Nourish and Nurture

Send a text Episode #88: Carb Clarity In this episode you will learn all about carbohydrates: What they are, what kinds there are, what do they do in - and to - your body, how they add up in a day, and how to count them. Learn about what carbs have to do with hunger, fatigue and stubborn belly fat.  Even if you are eating extremely low carb, as in Keto, you will not be at zero - as you learn that...

Send a text Episode 87: Positive Self-Talk and Affirmations In my book, Language of the Dance – Belly Dance with Amira Jamal, I have a worksheet entitled STOP THAT NEGATIVE SELF-TALK. It was one of the most important lessons in my classes and it is probably one of the most important things you need to learn to have a successful journey with whatever you are doing.  This episode will walk you throu...

Send a text Episode #86: Slow Down and Feel Your Best It really DOES take approximately 20 minutes for your gut to send the message to your brain that it is full enough - not full to the point of the feeling of bursting. I started to respect the practice of slowing down and paying attention to my food, and this went a long way to make me aware of my fullness cues.  In this episode you will learn a...

Send a text Episode 85: Paleo and Primal Paleo can be the next step after Whole30, but you can go straight into it, as I did.  Paleo is known as the “hunter-gatherer” diet but don’t worry – you don’t have to hunt and gather except, maybe, for the best food prices in town! It is named for Paleolithic which relates to the early phase of the Stone Age. Honestly, I think it is partly conjecture about...

Send a text Episode 84: Whole 30 The Whole30 diet is a strict 30-day elimination diet that many people turn to for weight loss, sleep issues, or help with digestive concerns. It is considered a reset program to get certain problem foods out of your system. The program encourages you to cut out alcohol, sugar, grains, legumes, dairy, and additives from your diet for 30 days. Food reintroduction is...

Send a text Episode #: 83.  Principle 8, Respect Your Body. “Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectations with body size.” This episode has more to do with accepting your blueprint, while wanting to improve on what you have to work with, tha...

Send a text Episode #: 82.  Principle 9, Exercise: Feel the Difference. What we have to watch out for is not to make exercise part of the dieting mentality. It will become drudgery and just another thing on the list that we have to do because we have to do it. What would be ideal is to look at it as movement that – although it might wear us out – actually invigorates us and gives us energy. Findin...

Send a text Episode #: 81.  Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition Intuitive Eating states that you must “make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember you don’t have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It’s what you eat consistently over ti...

Send a text Episode #: 80.  Food Facts It’s important to learn what food does in your body   There are two types of hunger. True physical hunger is one of them. The other hunger is driven by what is in your head. There are definitely mechanics that trigger this head hunger. These could be habits or feelings such as anxiety, loneliness and anger. I have covered head and heart hunger just recently i...

Send a text Episode #: 79.  Managing Emotions and Feelings Without Food  Whatever eating style or plan you choose, and no matter what work you do with the other principles of Intuitive Eating, Principle 7 is perhaps the most important one that is going to make it or break it for you. How often are you on plan all day or even all week, and then at night, you are tired and feeling overwhelmed from t...

Send a text Episode #78 - Cravings and Urges I promised you my PEEPS story, and here it is. Indulge me if you have already heard it because it sets the stage to explain the difference between urges and cravings. Let me start by introducing myself. "Hello, I am Miriam Hatoum, and I am probably the most food suggestible person you will ever meet." So here's my story. Was it a food cra...

Send a text Episode 77 - Head and Heart Hunger We all have triggers, habits and emotional connections with food. When we are "hungry" but not really physically hungry we know it as head hunger, heart hunger or, which covers both, emotional hunger . In this episode I talk about disassembling triggers and habits and give you examples of my own efforts that I have shared with you in past ep...

Send a text Episode 76: Discover the Satisfaction Factor In this episode learn that it's not just lists of food, calories or macros. Feeling full and content with what you eat has a lot to do with the satisfaction factor in what you are eating.  To sum it up: “The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living. In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often...

Send a text Episode 75 - Feeling Your Fullness - Part 2 This episode will take some of the mystery out of feeling your fullness and why the feeling fullness increases after you have eaten.  But before I get to that, I explore concepts such as feelings about food waste, your habit of finishing food, and how to get out of this habit using various methods, including "2 bites left behind," &...

Send a text Episode #74: Discover Your Fullness I think for a lot of us, it’s not the hunger end of the scale that stymies us, it’s the fullness end. There are so many reasons why this happens, especially if you are eating in response to external cues, and you might be saying to yourself: ·        It’s time to eat ·        I always clean my plate. ·        I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. ·...

Send a text Episode 73 - The Food Police What you eat is not a moral issue Let’s start with what I teach till the cows come home, and that is, food is not to be seen in moralistic terms such sinful, bad, dangerous or wicked. It’s just food ya’ll. And you are not bad for eating past full or eating a food as you see as bad. By working on the principle of  ""Challenge the Food Police"...

Send a text Episode 72: Making Peace with Food Making peace with food is a critical component of Intuitive Eating. Except for medical reasons and self-imposed ethical and religious reasons, it means that no food is off limits. That scares a lot of us because we often experience a loss of control when we eat foods that we have been depriving ourselves. From years of dieting, we have fallen into “La...

Send a text Episode 71 - Eat Already! The concept of self-nourishment is so important in helping you to identify your hunger and in using your hunger scale.  There are times when  NOT listening to your body for hunger cues might be your best course of action.  This might seem like it goes against the protocol of listening to your body, but in situations where your hunger cues are off-line, it is r...

Send a text Episode #: 70.    Hunger Games – A Dive Into Awareness and Self-Care A very interesting case is made for the fact that when the rules in your head conflict with the direct experience of your body, trust in your body is eroded, and confusion about whether or not you are hungry arises.  When you ignore hunger signals or try to trick them by eating air foods such as rice cakes or drinking...

Send a text Episode #: 69.    Letting Go of the Diet Fantasy This episode starts with the exercise of taking an inventory of how dieting has interfered with my life.  If I wasn’t already convinced of the need to let go of dieting, the further exercises - the different costs of dieting and exploring how has dieting affected my mind and mood - cemented that thought. Part 2 of these workbook exercise...

Send a text Episode #: 68.    Reject the Diet Mentality The first exercise  I did this week was to look at what I typically do and what I say to myself when I am struggling with eating. I wrote that I tend to get deeply involved with whatever new diet or eating style I am trying out. I buy all the books, look up all the recipes, buy all the paraphernalia like the journals and card decks. I’m on it...

Send a text Episode #67: Knowing Isn't Doing - the Best Lesson So Far! In this episode I explore the work that we need to do before we even get started with Intuitive Eating and that is to learn that knowing isn't doing. Resch and Tribole, authors of Intuitive Eating ,  say that, "Learning how to become an Intuitive Eater is a lot like learning how to write with your nondominant han...

Send a text Episode #66: My Personal Journey with Intuitive Eating In this week's episode I begin my own personal journey with Intuitive Eating. I reminisce about how I tried Intuitive Eating in the past but was missing most of the important concepts. I took "don't call foods good or bad" or "eat what you want" or "ditch the diet mentality" totally out of co...

Send a text Episode #65 - Your Mindset Matters First and foremost, this episode starts with a tribute to my sister, who made all my work as Granny Keto possible. I owe her that, as well as a thank you for being a wonderful sister. This episode goes on to explain that is not your relationship with food that determines if you can stick to a diet program, lose weight or accomplish any of your non-foo...

Send a text Episode #: 64.    Finding Your Balance with Kaizen You’re Listening to the Keto and Low Carb Success, Episode #64, Finding Your Balance with Kaizen.  When I was a professional dance teacher I learned about about making small changes for huge results. This has carried over well to the teaching and coaching that I do now.  Use Kaisen to help achieve manageable goals    Learn about Goal l...