Hello everyone!

A moment for you and your deepest self. Questions for your journal.

• What is your “why” behind wanting a lifetime-loss and how does the thought leave you feeling?
• How will your future self feel if you follow through today?
• When have you surprised yourself by sticking with something you didn’t feel like doing?
• How do you handle your commitment on the days motivation disappears?
• What promise to yourself matters enough that you refuse to quit?

“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.” ―Christian D. Larso

Here in Atlanta we’re getting too much winter for my taste. Stay safe, everyone!

♥, Wendy

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And given that computers can be so difficult, always feel free to ask in the comments below for Aunt Bea and I’ll get her right to you!

I am not an expert, doctor, surgeon, nurse, dietician, or nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

You’ll see a change in the length of these pearls (I was wearing myself out writing all five every week). So sometimes I’ll recommend the main pearl plus an amazing book for book-desert. Other times it might be the main pearl with a quote I want to share with you.

Pearl Three

Initial Sequel

Sequencing is taken directly from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The purpose of sequences is to help us move from reacting to circumstances to responding. I encourage you to do a sequence a day in your journal. Powerful stuff. Apply to your own life.

• Situation (be very concrete): Cookie is a fifty-five-year-old with two kids in college and Cookie‘s manager just asked for a Friday meeting. Nobody else would be joining them.
• Initial thought: “Here we go. I worried this would happen. The company is getting a new CEO this summer and this new CEO would bring his or her favorite people and do things differently
  
• Action: In a panic, Cookie calls everyone she knows to let them know she needs a new job. Stat. She ruminates about the bad things that could happen. She lived on one income alone and this might see the kids coming home early from college.
• Result: Her boss let’s her go and she spirals down finally choosing a dull job that doesn’t challenge her.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation (be very concrete): Cookie is a fifty-five-year-old with two kids in college and Cookie‘s manager just asked for a Friday meeting. Nobody else would be joining them.
• Initial thought: “Okay. It’s not great but I can do this. I’m working on not panicking.” Not panicking could bring about a better future.
• New Feeling: A little nervous, but hopeful that what comes after “the meeting” will work for her future good.
• Action: Cookie has a few quiet evenings at home with good music and chills. She meets with her manager that Friday and, as she suspected, is being let go.
• Result: She spends the weekend working with herself to come from a place of calm. She begins to notice the many paths of opportunity that spring from one little question: “What’s next?” ❄️
  

“Your transformation will be the miracle.” ― Holly Lynn Payne,❄️

Hope you’re feeling good and hanging there! Write to me in the comments below and let me know what you think of this new layout. Hope you’re sidestepping the bleak cold and flu season!

♥. Wendy

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And given that computers can be so difficult, always feel free to ask in the comments below for Aunt Bea and I’ll get her right to you!

I am not an expert, doctor, surgeon, nurse, dietician, or nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Hi Thrivers!

You’ll see a change in the length of these pearls (I was wearing myself out writing all five every week). So sometimes I’ll recommend the main pearl plus an amazing book for book-desert. Other times it might be the main pearl with a fabulous quote.

On with the show!

Last week a thriver wrote: “Now that I have you on the phone, so to speak, I have been wondering what with all the coverage your view might be of Ozempic and the like. Does it ever have a place in the eventual formation of smart eating habits – which can take a long time to form. It’s a complex issue with significant medical aspects, people are sensitive, and it’s easy for people to feel judged or judgy.  — M.

Great question.

About two years ago I wrote about the new meds and me: no joke, I’d have taken out a small loan to try these new weight loss meds.” I see it the same way today.

I don’t have a single judgement about anyone trying a new med. Take Oprah, like many of us, that poor girl has been battling the eating-urge her entire adult life. But here’s the thing: at her 70^th birthday she told People magazine that she was stopping the meds to see if she could maintain her weight on her own. She could not. She gained back twenty, and decided to remain on the med for life.

And side effects are a real issue for some.

My understanding is that several weight loss meds were originally made for those with diabetes. So why aren’t the people dealing with diabetes have the same terrible side effects than weight loss people do? What I found is that people with diabetes are given lower doses, but also have a different expectations of the drug (i.e. maintain the use of their feet versus fitting into that little black dress).

So to answer M’s question: the way forward depends on the person. These are our choices:

• Oprah’s way: take a forever med and then no need to learn how to preserve.
• Half Oprah and half me: Take the med to lose the weight initially, but join me in preserving your habits into your heart and soul a lifetime loss.
• All me: Lose weight and preserve the loss forever using to deal with food the way I do.

I don’t feel “better than” med users because back in the day I wouldn’t have hesitated to be one. But that said, either choice, you’ll whittle down.

Journal-write about why you’re thinking about meds; why habits are hard for you to embed; why losing matter\s so much to you.

Deciding about the weight loss meds isn’t simple. It’s normal to feel torn. Just listen to your body, and take it one day at a time. ❄️

Have a great beginning of March!

♥. Wendy

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And given that computers can be so difficult, always feel free to ask in the comments below for Aunt Bea and I’ll get her right to you!

I am not an expert, doctor, surgeon, nurse, dietician, or nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Hi everyone!

I’m so sorry for the hiccups I’ve had. Let’s blame it on the computer. lol. I’ll be back next with the usual schedule. Until then, I hope this short post speaks to you.

Do you lead from your external life or from your internal world?

I’m not suggesting this is a black and white question, we’re all somewhere on this spectrum. You know how I’m often asked, “how do I eat on trips? During holidays? And do i suggest intermittent eating or intuitive eating?”

I know I used to wonder how I’d ever keep the weight off when my world falls apart? in celebratory times? when I’m depressed? scared? excited? bored?

In short, I was once looking at how do I make losing and maintaining a large weight loss possible?

I can tell you this: As I make food decisions, the answers come from my internal world. So whether I’m on a cruise, enjoying summer or navigating a health crises, I stay firmly on my eating plan and use every smart hack I can make use of to deal successfully with the crazy external (trip food, fast food, food porn from store, huge restaurant plates and so forth).

Overtime I slowly shifted from responding to external-cues to responding to my internal landscape.

How do you “eat with strength” and override your external? Three journal-writing questions to ask yourself:

• Do I lead from my internal or external?
• If I make plans to eat with strength, what is the moment that I shift to being influenced by my external world?
• What are three ways I can consciously shift to my internal direction?

That’s it for me, see you next

♥, Wendy

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And given that computers can be so difficult, always feel free to ask in the comments below for Aunt Bea and I’ll get her right to you!

I am not an expert, doctor, surgeon, nurse, dietician, or nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.treatment.

Pearl One

It took many years for me to truly connect that eating several brownies starts with a thought in my brain. Let me give you an example. Say my husband’s company is downsizing and he’s laid off. I then have a thought about his being let go. From this one situation, there are many responses:

• First the thought: Omg.
  My husband is out of work. “We’ll lose the house!; then the feeling: fear.
• Thought: “Wow. I’ve wanted to start an e-business forever. Looks like now’s tr the time. Feeling: apprehensive, but excited.
• Thought: Awesome! We’ve been talking about moving to a new state for ages. Adventure: here we come! Feeling: thrilled.

After having our feeling (fear, excited, thrilled) we then kick into action. Most of us — on this site – have

a feeling and overeat. It might be stress-eating or what I call the 3Es: every-emotion-eating.

One more example.

A young woman has been 30 pounds over her preferred weight since middle school. She often tells friends, “No matter what I do, I can’t lose. The weight will not budge.”

Our young woman gets engaged and drops thirty to fit into her dress.

Nothing changed.

Except everything changed: her thinking.

Losing and maintaining always begins in our brain. Every poor food choice starts in our synapses. Once you make this internal shift, you’ll approach weight loss in an entirely new way.

The diet industry has done a number on our culture. They’ve long framed weight loss as a food or a willpower or a “Just Do It” kind of thing.

It’s not.

It’s much bigger: it’s a thinking thing.❄️

Pearl Two

Our journal Pearl.

• What do you think that: it’s not a food thing, it’s a thinking thing?
• How do you use your thinking to eat fewer calories?
• Try to list the ways your thinking turns off and your cavewoman takes over?
• List the ways you can keep your thinking focused on your plan: a lifetime weight loss.

Pearl Three

Sequencing is taken directly from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The purpose of sequences is to help us move from reacting to circumstances to responding. I encourage you to do a sequence a day in your journal. Powerful stuff. Apply to your own life.

Initial Sequence

• Situation (be bare bones): Helen, 69, lives alone and her trash is picked up on Sundays. Her driveway is steep to bring trash outside on Sundays difficult.
• Initial thought: “I’m angry mainly at myself for not being able to do this like I once did.”
• Feeling: angry because she wants to feel independent, a Mary Tyler Moore ty;pe of person.
• Result: More getting mad at herself and coming up with lame solutions.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation (be bare bones): Helen, 69, lives alone and her trash is picked up on Sundays. Her driveway is steep making it hard to get the trash down on Sundays.
• Chosen thought: “It’s true. I like to feel independent so I’ll figure this one out. I can’t keep driving my trash to the curb. I’m not going to move into full on drama.”
• Feeling: “I feel courageous for looking carefully at the entire situation without flying into drama which is what I once would have done.”
• Action: she quietly sits at the kitchen table and makes a list of stuff she’s good at before making a list of ideas for her Sunday trash situation. She wonders whether the county trash up would allow her to leave the trash by her garage. The word “elderly” bugs her, but it’s a good  way to get the job done. She also wonders if the neighbor boy wants to make extra money moving the trash can.
• Result: Turns out the trash people put her under “elderly/disabled.” Problem solved. ❄️

Pearl Four

I loved Marianne Cronin’s The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot and would you believe that this is the author’s debut book. Such talent. I’ll never forget the funny opening line, “When people say ‘terminal,’ I think of the ‘airport.’” This book is a not-to-miss book-dessert.

The reason I mention Cronin’s first book is due to her second one that/z come out to great reviews.  Eddie Winston is Looking for Love, was released in 2024. I’m just now diving in, if it’s only half as good as her first, we’re in good hands. I’m leaning heavily on book-desserts in the evenings. ❄️

Pearl Five

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” Anne Lamott ❄️

I’m sorry I’m so late. Too much time at the doctors.

Have a great mid-February!

♥, Wendy

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And given that computers can be so difficult, always feel free to ask in the comments below for Aunt Bea and I’ll get her right to you!

I am not an expert, doctor, surgeon, nurse, dietician, or nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.