The way we do one thing is the way we do everything.

Nothing has been more true.

And the best places to witness this for yourself is in our eating and shopping behaviors.

• Do you put yourself on budget restrictions until you just can’t take it anymore and splurge on a big purchase?

• Do all the coupon/sale notifications in your inbox tempt you to click?

• Do the offers of free shipping and discounts with purchase seduce you into staying...

Americans reportedly consume, on average, 3000 calories during the Thanksgiving meal—and that doesn’t even include appetizers and cocktails!

You, my friend, are not the average American.

You are awake to and aware of all your food and you’ve planned your food week to include this one special meal.

Then back you go to your regularly scheduled eating plan.

You figured out when you’re scheduling your enjoyable exercise to...

Voila! The rest of the new and noteworthy tidbits of info I collected from ObesityWeek 2019.

Impress your friends with facts about fat cells, a hunger hormone, and weight gain in pregnancy and after surgery (or just forward them this update and have a stimulating discussion!)

THE LIFE CYCLE OF FAT

A Fat cell (adipocyte) is born.

Then if we take in more fuel than our bodies need, it gets bigger and bigger. And more join the party.

As they...

Vegas, baby.

I recently spent 5 days with some of the most dedicated obesity researchers, clinicians and surgeons on the planet.

Rest assured there are people looking for the answers to weight gain and sustainability and they’re making progress.

Over the next 2 weeks, I’m going to tell you my favorite tidbits—the newest thinking on fat and leptin, weight gain during pregnancy and post bariatric surgery, and the truth about intermittent...

Here’s the recipe for getting anything accomplished:

1. Total faith
2. Non-judgmental action/practice
3. No timeline

The best example of this is a baby learning to walk.

First, he has complete faith that it will happen—“everyone around me is walking, I’m sure I can too!” It never occurs to him that he can’t.

Next comes tons of trial and error. No beating himself up for any of the failures. Just getting back up...

Happy Halloween!

There are 9 weeks between now and the New Year.

Nine weeks.

We call these weeks The Bermuda Triangle of Weight Gain—Halloween through Thanksgiving then onto Christmas and New Year’s.

Starts with candy and ends with champagne, with lots of pies in between.

If we’re not careful, we can go unconscious and wake up 9 weeks later having gained pounds and pounds with an urgent need for a weight loss resolution.

Now...

Halloween’s just a week away.

[Hopefully you haven’t bought your candy yet –see The Best Day to Buy Halloween Candy].

The phrase, “Don’t Invite the Enemy In” always comes to mind around this time of year.

Pre-Halloween it’s about the Costco-sized bags of candy that haunt you from inside the pantry until you inevitably give in.

One mean sugar high and thousands of calories (literally) later, regret and shock...

Language matters.

Louise Hay, one of my favorite teachers, is a stickler for language. She teaches that thoughts (language in your mind) impact your environment.

Positively worded thoughts create positive feelings and negatively worded thoughts create negative ones.

Try it out for yourself:

How does it feel when you say, “I’m killing two birds with one stone” vs “I’m getting a lot done efficiently”

Same...

I’m terrible at meditation.

I’ve been doing it every morning for almost a full year and yet . . .

I haven’t reach enlightenment.

I don’t feel blissful after my sessions.

I’m missing those epiphanies that come with perfect stillness.

And you couldn’t pay me to stop.

Most mornings I start my Headspace timer and settle in. I count my breaths, as I was taught, 1 on the in breath and 2 on the out . . . all the way to 10...

It’s easy to measure success in weight loss—it’s measured in pounds lost.

Measuring Maintenance is a different story.

It’s only in retrospect, really. It’s measured in time—6, 12, 24 months at the same desired weight.

But on a daily basis, Maintenance is measured by the absence of gaining (or losing).

Measuring the absence of something doesn’t always feel satisfying.

It’s like measuring...