Tag / Gabor Mate

We live in a culture that is full of advertisements that encourage us to seek pleasure and avoid pain. We all want to change or strive to keep things the way they area.  What you may be wondering is wrong with that? The messages are subtle: a mother who sits down on a park bench to take a well-deserved break eats a Nutrigrain bar. If you pay attention, most food advertising is selling and linking pleasure and reward with food. No wonder so many people associate food with a reward. This is one of the main reasons people find it difficult to lose weight. Successfully losing weight requires...

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The most important piece of information I got out of watching The Weight of the Nation which was focused more on the consequences of weight gain than how to lose weight is the effect of watching TV on weight gain. Why would watching TV cause people to gain so much weight? The Weight of the Nation focused on children, and called the advertisements for soda and cereal predatory. Food companies understand how brand loyalty works. The younger you get them...

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There is a new documentary about to air The Weight of the Nation. This well researched documentary has come to the same conclusion I have on the weight problem in America. The best way and only way to lose weight and keep it off which to me is the only successful way to lose weight you must treat the way you lose weight as your lifestyle. That means the changes you make must be permanent and not viewed as a diet. This is hard to do because the brain tricks you into thinking its ok to eat this or that and not exercise...

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So how do you 'grow' creative ability and lose your appetite for the things that do not serve you in life? So we are born creative, to be creative and then we seem to lose it. To grow and reconnect with the creative spark within you must be willing to make  mistakes, and laugh at yourself.  Einstein’s quote is relevant here: “A person who has never made a mistake never tried anything new.” Creativity can be re-cultivated. Creativity comes from using the “whole brain” that is left and right working together. Believe it or not meditation...

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Let me just start out with saying stories and movies like the Hunger Games are not feeding the soul. If you stopped to think about it, you might ask yourself what you hunger for that you cannot name or do not recognize? Some would say it is creativity that really feeds the sou. Creativity is what we really hunger for and the capacity for creativity comes from deep within… an authentic place the yogis and Carl Jung called the Self. To access this creativity requires you to know yourself differently. Most of us never...

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Recently I came across a great Ted Talk by Dr. Bren Brown more on the role of shame as the root of addiction, depression and the tendency to be or feel small in life. Shame is something that is perpetrated by our culture to keep us down. All you have to do is to look at the advertising on that is on TV. Either one is being made to feel small, not being able to keep up the “Jones” or one is offered ways to dull the pain… food, drugs and various other ways to escape. I would agree with Dr. Bren’s...

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Why is it so difficult to change established patterns of behavior especially when those patterns do not serve us? The answer lies perhaps in getting clear about what you value. Recently I made the acquaintance of a website www.kairios.com which has a very helpful interactive way to get in touch with your values.  Once you get clear on that, it helps you to tap into the right energy you need to bring about the changes you might be struggling with from losing weight, getting motivated to exercise and putting an end to procrastination. I recommend...

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We all know that exercise is one of the single best things you can do to lose weight, stay at a healthy weight, boost your mood, reduce stress and even sleep better. Exercise is also the best preventive medicine to ward off the life- style induced diseases that are now treated with prescription drugs…high blood pressure, high cholesterol, metabolic syndrome and adult onset diabetes. This list goes on and on as to how beneficial exercise is to be healthy happy. Why do so many people resist exercise?   The first reason is that when you get out of shape, overweight, or have...

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It’s really important that we strike word diet from our vocabulary unless we use it the right way. Your diet means your manner of living, how you live, not a short term fix to lose weight. It is really a disservice to look at losing weight as going on a diet. Once you are on this diet you never go off. That is why you really have to avoid quick weight loss strategies and the diet mentality. Here are some behaviors you can change that will really help take and keep off the weight. In creating this I was inspired by the article...

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I found the conversation between Demi Moore and Amanda de Cadenet in Bazaar  to be very enlightening. Both of these women seem very knowledgeable in terms of how to live a more enlightened life. Demi Moore speaks about having a “nobody cares, an it doesn’t matter attitude towards life and about the importance of acceptance. She describes freedom as: “letting go of the outcome, truly being in the moment, not reflecting on the past and not projecting into the future.”  Demi...

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