Category Archives: Food

FOOD FIGHTS

Do you think your weight effects your relationship with your spouse? I do. In fact, when interviewing patients that are interested in the Skinny Coach Solution one of the questions I always ask is, “How has your weight effected your relationship with your husband?” Inevitable, the women I speak with say some version of “Ohh my husband is great he loves me no matter what.” However, upon pressing the truth of the matter is reveled – what you eat does effect your relationship. Why? Not because your spouse is superficial and only loves you based on your body size but because if you are not in control of what you eat, if you are not comfortable in your skin and if you are unhealthy food you are not only fat, but you are sick, tired, disappointed and moody.

Psychologically it is devastating to not be able to control what you put in your mouth. Lying to yourself and letting yourself down every day can be very emotionally traumatic – , “Today I will eat better,” “Today I won’t have any candy,” “Monday I will start fresh.” and once again you don’t eat better, you do have the candy bar and years of Mondays pass you by. This constant failure and disappointment effects how you feel about yourself and of course, how happy you are, how active you are, how alive you feel and how you treat those around you.

Physically, when we eat foods that are bad for us, like sugar and flour, our blood sugar levels become unstable which have a host of effects on our mood and behavior. In fact, new research has been conducted looking at the relationship between blood glucose levels and aggression in marriage and it was found that low glucose levels result in lack of self –control, irritable behavior and aggression toward their spouse.

Health is the number one reason to cut out the sugar and flour from your diet but it is not the only reason. What type of partner do you want to be for your spouse? What type of parent do you want to be to your child? They deserve the best you can be and so do you. If you need help please feel free to fill out the Sugar Addiction Quiz and schedule an appointment with me to see what we can do to break this cycle. With the right set of tools you can figure out how to lose weight and keep it off.

What are your behavioral cues or triggers?

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Losing weight is not about a diet or food plan. It certainly is not about an exercise plan. Losing weight is about changing your behavior. You have to design a life where weight loss is automatic. Changing your behavior is very difficult because you have associations, cues and triggers about food that are hard wired through repetition and reward pathways in the brain. If your unconscious eating habits are making you fat, sick and tired it is important to realize that the reason you can’t stay on a healthy eating plan is because you are not conscious of your underlying patterns. Therefore, while there are a number of ways to effectively help people change these patterns you first have to recognize them so then you can “reprogram” your behavior. Environmental triggers are by far the most common type of trigger. Seeing a bag of chips, chocolate chip cookie or the ice cream in the freezer is an obvious environmental cue to eat, eat more, eat too much. Shifting the unconscious choice is as simple as removing the trigger. Of course, first you have to have motivation to change, but assuming that is there – remove the ice cream and you have behavioral design! You have removed the trigger so you don’t eat it. Over time the association to even eat ice cream at home or at all begins to dissipate because you have not rewarded the association – thus you have behavioral change. Systematically identifying, removing and replacing your emotional and behavior association with food is a multi step proposition and usually requires help. I can help – schedule a time to discuss, id and narrow down your emotional eating patterns. There are lots of behavioral cues you have to deal with and I know them all. Let me help

I would really appreciate your comments below. Ask me any diet related question or let me know what you would like to know more about.

If you read this article and could forward it to a friend you could really help them out.
Most importantly, if you are struggling and need help all you have to do is email me at tiffany@skinnycoach.com and I’ll set up a complementary session with you to pinpoint your triggers and help you with ways to deal with them. You don’t have to struggle with your weight and health. I can help you.

Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

Please add me to your Facebook friends and I will send you the list of the 100 names of sugar and 1 tip to lose that belly fat. www.facebook.com/skinnycoach.

I lost 20 pounds! on the Skinny Coach Program

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1. My recent 20lb weight loss over the last month has been great especially when I can see a very real change in how my clothes fit, markedly decreased swelling in my feet and ankles, and much lower blood pressure.

2. My food bill is much less now while cooking at home compared to eating in restaurants and drive-thrus all the time.

3. By avoiding flour and sugar completely, and pre planning my meals I have had no serious cravings, no suffering/deprivation/ white-knuckling.

Take advantage of an hour with Dr. Wright, the Skinny Coach, talking about YOUR weight story and underlying psychological issues. Schedule your appointment here!

Schedule a complementary Get Skinny Strategy Session:
http://skinnycoach.com/schedule

Is your child a dog?

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Don’t reward yourself with food – you are not a dog!

Turns out that when you reward your children with food it can trigger emotional eating when they grow up – DUH!

While most parents try to keep their children from eating bad foods they also often reward good behavior or ease pain with these exact foods and it has been shown concretely from research at both Loughborough and Birmingham universities that children were much more likely to emotionally eat later in their lives if their parents used food as a reward or to ease pain.

If you are an emotional eater can you remember instances in your childhood where your parents rewarded a good grade with a special dessert, or perhaps went for ice cream after a win in sports, how about a lollipop after a penicillin shot at the doctors (remember those?), the dentist even gave us candy after filling a cavity! I can think of many ways in which I was given food to placate or deal with bad AND good events and emotions so according to this research I am not surprised I am addicted to food.

The good news is perhaps we can do better for our children now that we know. Think of other ways to celebrate and comfort your children now before the moment happens so that you are equipped.

Now what about you? Is it too late? No, of course not, you can establish new connections, new patterns and change your relationship with food. Unfortunately, because emotional eating is so rooted and cemented in the neural connections of the brain it is nearly impossible to change on your own because you only have the brain you have – the one that currently makes those connections. ReWiring the brain to make new associations and habits, those of a healthy, skinny person requires someone to teach you these new ways of thinking – just like they were taught when you were young – by your parents – the Skinny Coach can teach you how to be skinny. It takes time, it takes dedication but it is doable, you just need to know how. Start by taking the Sugar Addiction Quiz and schedule a talk with the Skinny Coach and surrender to a little help.

Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

How Rachael Handled the Bake Sale

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I am feeling exceptionally good this morning and feel like writing, a month into maintenance after dropping a cool 51 lbs this year. It is the day after the big AYSO Picnic in the Park event with which I was very involved this year – soccer tournament and kids carnival – long hours in the sun, lots of physical activity, kids running wild, you get the picture.

On this day, day 198 on plan, it was there I found myself pushing my hand-truck of boxes past sponsor booths, games booths and the dreaded FOOD booth, breathing the savory aroma of fresh pizza, subway sandwiches, chips and chilled juice boxes. Not one other bite, I repeated to myself, you’ve eaten all this before and really, where did it get you?

Next up, the catering booths – tacos, bacon wrapped hot dogs, I don’t know what else but again, armed with my mantra, I turned aside, hell-bent on my mission to get to the end of the field with NOT ONE OTHER BITE.

And just as I rounded the last row, I peeked to my right and there I saw it, a booth so crowded it’s 6 foot tables were completely obscured by kids and parents jockeying for position, thrusting their tickets at the volunteers with requests I could barely make out over the noise. Slowly I glanced up at the banner hanging from the easy-up canopy and like a lighthouse beacon calling out to a lost ship I saw it …. BAKE SALE!…BAKE SALE!….BAKE SALE!

Slowly and with great caution I approached the far side of the booth, for I had to pass this way in order to deliver my crates of supplies. Eyes forward, I stole a glance at the plates and platters piled high with… with….well, I won’t torture you longer with my ranting and raving. Suffice it to say, if it went in an oven and had frosting – it was on that table!

BUT, relying on what I learned from my 10 months of training with Tiffany (and the fact that without tickets, you could not buy food and I purposely left all my money in my car so as to make it terribly inconvenience to buy tickets), head held high, teeth gritted against the onslaught of “treats for sale, help raise money to help your kids!” I soldiered onwards, sailing past the Bake Sale booth and down to the field of carnival games and team photos, safe in the knowledge that having passed this way the first time without incident, it would be that much easier for the remainder of the day to continue to do so.

And it was.

By the end of a 13 hour day, having eaten my own packed lunch of 4 oz turkey burger patty, half avocado, cup of carrots and tomatoes and 10 mary gone’s, I can say, with only slight hesitation (as we know, this journey is an ongoing one) I GET IT.

Thanks! Rachael

War, famine – fast food! which is worse?

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203 million people died in the last century from war and oppression – including military and collateral civilian casualties from conflicts, genocide, mass murders, and famines. But the junk food habit kills more. The junk food habit is killing 40% more people than wars, famine, dictators, murderers, and politicians put-together.
God knows it taste great – in fact the manufacture it so that it taste so great you can’t stop… but are you willing to let you life be driven by a drug? Yes, food is a drug, it alters your brain chemistry and provides a high that can not be attained in a natural or normal way. Causing a desire, obviously, to want more because normal life and food is no longer pleasurable enough. Just like any drug, abstinence is the answer because if you could moderate you would have done it by now… You wouldn’t be 40 pounds overweigh, you would not have high cholesterol, you wouldn’t be in XL clothes. This is not what you want yet you can’t stop. Let me help you. Schedule an appointment with me and we can work it out.
Email me or give me a call (310) 633-1333.

I would really appreciate your comments below. Ask me any diet related question or let me know what you would like to know more about.

 Take the Skinny Coach quiz and the
Skinny Coach will call you with the results.

Please add me to your Facebook friends and I will send you the list of the 100 names of sugar and 1 tip to lose that belly fat. www.facebook.com/skinnycoach.

Why Crash Diets Do Not Work (Not Keto- Not Juice Cleanse – Not Starvation)

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Crash – and burn. All crash diets have the same result, eventually you crash and burn. Once you go back to the sugar, the flour and the overeating you will gain the weight back, and statistically, you are more likely to gain more than you lost and adding some.

Obviously people do these diets because they have quick results, and also because restrictive diets tend to be easier to follow. You know the rules and it is very clear what you can eat and what you cannot. The restrictiveness makes following the plan very easy in the short term and with the reward of fast weight loss- it is not wonder people keep falling for these get thin quick fixes.

Why do you gain the weight back and why do these diets only work in the short run? After some time, usually 10 days or so, sometimes longer, the lack of nutrients, vitamins and minerals that you need for the body to function causes your body to resist these types of diets. Your body adjusts to the changes and because it is missing so many key ingredients for a healthy functioning mind and body, your system goes on lock down and will store anything and everything it can in order to preserve itself. This of course slows down your metabolism and causes weight gain.

THE WORST PART and what most people don’t know or think about is when you lose weight you are losing both fat and muscle. The faster you lose- the more muscle you lose BUT, and this is so important, when you gain it back – which you will, you will gain back only fat. Therefore, even if you were the exact same weight as before you started, your body will have a much higher body fat index. You will be squishier, less strong and your clothes will not fit as well as they did before.

Think about this – would you rather lose weight fast even if it means losing wonderful, strong, beautiful muscle? Even if it means you lose pounds but not many inches, because fat takes up so much more space than muscle? I can’t imagine if anyone could see what diets like Keto do to the composition of your body, the strength of your body and the texture of your body that they would ever embark on these diets – it is ugly, unhealthy and unfortunately the muscle is lost forever.

If you are over 30 years old, you have to know that crash diets, like anything fast and easy, don’t work. I know the desperation involved in wanting and desperately longing to lose weight, but these crash diets are not the answer.

The Skinny Coach Program is healthy and simple and includes a change in the neural structures in your brain that make it EASY. You can fix this with so little effort, simply take the sugar and addiction quiz and schedule a call with me. I do these calls at no cost because I believe everyone should know what true healthy options are out there that will help you out of this vicious weight cycle.

12 Ways to Actually Lose Weight

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By Kelly Lynch of WorldLifestyle in Health+Fitness

Dr. Tiffany Wright, Ph.D studies the link between behavior and weight loss, focusing on compulsive overeating. She created the Skinny Coach solution, based on scientific facts about the body and the chemistry of food.

Having lost 100 pounds herself, Dr. Wright’s method involves coaching her clients through personality motivation and behavioral modification. Here, she shares some tips that cut through the excuses we often give after failing to lose weight.

1. Remove the sugar and flour! Eating too much sugar and flour over time causes our cells to become insulin resistant. When your brain cells become insulin resistant you can lose your memory, become disoriented and can cause protein plaque that is linked to Alzheimers. You have had enough sugar and flour for the rest of your life. It is time to get our mind and bodies fit and healthy and there is no place for refined foods in a healthy body.

2. Switch from flavored yogurt to plain, whole fat yogurt. Most fat-free yogurts contain extra sugar to make up for the lack of taste in the nonfat versions. Cook some frozen berries until they are warm and gooey then mix that into your yogurt and add some cinnamon for a tasty treat.

3. Don’t feed your addiction. Sugar is highly addictive and for some one bite is never enough, so if you cannot moderate then you have to go cold turkey. Look on the ingredients list for any type of added sugar and if it is there, leave that food on the shelf. Make sure you eat enough protein, fruits, veggies and whole grains like rice, potatoes, and beans so that your blood sugars stabilize.

4. In order to lose weight permanently, you have to learn dieting skills and practice them every day, and with time dieting will become easier and easier. For instance, if you normally say, “I’ve worked really hard today, I deserve to eat,” which drives you to eat, instead practice saying “I’ve worked hard today, I deserve to relax with a walk or manicure.” You have to replace long established patterns and associations with productive patterns and associations and then practice them every day until they are set.

5. When you are feeling like “one bite does not matter,” remember that every healthy dieting choice you have ever made was sabotaged by one bite. One bite does matter. Think: “If I eat this, I will strengthen the habit of failure and unhealthy eating, which will make it more likely that I given in next time.” Think: “One bite does matter, I am not going to eat this because it is not good for me and I don’t eat what is bad for me.”

6. Regular weighing is critical. People that monitor their weight regularly lose more weight and keep at a steady weight. Weigh yourself once a week and if you gain more than 3 pounds, buckle down and get back to your normal weight before it is out of hand.

7. I know you heard this a million times – eat breakfast! But more importantly, eat protein at breakfast. Eating protein increases muscle mass, which increases your resting metabolic rate. Protein at every meal also stabilizes your blood sugar which keeps cravings and energy dips at bay. Try a Skinny Girl Smoothie: 1 cup of plain Greek yogurt, 1 cup of frozen fruit, and 1/2 cup of liquid egg whites blended in a magic bullet.

8. Boring is okay. People often worry if they are eating the same thing all the time that they will be bored and that will make them cheat. In reality, research has discovered that people who eat the same things regularly consume significantly less calories. If you want to vary your menu, by all means you should. However, do not worry if you like the same Skinny Taco Salad every day for lunch. Skinny Taco Salad: 4 ounces ground beef cooked with chili power, garlic, and cumin served with 1/2 cup of garlic black beans, 1/2 cup of brown rice, 1 cup of fresh salsa, and 1/2 avocado on a bed of shredded lettuce.

9. Flour is worse than sugar. 2 slices of WHOLE WHEAT bread increases your blood sugar levels more than table sugar. If you have ever tried to give up sugar and still had cravings, withdrawal, and lack of weight loss, it is because you are still eating flour. ANY flour is processed and as such is immediately converted into glucose, which causes a cascade of negative health and weight consequences, including premature aging, obesity, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. If the ingredients have any type of sugar or flour listed – leave it out.

10. Plan your menu for tomorrow, commit what you are going to eat, and then stick to it. Menu planning and accountability dramatically increase your chances of eating what you want rather than giving in to temptation at the moment. When you wake up, if you already know what you are eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you are less likely to get into a dialog in your head about what to eat or not eat. Plan, commit and just eat it – no matter what, and you will be Skinny Forever.

11. Remember being a little hungry is okay. Being hungry is uncomfortable, but remember that when you overeat, that is uncomfortable, too. Both feelings are uncomfortable, but one gets you skinny and the other has made you overweight.

12. You cannot have everything you want and you know that in all areas of your life. But for some reason with food, people think that you should be able to eat anything you want or you will feel deprived and binge later. That is nonsense. If you were allergic to strawberries, you would not eat them. I am here to tell you if you are overweight then you are unable to eat whatever you want and be healthy, so you should not eat those foods that make you fat, sick, and tired. You can have a cupcake or you can have health, but you can’t have both. Which do you want today?

To learn more about Dr. Wright’s Skinny Coach solution, as well as her clients’ success stories, click here.

3 more Skinny Girl Recipes! YUMMY

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Skinny Girl Shrimp Stir Fry

1 cup brown rice
6 oz. shrimp
1/8 cup green onions, chopped
1 7/8 cup asparagus, cut, in 1″ pieces and halved cherry tomoatoes
(you decide the ration)
1 tsp. garlic
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (I like it spicy)

Skinny Girl Stuffing

2 T. olive oil
2 T. chopped onion
2 T. chopped celery
1 T. minced fresh parsley
2 C. cooked brown rice
1 1/2 t. minced fresh thyme
1 t. salt
1 t. finely minced fresh sage
1/4 t. celery seeds
1/4 t. pepper
1/8 t. nutmeg
Pinch of cloves
non-stick cooking spray

Preheat oven to 325, coat a 1 – quart flat baking dish with spray and set aside. In a med. saute pan over medium low, heat oil, then add onion, celery and parsley and saute until onion begins to color, about 4 minutes, stirring now and then. Add cooked rice, thyme, salt, sage, pepper, celery seeds, nutmeg and cloves and toss together until well mingled. Transfer the mixture to the prepared dish and bake for 30 minutes. Serve immediately.

Skinny Girl Confetti Chili

1 lb. of lean ground beef
1 c. dried black beans
1 c. dried kidney beans
1-14 oz. can of chopped canned tomatoes w/ juices

I presoak and cook my beans with a bay leaf, 2 cloves of garlic and 1 onion for flavor. I found that a quick way to cook the beans is to put them in the rice cooker with lots of water. It takes about an hour from dry to cooked. However, canned beans are perfectly fine too. I prefer the texture of the dry beans.

I chop my vegetables and put them in a large measuring cup. You want 8 cups of vegetables. The following coupled with the tomatoes gets you close. Another option is to serve it with a small side salad.

1 large onion chopped
2 med. carrots chopped
2 med. celery sticks chopped

Sweat the vegetables in one TBSP of olive oil or use nonstick cooking spray. Then add the meat and brown, breaking up the meat into small chunks. Then add the spices to the meat.

2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1 TSP. of chili powder (Adjust this to your tastes, also Chipolte chili powder is particularly good if you like a slightly smokey flavor). Briefly bloom the spices in the meat juices and fat, then add beans, 2 cups of water and tomatoes. Adjust salt and pepper as needed.

Simmer for 30 minutes. During the last 5-10 minutes add 1 diced red bell pepper. It will keep more of it’s color and texture if you add it at the end of the cooking time.

ENJOY!

For more great tasty recipes-check out
www.SkinnyCoach.com/cookbook

My mom is in surgery

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I am sitting in the hospital and am amazed at the number of severely obese and overweight people. The surgery board is full of weight-related surgeries. I wonder what percent of surgeries are the consequence of people not being able to control what they put in their mouth? 100%? 90%? 10%? What do you think?

If you are over 45 years old, like I am, I am sure thoughts of health are becoming more relevant than issues of looks and vanity. The CDC says all overweight people compared to normal weight people are at an increase for “All causes of death.” ALL! Lets see – high blood pressure (meds until death), high cholesterol (meds until death), type 2 diabetes (meds until death), stroke (physical and mental disabilities until death), gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, cancer, low quality of life, mental illness and body pain.

The Skinny Coach Solution is not only a good, healthy diet that has been recommended by many medical doctors, it offers the psychological support and emotional support to change your patterns by changing your brain. It really doesn’t matter how many diets you have tried, you have not tried one like this because it does not exist.

If you commit to being skinny, healthy and in control, then I as your Skinny Coach will be here for you to help you along the way. Every day we work together to keep you on the right path mental and physically. Sign up for a complimentary consultation and we can talk about what is going on with you and why you have struggled before. Most importantly, I can tell you what you can do now to change your health forever.

For New Year’s Eve, What Size is Your Little Black Dress Going to Be?

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The season of eating has begun. From Halloween candy corn to New Year’s Eve egg nog, we will have Christmas and Hanukkah feasts and many parties in between – and that means weight gain. I have the solution at the end of this blog… Long term studies have shown that we gain a large proportion of our yearly weight gain over the holiday season, and more importantly that weight is NOT lost during the rest of the year. Magazine article, after blog entry, after nutritionist tip will tell you: 1) exercise more 2) drink less 3) eat less 4) try these low-calorie, low-fat (yucky) recipes 5) focus on socializing If anyone could follow these tips they would not be gaining weight over the holidays. If you gained weight last holiday season, if you gained weight during the 2014 holiday season, and the 2015 festivities… you probably can’t exercise more, drink less, eat less and focus on socializing – OR YOU WOULD HAVE. Last year during elementalyou the Get Skinny For the Holiday – a special group of 7 women started the SKINNY COACH SOLUTION DIET and together they lost over 100 pounds by the New Year (check them out). RIGHT NOW you can be part of the Get Skinny for the Holiday Group — How much will you lose by New Year’s Day?

Which Little Black Dress will you be wearing New Year’s Eve?

This holiday season don’t gain weight… AND don’t disappoint yourself with another broken New Year’s resolution, but actually get control over your eating and turn your belly fat into belly flat! Email me or give me a call (310) 633-1333 – space is limited only 3 Skinny Girl spots left.

Treats, treats and treats

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It’s October again! The leaves are falling and the winds are changing and the fields are ready to yield their abundance. Horror movies and spooky decorations pop up all over. Ghosts haunt suburban yards and zombies lurk at the mall.

But sufferers of food addiction, October is scary for a different reason. Huge bags of candy line the shelves of nearly every store and bowls of chocolates adorn the desks of receptionists everywhere. Sticky, marshmallow-y popcorn balls and gooey, chewy caramel apples suddenly appear, as if by magic. Super sugary pumpkin spice everything rises once again from the grave.

It always starts innocently enough. You buy a bag of candy for trick-or-treater. Maybe you have a piece or two when you bring it home from the store. Then a couple after work. Soon, the bag is empty and its not even October 26th. You buy more; this time you’re going to control yourself. But by Halloween, the candy is gone and you’re feeling ashamed. Or maybe, even more embarrassingly, you’ve stolen candy from your own children’s little plastic pumpkins. You thought, “Just one piece can’t hurt.” And before you know what’s happened, all the candy is gone. Then the guilt and shame take over.

You feel like a junkie; hiding your habit from your friends and loved ones. You know its bad for you. You know you need to quit, but you just keep going. You satisfy your carvings, but this only feeds the monster of addiction. That’s scarier than any horror movie.

Just like an alcoholic or a drug addict, you can’t control the way that sugar affects your brain. If you had a heroin habit, you wouldn’t be able to just have SOME heroin. Abuse over the course of your life has made moderation impossible. If you could have just one piece of candy, you would. But sugar has changed the way your brain works.

You feel powerless over food and can’t control what goes into your mouth. You read diet books and look for tips online but always end up binging again. Your behavior is making your life unmanageable. But just like with other addictions, you don’t have to go it alone! There is help. If you can’t stop eating junk, no matter how hard you try; if you can’t change your habits, even though you know it’s killing you, maybe it’s time to get professional help.

The Skinny Coach will help you break the cycle of food addiction. You will no longer be a slave to candy and sweets. You can change the way you interact with food. You can save your life!

As an incentive to start today, take the Sugar Quiz and set up your free consultation with Tiffany, the Skinny Coach. Be sure to ask about the special pre-Halloween offer.