Obesity | Triumph Wellness

When A Loved One Won’t Change

February 14, 2013 by Emily Segal 1 Comment

Subtitle: ”Why Can’t You Do This For Me, for the kids, for yourSELF?!”

Here is the Mad Libs version:

Your _____________________

(spouse / partner / sister / father / best friend / child)

Needs to____________________

(lose weight / get his blood sugar down / get her cholesterol down / stop smoking / stop drinking / wear a seat belt)

Although he/she insists it has nothing to do with you, and that your nagging is only making things worse, you feel______________________

(betrayed / angry / worried / massively betrayed)

Sound familiar, anyone? I bet it does!

Today, instead of telling you what to do from my standpoint as a health practitioner, I want to share with you the other side of the coin.

I was your spouse. I was the one who was willfully disregarding my health and my family’s future all in the name of getting my next binge. I hope that if you can see things from your loved one’s perspective, you will be able to find some peace and clarity.

Several years ago I tried eating myself into oblivion while my husband was the one to be angry about my growing body and frustrated by my resistance to change. The more he pushed and threatened me, the more I ate and the fatter I became. I truly felt that it was MY business and had nothing to do with him. I seriously resented him making it his problem, even though somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, I kinda-sorta understood how my health and weight ultimately WOULD impact his life and the lives of our children.

I was in Stage One: Pre-Contemplation (click that link to read the post I wrote about the 5 Stages of Change). I was only dimly aware that there was some sort of a problem but feeling like I was a victim of intolerable levels of stress with food as my only lifeline. I could no sooner have given up over-eating than I could have gone without oxygen.

You can read about what advanced me from Stage One to Stage Two HERE. Basically, I finally understood that my actions were causing my outcome, plain and simple. Change my actions and I’d change the outcome. But more than that, here was this man, Tony Robbins and he had done it himself. And all the thousands of people who followed him, they were taking this kind of action in their lives. I understood for the first time that it could be done and people were doing it. I could change my story and change the way my story would end.

So this is my message to you (and when I get around to publishing that post about overweight kids it will be the same message):

Shut Up and Walk Your Own Talk.

End of story.

People do not hear what you say as much as see what you do. Ghandi said “Be the change you want to see.” You – be the change. Model the behaviors you want others to adopt. SHOW don’t say. Work on Yourself. Be the best you can be. Be Inspiring. Make the people around you WANT to reach higher. Show people what is possible.

Married folks: I realize how painful it feels for you, that your partner is betraying the agreement you made when you got married. He/she is digging an early grave and will leave you holding the bag. But go back and read the stages of change. People who are not changing likely do not believe that it is in their power to do so. No amount of screaming and threatening is going to change that.

Those Stage Oners need hope and belief. They need to come to understand that they CAN reverse their problem. They need to move from helpless victim to artful designers of their own destiny.

Model it for them and then butt out.

P.S. I am not suggesting you stay with a partner bent on self-destruction. You may decide that you need to leave a relationship in order to take care of yourself. That is modeling healthy self-care as well.

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Filed Under: coaching exercises, Growth, health coach, Inspiration, Love, Positive Thinking, Rants Tagged With: Obesity, Overweight, Self-Improvement, weight loss

Redefine Hard

January 24, 2013 by Emily Segal Leave a Comment

On a typical morning, I wake up, walk the dog, feed everyone breakfast, pack lunches, and get the kids off to school. Then I put on my running clothes…

…and spend the next 30 – 60 minutes whining to my husband about why I do not want to go running!

My husband, observing this phenomenon in me for years, and now experiencing it for himself while training for his first Half Marathon, has sagely noted:

The training is not the hard part. Getting out the door to DO the training is what is really hard!

Often when a client first comes to see me for weight loss or diet change, he or she holds the belief that “Weight Loss is Hard”. This belief has probably formed during past attempts where it either felt hard to diet or to maintain the weight lost.

Now imagine for a minute how much motivation and excitement to get started you feel when you think “Weight Loss is Hard.”

Ugh, not very much, right?

So we re-frame the belief that “weight loss is hard” by listing all the things about being overweight and food addicted that are hard:

Finding clothes to wear that you feel good in each day
Clothes shopping (nothing you want looks good on you)
Being without food for several hours (start to get crave-y and hypoglyecmic)
Having heartburn
Having a stomach ache
Taking medications for diet-caused illnesses
Being out of breath
Feeling insecure or even ashamed
Walking in to a room and assessing if you are the biggest person there
Being tired
Feeling depressed
Worrying about your own health
Worrying about passing these food problems on to your kids

I know that not every overweight person feels these things. These are things my clients say or things I experienced myself when I was overweight.

When we re-frame the question “What is Hard?” we can now see that being overweight and food addicted is really pretty hard! Look at that list! Is it just possible that, in comparison, sticking to a healthy food plan might not be so hard after all?

As for we exercisers, what is the re-frame we do to get us out that door? Personally, I think about the things that would be hard in my life if I did NOT workout:

feeling depressed
achy muscles
low energy
muddy thinking
flabby legs
being out of breath
setting a poor example for my kids
and the one that gets me most right now, 8 weeks from my race day: failing and/or suffering in front of thousands of people.

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It’s all in the re-frame!

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Filed Under: coaching exercises, Exercise, Goals, Growth, health coach, Inspiration, Positive Thinking, Running, weight loss Tagged With: Achievement, Dieting vs Lifestyle, Exercise, Goals, Obesity, Overweight, Running, Self-Improvement, Sugar Addiction, weight loss

Don’t Rush Weight Loss

February 19, 2012 by Emily Segal 1 Comment

OK, I know I trot this statistic out a lot, but apparently I have not said it enough for some of my readers:

Of people who have lost weight via dieting, only 3% will maintain that new weight for longer than one year. 97 out of 100 people gain back what they lose, often with extra.

So, as a coach who helps many people with weight loss, I spend a lot of time reading studies on the 3% who ARE successful. It helps that I myself am one of the 3% and understand just what it takes from my own personal experience. In this post I will share with you some of the “secrets” of the 3% who succeed:

One of the reasons I believe people gain the weight back is that they lose it too quickly. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, your body is designed to see rapid weight loss as a survival emergency. Your thyroid will dial your metabolism WAY back to conserve energy. You often become tired, lethargic, you exercise less, you MOVE less. All the while, your brain is in overdrive encouraging and pushing you to eat more, to crave more, to give in to your rumbly tummy, and faced with the buffet of calories we face each day, to eat, eat, eat.

When I lost 70lbs for the very last time, I did it fairly slowly. It took me a year to lose the first 50, at a rate of less than 1 lb per week, and the next full year to lose the final 20! The third year was the most intense of all, as I struggled the most with the factors I mention above. I had to focus harder than ever before to learn to keep my balance.

But when most people start a diet, they want it off FAST! They have lived with their creeping overweight by denying it for years, but when the curtain of reality is ripped back, they cannot WAIT to jettison their fat asap. Thus begin the calculations: ”OK, I have a wedding in 5 weeks and I need to lose 20 lbs, so if I can just lose 4 lbs each week, I will be fine”. Of course to lose 4 lbs per week you need to generate a 2000 calorie deficit per day and if that doesn’t start ringing your body’s alarm bells, I don’t know what will!

That’s an extreme, but true example. Most people come to me wanting to lose 1-2 lbs per week (.5-1kg roughly). STILL, in order to do that, you need to generate either a 500 calorie deficit each day to lose the .5kg, or a 1000 calorie deficit per day to lose the 1kg per week. I still hear alarm bells clanging my body’s homeostasis. That’s a lot of calories to cut and requires you to be in caloric deficit EVERY day – no days off, no special occasions.

In the last month I have received 2 letters from former clients, thanking me for teaching them to live healthier lives, and in both cases, the women reported having lost 10 lbs over the course of the past year “without even really trying.”

Did you realize that if one were to just cut 100 calories from their maintenance level, each day, either by eating one less snack, one less slice of bread, a few less spoonfuls of ice cream, soda or alcohol, OR by burning just 100 calories through a daily walk or a restful yoga class, one would lose 10 lbs in one year! That’s all it would take!

When I work with a client, we make tiny changes each week. So tiny that we are both certain they can be accomplished. Things like, take a 20 minute walk every day. Or swap one apple for one candy bar. The clients who succeed in this approach stick with their small changes and have the big picture vision to understand that, over time, it is these small changes that will create major shifts.

But every once in awhile I get a client who says “No, that’s not enough. That will never work for me. My body is so messed up that I have to make DRASTIC steps like going from zero exercise to 2 hours in the gym everyday. And 1500 calories?? I can’t lose unless I keep my intake at 1000.”

Yet, 97% of the time, these changes are so big and so hard that the client will abandon them within a few weeks, (or never even get them started in the first place!)

And most often, without even realizing it, they eat a surplus of just those same 100 calories per day, and in reverse, instead of losing 10 lbs that year, they GAIN it. Then I hear ”I gained 10 lbs last year and I barely eat anything! I swear, I don’t eat half of what my friends eat and I just keep gaining!”

That’s right. You ate only 100 calories more than your friend did each day. That’s one candy bar instead of an apple, that’s one soda instead of a glass of water, that’s one daily walk you didn’t take…

Small changes, done every day, lead to big differences over time.

But remember that this theory works in both directions!

Don’t be in such a pants-on-fire hurry to lose weight that you set yourself up for failure right from the start. We don’t say Slow and Steady wins the Race, for nothing!

Oh, and the TOP habit the 3% of successful maintainers usually credit their success to? Daily food logging. You can’t know how many calories you are eating – deficit or surplus – if you don’t record what you are eating.

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Filed Under: coaching exercises, Exercise, Goals, health coach, Rants, weight loss Tagged With: Dieting vs Lifestyle, Obesity, Overweight, weight loss

The Paleo-Vegan-Raw-Slimfast-Macrobiotic-Cabbage Soup Diet

August 14, 2011 by Emily Segal Leave a Comment

Diets don’t work. Honestly, they don’t. Statistics show that only 7% of dieters will ever reach their desired weight and of those, only 3% will maintain it for longer than a year.

Basically, you have better odds of recovering from heroin addiction that you do of losing weight permanently via dieting.

Why is this? Is it human nature? Are we just destined to be stuck in our ingrained patterns and habits, unable to change?

Well, I wouldn’t be worth much as a weight loss coach if I didn’t study this question in depth. I pour over research looking for the elusive success stories and then I study what they did and do in order to achieve AND maintain their success.

And I’m not talking about what the success stories ate, or didn’t eat!! I’m talking about their behaviors and mindset! More on that in a sec…

It also doesn’t hurt that I am living my own 3% success story. I know what I have had to do to maintain my weight loss for these past 10 years. And again, it has nothing to do with veganism, I was an obese vegetarian. It all has to do with behaviors and mindset.

So, diets. What’s the deal? Well, as I already mentioned, it’s not really about the food, it’s about behavior and mindset. As long as you’re in a calorie deficit you’ll lose weight no matter what diet you follow. Or, gasp, don’t follow! Yes, you can actually modify your own current diet and learn to just eat less of it! Some people like a higher carb diet, some like a higher protein diet, some like vegetarian/vegan, some like low fat, or high fat or whatever. You get to design your OWN diet that suits you, not anyone else. When you do that, wow, it gets a lot easier to comply doesn’t it?

The next problem with diets is that they are temporary in nature. You want to know what the death kiss is for most of my clients? ”I’m losing weight for a wedding/bar mitzvah/family reunion/trip” Guess what happens when that event is over? Yup, regaining it all back. Yuck.

So we’ve all heard that it needs to be a Lifestyle, not a diet, right? But what does that mean? I personally think a Lifestyle is just a Diet you can maintain for the rest of your life! Really get comfortable with that idea folks, because you are NEVER going to be able to go back to eating/living the way you are now! You’ve done that and you see the results.

Which brings us to the 3rd, and I think MAIN reason diets don’t work: They are unsustainable. ”I will never eat carbs again for the rest of my life, not even tomatoes or fruit or carrots….” said by the carb lover. Or “I am hereto-forth a 100% Raw Vegan. Cooked food will never cross my lips ever again.” said by the Junk food & meat lover. Extreme examples, but I hear them uttered in all seriousness by people EVERY DAY.

Within a month, that diet has been discarded and forgotten.

Did I mention that I used to do and say these very same things? It got to where I had to wake up and remind myself what diet I was on and what was permitted and forbidden! I used to start a new plan and totally clean out my cupboards and embrace all the allowed foods and recipes and then when the diet honeymoon wore off, and I moved on to something new, you know “This is going to be IT this time!” and I changed over my cupboards yet again.

And that goes for extreme calorie depletion also. You can’t go from eating 2000 calories a day to 1000 and expect to stay with it long. You are going to rebel and rebel BIG TIME, all the way to the ice cream store! Eating Disorders specialist Geneen Roth says

The fourth law of the universe is that for every diet, there is an equal and opposite binge. Diets aren’t free. You will rebel, and when you do, you will gain more weight than you lost. As fat as you feel now, you will feel–and be–fatter after the binge that follows the diet.

Not to mention the fact that if you lower your calories too far below your BMR, you will slow down your burn rate and be sitting on one of those super frustrating plateaus for so long that you’ll probably give up and go back to your old habits, concluding that diets don’t work.

Because they don’t.

But then time will pass and a friend will lose 25kgs for her daughter’s wedding by eating nothing but cabbage soup for 3 months and you’ll think “THAT’s it! This time is going to be IT!” and off you go throwing away everything in your kitchen that isn’t a cruciferous vegetable.

My darlings, you lose weight permanently by:

Learning why you over eat in the first place and coming up with ways to not do it anymore

A modest calorie reduction through eating less and/or exercising more. (This also depends on your current body weight. A 100kg person should not be on the same calorie level as a 80kg person!)

Eat more vegetables. Agreed on by everyone. They fill you up, are low in calories and give you better health and energy. My only food “rule” that applies to everyone.

Understanding how YOU want to be eating in an ideal world and working towards that in small, incremental, doable steps. DOABLE steps that you can sustain… say it with me… forever.

Finding REAL LIFE solutions for how to live a different, yes, Lifestyle. You still need to cook for your family. You’ll still be invited to other people’s house. You will still go on trips and get sick and have stress and you need to have a doable plan for each one of those.

Not trying to do it alone. Get help and support. It makes a world of difference. (And NOT the kind of “support” that enables your continued undesired behaviors!)

Being in it forever. There is no finish line. You have to make permanent changes even after you lose your weight. (You actually have to eat LESS in maintenance to tell you the truth, not more!)

There is a lot more individual stuff for different folks, like Limiting Beliefs or Self-Sabotage that trip people up. Or dealing with addictions and emotional eating issues. Or sometimes bringing balance to a life that is heavily skewed to anyone direction (too much working, too little working, not enough self-care, not enough quiet time…)

And really that’s why diets don’t work. Because it’s about SO much more than just the food. One size definitely does not fit all!

Filed Under: coaching exercises, health coach, Rants, weight loss Tagged With: Dieting vs Lifestyle, Obesity, Overweight, Success, weight loss

Why Your Mind is More Important than your Scale

August 8, 2011 by Emily Segal Leave a Comment

“Make it so that today is not like yesterday, and tomorrow will be different forever.” – Tony Robbins

Last week I stumbled upon an online video interview of Tony Robbins by Frank Kern and John Reese. If you don’t know who any of these people are, Tony Robbins is a motivational coach and speaker (and the man I credit with starting my own personal transformation). Frank Kern and John Reese are very successful internet marketers.

Frank and John came to Tony with a problem. As they have learned to make oodles of money on the internet, Frank and John have packaged it all into information products that can teach any average Joe/Joanne to do the same. They feel strongly that they give out every step, in precise order, and that all their clients need to do is implement.

But they don’t. Implement.

And then these clients start making excuses about why it won’t work for them. “You guys are richer. You don’t have kids to support. You’re better looking. You have charisma. I can’t do it because, X, Y, Z, 1, 2, 3.” And some clients even get MAD at Frank and John, complaining that it is THEIR fault that they are not getting the promised results.

Ahem.

So, Frank and John come to Tony to ask “What is it in Human Nature that makes so many people unable to implement change? And what can we do about it?”

Now, I highly suggest you take 38 minutes and watch the interview HERE. It is SO content-rich, I am sure I can’t do it justice, but I will try. (Just go watch it).

Basically Tony’s answer is this:

We all have potential to achieve. But what we believe about our potential is what will drive the kind of action we take. This level of action we take, causes the kind of results we get. And finally, the results we get confirm the beliefs we have about our potential. And around and around we go.

Example from my field: Jane comes to me because she wants to lose weight. She has already tried a million ways (some crazy and totally unsustainable things – Cabbage Soup Diet, No Carbs, Fasts and Supplements…) and she is quite skeptical than she can really succeed. And if she doesn’t succeed, well, she has already lived with this body for years and although she doesn’t love it, whatever, it’s livable.

With this mindset, what kind of action do you think Jane will take? Will she take massive forward momentum or will she take some tentative, skeptical steps?

Right. And when those tentative skeptical steps lead to luke-warm results, is Jane going to say “I can do better than that!” OR will she say “See, I told you I don’t lose weight. It’s my metabolism. It’s my genes. It’s my thyroid. It’s my family who always want to eat junk food…”

And NOW what does Jane believe? Did she just strengthen her belief in her ability to succeed or did her perceived potential spiral even lower?

This is the negative spiral most people are trapped in. Low belief leads to small actions (or big actions but soaked in the spirit of defeat) which leads to luke-warm results, which confirm low beliefs.

Yuck!

Now let’s imagine it the other way: Sue has had the same experiences as Jane, but she decides “The Buck Stops Here!” and adopts the attitude “I will do whatever it takes to succeed at this, for as long as it takes. And no matter what the obstacles, this time I succeed.”

Wow, what kind action will Sue take?! What kind of results will Sue get? When she hits a bump in the road will Sue crumble and retreat, or will she re-double her efforts and push on? What will her amazing results teach her about herself? Yeah, “I can do whatever I set my mind to.” and she will certainly go on to set her mind to something even higher and greater!

So, how does one escape the circle of mediocrity and failure?

You tone your mind, Baby! You got to see it to achieve it!

What if you CAN’T see it though? Then get around people who CAN. Find the people who have done what you want to do and study them. Get inspired by their results. We humans have a deep “if she can do it so can I” gene so put it to work for you!

If all your friends and family sit around eating junk food and not exercising all day, then find some new folks to hang out with. The internet is full of them. So is the library. So is the gym and the tennis courts and the track. I listed my personal resources HERE.

After you get yourself fired up a bit, spend time conditioning your thoughts and your beliefs every. single. day. Vishen Lakhiani calls this “Bliss-ipline”. See yourself succeeding over and over again. Then reinforce that vision with daily steps you take towards your goal. Condition your body with exercise. Condition your mind with positive thoughts and meditation, or art or journaling or whatever floats your boat.

Keep at it and build up those mental muscles of certainty and potential. Tony says the Holy Grail of Success is Certainty and that even if you don’t currently have it, you can acquire it.

You either have results, or you have excuses.

Disappointment can derail you or it can drive you forward.

Athletes use mental training to improve performance and so can you.

It’s not practice makes perfect, but Perfect Practice makes Perfect.

Thank you Tony!

Filed Under: coaching exercises, health coach, Inspiration, Positive Thinking, Recommendations, weight loss Tagged With: Achievement, Dieting vs Lifestyle, Goals, Obesity, Overweight, Self-Improvement, weight loss

Tempting and Tasty Taco Salad

May 19, 2011 by Emily Segal Leave a Comment

Today on Twitter a few of us were having a discussion about whether or not healthy eating is boring and depriving. In 140 character bursts, I felt frustrated that I was unable to convey my true feelings and mission in the world. As I listened to the age-old complaints of ”it’s too hard, too boring, too restricting, junk food is tastier…” I remembered my own similar feelings on this issue until Diabetes changed my mind FOR me.

Here’s the deal: Ten years ago, when I decided to lose the weight, get in shape and learn to eat healthier food, I knew that traditional dieting was not the way to go. I had done that and always gained it all back. So I asked myself why that was? What was it that made diets unsustainable for me and for the other 97% of dieters who also fail?

Three words: Deprivation. Hunger. Boredom.

So I pledged that my new approach would obliterate those 3 problems. My weight loss/get healthy & fit approach would involve NO Deprivation. I would not allow myself to suffer through Hunger. And the food I would eat, would be the opposite of Boring.

Mission Accomplished.

Taco Salad

Lettuce, shredded

Guacamole (I just mashed avocado with chopped tomatoes, cilantro and lemon)

Baked Tortilla Chips

Super Veggie Lentil Taco “Meat” (recipe adapted from www.ordinaryvegetarian.com)

1 cup brown lentils, rinsed

1 onion, minced

1 jalapeno or other spicy green pepper, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 large carrot, chopped fine

2 stalks celery, chopped fine

1 1/2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp oregano

2 cups vegetable broth

salt and pepper to taste

1 tsp oil for sauteeing, or you can water saute to cut the fat lower

Saute onion for 3 minutes. Add remaining veggies and saute 5 minutes until soft. Add spices and lentils and give it all a stir. Add broth, bring to a boil, lower heat, cover and simmer for 30-40 minutes until all water is absorbed and lentils are cooked. Don’t let it burn, but don’t add too much water either. You want a dry texture here. Put mixture into food processor and just pulse a couple of times. Do NOT puree! Again, we want to keep a dry, meaty texture.

Serve veggie “meat” on top of lettuce and guacamole with chips.

Friends, you CAN have it all: Glowing Good Health AND delicious, exciting, satisfying food that leaves you looking and feeling GREAT!

(And that was under 14o characters after all.)

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Filed Under: beans, health coach, Inspiration, Picky Eaters, Rants, Recipes, vegan, weight loss, What Was For Dinner Tonight Tagged With: Dieting vs Lifestyle, Getting Kids to Eat Healthy, Obesity, Vegan Recipes, weight loss

Motivation by Lentil Loaf

March 8, 2011 by Emily Segal 8 Comments

If you are on my mailing list, you already know that last night I sent out a newsletter that contained some very personal and painful details of my own health history. I sat on that email for three days, hand hovering alternately over the “send” and “delete” buttons.

In the end, what pushed me to “send” was a conversation I had with someone about the death at age 29 of Blair River, weight 575 lbs, spokesperson for the Arizona restaurant The Heart Attack Grill. Yes, that is the name of a real restaurant and you can read about it HERE. The conversation went along the lines of “well, I could get hit by a bus and die tomorrow, so I’m going to at least enjoy my life while I can.” And by “enjoy my life” this person meant:

Eat whatever I want and not exercise.

Boy, that rattled my cage. So my newsletter was an impassioned response to that. It basically pointed out that being overweight and out-of-shape and “eating whatever I want” was the worst sort of existence I have ever experienced and I detailed all the gory points of it.

It garnered a lot of responses. Many folks wrote expressing love and admiration. Some told me it inspired them and got them thinking. One person said she hates me and I should never email her again (not kidding). Another unsubscribed from my mailing list.

But a few wrote variations of the following (not a direct quote from any one person): Emily, it is understandable that because you were suffering so much, it was a no-brainer for you to want to change your life. But really I am just a little overweight or not overweight at all, and it doesn’t bother me so much. My cholesterol is just a little high. My blood sugar has risen steadily each year, but it’s still OK. I am not so uncomfortable and therefore, just can’t find the motivation to do anything about it.

Yes, I understand that. But here’s the thing. I didn’t realize how much of the suffering I had back then had anything to do with my weight or my eating habits either. I knew I was obese, but had no idea my wild mood swings, cracked heels, or chronic heartburn had anything to do with what I was eating.

Only when I started eating better and exercising did I look back and say “Wow! I had no idea how GREAT I could feel!”

So, maybe it is a leap of faith for you now, but let me tell you, how you will feel on healthy food and regular exercise is FRICKIN FRACKEN ROCK THE CASBAH AWESOME! All those little aches and pains and random annoying things you are just kind of living with will go away. If you have done my 30-day detox, you will know how different just 30 days can make (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for??)

So yeah, know what? You can feel that good

All. The. Time.

OK, now go make some lentil loaf. Because it is delicious and astonishingly healthy and will help you get to Awesome.

PS: If you are not yet on my mailing list and would like to see what all the hub-bub is about, then go HERE and fill in the form for the free starter kit. You get put on the newsletter mailing list that way and yes, obviously you can unsubscribe when I offend you.

The following recipe is from ohsheglows with minor modifications.

Lentil Walnut Loaf

Ingredients:

1 cup dry lentils
3 cups vegetable stock or water
3 TBS ground flax seed
1/2 cup warm water
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, grated
1/3 of an apple, peeled, grated (makes 1/3 cup grated apple)
1/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup toasted walnuts, roughly chopped
1 tsp kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 cup regular oats, ground into a flour in the food processor
1 tbsp ground flax seed
3 slices of toasted whole wheat or spelt bread, ground into breadcrumbs (3/4 cup total)

Sweet Glaze

2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp apple sauce

Directions:

Cook lentils: In a medium sized pot, add the lentils and 3 cups of water or stock. Bring to boil, and reduce heat to low and simmer until liquid is absorbed and lentils are tender (about 40 minutes). Once the lentils are cooked, remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 160C and line a loaf pan with parchment so that parchment paper hangs over the edges by 2 inches.

Walnuts: Toast 3/4 cup of walnuts at 160C for about 6 minutes and then set aside to cool.

Flax egg: Mix 3 tbsp of ground flax with 1/2 cup warm water and stir well. Set aside for at least 5-10 minutes so it can gel up.

Prepare vegetable mixture: In a large skillet over medium heat, sauté onion and minced garlic for about 5 minutes on low-medium heat, being careful not to burn. After the onions are tender, add carrot and sauté for 2-3 minutes over low heat. Add grated apple, raisins, and chopped walnuts and sauté another minute or two. Add thyme, salt, and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and set aside.

Process 75% of lentils and Mix everything together: Once the lentils are cooled, take 75% of the lentils and place into food processor. Process until mostly smooth. Plop processed lentils and whole lentils into a large bowl. Add the breadcrumbs, flax egg, veggie mixture, oat flour, and ground flax seed. Stir well with a spoon and then remove the spoon and mix well with your hands, pressing it through your fingers. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Dump the mixture into your loaf pan and spread out with a spoon. Press it firmly and evenly into the pan.

Preparing Glaze: In small bowl combine all glaze ingredients. Spread evenly over loaf and bake, uncovered 45 minutes at 160C.

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Filed Under: beans, health coach, Inspiration, Rants, Recipes, vegan, What Was For Dinner Tonight Tagged With: Dieting vs Lifestyle, Medical Help, Obesity, Overweight, Self-Improvement, Vegan Recipes, weight loss

Go Shopping!

February 28, 2011 by Emily Segal 3 Comments

Firstly, a lot of you have been asking me where the food posts have disappeared to. Apparently, you are only here for the food.

Which is fine, really. And I promise I will get back to it. Honestly, although I cook for my family almost all our meals, I have sort of been unorganized about it lately. Just kind of winging it depending on whatever we have and not using recipes that I could share here.

BUT, I have been scribbling down lots of internet recipe finds and ideas and today made the most delicious EVER brownies. No really, these are better than any others I have previously posted. I will get those up here soon. And more food posts too.

But in the meantime, I promised to write about clothing, appearance and what it has to do with weight loss success:

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes. ~Henry David Thoreau

Gotta love Thoreau, a tree-hugging vegetarian right up there with the best. But with the above statement, I must disagree.

Show of hands: How many people here don’t buy new clothes because you are waiting until you lose some weight? How many of you promise yourself a facial or hair cut/color as a reward ONLY if you lose some weight?

How many of you have been waiting to lose some weight for several years and have therefore not bought any new clothes, gotten a nice haircut, facial, pedicure, hair color etc, in all those years?

If you are anything like myself or the majority of my clients, there are a lot of hands in the air right now. And a lot of frumpy-dressed, dull-skinned, less than sparkly people waiting for their lives to “begin”.

If you raised your hand, I am ORDERING YOU to go to the store and buy something nice for yourself. You know why? Because you’ve got the whole thing backwards!

Allow me share my story as an example:

When I was overweight, I too told myself I was not going to buy any pretty new clothes until I lost weight. Whenever I did have to buy something for a special event or something, I made myself shop in the crappy shops and buy ugly cheap clothes because “they were just temporary anyway”.

Well, that “temporary” lasted about 15 years! When I now look back at that time and how I wasted so many years feeling ugly and wearing clothes that just confirmed these feelings of ugliness and unworth… wow, sure seems like a lot of wasted years to me!

And obviously NOT a motivator as I never did lose the weight with the promise/threat of better clothes hanging over my head.

One fine day I decided to go shopping and buy at least two outfits that looked really good on me.

The next day I got up, dressed in my new clothes and smiled at what I saw when I looked in the mirror for the first time in all those years.

That day was December 28, 2001, the day the course of my life changed forever. I didn’t binge that day for the first time in years. I was able to stay on a plan and eat my 1800 calories for the first time in a very long time. I walked in place during the commercials on my evening tv programs (that was ALL I could do!). Those sound like small achievments, but coming from where I was, it was nothing short of a miracle!

And as my story goes, one year later, I had lost 50 lbs. Two years later, 20 lbs more.

Did the weight loss success that started that day have anything to do with buying myself some nice clothes? I am not sure, but I think probably so. I think it gave me HOPE and a sense of possibility. It made me remember that I’m a person, a woman, and a perfectly acceptable and deserving one at that.

You know, it’s hard to make changes in your life when you can’t even hold your head up high.

Permanent weight loss, at it’s very core, is a process of learning to love and care for yourself. When you really love yourself, you don’t want to put junk food in your body. When you are really respectful of yourself, you will want to exercise. When you can fully accept yourself as you are right now, fat belly and all, you can finally act in your own best interests.

But doesn’t punishing ourselves motivate us to change? Doesn’t being disgusted with how we look, light a fire under our butts?

Well, does it? Has it? Is it working for you?

If yes, then rock on with the self-disgust and self-hatred and please don’t call me for help (you are doing fine on your own).

But if you are stuck trying to lose the same weight and wearing the same saggy, baggy hole-y underpants, get thee to Lane Bryant (or whatever it’s Israeli equivalent is) and dress yourself like you are worth it.

Because you are.

Filed Under: Goals, health coach, Inspiration, Love, Positive Thinking, weight loss Tagged With: Achievement, Beauty Tips, Obesity, Self-Improvement, weight loss

Should your doctor tell you you’re fat?

December 14, 2010 by Emily Segal 3 Comments

In a recent study by STOP (Strategies to Overcome and Prevent) Obesity Alliance, regarding doctors and weight loss, it was revealed that:

-Almost 90% of doctors feel it’s their responsibility to help patients lose weight.

-Yet 72% said that no one in their practice has been trained to deal with obesity and weight-related issues.

When surveying patients, including many who were obese (defined as body mass index of 30 or more), they found that:

-Only 39 percent of obese adults were EVER TOLD by their doctor that they were obese.

-Of those 39 percent, one in three said they weren’t given any guidance on how to actually lose weight.

The report cites “clinical inertia” as the reason beneath the disconnect here and suggests doctors suffer from the following:

-stigmatizing attitudes toward the obese,
-a lack of confidence in their ability to treat obesity, and
-poor reimbursement for addressing obesity and weight conditions.

My personal experience: I used to weigh 220lbs. I had diabetes. I was in my 30′s. No doctor EVER said a single word to me about losing weight! It was like the giant pink elephant in the room. Only when I ASKED for help with my weight was I given either a referral to a dietitian or a weight loss DRUG. No help with food, with lifestyle, with exercise, nada.

As the study above showed, doctors have pretty good reasons for their silence. Doctors are healers and they are great at healing disease. But here we have Obesity, an entirely reversible condition that causes disease and poor quality life. This is Prevention and we can’t rely on our doctors to help us with this one.

I got a call the other day from someone who had gotten my name from a nurse in the hospital where her husband was being treated for a heart attack. The nurse told her that I could help her husband. I explained how I could teach them about healthier foods and how to incorporate them into their life along with a healthy exercise routine. She said “Oh no. My husband won’t do any of that! Can’t you just give him a Pill?” Cripes! Her husband just had a heart attack and was still not motivated to make changes to his lifestyle?

So, it’s not just the doctor’s fault is it? How many of us are just wishing for the magic pill to take our overweight away? How many of us would become angry with our doctors if they started to teach us about healthy food and exercise?

What do you guys think?

Filed Under: health coach, weight loss Tagged With: Medical Help, Obesity, Overweight

10,000 Hours

August 24, 2010 by Emily Segal 3 Comments

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell explains that the most successful people in any field, get to the pinnacle due to many factors, one of which is that they have put in 10,000 hours of practice.

We often don’t SEE the hours of practice the person has put in though because we don’t meet them until they have already arrived at the top. We see the celebrities on the red carpet but don’t see them working for hours with in the gym and saying “no” over and over to sweets. We see athletes compete at the top of their game and conveniently forget the years of training that got them there. We look at the CEO of a company with envy and think she/he was just born lucky or ambitious and don’t give a second thought to the many hours she/he spent in obscurity toiling away at ground level.

Likewise, if you want to be the kind of person who has a normal weight, enjoys physical fitness, and eats healthy food, you have got to practice it over and over again. You don’t just wish to be that person and hope it accidentally happens. You have to actually do it.

Every day that you start the day with exercise or go to the gym, you are practicing your new desired habits. Every day that you come up with excuses about why you cannot do those things, you are practicing the old undesired habits.

Every shopping trip you make for healthy food and every meal you take the time to cook with lots of veggies and healthy stuff, and every time you decide to NOT eat your feelings or binge, you are practicing your new desired habits. Every time you eat junk food or stuff your feelings down with food or buy crap “for the kids” wink, wink, you are practicing the old undesired habits.

Every night when you get to bed at a decent hour you are practicing the new desired habit. Every night when you stay up too late watching TV or surfing the net, you are practicing the old undesired habit.

You get the point.

One of my mentors on this journey had a slogan that went: Every Step. Every Rep. Every Meal. Every Mile. Every Day. I ADORE that and use it often as my mantra.

That’s all it is, practice and repetition. You can practice the old ways or you can practice the new ways, your choice. And according to Malcolm Gladwell, when you have put in 10,000 hours of practice on a certain skill, you will be a Master.

In this Nike commercial, Michael Jordan talks about how maybe he makes it look easy, but the fans don’t see the hours of practice he has spent honing his skills:

… “Maybe I led you to believe it was easy when it wasn’t. Maybe I made you think my highlights started at the free throw line, and not in the gym. Maybe I made you think that every shot I took was a game winner. That my game was built on flash, and not fire. Maybe it’s my fault that that you didn’t see that failure gave me strength; That my pain gave me motivation. Maybe I led you to believe that basketball was a G-d given gift, and not something I worked for… every single day of my life…”– Michael Jordan

What are YOU working for? Just know that there is no way to master it unless you practice it.

love,
em