Well it sounded as if your Thanksgiving was good this year. What wonderful stories. Now we are settling in for the time of growing darkness. This is my favorite time of year. I love the quiet, I love the darkness and the being inside. It’s very special. I am planning a few new classes for January - things like learning to survive and thrive as an introvert (or shy person), special tricks for journaling on step seven. And be sure to check out the special Christmas classes this year. One for transforming the holidays, one for helping your children to thrive for the next month, and then our special holy night reflections class. We will be starting these classes this week (11/29. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page.  Helping Your Children Thrive is a how-to class to help you help your kids get through the holidays with no melt downs and lots of fun. Come learn some great skills.Step 3: Three Meals is our old standby. It is a GREAT class to do this time of year. Learn or remember how to create a regular and consistent pattern of 3 meals. Insure against grazing and skipping. Step 3 is the hardest of the steps. Come get some help with it. Handling the Holidays: Christmas is one of my favorite classes. If you would like to get yourself into a wonderful frame of mind and heart, come do this class. We have so much fun and you will be surprised to learn these techniques to transform what can so easily be a hard time. Back to Basics 2 is the second level for those of you on step 7 who are struggling. If you just finished BtB1, come join us. Resource Center Tour is one of our free walking tours through the website. This one takes you through the resource center. Explore all the nooks and crannies and discover things you did not know were there. We will be starting these new classes the week of 12/6. Please click on the name of the class you wish to join and it will take you to the registration page: Step 2: Journal, Introduction is a revised class to teach you the basics of journaling. The class will give you step by step instructions in how to record your food and feelings in a way that gets you excited. Step 4: More Intriguing Than You Think is the potato class. Come learn everything you ever wanted to know about the timing, size, frequency of your potato. Learn about the best vitamins and talk all you want about them. This is a nice way to strengthen and refine your step 4. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About our Products is the fun tour of the Store that David does once a month. If you want to know what we have and why, come join this free class. I have posted a new class schedule on line. Click here to see what is planned. A number of you have asked me how the classes work. Check the class list page for more information on this. The classes are done online with one lesson each day. You do not have to be at your computer at any set time. And please go read the questions and answers before you write to me. If you have trouble getting through the process, write the tech forum. Please feel free to pass this week's newsletter on to your friends and family. Don't forget to let me know what you like and would like to see me cover. Be sure to visit our Radiant Recovery® website and Community Forum regularly. Warmly, Kathleen **********************************************************************
November 27, 2006 ** Quote From Kathleen **
Words for feelings are not good or bad. They are simply a way to help you understand what is happening. *********************************************************************
** Testimonial for the Week**
Hi guys...good morning! Prepping the oats went well last night, although I put the pan back on the turned-off burner after adding the oats to the pan.i even heard jo's voice in my head, "do not put the pan back on the burner...it will boil over..." :-) and guess what! It did! It gave me a good laugh... always testing and needing to learn it for myself. Oh well, at least I didn't get mad at myself. I couldn't wait to peek in the lid this morning! They were too crunchy for my taste so I added some water and heated them up. They cooked up nicely while I cooked eggs and reheated sausage in the microwave. I added cottage cheese to them -- ate them with 1.5 egg/cheese omelet and 1.5 pieces of sausage. I got breakfast in just within the hour but it took me the whole hour in the kitchen. I wasn't as focused as I'd like to be but hey I did it. Tomorrow I'm going to do the same breakfast just to see if I can prestage a couple of more things (plates & bowls seem to confound me in the morning somehow) to get it in me sooner. Thanks! Jane ********************************************************************
**Recipe of the Week**
One of our community members and the liaison for the Parents group, Stacey, invented this recipe and everyone just loves it! She even takes it and puts it into fancy gift bags and gives it away as gifts for the holidays. I bet you will all love it, too! Granola
Toss the oats, coconut and almonds together in a large bowl. Pour the vegetable oil and apple juice over the oat mixture. Add the cinnamon, and stir with a wooden spoon until all the oats and nuts are coated with the liquids. Pour onto a sheet pan. Bake, stirring occasionally with a spatula, until the mixture turns a nice, even golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the granola from the oven and allow to cool, stirring occasionally. Store the cooled granola in an airtight container. ********************************************************************
**Your Last Diet: More Than What You Think**
This week we are all getting settled and talking about the holidays.....What a gift to have a place to do active problem solving rather than think those old thoughts, * I will do it on January 1*. Chats get deeper and more helper. Please come join us and be part of this wonderful dialogue If you are not a YLD member, come and join us. Click here if you are ready to change your life or just plain ole have fun. It is not too late to get into the classes if you come right now. ********************************************************* ***********
**David's Corner **
 I know that many of you have gotten into high gear in planning for the holidays. Let me know if you would like me to make up a gift package for you We can gift wrap and send along a card for you. Just choose your items, indicate the shipping name and address and write out your card contents in the notes box. Send a copy of Potatoes not Prozac, a Journal and a Cookbook to someone you care about. Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. ********************************************************* ***********
**Our Online Groups**
I am very happy to announce that we are starting a new list that will be called Radiant Transitions. It will be a place to discuss something that many of us are dealing with, which is helping our aging parents to make a transition from their active, independent lives to something different. I have experienced this in two different ways. I have parents who were proactive and searched for and found a retirement community that would be a safe place for them that also offered assisted living and nursing home care as needed. On the other side of the coin, I have had experience with an inlaw who has dementia that progressed to the point that we had to force a change as it was no longer safe for her to live alone. This list will be for those of you who are dealing with this situation now. We want the list to feel very safe, so you will have to apply to join it. All members of the list will be expected to participate. No lurkers, please. Vicki ********************************************************************
**What To Expect Down the Road ** Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. I thought it would be helpful to have a sense of the developmental process in reaching your goals of healing and weight loss. Let’s take a look at how it goes. Regularity and Structure Stability Detox Practice Success Chaos is the starting place for most of you. You may be way out there, or you may be high functioning chaos artists. But the tone is always the same. You feel hopeless, out of control, desperate, inadequate, and impatient. You can’t remember instructions, you want to get started and people don’t understand what is going on for you. You feel the “problem” is the sugar. Or the problem is your weight. And the feelings are so bad, you have to do something RIGHT NOW!!!! You are a true drama pup and feel like you can’t start, can’t stop, and you are crazy. You eat irregular meals, lots of sugars and carbohydrates, you may binge, drink little water and either exercise rarely or exercise compulsively. You have tried a thousand diets. You have lost weight and gained it back – a lot. You are tired and terrified. You hold your breath at even the idea something might work. You want to do it all, and you keep putting it off. You are in the right place. The program can help you. Regularity and Structure You start the program. You work on breakfast. Breakfast becomes habitual. You like the feelings it brings. You write your journal. Sometimes you forget, but mostly you remember. You don’t yet use the journal as a detective, but you are gathering the information and resisting the idea less. You manage to eat three meals a day. You have protein at each meal. You have a potato every night. You take the three vitamins every day. You are still having sweets, but eat them with your meals. You eat whatever fruits you list but notice them and write them down. You have started increasing your water and find you rather like it. You are thinking about the idea of exercising. Stability You have started to feel the routine of regular meals. You have breakfast every day and find that if you miss it, you notice right away. You like how you are feeling. You are sleeping better. You are resisting the idea of the program less. Things start working. You notice how much caffeine and/or aspartame you use. You begin to reduce them slowly without being impulsive or reactive along the way. You are still writing diligently in your journal. You are now getting interested in what your journal says. What can it teach you? What is the connection between food and feelings, anyway? You start eating brown things rather than white refined flour products. Whole grains, brown rice and oatmeal creep in and you find you actually like them. You still have fruit, but find it is becoming more and more a normal part of your diet rather than a desperate alternative to the sweets you think you should be eating. While you haven’t really focused on the sugars, you find that the bag of M&M’s you used to have instead of lunch doesn’t have the same charm when eaten after dinner. You are less frantic about searching for your stash in the evening. Mr. Spud is a friend by now. And you are starting to think that the idea of going off sugar may not be so scary after all. Detox You pick a date and know that you are ready to just go for it. The day arrives and you don’t have sugar, you don’t have alcohol. You feel excited. You feel that maybe this time you can do it. You still have breakfast; you guard yourself a little more tightly. You are using your food journal as a valuable aid in your process. It alerts you to danger or slipping. But your focus is on the SUGAR. Finally, the bogey man is going to go. Day four comes; you are cranky but intrigued. It’s a day and you are ready. And then, and then day five. You wake up and realize you just passed through the sugar barrier. You are on your way. You hold this place now for a while. Part of you is itching to go with losing weight. You actually may have started losing. Or you may have gained some. This makes you a little nervous, but you trust the process. Something is happening here. You aren’t quite sure what or how it is working so powerfully, but you are hooked. Your food is steady. Your energy is up. Your sleep is working. You are pleased and excited. And if you are not, you know what to do. Back to the journal. Back to the forum. Let’s figure it out. It’s not overwhelming; it’s just functional. You are in charge and you know what to do. You have been sugar free for a few weeks. Yes, yes, that is weeks, not days. And now you are ready to start your diet plan. But you are willing to listen. Wait for six months on steady we say. You no longer fret. You know it makes sense. Get skill, get stable. You are no longer frantic and are starting to enjoy this. You have some goals. You have a sense that you can start the things to get you ready for weight loss. Practice You are reducing the amount of fruit you have. Browns are steady. You start increasing the greens. Veggies become your friend – and if not your friend, at least you have learned how to cook them. You eat them regularly. You have increased your water to the ounces that equal 1/2 your body weight. The potato is a regular part of your routine. Steady, you are steady. And you have started exploring your other options from that steady place. You go into the support modules regularly and work on the “extras” like defining your style, reflecting on feelings, getting your support network refined, exercising, and looking at what will help you hold the diet. A funny thing is happening. You kinda like this process. You are less impatient. You like how things are unfolding. You are ready now for the weight loss. Success After all this time, you are ready. Not frantic, but ready. At the base, you understand what you are doing. This is not hit or miss or desperate. It is informed and intentional. You understand the biochemistry of it all. You don’t throw away the spud because it is too glycemic. You aren’t counting calories. You have a good relationship to your scale. You are doing some exercise every day. You are on your way! ©Kathleen DesMaisons 2006. Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together: Gretel, the liaison for the recovery list and the webmaster puts it all together Naomi gathers the recipes. David, who runs the Radiant Recovery® Store talks about what new products we have. You are getting the weekly newsletter from Radiant Recovery® in response to your signup. A copy of this newsletter may also be found posted on the web at http://www. radiantrecovery.com/weeklynewsletter.htm. ©2006 by Kathleen DesMaisons . All rights reserved. You are free to use or transmit this article to your ezine or website as long as you leave the content unaltered and use this attribution: "By Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. of Radiant Recovery®. Please visit Kathleen's website at http://www.radiantrecovery.com for additional resources on sugar sensitivity and healing addiction." Please notify me at kathleen@radiantrecovery.com to let me know where the material will appear. Banner Photograph by Geraint Smith |