Calm your mind by practicing mindfulness and meditation. Visualize a soothing environment, perhaps your destination, imagine and experience it using all of your senses. After returning from a trip to Bermuda several years ago, I started using this picture to help clients practice visualization. What do you see? (The blue of the ocean and sea rocks.) What do you hear? (The waves crashing, the cars passing above.) What do you smell? (Salt water and sunscreen). What do you feel? (The warmth of the sun, the sharp rocks, the firm sand, sunglasses on my nose.) What do you taste? (Fruit juice.) Choose a setting that is calming for you and immerse yourself in it using your imagination.

Even without leaving your seat you can relax your body. Starting with your toes and working yourself up to the top of your head, flex and tighten each muscle group and hold for a few seconds before relaxing. As your body relaxes, your breathing should slow, your heart will slow, you will have more oxygen in your blood stream, and you will begin to feel more calm.

Take slow, deep breaths. Fill your lungs to capacity before slowly releasing. Place your hand on your diaphragm and feel it pushing out as you breathe in and pushing the air out of your lungs. Make sure you get all of the carbon dioxide out of your system.

Think your way out of it. We have all heard the statistics that it is safer to fly than drive. Remind yourself that there are safety plans in place and your pilot is a professional, paying attention to the skies, not a distracted driver. There are many people working together to ensure your safety.

Distract yourself. Read a book, listen to music, work, talk to your neighbor, or watch the child squirming in his or her seat.

If all else fails, focus on the fear; notice it without giving in to it. Pay attention to how anxiety changes your body, including the temperature of your skin, your heart rate, the movement of your stomach, and the speed of your thoughts. Pretend you are a scientist making observations. Isn’t it interesting how our bodies react to our thoughts of fear? The more aware you are of what occurs in your body specifically, the more you can specifically address those symptoms and return to a feeling of calm.

Post from: Diets in Review Blog

How to Fight Flight Anxiety

1. Dieting at Night – The key to weight loss is eating, believe it or not. You need to fuel your body with healthy food during the day, starting with breakfast and have a lighter dinner; then let the dieting begin right when you are winding down. I usually tell my clients to focus on “protein and produce” at dinner. Swap your salad at lunch for a tuna wrap (choose either light mayo or cheese not both) and have an entree salad at dinner.

2. Controlling Alcohol Intake – This is probably the #1 behavior I see with clients who are trying to lose weight when they first come in. They say they drink 1-2 times a week, but then their food journal shows 2 glasses of wine. When we talk about weekends they usually have 1-2 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That’s almost half of the week people. That adds up to 600 extra calories that you aren’t getting from food, let alone the temptation to eat salty snacks with alcoholic drinks. If you take my advice, you’ll limit alcohol to 1-2 drinks once a week.

3. Sleeping 7-8 hours most nights of the week. Turn off the T.V. Stop surfing the ‘net. You have to get sleep if you want to lose weight. Sleep allows you to recover from your workouts (that you ARE doing because you know you will do better with long term weight loss if you exercise.) Sleep also keeps your hormone balance in check, especially leptin and ghrelin. According to researchers at Stanford, people with short sleep (5 hours a night) have reduced leptin (thin hormone) and elevated ghrelin (hunger hormone). Based on what the hormones do in the body, the researchers claimed the differences in leptin and ghrelin are likely to increase appetite, possibly explaining the increased BMI observed with short sleep duration.

4. Fitting in the Veggies. It might sound old, but you need your veggies. The fiber makes them filling. The low calories makes them “figure friendly,” the phytochemicals and antioxidants help prevent diseases (like many cancers), and they help repair blood vessel damage. Try these fun ways to have veggie “finger foods” on the go:

• celery and almond butter
• avocado stuffed cherry tomatoes
• blanched broccoli with lemon
• prosciutto wrapped asparagus

All these choices make great snacks! Personally, I recommend that people keep carbs as low as possible at snacks and save them for meal times.

5. Eating Mindfully. Mindfulness is a state of being aware, ‘in the moment,’ present, and engaged. Rarely do we spend time in the day being truly mindful, especially when it comes to food. It’s amazing the mental and emotional transformation that happens when people take back the pleasure of eating. When you choose nourishing foods and take your time to enjoy them bite-by-bite, you engage all your senses – not just “taste.” Notice the colors, smell the aroma, appreciate your food choice for all the ways it is going to give health to your body.

All of a sudden, the drive-through window and 100-calorie packs become less appealing. If you make one change, try making each meal last 30 minutes and spend the first five engaging all your senses except taste. When eating mindfully, you will notice that it gets easier to choose healthy from the start and stop eating when you feel satisfied not when the plate is clear.

Post from: Diets in Review Blog

5 Weight Loss Rules You aren’t Following

Mindfulness is an important technique to learn for relaxation. It basically requires focused attention to a single subject  and trying to fully experience that subject. Eating with mindfulness can help you practice relaxation, be more aware of what you are eating, and enjoy your food more thoroughly. Eating with mindfulness will require you to look at your food, smell your food, taste your food, feel the texture of your food in your mouth, and even listen for any sounds made by eating your food.

You must remove all distractions and may have to even eat alone; the only thing you should be looking at is your plate and utensils. The only thing you should be hearing is your utensils on the plate and yourself chewing your food. Tune into every detail of the experience of the presentation, cutting your food into bites, tasting and feeling the food in your mouth, and the experience of your stomach filling. What do you smell? What do you see? How does the food feel on your tongue? What is its temperature? How much air space is left in your mouth while you are chewing? How many times are you chewing? Are you savoring your food? If you are entirely appreciating the food that you are eating, you will not feel the need to eat more than necessary.

Post from: Diets in Review Blog

Eating With Mindfulness