As I was sitting at the dining table enjoying breakfast and staring at the humming birds hovering over the trees, I pondered our country’s problem with food supply and weight gain.

(Why?  What do you think about at breakfast?)

It got me thinking about Nature’s original dilemma: how to get humans to spend time and effort obtaining and consuming food to fuel their bodies.

Nature had to make it worth it—humans needed incentives, and pleasure is...

Dr. Robert Holden, a psychologist whose focus is happiness and love, talks about “meeting” grief.  He says there’s nothing to heal except maybe our relationship to grief.  Grief itself can not be healed, like any other feeling, it just wants to be met.

Met, felt and respected.

Being with grief, then, is the goal.  Letting it be, pass through, reappear unbothered.

There’s a skill in this.  It’s easy to be...

Remember summer camp?

Day camp.  Sleep-away camp.  Family camp.

I did ‘em all.

It was such a break from my regular life. A separate, exciting world of friends and fun. My brain could relax, there was nothing to get done.

The setting perfected our utopia. Tucked into the hills, we enjoyed warm days, tree lined trails, swimming pools, arts and crafts and epic campfire sing-alongs.

Love those memories.

Now my kids go to...

We just got back from a road trip to Yellowstone National Park.

It was the longest drive we’ve ever taken as a family. Over 15 hours each way.

We passed through parts of Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. The red, dry deserts gave way to green flatlands interlaced with flowing rivers surrounded by snowcapped mountains. It’s easy to see the lure of fly-fishing out there. So peaceful.

Yellowstone is known for it’s thermal...

I love grapes. Sweet. Satisfying. I buy them all the time.

And my husband taught me a valuable grape-purchasing trick: in the market, I taste-test the grapes. I try one in the pack to make sure it’s a good batch. I only get the best.

I never used to do this, but since I lost 50 pounds and have kept it off for over 9 years now, I care much more about the quality of my food.

It sounds obvious—we all care about the quality of our food?!

But,...

Surf’s up!

Time to head to the beach.

Having grown up in southern California, the beach holds so many memories for me.

The beach days I remember most as a kid are from camp. We’d get there by big yellow bus with our sack lunches, towels and suits under our clothes. I couldn’t wait to get into the water. I’d swim out past the waves and hang with my only other friend who loved the water as much as I did. We’d body surf back in...

We love to go cherry picking every year.

There’s a short window when the cherries are ripe and it usually falls around Father’s Day and the end of school.

And it’s usually hot. Very hot.

We go to the same place each year, an hour and a half drive away, and each year I notice my son can reach higher and higher branches.

This year I was struck by how different the experience was.

In the past, we’d easily fill our buckets,...

School’s out!

Remember that last week of elementary school before summer break? Before there was such a thing as “finals week”?

Watching videos, cleaning out your desk, playing games, signing yearbooks, end of year parties.

No homework.

It was a transition. A no man’s land after meaningful work was done but before summer vacation was official.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could have those sorts of transitions, too?

 Ugh.  Tight pants.  They feel terrible.

Especially when they’ve hit that critical point.  You know the point . . . when they are just about too tight to wear.

“Did they shrink in the dryer?” you wonder.

“If I wear them a bit, they will stretch out,” you decide.

Not this time.

Oh, I guess you could wear your formerly favorite pants but they hug just a little closer than you would like. ...

I have a client; I’ll call him “Joe”.  Joe lost over 30 pounds and has kept it off for close to 3 years. In the last few months he’s been negotiating with 5 pounds that crept back on and won’t budge. And then he went on vacation . . .

Now what did most of you think just then?

“Everyone gains on vacation!”

“He definitely came back weighing more”

Nope.

Joe came back at his goal weight and had a...