You know the drill. You commit to exercising 5x a week and eliminating carbs from your diet to lose weight. But after a long day at work, you find yourself at happy hour eating pizza and drinking beer. Uh-oh. Oopses.

There is a better way, actually two better ways that work together. One without the other bears little fruit:

1. Drop the excuses, and,
2. Get into action

Excuses, you know, like the one you used when you decided to forgo your new weight-loss plan and go to happy hour instead.

You know, like the excuses that caused you to gain excess weight in the first place.

Excuses, justifications, reasons stop you … more often than you’d like to admit.

You’re too old. You’re too young. You’re not prepared. You’re overly qualified. You’re tired. You busy. You don’t have enough time. You’re not prepared. You’re not self-disciplined. You’re out with your friends. You’re family doesn’t eat like that. You don’t like vegetables. You deserve a treat (5 nights a week). Healthy people eat weird food. There are so many diets, I don’t know what to do …

The number one thing most dieters have in common is their lack of stick-with-it-ness, with 2 out of 5 people quitting within the first seven days!

And you unwittingly got entrenched in ways of doing things like your family, friends and community that may be thwarting you from achieving the results you most want, like losing weight and looking and feeling your best!

At the most fundamental level, you must challenge your ideas and perspectives about health and vitality, wellbeing and weight-loss versus what you learned in life, to get a closer look at the ways excuses get in your way of getting into action and achieving the results you want.

This is where you put the rubber on the road. 

This is where you create congruency between what you do and what you say.

This is where you get into action.

You’ve got no game without action, without getting on the court.

To obliterate the excuses that impede you from creating vibrant health, increased productivity and even living an extraordinary life, take time to answer these questions. Think about each one, even journal your responses out. Journaling makes way for subconscious thoughts to emerge.

1. Why do you pretend you do not know what to do? When I learned that I am 100% responsible for ever detail of my life, my life changed. There is unparalleled freedom in owning our stuff!
2. What is the root of your lack of stick-with-it-ness? We choose, even when we don’t choose. Not choosing is a choice that brings it’s own set of results.
3. Why don’t you do what you know you should be doing? Life happens in the actions you take, and the actions you don’t take. As Yoda said, “You do, and you don’t do. There is no try.”
4. What is it costing you to not achieve your health goal? There is always a cost, a price to be paid. Are you sure your happy with what you are paying for?
5. What is the benefit you are gaining by not really committing? You might be saying benefit? How could I be benefiting from holding unhealthy weight? Think about it, if you weren’t really happy with the results you have, you would change it. Identify the benefits = transformative awesomeness!
6. What do you want your life to be in five years? Visualize your life in five years from now, if you do achieve your health goals, and visualize your life five years from now if you don’t achieve your health goals. Include every detail. Include every ripple effect of every detail. They matter.
7. If you achieved your health goals how would you feel? This is so important. How would you feel?

By challenging your ideas and perspectives you create space for new actions to emerge that you might not have seen before.

If you want to lose weight, then you must give up all your go-to reasons for why you can’t commit right now and commit right now, to choose the actions that help you move the dial forward, even just one small step.

Reminds me of the time I said to my brother Danny, “Will you teach me about finance?” He said sure, “Don’t spend more than you make and save.”

Simple. Easy-peasy. Identify what excuses are working over-time in your life. Choose one action. Do it consistently. Make it a habit. And then choose another. Do it consistently and make it a habit …

I now have one rare spot in my Inner Circle Program. Let's explore whether that spot might be right for you. Email me at carol@carol-egan.com

Raw Cream of Celery Soup

This soup is so easy to make, you won’t believe how good it is … and how good it is for you! Celery is an excellent source of antioxidants and is loaded with vitamins, minerals and beneficial enzymes = your go-to beautifying amuse-bouche!

[Serves 1 -2]

Ingredients:

• 1 cups celery juice
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 lemon, juice
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 avocado
• Sea Salt, to taste
• Fresh chives, minced

Directions:
In high speed blender, process celery juice, celery, almond milk, lemon juice and garlic. Add avocado and sea salt. Process until smooth.

Garnish with minced chives

Buono Appetito

For more delicious summer soup recipes, grab my FREE 10 recipe bonus guide when you join More Than a Detox: Summer!

To Share, click to Pin the image to the right, or right click to download + share on social media.

The best time to do a detox is the time you’ll actually do it, but summertime naturally pulls us to cleansing our body because:

• Fresh, raw, light foods of the season promote efficient cleansing.
• Local produce is easily accessible, bountiful and simple to prepare.
• Warm weather and outdoor activities, like cycling, swimming and hiking increase sweating, which increases the release of toxins.

Plus, with more skin showing, and lighter clothes revealing, a summer detox is the ideal time to cleanse your body of accumulated toxins and to release unwanted weight.

My Summer Detox Cheatsheet, direct from my highly acclaimed online detox program, More Than A Detox, offers you an effective blueprint to flush toxins, eliminate cravings, reduce inflammation and belly bloat, release unwanted weight and shift your whole perception about ‘dieting’ and all that is possible simply from eating clean, whole foods.

Follow what I offer you here, and watch your health goals materialize!

You will experience, and maybe for the first time, what it feels like to be in a balanced body, simply because we remove all the common toxic trigger foods that cause inflammation and an overgrowth of yeast and mold in your body.

Your success in More Than A Detox, unlike celebrity endorsed diet programs, happens in a formula akin to a math equation, what you take in, and what you take out.

Set a start date for yourself (or join us on June 16) and then schedule out the three phases below:

Pre-Detox

The first phase is four days long and focused on eliminating the five top-common toxic trigger foods: gluten, dairy, sugar, caffeine and alcohol from your diet.This helps you prepare for the full-detox days.

Detox

The second phase is made up of seven, full-detox days. During this phase, you continue eliminating the gluten, dairy, sugar, caffeine and alcohol, PLUS you add in nutrient dense, whole foods, like my Wholly Trinity.

Post-Detox

The The last four days you begin to slowly add back in the foods you eliminated. Do note, this is the most important phase of the detox. This is the phase you literally feel if a food serves you, or not.

Across the board, 99.9% of detoxers that have gone through my program notice big things, even though they might be subtle, like a food causes bloat or constipation, incites a craving or headache.

During this post-detox phase, I recommend that you add one food back in every two days, in case you experience a delayed toxic response.

To see even better results, begin each day with the Morning Elixir to jumpstart your day, to cleanse, heal, tonify and alkalize your body.

The guiding principles of More Than A Detox are:

• Eat light, cleansing foods to support your body in releasing toxins that prematurely age you, cause cravings, fatigue, lethargy and excess weight, plus improve digestion and reduce inflammation.
• Discover what foods fuel you, and what foods deplete you.\
• Eliminate foods that cause obstruction in your body, to remove obstruction in your body. It is NOT a cleanse if you do not remove the backed up waste matter in your body!

If you implement the ideas I offer you here, you will experience what all detoxers experience — more energy, more clarity, and releasing excess weight — from all the nutrient dense juices, smoothies and clean meals, and the removal of accumulated waste matter.

You’ll be singing Dixie and experiencing all that a detox makes possible!

PS – Want to follow my Summer Detox Cheatsheet above, but know you need some accountability? Join us for More Than a Detox: Summer and get started on June 16!

 To Share, click to Pin the image to the right, or right click to download + share on social media.

 

For the past 10 days I’ve gone to the gym everyday.

Going to the gym everyday, and going to classes that challenge me everyday is part of a 21-day challenge I created a few months back in the moment when I heard me putting myself second to my business, my clients and business development.

I didn’t believe I could maintain a rigorous fitness schedule while building a business.

When I heard myself say to someone, “My business comes first,” I felt a tear fill my eye.

This gaping disconnect between what I believe so fervently, that health and vitality are a holistic endeavor, that we create our best selves when we are aligned in all areas of life … and how I was living, I knew I had to recommit to my daily rituals.

I chose what Charles Duhigg describes in The Power of Habit, as a keystone habit to revitalize my daily rituals. A keystone habit is that small, seemingly benign habit, yet creates the foundation for all other habits to flourish. I chose journaling as my keystone habit, three, free-writing pages every morning for 21-days because journaling always had a way of bringing me back to me.

I began to feel so much clarity and peace of mind, creativity and groundedness from simply journaling every morning that I decided to challenge myself for 21-days with my meditation practice too, which also had become hit or miss.

Since meditation is, well, so meditative, this might sound crazy, but I began to feel on fire! Excitement and adrenaline were running through my veins … for no apparent reason!

Duhigg, says, “Habits are so powerful. They create neurological cravings.”

Indeed. I was literally getting high by simply renewing my daily commitments to me, which ironically felt really hard to do initially!

This is when my idea to create “The 21-Day Project” crystallized.

My renewed commitment to me and my daily habits hit me like a ton of bricks, like this IS the created life! This IS how I create my life by my design, by one, what-I-really-want habit at a time! I declared somewhere amidst my journaling and meditation practice that I would create a new healthy habit every 21-days for one year and added fitness as my new, next challenge.

Amidst all this, I began to think newly about my once rock-solid, and now recommitted daily rituals, and reflected on a quote by George Bernard Shaw I’ve had hanging in my home for years,

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

Creating yourself? Hmm.

In the spirit of taking control over the skills I can develop, I’m out to create the whole shape of my life, by my design, with my year-long 21-Day Project. 

What started as a challenge to get back to the gym has turned into a fun game of ‘anything’s possible,’ and I believe you too can do anything for 21 days!

The sky’s the limit, really.

Leave a comment below with your commitment for the next 21 days  — and let’s hold each other accountable!

I promise you this,  you’ll be so surprised and delighted by how quickly you create momentum!

 To Share, click to Pin the image to the right, or right click to download + share on social media.

Deliciously Detoxifying Pesto

This pesto is so good, and so good for you … and a More Than A Detox favorite! The pumpkin seeds add a mildly cheesy flavor and the cilantro, while brightening it up, removes heavy metals = stellar bonus!

Eat with fresh veggie sticks, on top of thickly sliced heirloom tomatoes, tossed with zucchini noodles, or one of my favorites, on top of thinly sliced heirloom sweet potato chips (raw sweet potatoes sliced on a mandolin).

Ingredients

• 1 cup fresh basil
• 1 cup fresh cilantro
• 2 sun-dried tomatoes, minced
• 1 clove fresh garlic
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 avocado
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• drizzle, Extra Virgin Olive Oil (optional)
• sea salt, to taste

To make:

Soak sundried tomatoes in lemon juice for 10-15 minutes. Combine the basil, cilantro, sun-dried tomatoes, lemon juice, garlic and pumpkin seeds in a food processor; pulse and process the mixture until it is finely chopped. Add avocado and process until well combined. Slowly add extra virgin olive oil in a steady drizzle to achieve desired consistency. Process until it becomes a smooth, light paste.

Season with sea salt. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour for flavors to combine. If storing overnight, cover with a thin layer of lemon juice to prevent oxidation and maintain the bright green color.

Buono Appetito! I know you will love this. Everyone does.

Let me know how you like it in the comments section below!

 To Share, click to Pin the image to the right, or right click to download + share on social media.

Have you ever experienced a moment when you knew with all your heart that something bigger than you was guiding you?

Like that moment you looked into your newborn child’s eyes for the first time and felt your heart well up with a feeling of love you never knew before. Or like that moment you felt like Heaven was touching Earth in the sun streaming through the clouds. Or like the crocus breaking through the warming, but still cold earth.

Somewhere in between the acute anxiety that unpinned my every waking moment back in my hairdresser days, and racing home after work to get to the bathroom as-soon-as-possible because of the digestive problems that constrained my life; somewhere in between bearing the heartbreak of feeling throbbing cysts on my face as a young woman while trying to pretend it didn’t bother me, somewhere in between my late-night, comatose-like, sugar binge-eating and trying to make my life look all polished and perfect …

Spirit whispered to me. 

Surrender. Trust. There’s so much more beyond these moments.

For no good reason and no understanding of what could be possible beyond the circumstances of my life because my body was so sick, but only the pull of my faith in what I heard, I knew something more awaited me.

I knew.

I knew that a much bigger and brighter me, beyond the symptoms of a sick body flickered within.

I knew I could access this Force within me if I listened deeply. 

So I surrendered. I trusted.

And on my journey from illness to wellness, I learned that Spirit not only wants me to tell you about what I learned about healing the body, but expects me to tell you about,

• The force of Mother Nature and all she provides, and because we’ve veered so far away from her since the advent of modern society, pharmaceutical drugs and Fast-Food nation, we’re collectively getting sicker everyday with epidemic rates of chronic disease.
• How lost we’ve gotten in the world of accomplishment and doing, that we’ve forgotten who we are and the power that sources us and lives in us, that if we remembered this, we’d never eat degraded food-like substances.
• About how important it is that we reconnect with ourselves, to reconnect with our basic commonsense and goodness about nourishing our bodies in the ways that we can feel Spirit move through us.
• How chronic symptoms and chronic illness are not normal, though you think so because so many in your family suffer from the same condition.
• How healing your digestive system will change your whole life in ways you can’t imagine, because its like a blind-spot blocking your view.
• How food-like, processed substances that you think are fueling you, are actually breaking your body down and causing you to feel apathetic and resigned, with a sense of self that is so far less than who you were born to be.
• How fun life can be, when eating healthy, healing foods and removing toxic waste matter and obstruction from your body.

I was directed to share with you all that I’ve learned about healing your body, so you too can experience and express your best self and Highest Purpose.

It’s my Sacred duty. It’s why I am here. I must share.

“To those whom much is given, much is expected.” ~Anonymous

To Share, click to Pin the image to the right, or right click to download + share on social media.

 

 

 

 

 

If you're ready to explore healing and digestive health, I created a bundle of 3 Guides to help you get started healing your body, to look and feel your very best again!

I walked in 8 minutes late.

Arriving on time is a program rule.

I knew. I agreed to be on time.

I had set myself up for success — but along the way I realized I had made another choice.

For the forty-minute ride, I left 2 hours ahead, because my plan included a quick stop at Whole Foods to get some healthy food for the day.

I needed 15 minutes of my rhythm of life, amidst the three, intense, back-to-back 13-hour days of the seminar I was attending.

Oddly, my primary navigation app went down.

No worries. Turn on another.

Again, something went awry.

There I was. Lost. Two navigation systems down. No Whole Foods in sight, with another 13-hour day ahead of me … and I still wanted the healthy snacks I wanted.

There was no time to stop anywhere. Zero.

In fact, I was quickly running out of time.

But as I turned the corner, there was a Harvest COOP.

I knew I didn’t have enough time, but I chose to stop any way.

In that moment I thought how fortunate.

I felt completely justified.

But after talking to someone I knew at the seminar, and even though I was convinced that my late arrival was out of my control, it occurred to me that in the moment I chose to stop at Harvest COOP, my choice to arrive on time changed too.

As I learned eight years ago in the very seminar I was reviewing this past weekend, I always get to choose.

I get to choose promptness because I get to choose promptness, or I get to choose tardiness because I get to choose tardiness.

But often reasons, excuses and justifications turn the mighty moment of choice into a watered-down, qualified, victim-laden decision.

Choosing powerfully is the moment we move beyond reasons, excuses, justifications and story and declare with our word the life we want to live and who we want to be.

What do you choose?

If you choose eating healthy foods, you choose eating healthy foods.

If you choose eating pizza, you choose eating pizza.

Neither is wrong. They both are only a choice.

But own your choice and know that with every one you make, you create the life you are living and the results you are producing.

Are you struggling with choosing powerfully for you and your health? We should talk. Email me at carol@carol-egan.com

Did you ever hear of a teenager loving Scrubbing Bubbles™? Crazy right? But my son would go head to head with me like the very best door-to-door salesman to ever pass my doorstep, to convince me that these magical little bubbles could clean the bathroom so much better than a cleaning rag, scouring powder and a little elbow grease.

For Chris, Scrubbing Bubbles™ were the next best thing to sliced bread, because he could finish his chore in lickety-split time, and fulfill on his commitment to contributing to our home’s responsibilities … with little to no effort, an appeal for most on-the-go teenagers.

But underneath my struggle with him about this seemingly trivial matter was my insistence of, “How can you ever achieve greatness inside ‘it’s good enough?’”

We lose something, I would explain, in this ‘good enough’ equation.

• We lose all that could be possible by trying our best.
• We lose out on experiencing the juice that comes from completing a job well done.
• We lose out on the victory feeling we gain only when we move beyond the resistance of ‘it’s not that important.’
• We lose out on experiencing the sweet juice that flows from doing good work. The menial, day in, day out tasks that ask us to commit to something more than superficial and fleeting wins.

Somewhere within, I knew I was playing the ‘good enough’ card regarding my work.

In February of 2015, I declared that I would bring my message of healing to ‘the stage.’ I knew then, as I know now, that speakers choose ‘the stage’ to expand the reach of their message, so I created a picture for my Vision Board of me standing on a stage. One month later I joined Toastmasters.

Every morning for the past year, I’ve looked at the picture of me standing on a stage on my Vision Board to visualize, to actualize my goal. Every two weeks for the past year, I’ve met with ‘my’ local TM group, to expose my vulnerability and fear of public speaking, to look at and shake up the ways I don’t feel confident speaking in front of people, to practice, learn, train and develop myself beyond the small egoic voice that wanted to hold me back.

In spite of all my efforts and all the strides I’ve made, I woke up this past Monday morning riddled with fear and doubt. I was slated to speak about healthy habits to a group of 75 people the next day, but fear had grabbed hold and had me believing I didn’t have what it takes to speak in front of a group that large.

I’ve studied, practiced and taught how to create a healthy lifestyle with healthy habits and a healthy mindset for years.

I know what it takes to heal a body and to live healthfully. I’ve walked, talked and lived this ‘game’ for more than half my lifetime. I also know what to do when fear and panic take over.

I know because I’ve stayed the course. I’ve done the work. No quick spit-shine or Scrubbing Bubbles™, but lots of elbow grease.

So I got into action in the ways that I know makes a difference, and  the alchemy of all my steadfast work in studying optimal health, healthy lifestyle habits, public speaking and shifting the mindset to create lasting results, which was ironically exactly what I was speaking on the next day, began to transmute my fears and doubts into “I’ve got this,” confidence.

I woke up Tuesday morning ready for the event.

Focused.

Centered.

In my zone.

But the ‘sweet juice’ of my efforts showed up Wednesday morning. I woke up with a feeling of expansiveness in my body that I’d not felt quite the same way before.

I stretched myself.

I grew myself by moving beyond the doubt and fear that had held me back from serving a larger audience.

I could literally feel ‘it.’

It is, as Darren Hardy says, “Small smart choices + consistency + time = radical difference.”

It is, as I taught my son many years back, in the seemingly menial, day in, day out tasks that ask us to commit to something more than ‘good enough’ that we get to step beyond the world of mediocrity and into the juice of our greatness.

You eat clean, but you can’t lose those last 10 pounds.

Let me explain why you’re having so much trouble and why celebrity-endorsed weight loss programs will fail you in losing weight and getting healthy over the long haul.

This article was published at Huffington Post here

Check out all the free resources Carol offers here and get weekly health tips and actionable ideas here

I recently met two really cool people, Varuna and Dhrumil.

Varuna is a young, hip college-aged woman from Thailand. She goes to school in NYC where she studies jewelry design. But I ran in to her in Providence while she was there to take an ESL test required for the Masters program she’s applying to in California. Through broken-English, Varuna said she misses her family but left everything that was familiar to her, to pursue her dream of becoming a master jewelry designer.

Dhrumil is a sharp, young professional man from India. Dhrumil explained how he lives in Washington, DC two weeks a month and travels to the town I live in, in Connecticut, the other two weeks of the month to be with his wife and new baby. Dhrumil’s wife is up for a promotion in a career she loves in Connecticut, so they made the decision to live apart two weeks every month so she could advance in her career. Though it was very hard for he and his wife to live apart for two weeks, that he especially missed his new baby, Dhrumil said they were very clear in the decision they made, to support each other’s goals.

I was so inspired when Varuna and Dhrumil each shared their stories with me. Actually, I felt more than just inspired, I felt connected … and fired-up!

Varuna’s and Dhrumils’ stories make me feel connected and fired-up because I know what its like to make a choice that others don’t understand.

Like when I started seeing a Naturopathic doctor to help me get answers to my health problems.

Like when I quit my job to go back to school full-time at Mount Holyoke College.

Like when I left a secure career track to build a business I know matters.

In all three cases, my family didn’t understand my decisions, my friends questioned my reasoning, so neither knew how to encourage or support me, but I still pursued what I felt best for me, like Varuna, Dhrumil and Dhrumil’s wife.

I learned that, “I’ve got to do, what I’ve got to do,” no matter if others understand, or not.

Their stories came back to me when Monica, a participant in my 10 Years Younger in 6 Weeks Program, said to me, “Carol, my friends and family don’t approve of the way I am eating. They call me a hippie and bohemian, but I’ve never felt better.”

My response came loaded with memory, experience and inspiration from my life, and from many like Varuna and Dhrumil. I confidently said, “Don’t worry, Monica, they’ll come around. They love you, but you’ve got to do what is best for you. You’ve got to choose healthy for you.”

Many years back when at Disney World in Florida with my son, I bought a framed picture-quote that ‘talked to me’ over the years like a drum beating silently in the background, “Choice, not chance, determines destiny.”

No matter if it’s leaving our home for a foreign land, defying social definitions of what others deem acceptable, or simply choosing healthy foods that make us look and feel amazing, yet challenge our families’ traditions, we must choose what calls to us.

What are you doing that you know is right for you, but isn’t understood by others? I’d love to hear your experience in the comments below.