Heart Breaking Eating Disorder

One of our Twitter followers tells her horror story of how losing weight destroyed her love life. 

Anonymous:I've always been a health nut. I mean I would eat pizza and drink sodas but I always worked out and tried to make healthy choices for the most part. Then my "first love" kind of chose someone else over me. It hurt but I moved on. The next guy I dated dumped me for some stick thin girl. That's when I started dieting more. I still ate as much as I needed to I just cut out sodas and only ate salads when I ate out, cross country helped too.  

Then I met Matt. I was so convinced that he was the most perfect person in this world and he liked me for me and I knew that, but that fear of him finding someone better was always in the back of my head. That's what started it. It was long distance, so before his visits I would replace dinners with a breakfast bar and sometimes skip lunch all together for about a week. At the time it was just a way to have a flat stomach when he got here, no big deal. Then I started weighing myself and noticing how quickly the numbers were dropping. Between visits from Matt and Skyping and taking on the phone and working and obsessing with the numbers on the scale and the nutrition labels, it got unhealthy.  

When the scale stopped going down, I stopped eating as much. It progressively got worse until I was at the point where I lived on chewing gum and water all days of the week and binged on Fridays, only because I usually spent the night with my friend and I didn't want her to worry about me. Then I'd feel guilty and starve again, nasty cycle. Everybody at school started spreading all sorts of rumors about how I threw up in the bathrooms after lunch (which is absurd considering I didn't even eat at lunch) people would ask my friends what was wrong with me.  They'd make skinny jokes and stare. I hated going to school.  Then guess what? Matt dumped me.  

I guess it was my fault. I mean I was beyond happy with him but because of my eating disorder I couldn't be open with him and I'm sure it pushed him away. Ever since we broke up I've been trying to get better but it’s ingrained into my brain now and eating is the hardest task for me. So no I would not advise any of my followers to lose weight like I did. I'm so against it. If I see a friend skipping meals I freak out it's horrible and I wish nobody would have to go through this. You don't just lose your food you lose the people you love.

Don't Regret Easter Dinner

It is that time of year again when families come together for Easter dinner and holiday celebrations.  Easter is traditionally celebrated with big dinners, wine, desserts and chocolate eggs.  Some people with certain health conditions or those who like to regularly eat nutritiously may face challenges when it comes to having so much variety of food, alcohol and sweets.  How do we survive the holiday without completely ignoring our health? 

We should be aware of the portion sizes we put on our plate and try to pick the healthy option.  It is Easter and some of us cannot resist a little bit of wine at dinner and what about the temptation for those chocolate eggs. 

I have some sweet news for you.  A little bit of good quality chocolate actually provides health benefits.  Chocolate is recognized to help prevent heart disease.  To get the full benefits this Easter holiday, look for chocolate that contains 70% cocoa.  Now we do not have to feel guilty about eating Easter chocolate, but only if we limit to a healthy amount of chocolate in order to receive the health benefits.  Too much chocolate can actually be harmful to our health.             

What about the guilt after you enjoyed some wine?  Red wine especially is known to actually prevent the risk of heart disease such as a heart attack, for moderate drinkers. 

The Easter Holiday is coming soon and we want everyone to have a safe, healthy and enjoyable holiday weekend.  So remember to make healthy choices without feeling guilty.  Watch the video below about the delicious benefits of red wine. 

For more information about the Easter Holiday visit: 
http://christianity.about.com/od/holidaytips/qt/whatiseaster.htm

Watch on YouTube

Health Is Beautiful

Why is health beautiful?  Last week we focused a lot on the importance of inner beauty and how much inner beauty actually affects outer beauty.    When we talk about beauty on the inside what does that really mean?  If beauty is pleasure to the senses then how can we be beautiful on the inside? 

I believe that inner beauty is having a positive, genuine, healthy and loving mind, body and soul.  This idea might sound so simple but in reality it is not.  If beauty is simple then why are there so many people struggling?  There are so many factors that are out of our control.  We cannot control the body we are born into.  We cannot control the genetics we come from.   We can’t control the country we are born into and our surroundings.  Life is challenging because there are so many things that we cannot control.  So how can we change if there are so many factors out of our control?  My solution is to work on the factors we can control which can actually influence the factors we cannot control.  So now we know that many things we cannot control affect our mind, body and soul.  My solution to affecting the mind, body and soul in a positive way is health.   Here is an example: if obesity is uncontrollably in your gene pool and becomes a challenge to deal with your weight then focus on what you can control which is your diet and physical activity. 

Health is a great example of how inner beauty affects outer beauty.  If you put garbage inside your body do not be surprised if you become unhappy about the way you look on the outside. My personal beliefs about health: Fitness and nutrition does not only have an impact on the body but also on the mind and soul.  The mind impacts the body and soul.  The soul impacts the mind and the body.  Health is beautiful so why would anyone not want to care for their health?         

Avocados For Health & Beauty

This time of year is a great time for people to start getting their body into great shape for summer.  This is also a great time for people to get their skin ready for the sun.  Feel great, look great and you will be on your way to beautiful confidence.  

Avocados are not only very delicious, they are filled with lots of health and beauty benefits.  Avocados contain good fats that are very healthy.  Avocados are also great sources of vitamin B, E and k.  Avocados can be eaten and used for beauty treatments.   Avocado treatments for your hair, skin and nails are highly recommended.  I am going to show you in the video below how to treat your face using an avocado as a face mask.  This treatment for your face will help your face get ready for summer, reduce fine lines and wrinkles, moisturize the skin and this treatment is also great for after you have been out in the sun.     

Simple Recipes ready in 5 minutes!  

Citrus Avocado

Ingredients

• Avocado
• Half a lemon
• Salt is optional

Directions

Peel the skin off of the avocado.  Cut up the avocado into slices.  Place the avocado on a plate.  Then cut a lemon in half.  Take your half of lemon and squeeze it over the avocado.  You now have lemon juice covering the avocado.  Add a small pinch of salt for extra flavour.  (If your doctor tells you to stay on a low salt diet then don’t add the salt)     

Balsamic Avocado 

Ingredients

• Avocado
• Balsamic vinegar
• Pepper
• Salt

Directions

Peel the skin off of the avocado.  Cut up the avocado into slices.  Place the avocado on a plate.  Drizzle a table spoon of balsamic vinegar on the avocado.  Sprinkle a little bit of salt and pepper.  (If your doctor tells you to stay on a low salt diet then don’t add the salt)


Avocado Face Mask

Click here to watch Avocado Face Mask on YouTube

Connecting Confidence & Beauty

Taking good care of your self is not selfish.  It would actually be selfish not to take good care of yourself.  I know that some people will try so hard to focus all their energy on others, but by not taking care of yourself you are making it more difficult for other people to take care of you.  When we love and take good care of ourselves it is so much easier for others to love us back.  It is difficult to love someone who can’t love themselves.  Your loved ones are not in your life because you love them they are in your life because they love you.  They want you to be happy, they want you to be healthy because they love you. 

You can tell a lot about how someone feels about themselves by the way their skin looks.  People who take good care of their skin show that they care about themselves.  People with very bad skin do not show love for themselves.  Even though awareness of the harm drugs, alcohol and smoking causes is increasing, I find that drug, alcohol, and smoking addictions are affecting more and more people.  What does this tell me?  We are in year 2012!!!  Information could not be closer to our fingertips, literally.  No one with such a harmful addiction has the excuse to say something like “I didn't know drugs are bad”.  We all know these things are bad and those who care about themselves will avoid this harm.  Drug, alcohol, and smoking addicts damaging the appearance of skin are the least of their worries compared to the other big pile of health risks.  I think that to love ourselves is a decision and a learning process.  For we decide if we will drink, take drugs, smoke and so on.  I believe that based on the decisions we make and our experiences, life is always teaching us lessons.     

People who have love for others and want to take care of themselves are beautiful people that show self-confidence.  People do not need to spend a lot of money on beauty products to find this kind of beauty and self-confidence.  Beginning with proper health is the best beauty tip anyone can find.