Sugar Shock Blog Turns 5 Today! How Shall We Celebrate?

Today is the Sugar Shock Blog’s five-year anniversary! Wow!
I may have missed this birthday, but I had to look it up, because today, someone requested more information about me and what I do.
As long-time fans may know — and newer visitors can discover — this Sugar Shock Blog began dedicated to providing health and wellness information, with a focus on providing tips to quit sugar, updates about sugar research and ifnormation about artificial sweeteners, etc. Now its mission and goal has expanded greatly. Over time, we’ve enlarged our focus to help you live a happier, more fulfilling life.
My intention here is to give you content that:
Helps you improve your health and activate your wellness
Shows or tells you how to become personally empowered
Helps you lead a better life, or, as I like to say, Get a Life that Rocks™
Gives you info so you can master social networking and realize your dreams
Tells you about inspiring guests, who will appear or have entertained and educated you on my Gab with the Gurus Radio Show on BlogTalkRadio. These gurus — many of whom have written bestselling books, have a revolutionary product or are appearing in exciting movies or TV shows, etc. — can help you a lot! In fact, there’s nothing like hearing people’s voices to help you. (By the way, Gab with the Gurus turns 3 next week — actually it’s 4 years (because the show began as the Stop Sugar Shock Radio Show.) Stay tuned for an exciting week of shows, which, as usual, you can listen to live or later.
Educates you about cutting edge studies related to sugar, nutrition and more
Helps you improve your relationships
Lets you catch up with me and connect with me
Updates you about my free teleseminars and my Sugar Freedom Now program.
And so much more
For those of you who are new here, let tell you about myself. I’m:
A trained-journalist-turned blogger.
Author of the book, Sugar Shock (from Berkley Books, part of the Penguin Group).
Author of the upcoming book, The Sugar Shock Diet (from Hay House), which I just finished writing. (I’m taking it easy a little before we go into major editing mode shortly.)
A certified life coach (who studied at the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching or iPEC), and certified health coach (who trained at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition or IIN).
Host of the Gab with the Gurus Radio Show, which is how I bring to you many experts from a variety of fields, including health, wellness, personal empowerment, social networking, relationships, dating, fitness, forgiveness, celebrities, etc. Some of my guests have included Dr. Mehmet Oz, Montel Williams, Lisa Rinna, Suzanne Somers, Chris Brogan, Mari Smith, Marianne Williamson, Gretchen Rubin and many more.
People refer to me as a “Sugar Shrew No More,” a Sugar Freedom Coach or Freedom Coach, Sugar Liberator or Smart Habits Girl (which is my handle on Twitter).
So how do you think we should celebrate the Sugar Shock Blog’s five-year anniversary? Please share your ideas here.

Alone for the Holidays? Guest Post from Arielle Ford

If you’re single this holiday season, here’s a three-step guide for making it a super-special time of year from my friend and colleague Arielle Ford, author of The Soulmate Secret. Now here are Arielle’s tips.
What do Do if You’re Alone this Holiday Season by Arielle Ford
First, for those of you who are sad, depressed, angry, or resigned to the thought you will always be alone, let me offer you a very short exercise.
1) Get out the egg timer and set it for 5 minutes.
2) For 5 minutes close your eyes and dive deep into the feelings you are feeling don’t resist on any level, just allow yourself too embrace the full (possibly unpleasant) experience of your sadness, anger, doubt, etc. Look and see where in your body the feelings reside, feel them and then see if you can feel them even more intensely.
3) Breathe deeply during this process and with each exhale, breathe out the emotion while silently saying to yourself thank you and goodbye. Chances are before the 5 minutes are up, all or most of these feelings will have dissipated. This is because you have stopped “resisting” feeling those feelings and you allowed yourself to be fully present with what was true for you in that moment.
Second: Now, get out your journal and make a list of three things you can accomplish between now and the end of the year that will make someone else’s life better. This can be anything from taking an elderly neighbor shopping, to serving food at a shelter, to a variety of random acts of kindness.
My favorite line from A Course In Miracles is this: “The only thing that can be lacking in any situation is that which you are not giving.” Want more love? Give love. You get the idea.
Finally, decide to create a memento of this holiday season that you will GIVE to your soulmate someday. It can be a special letter, photographs, a scrap-book or, my favorite, get out your video camera and make a short film that shows where you went and what you did for Holiday 2010 that you will want to share with him or her. This is an excellent way to “live as-if.”
P.S. Another very powerful solution for the blues is tapping. If you’ve never heard of Tapping before you’re going to be blown away at how powerful it is. Tapping is a technique that combines ancient Chinese acupressure and modern psychology with startling results. It’s used and recommended by leading experts such as Jack Canfield, Joe Vitale, Cheryl Richardson, Deepak Chopra, and many others (including me!). If you’re looking to release unpleasant emotions, create prosperity, clarity, energy focus, better physical and emotional health and much, much more, check this out. I use it EVERY DAY!

Feel Special & Enrich Your Life With True Love – Guest Blog Post

You can enrich and energize your life with true love rather than sugar.
You can feel so rewarded and fulfilled in a marriage or committed relationship that those quickie carbs completely lose their allure.
With proactive techniques that you’ll learn here, love can fill you up, not an empty, tragic sugar addiction that you need to frequently re-fuel with empty-calorie, health-harming carbs.
Today’s special blog post is for single ladies (never-married, divorced or widowed) — or even unsatisfied married women — who long for fulfilling, amazing true love with a remarkable, adoring man.
The author of this post is the charming, long-married, personable psychologist Dr. Diana Kirschner, the bestselling author of Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love.
Dr. Diana, who gave you many helpful tips on my Gab With the Gurus Radio Show last Tuesday, reminisces here about her early days as a child when her mom used sugar as love. Then, she offers you tangible guidelines to find and keep true love. (She wrote this post especially to help you, because we ran into each other and became friends this past weekend at a wonderful Book Publishing 2.0.program.
This is a rare treat to get a special Sugar Shock Blog post from Dr. Diana, who is a media darling. The friendly therapist/bestselling author has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show and recently The Mike and Juliet Show, where she ran a 90-day Love Challenge. (Sure enough, Amelia, the love mentee, did find someone.) So here’s Dr. Diana’s post:
Feel Special & Enrich Your Life with Fulfilling, Nurturing True Love — Not Unfulfilling, Unsatisfying Sugar by Dr. Diana Kirschner, the bestselling author of Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love.
When I was a child, my mother often showed her love by secreting me away from my other siblings and sharing a cookie, a piece of cake or candy just with me. In fact, she stressed that she was sharing it with me because I was so special. I certainly felt special—even though the sugary love drug usually made me sick to my stomach. (Ring a bell?)

Singles of All Ages: Get Secrets on Gab With Gurus Radio Show on Jan. 14 to Attract the Love of Your Life With Bestselling Author Arielle Ford

This post is not just for sugar addicts! It’s for anyone who’s single. You’ll want to to learn about this exciting event on Wed., Jan. 14, one month before Valentine’s Day. Please read on.
Arielle_fordLonely, frustrated and discouraged never-married singles, divorced people or widowers, this is for you!
Have you been wondering what it takes to find the love of your life?
Do you dream of finding a life partner and experiencing a deeply loving and fulfilling relationship?
And if you’re a woman over age 30, have you bought into the often-repeated, ridiculous myth that you have a better chance of getting run over by a car than finding a man?
Well, Arielle Ford is living proof of the absurdity of that belief.
In fact, she manifested the love of her life at age 44. Not only that, but they were engaged three weeks later and have now been married 11 happy years.
The Soulmate Secret – 51jtpndOhgL._SL160_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-dp,TopRight,12,-18_SH30_OU01_AA115_ Now Arielle is sharing her secrets in a fabulous new book, The Soulmate Secret: Manifest the Love of Your Life With the Law of Attrction and a companion Soulmate Secret CD.
But you don’t have to just read the groundbreaking book. You can also listen to Arielle in a special, just-added The Gab With the Gurus Radio Show on Wednesday, Jan. 14.
Visit my new Gab With the Gurus Blog for more details about this show.