27 Healthy Eating Tips From Registered Dietitians For A Very Healthy New Year

Article c/o self.com




27 Healthy Eating Tips From Registered Dietitians For A Very Healthy New Year


As a registered dietitian, my patients are full of healthy eating resolutions come January 1st. And I get it—this is a chance for a completely fresh start. But achieving your goals doesn't have to be boring or restrictive. In fact, it shouldn't be.


To help you start your new year with a bang, I checked in with 27 of my registered dietitian colleagues to get their best out-of-the-box-tips for healthy eating. Here is their advice on how to make 2017 your healthiest year yet. Hint: there are no diets involved, and that's for a reason: You're much more likely to make healthy eating part of a sustainable and healthy lifestyle when you don't feel restricted and when it fits into your life naturally. Registered dietitians know this—we know how hard it can be to do total overhauls, and we also know how unrealistic that is as an expectation. The key to healthy eating, in the new year and also all year long, is to make it an enjoyable and easy-enough experience that makes you feel good and becomes self-reinforcing. These tips should hit the right notes. Here's to a new year of healthy eating and feeling great!

1. Kick the strict, boring diet to the curb.
New Year’s resolutions often equate to adopting a strict diet, and boredom is one of the top reasons that we ditch those meal plans after a few weeks or months. Instead, focus on eating more healthy foods that you enjoy, and then mixing up those foods every week or so. Don't like kale? Leave it. Add in some spinach or romaine instead. This prevents boredom and helps you look forward to eating your meals and snacks. —Lauren Minchen, NYC-based RDN and founder of Lauren Minchen Nutrition and Golda Bar

2. Start a recipe club with friends.
Similar to a book club, start a recipe club with friends. Assign dishes (appetizer, salad, main meal, dessert) and meet once a month to enjoy good food and swap recipes. You can even focus on different types of meal plans each month (vegetarian, gluten-free etc.). Collect all of the recipe cards you make throughout the year and create a recipe book to give to friends and family over the holidays. —Malena Perdomo, MS, RD, and certified diabetes educator consultant, writer, cookbook author, spokesperson

3. Strategically leave healthy snacks around.
Create a healthy snack bag with non-perishable items and leave it in your car. Include healthy breakfast bars, nuts like almonds, and dried fruit as well as a bottle of water. This will ensure you always have a healthy snack wherever you go, and you won't be tempted to stop by a drive-through or convenience store when you get hungry. —Emily Cope, MS, RDN at EmilyKyleNutrition.com

4. At home, keep your freezer stocked with frozen fruit.
With less variety of fresh fruit during the winter months, eating frozen fruit is a great way to have your favorites year-round, and to make sure you get your recommended daily servings. Often times frozen fruit can be more nutritious than fresh fruit since it’s packaged shortly after being harvested. Throw a handful into your hot oatmeal or layer them with yogurt for a parfait—just make sure there isn't any added sugar. One of my favorite things to do is defrost ¼ cup of frozen berries, mash them up with the natural juices, and use as your own homemade ‘jam.’ —Maxine Yeung, a California-based RD, CPT and owner of The Wellness Whisk

5. Set SMART goals.
One very successful method for getting my clients to achieve their goals is using the SMART strategy. A SMART goal is one that is specific, measurable, accountable, realistic, and time specific. For example: I am going to go to the gym at least three times a week for the first month, and during the second month my goal is to make it to the gym at least four times a week. You got this! —Hadis Ghoghaie Schertzer, RDN at Genesis Healthcare

6. And create goal checkpoints.
At the beginning of the year, schedule monthly, or weekly alerts on your phone to take 15 minutes to assess goal progress. Use these reminders as opportunities to reflect and to make any adjustments so that you keep moving forward. —Marisa Moore, MBA, RDN, LD, owner of Marisa Moore Nutrition

7. Focus on what you can eat, not what you cannot.
Instead of spending time and energy excluding foods you think are "bad," redirect your efforts to including more nutrient-rich foods and you will automatically crowd out the less healthy options. Start by trying to add one fruit and one vegetable to your daily intake. —Lauren Harris-Pincus, MS, RDN, owner of Nutrition Starring You

8. Replace sugary drinks with water or seltzer.
Sugary beverages include sodas as well as iced tea, lemonade, juices, etc. Try drinking more water or seltzer instead—you can even add slices of your favorite fruit such as lemons, limes, oranges, berries, cucumbers, and even fresh mint. —Marie Keogh, MPH, RD, CDN, CLC, NYC-based dietitian at Mount Sinai Queens and Forest Hills Wellness

9. Make your food gorgeous.
Eating healthier starts with making healthy food more appetizing and worthy of display! Try storing produce in see-through containers in your fridge or in a pretty fruit bowl on the counter. Not only do we typically eat more of what we can see, but if it looks good, it can be one less barrier to making healthy happen. —Carlene Thomas RDN, LD, recipe developer, food stylist, and creator of Healthfully Ever After

10. Sit down and make a plan for the week.
Set aside 30 minutes each week to sit down with your calendar and plan the week ahead. Schedule your workouts, plan your meals, and make your shopping list. A little bit of planning on the front end not only saves you time throughout the week by cutting out the guesswork, but it also sets an intention for success. —Sarika Sewak MPH, RDN, Los Angeles-based dietitian and creator of Little Legumes Nutrition

11. Focus on eating a healthy, protein-rich breakfast.
Eat a breakfast rich in protein to help you feel full longer and have the energy you need to power through your day. Aiming for 25 to 30 grams of protein before noon can be easily accomplished—and equally delicious—when you pair a glass of milk with your eggs and avocado toast, or with your favorite fruit-topped overnight oats. Aim for protein sources that are also rich in other nutrients such as milk (8 grams of protein per cup plus nine other essential nutrients), nuts like almonds and pistachios are packed with protein, healthy fat, and fiber, or eggs (they’re also rich in lutein, choline, and certain B vitamins). —Holley Grainger, MS, RD, blogger at Holley Grainger Nutrition

12. If you have kiddos, get them involved in the kitchen.
Once a week, cook a meal with your children. Start from fresh, real foods. You'll be sharing precious time with them, teaching them about eating well, and enjoying a lovely meal together. —Katja Leccisi, MS, RDN, author of How To Feed Your Kids: Four Steps To Raising Healthy Eaters

13. Eat fish 2-3 times per week.
Most Americans aren’t eating enough seafood, which means they’re missing out on all the important benefits including improvements in heart health. Seafood can be enjoyed as part of a salad, in a taco, or even in your favorite pasta dish. —Kristen Smith, Atlanta-based registered dietitian specializing in weight management and family nutrition

14. And enjoy a cooked vegetable dish as a main course twice a week.
This is probably the single most important thing you can do to increase your intake of vegetables. Rather than trying to eat more and more salads, cook vegetables by roasting or stewing them with olive oil, onion, tomatoes, and herbs. Common vegetables to use are green beans, peas, eggplant, zucchini, cauliflower, and broccoli. Accompany with cheese and a slice of whole wheat bread. —Elena Paravantes, RDN, Mediterranean diet consultant, HuffPo columnist and health editor at Olive Oil Times

15. Make being healthy a friendly contest, with rewards.
Put that new 2016 calendar to use by creating a fitness attendance contest among the people in your home, whether they are your spouse, roommate, or family. Come up with a system for marking on the calendar each time an individual completes a workout. The person who does the most workouts at the end of the month earns a prize, and aim to make the reward non-food related, such as a massage, manicure, or shopping spree. In the event of a tie, have a silly tiebreaker such as seeing who can do the most burpees in one minute or can hold a plank the longest. —Mandy Unanski Enright, MS, RDN, RYT, creator of Nutrition Nuptials

16. Be mindful of portions.
Sometimes when we exercise or lose a little bit of weight, we want to indulge in a high-calorie treat because we feel we’ve “earned it.” This can be a slippery slope that can interfere with your plans to eat healthy. Instead, be mindful of your portions and find other ways to reward yourself like getting yourself a massage, a new outfit, or just relaxing with a friend. —Atheer Yacoub, MS, RD, CDN, research dietitian at Columbia University, and director of operations at the nutrition scheduling service bekuju.com

17. And that includes loading your plate with lots of vegetables.
Try to fill half your plate with colorful seasonal fruits and vegetables, and then split the rest between lean protein and whole grains. This is a simple way to easily achieve variety, portion control, and helps to maximize your meal’s nutritional bang. —Vandana Sheth, RDN, CDE, and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

18. Try your best to think ahead.
If you know you're going to have a busy day, prepare a smoothie first thing in the morning. Be sure to include the fruits or vegetables that might not be convenient to eat later in the day. When your schedule has you crazed and you're tempted to eat whatever sweets are around, you can simply have sips of your nutritious and delicious smoothie. By the end of the day, you've consumed extra fruits and veggies without going overboard on the sweets. —Jillian O'Neil, New York City-based registered dietitian

19. Make exercise a habit.
Let’s say you have a 30-minute lunch break, yet only use 15 minutes of it for eating. Head outdoors for the remaining 10-15 minutes and go for a power walk! If you can make this happen three or four workdays each week, you will quickly be tacking on almost a full hour of exercise! Small steps can make a big difference. —Jessica Corwin, MPH, RD, food and nutrition educator at Good Food For Kids

20. And wear that fitness tracker you received as a gift.

Wearing a fitness tracker may encourage you to get in some extra steps. Even if the step counts are not 100 percent accurate, pedometers have been shown) to motivate and increase physical activity. —Marisa Moore, MBA, RDN, LD, owner of Marisa Moore Nutrition

21. Consider the “fork trick” to prevent overeating.
Use your non-dominant hand when you eat. It naturally slows you down because you have to try and steady your food to get it to your mouth. And eat until you’re comfortably full. In other words, stop eating at the start of feeling full. —Lisa Musician, RD, LDN, founder and president of Food Allergy Dietitian, Inc

22. Eat organic when possible.
Think critically about where your food comes from: Ask yourself who produced it and under what conditions? Eating well in the new year isn’t just about calories and nutrients. It’s about the impact our food and farming choices have on our larger society and planet. I choose for myself, and recommend to others, organic food because it meets my criteria for helping to protect my family’s health, farm worker health, and that of the planet. —Melinda Hemmelgarn, MS, RD, host of nationally syndicated Food Sleuth Radio

23. And don't forget to be smart about eating out.
When eating out, preview the menu online ahead of time so you know what options will be available when you get there. That way you can make a healthy selection before you arrive and can avoid getting caught up with any in-the-moment temptations. —Annette Schottenfeld, MBA, RD, CDN, president of Nett Nutrition, Inc.

24. Treat yourself to some new gym gear.
My advice...Treat yourself! Put all those gift cards to good use and hit up the post-holiday sales for new gym gear. Whether it's a killer pair of powerlifting shoes, eye-catching graphic leggings, or a fresh new yoga mat, you're sure to be inspired to go out and accomplish your athletic endeavors. You deserve it. —Nicole Rodriguez, RDN, NASM-CPT featured contributor at greensuperfoods.us

25. Then wear that gear often!
Schedule your exercise like it is an important appointment or date. If I have a class to go to, it is in my schedule! So when I have yoga on Wednesdays at 8 AM, seeing it on my schedule reminds me to set aside clothes the night before. And try scheduling different types of exercise (like yoga, Zumba, walking with friends, etc.) throughout the month to help prevent boredom. —Emma FogtMBA, MS, RDN, LDN, FAND

26. Go ahead and splurge every once in awhile.
Embrace and enjoy your favorite indulgence, whether it's chocolate cake, French fries, or a glass of wine. Instead of trying to ban them from your healthy kingdom, plan to enjoy them in moderation. Can you commit to enjoying French fries only once per week (instead of daily)? Then you're already making healthy changes for the New Year! —Carolyn O'Neil, MS RDN author of The Slim Down South Cookbook: Eating Well and Living Healthy in the Land of Biscuits and Bacon

27. And finally, remember…perfection isn't the goal.
Instead, create an intention each morning when you get up and have it be one that is easy and doable. You can be healthy 80 percent of the time and that still counts as perfectly healthy! —Chere Bork, MS RDN owner of Savor Your Life Today

Find more great articles at www.transcendct.com

The One Thing No One Ever Says About Grieving

article c/o thriveglobal.com

(And a 4 step plan to move through your grief.)



Another way to say that you are grieving is that a part of you is stuck in a moment in time.

Sometimes the cause of the stuckness isn’t the grief itself, but the fact that you don’t even recognize that you’ve lost something and that you need to grieve.

Grief is a word that is used interchangeably with bereavement, but grief is not exclusively about the physical death of a person.

Grief doesn't fit in a box, either. Some forms of grief take years to work through, other types take a few solid months, some take a single moment of deep acknowledgement.

Everyone grieves differently and for different reasons, but one thing remains constant in the process. It's the one thing no one has ever said about grieving:

“I did it right on time.”

Grieving is marked by a lag, a delay, a freezing, “Wait. What just happened?”

Grieving is also not a linear process.

One moment you feel you’ve fully moved past something, the next moment it’s right back in front of your face.

That’s because grief is insidious, imposing and demands to be felt. Even if you’re able to somehow avoid it all day long, grief comes back to you in your sleep. It’s laying right on your heart as you wake up.

Grief doesn’t say, “I’ve been here long enough, I think it’s time for me to leave.”

No. Grief crowds the heart, eats up all your energy and chronically imposes upon your peace. But grief isn't some evil force that's only there to cause pain, grief is escorting up an even deeper feeling, a truth about your life, what you value and what you need. Perhaps how much you wanted something, how deeply you care about someone, how far you've come from where you were.

As Mark Nepo so beautifully puts it, "The pain was necessary to know the truth, but we don't have to keep the pain alive to keep the truth alive."

Still, grief isn’t necessarily a depression. People can be grieving and heartbroken about something and not even know it.

Here are some examples of events that cause grieving:

• A break up

• The selling of your childhood home

• What you always wanted but never got

• A person who died

• A person who is still alive but is electively absent in your life

• The loss of a dream

• Divorce

• Infertility

• Loving someone who is self-destructive

• The loss of a pet

• The end of a friendship

• Job loss or the end of a career

The typical route for grieving begins with denial, and that’s actually a good thing.

Ultimately, your defense mechanisms are there to protect you. Denial kicks in when it would otherwise be too overwhelming to feel it all at once. Ideally, denial slowly fades away and the grief is felt. (Ideally.)

More typically, you swallow your grief.

It comes up in small spurts when you’re not paying attention, then you numb yourself to it somehow, then it jumps up more forcefully, then you numb yourself more heavily.

That is the path of staying stuck in grief. The path loops. People lose themselves on that path.

Is there a better path?

The answer is yes. But you don’t have to walk it unless you choose to.

Some losses are so exquisitely painful, in a way that no one else could ever fully understand, that no one would fault you for staying in the loop.

If you do choose to get out of the disorienting, dizzying loop of grief, here are 4 ways to begin:

1. UNDERSTAND - That your heart is broken, even if it’s not visible to others.

Keep in mind that there's no ‘right way’ to grieve and that grieving is not a linear process.

Just because its been 6 months, 4 years, 15 years, whatever – none of that means anything to your grief. The clock starts when you begin to recognize your grief. In other words, when you genuinely begin to address what happened (or perhaps what never happened).

2. RECOGNIZE - Before you can grieve, you have to recognize that you need to grieve.

Something happened, or didn’t happen, that burdened you.

Ironically, when you’re burdened, something is given to you and taken away from you at the same time. What do you feel was taken from you? What do you feel you are burdened with? The answers to those questions help you recognize what you need to grieve.

3. TOUCH - You have to touch the loss (as well as all the anger, sadness, bitterness, resilience, compassion and any other feelings you encountered during your loss).

You're in touch with your grief when you make space for the feelings your loss brought into your life. It may feel counter-intuitive to go back to the feelings that you want so desperately to let go of, but there's simply no way to move through grief without making contact with it, without fully touching it, without fully feeling it.

You have to pick it up, hold it, feel the weight of it in your hands, on your heart and within your life. You have to feel the whole loss. Grief demands to be felt with an insistence that needs no sleep. You either allow yourself to encounter the feelings or you remain encased in a shell of yourself under a misguided sense of self-protection.

4. MOVE - The feeling of grief can linger for so long that you almost befriend the grief.

The grief becomes oddly soothing in its familiarity and its predictability. Dealing with the grief means letting go of this familiarity and moving towards something less predictable and less familiar, which is scary.

Still, if you want to genuinely address the grief, you have to continue to move through the peripheral, familiar parts of your grief and go right into the epicenter of your grief. As the classic hero's journey goes, you have to get inside the belly of the whale.There (and only there) you will find the door to the unpredictable pieces of life that are patiently waiting for you on the other side of your pain.

So....

Understand your heart is broken.

Recognize why it’s broken.

Touch the grief.

Move towards the epicenter of your grief, as it's the only path to other side of your pain.

The Art of Healing Trauma

Article c/o www.new-synapse.com




The Art of Healing Trauma

Much of trauma healing is helping the nervous system become more “resilient.” Rather than spend a few hours or even days drowning in a state of terror, tension and nervousness after getting triggered, doing one or more of these exercises can help the nervous system shift into a different state sooner.

Each time you do an activity or exercise like the ones below, this teaches the nervous system to be more flexible and rebound from activation sooner.

Take Your Nervous System to the Gym

After some type of physical injury that leaves some of your muscles weak or atrophied, you may need to go to physical therapy and exercise the muscles to strengthen them again. After trauma, the nervous system is completely out of whack and the resiliency muscles, so to speak, are very weak. Practicing resiliency exercises on a regular basis is like going to a “Nervous System Gym” and exercising the healthy functions of your nervous system until they become strong once again.

In fact, going to a Trauma Resiliency Model or Somatic Experiencing therapist is kind of like seeing a Nervous System Physical Therapist or Nervous System Personal Trainer. When you see a regular Physical Therapist or Personal Trainer, they will give you homework to do in the gym or at home before the next week’s session. In the same way, if you go to therapy for trauma once a week, it’s good to also practice these things on your own between sessions to get those muscles worked out enough to improve your functionality over time.

Resiliency Building Skills to Practice for Trauma Recovery

1. Grounding

Feel your feet on the ground.
Feel gravity.
Feel the pressure of your body on what is supporting it.
Feel the texture of objects with your fingers.
Name details of what you touch, see, hear, smell and taste.

2. Tracking / Felt Sense

Place your attention on sensations in the body and monitor them for a period of time.
Describe them and notice when they change.
Stay with yourself even if something very uncomfortable comes up; be like Velcro.
Challenge yourself to stay present and in the moment.

3. Slowing / Titration

Deliberately slow down your emotions and disturbing body sensations, like slowing down the tempo of music.
Separate out and work on only a small bit of the emotions or sensations and leave the rest for later, like taking only one bite of the pie.

4. Resourcing

Create an imaginary Safe Place, or recall a safe, calming, comforting experience you had in your life.
Imagine you’re there and notice what you feel.
Know that you can always go to this place in your imagination if you need to calm yourself down.

5. Pendulation

Be deeply present with an area of your body feeling activation, such as terror, anger, panic, tension. Then move your attention to a place of neutrality or calm in your body. Very slowly go back and forth. Build your capacity to stay with the negative. Also build your capacity to feel positive things again and to stay with the positive.

6. Contact / Self-Holding Exercises

Put your hands on the parts of your body that feel difficult sensations (tension, discomfort). Notice how the hands feel when on the body. Notice how the body feels under the hands. Notice how the space in the body located between the hands feels.

7. Community

Socialize and participate in your community. Human connection builds resilience.

8. Presence

Practice placing your awareness on any emotion or sensation coming up inside you. Say towards it, “You are welcome here.” Stay with it in a loving, compassionate way.

9. Self-Acceptance

Work on reducing “should” thoughts about yourself. Allow yourself the space and time for your body, emotions and mind to embrace and pass through the processes they need to.

10. Self-Empathy

Practice being gentle with yourself. Practice self-empathy.

***

Find more articles at www.transcendct.com

Nobody Processes Emotion: A PTSD Sufferer's Step-By-Step Guide for all Human Beings

Article c/o elephantjournal.com

Every disease that we go through gives us a new understanding.

Each challenge is an opportunity for strength. Some challenges can inspire others and some can actually uncover riches that all people can draw upon and share. I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and I’m begging everyone to use my tools.

I have been forced to address my emotional reality and to learn to process my emotions. As a result, my engaged presence and emotional intelligence has thrived in a way that has opened my eyes to a global epidemic of escapism and denial.

My version of PTSD, that I am on government disability for, is mainly described through explanations of social anxiety and agoraphobia. Those are pretty words. They even make me sound like a cute nervous little fellow. What is not described by those terms, and what is rarely described in public forums anywhere, is shaking until I puke or pass out or having to be taken to the hospital because I cannot stop seeing and feeling my head go through a glass window, which sheers my skin off.

Ouch.

The effect of my PTSD is obvious. It is obvious to me and everyone around me.

If I do not process my emotions in a calm, healthy manner I am a danger to myself and those around me. But the scary thing I found on this journey is that everyone is a danger to themselves and those around them if they do not process their emotions…it is just less obvious.

All panic, nervousness, anger and frustration is a physical emotional state that exists regardless of whether or not we address it. Many people can compartmentalize. Many can repress. Many can lie and say they’re doing fine. But when I looked at the emotional processing I was doing and then looked at everyone else? I realized no one was doing it.

No one was processing emotion. No one was observing their every emotional reaction and giving energy to consciously tend to it.

What I have been forced to learn to keep myself safe is a process. It is not abstract, it is tangible behavior with a step by step directive.

1) Experience an emotion. Observe the presence of a feeling.

2) Recognize the emotion.

a) Know that it is present.

b) If we’re practiced, figure out the characteristics of the emotion. 

(This takes years, and is not necessary to do all at once. Does the feeling have a quality? Is it comfortable or uncomfortable? Does it have a source in the present or is it triggered from the past?)

3) Allow the emotion. We must stop ourselves from running away and escaping the emotion. Say “this is the emotion I’m feeling and I’m just going to sit here like a boss and feel it for a minute, or as long as I can.”

4) We must take stock of our emotion to see if we are in a position to engage it fully, or if we have to set it aside for processing at the soonest convenience.

5) Engage the emotion. Walk up to it and shake its hand. Feel it. It is your body talking to you. Let it wash over you.

6) After it has finished with you, allow it to leave, and validate that the moment of the emotion has passed (this will give you confidence in all future moments where processing is difficult).

Every reaction we have is our body telling us something. It is a voice from within us begging for an audience, regardless of what our supposedly adult mind thinks of it. If we show up for ourselves in this way and get confident processing our emotions, we can be confident that when things are not going so well, the ones we love most are not going to have to pay for our lack of internal management skills.

When we think of the behaviors that make us cringe in society, from cruelty to carelessness, coldness to apathy, they all have a source in an emotion that someone does not know how to process. This is not symptomatic of evil, but of emotional ignorance. This ignorance is curable. Focusing on processing emotioncan change everyone’s lives. I know that it has changed mine and those I am in contact with virtually or otherwise.

I know what caused my PTSD, but I was always looking for “what I could do with it” that would help others.

This is it.

We observe ourselves and process emotion as it comes up. Then we notice that we aren’t being bossed around by our fear of discomfort. Then we get confident. Then we are able to respond rather than react. Then we are able to be present more often. Then our world starts spiraling and expanding beautifully rather than us feeling trapped and frightened by everything that makes us the least bit uncomfortable.

It can change the world. One emotion at a time.

Find more great articles at:

www.transcendct.com

Overcoming Mental Challenges, written by owner of Transcend, Loredana Trandu

Loredana Trandu: "Overcoming Mental Challenges" 


 Published on Thursday, 05 October 2017
 Written by Loredana Trandu, Transcend

The following are very timely thoughts from Licensed Psychotherapist and Certified Fitness Trainer & Nutritionist Loredana Trandu, of Transcend of Fairfield, about overcoming mental challenges...




It is important we recognize the connection between our minds and our bodies if we want to feel our best!

Overcoming mental challenges is just as important as the physical ones....sometimes tougher. Poor emotional/mental health can weaken the body's immune system. Also, when we feel stressed, anxious or upset, we tend not to take care of our health as well. We may not feel like exercising, eating nutritious food...and we may start abusing alcohol, tabacco, junk food or other drugs in an effort to self-sooth. We fall off the "fitness weapon" which, in turn, creates more emotional and mental imbalance, leading to unhealthy weight gain or loss, insomnia, high blood pressure, etc. It's a viscious cycle which can only be stopped if we stop viewing the mind and the body as two separate entities.

Mind-body training is a combination of fitness training, nutrition, meditation and psychotherapy! Yes, psychotherapy!

There is so much evidence that our thoughts, feelings and attitudes can affect our biological functioning and that what we do with our bodies can affect our mental state. Yet, there is still stigma and shame attached to mental and emotional issues. People tend to be embarrassed about going to see a psychotherapist and end up using their personal trainers as counselors in an attempt to receive the much needed emotional support.

The circumstances prime this to happen: Clients bare weaknesses and shortcomings, goals and hopes, while trainers — part cheerleader, part dictator — guide the journey. In this hyper-exposed state, it’s not surprising that a client might start to unload on the trainer some personal issues. While this may provide some temporary relief, not only will it sabotage your physical training but it will also keep you from overcoming your mental and emotional challenges.

In order to strengthen our mental and emotional muscles, we have to start viewing psychotherapy as an important part of fitness and exercise -- and nutrition as part of psychotherapy! They are not separate and we cannot feel the joyful mind-body connection we all crave if we continue to view them this way! 

So many times I work with psychotherapists who, in an effort to help their clients, start neglecting self-care, do not make time to exercise, eat an unhealthy lunch at their desk and go home to their families feeling physically depleted and mentally and emotionally drained. On the other hand, I have worked with trainers who have developed eating disorders, or exercise and drug addictions.

It's time to reinvent fitness and destigmatize psychotherapy. It's time to reunite mind training and body training. True fitness is freedom and it can only be attained by utilizing the mind body connection!

Sincerely,

Loredana Trandu, LPC, NASM

www.transcendct.com

Transcend Mind-Body Training Redefines Psychotherapy

Transcend Mind-Body Training Redefines Psychotherapy 

It is important we recognize the connection between our minds and our bodies if we want to feel our best.

Overcoming mental challenges is just as tough and as important as the physical ones....sometimes tougher. Poor emotional/mental health can weaken the body's immune system. In addition, when we feel stressed, anxious, or upset we tend to not take care of our health as well. We may not feel like exercising, eating nutritious food...and we may start abusing alcohol, tobacco, junk food or other drugs in an effort to self-soothe. We fall off the "fitness weapon", which in turn creates more emotional and mental imbalance, leading to unhealthy weight gain or loss, insomnia, high blood pressure etc. It's a viscous cycle which can only be halted if we stop viewing the mind and the body as two separate entities.

Mind-body training is a combination of fitness training, nutrition, meditation and psychotherapy. Yes, psychotherapy!


There is so much evidence that our thoughts, feelings and attitudes can affect our biological functioning, and what we do with our bodies can affect our mental state. Yet, there is still stigma and shame attached to mental and emotional issues. People tend to be embarrassed about going to see a psychotherapist and end up using their personal trainers as counselors in an attempt to receive the much needed emotional support.

The circumstances prime this to happen: clients bare weaknesses and shortcomings, goals and hopes, while trainers—part cheerleader, part dictator—guide the journey. In this hyper-exposed state, it’s not surprising that a client might start to unload on the trainer some personal issues. While this may provide some temporary relief, not only will it sabotage your physical training but it will also keep you from overcoming your mental and emotional challenges.

In order to strengthen our mental and emotional muscles, we have to start viewing psychotherapy as a important part of fitness, exercise and nutrition. They are not separate and we cannot feel the joyful mind-body connection we all crave if we continue to view them this way!

So many times I work with psychotherapists who, in an effort to help their clients, start neglecting self-care, do not make time to exercise, eat an unhealthy lunch at their desk and go home to their families feeling physically depleted and mentally and emotionally drained. On the other hand, I have worked with trainers who have developed eating disorders, exercise or drug addiction.

It's time to reinvent fitness and de-stigmatize psychotherapy. It's time to reunite mind training and body training. True fitness is freedom, and it can only be attained by utilizing the mind body connection!

www.transcendct.com

18 Brutal Truths About Life No One Wants To Admit

Video c/o Lotus Divine

18 brutal truths about life no one wants to admit

...but if you do, you'll live a more fulfilling life.

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