I have a client who recently went on vacation and ate a few things that were off her normal plan.  She didn't gain weight, but was really being hard on herself for not behaving “perfectly”.  

 Here's an excerpt from my email to her, which I'm sharing publicly in the hopes it will be helpful to you as well.

I hear so many stories of people either deciding ahead of time to go crazy or accidentally going crazy on vacation that you did really well by comparison.

Some people think throwing out healthy eating = vacation, and I don't agree with that. We want to do our best to eat healthy wherever we go. And that's easier some places than others.

And ALSO – for me personally, if there truly is a special food on vacation that's not available at home, I want to have the experience of trying it.

Imagining going to Paris and only eating iceberg lettuce. The food is part of the culture of the place, which for me is what I'm there to experience.

Only eating lettuce in Paris would be a cultural crime almost as bad as only eating McDonald's in Paris.

So we go, we experience, we enjoy. And we know that we can enjoy trying something in a few bites. We can enjoy a trip without eating to the point of discomfort. We can enjoy the trip even more when we don't regret our choices when we get home.

I have a client who says guilt has calories, and while it's not literally true, I think it can hit your body that way. Guilt raises your cortisol (stress hormone). Cortisol blocks weight loss and increases belly fat. So we set an intention to eat healthy, and when we make an exception by choice or by accident, we don't add guilt to it. If there's learning, get the lesson, and then move on.

If this is the sort of support you think would help you improve your relationship with food while losing weight and improving your health, let's work together.  The first step is a free initial consultation to make sure you are a fit for my program and to get your questions answered.  More information and my scheduling calendar is available at https://lisaduke.net/schedule

My ACE Weight Loss Methodology is a unique and innovative approach to weight loss that lasts.

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We are solving the root cause instead of temporarily covering up the symptoms.

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So how does it work?

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ACE stands for:

• AWARENESS. The next time you sit down for a snack in front of the TV after dinner, ask yourself, “if I am not hungry because I just had dinner, and I want to lose weight, why am I eating this?” We need to bring awareness to the eating we are doing for non-hunger reasons. It's the easiest eating to cut out without triggering deprivation.

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• CLEARING. We need to clear out all the non-hunger reasons we are eating. Are we reaching for chips when we feel stressed and angry? Ice cream when we feel anxious? Are we eating sweets because factory-food has been engineered to create addiction? Is there even something from childhood or a past life driving the non-hunger eating? Once we clear the drivers of non-hunger eating, we need much less willpower to chose not to eat when we are not in need of fuel.

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• ENERGY. This may sound a little woo-woo, but there's an energy of weight loss. Once we've cleared all the heavy stuff that's been holding us back, we naturally feel more optimistic and positive. We naturally choose lighter foods when we are eating for health and fuel. We act differently when we see the possibility is real.

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Let's work together. Only $495 for 4 sessions, and everyone who completes all 16 sessions of the program is covered by my unconditional money back guarantee for up to a year after completing the program.

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​https://lisaduke.net/schedule to book your initial consultation for free today.

ACE – Step 3

Step 3 of my proprietary methodology to help you get to and heal the root cause of your excess weight is ENERGY.

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It may sound a little woo, but there's an emotional state that goes with weight loss.

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It's the energy of “it's working, it's working, it's working”.

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It's a positive expectation that changes your behavior.

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You see, the pleasure of looking and feeling more vibrant and alive that comes from eating food that supports your health in quantities your body can easily process can actually become more compelling than a bag of Halloween candy.

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It doesn't mean you'll never have a treat again.

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It means you'll be eating chocolate or ice cream or chips for pleasure and free from guilt and shame, and that eating those things will be something you occasionally choose to do, rather than feel compelled to do.

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Or you may lose your taste for them forever and wonder what all the fuss was about.

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When you are in the energy of overweight, the solution to overweight is invisible/impossible.

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When you in the energy of your healthy weight, the solution is obvious/simple.

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It sounds a bit ephemeral, and it's kind of tricky to explain, but like porn, you know it when you see it. 🙂

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Let's get you into the energy of a healthy body that's at a healthy weight because it's eating healthy food in healthy quantities.

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It's an energy you deserve to be in.

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From here, so much more is possible.

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Schedule your free initial consultation today by visiting https://lisaduke.net/schedule​

A few weeks into my program, my clients have awareness over what's been driving their overeating (and also, some tips on when and what to eat to flip them into fat burning mode and out of fat storage mode).

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We are now well into the CLEARING phase.

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We typically start with clearing the nervous system. EFT (tapping) is a great tool for this when someone is too triggered emotionally to talk through something rationally.

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We also use the NOW technique, to allow clients to feel and process their emotions safely without using food as a drug.

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Remember when I said I have used food to address boredom and restlessness in the evenings?

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Using these tools does the same thing for me as eating – it helps me feel better, but without the “moment on the lips, lifetime on the hips” effect.

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Once we've settled in and worked through the emotions, the logical mind comes back on line.

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Coaching is a great tool for the logical mind. Clients have great “ah-ha” moments and shifts.

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But there are some things that are deeper than the conscious mind.

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With weight, childhood issues, ancestor trauma, and past life events can also be running subconsciously and sabotaging our results.

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I use ThetaHealing with clients to help bring these issues from the subconscious to the conscious mind so they can be worked through and cleared.

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So you see, there's a bit more to it than just “eat less, exercise more”.

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Yes, your behavior will shift. You might start walking. You might shift from mostly processed foods to mostly the foods your body was designed to use as fuel. You might feel less urgency around eating.

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And you might even use a little willpower here and there, and put a bead in your urge jar instead of reaching for the snack (either way, you'll get the hit of dopamine your brain wants, but with the urge jar you break your overeating habit!).

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But you won't be trying to white-knuckle it.

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As my client Kate said, “weight loss doesn't have to involve suffering”.

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Let's get started. Your time is now, and you are ready for the next step.

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Schedule your free initial consultation to get signed up at https://lisaduke.net/schedule​

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Past life and ancestral beliefs can also be subconscious blocks to weight loss.

In addition to habit eating, stress/emotional eating, and limiting beliefs, when we just can't get ourselves to do what we want to do to improve our health there can be another type of block in the way.

Now this gets a little woowoo, so no worries if that's coming up for you.  I was not raised to believe in past lives, and frankly I still don't know if I believe in them or not.

But I can definitely tell you I've had the experience of visualizing snippets of a story like scenes from a movie, and I've had the experience of looking at and understanding that story and then having a shift because of that.

And I've worked with clients who have had similar stories come up that aren't memories from this lifetime, but have been getting in their way without them even being conscious of the stories.

So where do these stories come from?

They very well could be past lives.

Or they could be someone else's story that we are accessing from the collective unconscious.

For all I know, they could be alternate dimensions or snippets of a dream or a bit of a movie we saw as a kid.

They could even be something our mind is making up in the moment in response to the questions we are asked.

Here's the kicker – I don't think it matters.

What I know from my own experience and from working with clients is that once the brain has a story – wherever it's origin – that helps it understand why it is doing a certain thing, it is able to then make peace with that story and let it go, which allows for different behavior in the future.

It's a bit of magic.

I've seen similar things happen with ancestral beliefs.

If you have a long line of ancestors who suffered from famine, your line may have only survived because your people know how to get the most out of a calorie.

You may have sayings or habits that come down the family lines.

When these stories are brought to consciousness and honored, we can then recognize that times have changed and shift into behavior that is appropriate for a time of abundance and relase the habits of scarcity.

Ready to release your subconscious blocks to weight loss?  I look forward to working with you.

During the Awareness phase of my proprietary ACE Weight Loss Methodology we often discover limiting beliefs interefering with weight loss in addition to the habit eating and stress/emotional eating already discussed.

So what are limiting beliefs?

A limiting belief is a rule that lives inside your head and affects your behavior either consciously or subconsciously.

Most of these rules are totally made up.

For example, one category of limiting beliefs is any sort of “I AM” statement that stops you from doing what you want to do to improve your health.

“I'm overweight.  I've always been overweight.  I'll probably always be overweight.”

These are all limiting beliefs.

Now it may be factually correct that you have always been overweight, but can you soften the statement to something that allows for a little wiggle room – for the possibility of change?

“Up until now I've always been overweight” – still true, but see how it introduces the possibility of the future being different?

“I'm a member of the Clean Plate Club.”  Ok, well good for you, but breaking news, the plates grandma used are tiny compared to the plates we use today and the enormous platters restaurant meals are served on.

I get not wanting to waste food, but if you are overweight to the point where it is impacting your health, then eating it is not a good use of it, either.  Maybe get a dog or a compost bin if you can't stand to put food in the trash.  But damaging your body to avoid throwing away a half-eating baked potato is not a great life choice, right?

When our subconscious beliefs are made conscious and our conscious beliefs are questioned the possibility of change from the thought level arises.

You don't have to believe and obey everything you think, friends.