Fatigue is considered a “disease of our times.” It is one of the most common symptoms we experience. Fatigue is complex and there are many possible contributing factors to consider – dietary, lifestyle, psychological, physiological and societal. My mentor Marc David believes that when it comes to fatigue, “nutritional and biological factors along with emotional and soul factors are profoundly important to consider. By working in these realms, we can create powerful breakthroughs in energy.”

Fatigue is our body wisdom forcing us to stop so we can hear the message it is trying to whisper to us. Instead of fighting it and overriding it with powerful substances such as caffeine, sugar, energy drinks, excess carbs, willpower, ego and electronic stimulation, what if we just experienced it and felt it?

My yoga teacher says, “Experience the experience you are experiencing.” I love that! What if we just experienced our fatigue, welcomed it, listened to it? What would it tell you? What would it be asking of you? Perhaps a life-review, to slow down, or make a change in lifestyle. There is always a soul-learning when it comes to fatigue. How is fatigue asking you to grow and evolve? How is it asking you to find deeper meaning and purpose in your life? These are key questions to explore on your wellness journey.

We are often afraid to slow down and drop into ourselves, but that is exactly what fatigue is asking us to do. If we ignore our symptoms, if we fight fatigue as opposed to welcome it, we often manifest eating and weight challenges. There are no mistakes why we manifest the symptoms we do and fatigue is often our body wisdom asking us to slow down, listen, be present and rest.

Winter is when nature is at its resting season. There is wisdom in following Mother Nature’s lead. This is the perfect time of year to find stillness, to rest and conserve energy. Take the holiday season to rest, reflect, and do a life review. Look back at all that you have accomplished this year and think about all the things that have increased and supported your energy and contemplate all the things that have drained and weakened your energy. Take the energy gainers into 2014 and leave the energy suckers behind.

I do hope you will join me for the final edition of my Seasonal Eating Series and learn about the wisdom and hidden secrets of winter. It is a beautiful session with refreshing perspectives on weight gain, holiday eating and feeling your way through the winter blues. The session will help you to stay balanced physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Of course, one of the greatest ways to increase energy is to celebrate, seek pleasure and joy. I hope this holiday season, along with rest and reflection, you do just that.

Fall can bring a great deal of moving energy. All the wind, the blowing leaves, the gusting snow, and the rush and business of our daily lives, can leave us feeling ungrounded.

If we fail to ground ourselves at this time of year we can experience emotional eating, anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, lots of mental chatter, and conditions of dryness such as constipation and eczema.

Food is a wonderful and powerful way to ground the body. Soups, one-pot meals, nut butters, nuts, warm apple and pear sauces, roasted root vegetables and oilier and warmer foods in general all help to earth us. Even eating more darker, denser protein such as bison, grass-fed beef, lamb and wild salmon can help us to feel more rooted. Sugar, coffee and refined foods will do the opposite!

Exercise such as Pilates, yoga, Tai Chi, barre work, weight lifting and walking, help to ground us. Slower, more focused exercises can help to counter all the rushed movement in our lives.

Grounding our thoughts is also an important practice to cultivate at this time of year. Journaling, communication, resolving stress and minimizing tweets, Facebook and other social media, are all key ways to help quiet the mind and earth all the moving thoughts. If we are always in our heads, we create stress in our physiology. Finding ways to focus and be present are essential to mental wellness.

Body work such as massage, spa treatments and reflexology are also such nourishing ways to keep us grounded. Human touch is incredibly healing and so good for our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

In order to be well during this season, we must find our balance. Don’t let the windy moving energy blow you off course. Do what you can to ground yourself. Nourish your body will delicious Fall foods, practice slowing down with more focused exercise, root your thoughts and emotions and give your soul a little love too with some body work or just some more hugs!

One of my favorite questions to ask is my clients is, “what would your ideal relationship with food be like?” Most often the response is, “balanced,” “peaceful,” “easy”, “guilt-free,” and “enjoyable.” It is clear that most people just want the freedom to be able to eat whatever they want. The unfortunate truth is most people don’t. Most people have a stressed relationship with food. They feel shackled by fear of weight gain and hold on to rigid nutritional rules and beliefs around food that block the joy and pleasure of eating.

We are in relationship with food every single day of our lives. It is our longest standing relationship. From the moment we are born to the time we die, we often eat 3-5 times a day. So that means that the one thing we have to do the most in our lives, the one relationship that is always with us, is one of the most stressed and unenjoyable. That is crazy! As my mentor Marc David puts it, “fighting food is a form of insanity.”

When we eat with fear, stress, chatter, worry, shame, guilt and uncertainty, we shut down the ability to optimally digest, assimilate nutrients and burn calories. So if one of the greatest fears around eating is gaining weight, it is happening regardless of what you eat, when you eat in stress. Remember, it is not only what we eat that matters, it is who we are as eaters that counts.

If you fail to eat with pleasure, you wont feel satisfied or satiated. When we eat in the stress response, we increase cortisol which desensitizes the body to feel pleasure. You end up eating more, until the body can actually feel full and pleasured. Many people fear that if they eat whatever they want they wont be able to stop, but the truth is, if you are eating with pleasure, if you eat slowly and you are relaxed, you actually regulate your appetite and your metabolism. Bottom line, when you diminish pleasure you also diminish metabolism.

Where do you want to play in the nutritional game of life? How would your day feel if you could just eat with peace? How would your meals taste if you ate them in joy? How would you feel about food if you could eat it without shame or guilt? What would your relationship with food be like if you could just eat whatever you wanted?

I encourage you to try to eat with freedom, to unshackle yourselves from the nutritional bondage you have created. See what happens. And please, if you have a stressed relationship with food, if you feel food is the enemy, come and see me. As a Certified Eating Psychology Coach, there is much that I can do to help you shift that relationship and it is my greatest intention to help my clients have a healthy and beautiful relationship with food, body and self.

Are your meals worthy of a picture?  Do they exude color, vitality and energy? Do they look delicious, healthy and vibrant? Would you share them with others? Are you proud of what you are eating?

You do not have to be a great cook or create extravagant meals for them to be picture worthy. As long as you put love and care into your meals, they should look great and taste even better!

Start taking pictures of your meals (I’d love to see them) and see how it enhances your relationship with food.

We are a few short weeks away from closing the door on Winter. We made it! I feel like Winter began in October and though we have been blessed with beautiful Chinooks along the way, 5 months of winter can definitely take its toll on us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

In Staying Healthy with the Seasons, Elson Haas writes, “winter is when nature is at her resting season; quiet, withdrawn, deep in the earth and the roots.” It is our most downward and yin time of the year. We tend to feel more heavy, tired, slow, depressed, and sensitive. As with every season, it is important to follow nature’s lead and Winter was asking for us to go within, be still, reflect, be at home more, indulge in sleep and food, rest and wait for the reawakening of Spring. So I hope you surrendered and followed your body-wisdom to be with the heaviness of winter. I hope you loaded up on your warming, oilier and comforting foods, enjoyed soups, chili, crock pot meals, lots  of cooked foods, ate a plethora of root vegetables and took in heavier and denser foods such as nuts, nut butters, oils, oatmeal, meat, and chocolate too!

If you are feeling sluggish, tired, restless, down on the dumps, a few pounds heavier or like you have untapped energy that is waiting to be released – you are exactly where you need to be! You are meant to be at the lowest and deepest part of your year. And because we are now at the junction between winter and spring, you should be feeling like you are ready for a shift, a change a new beginning. The good news is, at the end of every dark hour, there is always light and that is what Spring is all about – cultivating Lightness.

We are so close to reawakening, re-birthing, cleansing, purifying, and starting a new phase in our year, our diet and our lifestyle. Spring is the most important time of year to change your diet. If you do not transition out of Winter properly, it is common to stay stuck in heaviness, weight gain, toxicity and depressed moods which will all lead to symptom, imbalance, dis-ease and disharmony within the body, mind and soul.

Embrace the move into Spring and release the winter diet.

“The only way a woman can have the body she is meant to have, is if she is the woman she is meant to be” – Marc David

As you set your new year intentions, set them with this profound statement in mind. At this time of year it is so common to have weight loss, diet and exercise resolutions as our biggest goals. By the end of the year, we often realize we never achieved them. Perhaps that is because we need to set the bar higher and work on more meaningful and purposeful goals. This year, try something different. Set the intention, the resolve to be the woman (or man) you are most meant to be. Doing the things you love, that inspire you, that make you feel good, that bring a smile to your face and that have an impact on your life and the life of others, are the keys to being your best you. We often believe we cannot have those things or achieve those goals until we have the perfect body or are at the perfect weight, but what if that was backwards? If we did what we were most meant to do, and filled our day with the things we love the most, then our bodies would be and do what they are most meant to be. Marc David, Founder and Director of The Institute for the Psychology of Eating says, “personal power = metabolic power, meaning that if you want to reach your full metabolic potential, you need to reach your full spiritual potential first.”

Don’t wait for the pounds to come off or believe that following a perfect diet will shape-shift your body and bring you the things you want. You need to bring the things you want and would love to have in your life first, before long-lasting shape-shifting can occur.

In this first week of the new year, take some time to explore the following two exercises:

Write a Love List

1. Put anything and everything, from simple to grand, of all the things you love to do.

2. Highlight or put a star on 2-3 of those loves that you feel you could honestly and comfortably commit to doing by the end of January.

3. Once you have implemented those loves, add another one and another one throughout the year, until you feel you have increased your spiritual power.

4. Keep this love list on your fridge, by your bed, on your computer, your phone, in your day-timer, or wherever you can look at it daily as a reminder as to what your highest goals are.

Looking at and working on your love list is much more exciting and inspiring than thinking about what your weight loss goal is, isn’t it?! Wouldn’t you rather start your day looking at this list, than stepping on a scale?  What would give you more personal power?

Write a Mission Statement

1.       Who are you? What are you here to do? What is your mission, your purpose?

2.       Write it out, edit it, polish it, until you feel you are inspired by it.

3.       Ask yourself if you are living up to that mission, and if not, what can you do to start?

4.       Proudly put it by your bed, on your computer, in your day-timer, your phone or wherever you can look at it daily as a reminder as to what your highest goal is.

Looking at and working on your mission statement is much more exciting and inspiring than thinking about what your weight loss goal is, isn’t it?! Wouldn’t you rather start your day looking at this statement, than stepping on a scale?  What would give you more personal power?

These two exercises will surely get your new year off to a purposeful and inspiring start. Reach beyond numbers and scales and delve deeper into yourself to find out what is really important to you. What is truly going to bring you happiness – the perfect dress size or living a fulfilling life? The truth is, if you live your most fulfilling life, your body will naturally find its perfect size. My friends, this is where the work really is. It is time to evolve beyond the limited thinking that our lives would be better if we looked a certain way. If that really happened, if we really reached true contentment when we lost a number of pounds, why do millions of people gain all that weight back and often more, within a year? The answer is: because the deeper more meaningful work was never explored. The few people who truly make long lasting shifts in their bodies are the ones who have made significant changes in their lives.

To kick-start this year, I am offering a 90 minute Personal Power consult session for $200 (plus GST). Invest in yourself so that you can begin 2013 with meaningful and purposeful intentions vs. the same old weight loss resolutions you make every year. If they haven’t worked yet, you might as well try something different! Email  amy@amybondar.com or call (403)245-2611 to book your appointment.

To a powerful new year!

The holiday season is here! It is such a beautiful time with all the Christmas lights, Chanukah candles flickering in the windows, seeing kids’ filled with joy and awe, celebrating with family and friends and looking forward to well-deserved holiday time.

So why ruin it with stress and worry about what you are going to eat, how much you are going to eat, how many calories you are going to have to burn off the next day at the gym, fretting about seeing family and stressing about going to or having to prepare a holiday party?

My holiday wish for you is to just relax, enjoy, and embrace the holiday experience. It only comes around once a year, so love it vs. stress it. Here are a few tips to get you through the holidays that will help put your body in the optimum state to receive.

1. Eat with presence – enjoy the taste, smell, traditional recipes, take in the experience of eating and simply be with your food.
   
2. Eat slowly – this will improve digestion and prevent overeating
   
3. Eat quality food – you’ll feel so much better if do!
   
4. Eat rhythmically – don’t starve all day and then binge on a big dinner, pace yourself throughout the day
   
5. Watch you chatter – don’t fill your mind with toxic thoughts such as, “this food is going to make me gain weight,” “people are watching what I’m eating”,” this is so bad for me,” “this is so unhealthy,” etc. These toxic nutritional beliefs taint your food, eating experience and most of all put your body in a stress response where digestion and calorie burning turn off.
   
6. Eat with pleasure, joy and gratitude – this is the best way to put your body in the optimum state to digest, assimilate nutrients and turn on metabolic power. It also guarantees a delicious meal!

If you are preparing a holiday dinner, remember that your guests taste and feel your energy. Create an inviting environment. Cook with love vs stress, create with joy vs resentment and use special recipes that inspire you or carry on family tradition. How you are feeling and what you are thinking as you are cooking, gets infused into your food, so ensure that only the best ingredients of you get added!

So my friends, the bottom line is this: the best thing you can do is to cook with pleasure, bake with joy, roast with laughter, eat with gratitude and celebrate with love. It is as simple as that!

Thank you for a fulfilling year. It brings me great energy, vitality, joy and pleasure each time I work with you. I leave our sessions feeling deeply nourished and for that I am grateful. I hope the insights, teachings and wisdom you have learned from me this year, have help you so far on your wellness journey. I look forward to our continued work together. More to come…

May your body, mind and soul be deeply nourished this holiday season.

A few weeks ago, I really wanted a sandwich for dinner. I had the chicken, yams and broccoli ready to go, but it just was not resonating. I really just wanted an avocado, melted Swiss cheese, cucumber and spinach sandwich on sourdough spelt bread. Yum! But just before I took my first bite, the “nutritional choir” chimed into my brain singing: gluten is bad, bread is bad, this meal has too many carbs and not enough protein, dairy is congesting, cucumbers aren’t in season, and on and on the annoying singing went. My body was saying, “yes, this looks so good and it is exactly what I want”, but my mind was blocking the pleasure with all of the toxic nutritional beliefs.

Is a sandwich really that bad? Absolutely not, it is what we believe about the sandwich that will determine if it is a good choice or bad choice. So I took some deep breaths, shut the choir up and said to myself, its just a $*!#&)! sandwich! I smiled, and thoroughly enjoyed every bite.

Is your relationship with food defined or dictated by rules? Have the rules and restrictions you have created around food caused more harm than good? More stress than value? Our nutritional world is full of confliction, chaos, rigidity, rules, fear, confusion, uncertainty and constant change. All the rules have made us lose our connection to the most important nutritional teacher – our body-wisdom, our intuition and our common sense. Our pleasure and joy around food has been clouded by all the rules.

If you went gluten-free because it is the latest fad but you just want some good bread, then enjoy it. If you’ve been following the Paleo diet and are craving grains again, eat them. If you are a vegan or vegetarian and your body is craving meat, devour it. If you’ve been raw food and salaciously desire warm cooked food, embrace it. Unshackle yourself from the restrictions and open your mind, mouth, body and soul up to what you truly desire. If it does not work for you, your body will instantly give you feedback through symptoms to let you know it was not a good food choice for you. For most people, letting go of the restrictions and relaxing into what your body intuitively wants often sends positive feedback, such as feeling satiated, satisfied, energized, grounded, emotionally balanced, warmed, strong and vital.

Just because you may have tried a certain way of eating that felt right at the time, doesn’t mean you have to stay with that way of eating forever, especially if your body is asking for different foods. Our bodies evolve and change, and so our diets and minds need to as well. We require different foods and different macro-nutrient ratios, different supplements in different phases of our lives. This is why I teach you Seasonal Eating and Intuitive Eating, so that you can let your body-wisdom guide you and make flowing changes as you are being guided to. But when we stick to rules and rigidity we block our own inner-knowing which ultimately creates the stress response. When we eat under this restricted and fear-based ambiance, we can no longer digest and assimilate our food very well anyway, nor can we burn calories optimally.

I am not suggesting we all go out have a free-for-all and put detrimental foods in our bodies that are going to make us unwell, or eat the foods we know we have true allergic reactions to. I am encouraging you to give yourself permission to break any rigid rules you may have around food that are hindering you and creating more stress for you. As my mentor Marc David says, “sometimes we need to go on a no-diet diet!”

What if we just relaxed, let our body-wisdom guide us? Wouldn’t our meals taste so much better? This month, give it a try – no fear, no guilt, no chatter, no judgment, no rules. Just simply eat what your body is asking for with trust, joy, pleasure and love.

Amen to that!

PS – If toxic nutritional beliefs and rules and rigidity are creating turmoil with your relationship with food, or you need to work on how to go on a “no-diet diet,” please contact me for a consult amy@amybondar.com

“Soup made with love, nourishes the body as well as the soul”

Fall is the perfect time of year to warm up your kitchen and belly with delicious and nourishing soups. It is time to get out your soup pots and crockpots and create some love, warmth and nourishment. 

This recipe is delicious and taken from The Soup Sisters Cookbook (www.soupsisters.org). It is a balanced one pot meal. Every bite has delicious vegetables, gluten-free whole grains and protein. It is truly a perfect bowl of soup for a cool Fall or Winter day. Enjoy!

Chicken, Wild Rice and Mushroom by Carmie Nearing

• 6 carrots, peeled and diced
• 6 stalks celery, diced
• 2 leeks, white and pale green parts only, washed and sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced or finely chopped
• 1Tbsp fresh thyme, finely chopped
• 2Tbsp olive oil
• 1 lb assorted fresh mushrooms (such as portobello, shitake, crimini), sliced
• 4 quarts chicken stock
• 4 skinless boneless chicken breasts, diced
• 2/3 cup wild rice
• 1/3 cup brown rice
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a very large soup pot, over medium heat, saute carrots, celery, leeks, garlic and thyme in the oil, until the leeks are softened.
2. Turn up the heat to high. Add the mushrooms and saute for 10 minutes
3. Add the stock, chicken, wild rice and brown rice. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low
4. Simmer, uncovered, until the rice is tender, 30-40 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serves approximately 10

Have a beautiful and nourishing start to Fall.

Nourishing our kids is one of the most important jobs we have as parents. What we feed our children matters and there is no doubt that every morsel of food they eat will determine how they function and develop - physically, behaviorally, mentally and emotionally.

The following tips will help you ensure you are providing the best, balanced and most nutritious fuel for your kids.

Breakfast

-Breakfast is not an option and it is the most important meal of the day (read my article, Breaking the Fast at www.amybondar.com). Ensure your kids are waking up early enough to make time for a proper breakfast.

-Make sure breakfast always includes protein and essential fats to help ensure maximized energy and mental focus throughout the morning.

-Never start your kid’s day with refined carbohydrates (muffins, bagels, waffles, pancakes, white or multigrain toast and jam, cold cereals, etc). This will set their blood sugars up for imbalance for the entire day and will contribute to fatigue, lethargy, poor mental focus, sugar cravings and  possible behavioral issues. Choose:

• Eggs (any style) – egg and veggie omelet with fresh fruit or scrambled eggs with grated zucchini and mozzarella cheese and fresh fruit or 2 hard boiled eggs with fruit and sprouted or spelt toast with coconut oil and raw honey
• Natural sausages  (no MSG or nitrates. Purchase from Calgary Farmers Market, health food stores or Spolumbos) with fruit
• Sprouted toast with 100% natural nut or seed butter and fresh berries
• Oatmeal (long cooking) with hemp seeds, berries, cinnamon and maple syrup
• Lox (natural wild smoked salmon) with cream cheese, tomato and sprouts on sprouted toast or spelt or kamut toast (try to avoid wheat as much as possible)
• Protein shake (Learning Factors protein powder, water, almond milk, frozen berries, banana, tsp flax, hemp or fish oil)

Lunch

-Pack your kids nutritious lunches and snacks (read Healthy Snacks for Kids in my book, Journey to Optimum Wellness through Sound Nutrition)

-Think outside of the typical sandwich lunches

-Make enough food at dinner to have for leftovers

-Once a week commit to making a meal that will be best for a thermos (soups, stews, chili)

• Spelt wrap with sliced chicken or turkey, sprouts, cucumber, shredded carrot and peppers.Rice crackers with hummus. Homemade baked good (see Healthy Cookies recipe atwww.amybondar.com)
• Thermos with chili, hearty soup or stew. Piece of sprouted bread with cheese. Veggie sticks
• Leftovers from dinner
• Lettuce wraps - chicken, sprouts, avocado rolled in butterleaf lettuce. Rice crackers and veggies with bean dip or hummus or guacamole
• Cheese and gluten-free crackers, olives, veggies and hummus. Homemade baked good and fruit on a stick or toothpick
• Salad with lettuce and veggies they love. Make a homemade dressing (see Raspberry Vinagrette recipe at www.amybondar.com). Add chickpeas, cottage cheese, chicken, steak, turkey, tuna or hard boiled eggs.

Snacks

• Homemade Trail mix (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, unsweetened shredded coconut, dried fruit and dark chocolate chips – add nuts if school permits)
• Fruit (apple or banana) with 100% nut butter
• Veggies with hummus
• Organic corn tortillas with salsa and guacamole
• Organic full fat yogurt with hemp or ground flaxseed and berries
• Celery stuffed with 100% natural nut or seed butter topped with raisins
• Homemade power bars (great recipes in Slice Cookbook, available at Community Natural Foods and Vitamins First)

Dinner

-There is nothing better than coming home from school and smelling a yummy home-cooked meal. Do your best to make as many dinners at home throughout the week and have as many dinners as you can together around the kitchen table. This is often the greatest time to connect with everyone and see what was best and worst about the day.

-Dinner should always include protein, vegetables and whole grains or root vegetables

• Roast chicken, roasted sweet potato fries (roast in grapeseed or coconut oil) and steamed broccoli with drizzle of butter or olive oil
• Wild salmon, wild rice and Greek salad
• Bison, beef or turkey meat and veggie sauce over spaghetti squash, spinach or brown rice pasta
• Crockpot meal (chicken and sweet potato stew or beef or bison roast or hearty soup)
• Chicken or shrimp and vegetable stirfry over vermicelli noodles or quinoa, top with nuts or seeds
• Taco Salad (see Taco seasoning recipe in the Using Spices article onwww.amybondar.com) with ground beef or bison or chicken, tomatoes chopped peppers, green onion, olives, grated cheese, guacamole, salsa and sour cream over a bed of greens. Top with crushed organic corn tortillas.  

Evening

• Homemade baked good
• Fruit with cacao nibs or dark chocolate chips and unsweetened shredded coconut
• Baked apples with cinnamon, walnuts, brown sugar and raisins
• Vanilla yogurt with berries

Don’t forget to reread my book for helpful tips for back to school and snack ideas. Use my cookbook for recipes and healthy baked goods. Revisit my etips on my website www.amybondar.com, under ”articles” to look up some of the recipes and messages I’ve previously provided.

If you would like a one-on-one consult to ensure you and your family are optimizing your nutrition, please contact me at (403)245-2611 or email amy@amybondar.com. Back to school consults are $175 plus GST. If your child(ren) struggles with learning, ADD, ADHD, body image issues, health issues (digestive, skin, low immunity, weight, Type II Diabetes, eating disorders, anxiety, etc), please contact me so they can use the power of foods to boost their health, confidence and self-esteem.

Enjoy and have a wonderful and nourishing start to the school year!