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April 30, 2012 Hi {!firstname_fix} Well, I have had many emails with the cooks and planners at the Indian Cultural Center so I am thinking we are pretty much all set for ranch. People are excited. I always love this time of year. Albuquerque is at its best and I love spring as a time of being creative. You will read in this issue about our planning and reflecting on changes in the weight loss program. I will be ruminating for a few weeks. We will do ranch in the middle and then move forward with that. If you haven't listened to the radio interview I did, plan on doing it. It was a fun conversation. I am also learning how to do twitter. So you might want to follow me and broaden our discussion. This class will begin Wednesday, May 2, 2012. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:
There will be no classes beginning Wednesday, May 9, 2012. This class will begin Wednesday, May 16, 2012. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:
The class schedule is online. 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. 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. Be sure to visit our Radiant Recovery website and Community Forum regularly. Warmly, Kathleen **********************************************************************
** Quote From Kathleen ** Learning that you can have positive feelings from a thousand things other than food is a wonderful insight. **********************************************************************
** Testimonial of the Week ** The fun part about being prescribed antibiotics for the ear infection is that the Dr’s records show I have not needed antibiotics for 5 years!! When I began doing the food I had antibiotics every two weeks or so to control sinusitis and boils and ear infections. Oh boy has doing the food changed a few things!! Kath **********************************************************************
** Radiant Ambassadors **  Did you know that Kathleen did a fabulous, fabulous radio interview the other day? No? Well, you do now! The interview has been archived so you can still listen to it for a while: If you want to hear it follow this link: http://archive.kpfk.org/ Look for 'Inner Vision Tuesday' for 24th April at 1pm Then click on 'play'. When you've listened to it, why not write to KPFK and let them know what you thought of it - how important it is to get this information out there. I've left a message on their Facebook page and tweeted them. Selena selenas@blueyonder.co.uk Come join us if you are excited about spreading the news. **********************************************************************
** How I Found Radiant Recovery ** My name is Judith and I am from the Highlands of Scotland. I just joined yesterday, so totally new to this Plan. Radiant Recovery was recommended to me by a friend of my daughter’s who thought I would benefit from the Plan as we have discussed in the past the number of diets and failures we have both had. My daughter gave me the “Potatoes not Prozac” and the “Sugar Addicts Total Recovery Programme” books last month. I am almost finished the first one and have dipped into the second one. All fascinating reading, but can’t be rushed. So once I finished all the chocolate etc. from then till Monday I was ready to make a start yesterday and I am now raring to go! Looking forward to hearing from you all. **********************************************************************
** Radiant Recovery® Store ** David manages the Radiant Recovery® Store. He is also Kathleen's oldest son. We are featuring George's® Original this week. Many of you have been waiting patiently while we have struggled with our vendor pushing us to the back burner for our production run. They just told us that it has been blended and is waiting for the free-from-contaminants sign off and will loaded on the trucks ASAP...We love Original. OK, we have two sources of vitamins in our store. The vitamins in George's® Shake Original. This configuration is something that Kathleen spent almost a year working on. She did lots of research and talked to a number of experts.  Because so many people are now using George’s® Restore , Kathleen wanted to find a comparable powder to use. All-One powder fits the bill. We love the taste and texture of the vitamins. I know that Kathleen puts the pink on in her morning shake. We carry a plain mix and one with antioxidants.
Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. **********************************************************************
** Radiant Kitchen ** This is a great recipe to take to a picnic.
Spray a rectangular casserole with cooking spray. Cook the onion and garlic in the oil til translucent. Stir in the flour, basil and salt. Add the milk and cook stirring until thickened. Add the spinach and potato. Stir gently. Pour into the casserole. Top with cheese, Bake until bubbly and slightly browned (about 30 minutes). Serves 8 as a side dish. For more great program-friendly recipes, check out our cookbook in the store and visit our online Radiant Recipes site. **********************************************************************
** Radiant YLD ** We had a fabulous discussion about revamping Your Last Diet to reflect the maturity the community and the program have gone through in the last year. We were batting around the idea of what it is that makes YLD so unique - this asking people to be steady BEFORE they start weight loss. We talked about the sequence of looking at emotional wounding, societal messages, what to wear. We have created a place that is actually without blame and angst. So we redefined what we have been doing. Then we started to talk about the *other* variables that diets never consider...body type, age, hormones, sleep, computer time, thyroid, exercise, stress and how we can sort that all out. The incredible thing is we know how...and that people in YLD get the skills to create their own weight loss *matrix* that means it works for them. Now, I haven't written it all up, and made it pretty yet, LOL. But that is coming. And maybe you would like to be part of this living process. If you would like to join, come find us here **********************************************************************
** Radiant Conversations ** We have a new portal for the Conversations program. Come check it out here. We just cannot stay away from that joy dot conversation, LOL. We talked about how those joy dots transform your brain....Here are some snips from conversations chat:
If you would like to join us, you can do that below. Join YLD Weight Loss Now: click here - $99 Join Conversations 2011 Now: click here - $99 Join Both YLD and Conversations Now: click here - $149 Current YLD members wish to Upgrade to Both, click here - $49 Current YLD members who wish to Transfer to Conversations 2011 Only can do so for a $14.99 admin fee: click here If you are not a member, come and join us if you want to be a part of the latest and greatest or just have some plain ol' fun! **********************************************************************
** Our Online Groups ** The Radiant Step One list is a great place to learn the nuances of breakfast, build a strong foundation for the rest of the steps, and find how helpful it is to share our journey with others. It is great for new people and those who have been on the program a long time. Sharing helps everyone. The awesome thing is we all, Step 1 or Step 7, eat breakfast every single day. How cool is that? **********************************************************************
**The Secret of Self-Esteem ** Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
Optimism and self-confidence result from our body chemistry, not our mental attitude. Sometimes we are ready to take on the world. Other times the bag lady sits at our feet clucking her disapproval of our lives. Enduring and consistent confidence is a thousand times better than those few moments stolen on the back of a sugar high. I have been fascinated with the beta-endorphin story for years. As you may recall from Potatoes Not Prozac, beta-endorphin is the brain chemical that enables us to tolerate pain. So when I first learned that sugar evokes beta-endorphin, it made perfect sense to me. Sugar as a pain-killer seemed to resonate with what my body already knew. But I hadn’t thought of sugar as an emotional pain-killer. Reading that first scientific article about sugar reducing 'isolation distress' knocked my socks off. When baby mice were given sugar, they didn’t cry as much when they were taken away from their mothers. This wasn’t about physical pain, this was a whole different story. I wanted to piece it together. We know that children of alcoholics have naturally lower levels of beta-endorphin. What does this mean in real life? Beta-endorphin cuts pain. Therefore, lower levels of beta-endorphin mean we feel pain more deeply. We may be more distressed by going to the dentist. We may hurt more if we get banged up in a backyard game of football. We may cry more at the movies. Because we naturally have less of the brain chemical that protects us from pain, we are naturally more 'sensitive.' Because we are more sensitive, we feel more deeply. I suspect that lower levels of beta-endorphin make us more aware, more tuned in to the subtlety of what we are experiencing, and perhaps more vulnerable emotionally. Beta-endorphin also affects self-esteem. Confidence, optimism, a sense of connection, and a sense of elation all come with high levels of beta-endorphin. The euphoria of the 'runner’s high' is very real. That sense of being on top of the world is a byproduct of the beta-endorphin flood. By the same token, low beta-endorphin can have a profoundly negative effect on our feelings. Self-esteem eludes us — even though it seems we should feel terrific, we don’t. We are successful, we have enough money, we have love and support in our lives — but inside we are convinced it all will soon disappear and we will end up as a bag lady. We feel disconnected from those around us. Even though our mind tells us that we have a loving partner, an attentive husband, devoted children, caring parents, or loving friends, we still feel isolated and alone. Sometimes we shake our heads in disbelief. 'How can this be?' we ask. It makes no sense. What is even stranger is that we don’t feel this way all of the time. Sometimes we are ready to take on the world. Other times the bag lady sits at our feet clucking her disapproval of our lives. Having our confidence and self-esteem be so elusive, so unpredictable can be crazy-making. It makes no sense until we begin to see our life through the filter of beta-endorphin. When we have naturally low levels of beta-endorphin, our brains try to compensate by increasing the number of beta-endorphin receptors in order to catch as much beta-endorphin as possible. If something (like drugs, alcohol, or a large helping of sugary food) causes a big hit of beta-endorphin (also called a spike), the extra receptor sites will grab it and cause us to have a 'WOW!' reaction, a 'rush.' Let’s focus on the sugar effect. We start out with low beta-endorphin, we eat sugar, our beta-endorphin spikes, and we feel really good. We are confident, hopeful, and excited about our lives. We banish the bag lady with a flash of the hand and pronounce our enthusiasm for life and its demands. We feel great! For a little while. But then, in the middle of a conversation, at a board meeting, or on a date, our sense of possibility slips away. Doom descends and we are back to square one. The flood of beta-endorphin has receded and we are left with all those extra receptors sitting empty, forlorn — and craving for more. So how do we handle this situation? Can we raise our beta-endorphin levels by doing healthy things instead of using sugar and drugs? And what’s wrong with that 'rush?' If our beta-endorphin is low, don’t we want to do things that get us more? Here’s the key: We don’t want the rush because when it recedes, we end up feeling terrible. Instead we want a steady stream of beta-endorphin, which keeps us in a steady state of optimism, higher self-esteem, confidence, and connectedness. We want to enhance the natural production of beta-endorphin without the dramatic up and downs that have been a big part of our lives. In some ways, this may be hard to get used to. We may not want to give up the rush that sugar evokes. To use my own words from early recovery, life without the rush may seem 'boring.' It was almost as if I was willing to endure the pain of the down side in order to have the thrill of the up side. This, in a nutshell, is the seduction of addiction. We forget the down side and only remember those few moments of glory. We will seek forever and endure anything to return to the state of WOW! Trust me on this one, though. Many years later, my body, my mind, and my heart all know that a steady state of clarity and self-esteem is so much better than the illusion I carried around so long. Enduring and consistent confidence is a thousand times better than those few moments stolen on the back of a sugar high. I didn’t know this until I did the food plan — and kept doing it over time. But I do now, and there is nothing better in the world than living from this place. Thanks for reading! If you know someone who could benefit from this, feel free to forward it to them. Not a subscriber yet? Like what you have read? Sign up to get future issues delivered straight to you: http://www.radiantrecovery.com Until next time!
Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together:
Gretel, our webmaster, puts it all together. David runs the Radiant Recovery® Store. Selena provides the weekly Ambassadors column. ©2012 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, use this attribution: "By Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. of Radiant Recovery®", and notify kathleen@radiantrecovery.com of the location. Please visit the Radiant Recovery® website at http://www.radiantrecovery.com for additional resources on sugar sensitivity and healing addiction. 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 |
