Category: Break Free With Connie

Health Tip of the Week: Take Timed Breaths to Stop Cravings

This week, we will begin a new feature, “Health Tip of the Week.”
Specifically, today’s pointer is to help those of you who tend to battle but often cave into overpowering cravings — for sugar, coffee,cigarettes or other unhealthy behavior.
This tip will help you if you:
* Are a sugar addict
* Are overweight or obese
* Have type 2 diabetes
* Have an annoying habit of consuming refined carbohydrates
* Are going through sugar detox
* Need or desire to stay away from high fructose corn syrup-filled candies and pastries
* Want to get more healthy (just about everyone!)
So let’s pretend you’re in the throes of a yen for chocolate-covered peanuts, donuts or a sugary coffee from one of those specialty stores.
Or perhaps you’re near a bakery, vending machines or newspaper stand that sells candy bars.
Here’s how to quickly stop that craving so you don’t go into unpleasant sugar shock:
*

CLA May Speed Reduce Stubborn Fat Around the Middle

CLA Frequently, clients ask me what they can do to reduce reduce stubborn fat around their mid-section other than quit sugar and refined carbs and regularly exercise.
My friend Jonny Bowden — one of the most knowledgeable nutritionists in America today — just wrote a fascinating post on his blog that touts the virtues of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), noting its effectiveness in losing body fat, especially around the tummy.
While “losing pounds is CLA’s most notable claim to fame,” Jonny points out, its benefits also have been known to also include “slowing the spread of cancer cells, help stop bone loss in postmenopausal women and interestingly, calming of inflammation linked to asthma and a host of other things.”
Jonny writes about CLA, because a study in the prestigious American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that CLA is effective at reducing body mass index (BMI) and total fat tissue without altering lean body mass among obese, postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes.

Halloween: Prevent Sugar Shock

Halloween can be a harrowing time for both kids and their parents, because on this holiday and the days or even weeks that follow, kids will often face major blood sugar highs and lows after pigging out on dozens of sugar-laden candies.
In other words, they’ll be hurled into sugar shock.
Let’s face it, no matter what kind of limits their parents may try to place on their children’s candy consumption, youngsters will often overdose on sweets, even if they have to do it in secret.
Unfortunately, that’s what Halloween means these days. It’s a nationally sanctioned “Sugar Overload Day.”
So how can you help your young trick-or-treaters not get wiped out, cranky, depressed, headachy or charged up from having too many candies?
The way to soften the blood-sugar-bouncing whammy and lessen sugar shock is to make sure that your children eat a healthy meal before they cavort aroundthe neighborhood trick-or-treating for candies.
For instance, before they head for the streets, give your children:

Non-Drinkers More Depressed?

From time to time, findings from research studies make me marvel in disbelief. Such was the case when I recently discovered that scientists in Norway found that those of us who are non-drinkers are more depressed, AOL News alerts us.
Wait a minute? Even though alcohol has been linked to health hazards galore, from car crashes to alcoholism, if you don’t drink, you may get blue more often?
Although I was tempted to dismiss the results, I quickly learned that this is not a study at which you should sneer. The scientists, headed up by Jens Christopher Scogen of the University of Bergen looked at a whopping 38,000 people. (It’s always a good sign when thousands of folks participate in research.) What’s more, their conclusions were published in the medical journal Addiction.
So why the startling results?

New York-Area Residents: Break Free of Sugar this January at the New York Open Center

New York-area residents, would you like to release unwanted pounds?
Would you like to feel liberated from your sugar habit?
Would you like to boost your energy so you’re consistently full of verve and spunk?
Kicking or at cutting back on sugar and refined can quickly enable you to all of the above — and more.
Save the dates now!
You can catch a free introductory program on Tuesday, January 5 at the New York Open Center, which recently moved to cool new offices.
Then, learn how to begin Breaking Free of Your Sugar Habit by taking my four-week course, which runs Tuesday, Jan 12 at the pm EST when I speak at the New York Open Center.
Your seminars will be tasty, too. On all nights of my class, you’ll get a chance to taste sugar-free goodies from my friend Alicia O’Connell Cohen, founder of Kate’s Cookie Jar.
At my introductory talk and in my four-week course, you’ll:
* Learn how to begin to escape from the sugar influence.
* Find out about how your sugar habit can cut your life short and lead to diseases galore
* Enjoy participatory adventurcises™ (adventures that are exercises)
* Start to understand why you’ve been “using” sweets and how you can use that failure as a stepping stone to success
* Begin to confront your sugar truth
* Find out this is a great time to be in New York as you’re phasing out the sugar. (You’ll learn about the brilliant, new “Are you pouring on the pounds?” campaign from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
* Have a chance to take a fun, but serious SUGAR SHOCK! Quiz, that will reveal the extent of your reliance on sweets.
* Bond with other like-minded sugar addicts.
Readers of this SUGAR SHOCK! Blog who show up at my January 5 talk at the New York Open Center and sign up for the class will receive a special gift from me.
I invite you now to sign up for my four-week course at the New York Open Center, beginning January 12.

Shrinks Helped Author Susan Shapiro Kick Sugar

Want to learn how to kick sugar?
Author Susan Shapiro says therapy helped her quit all her addictive behavior — smoking, drinking, pot, gum and sugar.
Get the scoop from Sue next Tuesday, Sept. 22 at 2 pm EST, when she comes on the Gab With the Gurus Radio Show.
Sue will discuss how she was able to finally conquer her sugar habit. She’ll also chat about her debut debut novel, Speed Shrinking, a humorous account about how a self-help guru goes on a shrink shopping spree, seeing 8 in 8 days to quickly find help after she relapses on cupcakes right before a major TV appearance.
SpeedShrinking-NewQuote (3) As mentioned on this Sugar Shock Blog here and then again here, Sue has been holding acclaimed, much-publicized “Speed Shrinking” events, in which people chat about their issues for 3 minutes with a variety of “Speed Shrinkers.” (Sue was kind enough to include me.)
If you’re struggling with a sugar addiction, I recommend that you listen to my upcoming Gab With the Gurus Radio Show on Sept. 22 at 2 pm EST to get Sue’s take on sugar addiction and more. (As usual, you can tune in live or later. See below.)
I also encourage you to get Sue’s entertaining book, Speed Shrinking, which has been getting rave reviews.
For instance, Publisher’s Weekly called it: ” “…bubbly…an original voice and an energy that will resonate with anyone who’s ever stared down a Twinkie.”
And Guy Nicolucci, writer for Late Night with Conan O’Brien said: “Susan Shapiro does for therapy and food what Candace Bushnell did for sex and shoes.”
Remember, you can get entertained, educated and inspired by listening live on Sept. 22 at 2 pm EST or later, when Sue appears on my Gab With the Gurus Radio Show.