Who Chooses?

I recently met someone who was 50 pounds overweight. They said they wanted to lose weight. They said they wanted to look and feel their very best selves again.

But, they did not want to stop eating all of their favorite foods.

I totally get it. I remember when my ideas about what to eat came from my family’s traditions, from my friend’s and their families’ traditions, from the larger social moré traditions. Even from the ways every mood, emotion, thought and idea defined the foods I craved.

And the irony is, the modern economy continues to get better and better at satisfying our every want and desire.

As fast-food nation and the consumer economy grows, we get to satiate the complexities of everything we think we want or need right now, with what our inner world demands, what every impulse, thought and desire insists upon, rather than move closer to what we intuitively know is healthier for us, what is best for us.

So who chooses for you? Your traditions? Your friend’s and your communities traditions? Your world at large, or you?

As in the metaphor, “is it better to give a man a fish, or to teach him to fish,” do you think it is better to order a healthy meal when you are out once-in-a-while, or do you think it is better to create a lifestyle of healthy habits that ask you to reconnect to the basic laws of nature and your inner-knowing of what best fuels and nourishes your body?

If you want to lose weight, if you want to look and feel your very best, you have to deliberately choose what you want, so you can put into action a winning game-plan. Thinking about it, like the person I met, is just that, thinking about it, which ultimately leaves you in default-mode.

Need help choosing your get-heatlhy game to finally look and feel 10 years younger with results that last? Join me here: Let’s do this!

The Kale Chips

With winter-greens season upon us, yes, with bountiful bunches of fresh and local kale abound, I thought it a perfect time to offer you this time-tested recipe I’ve been refining for years. This is my favorite. The coating is thick enough to offer a great texture, but not too thick to overtake the flavor of the kale.

• 1 bunch kale, washed and dried (dry completely)
• 1 red pepper
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 1/2 cup cashews
• 1/2 cup hemp seeds
• 1 -2 Tbsp Coconut Aminos (or to taste)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 lemon, juice
• Water (to thin mixture if necessary)

Blend all ingredients until well-combined except kale.

Remove main center vein from the kale leaf and break into pieces (not too small)

In batches, put kale leaves into a large bowl, pour some of the cheezy mixture over and massage.

Place massaged and coated leaves on a dehydrator tray with paraflex, or bake in a very low oven a the lowest temperature your stove allows.

Bake or “unbake” until crispy.

Buono Appetito!

The Bisque

I promise you this, this recipe will soon be your new favorite tomato soup recipe ever, and a staple in high-tomato season! Easy-peasy, purely nutritious and as satiating as satiating can be! The ingredients offered make only 2 servings, so I highly recommend you double or triple the recipe!

Serves 2

• 3 tomatoes, large, cubed
• 1 – 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/4 – 1/2 avocado, diced (or 1/2)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil, drizzle to taste
• Sea salt and black pepper to taste
• Basil, chiffonade

Blend all ingredients except the basil: reserve that for garnish!

Recommendation: Begin with 1/4 avocado and add more for extra creaminess per your preferences

Top with fresh basil to garnish

Buono Appetito! 

You want to lose weight.

So, you start another diet.

You count calories. You portion and track your food. You spend hours on the elliptical.

You know how to lose weight, you’re following the diet and exercise plan, you’ve so got this.

But the scale doesn’t move.

And you are flat-out baffled.

You feel frustrated. Defeated.

Because no matter how hard you try, you always find yourself back on the couch 10 pounds heavier than when you started.

So what gives?

You ask yourself, all the time, “How does exorbitantly successful me find myself continuously on the hamster wheel of weight on, weigh off, weight on… again?“

You are not alone.

You are among the growing rank of 100 million dieters in the United States.

Yes, the annual revenue of the U.S. weight-loss industry, including diet books, diet drugs and weight-loss surgeries is a whopping 20 billion dollars per year.¹

The one thing the annual revenue of the diet industry makes very clear, or at least one very important thing it makes clear is, they are very successful … because diets do not work.

The diet industry sells you books, pills, programs and even surgery to get you looking how you want to look, for a moment. The diet industry offers recipes to last you five lifetimes, smoothie challenges, juice challenges and detox programs to keep you busy for increments anywhere from 1 day to 30 days, plus approaches to weight-loss that give you knowledge akin to a Ph.D. in weight-loss theories, tenets and principles, with no lasting results!

But the books, the programs and the pills don’t teach you about the psychology of success and how it directly impacts the weight loss you produce, or not! {Tweet It!}

Yes, losing weight is a psychology game, a mind-shift training game, a ‘you are what you think game!’

Losing weight with lasting results is like any and every other successful endeavor you’ve ever achieved, you’ve got to clearly define the result you want to produce, why you want to produce it, create a plan to get you to your end game, and by taking one step toward your desired outcome each and every single day.

Ask yourself these questions to create your weight loss success plan:

• What outcome or result do I most want? (How much weight do you want to lose? What is your ideal, healthy weight? Be very specific.)
• Why do I want this result? Why do you want to lose weight? Go deep with this question. Look for the lowest-common denominator, the most basic, underlying reason, like what will being a lower weight make available to you? What will life be like for you at this ideal weight? Will this change impact who you are and how you treat yourself and others? How will that feel? For you? For those you love? For those closest to you everyday? Go deep for your answers here — you will be able to hang on when “the rubber meets the road” if you get to the gold of why you really want to lose weight!” If you don’t, the superficial responses can not possibly hold you steady when habituated ways of doing things come ’round to pull you down!
• When will I achieve this result by? Be very precise when you will win your game by, when you will achieve your ideal weight! Your unconscious mind will begin to support you in creating success!
• What is my plan? Create a solid winning plan, like what days will you prepare food for the week? What time of the day will you make your juices and smoothies. What time of the day will you workout? Success happens when preparation meets opportunity, and you are create a winning opportunity by preparing, by preparing again and by preparing even again with a solid plan, as solid structure of fulfillment!
• What is one thing I can add in every single day, to move me towards achieving my result?
• What is one thing I can omit every single day, to bring me close to my desired result?

Let’s simplify this approach to weight loss with a few applicable questions.

If you were going on vacation, would you plan ahead of time? Would you pick your location ahead of time? Would you book your hotel or cottage ahead of time? Would you book your travel plans ahead of time? Would you schedule your time off from work ahead of time?

Think of losing weight with lasting results like planning that vacation. You incrementally go through the roster of ‘things to do,’ and in this case, the things you need to DO to lose the weight is to clearly define the result you want to produce, why you want to produce it, what your plan is and what the one thing you can add in and what the one thing you can omit to get your game started and moving you closer to your result, your outcome. Of course once you create momentum with your one first healthy habit, you add in another, and another, and another.

Indeed, the thing that differentiates those who are successful and those who are not are the habits they create with straight-up, no-joke commitment and consistency.

In his 1968 classic, The Greatest Salesman In The World, You Can Change Your Life With The Priceless Wisdom of Ten Ancient Scrolls Handed Down For Thousands Of Years, Og Mandino says that until we become ‘a slave to our good habits,’ our bad habits will run the show!

And when we create good habits, we literally obliterate the bad habits!

Your every-single day commitment is non-negotiable IF you really want to arrive at your end-zone with solid results in hand!

AND if you’d like any support in achieving your weight loss goals, I’d love to support you in creating new healthy habits. Just email me at carol@carol-egan.com.

Game face on… and cheers to your success!

¹ABC News

Take Time

Take time to think.

Time to feel. Time to celebrate. Time to consider. Time to visualize. Time to imagine. Time to dream. Time to create. Time to sort out. Time to reflect. Time to ponder. Time to process. Time to mourn. Time to mediate. Time to mull over. Time to wonder. Time to inquire. Time to marvel. Time to love. Time to laugh. Time to enjoy. Time to reconnect. Time to disconnect.

Time.

Time to take into your cells and process all the nuances and details, emotions and ideas, experiences and thoughts you experience every day.

Time to remember who you are.

Time to remember how powerful, resilient, strong and glorious you really are.

Everyday.

Without taking time, you end up reacting to life, rather than creating life.

Take time, it’s non-negotiable.

I bet like me and the other 108 million Americans you’ve not only tried to get healthy more than a few times this past year, but you’ve also contributed to the 20 million dollar diet industry in some way.

I bet like I was you are one of the every two Americans who suffers from one chronic disease (I don’t any longer!), or perhaps you are the one of the every four who suffers from 2 or more chronic diseases?

From 25 years of research and study, personal inquiry and experience, I know that you’ve got this whole healthy game wrong.

Getting healthy with lasting results is not about your next best recipe. Getting healthy with lasting results is not about a sporadic fitness practice either. Actually, getting healthy with lasting results is not even about getting healthy, or ‘we’ wouldn’t be so unhealthy and sick.

Read more here

Jon Kabat-Zinn, renowned creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and student and teacher of the benefits of mindfulness in our lives,  says:

Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable.

I’ve long admired Kabat-Zinns’s work and have attended workshops held by one of his highly trained educators. He is so very right that mindfulness can help us cope with stress, anxiety, pain, and illness.

But there is one very important variable missing that I’ve not heard anyone point to since immersing myself in the world of meditation and “mindfulness based stress reduction” (MBSR), or any other form of meditation.

What if you can’t concentrate? What if inflammation in your body, which of course means inflammation in your brain too, since your brain is part of your body, has impacted your ability to concentrate?

Do you try to meditate, to no avail and feel yourself a failure? And what happens with these feelings of failure? Where do they go? Do they manifest in other areas of your life, along with your inability to focus and concentrate? Who do you think you are now that you can’t focus and concentrate? How does your inability to focus and concentrate manifest in your life, at your the job, in your relationships, in your ability to keep up and produce results?

Alas, I work to empower those committed to healing their bodies and leveling up in all areas of life precisely because of the sequence of responses that result from the questions raised above.

Chronic disease and the backlash of it’s effects are not necessarily the first problem I am concerned with, however, as an Executive Health and Life Coach.

I am concerned with your quality of life. I am concerned with who you think you are as a result of the myriad chronic symptoms you experience, the myriad chronic symptoms that you consider your new normal, the myriad chronic symptoms that you attribute to ‘getting older,’ the myriad chronic symptoms that you correlate with your chronic disease and how these symptoms effect you and your life.

Healing your body is paramount. Paramount. Healing your body is paramount for you to achieve all that you are capable of achieving. Healing your body is paramount for you to create. To innovate. To deliver. To defy. To surmount. Accomplish. Solve. Assert. Aspire. Triumph. Dream. Imagine. Argue. Discover. Negotiate. Help. Explore. Influence. Laugh … and love. Yes, and to love on the level that exceeds the superficial realms of fleeting bliss. And to focus and concentrate long enough to choose clearly what is best for you “in your one wild and precious life.”

---

Healing your body is the first step to you bringing forth in your one lifetime the very best you have to offer.

Healing your body is essential if you hope to ever achieve all that you are capable of achieving.

Healing your body is flat-out non-negotiable to experience the deeper sweetnesses life has to offer.

Intuitively you know it’s time to pick up your health game.

Everyday, or most everyday you wake up feeling tired before your day even begins. You experience a chronic cough. Maybe stiff joints.

Perhaps lower back pain or belly bloat. Maybe even moodiness, brain fog and/or poor concentration… and it’s impacting your productivity at work, in your life, in your relationships and at home.

Feeling less than great is your new normal and you don’t like it.

You want to feel energetic again. You want to be able to exceed the results you once were able to consistently produce.

You want to focus your energy on moving forward and ‘squeezing more out of life,’ rather than focusing on chronic symptoms, doctors visits, medications and poor business and life results.

You want to reclaim “I am the Captain of my fate mode again,’ rather than reactionary mode preoccupied with symptoms.

I offer you a foundational credo from my coaching practice that I recommend to all my clients.

I call it Green 3-Ways.

Integrate Green 3-Ways daily and you will begin to shift the quality of your life in ways you never imagined possible from food alone.

Your energy will skyrocket. Your ability to focus, concentrate and remember will sharpen! Your digestion will get stronger and your moods will feel balanced.

Chronic symptoms will begin to subside and renewed energy and clarity will captivate your attention so much that you will feel compelled to up level your healthy eating and healthy lifestyle game.

Green Vegetable Juice

Fresh pressed green vegetable juice alone is a total game changer and my first recommendation for healing the body and reclaiming your health (yes think all the attributes associated with youth). Think an IV infusion of pure vitamin and mineral-water-rich, enzyme-active and phytonutrient laden fuel directed straight to your cells and tissues, and you’d be spot on.

Green vegetable juice requires no digestive fire (energy), so you deeply nourish every cell, tissue and organ in your body, without expending energy. Begin your day, ‘break your fast’ with green juice to support your body’s renewal, revitalizing and rebooting processes and seriously … watch the magic begin!

Green Smoothies

Green Smoothies are a hot-ticket healthy drink for many these days. Why? Essentially, you can create a whole, nutrient-dense ‘meal-in-a’glass’ as the best fast-food option possible. Think liquid salad with endless ways to ‘beef up’ the nutrition you want to add to your meal in very delicious blends.

Because smoothies are whole food combinations, they are more satiating than a juice and will easily hold you through that board meeting you’ve got to attend.

By adding ingredients like kale or spinach, almond butter or avocado, with fresh berries or a green apple, you retain all the fiber of each ingredient, so smoothies ‘hold you longer,’ and very easily stand in as a meal replacement. Do note, many pre-made or ‘smoothie-bar’ smoothies are laden with sugar and unhealthy additives, so are not a healthy alternative. If it works better for you to buy your smoothie, find a smoothie/juice bar that offers whole food and fresh blends made to order for you.

Green Salad

I recommend a ‘giant-sized’ salad as a meal everyday — yes, a salad that you once might have made for a first course for your whole family will now be your lunch or dinner.

Include your favorite green and/or wild lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and especially sprouts, avocados and olives. You can even make a salad of just simple greens, but do note that ingredients like sprouts peak in nutritional value, and avocados and olives will satiate you and satisfy you because of their healthy plant-based fats.

To dress your salad, I recommend two of my favorite, but ‘atypical’ mouth-watering delicious ‘dressings as ‘new’ lighter fare recommendations — fresh marinara or fresh salsa. Both ‘dressings’ will transform your salad to a whole ‘next-level-healthy-salad-experience’ while keeping fat to a minimum (No I am not recommending against healthy plant-based fats. Healthy fats are essential, but layering an oil based dressing on top of olives and/or avocados is more than you need.)

Even when on a business luncheon, ask your server to bring a side of marinara or salsa with your salad … everyone at the table will be envying you and your healthy choice!

When making your salad at home, I recommend, when possible, to buy your greens, lettuces and vegetables from your local farmer. Research says that local and seasonal produce peaks in flavor and nutritional density.

With this 3-way formula, including a green juice, a green smoothie and a ‘giant-sized’ green salad everyday, you will exponentially increase the density of nutrition you take in everyday.

You will decrease inflammation and lighten the digestive energy required to process the heavier foods we’ve all been acculturated to associate with common meal options.

Green 3-Ways will change your life in a very pleasing and unexpected ways!