But I have to admit, that this line I caught from a website called BuyerVerse.com, kind of summed up my attitude to our obsession with ‘connecting’ and ‘contacting’ these days via the internet;  It is kind of pathetic.  I keep thinking of the saying:  “If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, did it really fall?”

I think we are all in a bit of an existential crisis.  Get the ‘sell’ line for this website;  “Confirms a person’s existence.”

Now I know they are really plugging some GPS feature where you are matched instantly with a product or price you want to pay for such product, but that line really punched to the absurdity of it all.

Who doesn’t want to be ‘popular’?  We never do get out of high school, do we?  Emotionally, anyway.  What kills me about the obsession with the social networking sites, and the need to be ‘famous’, is that it shows our need to be seen.  “I think, therefore I am”, has been replaced by:  “I am seen, twittered, networked, therefore I am.”

We don’t do very well in a vacuum.  We have done poorly in teaching our children how to exist without any outside stimulation.  They don’t have a clue how to be bored.  One analyst once said to me:  “If we are never bored, then we will never know ourselves.”

How true.  If we can never sit still long enough or be alone without connecting, or focusing our energies outward, then we will never land in our bodies and minds long enough to sort through any physical or emotional sensations.

Without the ability to ‘decompress’ to shift gears from focusing outside ourselves, to our insides, and without the ability to tolerate that downshift and emptiness that it might initially be experienced as, a lot is lost.  Creativity, a sense of self, a seat, or anchor to one’s gut, and the ability to decode information and sort through one’s emotions, rational thinking, and physical impulses, is poorly developed.

Think about this the next time you, or your kid, starts to whine:  “I’m bored.”  Seize it as a moment to shift through the slight agitation and discomfort and see where it lands you.  Approach it in a matter of fact way with your child.  Resist the idea that it is your job to ‘entertain’ or stimulate them all the time.  Keep them connected to their inner resources.

Then take a trip sitting around being bored, inside yourself.  Yes, in fact, you do exist without the outside world telling you so.  Don’t ‘twitter’ your time away.  Savor your empty spaces and boredom.  You will find something infinitely more interesting.  Yourself.

Right now all three of my girls are fairly obsessed with watching reruns of “Sex and the City”.  As I watch the shows with them, (and marvel at the phenomenal writing!),  I wonder: “What is the dating show equivalent for today?”

Given that much of my practice is filled with women in their 20’s and 30’s who are either falling in, out of, or whom are on the ‘lookout’ for love, I often serve as a ‘relationship coach’ where the whole ‘mating and dating’ thing’ is up for analysis.

Yesterday in fact, Connie, (not her real name for obvious reasons), was complaining that there doesn’t seem to be any one book that single handedly deals with the prototypic New York City, or ‘Urban Woman’ looking for tips on mating.  “There are great and funny books out there, like Steve Harvey’s ‘How to Think Like a Man’, or the one written about ‘Settling’, but there are no books that really hit the nail on the head on how to figure out moving from your 20’s, when one can basically ‘date up a storm’ or go from one relationship to the next, to the 30’s at which point we are getting serious and want a longer term thing.”  

It’s the ‘age old’ quandary for women:  we have our biology to contend with.  Whether we choose to have kids or not, our hormones can be ordering us around, with the inevitable result that we start to think of ‘mating up’ by our late 20’s, early 30’s.  I figure that if our biological clocks struck midnight at 55, we’d have a much more relaxed attitude about this whole thing! But how boring that would be, right, if men and women were thinking alike and on the same time-table, take all the fun out of life, right?!!

As we Connie and I began, I asked her to make a ‘wish list’ for a mate:  “Good looks, tall, smart, funny, interesting, good family values, financially well off, ambitious,…” Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

Fabulous, huh?  Who doesn’t want fabulous, or to HAVE IT ALL?  In fact, isn’t that kind of embedded into our culture, that we work and strive, and ‘workout,’ to create the ‘PERFECT LIVES’? Isn’t that the fantasy we love to buy into?  Of course the truth of it is that we all have a ‘misery loves company’ side of ourselves looking for the tarnish and tragedy along with the glitz and good fortune; that is the secret behind those celebrity magazines!  

So, here is a little, or not so little secret.  You’ve got to get the idea out of your head that you will get absolutely every single thing on your list in a man, and that there are people who HAVE IT ALL.  I can tell you that in all certainty, from the job that I do; things that appear to be FABULOUS on the outside, are not necessarily so.  Or at the very least, there are the negative aspects to any positive.  There is always the bad with any good.  No biggie.  No need for guilt, or hand-wringing.  It is not a comment on the decision you made.

So, rather than feed into Connie’s fantasy that of course she should ‘go for it all’, now mind you, this is a gorgeus, smart, and talented girl who you would look at and think :  “She has it all”,  I proposed the idea that she needed to figure out what piece of ‘FABULOUS’ she would be willing to trade off.  Height?  Weight?  Looks in any way?  Money, ambition, good career?  Good values, family, kindness?  Hey, it’s your dating and mating life, you get to pick the variables.

FIGURE OUT YOUR NON-NEGOTABLES, YOUR NEGOTIABLES, AND THE TRADERS.

Connie found this idea not only relieving, but hysterical.   She had always felt so pressured that she was supposed to HAVE IT ALL, and that if she didn’t get it, that she was a failure.

 Next step was to dig through her dating history to get some idea of what the reality was looking like.  This would give some clues to help lead Connie toward her ‘NEGOTIABLES’ that she might be willing to ‘trade-off’.  Despite putting certain qualities at the top of her list in the past, she realized now that those particular qualities had never really worked out for her, or, as she puts it:  “Those guys always turn out to be “douches’!  She began to really ‘get’, that the former attributes that had always been at the top of her list, and had drawn her in, were not necessarily looking like NON-NEGOTIABLES any more.  A NON-NEGOTIABLE was now the guy who wasn’t a “douche”!

Bad news, good news:  These answers won’t be in any self-help book, and it is where your creativity and individuality come in. This is no cookie-cutter, or “Follow this path, take these steps and you will get to your pot of gold”, kind of guide.

 But, here is the good news:  IT’S YOUR LIFE!  No apology or justification necessary. There is no need to be politically correct!  Given that truth, if you follow it, you will get the mate that really works for you, and it is doable!  Despite the odds, and the worry that there are hundreds of fabulous 30-something girls out there going for the same fabulous guys.

Here is your guide:

1)    Picture your life forward, and try to realistically imagine how you will feel given a particular scenario.  

2)    Take off your “This is how I want to see myself” glasses, and again, see yourself  HOW YOU TRULY KNOW YOURSELF TO BE.  If you are a ‘dyed in the wool’ feminist but know that you will end up wanting to kill a man who depends on you financially, don’t just fantasize that somehow it will ‘work out’, if the guy truly doesn’t have a clue or an interest in how to earn a living!  If you want to see yourself as the most open- minded girl who has dated every ethnicity out there but lands up realizing she needs to mate with a guy from a similar background, go for it! 

3)    REPEAT AFTER ME:  “I DON’T NEED TO APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT I NEED AND KNOW MYSELF TO NEED AND NEED DESPERATELY.  BUT I WILL GIVE UP SOMETHING THAT I CAN LIVE WITHOUT.”  If you know that you truly won’t mind having a companion who earns less money than you, that is your NEGOTIABLE.  If you need TALLER THAN YOU over anything else, go for it. If you don’t care so much about that but know you need someone who is financially secure, go for that.  Figure out what your non-negotiable is, that piece of ‘fabulous’ that you have to have, then pick what you can ‘live without’ and can now ‘trade-off’.

Last piece here, the column I call the ‘Traders’. This is your ‘play money’.  Your bonus chips.  These are the qualities that if you get them, you are thrilled, but you can trade them in for others.  It’s kind of like:  “I’ll take ‘paunch’ and  trade you ‘bald’. You get the picture. These are the  ‘TRADERS’.

Now I know I said all that “this is your life and you get to pick your choices thing,” right?  Yeah, right.  One thing I will tell you from a 30 year history with one man and raising three kids though:  Kindness needs to be  a NON-NEGOTIABLE.

Because you’re worth it.

Happy dating!

Visit me at: www.donnafish.com

Change is a’ coming.  Slowly, but I see some movement in a positive direction.  I always think of the two things that are responsible for the rising rates of obesity in this country and in particular the high rate of childhood obesity:  WHAT WE EAT, AND HOW MUCH WE EAT. 

So, two major issues to tackle:  1) The fact that many kids have access primarily to crappy food filled with additives and the stuff that not only gets you fat, but doesn’t trigger the signal to your brain that you are satisfied enough to stop, and 2) The fact that the food industry has been spurred on to keep profit margins by offering quantity vs. quality; how else to explain the ‘super-sizing’ that has occurred over the last 20 years?  Our eyes and stomachs have been trained to experience “A PORTION” as really double at least, what a portion used to be.  No surprise that everyone is getting fatter. 

I love the fact that the beverage industry now has a commercial out priding themselves on the zero calorie drinks they are putting in vending machines in schools.  Finally enough pressure has been exerted for them to get into the profit game, by trying to sell something that won’t contribute to obesity.   Bad public image seems to be a motivator. 

Thankfully, that image of a corporate entity contributing to the obesity rates; particularly in children, is something that the food industry is beginning to care about partly due to the ongoing work of grassroots organizations and advocacy, and a government that is putting some attention to this matter.  Go Michelle, go! 

The next big thing to happen is to really address school lunches.  There is some controversy over whether kids will choose the ‘healthy’ option if given a choice, but at the very least, what we do know about eating HABITS, is that the more your eye and palate get trained in a particularly direction, the more easily that behavior can get trained into you.  Basically, if a kid is getting a healthy lunch at school and that is the only option, they are going to get used to that to some degree, and particularly begin to make healthier choices if they are available to them.  Or they will start to ask their parents to shop for healthier food, and educate them. 

Something we can do aside from feeding our own kids and families healthy food, is to get involved with some grass roots organizations that are having an impact. Right now, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan is taking Farm to School videos on the road to demonstrate the advocacy work going on right now around Child Nutrition Reauthorization.  The video is on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV_HixXvLLw 

Given that the Child Nutrition Act determines what more than 30 million children eat at school five days a week, 180 days a year, schools meals can be a critical entry point for improving children’s health and should include provisions for Farm to School programs in order to combat obesity and raise a healthy generation. Lunch Encounters of the Third Kind,” a spoof of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and “Priceless: School Lunch,” a MasterCard parody, were created by three of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s Food and Society Fellows, Shalini Kantayya, Nicole Betancourt and Debra Eschmeyer, to raise awareness of Farm to School programs for the upcoming reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act. 

One Tray (www.OneTray.org), is a national campaign to improve child nutrition by encouraging a more direct connection between local farms and schools through federal nutrition policy.  They  have launched a petition to Congress urging support for Farm to School policy. One Tray also has produced two short videos depicting the cafeteria tray as the centerpiece for a reformed school food system that supports healthy children, local farms and smart schools. 

Parent Earth (www.ParentEarth.com) uses online video to help parents shop, cook, grow and eat good healthy food with their kids. Parent Earth seeks out partnership opportunities with like-minded organizations and companies to create video campaigns with a goal of improving the quality of the food our children eat and creating a better world for them to grow up in.

“These videos were filmed in my daughter’s public school lunchroom. When my kids ask me ‘What’s for dinner, Mom?’ I know the answer is connected to their health, our local economy and health care,” stated Nicole Betancourt, Founder of Parent Earth. “When I feed my kids, I think about their future, and I expect Congress to do the same. We hope that these videos will mobilize parents around the country to take a stand for Farm to School.” 

We are not powerless.  We really can do something to shift the direction of terrible health and massive medical bills, by getting Congress to shift the subsidies toward healthier food production. 

Happy eating! 

Okay, I admit it, I am a big ‘ole baby.  As my adored sister in law once pointed out to me about herself, completely without shame:  “I want what I want, when I want it!”

Hmm, I thought.  Am I any different?  Somehow I had been able to pretend to myself for some of my adult life, that I was not in fact a big ole’ baby.  (Those who know me well were never fooled.)  Faced with Carolyn’s matter of fact attitude about her true self, I felt less ashamed to face the truth about myself.  I realized that in fact, there are times when I am not very mature and totally “want what I want when I want it!”

What I do with that impulse and intensity, is another story.  As I say to my “people”, you get to think and feel whatever you want in the privacy of your own head.  It is your behavior that counts. Might as well think through the result of said behavior and pick the negative you prefer to live with.  No benefit in getting ‘all unconscious’, acting as though the consequences live on another planet since they land on you whether you think about them or not.

I mused on this all day yesterday after I saw Kirstie Alley on the Today Show, speaking about the weight loss supplement she is touting on her new reality show as we get to watch her lose weight.  Again.

Not that I love vindication, but I predicted that she would have trouble maintaining her weight loss in 2005 when I was interviewed for “InTouch Weekly”.  Only because of the high statistic that indicates the difficulty people have maintaining weight loss.  It is much easier to lose weight, than to make the necessary psychological and behavioral shifts that make it last.

Ms. Alley was saying on the show that her natural supplement takes away CRAVINGS.  Of course that is fantastic.  However what concerns me, is that we are always trying to figure out ways to eradicate the WANT, THE CRAVING and are unrealistic about expecting cravings or the wish for a particular food, drug, cigarette, etc., you fill in the blank with something you know you wish for that you can’t have, or probably if you have it, should have in minimal doses.  We are set up for failure, because there is an underlying wish/promise:  This time, with this plan, it will be EASY.  You won’t be uncomfortable because you won’t CRAVE what you can’t have.  Oh yeah, you are thinking appropriately, on what planet does that exist?  It is human nature to want what we can’t have!

I don’t want to minimize the physiological aspects of certain addictions and cravings.  There are real biological aspects to this, and they are not to be ignored.  But we do know that if food only had physiological pathways, without any emotional and behavioral aspects, we would ‘fill up’ and be on our merry way.   

The psychological aspect of cravings has to be approached head on.  To expect that one will never have cravings is totally unrealistic and sets Kirstie and the rest of the dieting community up for failure.  

After all, if you are supposed to not crave what you love the most, what does that say about you?

So I propose a different way to think about cravings.  Expect them.  Try to minimize them by making sure you are certainly physically not hungry.  But don’t feel ashamed of wanting them intensely.  That is the first step.  IF you can come to terms with the intensity of the wish, the desire and the impulse without any shame, you may give yourself some other options.  Most dieters relapse because they have one slip.  Then they feel frustrated and incompetent and have difficulty going back to the structure they were using that was helping them to lose weight.  You never regain weight from one time that you gave yourself what you totally crave.  If you ignore it and feel like you failed, you are less likely to be able to handle the next craving that comes along.  Allow for the intensity of the want, without any negativity associated with it.  Just let it be.  Think of other things that you want that you don’t give yourself.  Approach this similarly.  The intensity of the feeling will shift by tomorrow.  I promise you.  If you choose to give in to your craving, think it through, pick the end result you want to sit with, and move on.    DON’T’ EXPECT TO NOT WANT WHAT YOU HAVE TOLD YOURSELF DOESN’T’ WORK WELL FOR YOU.

Complete deprivation never works.  But to pretend that you won’t sometimes want what you can’t or shouldn’t have, is not life.  Let’s get real.

In anticipation of the upcoming National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and since I have been doing so much work with teens and parents of teens lately,  I decided to write up a little tip sheet with some things to consider: 

1) Full blown eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder are somewhat rare, but disordered eating can get started fairly easily and is very common.  Disordered eating, i.e. an over-preoccupation with food that impacts on your daily life, consistent on-off eating, dieting, and then bingeing, and compulsive eating for emotional purposes. 

These are habits that can start fairly innocently; thinking you just want to lose that 5 or 10 lbs.  Diets often can trigger disordered eating that can be hard to break out of. 

2) Being unhappy with your body is very common and basically your body image might suck.  Often how you see yourself though is not how you are seen by anyone else.  Understand that FEELING FAT is often just that.  A FEELING, not necessarily a FACT. 

3) Understand that there are always parts of ourselves that we are not thrilled with, and parts we feel better about.  This is part of good self esteem; dealing with the feelings that come with the BAD, without behaving in ways that reinforce whatever way you feel lousy about yourself.  There is no perfect.  DON’T MAKE THE FEELING INTO A FACT WITH YOUR BEHAVIOR.  (Don’t eat your feelings, feel them; then you keep them as feelings, not facts.) 

4) Try to be as conscious as you can about what your eating HABITS are like, basically, not just WHAT YOU EAT, BUT HOW YOU EAT. 

5) Aside from hunger, do you eat when you are bored, tired, unhappy, nervous, just slightly jittery nervous, usually at night after dinner?  This is totally common and again, can become really habitual and result in feeling that you have no control over your eating.  A couple of tips: 

a)  Don’t deprive yourself of what you truly love to eat.  But promise yourself that you will eat it consciously.  Don’t check out and then binge on it because you think you ‘SHOULDN’T eat it.  Stay conscious.  Enjoy it.  Eat some, save some for later.  Practice that. 

2)  Practice learning how to WAIT  through the feeling.  Make sure you eat in a well balanced way, you are getting your major nutritional needs met with protein, carbs, vitamins, calcium and eat from these food groups when hungry.  Save the sugar and/or junk food for the add -ons that you enjoy but don’t try to fill up on. 

3)  Don’t let yourself get overly hungry.  Too often people wake up and don’t want to eat and aren’t hungry all day, then binge at night.  It is hard to stop when you are overly hungry.  Try to eat every 4-5 hours and not get overly hungry.   

4)  Don’t restrict.  Restrictive eating leads to on-off patterns and habits that make you feel out of control.  Resist the urge.  If you want to lose weight, just reduce overall your intake by 20% and walk more.  Eat everything and don’t overly focus on any one day of eating. 

Eating disorders are serious mental and physical problems.  They are treatable and if you are worried about your own habits veering toward an extreme, or are worried about a friend, talk to an adult or professional.   

Above all, enjoy your food!  

This is a ‘Shout-Out’ to the Vegan Community; since my “Help!  My Daughter’s a Vegan” piece: (which I have to say, I got tons of attention for, mostly negative, but hey, they say no publicity is bad publicity, right?) I have come a long way, baby!

For the last few months I have observed my daughter’s commitment to vegan-ism and have made a real effort to support her in her efforts; buying the right foods, figuring out how to cook some meals that we can all eat, and finally, accompanying her to her favorite vegan restaurant yesterday.

Now I have to admit, I went grudgingly.  I have had some negative associations with the idea of a vegan restaurant, mostly based on past experiences where there seemed to be little, if no flavor to the food served.

My life has been changed.  No, I don’t mean that I have sworn off meat and dairy; that will probably never happen, as I love all foods equally.  However, the object of my passion is now a restaurant called “peacefood café” on the upper west side.

From the moment we stepped in, I was happy.  I know you will be suspicious of this.  I am always skeptical of any ‘new age-ey’ think positive messages’; they always bring out the irreverent brat in me.  But this place is first off, a beautiful space.  And dare I say, it has a great vibe. Every person who works there is incredibly nice. Not in a treacly sweet or obsequious way either. Just simply and genuinely, nice.  (‘Nice’ being an underrated, under-expected, and underappreciated quality as to its effect on daily life, I might add.)

Eric Yu, the owner and manager, was, prior to this career, an antiques dealer.  The restaurant itself is airy and open, with beautiful pieces on the walls.  I sat there contentedly drinking my brazilian nut chai latte, sharing my daughters’ concoction, and awaited our food.

My expectations were not high, I must admit.  But from the moment I had my first bite of the chickpea fries, I was in heaven.  Foodie heaven.  The fries had a bite to them that was utterly satisfying, and then there was the Caesar Salad.  The combination of salty to mild flavors with the proportion of crispy freshness in the romaine lettuce and croutons all under the perfect amount of sublime creamy dressing, was pitch perfect.  There are other ingredients in the Caesar salad I think, onions perhaps, but hey, I never claimed to be a restaurant critic.

We shared a sandwich that had carmelized onions and of course pumpkin seeds in the perfectly mashed pumpkin; again, I don’t have the exact ingredients, but at that point in the meal, I knew that anything I would eat at this café would be good.  

It is just that fabulous.  You know the feeling when you go to a restaurant and you aren’t disappointed by anything?  Isn’t that incredibly rare?  There is usually something; the ambiance, the décor, the surly waiter, or one crappy entrée.  Then there are the restaurants that you can truly relax and settle in because you know that every bite will satisfy.  There are those chefs who can create a balance and combination of flavors and tastes that are always pitch perfect.

This is one of those rare gems.  So all you foodies, (and you don’t have to be a vegan to appreciate this restaurant),  it is called “peacefood café”  and is on 460 Amsterdam Ave. at 82^nd St. in New York City.  212-362-2276

www.peacefoodcafe.com

 Happy Eating!

Here it is, the middle of  January. Perhaps the exuberance and energy of your intentions from the holiday season are fizzling like a day old bottle of champagne.  Has anyone out there either fully abandoned your resolutions, decided to forgo making any this year, or, are you in the process of making some  realistic adjustments to your resolutions?

Pertaining to weight loss, of course, the tips abound.  Ways to lose 5 lbs. making teeny tiny changes.  Cooking spray instead of butter.  One piece of bread instead of two.  Those tips are helpful and it is true:  little bits add up.  Little changes to your habits add up.  As do the bits of food that you may or may not allow yourself to be conscious of throughout the day.

There is no doubt that having lofty goals that don’t quite fit into the reality of your life, are most likely going to be abandoned by mid or the end of the month.  Spending hours upon hours with people struggling with their problems with food, I am absolutely convinced that the most difficult obstacle people face is not figuring out an exercise program that works for their life, or eating differently; it is simply remaining completely CONSCIOUS about the food they are putting in their mouth.

Like all the diet books, ‘mindful eating’ had its day in the sun a few years back.  It is kind of surprising to me, given the popularity of the ‘yoga lifestyle’ these days, that there is less attention and focus put simply to this idea.  I am absolutely convinced that if you add this piece into your efforts to make some changes to your exercise and diet lifestyle, it will give you more bang for your buck.

So here a few tips to figure out how you may not be as conscious as you could be, and ways to improve your mindfulness regarding eating:

1)    If you have a history of ‘on-off’ eating, i.e. deciding to lose weight, eat healthy, and then abandon it as soon as you ‘fall off the wagon’, be aware of that history. 

2)    Try to track the time between when you go ‘off’ what you are trying to achieve and how long it takes you to return to some habits you have tried to change.

3)    Ask yourself what negative thoughts you are having about yourself and write them down.

Now, how to shift some of that so that you can be as mindful as possible; as I say to people in my office, “Don’t go all unconscious on yourself regarding food!”

1)    As many times as you feel you have tried and failed at losing weight, look at your negative thinking, and give yourself a break.  It is the lack of consciousness that is feeding into your belief that you can’t do this, you are out of control, and any garden variety negative critical comments we all like to level at ourselves when we DISAPPOINT ourselves.

2)    Just see it as some feelings of disappointment and frustration and get back into your mind.  Pledge to yourself that even if you eat something you don’t think you ‘should’, or doesn’t ‘fit’ the diet, try these thoughts on for size:

a)     You are in the drivers seat and as such have the right to decide when what and how much you ever want to eat.  EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF THE DAY.

b)    Think of how your body feels and how hungry or full you are.  Really notice how your body feels and even if you know that you are wanting to eat not for hunger reasons, again, reassure yourself that of course you CAN DO THAT IF YOU CHOOSE TO.  YOU JUST HAVE TO MAKE THAT CHOICE VERY CONSCIOUSLY

c)     Remind yourself as you know this now, that you can always have that food now, in an hour, or later on.  Or tomorrow.  You can eat a few bites, or decide to save some for later.  STAY CONSCIOUS.  TASTE THE FOOD.  DON’T GO ALL UNCONSCIOUS BECAUSE THAT WILL MAKE YOU EAT MORE OF IT, CHECK OUT, AND HAVE A MORE DIFFICULT TIME EATING IN A WAY YOU ARE HAPPY WITH.

See if this year your New Year’s Resolution is different than any other year.  It isn’t just making small, realistic changes that will count.  It is trying to face your shame when you don’t do what you had hoped, and stay with it.  Stay in your own head.  It is not always a friendly place, but the less time you spend outside of your consciousness regarding eating, the more time you spend truly feeling like you are in charge of your decisions.

Now that leads to consistently good eating habits.

 Happy New Year!

I need to put my two cents in here.  (Those of you who follow me, know that of course, I always have an opinion)

 It never fails to amaze me, how, during the holidays, there are millions of tips out there, for how to “NOT GAIN WEIGHT’.

Forgive my inner, (or not so inner) rebel, but I just totally resent the idea that one SHOULDN’T gain weight over the holidays.

 After all, if we want to be able to live well, eat well, and actually yes, MAINTAIN WEIGHT LOSS, don’t we have to account for something called LIFE?  Isn’t part of life eating those things that aren’t in our usual repertoires; things we don’t usually have access to, or get served on a regular basis? 

I am a big believer that part of life is allowing oneself pleasure.  Call me a hedonist, but we certainly know in the weight loss business, that deprivation is just like, so, over.  

So can we stop with the focus on Not Gaining Weight Over the Holidays?  One SHOULD gain weight over the holidays!  How about a little relaxation with the whole thing!  Why can’t we just go with the pleasure and enjoyment of it all, without nitpicking the calories, or the driving yourself crazy!

 I am a big believer, that in order to maintain any kind of weight loss, and EAT FOR LIFE, that you need to OVEREAT at times.  That there are times during the year, or occasions, that it simply is almost like an obligation, to eat the beautiful food  offered to you.  

So, that being said, here they are: DONNAFISH’S TIPS FOR GAINING SOME, BUT NOT TOO  MUCH WEIGHT OVER THE HOLIDAYS:

1)    Allow yourself the right, and the pleasure to enjoy these offerings.

 2)    Don’t eat what is offered simply because it is offered.  Pick and choose what you like and really want to eat. 

 3)    Savor it.  Enjoy it!  There is more if you want it!  Don’t fret.  Stay conscious and if you are satisfied, you can try to stop.  It is only feeling satisfied that might help you stop.

 4)    Don’t go to the parties hungry.  Eat before you go, so you eat what you truly love, not because you are starved.  You don’t have to have a full meal, but have some protein.  Protein with fiber is terrific, a couple of hard boiled eggs will help you not be starving so you can truly enjoy the delectables that you absolutely need to eat.

Above all, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!  This is your prescription!