pressure, 45-46 perfectionism, 35-37 persistence, 105-107 personal trainer, 48-50 perspective, 5, 19, 32, 34, 36, 65, 92 portion control, 13, 58-60, 68-69, 77, 95, 97 power nap, 4-6, 66 restaurant, 69, 71, 74, 77, 95 self-concept, 37, 39-42 self-control, 23 self-victimization, 7, 39-40 Shakespeare, William, 39, 76 snacking, 4, 55, 58-60, 89, 96, 102 Stowe, Harriett Beecher, 104 stress, 17-18, 19-22, 24, 78, 81, 97 support, of family and friends, 42, 48 television, 13, 77 Thanksgiving, 36, 65 thinking, irrational, 30-32, 91-93 thinking, power of, 10, 23, 27, 30-34, 39, 62, 85, 89, thinking, rational, 30-32 thinking, subconscious, 10 vegetables, 102-103 visualization, 37, 85-87, 107-108 water, 4, 51-53, 55, 71-73     weight, 17, 26, 50, 53-54 willpower, 38 workout, 50-52, 104 workplace, 58

 

                                                                                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tip #6       Hara Hachi Bu         
          
You know that feeling you get when you are just about full?  You want to keep eating more, but you can tell if you do you will have a bellyache later.                                        

The Japanese call this concept Hara Hachi Bu.  This is a teaching in which people should focus on eating only until they are 80% full.  Since you can eat faster than your body digests, you don't get the full signal until after you have finished your meal.  If you aren't careful, you'll end up eating more than you need.

It can be tricky at first to apply the Hara Hachi Bu rule because you don't feel completely full or satisfied when you are only 80% full.  And if you're like me, your eyes are bigger than your stomach so you just want to keep enjoying your meal. 

However, applying just this one rule could be the magic you need that helps you not only stop overeating, but lose weight.  Because each pound you gain or lose is basically 3,500 calories, consuming 3,500 less calories over a period of time means you have just lost one pound.  Pretty simple!  Stopping when you are 80% full could mean you eat 100 less calories than normal.  After a year of following the Hara Hachi Bu rule, you could lose ten pounds!

Tip at a Glance

Don't worry about finishing everything on your plate...just stop when you feel like you are almost full.  Since you can eat faster than your body digests, you don't get the full signal until after you have finished your meal.  So, slow down, eat less, and you will still be full in the end!  Just remember...Hara Hachi Bu!

Tip #12   Play an Empowering Role         
                                
Shakespeare said, "All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players."  Each moment in each day we can choose what role we will play.  Our habits turn us into predictable characters.  We expect to act certain ways because that is how we have done things in the past. That is the label we have given ourselves, that is the role we identify with, and that is how we see ourselves.  Self perception is very powerful and can lead us to blindly play a role that is not in our best interest.

For example, one night at nine pm I was making dinner for myself.  It had been a long work day and I was just about ready to hit the sack.  As I sat there stirring my scrambled eggs dinner over the gas burning stove, I started to feel sorry for myself.  "Poor, tired me," I thought.  "I work so hard and never get a break."  If I could illustrate how I saw myself in that moment, I would draw a haggard old woman with white scraggly hair bending her tired achy back over her measly supper.  It was a pathetic image! 

The moment I had identified myself as a poor hard-working person and planted a large "victim" sticker on my forehead, the more I wanted to convince myself that it was true.  I wanted to play that role.  Luckily, a couple seconds into my fantasy, I caught myself, was amused by it, and decided to switch to a more empowering role. 

Be careful about what label or role you have given to yourself.  Once you believe that a certain role belongs to you and it goes unrecognized, you are constantly trying to prove it is true and you become stuck playing that role.

How does this relate to overeating?  If you identify yourself as someone who cannot break free from overeating, you will keep playing the role.  That role will determine your actions. 

Next time you slip up with your health goals, be careful how you label yourself.  If you apply the "failure" or "weak" label to yourself, you will likely start playing that role.  Then you have type-cast yourself and you expect to disappoint yourself.  Be conscious of the role you are playing and if you don't like it, create a new empowering role.  Start thinking like a character with a winning attitude and you will soon have one.

Tip at a Glance

What will you call yourself today?  What role will you play?  Identifying yourself as someone who is working on self-improvement is much more empowering than calling yourself a weak failure. 

Choose a role that empowers you.  For example, when I was feeling like a victim, I changed my role to be a person who is hard-working and successful.  When you choose your role, you win the mind game and come out on top!

If you find it difficult to start playing a more empowering role, come up with some adjectives to describe the type of role you want to play.  Do you want to be more courageous, more decisive, more compassionate?  Ask yourself, how would I react in this situation if I was more courageous and decisive?  How would I act if I had more compassion for myself?  Imagine it and then start executing that role, as if it were you already.  Pretty soon, it will be.

Tip #13   Stop Crying Wolf           

This is a really easy trap to fall into.  Have you ever told other people you were on a diet?  Then, have you ever eaten something that contradicts your diet and made a joke about it?  "You know me, on a never-ending diet, always cheating, ha ha!" 

If this happens over and over again, pretty soon your family and friends will expect you to talk about your diet, joke about it, and then break it.  You will start playing the role of the little boy who cried, "Wolf", and people just won't take you seriously.

Because others see you playing this role, they might start joking about it with you.  Instead of supporting you in your goals, they are supporting you in playing your role.  That makes it harder to stop because others find it amusing.

If you want to break free from this endless cycle, stop joking about your bad eating habits.  When you stop adding fuel to the fire, others will most likely do the same.  This way, your friends and family can support you in achieving your goals instead of in postponing them.

Tip at a Glance

Commit to your health goals.  If you fall short and go against your goal, don't use that as material for a chronic joke.  Others won't take you seriously and after a while, you won't either. 

 

Read more tips