I just read an article by Ragunath Padmanabhan a guy who was a big hit in Silicon Valley and then decided to commit to life off the grid in organic farming with his wife and son. In the article he talks about chasing happiness. He reminds readers that for centuries Prophets and Saints have said, “it is human nature to be constantly oscillating between cravings and aversions.” I would agree, we manage to bump along between lust and fear in much of our life.

In order to break, or at minimum pause that cycle of (in other words) hunger and distain the Eastern religions teach the practice of detachment. Or Aristotle, a founder of Western Philosophy, taught moderation. Aristotle taught he pursuit of the three vices, honor, pleasure and wealth is okay, but don’t make it an all-encompassing goal.

Ok, so we’re better off not spending all our energy between craving and aversions, practicing detachment and moderation are ideal so is the goal to wander through our life in a post Shavasana haze? Where do we dig in, invest, and latch on!?

The answer, I believe is at the core. In the center of your heart you can feel stillness and connection. For me, it feels like being snuggled in optimism. Getting quiet isn’t easy for type A American achievers. I find my grounding mentally in meditation, spiritually in nature and physically by sensing my skin, bones and deep muscles Sense all you know of yourself and find more. Try this exercise to connect to your body’s physical core. Click HERE

Rise and Shine! It’s your day, to transform. To deeply feel the muscles that support your bones is magical. Very soon the light will come on in your mind and you’ll sense your being muscles that support you inside as loudly as your doing muscles that carry you farther than you imagined.

When you feel true connection and support from deep on the inside you get stronger and clearer and calmer on the outside! Rise and shine, feel your center, BEGIN!

Try it now, start with a C-curve: click here

I’ve been on Vacation in Maui. I’ve lived in a sleepy part of the island in a condo with my favorite person and for the past 2 days we’ve spent time swimming with the turtles. All the while my life has some chaos back home but luckily my head and heart are grounded, by what I’ve seen under the sea.

What I learned from the Turtles is when the waves crash hard into the reef and waters get turbulent the turtles take a deep breath and dive down deep. I wonder if we can in daily life find a habit that lets us hear the silence of the deep water? What does quiet feel like for a few moments under a reef? Distracting yourself with food or libations isn’t going to keep you safe from the turbulence anyway. Take a big breath and dive.

I hear excuses every day about people’s past. Things like: “I haven’t exercised in a decade, it really can’t be salvaged. I had a bad Monday-today so why bother now? I blew my plan by snacking though that party on Saturday so the healthy weekend is shot.”

Forgive yourself for your past, be done with all the times you proved your immaturity and begin practicing grown up discipline and live a life you want. You deserve to move forward unencumbered by doubts and memories of failure.

Hour by hour, consume more moving, more water. Consume less food at mealtimes stay a little hungry. Learn what fills your mind! Fill Your Cup.

Dream it. Dream up the most specific fantasy you can, and when your dream becomes clearer than your historical reference – it is yours.

So we dream right? We all have the “I’d really love it if…” body image, relationship, job whatever, type of fantasies that float through our mind. When your dream becomes a huge priority and the dream is more clear than your past experience (the crummy past experience that proves you aren’t living the dream) well then, you’re finally free to live it.

For example, if you really dream your body has a certain dimension you’ll start to notice how people with your ideal dimensions carry themselves, what they do with their time, how much they eat how much they sleep and what the lifestyle of a slim person feels like. When that feeling of living lighter is more natural to you than your past experience of living heavy, you slim down. To make your fantasy real, live a lifestyle in alignment with your dream.

Another way to say it is, when what you’ve always lived is less significant than what you want to be, your dreams can be realized.

Make your fantasy come alive Fill Your Cup, and live your life aligned with your dream.

Sometimes when we’re just about to step up to the next level in our life path there’s a pretty lousy moment.

I don’t advocate incessant misery, as you well know, I believe in filling our cup (that means our dinner plate or the cup of our soul) with what makes us feel most alive and true! Nothing mediocre, ordinary or disingenuous, I would rather be empty than filled with something that compromises my code, of having an extraordinary life.

If you are true to yourself (review the last post about integrity) the emptiness is comforting. You are making space for the new you, so stop dwelling on the anxiety of it all and remember what your goals are, what your code is and what you are really about. It may not ‘feel good’ all the time but when you step up, in line with your values and dreams you will – feel sensational!

Integrity is the strict adherence to a code. It implies attempted consistency of your actions in relationship to your values, expectations and outcomes. A basis for integrity may be a moral code, a spiritual code; I’d even be willing to argue that your diet is a code about your own nutrition.

The base assumption with integrity is that you have first bothered to spend some time to figure out your code. You can’t have integrity if you have no code. How can you to measure consistency in operating to something you’ve never taken the time to define?

What is your code with regard to food? Maybe you never eat fast food except on Vacation, or you always have something green with lunch or you never eat between meals or…What are your standards/code/rules/values about food? No don’t reach for Dr. Adkins, French Women, Skinny Bitch or even Fill Your Cup to define your beliefs about food just yet. Spend a quiet moment. And answer these 3 questions: What is your code? Are you operating your daily life with integrity to it? How well do the code and/or your level of integrity match up with your goals?

Lean healthy bodies benefit from both appropriate diet and exercise. But I’ve found personally and by watching clients, shape is determined by exercise, and size is determined by diet. You can have a woman with flabby arms in a size 4 or a size 14. That is an exercise issue if “flabby” was what made your skin crawl. If the “size 14” made you uncomfortable then it’s a diet problem. It’s entirely your judgment that sets your course.

For most of us, if we never address issues of appetite, game over! We’re ripe for exhaustion. Connect the dots, more exercise makes us more HUNGRY! We eat more we exercise more we’re HUNGRY then more eating then woah gatta count those calories on the elliptical, we’re exercising and over and over and over and whhhhaaat?!?! Step off the crazy counter and take a breath. What happens when you feel hungry? Can you just …be, while your hungry? Take a deep breath, walk around, brush your teeth and get something else done before you browse the pantry for some savory snack? Try it! Only Fill Your Cup!

Responses to our last blog post (especially the Face book Responses Thank You Carrie for sharing!) indicated that eating fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and drinking water are healthy. Let’s start with the vegetables. To eat more vegetables, getting organized is half the battle.

#1) Shop for what is in season. If there is no one knowledgeable in your favorite produce market look for the freshest, brightest most vibrant vegetables you see. My standard is if it doesn’t look and smell like what it is “supposed to,” I don’t buy it. (It goes for fruit too, if an apple smells like wax chose something else.)

#2) Chop and store in sealed containers. If you chop a healthy mosaic of Veggies at least once or twice a week you will eat much better because meals are convenient. If you plan to enjoy your vegetables as a salad keep the dressing separate until serving or your beautiful salad will have a 48 hr life even in the refrigerator.

#3) When you have limited time for food prep you have your chop ready to go you just add a little cheese or meat or whatever you need to make that cup feel like a meal.

What I chopped this week: 1 bulb of fennel, 2 leeks, one head of broccoli, 4 stalks of celery (the others from the bunch I sold to my kids with peanut butter) 1 shredded fresh beet, the seeds of 1 pomegranate.

I dressed it with: some apple cider vinegar, a splash of balsamic vinegar, lil maple syrup, walnut oil, some crumbled blue cheese and then topped it with honey caramelized walnuts.

Fill Your Cup and save the rest for later.

Fill Your Cup, the weight loss book and philosophy that this site is dedicated to, is foremost about portion control. Many of you have heard me say, “I’m not teaching healthy it’s too broad a topic. I only teach thin.” It turns out – being thinner is healthier so indirectly, I teach healthy. My goal and challenge is to teach students to learn to manage their own hunger and become more aware of their appetite.

I’m thinking about posting some healthy recipes in the upcoming weeks, so I’m curious… what do you think eating healthy really is about? It can mean different things to different people based on family history, experience and personal appetite. Please write in the comments below what you think eating healthy is.

When you feel healthiest, how do you Fill Your Cup?