Make the truly stubborn things happen.

Yesterday, I was telling you all about how I’ve felt like I’ve been doing all of the right things, and some weird things too, and not seeing the usual results.

(And, I even re-read my favorite blog post.)

I want to give you a concrete example — and make sure that I’m making sense (not so sure…).

Sometimes things happen. Sometimes… they don’t.

I’m talking about making things actually HAPPEN. Mainly, things happening in your relationships (with the food, with yourself, with your people, with business-stuff, etc. and infinity and beyond), but this could include all things, too.

Especially in areas of your life where you’ve been fruitlessly trying to make things happen (and NOTHING IS HAPPPPEEEENNIINNG).

But, here’s the twist — stuff can happen! And, you know, you CAN do it.

Just follow me.

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A hard time — same thing as the Terror Monkey.

Hello, lovey! This isn’t really a post, it’s more of a, Hello! I miss you and want to tell you stuff I’m up to and thinking about.

The best people on the planet enroll in my classes.

How they find me, or know I will love them?? Who knows! But, I always do. I love their emails, their vibe, their questions, everything.  It makes what I do worth doing, and fun.

We just wrapped up the last Guerilla Weight Loss class in the history of the universe (dramatic! but, true).  There will be other classes, but no more of those. It was a really good class, lots of fabulous breakthroughs and aha’s! And, it’s just fun.

The reason I’m not doing it again (because someone asked me, it’s a super good q) is that I’m ready to move on to new and different and varied materials in a different way. Not that I won’t help you change your relationship with food, I SO will, but I want to continue to grow with my biznik. That is the new, cool word for business… or, something.

I get to take a mini-vacay!

This weekend! Although, I’ve sort of already started stressing out about whether or not I’ll be able to relax.  Dumb-ass monkey mind.

I’ve FINALLY made a bunch of progress on my NEW STUFF!

I have a dream… to put this THING out there that is related to Guerilla Weight Loss class but a little different, maybe (shock-attack) better, even, and cheaper! So, basically it’s the absolute most perfect thing oh-my-freaking-gosh. No pressure.

It’s so weird how I’m a person who helps people improve and change their relationships (with food, with themselves, with other people, with their careers) and I still totally get stuck in mine, like I did trying to actually do this NEW STUFF. I’m telling you, it happens, like, all of the time.

I guess the “spin” I could throw at you here is:

Well, first I was all stuck, and then, being perfect, I figured it out! Now everything is just WONDERFUL.

That makes me feel so extremely gross. I have to say, though, how freaking much do people who aim to help you with stuff (read: coaches) spout the “look at how imperfect I was, but how perfect I am now… which means I’m all done with this process I’ll teach you, so you can be like me!” story?

You know what I mean? Sometimes, you want to believe what they are saying, but there is something about it that feels… suspicious.

Well, you’re right to be suspect of the above and similar versions of it.

I officially call total bullshit.

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Tuesday Styles #10: Cheer ye, cheer ye! Change Cyclists, UNITE!

Form follows function.

(I quoth Le Corbusier, a famed architect of the 20th century… eat your heart out, IM Pei, you schmuck).

I’ve been feeling a little shab-tastic lately.

I haven’t been as into expressing myself through what I’m wearing lately.

It’s not like me!

I mean, I cognitively understand the vibrant options and infinite combinations that exist in all closets (for realsies) tire me.

Vat has happened??

All the stuff we’ve talked about regarding style is still true. It’s true!

• Only letting the most wonderful of joyful things into our space… this is a real thing that really can change your life. What you surround yourself with informs how you feel about yourself. TOTALLY.

But, it hasn’t felt all that important to me lately. Of all people! I mean, I started this stupid series, for heaven’s sake!!!

First of all, remember my commitment to stop beating myself up?

Well, here’s another example of when I beat myself up… for trying things and changing things here on a blog that I am the boss of with no one to answer to but me, and only my favorite YOU to talk to.

What is a beating doing HERE??

Well, I did a little beat-up dance about how I should be more energized over style… and then, I remembered that every one of us is existing in the Change Cycle, somewhere or other!

Which, I’m realizing, I’ve never even talked with you about —

Change Cycle! Be a Change Cyclist, you save your world.

Well, I touched on it here, in dealing with overwhelm. But it needs it’s own post. STAY TUNED, lassie.

It’s VERY reassuring for times when you are in a, what’s going ON with me lately? state. I mean, one way out of a funk is to just change one thing. That works like ah chahm.

But the Change Cycle is great because it explains every single thing that is going on for you at all times. Not joking.

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The Dictator has taken possession of your mind.

You know what is freaking creepy? How much we sound like little Hitlers when we are talking to ourselves.

I did not fully realize this until last week when I started monitoring what I told myself when I did something that I have been trying not to do for a while.

It goes like this (this is the weight loss edition — in honor of tomorrow’s class! You can insert thing-that-you-do-that-you-wish-you-didn’t-do HERE):

• Write down the things you tell yourself after you overeat. ALL of the things (you do it now, before you keep reading, because it works better that way).
• Now, how does hearing those things make you feel? After each sentence, write down how it makes you feel (you may be a lil’ surprised by some of the answers… sad/frustrated and excited, for instance…). Pause at each sentence and see what emotions come up for you.
• When you feel that way, how do you feel about food (or that-you-do-that-you-wish-you-didn’t-do)? Do you want to do the thing/eat more, or less?

Interesting, right????

Because, what if you committed to not beating yourself up, and just watching where in your life you beat yourself up?? Wouldn’t that be interesting?

I beat myself for a handful of reasons, including:

• Eating when I’m not hungry (yes, even I do this sometimes)
• Not being productive enough
• Not BEING PRODUCTIVE ENOUGH, already, Gay!?!

And other things, too.

What’s interesting is that I’ve found that, I am eating/being unproductive TO beat myself up. It’s a lovely little side bogie distraction from a lot of things that I don’t want to feel or deal with.

Which, as I know very well, makes nothing go away. I can hide under the sheets, that is totally fine…

…but, in this life, I’ve committed to working through my junk and showing you how to work through yours, too.

What do you beat yourself up about, ehhhh? (we all SO do this… just start being curious about it… I believe it’s a great back door into some lovely happiness waiting for you.)

Taking the “crappy” out of your day.

Aaaaaaaaaand, here we are! We have arrived at a crappy day.

(By “we” I mean “me”).

I woke up feeling really yucky. I didn’t feel like getting-up-and-getting-going. I felt heavy, and rotten, and gross.

In the food and weight loss world in which I play, one might call this “feeling fat.”

My first reaction: I should not be feeling this way!

For one thing, I’m a person that helps other people be themselves, be happy and be free from obsessions that are crazy-making. So, to do that, I need to be living it.

And when you’re living in your own skin, doing what is right for you and respecting your body, it feels good… which, is how I’m supposed to feel, right? And, yet, I feel all crappy.

Hypocrite! Thy name is Laurie. I must not be doing stuff right!  I must not be taking care of myself.

Which means, I’m a failure! Ay yi yi, the dreaded failure. You know – DOOOOM!

It also means adding a layer of self-loathing to my already state of crapitude.

We kind of all do this. You know, when you’re angry at yourself for not being more, or better, or producing enough?

That’s what I’m talking about. It’s the anger on top of the not-ideal emotion that’s hanging out in side of you.

I know that I do this — I’ve earmarked it in my Book of Me. I know that when I try to beat the crappy mood out of me, I’m actually kicking holes in walls that are built back stronger, instead of dissolving the walls and making the progress and healing that I want. I really, really want.

I know that a better way to handle anything is from a place of acceptance. (more…)

Eating of the forbidden fettucini (and be naturally thin)

New restaurants, cooking (like last night! sweet potato latkes and chipotle pork tenderloin, an experiment! moderate success) and cool new food-stuffs… love.

So! What to do, when one of your loves is also giving you love handles?

Or a bagel butt? (Which is what my high school boyfriend’s mom called me while I was working at the Bagel Bin… for good reason.)

The natural thing to do is to develop a love-hate relationship with the food. Sure, you love food! De-LISH-ious dinners and desserts. Oh my.

But, you also hate that it’s keeping you chubby. Fattening food becomes the forbidden fruit (or, really, forbidden fettucini alfredo because who cares about fruit) and yet, also something you cannot avoid.

You have to eat. So, you try to “eat healthily.” Oh, the bland, boring world of health food and dieting…

• Diet Coke, diet Chick-Fil-A lemonade = not that bad
• Dry turkey sandwiches and egg white omlettes = not that satisfying
• All-spinach diet (since you heard that Audrey Hepburn ate only spinach) = incredibly difficult to actually do
• No pasta or chocolate or fries, EVER = sad, self-torture

Ultimately, you have two glasses of wine one night, clean your plate and find yourself raiding the fridge afterwards. It’s really frustrating, because you TRULY want to feel good in your body and be at a weight that is healthy and thin for you, but doing this [through the usual channels (self-discipline, dieting, extra-exercising)] has not lead to losing weight and keeping it of.

That’s because “usual channels” for weight loss are stupid.

The “usual channels” are a FAIL.

This means, fabulously, that there is nothing wrong with you — even when you overeat (more on that in a sec).

The usual channels for weight loss have not worked because they do not account for something you cannot escape: your human nature.

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The key to, basically, everything.

There is, basically, one key to doing everything successfully.

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about how there seems to be one key to everything — like to being more yourself in your world and in that thing you do out there, to losing weight, to healing your relationship with food (and, healing other relationships) and feeling really strong in your life.

That one key is pretty much what led to me finding, and now, doing, this work that I do out here.

And because of my experience in figuring this out and helping you figure your stuff out, too, I see that there is one commonality in people who do things successfully.

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Hey, Laurie — why do you do weight loss stuff?

I get this question quite often from clients and friends, especially since (and I actually thing this is kind of funny*), according to several people, how could a thin person help people with weight loss?

*I think that is funny because it seems to me that a fit person should teach fitness and a thin (healthily so) person should teach weight loss.

Well, this is a GREAT question, because:

1. What I teach will help you lose weight — but it’s not “weight loss”
2. You don’t have to be overweight to be in the throws of body and food obsession-hell
3. I haven’t always been friends with food and at a good weight for me (that’s kind of the whole, where you are is where I’ve been to hell and back, thing)

The real bottom line for why I do my weight loss work (and it’s work I enjoy so, so much) is #3:

I have been in the complete agony that is thinking about your weight and food, feeling terrible for having eating what you ate, feeling on the brink nearly every day and yet not being able to escape the problem (because you need to food to live and you’re in your body for this earth-school duration) even when you try to.

It’s so awful.

Sometimes, it makes me extremely nervous and uncomfortable to put myself out there as a person who can show you how to heal your relationship with food and your body.

But, since I have done it for myself, I know that what I’ve learned can help you, and I am not going to let my quaky boots keep me from offering you tremendous relief.

What it is I actually DO

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Feast!

Excitement!

You know how I do my Guerilla Weight Loss Class, and how it sells out so quickly? And, how I always talk about how much fun I have doing it because people grow and learn and, you know, lose weight??

Well, I’ve got good GREAT news, because you can get sneaky tips from the class and get that faboo group support, and feedback directly from me on your weight loss stuff, and helpful direction, and encouragement…. and more and more! For, like, way cheaper.

And, you don’t have to wait until I offer another class — you can have it NOW.

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Wednesday, Baby. Wednesday.

A poor, besotted client just suffered an extraordinarily lengthy email by my very own hand. It took me 42 minutes to write. It was followed by an email of apology for the length of the first email.

And who knows, maybe she wants to spend 10 minutes sifting through my prose! But because her juicy question is probably something you’ve wondered before, I’m going to (maintaining my client’s confidential identity) share all my secret answers with you.

To answer to your question: why did I overeat today?!

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