Today we’re modern cavewomen!

Hello everyone!

We have new thrivers – and  welcome!! – I’m sharing five super important posts for you to read in pink below. The regular Monday post I send will make a lot more sense after you read the pink. And if you haven’t received your Aunt Bea copy just write to me at: Wendy@theInspiredEater.com and I’ll shoot it right to you.

• Begin Here
• This Metaphor Is My Constant Companion as I Preserve My Weight Loss After Age Fifty
• Brownies for Breakfast
• 6 Pillars of Losing Weight After Age 50
• How to Conquer Your Evening Sugar Cravings

Pearl One

Let’s talk important vocabulary that I infused into my supportive self-talk. Beating ourselves up internally might’ve once given the illusion of “helping,” but really ran us off the cliff.

Going Cavewoman

This is the name I give to the part of our brain that kept the saber tooth kitty from eating our greatest of grandmas. Back in the day, our girl was formidable at finding food and “overeating” whenever possible, knowing she’d store fat for the lean times when she needed every last calorie for her herself and her babies.

But today, you and I don’t live in her world, we live in food-gone-wild central and don’t need to eat every calorie in sight. As I’ve written, when our weight starts dropping, the cavewoman — perceiving the threat of hunger — wakes up and moves quickly to find the highest calories around. So, if I let myself get too hungry, the ice cream is always looking better and better, thanks to my cavewoman.

Keep your cavewoman chilled and sleeping in her cave by not panicking her. Hunger panics her. Small bites especially in the afternoons and evenings are how to keep her quiet and allow your prefrontal (handles logic and planning) to take the wheel.

The Modern Plateau

Remember plateaus from decades ago? How we’d be on a diet humming right along losing weight beautifully, until we hit a plateau and couldn’t get our weight to budge?

We were taught to believe plateaus were bad and that only linear progress mattered. And if our weight loss wasn’t linear we must “be doing something wrong.”

To make it all more confusing, in the middle of the last century, two guys came up with the “weight setpoint” theory saying that our weights will always return to each person’s genetic makeup.

But here’s what happened for me: I noticed that I’d lose five-pounds, and hit a plateau. I don’t know where I got the idea, but when I was losing the 55-pounds it occurred to me to call the plateaus “holding.” It seemed to me that if I “held” my new weight to a certain number for two weeks or more, I’d begin losing again. My thought is that my body needed time to get used to the new-normal and once my body was used to the new number, I would then go back to losing.

Your Eeyore and You

I’m about to sound heartless, but we’re now in a boundary-setting moment: when you’re putting so much effort into shifting to the Smart Eating Lifestyle, it’s too much to ask of yourself to also tolerate the Eeyore-people.

When you’re trying to bring something so important to life (your weight impacting your health both physically and mentally), plan to prune the sad sacks of your friends and family. You don’t need to hear, “Another diet?!” “It’ll never work.” “We’re all doomed.” Eyores might seem pathetic and cute, but they’re actually dangerous to getting to and sustaining a lifetime-weight loss.

In conclusion, keep your cavewoman quiet, embrace your plateaus and boot your Eeyores. ♥

Pearl Two

Our journal-writing pearl prompt.

• What do you think about your cavewoman brain and your prefrontal brain?
• When is your cavewoman active? When is your prefrontal most front-and-center?
• Can you imagine calling a plateau “holding” — while your weight stabilizes — when you’re shooting for a lifetime loss? Do you worry that it’ll feel too slow? What’s important about having a “fast” weight loss? How will you support yourself in slowing down?
• Who are the Eeyores in your life?
• When you think about your Eeyores, what feelings come up?
• Write about how you’ll handle the Eeyores.
• Now think about what you’d love to most hear from a supportive cheerleader. If there’s a cheerleader in your life — like you love Taylor Swift — what does she tell you on a daily basis? ♥

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 super concrete): Nancy realizes that it’s Halloween in one month.
• Initial thought:  She loves eating candy that she otherwise never sees and – let’s be honest — the Halloween candy is so cute and little.
• Feeling: Dread. Looking forward to the peanut butter cups, but she’s also feels angry at herself for succumbing to the candy every year. In the end, she thinks that the candy is so tiny that one can’t be a big deal.
• Action: Nancy keeps swinging from one end of the spectrum to other: I want candy, I shouldn’t eat candy. I want it, I shouldn’t eat it. Back and forth all month long.
• Result: She eats one Twix bar and is triggered into eating twelve small packages of Butterfingers, Peanut Butter Cups, and – who knew they had these — Peanut Butter M&M’s. After eating she goes into beating herself up mode.

Often people need to do a middle sequence right here that takes us to the following sequence.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation (be super concrete): Nancy realized that it’s Halloween in one month.
• Chosen thought: In the past she overate the candy. This October she wants to stay on her Smart Eating Path. She really doesn’t want to overdo the candy again.
• Feeling: pride that she’s choosing herself and her wants over the October candy-fest.
• Action: In a written-out plan, Nancy went over her calendar making note of when the obstacles will present in October. She finally determines that the grocery store and Costco are the biggest problems for her.
• Result: To keep herself tethered – like an umbilical cord – to her October plan, she re-reads her plan throughout the month making notes on what is working and what’s not. Given her plan, she decides that she’ll eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (or something similar) in the car before walking into the grocery store. And she makes it to November having eaten zero Halloween candy.

Pearl Four

I’m just now diving into Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel by Lisa See. I’ve never read a Lisa See novel, but hear she’s remarkably wonderful. This title — Snow Flower — was tied with The Island of Sea Women as being my online book club’s most favorites out of all Lisa See’s work (she’s prolific, so it’s surprising that I’m just now getting to her).

If you’ve read and liked her books, I hope you’ll share in the comments below. I have no doubt that Snow Flower and the Fan will be a tasty book-dessert. ♥

Pearl Five

We had some excitement over the weekend with my young adult son, 22, and the family car. Nobody got hurt and that’s what matters most.

And again, if you’ve enjoyed this post I hope you’ll share it with others!

♥, 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 always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea 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.

Being racehorses in weight loss land was never real. We’re sea turtles: slow and adorable.

Pearl One

You and I are wise to the ways of yesteryear’s diet-cartel with their unsustainable “lose two pounds a week”, but then saying nothing at all about how to maintain. So, women in the last century, had no option but to live the classic yo-yo existence. But today, in 2025, we’re now peering decades into our future understanding that maintaining our precious weight loss is the real challenge and requires new tools, mindsets and habits.

The habits we embed today will have our back decades from now.

That said, I want to caution you – as you go about your daily – not to enact massive change all at once such as using new weight loss cookbooks with all new recipes that call for ingredients you’ve never heard of; setting your alarm for a new early wake-up time, or beginning a rigorous workout that can’t be sustained. Too many changes at one time burns us out and is inauthentic to our deeper self.

Don’t overdo change. Know at your core that establishing strong habits around food and weight, take time and deliberate focus.

Returning to the old diet mentality of yesteryear versus making a lifestyle shift: two totally different things.

What important habits do I suggest installing into your daily? These are the habits I would go for in the beginning of a big lifestyle shift.

My favorite study out of England (2009) concluded that it takes 66-days to instill a smart new habit. The good news is that only the first two weeks are most challenging. Here’s what I’d need to be set in stone in the beginning:

• I’d embed the idea that losing weight after 50 is akin to having a part-time job. The very thoughts gives me 20 hours every week to spend on myself allowing me to shift from yo-yo eater to someone who rocks the Smart Eating Lifestyle. I know that recommitting to the job description every morning when I wake up is crucial.
• I’d stop eating after 6 p.m.
• I would breakfast like a king, lunch like a princess and eat dinner like a pauper. That’s all I would suggest doing for the first month or two.
• When I was fully confident that my first three habits were no longer on Bambi legs, I’d put into place tracking my food meal-by-meal day by day. (Get a pretty notebook, spiral-ringed like these.)
• I’d prep food for the week on Sunday afternoon to make life easier on myself once the week starts.
• Next, in my habits tool chest I’d include “eat before you eat.”
• Then I’d create the habit of using a cold-tote every single day filled with bites I loved.
• Finally, I’d put journal-writing into place (I recommend spiral-bound like this one.)

Whether you’re losing, stabilizing (once called plateauing) or maintaining say to yourself every day, “I’m not working on my weight, I’m working on strengthening my habits.”

Given that each habit takes 66-days to embed, you can see how slow your first year – or more – can take ingraining strong habits.

If you’re thinking “well, it didn’t take me that long to establish strong habits: that’s way too slow.” I worry for your lifetime-loss. You want to think the very opposite of what was once said about weight loss: take the pounds off quickly, you’ll be a size 8 tomorrow.”

No. The animal does not exist.

Remember, a lifetime loss isn’t about quick fixes; it’s about staying the course, day by day. Every small step forward matters. Just slow the roll to experience the best results. ♥

Pearl Two

Our journal writing pearl.

• You grew up in the get-thin-fast culture. What do you think of the idea of keeping our cavewoman none the wiser by going slowly to take off weight for a lifetime?
• If losing quickly is important to you, could you slow your roll maybe by fifty percent?
• Explain to your journal how going quickly worked in the past.
• Which habits would you most like to develop in the coming year?
• Define a plan to put the habits into place.

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: Jennifer’s mom passed and left her money.
• Knee-jerk thought: I need a new car, a trip to Europe and trips to Lake Tahoe for snow skiing.
• Feeling: Woo-hoo!
• Action: At Christmastime Jennifer is drinking Café au Lait in Paris.
• Result: The money she inherited is dwindling.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation: Jennifer’s mom passed and left her money.
• Chosen thought: I know that I have a strong tendency to not think before I spend because I always “need” stuff. Could get out of hand quickly. Instead, I’ll invest in CDs at the bank.
• Feeling: Jennifer feels a boost of happiness.
• Action: She invests the funds for use in her retirement which her mom would have loved.
• Result: Her initial investment actually makes money for her.

Pearl Four

I’m just today dipping into The Island of Sea Women but what I’ve heard from trusted sources is that a) this book is immersive and difficult to put down and b) the author, Lisa See, rocks and all of her novels are masterpieces: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, and Lady Tans Circle of Women.
 

Pearl Five

It’s a five-star day. My very surly son just came over to me to share a beautiful, small porcelain pumpkin he bought at a fair. It’s a beautiful piece of art. It’s glazed in blue and just gorgeous.

But he wanted to show me something: yay!! Now I have to look cool and like nothing happened otherwise he might retreat into surly mode.

I hope you’re doing well and have many blue pumpkins in your near future!

♥, 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 always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea 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.

Investigate what triggers you to overeat. Journal-write about your emotional, situational and vacation triggers.

Pearl One

When I was losing the fifty-five pounds and today preserving the original loss, it became obvious that even when I was grooving right along eating all the smart food, I’d eventually hit a road bump. I’d have a bite of this or that and be triggered into the abyss. For me it was anything cracker or chips (love half a box Cheeze Its). I don’t think I’ve had anything crackerish for at least the last fifteen years.

And I’m here to report that there were many times when I was on the downhill path to chowing the food-porn. I learned that I needed to investigate why, when and how I fell off the Smart Eating Path. I needed to go deeper into what was undermining my life’s dream and plan.

What became clear is that along with trigger-food, I also had trigger-emotions, trigger-times of day and trigger-days of the week. Others can be triggered by a holiday. And many are triggered by the end of a fabulous trip. I could see what triggered me:

• Being tired and/or hungry.
• Feeling lonely (in a house full of people).
• Getting seriously bored.
• Being scared of a transition like a move or an empty-nest.

Overeating or “going off” my eating plan came down to me getting triggered by being somewhat hungry. I figured out that I only needed food-food, but I was so out of touch with my stomach that I thought I actually wanted junk food. I was wrong. I learned through trial and error that I didn’t need to eat a sleeve of thin mints. What I needed was apple slices dipped into peanut butter.

Our triggers don’t get the final say, we do. Trust your stomach, pay close attention to your needs, and you’ll discover strength you didn’t know you had. Proceed gently with yourself; awareness is where real change begins. ♥

Pearl Two

Our journal writing pearl. Questions are based on pearl one:

• After a food free-for-all, write about what happened today (or throughout the week) that got you to this place?
• Look at your own personal calendar: what days were the most difficult leading up to overeating? And how we’re they difficult? What was your response?
• What food triggers you?
• What life-situation trigger you? What one habit are you ready to shed? And for the best book on trading a bad habit with a great one: read or reread Atomic Habits by James Clear. ♥

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.

Automatic Sequence

• Situation: (be very concrete): Kate’s two adult kids both asked her to move closer to them so she can help with the grandkids. Kate has lived in a town by the ocean for eight years.
• Knee-jerk thought: OMG, now what am I going to do. I love it here. But of course, I love my grandkids.
• Feeling: panicked and trapped like there’s no way out of this problem.
• Action: stalks around her home. Calls a friend “to vent.”
• Result: After a lot of back and forthing, Kate calls her two kids and agrees to move to her daughter’s town, but with plans to visit her son more often.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation: (be very concrete): Kate’s two adult kids both asked her to move closer to them so she can help with the grand kids. Kate has lived in a town by the ocean for eight years.
• Chosen thought: How wonderful both young families want me around.
• Feeling: warm, happy.
• Action: Kate puts together a plan based on her own needs.
• Result: She tells kids what she can and cannot do, but whatever happened she’d keep her home near the ocean. ♥

Pearl Four

Pearl four is an amazing book recommendation; not a review, just an awesome book I want to share

In pearl four I’m suggesting an amazing book recommendation to substitute in for a regular dessert. I’m not writing a specific review, just an awesome book I want to share.

I had a hard time finding a great book-dessert — either super absorbing or crazy-inspirational — so I’m suggesting two phenomenal books from last year.

Last year I featured Life After Life by Kate Atkinson a beyond awesome book. A quick rewind: We meet Ursula first as a baby. We watch her go through many lives before she completes a satisfying experience for her final life. I highly, highly recommend Life After Life. A God in Ruins is Kate’s sequel to Life After Life about her little brother – although each book is stand-alone — and is equally as good.

The New Yorker wrote, “This follow [to Life After Life] tracks Ursula’s brother, Teddy, a favorite son who flies an RAF bomber during the Second World War and remains kind, thoughtful, and patient through a life of quiet sadness. Teddy, unlike his sister, lives only one life, but Atkinson’s deft handling of time, as she jumps from boyhood to old age and back, is impressive.” Haven’t finished, am loving. I leave it by my bed and I only read when I’m escaping the kitchen.” ♥

Total book-desserts!

Pearl Five

If you haven’t yet read Atomic Habits by James Clear, you’ll thank yourself later. The audio is supposed excellent too.

iI you enjoyed this post, please send to a friend. (And thank you.)

♥, 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 always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea 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.

Our cavewoman is a party girl who eats, drinks and spends as if you don’t have a mortgage.

Pearl One

Note:  this very cool eating style is meant to be paired with the eating plan you’re already using and the Royal Eating Plan. Even better, add in book-desserts.

I once knew of a woman who wanted to be thin so badly she fantasized about going to the hospital and being knocked unconscious for six months and fed through an IV drip. Her plan was to wake up thin.

She wasn’t serious of course, but if this fantasy were legal, I think we’d have lines out the door and around the corner with those ready for the Sleep Thin experience. (I’d be at the head of the line.)

From this woman’s IV drip idea came my Drip, Drip, Drip way of eating.

What I’m about to share is a power-tool for those times when you need a little something extra to get you back in the swing of the Smart Eating Lifestyle.

Here’s How I do It

I start in the morning and have what I want to eat for breakfast the only two rules being that one, I must be finished eating by 9:00 a.m. and two, I couldn’t overeat breakfast so that I’m not truly hungry at lunch.

The plan is to eat every hour on the hour throughout your day and evening. So from 10 a.m. , 11 a.m., Noon and so forth all the way to 6 p.m.

Do this often enough and I think you’ll find what I found. Planning to eat every single hour wasn’t really necessary. I came to see that two hours between meals and small meals (snacks) was more than enough.

When I was trying to rein myself in, the Drip, Drip, Drip method had my back times a thousand.

This style of eating doesn’t just get us back on the smart path, it’s also marks the beginning of our first foray into having a conversation with our stomach. It’s an interesting back and forth that can result in your enormous human brain and your stomach getting on the same page. I use this method anytime I think I’ve gone too far afield. ♥

Pearl Two

The cavewoman refers to our survival instinct – some call it the lizard brain – who comes to life when we’re hungry. It’s the part of us who can’t eat one cookie, we need to eat the entire sleeve. Our cavewoman eats out of her grand kid’s trick-or-treat bag. She goes completely nuts when she’s out with the girls having a second strawberry margarita because yum. She drains savings accounts, she “forgets” to gas up the car, and she stays up late into the night reading. Our prefrontal brain watches in dismay as the cavewoman “lives her best life.” Once the cavewoman finally goes to sleep, the prefrontal brain cleans up the cavewoman’s many messes.

• Do you know what triggers your cavewoman and brings her to life? (Give three example or twenty-three examples.)
• How do you keep your cavewoman snoozing happily and not bothering you?
• How do you rebound after your cavewoman goes wild? How do you put her back to sleep.
• It’s the prefrontal part of our brain that deliver the results we most want. If you want to thank someone for your success, thank your enormous prefrontal.
• Can you feel the difference of your cavewoman (lives to eat, spend, and lounge) and your prefrontal (all business, being responsible and keeping order).
• Can you tell when you’re in one mode vs. the other?
• If your prefrontal could talk, what would she tell you?
• What scares your prefrontal
• What does she most want you to know?
• Can you tell when you’re in one mode vs. the other?
• If your prefrontal could talk, what would she tell you?
• What scares your prefrontal What does she most want you to know? ♥

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.

Knee-jerk Sequence

• Situation (very concrete): Your grandchild asks you to switch to a new app for family photos and messaging.
• Initial thought: “Oh, Lord. I’m so tired of learning new technology. Plus I much prefer to keep my information private.”
• Feeling: Annoyed at the very thought of learning more tech.
• Action: Tells her family, “I don’t think that would work very well for me. You know I’m a dinosaur, right?”
• Result: She asks her family to communicate in the style they’d all used in the past.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation (very concrete): Your grandchild asks you to switch to a new app for family photos and messaging.
• Chosen Thought:  Learning new tech to keep up with my grand kids is worth the annoyance.
• Feeling: Love for my family.
• Action: Researches the app and how it works, all the while telling herself, take it slow, we’ll figure this out. I don’t have to learn this all at once.
• Result: The whole family is on one app. ♥

Pearl Four

I have a delicious book-dessert for you today! Daughters of Shandong is a gripping historical novel set during the chaos of 1948 China. It follows a mother and three sisters as they navigate war, displacement, and danger, making a harrowing journey from Shandong to Hong Kong and eventually Taiwan. Eve J. Chung’s debut is a powerful story of courage, resilience, and the strength of family bonds. It’s based on her family’s experience. A don’t miss book-dessert. ♥

Pearl Five

How are you doing? What’s working and not working? What’s the hardest part of living on the Smart Eating Lifestyle? Please share in the comments below.

And if you enjoyed this post, please send it to a friend!

♥, 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 always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea 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.

Dropping our mask when we journal can bring our unconscious to life.

Pearl One

Wondering how to do the “dinner hour?” I mean, you make food and eat with your partner every evening, but now that you’re focused on losing for a lifetime you don’t know what to do about dinner. Learning how to prepare dinner for your partner or family while sticking to our smart Smart Eating Path is likely the hardest part of anyone’s day.

First a moment of therapy-talk.

“Individuation.”  It’s a term most closely associated with Carl Jung (we’re switching to using Jungian therapy for this pearl versus cognitive behavioral therapy like in pearl three).

Smart Vocab

At its core, individuation means the process of becoming your unique, whole you. It’s about differentiating yourself from cultural expectations, family patterns, and unconscious influences so you can integrate all parts of your conscious and unconscious.

• Differentiation: You separate who you truly are from the identities imposed by family, culture, or society.
• Integration: You acknowledge and incorporate different parts of you, including parts you may normally hide (what Jung called the shadow).
• Wholeness: Rather than striving for “perfection,” individuation is about becoming completely accepting of your contradictions, strengths, and weaknesses.
• Lifelong Process: It unfolds in stages across our life, especially during times of change (midlife was particularly emphasized by Jung).

Let me give you an extreme example.

Michael Phelps, the greatest medal-winning swimmer in Olympic history, famously ate 8,000 to 12,000 calories a day. Dinner alone could include several plates of spaghetti, often with tomato sauce or butter; chicken, fish, or steak, sometimes in multiple servings; large sandwiches stacked with meat, cheese, and condiments; vegetables; sometimes pizza or fries; and desserts like ice cream, protein bars, or individual chocolates.

Now, imagine being his girlfriend (who later became his wife) eating dinner with Phelps. No way could she eat along with him.

We automatically get that his girlfriend needs to approach dinner differently than Phelps. (Signs of individuation: Phelps is focused on winning the Olympic gold, while his girlfriend is maintaining her weight.)

So, what does Phelps eating dinner with his girlfriend mean to you and me? Everything. The Michael Phelps dinner is a perfect symbol to keep tucked away in our heart and brought out whenever needed. Phelps and his girlfriend both knew what they wanted in life and that impacted how they ate.

But — specifically — how does it influence how we eat smart with our partner or family? Well, the more individuated we strive to become, the more deeply we understand how vital our weight-wants are to us. And knowing how important our weight-loss is to us leads to better ways of handling dinner.

Said another way, the idea of prepping and eating family dinner is still an important component of family life, but when we choose smart eating, we’re really choosing our own self. You want to arrive at the dinner table thinking, “I MATTER.”

Specifics

With individuation in mind, this is what I’ve done specifically to preserve my loss: Before I prepared dinner of any kind, I would “eat before I eat” so that I didn’t graze as I made dinner. If I was still looking longingly at the garlic bread, I knew that I had to eat more grapes, cherries or yogurt. Reining in our hunger is a “must” habit to keep in our heart always.

As I went forward, I was always aware of feeling totally dedicated to smart eating and I positively talked to myself moment by moment as I made dinner and sat down to eat with everyone.

In the earliest days, I made food for the family and a separate meal for myself (usually brown rice and the stir fry in frozen at Costco), but I’d sit down with the family. As my maintenance-life developed, I eventually learned that I could handle preparing one dinner for the family and myself. So, if they were having lasagna, I was having lasagna although I’d only eat three bites. (We don’t need a full plate of food to quell our hunger) I’d skip the bread and eat a larger salad. Remember, I wasn’t hungry to begin with because I’d eaten before I sat down.

If there’s any trick to weight loss it’s this: eat before you eat and journal-write to learn more about who you truly are ♥

Pearl Two

Our writing prompt pearl. Tip: Aim to write freely and without judgment. The goal is to have a chat with our unconscious about the patterns in our life and eventually integrate them. The goal is not to produce perfect sentences. Just let go.

Grab your journal and a good pen and check out these questions.

• What parts of yourself do you feel are ignored or purposely suppressed, and how can embracing them move you closer to becoming a whole, individuated self? (Remember that we’re never done learning new things about ourself.)
• Which roles or masks do you wear in daily life, and how might shedding one or more help you live more authentically?
• What was dinner life like when you were a kid? A teen?
• When you were young what was expected of your mom dinner-wise?
• What do you expect of yourself now?
• Do your expectations work in your favor?
• Are you more likely to tell your partner that you’re eating smart from now on? Or will you keep it private and to yourself?
• Reflect on a life-changing event (something huge). How did it shape how you see yourself? Could there be a hidden lesson your unconscious is trying to reveal?
• Have your current self and your “wise inner guide” self talk together. What advice does she give? ♥

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.

Knee-jerk Sequence

• Situation: Eleanor is 64 and new to retirement. She’s ready to travel and have fun. But then her adult son asked her to care for his two kids during the day so his wife can work.
• Knee-jerk thought:  My son really needs me and I’ve always dropped everything for him and his brother.
• Feeling: Confused and sad.
• Action: Agrees to stay at house and watch her grand kids.
• Results: She vacillates between loving her grand kids to feeling put-upon because her son made the request.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation: Eleanor is 64 and new to retirement. She’s ready to travel and have fun. Then her adult son asked her to care for his two kids during the day so his wife can work.
• Chosen thought: It appears that I’ve done a little too much coddling of my boys. Family-life really matters of course, but I’ve worked hard all my life and I want to travel with my friends.
• Action: Eleanor sits down with her son and his wife and outlines how this arrangement of her watching the kids will work. She tells them what she’s willing to do.
• Result: In October, she’s cruising with friends to Italy. ♥

Pearl Four

I am halfway through The Names by Florence Knapp and it’s a can’t-put-down read. Florence Knapp’s clever story about how a single choice shapes a life grabbed me from page one.. No surprise it’s now on the bestseller list and is being translated into twenty languages.

Trigger warning: The Names doesn’t get gruesome at all, but there’s short references to both emotional and physical abuse.

The Names is absolutely a five-star book-dessert. ♥

Pearl Five

Welcome to September! This is what I call the “season of many shoes” because one day might mean sandals while another day might be cold enough for boots.

And if you enjoyed this post, please send it to a friend!

♥, Wendy

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