|
|
|
|
August 5, 2013 Hi {!firstname_fix} Our summer rain comes at night so when we get up the ground is damp and moist. Such a change from how it has been. The weeds are sprouting. The dogs go out and pull them and eat them. They nibble on everything but the puncture weed which produces nasty little thorny things. I grab those before they mature. I love this time of year. For me it is always a time of quiet reflection and renewal. I have been spending several hours a day meditating and writing. Sept 1 has always been a *new* year for me. Maybe related to starting school - new shoes and new office supplies, LOL. Of course I am also thinking about Euroranch and planning for the material I will be presenting. We have some pretty spectacular new concepts around how sugar sensitivity presents itself in many forms. The story is not just limited to people who are dealing with weight. There may be alcohol in the equation or restriction or using exercise to take care of feelings. As we explore more, our understanding and ability to support you in your journey deepens. We do Euroranch in Salisbury. It is a lovely little city with an incredible cathedral, wonderful shops and a beautiful river winding through. We have added a special session on Friday for newcomers so if you have never been or are just starting the program, you will be more than welcome. Everyone who comes to ranch loves it! I hope you will join us this year. This class will begin Wednesday,August 7, 2013. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:
These classes will begin Wednesday, August 14, 2013. 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 ** For a while you might struggle with the concept that 'doing the food' - something so simple and so not sexy - can be so powerful. **********************************************************************
**Testimonial of the Week ** I haven't connected with this list for a while - in terms of sharing my progress. So I just wanted to say hello and give an update :-) Although I have only been doing this program for about 9 1/2 weeks now and I am just tightening up step 2 before moving on to step 3, I have felt some significant progress lately. Between starting an anti-depressant and starting the program, things are looking up! I am beginning to feel back to my old self! :-) And I'm sure by the time I make it through the steps, I will be feeling even better than my old self! This week I had an appointment with my chiropractor (who emphasizes in nutrition) and he announced a significant progress in my health (without knowing about SARP and the medication). He even asked me if I had lost some weight (and I haven't). But then he wanted to start talking about a plan for weight loss. I explained this program to him and told him that I wasn't focusing on weight loss, I was just taking the steps slow and steady and I would eventually lose the weight. He was very impressed that I wasn't trying to accomplish the weight loss so fast like most people do. I am grateful to this program for helping me shift my focus away from the weight loss! This experience confirmed to me that, as we start experiencing little bits of radiance, our countenance changes to the point where people wonder if we have lost weight because we are starting to "radiate", not because we really had lost any weight! I had heard someone talking about this in a post, but didn't realize that I might even experience it 2 1/2 months into the program! Also, a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in a few weeks and who knows I had been struggling, told me yesterday that there was more sparkle in my eyes, that they didn't look so "flat". Wow! Although I was realizing a slow change, it helped me to hear those confirmations from other people, that, yes, I am on the "up and up"! I am seeing how those glimpses of radiance can be felt as we go throughout the steps - and I love it! I can't wait for what is to come! Thanks to you all for your help and encouragement! Now I just need to get myself ready to start step 3! Amy **********************************************************************
**Radiant Life ** 'I'm so weary of all the psychotherapy and other purely mental stuff that has no lasting effect for me!' That's 'cause it ain't mental! Yes, I was as well, weary. When sugar sensitives go to therapy to try and fix their shame, isolation, sadness, rage -- it's like fixing a flat tire by singing the national anthem. It just doesn't fix the problem. That is not to say shame as an entity doesn't exist in human beings, or that it ceases to exist when we heal. It is to say that it is 'proportional' to what is occurring around us. It's just not the human condition, as we know it cosmically speaking, to walk around saddled with unmitigated, undiluted, full-force shame. For no reason we can pinpoint and no answer we can generate as to why it's there. What a relief to know I'm okay. And it's a knowledge borne of something other than your mental processes. It comes straight from your cells. And that's something you have to experience, because for me to describe, or anyone, I believe, it just falls short. It's like trying to describe the most beautiful sunset you've ever seen, and in trying to tell someone about it who wasn't there, you slowly realize there's no way they'll ever truly understand. They would have had to be there with you. So come out with me on the docks and watch the sunset. Okay? Love, sky **********************************************************************
**Radiant Ambassadors **  What do you do when you want to buy a new book? If it's like the majority of us, you will wander on over to Amazon and check out the reviews first - I know that I certainly do! I went over to Amazon.com the other day and noticed that there are 213 reviews, of which 155 are rated 5 star! How wonderful is that :) The more reviews the merrier! Selena selenas@blueyonder.co.uk Come join us if you are excited about spreading the news. **********************************************************************
**How I Found Radiant Recovery ** Hello everyone, My name is Jenny and I live in Iowa with my fiancé and our 4 kids aged 13 to 7. I have been sugar free for 23 days after I gave it up for another program. As you can imagine, cold turkey with sugar and carbs was way too hard and I found Kathleen through a Google search. I checked out the book from the library and, like the rest of you, read myself on every page. I am still sugar free and working on the rest of the steps. I think the thing I'm most looking forward to is not obsessing about food, when I get to eat next and my weight. I'm also glad to be able to set a better example for my two daughters than I had growing up. **********************************************************************
** Radiant Recovery® Store ** David manages the Radiant Recovery® Store. He is also Kathleen's oldest son. 
Here is a note that Karen sent from England. For those of you who live overseas, we can help. If you have any questions, just email me. My job is to make you happy.Ranch looks great! The store .... well I wanted to share this. I live in England and realised I was about to run out of protein powder. So I ordered from 3 places on the same day thinking one would arrive shortly. Well, the George's Restore arrived the same day as the protein powder I ordered by phone from a UK store (5 days including a weekend) and the online order of protein powder from a UK site still hasn't arrived. Plus price wise - including shipping - it worked out to be comparable. A huge thumbs up to the store and David. Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. **********************************************************************
**Radiant Kitchen ** Gotta love those greens! (smile) Here is a yummy recipe that is sure to win over your family to eating greens. I adapted this from a real simple magazine recipe. BROCCOLI WITH GARLIC LEMON CRUMBS
For more great program-friendly recipes, check out our cookbook in the store and visit our online Radiant Recipes site. **********************************************************************
**Radiant YLD ** I'm so excited because we have been chatting about one of my favourite topics this week. Exercise! Listening to others saying how much they are loving the exercise they are doing now, it being a way of life and talking about how we started off just doing a small amount of exercise and watching it grow. I started with walking and now I really love going to the gym, too, and I've been noticing real changes as my body gains muscle and shape. My dear body can now catch up with my brain chemistry. Balanced, steady and strong. Body and mind working together to support each other! It's very infectious and life changing stuff! :) 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. I keep being surprised at how our conversations unfold. I think it is sort of like a book club meeting that you look forward to each week. And the *book* is about sugar sensitivity...the parts that are not about the food. We have such a nice combination of old timers and new people that it makes for a lively and thoughtful reflection. I hope you will come and join us. 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 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 ** 
Because we have so many people sharing about their struggle to eat enough when under stress, I thought it would be timely to provide some focused support for that. I have set up a new list called Radiant Eating Enough. If this is part of your story, would love to have you come over and join our sharing.
**********************************************************************
**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. Steph provides the Your Last Diet column. ©2013 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 |
