Take me to bed with you... for real!!!
And do this simple secret before you go to sleep. 

Just kidding. Actually, it's so simple you can watch it and then go to bed after, because the blue light from your screen is bad for your sleep (and likely adds anxiety). 

We Are All Stressed
This simple secret is a fantastic antidote for 21st century stress - the stress you feel, your friends feel, your husband/wife/partner feels, your colleagues feel... and sadly almost all of us feel. 

While it manifests in different ways - anxiety, depression, general stress, even anger - the chronic demands society puts on us, and our inability to create the community we need to counteract those demands, adds up!

Hold Your Heart
In this simple technique (technique is too complicated(, you literally hold your heart. We all need a bit more nurturing in our lives, and this is a way to give it to yourself.  

Add a Twist
You can really amp up the relaxation by adding a simple twist. Turn your knees to the right and hold your heart; turn your knees to the left and hold your fake heart (right side). 

Take Me to Bed
This is why I tell people to take these videos to bed!!! They are soooooo simple and relaxing and really help you detach from some of the day before you head off to sleep. 

I totally sucked at self care until I started doing my self care in bed!!! All the things I love to do that make me feel great: journaling, reading, stretching, body wisdom, meditation (I do it laying down), self massage, and other things all happen in bed. And frankly, I really never could get them into my life until I figured this secret out! 

So while you may not want to actually take your screen to bed (like I said, the light it emits is bad for your sleep), you should take these ideas to bed and give them a try!!! 

And of course, let me know when you do!!! 

​Have a friend who feels anxiety? Be sure to share this video!!!

Thinking about getting botox? 
Yeah, I was, too.
And then I did.

This is what I learned. 

Why do you want botox?
First of all, make sure you consider the reasons you are seeking botox. This should not be something you are doing because you are worried about what other people think. You need to make sure you're coming from a healthy place. 

What are your expectations?
The botox might not give you the results you are hoping for. I got it 4 times and only once did I feel truly satisfied with it. And it wasn't the last time, or I'd probably be getting it again! haha!

How does your body react to things? 
Are you sensitive? I am. I'm honestly not that surprised that I got a headache from the treatment, despite that I didn't realize it for the first three times due to extenuating circumstances around my neck causing headaches in the time frame I got the first three rounds. So, if you are sensitive, you might have side effects that don't make it worth it. 

What's the bottom line?
Honestly, go for it if you want to. We are all vain in certain ways - our clothes, our makeup, our hair, our shoes, our purses... whatever. Maybe botox will help soften up some lines that bug you. Or maybe it won't. In the end, you only know what you'll get if you try it, and if you go into with the right attitude, you'll be able to confidently decide whether or not it's worth it to you. 

What about emotional eating? 
And, as always, what does this have to do with emotional eating???? EVERYTHING!

It's ALL connected, and we are all susceptible to vain thoughts.

If we live in fear of people finding out we are vain, or discovering we got botox, or not getting botox but wishing we had... we are shutting down our emotions and making ourselves susceptible to numbing by any means... whether overeating, over drinking, smoking, gambling, having too much sex, drugs, or whatever unhealthy behavior we use to forget our pain as being out of alignment and under stress.

​By addressing ourselves WHOLLY, even our vanity and other "weaknesses", embracing them, and accepting them for what they are, we can make choices that leave us feeling our best, no matter if we get the botox or not. 

What do you think? Have you thought about botox? Have you tried it? 

Yup. That's right. I'm talking about Aunt Flo.

Your Body & Your Emotional Eating
Welcome to the first in my body wisdom series!!! It's not yoga. It's definitely not exercise. It's just simple ways to get in touch with your body and treat it better. 

What does this have to do with emotional eating? A lot, actually. It's that disconnect between body, heart, and mind that leads to emotional eating. And it's when we try to "fix" our food problems without listening to our bodies that the problems get worse. 

Connecting Body-Heart-Mind
So the next time you get your moon, you are menstruating, or Aunt Flo comes to visit... Take a nap. Tell everyone to leave you alone. Even if it's just ten minutes. Just be. Be still. Relax those tense muscles. It makes such a huge difference!!!! 

Oh, and drink some extra water!!!! I forgot to say that on the  video :) 

And of course, after you make it a point to lay around a little during "that time of the month" let me know how it makes you feel!!! 

​I know I've felt less worn out when I've been able to do little period power naps. 

Ok, as you know, my guided journal launched over Thanksgiving and hit #1 in it's ebook category twice over the holiday weekend. I was obviously riding high!

So, it's been a month now and I'm not obsessively checking the page anymore :) 

But, because of the past obsessive watching, I went to amazon just to buy something the other day, and it auto-populated the website address to my journal's direct page... and my heart did a jump.

Because I had a one star review :( 

So, in all honesty, here is how things went down.

My first reaction:  Ego/anger.

"Who wrote this? Do I KNOW this person??" I looked at her amazon page (only three reviews, two x one star, one x five star), no other information. I had no idea who she was.

My second reaction: Stuff down the emotions.

"Okay, Alegra, this is going to happen. You can't only have 5 star reviews. Get over it and just move on." This is tricky because it actually feels helpful. It's true that getting agro and wanting to figure out if I can identify who wrote this is not serving me... but moving on and forgetting about actually isn't serving me either. 

My third reaction: Sit with it.

So, I had to sit with it. I had to take it to bed with me and let it percolate. I had to let my ego do its thing, so I could go deeper to the stuff behind the stuff. It didn't exactly keep me up, but it was definitely on my mind as I fell asleep and again when I woke up.

​(Feels a little crazy to say that. Feels like I "should" be tougher than that. Feels like I "should not" be so affected. But yet... I am. This is me. I want everyone to think my journal is 5 stars and it upsets me that someone thinks it is 1 star.)

My fourth reaction: Inspired acceptance. 

As I lay with these feelings... it did start to seem like less of a threat. I realized, as I wrote and re-wrote a million possible comments to her review on amazon (in my head, of course), that what she said was in some ways irrelevant and in some ways a helpful critique.

She actually didn't realize it was a journal. With blank pages. To be written upon. So she was surprised at the lack of "information." That's useful - I want other people to know what they are buying. And at the same time, she wasn't really reviewing the content; she hadn't done the journal.

​So it is what it is.

I came up with a way to acknowledge the fact that I appreciated her pointing out that yes, it is a journal, and yes, it has blank space. And I also asked her to share her new perspective if she chose to answer the prompts. 

How this applies to the rest of life...

And guess what... ALL of this process applies to emotional eating, too!

Initial reactions rarely serve. The stuffing it down is usually where we get stuck - literally stuffing the food down in order to stuff the feelings down. The sitting with it is SO SCARY!

And yet, only when we sit and actually feel it (whatever "it" is) can we get to inspired acceptance or action. 

That is the EXACT reason why I created a JOURNAL and not a book of information. People have enough information. In fact, we have TOO MUCH information. What we don't have is the time and space to reflect on what the hell is happening in our lives that is making us eat the food we don't want to eat and/or obsess over the one star reviewers in our life. 

But the truth is... there is always going to be someone who thinks I'm one star. And there is always going to be BS in our life that makes us want to eat that pint of Ben and Jerry's.

So what we all need is a plan and a path to process the feelings and reactions we have, in order to make sure we are taking inspired action.

You can start by blaming the 1-star factor in your life. Take my quiz to find out who or what it is! 

You don’t have to berate yourself for eating whatever it is that you like to eat.  You don't even have to berate yourself when you eat so much of it that you feel sick, or guilty, or sick and guilty. 

I've done all of these things. I've eaten myself sick on candy, and I've eaten myself sick on "healthy" things like prunes and pineapple. And when you repeatedly feel like crap from overeating, it doesn't matter if it's junky or "healthy" - it's not healthy. 

And even if you aren't binging or feeling like crap from overeating... if you are feeling bad about your self because...

You used to run, but you just can't seem to make the time anymore...

The candy bowl at work always seems like the perfect stress relief, even though you don't even like the candy that much...

You know you are not being healthy, but you just don't feel like there is anything you can do about it...

Well stop right there!

You’re a smart, ambitious, successful woman.

You know what it takes to get it done. You are in charge of so many things!!! You know so much!!

So you know the thing to do THIS time is to hire someone who...

(a) has been through the same thing and come out thriving
(b) has compressed the system for results and success
(c) is almost 6 feet tall and loves drinking tea

Yes, that's right! I'm talking about myself! Hire ME!

The best way to do that is to start with your clarity call. 

In the health world people like to talk about holiday weight gain. It's a lie.

Happy New Year!!!!

The truth is that holiday weight loss can happen just as easily as holiday weight gain. And even if you do gain weight, it's not the 7 pounds average other so-called gurus are trying to scare you with.  Holiday weight gain statistics are not that stark. 

But if your new year's resolution weight loss goals feel at odds with the new year's weight loss statistics, then rest easy. 

I have a different kind of weight loss plan.

This is not like a weight loss challenge, where you try to starve yourself and obsessively watch the scale. This is not a series of weight loss tips that work for a while, and  then someone stop working.  This isn't even really a weight loss program, because there are no rules, nothing to give up, nothing to stop eating. 

This IS an approach to weight loss that works. It is one of the healthiest, easiest, and fastest ways to lose eight that STAYS off. 

This IS a "program" that allows you to eat every single food you love, without restriction or ever feeling hungry. 
​

Most health advice is totally backwards. It starts off by telling you what to eat, what not to eat, and counting all kinds of numbers. BORING!

I don't waste your time with any of that nonsense. 

Okay okay, it's not total nonsense. There are times when focusing on specific things in your diet and counting specific numbers are really important. But for the VAST MAJORITY of people who simply want to lose weight and look and feel their best... it is not necessary to count anything, and in fact it will backfire, ruin your so called "Diet" and end up making you eat more junk food in the long term. 

Because it's more than boring to count all those numbers, it's depressing and it is a distraction from what is actually going on in your body and mind. 

​I help my clients forget all that BAD advice and create their own personal whole body connection! 
​

This is actually how we got into such a mess with all the counting in the first place!!!

Food manufacturers have one goal: sell as much as their product as possible, which they do by getting you to eat as much as possible. #sadbuttrue

Just like numbers, reading about the "health claims" on food actually disconnect you from your own desire, and puts some idea about what you "should" be doing into your mind instead. 

Looking at the package separates your from your body and your intuition.

Trust yourself. 

And also buy quality foods with the shortest ingredient list possible, and simply "ingredients" whenever you can as well. That makes it WAY easier to the whole trusting your body thing. 

Yup. I said it.

Forget ALL the rules. Because rules and food just don't go together.* 

(*As always, please trust and follow your doctor's medical advice because there are always exceptions to the rules, even the rule that you shouldn't have any rules.)

The truth is that everyone is preaching about what you should or shouldn't eat. 

But no berry from the amazon is going to make you live forever, just as one bag of hot cheetos isn't going to kill you. 

And, worse yet, all the mixed messages and crazy hype about the good and evil foods of the world actually just cause us to feel stressed and overwhelmed, and end up causing us to make BAD decisions.

Again, all this damn information DISCONNECTS us from our bodies! We just can't tune in when we have to think so freaking much!! And when we are disconnected we grab the cookies or the chocolate or the whatever and eat it... and then we feel SO BAD about it!!!

Allowing yourself to eat freely actually FREES you to eat WELL.

As soon as you tell yourself,

“You can never eat _____” …

it is guaranteed that another part of you will start demanding ____!

This sets you up to sabotage ALL your efforts!

Any approach to health based on all those rules and restrictions we just talked about? This will always lead you to battle within yourself, and when you battle yourself... YOU always lose. 

Oh, also, when you are fighting with yourself? You can't tune in, which we've talked about is really important. 

Also, any time you hear yourself saying "Should" means you are fighting with yourself.  Should with food is always a judgmental statement. 

I should stop eating sugar.
I should choose the low carb/fat/whatever menu item. 
I should not eat that delicious thing.
I should eat that thing I don't really want but think will help me lose wight. 

Those are all ways of telling yourself that you suck and you don't deserve what you want. I know this because I used be in a world of shoulds. I broke free from that kind of approach, and I want to help every woman do the same thing now. When you connect your food to your desire, there is no more should. 

​So, tune in to those shoulds. When you hear yourself saying you "should" then what you "should" do is take a pause and check in with yourself. 

This is the ONE thing that actually causes us to gain weight, whether at the holidays or any other time of year.

This one thing causes us to...
•Eat more sugar
•Gain weight
•Lose energy
•Feel bad about ourselves

It's not sugar, artificial colors, saturated fat, or any other ingredient. 

The #1 most toxic thing in your diet is guilt! 
​

Yup, guilt is at the heart of almost all emotional eating. And it also contributes to mindless eating, too (the close cousin on emotional eating). 

Restrictive programs should be shunned as a miserable way to achieve health goals.

There is room for every food you love when you focus on the joy and not the calories. 

When You Love Every Bite…
You don’t feel guilty when you choose to eat a cupcake or get take out because you know it’s the right thing for you right  then.You are empowered to make EXACTLY the right choice for you.

Its simple and life changing to stop blaming yourself for the emotional eating and binges. 

Ready to get started??? 

With my quiz it's simple and also FUN. Because now that you know it's not your fault, you get to find out whose fault it is!!!