Category Archives: Obesity

The Cleanse

Posted on November 9, 2014 | Leave a comment

Here are the instructions given to me by my doc, when she suggested I do a five-day cleanse before the holidays (read this blog for an explanation of the timing).

Cleanse: 5 days

It is extremely helpful to plan your meals ahead and always have fruit or veggies as a snack available.

Start the day with the lemon juice-olive oil cocktail and then eat as much as you want of the below foods, and drink plenty of water.

1) Morning cocktail

Liver Flush Detox Drink – Recipe for a Daily Liver Cleanse

2) Juicing (or smoothies) – Raw vegetables and fruits – 12-16oz juice per day with any fruit or vegetable you would like, except for bananas.
http://juicerecipes.com/health/benefits/juicing-to-cleanse-liver

3) Steamed vegetables and vegetable soups, except for beans.

4) Quinoa, about 2 cups a day for satiety and protein.

5) Take Liver GI Detox by Pure Encapsulations. 2 caps twice a day.

6) Drink plenty of water and herbal teas.

By the way, I don’t get any kickbacks from the links I’m supplying here. I like buying supplements from PureFormulas because their prices and selection are good, and they offer free shipping.

Wanna join me? I’ll be responding to your comments here and on my facebook page.

Lisa Bonnice is the author of five books, including Shape Shifting–reclaiming YOUR perfect body (with a foreword by Neale Donald Walsch).

A cleanse before the holidays? Are you mad???

Posted on November 8, 2014 | 8 comments

I need to do a cleanse. My eating habits have gone downhill–for good reasons, by the way–but I’m apathetic about taking a week off to clean up my unhealthy diet. Well, now I’m under “Doctor’s Orders.” I think she knew that’s the only way I’d get around to it, especially right before Thanksgiving and the rest of the feasting holidays. It may seem counter-intuitive, but this is the best time to do it!

The holidays are looming: Thanksgiving, several birthdays, Christmas, New Years Eve, and my wedding anniversary. This makes me want to wait until mid-January.

However, my doc was fairly insistent that I do it now. I told her that I feel blah, I’ve gained back some of the weight I lost (and bragged about), and I am depressed. She said that to wait until after the holidays probably means even more weight gain. She reminded me that doing it now means that I’ll be making more intelligent choices at those events.

It was painful to watch the pounds pile back on, but life became so hard that I was unable to take care of myself. In addition to all sorts of personal, family crises, I was going through an intense perimenopause phase. I was suffering from hourly, soul-melting hot flashes, during the Arizona summer, with its triple-digit temps. I was in Hell.

I couldn’t exercise because of the extreme discomfort and I didn’t discover until too late that I would mindlessly gorge myself as soon as a hot flash hit. It was like I had to fuel a ferocious incinerator–the only way to survive the intense burning was to distract myself with food.

So, I developed some bad habits and lost some good ones. I had worked my way up to walking a few miles a day, and ate a pretty clean diet. I was in the best shape I’ve seen in years. I was zooming along, feeling great, but now I’m full of Adipose and need a Doctor.

Hence my doctor’s order to do a cleanse. I’ll be posting about it every day, beginning with the preparation process. That’s half the battle, you know? Planning, shopping, wrapping your head around committing–it’s a lot of effort.

Week One will be about the preparation. Week Two will be cleanse week, and Week Three will be about easing off into a healthier way of eating. The true challenge will be that Week Three takes place during Thanksgiving week. I’m going to be challenged to keep it clean, in spite of a holiday that is known primarily for gluttony.

Wanna join me? I’ll be responding to your comments here and on my facebook page.

Lisa Bonnice is the author of five books, including Shape Shifting–reclaiming YOUR perfect body (with a foreword by Neale Donald Walsch).

8 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Food, Goals, Healthy living, Obesity, Shape Shifting, Weight Loss

Tagged Body Mind Spirit, cleanse, detox, Eating clean, holiday eating, hormones, hot flashes, law of attraction, menopause, Perimenopause, shape shifting, Thanksgiving, unhealthy diet, Weight Loss, wellness

Finally, sensible serving sizes!

Posted on February 28, 2014 | Leave a comment

Nice! I’ve long wished that so-called “serving sizes” would be addressed.

Have you ever looked at “serving sizes”? Some of them are sheer madness. I used to buy brownies from a vending machine at work before I learned to pay attention to that part of the label. I thought, “I can splurge this much,” but one day I read the label and saw that my brownie was actually two servings. I was double splurging and had no idea. And we’re not talking about a big brownie. It looked like a single serving, to me.

Serving sizes are designed to keep the consumer feeling like they can eat more than they actually should, exactly as I described above. Who can eat a single serving, according to the package, of Girl Scout Cookies?

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/nutrition-food-labels

Looking for experts: healthy birthday cake recipes!

Posted on November 26, 2013 | 2 comments

I’m sending out the call for experts again. This time, I’m looking for recipes for the best tasting healthy birthday cake!

Yellow Sheet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting & Berries

My birthday is Saturday. I would love to celebrate with a cake and candles, but I’ve lost 35 pounds and cleaned up my dietary habits to the point where the kind of cake I used to eat would probably make me ill. It may taste exquisite, but I know the aftereffects of eating that kind of thing all too well.

So if I’m gonna have a birthday cake, it’s gonna have to be really healthy, with a minimum of fat, sugar and processed ingredients. (This means no Splenda or aspartame.)

This may sound impossible, but I know there are recipes out there and I’m asking for the experts on this subject to chime in.

If you eat mostly clean, what is your favorite cake recipe?

2 Comments

Posted in Abundance, Food, Healthy living, Law of Attraction, Life is Fun!, Lisa and Jeff, Looking For Experts, Obesity, Shape Shifting, Spirituality, Weight Loss

Tagged Birthday cake, Cake, Dessert, Eating clean, health and fitness, Low calorie, Low fat

How I reached my goal weight

Posted on November 5, 2013 | 6 comments

I don’t talk about weight loss much here on my blog, even though I wrote a book on the topic many years ago. I don’t want to obsess over my weight, so I keep my own journey out of the public eye (plus, no one cares about it but me). I only talk about it in my online Shape Shifting group. But today I reached my goal weight and I want to crow about it a little.

When I was writing Shape Shifting (the body/mind/spirit weight solution), I lost 50 pounds. I got it published, with a foreword by Neale Donald Walsch, and followed it up with the Shape Shifter’s Daily Diary (a law of attraction based weight loss–or other goal–journal). Then I moved on to other things.

During the years that followed, I wrote a couple more books and yo-yo’d up and down with the same ten pounds. I allowed myself that much leeway–as long as my clothes fit and I didn’t have to buy new ones just because of a few pounds, I was fine with that.

Then my parents both ended up with cancer, and my dad died. My mom is now in remission. It was a really tough few years, and I gained some weight back. Not all of it, thank goodness, but enough to have to buy new clothes.

Last spring, I decided I had to do something. I felt physically unwell and had to start buying an even larger size. So I started out with the UltraSimple Diet to clean up my eating habits. I’m now eating mostly organic (if I can’t find organic, I limit myself to natural and minimally processed foods, and keep sugar to a bare minimum).

I use the SparkPeople site to track my food intake and interact with others on the same path. I use my own Shape Shifter’s Daily Diary and post daily in the online group. I’ve become an avid walker, thanks to jog.fm–a site that helps you to make perfect playlists–and I track my exercise with a Fitbit.

This time last year, I felt sick all the time. I had panic attacks regularly and was too dizzy from Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) to exercise. In fact, exercise could make me so sick that I’d end up in bed for days.

Today, I’m 34 pounds lighter than I was in April (15 pounds less than my initial 50 pound loss, so I’ve lost 65 total, from my highest weight). I feel so much better. I don’t remember the last time I had to take a Xanax for anxiety. I’m only rarely dizzy. I go for five-mile walks several times a week–and I enjoy it. This is HUGE. I, seriously, have not been able to exercise for many years.

My journey from 215 to 150.

I’m done “dieting” now, and won’t be deliberately trying to lose any more weight. If I never lost another pound, I’d be okay with that. But I will continue to strive toward my healthiest self, and stay within a nutritious calorie range. I wouldn’t be surprised to lose another 20, if that’s what my body needs to weigh. But deliberate weight loss is no longer my focus. Now I’m going to just concentrate on enjoying an increasingly healthy life. And that feels awesome!

6 Comments

Posted in Abundance, Fitness, Law of Attraction, Obesity, Shape Shifters Daily Diary, Shape Shifting, Spirituality, Weight Loss

Tagged Before and After, Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, body/mind/spirit, Dieting, Fitbit, Goal weight, health, law of attraction, neale donald walsch, Physical exercise, shape shifter, shape shifting, sparkpeople, UltraSimple Diet, Weight Loss

Does lack of money keep you fat?

Posted on April 26, 2013 | 7 comments

As the author of Shape Shifting–reclaiming YOUR perfect body, I hear from a lot of readers that money issues sometimes keep them from taking proper care of themselves. They feel that they have to focus too much time on financially surviving, and there is no time left for themselves. So just for fun, I’m posing the question: If someone offered you a million dollars to reach a reasonable weight/fitness goal by the end of the year, could you do it? If so, how?

Just to make it easier for you, your living expenses are all paid for between now and then. Money is no longer an issue. You have all the free time you need to really take care of yourself. But if you don’t make that goal, you have to pay it all back.

What would you change about your life in order to meet that goal? You’ve just signed the contract and now it’s time to begin. What would you do first, and then what would be your follow-up actions?

If it was me, if money was literally no object, I would begin by setting up some doctor’s appointments because I have some crazy health issues that I don’t have a handle on because I can’t afford the kind of health care that I need. Standard doctors have been unable to help me, and since none of it is life threatening, I just have to live with it and hope to someday be able to afford to find some help.

Food Pr0n: Potato and Radicchio Flatbread

Potato and Radicchio Flatbread (Photo credit: drmiggy)

In the meantime, I would hire someone to do all of my meal planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning. That person would take in mind all of my body’s needs with regard to sugar, gluten, organics and GMOs, etc. I would be eating the diet that is truly healthy for me and makes me feel good.

Yoga at Wellspring Vancouver (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Next, because money is no object and I don’t have to spend all of my headspace worrying about working instead of working out, I’d join a gym and hire a personal trainer who would be nice to me, and take into consideration how out of shape I’ve gotten due to having to sit at a desk to earn a living. This person would care about me as an individual, not bark commands and belittle me if I wasn’t able to keep up at first.

Boy, it’s no wonder celebrities can look the way they do. They can afford all of this, and plastic surgery, too!

Is lack of money keeping you fat? How is money keeping you stuck in a body you’re not happy with? What would you do if money was no object?

Are there any changes that you could make right now that don’t cost anything?

Lisa Bonnice is the author of several books, including Shape Shifting–reclaiming YOUR perfect body. Visit her website to learn more about Shape Shifting, and the Shape Shifting Book Study Group on facebook.