Understanding Full

Total Body Radiance Lesson #2

Main Fitness Focus: Your main fitness focus this week is on

counting the steps you already take in the course of your everyday
life, in order to find your starting place.

Many of us would consider ourselves reasonably active, but when you

actually measure the results, we tend to fall short of the minimum requirements. That was certainly
true for me! I found the easiest way to get active was to purchase a pedometer, and count my
steps. The goal? 10,000 steps a day, which is roughly equivalent to five miles of walking (but don't
worry, we won't be starting with 10,000 steps!) Where does this magic number come from? Well,
Lisa Burgoon, Sportwell Coordinator, shares this bit of history with us:

Dr. Yoshiro Hatano a Kinesiology professor in Japan has researched the benefits of walking and
monitoring steps walked with pedometers for years. His research has found that walking 10,000
steps per day on average (the equivalent of about 5 miles) helps people maintain a healthy weight,
avoid chronic illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and is an excellent stress
reducer.

However, the key is to increase your activity throughout your day, not just head out and walk for five
miles. There are days when no matter how hard you try, you won't get your walk in. You need to
make sure you still have an active lifestyle keeping you healthy. This 8-month program will give you
many tools and lots of practice for creating a more active lifestyle as you go about your regular
business. It won't be about trying to fit exercise in, it will be about living more actively in general.

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 With that being said, this week you simply need to strap on your pedometer when you wake up and
record your steps each day at bedtime when you take it off. Don't worry if you miss recording a
chunk of the day, write down what you have in your Transformation Journal every night before bed.

Now that's pretty simple, isn't it?

So, that being said, let's move on to the food focus!

Main Food Focus: This week there are TWO things to think about
regarding food: what is full and your morning elixir!

Before we get into today's lesson, I found this excellent information on a

blog I enjoy called Natural Bias: Health, Fitness & Perspective by Vin
Miller and want to share it with you to help you get in the perfect mindset for the journey you're on
with food:

Many people mistakenly believe that weight loss and healthy eating require torturous effort.
Fortunately, this isnt the case, and with the right perspective, pursuing either goal can be a
pleasurable process.

Two very important factors that most people fail to consider in regard to weight loss and health is
how they perceive themselves and how they perceive the food they eat. Perception has an
undeniable influence on physiological function, and because of this, the negative connotations that
people develop toward themselves and their diets can promote weight gain and have an
undesirable impact on their digestion and health. As such, approaching weight loss and healthy
eating with a positive, rational, and inspired perspective is just as critical to success as choosing
nutritious foods. The following 7 tips will help you develop this perspective.

1. Savor What You Eat

This is perhaps one of the most important aspects of eating well regardless of whether youre eating
healthy food or not. Digestion is controlled by a subdivision of the nervous system called the enteric
nervous system which has more nerve cells than the spinal cord and is so intertwined with brain
function that its often called the second brain. Based on this strong connection between the brain
and the digestive system, your thoughts have a significant impact on digestion and other
physiological functions, and as such, its important to have a positive outlook on eating.

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 At one time or another, most people have experienced the sensation of their mouth watering or their
stomach grumbling at the mere thought of food. This is the result of something called the cephalic
phase digestive response which describes the initiation of digestive processes such as enzyme
production and increased blood flow to the intestines. The sight, smell, thought, or taste of food are
what provoke this reaction, and its magnitude is proportional to ones appetite and the intensity of
the stimulus. This cephalic phase digestive response accounts for as much as 30% to 40% of
digestion, and as such, the sensory input thats interpreted by our brains, including our thoughts,
has a tremendous influence on the proper assimilation of food.

An interesting study done by Dr. Robert Russel of Tufts University indicates just how much our
perception of food can influence digestion. Two groups of women, one from Sweden and the other
from Thailand, were both fed a typical Swedish meal and then a typical Thai meal. In both cases,
the group eating their native foods absorbed significantly more iron. In the same study, both groups
were fed their native foods, but half of each group was fed a meal that was first put into a blender. In
both cases, the participants who consumed blended meals absorbed 70% less iron than those who
ate their meals whole. Clearly its in your best interest to have a favorable perception of your food
and savor every bit of it. Doing so will also have an influence on your appetite and help prevent you
from overeating.

And then further down in the article....

4. Eat in a Relaxed Setting

Digestion is controlled by the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system which is
associated with relaxation and repair. The other half of the autonomic nervous system, the
sympathetic branch, allows us to cope with stress and react to danger. It only takes a moderate
amount of stimulation to activate the sympathetic nervous system, even if its positive, and because
only one branch of the autonomic nervous system can be active at a time, anything that activates
the sympathetic branch also impairs digestion.

With the hectic pace of modern life, many of us are under tremendous stress, and when this stress
lingers while eating, it impairs digestion. Most of us worsen this problem by provoking negative
emotions about food or by eating in a stimulating and distracting environment that includes watching
television or using a computer. To promote thorough digestion, its best to eat while in a calm and
focused mood and in a relaxed environment. Slow and moderately deep breathing stimulates the

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 parasympathetic nervous system and will therefore help to create this setting. The increased
oxygen intake will also help to boost metabolism.

Any type of stimulation that activates the sympathetic nervous system will also result in the release
of cortisol and insulin, both of which promote fat storage...

The following two studies show that only a small amount of stimulation is necessary to impair
digestion. The first study measured the amount of salt and water absorbed by the small intestines in
subjects who were listening to two simultaneous conversations. The stimulation caused by this,
which is minimal by todays standards, caused a significant reduction in absorption. The second
study measured the digestive activity of subjects before and during the viewing of a movie. As
expected, digestive activity was reduced in subjects who ate while watching the movie, even if the
plot was emotionally neutral.1

There are more great points on that same article which you can access here.

All his points are great, but we won't be dealing with the rest of them until later in the program. The
two points made about our impression of the food we eat, and our ability to eat in a relaxed manner
are what we're focusing on this week.

So, in addition to having you continue to pay attention to your hunger as a true sign of your need to
eat, I also want to show you a cool trick to teach you how to tell if you're full. Like with the inability to
detect true hunger, we're often overweight because we don't know how to tell, really, if we've eaten
enough. This week we're going to practice that. Last week we looked at the full signal as eating
only enough food to actually be hungry at the next meal. This isn't always easy to gauge except
through trial and error. This week I'll show you a trick that will make it easy to tell right while you're
eating.

Start this exercise on an empty stomach shortly before your meal:

1. Find the place right below your sternum (centre, vertical bone of your rib cage) where there's a
little hollow. Rub the spot and you'll feel a bit of an odd sensation. If you're doing this while
feeling truly hungry, this should feel sort of pleasant.

1Natural Bias: Health, Fitness & Perspective by Vin Miller 2009 Used by permission

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 2. Now, eat the first bite of your main meal. Chew slowly (30 times or until your mouthful has
been completely reduced to liquid) and swallow. Wait a second and rub that space again. It
should still feel pleasant.

3. Keep doing this until you feel discomfort, rotating through the items on your plate a mouthful
of protein, a mouthful of greens, a mouthful of starch, a mouthful of greens, a mouthful of
protein, a mouthful of greens, a mouthful of starch, etc. As soon as it's uncomfortable to rub
that spot, you've had enough food (regardless of what your mind is telling you!)

4. Take some time to note exactly how your body is feeling so you can recognize full in the
future. The ability to recognize true hunger and true satiety is going to help considerably in
both taking weight off and keeping it off.

And now a note about chewing: our taste-buds are in our tongue. Once food leaves our mouth we
don't taste it anymore. Therefore, by learning to chew our food thoroughly, we are also getting the
most pleasure possible out of the taste. It's the ancient, long-forgotten art of savouring.

I want you to consider the following facts:

we burn over 10% of our available "fuel" every day just digesting our food! We can vastly
reduce the amount of energy spent simply by chewing our food thoroughly. This frees up a
considerable amount of energy for other fun things!
Digestion starts in the mouth, and by not chewing properly, we only absorb a fraction of the
nutrients in the food we're eating, forcing us to need to eat much more than is really necessary
in order to be properly nourished.
According to the National Institutes of Health (U.S. NIH):
Over 70 million Americans are affected by various digestive diseases at any given time
Most disease goes untreated and unreported
Sometimes these digestive problems don't even cause stomach pain or discomfort -
only fatigue.
Not chewing properly is also a major source of Brain Fog

So, this week practice detecting full at each main meal until you can clearly identify a correct
amount of food both visually and sensationally. Chewing each mouthful 30 times will help you to
feel truly satisfied with much less food, and your digestive system will love you for it.

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 Ok, one more thing!

This week we finally have the pleasure of gleaning wisdom and advice from Dee McCaffrey, the
nutrition counselor for Total Body Radiance! Here's a quick and simple tip she has to share with
us:
Main Nutritional Focus: Drink lemon tea every morning right after
awakening.

Lemon tea is an easy way to support and cleanse your bodys main fat-
burning organyour liver! The health of your liver has a direct bearing on
your ability to lose weight easily and efficiently. A healthy liver not only
burns (metabolizes) fat, it also pumps excessive fat out of your body by
transporting it to your small intestine to be digested and assimilated. Thus, if your liver is healthy,
controlling your weight will be nearly effortless.

On the other hand, a liver that is congested, clogged and toxic will do the exact opposite of what it is
designed to do--it becomes a fat-storing organ rather than a fat-burning organ. If you have a roll of
fat around your middle robbing you of your natural waistline, you may have what is commonly called
a fatty liver. Your liver has stopped processing fat and begun storing it. Only when you take steps
to cleanse your liver and bring it back to full function will you lose this fat.

Each day your liver produces about a quart of a yellowish green liquid called bile. Bile is an
emulsifier (a soap-like substance that helps break down fat globules into smaller particles so that
they can be diluted with water). This allows fats to be metabolized and prevents them from being
stored in the liver.

Bile is essential to the livers ability to burn fat, therefore it is important to make sure your body is
producing enough bile, and that the bile it produces is of high quality. The liver cannot perform its
fat burning role if it is hampered by a lack of bile nutrients, by congestion, or even clogged bile
ducts, which constrict bile flow and result in less bile production. Bile cannot do its job of breaking
down fats if it is congested or thickened with food chemicals, pesticides, drugs and other toxins.

This is where the lemon tea comes in. The combination of fresh lemon juice mixed with water is a
well-known bile thinner. The warm lemon tea benefits the formation of quality bile and helps cleanse
and regenerate the liver. The warm lemon tea also promotes peristalsis, the contraction of muscles
in the bowels that keeps waste (and fat) moving along the digestive tract and out of the body for
elimination.

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 Upon rising, before you consume anything else, drink an 8-ounce glass of warm water with fresh
lemon juice. The purpose of this drink is to cleanse your liver (your bodys main fat burning organ)
and to stimulate your metabolism into action.

HOW TO PREPARE: Add the juice of a fresh lemon to 8 ounces of warm water. Water should
be the temperature of a cup of tea. Use only fresh lemon juice; bottled lemon juices contain a
preservative, which will defeat the purpose of the cleansing lemon water. The warm lemon water
counts toward 8-ounces of your daily water intake.

HINT: To save time on squeezing lemons daily, you may freeze a batch by squeezing enough lemon
juice to fill an ice cube tray. Each morning you can put your lemon juice cube into your warm
water, allow it to melt, stir and drink.2

And that's it for this week. Let's condense those points quickly into your tasks and habits for the
week:

This week's assignments:

1. strap on your pedometer (if you got the Omron these instructions
are not really necessary as it will read your steps regardless of
where you wear it) and simply measure your steps each day to get
a baseline reading. Each day you will record your steps in your
Transformation Journal, and at the end of the week, total the number, divide that total by
7, and get your daily average.

2. Detect full as well as hunger using the test described in this lesson.

3. Chew every mouthful 30 times, savouring your food, and eating in a relaxed fashion

4. Drink Lemon Tea every morning, first thing.

And that's it! See? I told you this would be easy!

Don't forget to write in your journal every day this week it will only take about a minute!

2 Dee McCaffrey, CDC 2009 Tips adapted from Plan-D: The Amazing Anti-Diet That Will Change Your Life Forever. www.plandee.org Used with permission

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 Disclaimer:

To the best of our knowledge, understanding and ability, the information

presented in this program is true and accurate as of its publishing date.

However, this plan is educational only and is not intended to replace a

consultation with a qualified healthcare professional regarding your own
specific situation and medical history. For this reason it is strongly
recommended that you consult with your physician before starting this or any
other diet or weight loss program.

Neither the publisher nor the author is engaged in rendering professional

advice or services to the individual reader. The ideas, procedures, and
suggestions in this program are not intended to replace a consultation with a
physician or other qualified healthcare professional. All matters regarding your
health require medical supervision. The authors shall have neither liability nor
responsibility to any person or entity that incurs any loss, damage, or injury
caused directly, or indirectly from any information or suggestion in this
program.

As always, my thanks to TemplatesWise for providing the music for the recording!

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