Notes for Session #1

The more joy you bring to your life, the less you are apt to eat for emotional reasons when you are committed to hunger and satisfaction.

Weight loss without emotions is quite easy

In order to weigh a healthy weight:

1. Eat foods that work best in your system

For most of you, this includes whole real foods that have high water and fiber content like veggies and fruits because they are loaded with natural vitamins and nutrients to make your brain and body work at their best level.

2. In meals, include lean proteins and fats that work best in your system 

They will satiate you, preserve your muscles, and help your brain function optimally.

3. Eat them in smaller amounts and only up to satiation

At a meal, eating about a fist full of food (when the water is removed) helps you digest your food well, keep your energy high, and progress through the day in a fantastic way. 

In order to support a healthy weight, sculpt your body, and lose fat:

To tighten and tone muscles under the fat:

Include weight-bearing movement you love a few times a week.

To improve your cardio function: 

Do cardio workouts you enjoy a few times a week or get 10,000 steps in a day with a 30-minute walk.

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You already know how to eat healthy, right?

What gets in the way is the mind.

Your mind is the ONLY thing that gets in the way of losing weight PERIOD!!

Why?

It’s been programmed…by you…to attach fun and pleasure to food.

I don’t want to take away food being pleasurable when your body is hungry, I just want to make sure it’s not the main pleasure in your life because you deserve to have more joy in your life… 

Is food your go-to joy in your life? You deserve more!

Making life more enjoyable and fun is precisely the focus of this workshop.

Why fun and play is so important to the brain? 

1. Your brain loves to play and it’s essential for learning. When you open yourself to new ideas or try new things, you make new neural connections faster than by playing life safe and doing what you are used to.
2. Your brain is malleable.
3. Your brain will keep on changing your entire life.
4. Your brain reshapes based on how you use it. So if you practice a new way of using it that fulfills you, it will change.

As adults we are much more stuck in our heads, overthinking, and just generally not living in the moment. Too much thinking and living in the past or the future isn’t fun.

Real sources of fun are activities you get lost in. You get into the flow of what you are doing in the moment. 

How can you get lost in some new activities that move you out of overthinking and the seriousness of life? How can you have so much fun that hunger surprises you, bubbling up from your body instead of checking in from your brain?

Today we are going to revisit the fun parts of your childhood.

Imagine that you have a fingerprint, or perhaps, as Martha Beck states, a FunPrint, that’s unique to you and that you were born with, Like your fingerprint, t’s innate and specific to you. 

Genetic research suggests that our fun preferences are largely inborn, meaning they are just part of who we are, and they stay consistent throughout life. 

So if as a kid, you loved sports, but now you don’t engage in any sports, getting back into a sport, you might find yourself really happy and enjoying it. 

The time when we’re free to act on our inborn joys and pleasures is usually in childhood. I want to help you reflect on your history since it leaves a lot of clues about you and your natural desire for FUN.

I’d like you to get out a piece of paper or use the worksheet with this session: Revisiting the FUN PARTS of Your Childhood 

1. Take 3-5 minutes and write down as many activities as you can remember that you loved doing as a child, either alone or with others.

2. When you are done, star any particular activity that made you “lose time.” Did you become entirely absorbed in telling stories? Climbing trees? Playing dress-up? Board games? Doing puzzles? Playing with cars?

If you don’t know and have family that could jog your memory, after this, give them a ring.

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3. How many of these activities do you engage in now?

4 . Now, I’d like for you to get out another piece of paper looking at your list of items, let’s look for patterns. 

–       Were most of these fun activities playing alone or with others? 

–       Were you inside or outside? 

–       Were the activities that you enjoyed in a calm and relaxing way or loud and rough? 

5. Feel free over the week to add to this list. 

Almost certainly these preferences still exist in you.

This week I want to bring back some of this FUN in your life. 

Look at your list and get your phone out. Schedule at least two times where you are going to try out something that you used to do, that you’ve let go of.

Action Steps for Session 1:

NOVICE LEVEL – Finish the Revisiting the FUN PARTS of Your Childhood worksheet. If you are still working on hunger/satiation, stick with it. If you are ready to add more fun to your week, continue on to the next level.

INTERMEDIATE LEVEL- Complete the task from above. Then, choose one starred activity from your past that you want to try again. Schedule it on your calendar. Make fun a priority.

ADVANCED LEVEL – Do the assignments above, picking two starred activities you’d like to engage in from your childhood. Take time now to schedule them on your calendar. Notice any differences with hunger on those days. Report into your accountability group or on Friday’s Check-In post to let everyone know how you did.

Consider listening to an extra podcast or class.