Martha Beck:

"There is always at least one thing you could do besides eating, something that would take better care of you than food does. (How do I know this? Because food is a physical substance, and a physical substance can only fill physical hunger. It cannot—and was never meant to—provide the things that only other people can provide, things like love and contact and comfort.)"

Find your own beauty!

“Finding your beauty isn't about looking exactly like everyone else. It's about accepting yourself—the parts you love and the parts you don't—and then working with all of it.”

— Scott Barnes
Definitely words of wisdom we should all remember.

8 Energy Zappers—and How to Avoid Them

Read the Oprah article HERE

1. Energy drain: Other people's expectations
Are you living someone else's dream for you? You're putting out energy but starving emotionally. The other person gets all the satisfaction.

Energy move: Declare independence
You bought in; you can set yourself free. No confrontation needed, just "I don't have to expect that of myself." Worst-case scenario: Someone who's not you will be disappointed. You will feel wonderful.

2. Energy drain: Loss of self
As kids, we had to play by the rules; our unique energy got caged.

Energy move: Personalize your life
Ask yourself, If it were up to me, what would I...hang on my wall? Wear to work? Do for fun? Find the pockets of freedom where you can be more yourself.

3. Energy drain: Deprivation
Duties and responsibilities fill your days. You gain weight trying to get emotional energy from food.

Energy move: Add pleasure, beauty, fun
Satisfying experiences, large and small, are the real nourishment you crave. Plan a big treat to look forward to—and a little one every day.

4. Energy drain: Envy
We often don't feel envy directly—but we might find someone else's good fortune depressing.

Energy move: Count your blessings
Comparison is a loser's game. Look at what you have, and actively feel grateful. (P.S. That person you envy—you don't know how messy her life really is. Chances are you wouldn't want it if you had it.)

5. Energy drain: Worry
When you worry, you think you're dealing with things, but you're just suffering. Worry never comes up with good ideas. It torments and exhausts us.

Energy move: Get going
Action is the cure for worry. Do one thing that brings you a step closer to coping. If it's the middle of the night, get up and write a to-do list.

6. Energy drain: Unfinished business
Unmade decisions and postponed projects drain you.

Energy move: Do it or dump it
Forget the perfect decision—just trust yourself and make a choice. Put projects in an appointment book. If you can't find any good time, that's a signal you don't want to do it. So don't.

7. Energy drain: Overcommitment
You're always saying "yes"—to your boss, mother, kids, friends; to requests, favors, meetings.

Energy move: Say "yes" to yourself
Tell someone else "no" every once in a while, just to feel your own power. You'll gain a whole new sense of your ability to take care of yourself.

8. Energy drain: Holding on to loss
Fresh loss is an emergency. But old losses you can't let go of are dead weight.

Energy move: Cry all your tears
Indulge in big-time mourning. Take off from work, stay in bed, and do nothing but cry till you're dry—and bored. Then go out and embrace life.

Top 10 Rules for Eating Right

By David L. Katz, MD

O, The Oprah Magazine | July 14, 2009

1. Use smaller plates.
Whether you're already trim or trying to lose weight, one of the best things you can do for your waistline and your health is to downsize your dishware. Cornell University nutrition researcher Brian Wansink, PhD, has found that switching from a 12-inch to a ten-inch plate leads people to eat 22 percent fewer calories. If you downsized only your dinner plate, you'd be eliminating more than 5,000 calories a month from your diet. It really is that simple.

2. Make half of every meal fruits or vegetables.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends five to nine servings of produce a day, but if you follow my rule, you won't have to count. At breakfast, fill your bowl halfway with cereal, then top it off with berries or sliced banana. At lunch, eat a smaller—or half—sandwich, and add two pieces of fruit. At dinner, make sure your plate is at least 50 percent salad, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, or whatever veggie you choose. This ensures that you get enough nutrients and automatically reduces the amount of fat and calories you consume (provided you don't go crazy with fatty dressings and toppings).

3. Don't eat on the run.
When we eat on the go, our brains tend to register the food as a snack—regardless of how many calories we consume—leading us to overeat at our next meal.

4. The shorter the ingredient list, the better.
Most of the healthiest foods have only one ingredient: Think broccoli, spinach, blueberries, etc. Longer lists generally mean more sugar, more salt, more artificial flavors. More unhealthy stuff.

For the last 6 rules, Click HERE to read the full article.

Oprah: Geneen Roth-Women, Food and God

This article really made me think. I need to recognize what my body wants and needs and give it to myself responsibly. Normally, I don't allow myself regular white bread. Today, for the first time in many months I ate a sandwich made with 2 slices of white bread, 1 tbsp peanut butter and about 1/2 of a small banana sliced on it. It was 7 points and worth everyone of them. For the first day in many months, I have extra points and I am completely satisfied. Gotta love the good days!

I've surrendered to what my body really wants. And I can feel the change already. Since I began giving myself permission to eat whatever my body desires, instead of what my head tells me I should have, my relationship with food has become more peaceful. I might even say joyful.

If my body wants a piece of chocolate, I'll have it, without obsessing about how many calories it contains and how many steps it will take to burn them off. If my body wants some fries—which happens more rarely than I ever imagined when I was always on a diet and craving everything that wasn't allowed—I'll indulge in the best truffle fries money can buy. And eat as many as my body wants. Then stop.

The most loving discovery so far is that most of the time, what the body really wants is to be nourished. So here's the kind of food my body's been asking for since I quit depriving it and stopped using food as a pacifier:

Crispy whole grain toast (partially burned around the edges) with fresh almond butter melting on top. A quinoa salad with fresh basil and pine nuts. Green pea soup. Focaccia with olives and a great Bordeaux (sauvignon blanc if it's daytime). Cold slices of ripened mango. Really sweet watermelon. Thin pieces of crunchy cornbread and a bowl of crowder peas. Steel-cut oatmeal with chopped nuts, dried apricots, and cranberries. Salad greens picked from my garden with a lemon, garlic, and truffle oil dressing I make myself. Grilled fish, roasted corn, and fresh tomatoes.

I've found that eating well and being satisfied leaves no room for the junky stuff. Which is not to say that I won't eat a good salty chip or two. But I no longer have the compulsion to eat the whole bag just because I'm tired or overwhelmed.

It's a daily effort to stay connected and centered and not use food as a drug the way I have obsessively—in and out of one diet plan or another—for years. But it's also an invitation to stop the crazy, punishing behavior and do as the poet Derek Walcott offers in his poem "Love After Love": Sit and feast on your life. That, I know for sure, is the best meal ever—to partake of the soul's banquet abiding within each of us.