I just started watching this show called, “Drop Dead Diva,” that was recommended for me to watch from a friend who thought I would like it. They were right, I do really like SOME aspects of it. I just finished watching this one particular episode that sparked up an idea to write about.

To summarize, in this episode a 15 year old girl went on this diet plan that caused her to lose 40lbs fast. She ended up in the hospital after fainting because not only was she told to eat no more than 500 calories a day on this special diet, but one of the ingredients in the bars was ephedrine – which is basically speed disguised as a nutritional supplement.

When I heard that I was instantly brought back to being 18 years old. My boyfriend at the time was going to the USA often for baseball, and I knew they had these special diet pills there that weren’t legal in Canada. They had ephedrine in them and I had heard that really helped you lose weight. I remember begging him to get them for me, which he finally did.

I will never forgot the night when he gave me the pills. I was so convinced that I had found my answer to not only attaining the perfect body – but to happiness.  I truly convinced myself that these pills were going to be my solution to weight loss and solve all of my problems. I will never forgot popping back that first pill and feeling EXTREMELY hyper, as if everything was going on in fast forward motion around me. Deep down I knew the way I was feeling from these pills wasn’t right, but I didn’t care – well I should say ED didn’t care – I had found my magic pill – or so I thought.

If I could only go back to myself then and talk some sense into myself.
Ask myself why I was so unhappy with my current self and body?
Ask myself why I felt I had to go to such extreme measures to try to lose weight?

But I know the answers I would say and I can’t blame my 18 year-old self for taking this road.
Look at what we are fed through the media.

Everything around us needs to be smaller, tighter, skinnier, more toned, more polished.
We see low-fat, fat-free, zero percent everything, everywhere we go.

The latest diets are always promoted and people are talking about the newest “best” exercise regime. Essentially, we are bombarded with the idea that,

WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE ARE & WHAT OUR BODIES LOOK LIKE ARE NEVER EVER GOOD ENOUGH – AND ALWAYS NEED TO BE THINNER.

As a result of what I had been conditioned to believe was the truth, from society, the media and ED himself, I just assumed that the only way to get the body I wanted was to be on a diet, restrict certain foods and food groups, over exercise, count calories, weigh myself daily, take diet pills and more.

Yet, this was challenging for me, I was never very good at being restrictive for more than a day or so. I loved food and still do love food – very much – I am Italian for heaven sakes!

But EVERY TIME I ate something that ED convinced me to believe I “shouldn’t” have ate, I felt nothing but extreme guilt.

Luckily throughout the years I learned that I don’t need to feel guilt around food anymore. If you can relate to anything that I have just spoken about in this blog and would like to find freedom with food, then I want to invite you to CLICK HERE and join my FREE three day video training series, titled, “The Freedom Shift – How Women Are Relieving The Guilt Around Food & Shifting Into Their Ideal Weight and SO CAN YOU!”

You don’t need to be trapped into thinking that your only answers to happiness lie in diet pills, restriction, over exercising or more.

You don’t need to have fear around food for the rest of your life and deprive yourself of what you truly want because of the guilt factor.

You don’t need to be uncomfortable in your skin forever.

I promise, but what you need to do first is….

want to change,
want to get off the diet train,
want to figure out another way and
want to find freedom with food and acceptance for what your body is today.

 

So I have a question for you – how bad do you want it?

P.S. Let me know if you want it or not in the comment box below.

Paula Galli, Motivational Coach, Nutritional Counsellor & Self-Esteem Expert

So lets be real, when you are trying to lose weight what do you normally do? Count calories, cut out calories that you do “not need” and try to eliminate everything fattening. If you are anything like I used to be you would know EXACTLY what I am talking about.

The funny thing is, having now broken free from ED and realizing that a lot of the food rules that I was following for years in hopes of gaining the “perfect body”; the body that I believed that once I had it, would make me so happy and would make everything in my life be perfect – were actually really stupid rules to live my life according by, not to mention, a really illogical mindset to be in – thinking that a “perfect body” would result in my life to be perfect! – But that’s ED for you!

What I mean when I say stupid food rules, is that while on some tiny level they may have some truth to them, the way in which ED interpreted these rules automatically disregarded any other important nutritional information that was related to those items that the food rules were created around – like eggs yolks.

Today I was making myself two sunny side eggs in coconut oil.  I began laughing to myself when I cut out the egg yolks and unlike what I did for all of the years when I was trying to lose weight, I actually threw the egg whites in the garbage and ate the yolks! Yes, you read that correctly! I threw the egg whites out! You may be asking yourself, “Why did Paula do this!?” Well there are a few reasons why I did this.

(1)Unlike ED’s food rule that I listened to my whole life, which told me that egg yolks were bad, I now know that this is completely untrue. The truth is egg yolks hold a lot of nutritional value, which help promote overall health, such as being one of the richest dietary sources of the B-complex vitamin choline, which is associated with better neurological function and reduced inflammation. There’s also evidence that dietary choline helps with fetal brain development when pregnant women eat it.  Happiness, is another side benefit of a diet rich in choline. Egg yolks also have a big dose of sulfur, an essential nutrient that helps with everything from vitamin B absorption to liver function, not to mention is necessary for the production of collagen and keratin, which help create and maintain shiny hair, strong nails and glowing skin.

(2)Earlier this year I took a food sensitively test to see what my body was intolerant to. When an allergic reaction occurs, the immune system reacts by releasing antibodies. The foods and inhaled particles that provoke the release of antibodies are called “allergens”. There are two commonly produced antibodies called IgG and IgE. IgE allergy responses occur immediately after ingestion or inhalation of an allergen (ie. people who are allergic to peanuts that leads to anaphylactic shock to take place), while IgG allergic reactions occur over several hours or days and can be caused by multiple foods, thereby making them virtually impossible to identify without testing. These sensitivities are not life threatening like the IgE allergies are. So, I did a test for both. To my surprise the IgG test showed me that my good old egg whites were one of the foods that my body was sensitive to. So that is the other reason why whenever I am able, I try not to eat the whites – who would have thought all those years I was listening to ED he had no idea – not like he would have cared anyways!

I wanted to share this blog with you because as I mentioned, I really began laughing to myself as I ate the yolks and threw out the whites. I was chuckling thinking this NEVER would have happened all of those years when ED was in my life. All of those years I was so concerned with eating fats – because I thought eating fats was the worst thing ever! Before I get into why you need fats – don’t misinterpret my point. I am not suggesting you through out the egg whites, if I wasn’t sensitive to them I would never do that, and I still eat full eggs when I am out at restaurants. Eggs are an extremely great source of protein! And fat when ONLY WHEN you eat the yolk!

So Why Do We Need To Eat Fat?

Fat is one of three macronutrients the human body needs to survive. These macro-nutrients provide the energy needed for growth and basic body functions. There are different types of fat but I will not get into the details of that in this blog, all you need to know is that healthy fats that come from egg yolks, avocados, oils, nuts and seed are EXTREMELY important for your health and your body’s survival. ED never thinks about this kind of stuff, since all he is focused on is low calories and whether or not the food is going to make you fat or not. Well I am hear to tell your ED’s to shut it and ask you to read why having healthy fats in your everyday life is ESSENTIAL!

What Do Fat’s Do In & For Our Bodies?

Here is a list of just SOME of the things that Healthy Fats Like, Eggs Yolks, Do For Your Body…

• Contain Essential Fatty Acids:

Dietary fats that are essential for growth development and cellular functions which cannot be made by our body’s processes

• Proper Brain Functioning:

Our brains contain a large amount of essential fats

• Provides Energy:

Our body uses the fat that we eat, and the fats that we make from other nutrients in our bodies, to provide energy for us to be able to participate in life

• Proper Functioning Of Nerves:

Fats are part of the myelin, a fatty material that wraps around our nerve cells that allow our bodies to send electrical messages.

• Maintaining Healthy Skin As Well As Other Tissues:

Our cells need to contain some fat in them as an essential part of cell membrane which controls what goes in and out of our cells

• Transportation and Absorption Of Fat-Soluble Vitamins:

Allows the body to transport (through the bloodstream) and absorb the necessary nutrients for a vital life, such as vitamin A, D, E & K

So now that you understand why eating healthy fats like eggs yolks is important, I want to encourage you to eat your egg yolks, as well as other healthy fats – EVERYDAY, WITH EVERY MEAL, REGARDLESS OF WHAT ED MAY SAY TO YOU!

I suggest you go make yourself a delicious spinach and egg salad, with nuts, seeds and olive oil right now

P.S. Let me know your thoughts of this in the comment box.

Paula Galli, Motivational Coach, Nutritional Counsellor & Self-Esteem Expert

Have you ever spoken to your fear? Yeah I know this may sound a bit crazy but I am serious. Have you ever sat down, grabbed a piece of paper and allowed yourself to go inside and communicate with your fears? I just did it today, as I am working on moving forward with expanding my business and a lot of my fear is coming up. Truthfully, a lot of my fear is coming up to stop me from truly achieving what I want. I grabbed my journal and began digging deeper inside, chipping away at what was really causing me to be scared, to be consumed by fear and to feel stuck.

As I did this I was brought back to a time in my life where ED (EATING DISORDER) consumed my daily thoughts. For that was a time in my life when fear not only showed up from time to time, like it does now, but was literally my being.

While I was trying to break free from ED, I had conversations with it like I had today and though the language was different, though the topic was about something else, one common denominator existed = fear.

For it is fear that keeps us stuck in whatever cycle we continue to walk through.

For it is fear that allows us to remain within our comfort zone, whether than be with our relationship with food, our bodies, our partners, our friends, our family members, our jobs, our activity level and/or our love for ourselves.

For it is fear that keeps us from truly achieving the potential that we were all meant to and worthy of achieving in this life-time.

I wanted to share this with you because wherever you are at in your life, whether you are living with an Eating Disorder or not, I KNOW that you can relate to this feeling that I am talking about. I KNOW that just like myself, FEAR has shown up in your life multiple times and tried to stop you from moving forward in the true direction you would like it to go.

So the question is what do you do? Well like the title of a great book I read…. FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAYS.

Fear is not going to kill you, throw you in jail or ruin your life. Fear is just a set of emotions and thought patterns that’s sole purpose is to keep you stuck – yet it has a clever way of thinking that it is protecting you (which in some cases it is) but in many cases it is rather stunting your growth and keeping you on a never ending hamster wheel. The hamster wheel of dieting, staying in that relationship that isn’t serving you, staying in a job you hate or staying stuck in any place you know you want to be unstuck from!

So here’s what you do – write about it – have a conversation with your fear and figure out why it is even showing up. Once you can see why it is there – acknowledge that it is just fear – then CHOOSE to think differently, CHOOSE to feel this fear and do whatever it is you want to do anyways.

The CHOICE is always in your hands.

P.S. Let me know your thoughts of this in the comment box.

Paula Galli,
Motivational Coach, Nutritional Counsellor & Self-Esteem Expert