Category Archives: Weight

I ate sugar and can’t stop

I’m back!! I’m a Skinny Girl once again!! I’ve been lost for a long time, trying to do this on my own terms. Guess what? It didn’t work!

I started Online Living With Skinny today. I feel anxious, but it’s a good anxiety, a sense of urgency to stay with it. I’ve been off track for a long time (two years, give or take). I’ve been eating on-plan, for the most part, but I’ve also been eating off plan in between. Tiffany helped me come to a revelation today, after our first phone call, and my mind is racing with an understanding of why I’m in this predicament: I didn’t forget how to be on plan, I just got into a different habit. I trained myself to be “on plan but not always,” to be “on plan but cheating.” I’ve got to remember what it means to just be “ON PLAN.” No discussion, no bargaining, no negotiating. Just be Skinny. I am Skinny.

But I’m also impatient. Another thing that got me here was an “immediate gratification” mentality. I want what I want when I want it — which, up until today, was garbage food, right now. Not always, not all day — but every day, in some way. Today, I’m feeling a different kind if impatience — I want what I HAD, and I want it NOW. I reached rock-bottom again — I haven’t been here in 6 years. I don’t like it here; I want to get out. So, Tiffany reminded me that, starting today, starting right now, I AM as SKINNY GIRL. I think like a Skinny Girl, I eat like a Skinny Girl — so, really, I do have back what I had! The clothes don’t fit the same (yet), and I don’t have the energy and confidence and contentment I had (yet), but I’m a Skinny Girl once again, and that’s the best place to start.

The end result will come in time, as a delicious by product of living the Skinny Girl life. I am a skinny girl today. And I will get to that place where the clothes fit and the confidence comes by being a skinny girl every day. I know it will get easier and better with every day I am a Skinny Girl. I’m excited and giddy and ready to put in the work to change these bad habits back to good.

Stay Skinny!
Angela

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

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?

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.

Get Skinny!
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

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

Can you believe she said no?

I was teaching a workshop recently and a woman there had sleep apnea, was 100 pounds overweight, was on medication for weight related issues, and has a daughter following her eating path and had been talking to a Skinny Girl for 3 years about being a Skinny Girl. In fact, they had been talking about weight issues for years before that. Even knowing four people in her community that are on the Skinny Coach Solution – she still could not bring herself to help herself. The insidious nature of this disease still surprises me today. The food addicts mind is a computer of rationalizations, guaranteed to fool even the most astute. This computerized mind holds several rationalizations for every kind of situation. The people serious about getting control over their eating behavior, the behavior that is LITERALLY killing them has to be able to recognize the rationalizations before it is too late. As food addicts, we have been using these mind games for years and they are an integral party of their personality.

“I’ll have just one”

“I’ll start tomorrow”

“What will people say if I give up sugar”

“It’s the only thing that makes me happy”

“The holidays are coming”

The most important part of the Skinny Coach Solution is to get rid of these rationalizations and the feelings that come with them. We are vigilant and consistent. This is why a diet alone does not work. Without these changes in thoughts and attitudes you will go back to the treadmill of your inevitable obesity related death. Your diet must include a mental remake. The Skinny Coach Solution does just that. I can help you. It is a lifetime program so you can’t fail unless you quit.

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.

Get Skinny!
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.

Can you travel and be skinny?

Insight into the mind of successful Skinny Coach program followers. Lots of people travel, it is part of life. I have traveled for 20 years following plan perfectly and so have many others. Before you travel you might think it is impossible but Shane details his traveling experience, which was not easy, and how he managed to stay perfectly on plan.

A trip to Disneyworld in Orlando had been planned for months. Driving there was our choice. 2 days would be the time to arrive at our destination, stopping in Pensacola on our first day.

I had started my new diet with my Skinny Coach just short of a month prior to our trip. I knew I needed to do some major league planning to stick to my plan. We decided to purchase a big Yeti cooler, which was an early Father’s Day present. That was the smartest thing we did for the trip.

A few days before leaving, I made several days of meals that included all of my foods in one meal (ground turkey, brown rice & black beans, tomatoes, onions, & carrots – sort of chili). Carrots, celery, apples, tuna in packets, precooked brown rice, plain Greek yogurt, cottage cheese & Mary Gone Crackers were all stocked up for the next few days. I knew that as long as I had the appropriate food available I would be fine.

The 2 days driving there was rather easy. I had even premade some pancakes for the 1st day breakfast, since I needed something easy to eat in the car that I didn’t need to heat up, like some scrambled eggs. Of course, my pancakes are only made of eggs, banana, & cinnamon, perfect part of my breakfast. Even with my wife & kids stopping for lunch at a deli, I stuck to my premade meal & had some unsweetened iced green tea, as they ate.

A hotel suite that included a kitchen (including stove, microwave, frig/freezer) was a priority for us while in Orlando. I found a grocery store & stocked up on plenty of appropriate foods for the 2nd phase of our trip & the road trip back home. I made some hamburgers & quinoa. This along with some cucumbers, carrots, & tomatoes filled out my meals. Some frozen blueberries added to yogurt completed my nighttime snacks. As I continued to think ahead, I was confident I would stay with my plan even with junk food at every turn of Disney. You could not hide your eyes from someone eating ice cream, drinking soda or an icee. After being on the plan for a month, I did not feel tempted by these fattening foods. The amount of foods in my meals on this plan have always kept me satisfied. I never skip meals because I know this may cause some undesirable cravings to appear.

One day at Disney, my wife & kids decided they wanted to stay late for the fireworks. We had previously chose the day after to stay late. I was not as prepared with food in my backpack for this occasion. For the next several hours as we walked around from ride to ride, I analyzed the restaurants in Disney to find something appropriate for my dinner. Luckily, I found a place that served some fajitas, black beans, & had a self-serve section with fresh pico de gallo. I loaded up 2 cups of the pico to satisfy my vegetables. This was the mostly stressful time on my vacation, but I endured. This taught me a lesson about planning for the unexpected.

Since I premade some meals, the road trip home was seamless. I ate mainly out of our cooler.

I looked at my experience of being around so much sugar & flour as a way to continually strengthen my nervous system away from
any pull toward sugar. I purposefully have been putting myself in situations where I am exposed to many possible food triggers. I knew I cannot live my life in a bubble.

Thanks,
Shane Howell

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

12 Ways to Actually Lose Weight

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.

9+ Reasons Why Being Overweight is a Nightmare

Being overweight is a nightmare. Let’s see…where to start:

• What can I wear today?
• Nothing fits
• Reading diet books
• Browsing diet articles
• Starting fads
• Quitting fads
• Cutting out carbs
• Cutting out sweets
• Not being able to move the way you like
• Being a bad example to your kids
• Avoiding bathing suits

Just worrying about it all the time – the mental energy can be overwhelming and very time consuming. One of the most difficult parts of dealing with long-term weight issues is feeling like nothing is going to work because nothing has. The thing to remember is nothing has worked yet.

If it was possible to read a book and follow a diet and lose weight permanently, then two-thirds of Americans would not be overweight. It is critical to re-wire the thinking process. You have to LEARN how to be a thin person. Now, think about that. If you had a brain that could stay on a good eating plan, you would have done that by now. That is why you have to be taught!

As a Skinny Coach, I teach people how to incorporate daily skills and cognitive behavioral techniques to literally change the way their brain is wired so that they simply become a person who eats like a Skinny Girl. It becomes second nature. It is not easy – my Skinny Girls write to me everyday, they commit their menus for the next day, they call me everyday to check in and we discuss struggles, ideas and strategies.

The reason nothing has ever worked is because it takes more than a good diet. It takes learning to think, learning the language and learning the thoughts of a Skinny Girl. A coach, a mentor, a support person, a teacher – whatever you want to call me – I am here DAILY to guide you in your journey to learn what you didn’t as a child – how to eat well, how to enjoy food, how to be thin and how to LIVE as a Skinny Girl.

If you think you might like to have the kind of support and guidance that I offer, then why don’t you schedule a call with me and we can talk.

Schedule a call here:
http://skinnycoach.com/schedule

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

Cardioacceleration

As the Skinny Coach and a Skinny Girl myself I don’t often offer advise on exercise. Why, because if you have your diet under control, if you can lose weight, then you are doing the best possible thing for your body and health. Exercise is good for your heart, your mood and your energy but has very little effect on weight loss and nothing will increase your health more than weight loss. With that said, when pressed, I do suggest cardioacceleration as the best and most efficient form of exercise. Basically what you do is a set of 12 reps with weights or on a weight machine then do a cardio move for 30 sec to one minute and then back to another set of 12 reps with weights. The most important rule is to constantly be moving. Go from your strength or weight move to your cardio move with no rest. If that seems to difficult then keep the cardio intensity low.
You will save time and dramatically improve fat burning. BUT, eating right will have more effect…

Addiction

The word addiction carries a lot of preconceptions. Most of us, when we hear the dirty word “addiction,” we think of a degenerate in a dark alley. One might be surprised at how widespread addiction truly is. Let’s discuss the addiction of a less obvious nature- sugar.

The definition of addiction is “a state characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences.” Broader than you might have imagined, isn’t it? When an alcoholic is “diagnosed” they are considered an addict for life. Even once they are off the alcohol, the call themselves a recovering addict. The reason is because they know that if they consume alcohol they will not be able to stop consuming, even if it hurts them. You’ll also find the literature on alcoholics state that they have a “disease” and they cannot help their lack of control in that area.

Now let’s talk about an addiction that is closer to home. Sugar addiction. When you eat sugar it lights up the same part of the brain as cocaine. Additionally, you are flooded with serotonin and other “feel good” hormones. You therefore, continue to consume the sugar because of the wildly enjoyable rewarding feeling that comes after you consume the sweets. As you continue doing this, repeatedly, day after day, you begin to feel the adverse consequences. You are tired, lethargic, sickly, and FAT. And yet, as shocking as it may seem, you (and your fat body) walk to the kitchen to consume more of this sickening and fattening drug.

You are addicted to sugar. You consume sugar regardless of the adverse consequences you experience. You can’t stop yourself. You have the disease known as sugar addiction. Just like if you were addicted to crack or alcohol you truly can never consume sugar again. As soon as you do you will lose control again! People say that as soon as you admit to yourself that you have a problem you can begin the road to recovery. Start your road to recovery now.

If you eat sugar, and you cannot control your intake, and you keep eating it after it has made you lethargic and fat, you are addicted. Don’t worry, now that you know, you can get help.

Click here to take the Sugar Addiction Quiz.