The Truth about Your Sweet Tooth

You might be saying, "Well, duh. I already knew that people eat when they're stressed." But did you pay attention to which foods you prefer when stressed? Maybe this will help you explain your fascination with ice cream after a stressful day at work.

Here I am quoting verbatim what Marci E. Gluck, PhD, Obesity & Diabetes Clinical Researcher says:

"One recent study found that rats consumed more sugar after the administration of corticosterone (cortisol) suggesting that in humans, overeating of "comfort foods" may be stimulated by cortisol in response to stress (Dallman et al., 2003). Other research has shown that restrained eaters (e.g. dieters)(Stroud et al, 2000) and those with binge eating disorder (Gluck et al., 2004) are the ones more likely to overeat following stress."

So, what is a restrained eater? Someone who is constantly holding back from eating the sweet foods their body wants to eat. But, you might ask, "Isn't that the whole premise of the book Stop Overeating Today?" Nope, and I'll tell you why.

My book is about showing people, in the moment they feel tempted to overeat, how to rethink about the situation so they actually change their minds about overeating and realize they don't want to do it anymore. Yes, of course, the brownies still smell amazing and they are gooey just the way you like them, but you realize you don't need to eat the whole pan to get the ultimate eating experience and you can stop after eating just one. Does that make sense?

So, next time you are turning to sugar, check in with yourself to find out if it is stress related. If it is, eating the whole pan of brownies won't help much anyway. Figure out what is stressing you out and work on that, instead of turning to overeating instead. If you need stress reduction tips, go to Tip #2 in my book Stop Overeating Today! 33 Tips That Will Change Your Life. If you don't have my book, then use this discount code (AUG26) to save $2 TODAY ONLY when you use Google Checkout!

My Blingvelope to Dr. Laura

Ever since I've been working on my book Stop Overeating Today! 33 Tips That Will Change Your Life, it's been my dream to have it featured as a Book of the Week on the Dr. Laura show. It would be a great honor and, more importantly, it would be able to reach a lot of people who struggle with overeating and are anxious to find resources that can help them regain control in their lives.

Recently my mom was listening to the Dr. Laura show and heard Dr. Laura say that they get sooo many books sent to them that sometimes they can't even open them all. So she recommended to everyone out there who wanted to send her their book, to make it gimmicky. Gimmicky, I thought. I can do that!

So, I know from my 17 years of listening to her show that Dr. Laura's favorite color is pink. I googled to find a hot pink bubble envelope I could send my book in. Nothing available, unless I wanted to buy 250 of them. Since I don't know what I'd do with 249 other hot pick bubble mailers, I decided to make my own.

I borrowed crafty supplies from a crafty friend of mine and got to work using pink sparkles, glue, and pink, purple, and silver sequins. I used the sequins to make the Dr. Laura logo, which is her signature and the glitter covers an entire side of the envelope. You like?

I figured, I'm only going to get one shot at this. I want my envelope to be noticed and opened.

To make it even more memorable, I inserted a cover letter that I wrote, commenting on how my book mentions two themes she discusses on her show: revenge and grit. I even got permission from the Dr. Laura legal team to use her quote on grit. So, I pointed that out in my cover letter and told her she could find the quote in my book next to the green flag. And I used one of those sticker flags to direct her there..

So, that's my plan. What do you think? I'll be sending it off in the mail tomorrow. Is it gimmicky enough and eye-catching enough?

You Would Not Believe It - 6 Ways to Celebrate that Don't Include Eating

I can't believe it. Try googling: "ways to celebrate besides eating food" and you get nothing except for a bunch of websites talking about FOOD! (How to celebrate Valentine's Day with chocolate, great crunchy snacks you can get, the works). I'm very shocked.

This isn't a new idea. I didn't specifically mention it in my book (I will in an upcoming book), but there are ways to celebrate besides eating.

I was thinking about this today. I want to motivate myself to exercise and I was thinking about possible rewards. I've heard that smaller rewards work better than bigger rewards. I actually learned that in a psychology class in college. So when I was thinking about rewards, caramel flan from a nearby restaurant came to mind. But then I thought, "No! I don't want to exercise and then eat something that will be twice as many calories as I burn off." And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I needed to make a list of WAYS TO CELEBRATE THAT DON'T INCLUDE EATING.

So there's my list. Feel free to add comments to make the list longer.

1) Take a break and plan a trip to nature. Go to your local beach, take your dog to the park, go take a picture of the sunset, take a hike in a pretty place. Give yourself permission to get out and go!

2) Take a break and watch an episode of your favorite TV show. Seinfeld, Saved by the Bell, and LOST are fun ones if you have the DVDs with the seasons.

3) Come up with a point system to get something bigger you really want. For example, let's say I fall in love with this shirt I saw online, but it costs $30. That's too big a reward for exercising for 30 minutes one time. But what if each time I exercise, it's like I get 3 points to get that shirt. Each point could be worth one dollar. So after exercising 10 times for 30 minutes, I can go online and click "Order Now!"

4) Take a break and listen to your favorite music. Use Itunes or Grooveshark or Pandora. If you want to make the reward better, buy a new song each time you exercise. It's only about $1 on Itunes.

5) Take a break and spend 30 minutes on your favorite hobby. I want to make time to put together family photo albums. I just had a baby 5 months ago and she is CUTE, so I want to make sure we capture that so we can enjoy it for the years to come.
Give yourself permission to take a break and get on that!

6) Take a break (I know, it's a common theme) and take a power nap if you need one. We all work so hard that squeezing in some extra sleep is an appealing reward.

You'll notice most of my rewards include taking a break. Maybe that's what we need. Permission to do the things we really want to do and take a break from the same old same old. Plus, taking a break relieves stress, which helps us avoid overeating because so much overeating comes from being too busy or from being too stressed.

Ok, those are my 6 ways to celebrate that don't include eating. What are your favorites and what can you add?

What People Are Saying About My Book

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IskPhJOyeE8

Accountability Buddies

I was at my grandpa's 80th birthday party this weekend in Utah and ran into distant relative who had no idea that I mentioned him in my book Stop Overeating Today! 33 Tips That Will Change Your Life He is my mom's cousin's husband. He was really surprised when I told him. We run into each other about every eight years, so it was a random thing for me to say, "I mentioned you in a book I wrote!" I showed him his cameo, in the eighth chapter called, "Get an Accountability Buddy Who Reacts Quickly."

So here's the story. You'll have to read the full version in the book, but here's the Reader's Digest version: I was at a pancake breakfast and there was a long line and I didn't want to have to stand in it twice in case I got hungry for seconds. So I got a lot of food, not sure what I would actually be able to eat. By the time I had eaten half of it, I was full. Thinking out loud I said, "I'm full. I don't want to eat this anymore." Then my cousin standing next to me, who was in town on a business trip, took my paper plate from my hands and threw it away in a nearby trash can. When I saw him on Saturday and reminded him of this experience, he asked me,

"Did you think I was rude?"

"No," I responded, "I thought it was brilliant. I didn't have to worry about overeating. The choice was made for me."

To find out how to make this tip work in your life, and to use the workbook that helps you apply this tip, check out Tip #8 in Stop Overeating Today! 33 Tips That Will Change Your Life, available on Amazon.

Sick of Being Stuck?

I went to the beach in Newport Beach yesterday at 28th Street. Growing up, I was more of a dare devil and didn't care how cold the water was. I would just run and jump in. Nowadays, I take my time, refusing to go in sometimes if it's too cold. When I was younger, I vowed I'd never turn out like that. I vowed I'd go in the water every time I went to the beach, not turning into one of those "old moms" that was afraid of the water. Well guess what? I had turned into one of those old moms, until yesterday when something strange happened.

As I was tiptoeing into the water, a little bit of that old dare devil thinking sparked inside my head and I felt like running into the water and throwing my fears to the wind. So I did. And I LOVED it.

So what do 65 degree water and overeating have in common? Our reactions to both of them are affected by what labels we give ourselves. I had stamped the "I'm an old mom who doesn't like cold water and stays on the sand" label on my forehead. It became my identity for a while and I was comfortable believing it and playing that role, feeling it was somehow out of my hands.

Likewise, labels we give ourselves after we overeat can give us a certain self-identity or role to play and affects our actions. For example, if the last three times you have eaten doughnuts you have eaten too much and gotten a bellyache, you may label yourself as someone who can't help but overeat around doughnuts. So the next time doughnuts are in front of your face, you are expecting yourself to eat too much. You may even joke about it. Since you are believing your role as a doughnut overeater, you expect yourself to cave time and again. And you will until you can figure out how to peel that label off your forehead and replace it with a new more empowering one.

Make sense? I elaborate more on this in my book, which is for sale on Amazon for $12.99 for one more week. After that, it goes up to $14.99.

So take a second and identify one of the roles you have given yourself that you don't really like or that doesn't really serve you. What is it? How does it hold you back? What would you like to replace it with?

Is Intuitive Eating Realistic?

Today's busy busy busy lifestyle makes intuitive eating seem, well, counterintuitive. It seems too time consuming to spend time tuning into the body throughout the day to discover what food it wants to eat. What if it wants a banana and you don't have one? Or, what if your body wants to eat at 10 am, but your lunch break isn't until noon? Is it even worth it?

I say it is. The reason I stand behind intuitive eating is that you will learn to pay attention to what your body needs, instead of giving into what your emotions want. And that means you will overeat less and feel better more.

For more help with intuitive eating, check out my book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0984153705 because Tip #5 will define it and explain how to apply it into your life. Not only that, there is a workbook section to help you personalize it and drive the point home.

Release E-blast

You are staring at leftover cake sitting on the counter, your mouth watering, your eyes growing larger than your stomach. You are already full after eating a satisfying dinner, but it looks irresistible. The devil perched over your shoulder whispers into your ear, “You want to eat this cake. You will be missing out if you stop eating now! It will be worth every bite.”

Most people know those feelings all too well, yet most haven’t discovered how to curb the cravings and stop the habitual overeating. Until now! Thanks to a new book by Camille McConnell, people are finding answers are right at their fingertips. The book coaches people how to make impulse-free and healthy decisions in the moment they feel like overeating. Not only is it full of informative tips, the book’s interactive workbook-style sets it apart as it challenges the reader to personalize and apply the tips, thereby generating quicker results.

WHEN YOU ORDER BY AUGUST 12TH YOU GET:
1) Discounted price of $12.99 (Retail is $14.99)
2) Signed copy
3) 3 additional tips for free

ORDER ON AMAZON NOW!

Look Inside! http://stopovereatingtips.com/preview.htm
Check out the Website: http://www.stopovereatingtips.com

Thank you!