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Booze For Stress Relief

A few Fridays ago my guts were tied up in knots. It had been a busy week and I had company landing in for the weekend.

My stomach and chest felt painfully tight. It was similar to how you’d feel before going for a big job interview or before a public speaking gig.

I tried going for a short walk and doing some conscious breathing but nothing seemed to be working.

 

I know these feelings well (as do most people, I suspect) and it always happens when I drop the stress ball.

Since I felt pressed for time, I was really tempted to use booze as my de-stressor (not one of my prouder moments).

Brandy or bourbon both work well at loosening the knot for me, and they work fast!

Don’t get me wrong, I love wine and an occasional glass of brandy after a delicious meal when it’s part of a healthy, social context.

But turning to alcohol to relieve my stress is a slippery slope. Alcoholism doesn’t just run in my family, it gallops.

 

I decided to practice what I preach.

I excused myself, closed the living room door, stuck in my earbuds and sat down with a guided meditation.

It took a full 25 minutes to completely dissolve the knot, but it worked. And I don’t think my guests even noticed I was gone.

My takeaway: don’t let the stress build up to the point where my guts feels like they’re about to split.

I know that when I manage my stress incrementally, in small chunks throughout the day and week, it doesn’t get to the point where I’m desperate for relief.

For me this means:
regular short meditations,
pausing between tasks,
less multi-tasking,
walking, yoga or running,
hanging out in nature,
staying off social median (post and ghost),
getting to bed early,
mindful anything (eating mindfully, brushing my teeth mindfully, showering mindfully, walking mindfully…)
basically, anything that allows me to slow the hamster wheel and be a bit more present.

I never manage all of the things, but remembering to do some of them, helps.

It’s a work in progress.

Here’s the meditation that helped me unwind my guts on that particular Friday.

If you don’t like it, find one that works for you. Here is a great free resource

Where do you feel stress in your body?

If you’re serious about losing weight and your pattern is to turn to food when the tension gets high, learning to manage your stress is going to be foundational.

Share this with someone you love.

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No Shame

A couple of brave clients reached out recently.

They screwed up their courage and confessed that they’d regained a bit of weight after finishing up our sessions together and they wanted to nip it in the bud.

They both used the word ‘shame’ in their messages.

As in; ‘I’ve been too embarrassed to call because I was feeling a little ashamed…’

My response:

 

Nooooooooooooo shame!!

 

Changing diet is HUGE and it’s a process.

Anyone that’s worked with me knows that it’s a lot of stuff to integrate.

Holy hell, I’m still integrating it.

How you eat is a pretty deep groove as far as habits go. You’re bound to slip back into old familiar patterns now and then.

The good news; it gets easier.

But, until the ease part comes in, you’ve got to put all of the odds in your favor.

If you’re struggling or if you’ve backtracked; don’t waste precious time and energy beating yourself up. It. Doesn’t. Work.

Call me to do a little fine-tuning and get back on.

Over time, this stuff will become second nature. I PROMISE.

In the meanwhile, cut yourself a little slack.

Reach out.
ox
Kim

P.S. Stay tuned for some maintenance tips.

P.S.S. Share this with someone who could use this

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I’m Not Buying Into Your B.S.

I have a couple of clients that are currently going through similar stuff. They’re unrelated and in different parts of the country.

I decided to write this because I know they aren’t alone with this issue.

 

 

They both struggle with long-standing weight issues and all of the other things that come with it: inflammation, digestive issues, lab values that have been getting progressively worse over time…

They both got off to a great start, were motivated and saw great results.

Then they both started ghosting me.

Both of these gals are incredibly intelligent, capable, kind and deserving.

They don’t lack willpower and they’ve both accomplished pretty amazing things in their lives.

What I suspect they both have in common is that they’re buying into their stories.

Stories like: You can’t do this, you aren’t good enough, you aren’t worthy enough, this is never going to work, it’s never worked before, who the heck do you think you are…

Full disclosure, I’m guessing here because I’m not in their heads… but these are examples that I hear an awful lot.

They were both on the verge of making serious progress. The kind of progress that would mean that permanent change was actually possible and they’d have to rewrite that story.

That’s when the voices started getting very loud.

And they listened.

Like clockwork, things started happening; stress, drama and overwhelm got really high.

This makes me incredibly sad.

As someone on the outside looking in, it’s as clear as day that the stories are bullshit.

Both of these beautiful gals are more than capable and they were doing everything right.

 

We all have these voices, I call it the loop that plays on repeat in your mind.

Most of us don’t even notice it because it’s such a part of our incessant mental chatter.

So it turns out that the voices, also called saboteurs, hate change.

Their job is to maintain the status quo at all costs.

When you’re on the brink of making real change happen, the voices get really noisy.

Drama gets created, stress levels soar and the self-fulfilling prophesy gets cemented.

 

A self-fulfilling prophesy is defined as an expectation or belief that can influence your behaviours thereby causing the belief to come true.

In other words, you have a belief about how the future is going to go down, that leads you to behave in a certain way, that ultimately brings about the anticipated outcome. You can read some interesting stuff about it HERE.

 

To my amazing clients, I want to say that I’m not buying into the bullshit.

Take all of the time you need, I’ll be here when you’re ready.

You WILL make this happen.

Love Kim

P.S. Please share this with someone struggling with their own saboteurs

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Going with good enough

I was having dinner with a colleague the other evening and we were discussing how lucky we were to be doing work that was so satisfying and, well, fun.

He previously worked in a high pressure job in the corporate world dealing with deadlines and giant amounts of stress. A near burnout was his red flag to make the scary career change and listen to his heart and what his body was telling him. My experience working with seniors and a very sick dad is what prompted me to empower myself and take control of my health and happiness.

We both agreed that the reason our new careers are so uplifting and motivating is because we get to share with every single one of our client’s amazing transformations and journeys. Hearing from clients on a daily basis, how their diet and lifestyle changes have improved their health and wellbeing is motivating.

Being immersed in the holistic nutrition field and having principles and facts re-affirmed constantly, through research and reading, is another factor that inspires me and has led me to embrace the changes that I’ve implemented in my life. Looking back, these changes have happened gradually and gently but have amounted to a pretty major shift in the healthy direction.

I often wish that I was a better writer to be able to share some of these amazing testimonials, tips and tidbits of information with you to inspire you the same way that I am inspired. When I do sit down to write or try to put something together, I become paralyzed, constantly tweaking and reworking blog posts that end up never getting shared.

How long should the text be? How do I tie everything together so it flows? What if people think it’s dumb? What if people get tired of hearing from me? I have at least half a dozen texts sitting around that I haven’t been brave enough to share.  I never thought of myself as a perfectionist but apparently I was wrong.

A mentor recently shared this statement that resonated: ‘’Go with good enough. When you’re waiting for perfect, the world will never get your help’’

So I’m going for it! I’m committing to 6 blog posts/newsletters (I’m still not sure what the difference is) over the next 6 months. They may not be coherent, they may be too long or too short, and there may even be an occasional typo, gaawwd.

I would also like to invite you to a workshop that I’ve put together that was also designed to inspire you: Foods that heal, foods that harm. In this workshop I will share my top health tips; practical tips and tools that you will be able to start implementing in your life right away. We’ll also demystify some common misconceptions and provide you with tools to make better choices at the grocery store. I hope you can join us.

As thank you for tuning in today, I’m sharing a delicious no cook brownie recipe that was shared with me by a client. I recently pulled it out and thought I’d whip up a batch for the holidays.

I’m not much of a baker because I don’t do well following recipes but this recipe is Kimmy proof.

I suggest soaking the nuts overnight to improve their digestibility. The nuts and the chia seeds provide beautiful healthy fats and great fiber. I decided to make my brownies into little balls that I then rolled into more cocoa powder. I keep mine in the freezer for when that chocolate craving hits. When clients confess to chocolate cravings, my mind always goes to a possible lack of magnesium in the diet. This is quite common since we burn through magnesium like crazy with stress; cocoa is a great source of magnesium.

If you’d like to learn more, Kim will be sharing her tops tips for better health in a workshop. Learn simple things you can do to begin shifting your health today.

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