PEERtrainer

Phase 2 Of The PT Point of No Return Program Is Now Available!

One thing we keep hearing from people finishing the PONR program is that they wish it kept going. For the last 6 months we have been developing a "Phase 2" of the program based on the detailed feedback you have been giving us.

This new phase runs 12 weeks, just like the first one. We are pretty excited to finally be able to make this available.

The sign up process is very simple, just click the link below. The sales pitch is equally simple- we know there are a ton of you who want to keep going!

Click Here To Start Phase 2 Of The Point Of No Return Program

What Topics Are Discussed In Phase 2?

Phase 1 of the program was in many ways about really giving you a "map and compass" to increase your belief that permanent weight loss is a real possibility in your life.    In this case the "map and compass" is a collection of all the tools we have seen really work in PEERtrainer over the last 6 years.  

Many of them were time-tested, reliable diet suggestions.  And other tools showed you how to change your thinking so you have an ever-increasing sense of control over your relationship to food.  It also focused quite a bit on building a solid, patient, accepting relationship with yourself so you don't beat yourself up if you slip, and instead get yourself right back on track.  

We loved building the program, and the positive response from you was amazing!  Your feedback also provided such a great learning opportunity for us as well, and we kept refining it to make sure it was meeting your needs.

As time progressed and your feedback came in, we got so many great new ideas realized that we had only scratched the surface in terms of the tools and knowledge we wanted to share with you.  

As a result, Phase 2 of the program was born!

For Phase 2, we really set out to create a learning experience that will change your life in a powerful way.  You could say we really wanted to go deep and "pull out all the stops".  We created something that is designed to make the changes that you made in Phase 1 permanent and deeply embedded. But more than that, we want to also present a formula for true life mastery and creating lasting happiness.    

The key to this has been developing a streamlined system, where this information can be digested and understood in what we believe to be the easiest way possible.

As many of you know Joshua was trained as a therapist and has been doing what he calls "Personal Development Coaching" for the past 10 years.  What you may not be as aware of is that for the past 20 years - since he was a teenager in fact - he has been tirelessly studying different approaches to personal development, spirituality, meditation and self-improvement.  For phase 2, we asked him to "go into the vault" and share the best tools he has learned for helping people create the life they really want. 

These are the tools people pay him as much as $600 for a 2 hour session and $1500/month for private coaching to learn.  Of course this program is not meant as a substitute for therapy - and we would never say that it is - but the intention is to provide thousands of dollars of value for a very small amount of money.

This is what we set out to do in Phase 1 as well. We built something that literally delivers thousands of dollars of value to people who connect with the material. We don't say this at the outset, because very few people would believe us. 

All we do say is, "hey, try this program for a month for a dollar and see if you like it."

(As an exercise, those of you who have made huge changes as a result of PONR, what amount of money would we need to pay you, to take that knowledge and experience away? If we paid you $10,000 for example, would you be willing to go back to the person that you were prior?)

In terms of specifics, here are some of the things we'll be covering in Phase 2. There is much more, but this is will give you a sense of where we are headed.

• How to uproot and eliminate the limiting beliefs and behaviors that hold you back. 
• How to write the final chapter on your self-sabotage so you're free of the old habits that weigh you down.
  
• How to know what you really want in life - and how to believe you really deserve it.
  
• How to eliminate the excuses and procrastination that hold you back from taking action and getting what you want.
  
• How to live with a sense of purpose, commitment and excitement.
  
• How to feel deeply in control of your relationship to food - without being plagued by the fear that this is only temporary and a matter of time before things return to being a struggle.
  
• How to increase your energy throughout your day.
•  How to not take things for granted in your life so you can experience a real sense of happiness today 

This is the essence of what we are after here, and there will be more. Plus as the program proceeds we will be adding in new material and bonus material, just like we did in Phase 1.

Click Here To Start Phase 2 Of The Point Of No Return Program

Is Coconut Bad For You Because It Contains Saturated Fat?

On the new PEERtrainer Facebook page recently somebody posted something to the effect of "Your vegetable soup recipe is great, but I took out the coconut milk because my friend the cardiologist says that the saturated fat in coconut is bad for you."

We had been thinking about this question for a few days. Then today a box arrived in the mail with 6 books from Dr. Jonny Bowden. He is someone that we have gotten to know recently, and have begun to dig into his work. What we have found so far is someone who has taken all the "health stuff" and made it very understandable.

Anyway, we were flipping through one of the books, titled "The 150 Healthiest Foods On Earth." And one page 107 there was a section on Coconut, that answered this exact question! Bowden writes:

"I really looked forward to writing this section, because I felt that it would give me a chance to right one of the greatest nutritional misconceptions of all time: the idea that coconut, because it contains saturated fat, is bad for you."

Summary of Dr. Jonny Bowden's insights on coconut:

• Coconut and coconut oil are superfoods. Coconut is one of the most healthy, amazing things you can ingest.
• People in Asia and the Pacific Islands whose diets are high in coconut oil have low levels of chronic disease- cancer, heart disease etc. 
• The fat in coconut is actually good for you. The book explains the science in detail, but the basic idea is that the fatty acids in coconut are easier to metabolize, and are different from the fatty acids in other forms of saturated fat. 

These fatty acids are called Medium Chain Triglycerides or MCT's. From Wikipedia:

"Some studies have shown that MCTs can help in the process of excess calorie burning, and thus weight loss. However, close to half of the calories in one's diet would have to be from the MCTs themselves. Therefore, consuming medium-chain triglycerides in a regular diet may or may not be beneficial to weight loss; studies are still being conducted" 

Anyway, the bottom line here is that we now have a greater level of understanding now of WHY our soup recipe has been such a hit. Most of the calories in the soup come from the coconut milk, which might explain why so many people have found that it helped them lose weight.

And we have also found a great book, one that that we will be referring to again and again.  Also- if you are interested in our recipes, please keep reading this post for information on how to be sent new recipes from PEERtrainer that meet our criteria of being easy, tasty, cheap, nutrient dense, fill you up, give you energy....

Here Is One:

Spicy Thai Curry Recipe

 

Calories in Coconut Milk

What Kind Of Recipes and Food Ideas Are You Looking For?

We have just begun a big project so that everyone on PEERtrainer can get the exact recipes and kinds of recipes you have been asking for. We have teamed up with someone (Ivy Larson) who knows our approach, and will be helping us with recipes, some videos (and some other fun things that we are working on that many of you will really find fun and interesting....)

But we need your help in this process to make sure we give you 100% of what you want.

If this is an area of interest for you, we need you to do 2 quick things:

1. Please take a quick survey and tell us exactly what you are looking for, how we can help you with recipes, food ideas, cooking. You tell us and we give you exactly what you are looking for. (How cool is that?)

The PEERtrainer "What Kind Of Recipes Do You Want?" Survey

2. Sign up for our new Recipes Recipes Recipes email list. The plan is to send a couple emails per month as we get this project started. Here is the link:

Sign Up To Be Sent New Recipes From PEERtrainer

Everything we do at PEERtrainer is pretty interactive, and we are really looking forward to it. We will also be posting our progress in this area on the PEERtrainer Facebook page, so definitely check that out, hit the like button and jump in!!

In case the link above did not work, you can also sign up for the recipes list right here:

Sign Up To Be Sent New Recipes From PEERtrainer!

First Name:

Email:

We Will Send You A Couple Email Updates Each Month. Please Keep The Feedback Coming!

-Jackie and Ivy

"I feel like I should have lost something since I workout everyday and eat less than 1300 Calories"

This was a question that was posted to the wall of our Facebook page last week. It prompted us to create a fairly long article in which we outlined our thoughts in response to the question.

We get emails, posts, questions like this all the time:

“I do EVERYTHING right. I workout, I eat well, I watch my portions but I'm not losing weight. I'm doing everything right. What is wrong??!??!”

This is what we see on PEERtrainer everyday. Actually, not just on PEERtrainer, but also in our everyday lives. People make a goal, they get motivated, and then they get a plan in place.

They search their memory for what worked in the past, or they find a friend who "did it" or they scan for the latest diet and fitness breakthroughs and they begin with total vigor.

Because there is a certain "narrative" or accepted set of ideas of what an "Official Diet" is, it's not hard to come up a list of what this person will probably do. The person with the motivation and the goal and the plan, probably will come up with a plan that includes "Official Diet Foods."

continue reading the complete article

Should I Read Eat To Live or Eat For Health? And How The Nutrition Prescription Fits Into The Mix

This video goes over Dr. Fuhrman's three main works, and summarizes each.

1. Eat To Live- This book is ten years old, has changed people lives and gone through 17 printings. Little too advanced for beginners, and it is really a good book to read after Eat For Health. We suggest buying both. (Available at drfuhrman.com) This book is also now available in most Whole Foods.

2. Eat For Health- Newer book that has better success at the amount of people who succeed. It is easier to start and has a greater focus on the emotional aspects of weight loss (Available at drfuhrman.com)

3. The Nutrition Prescription- years in the making, enables people to take a computerized assessment and determines what your risk of getting certain diseases based on what you are eating. Identifies your individual risk factors. (available through Eat Right America)

Easy Dessert Idea That Is Also Fairly Healthy: Hot Apple Sundae

We have been asked for a lot more focus on recipes, and this is one that was very popular. We have posted it before. I got it from my mom and I am not sure where she got it from. But it is a good one. Please feel free to share your variations of this either on the comments section of the blog or on the facebook post comments. Btw- we are working on getting all of the recipes we have talked about over the years in one place. stay tuned.....

 

Interview With Ivy Larson, Who Has Used Diet To Control Her MS And Become A Best Selling Author In The Process

By Jackie Wicks

This is a great story on so many levels. I just met and interviewed a woman named Ivy Larson, and I want you all to hear her story because it is so inspiring. Long story short is that she solved her own health puzzle by taking total responsibility for her own outcome and getting some of the best help and guidance that she could.

Interview Summary and Introduction:

Ivy was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) at age 22. Up to this point she was a very healthy, athletic person. Summer of 1998 she started having all sorts of very out of the routine medical problems. Many parts of her body just stopped working properly.

Visits to many doctors in Palm Beach County didn't get to the bottom of what was happening. Finally she ended up in the emergency room, and she ended up seeing a urologist in Miami. It was there the doctor realized that the problem was likely neurological.

After a battery of tests she was diagnosed as being in the early stages of MS. She was given three options. 1) trial for medication that was in the human trial phase. 2) Begin one of the FDA approved disease modifying medications. But I was told that there were huge side effects and she wanted to have children. 3) Third option was a dietary overhaul.

She knew nothing about nutrition at this point. She contacted a friend from high school who was at the University Of Pennsylvania Medical school at the time. His immediate reaction to the suggestion of using diet was to look up the credentials of the neurologist suggesting this course of action.

He did and this began a process where he began to understand the limitations and risks of treating MS with drugs as well as the power of treating the symptoms through dietary changes. Down the road, Ivy and her friend at medical school ended up getting married (MS: A Love Story!). They ended up writing a best selling book based on their experience tackling this problem called, The Gold Coast Cure: A Lifestyle Plan to Shed Pounds, Gain Health and Reverse 10 Diseases.

Ivy has also become an amazing cook in the process. You can find many of her recipes on her website.

The interview runs 30 minutes. Talking to Ivy was interesting, uplifting and motivating. We hope you enjoy it!

Click Here To Download/Listen To The PEERtrainer Interview With Ivy Larson

About MS, (From Wikipedia)

"Multiple sclerosis (abbreviated MS, also known as disseminated sclerosis or encephalomyelitis disseminata) is a disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms. Disease onset usually occurs in young adults, and it is more common in females. It has a prevalence that ranges between 2 and 150 per 100,000. MS was first described in 1868 by Jean-Martin Charcot.

MS affects the ability of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord to communicate with each other. Nerve cells communicate by sending electrical signals called action potentials down long fibers called axons, which are wrapped in an insulating substance called myelin. In MS, the body's own immune system attacks and damages the myelin. When myelin is lost, the axons can no longer effectively conduct signals. The name multiple sclerosis refers to scars (scleroses—better known as plaques or lesions) in the white matter of the brain and spinal cord, which is mainly composed of myelin. Although much is known about the mechanisms involved in the disease process, the cause remains unknown. Theories include genetics or infections. Different environmental risk factors have also been found.

Almost any neurological symptom can appear with the disease, and often progresses to physical and cognitive disability. MS takes several forms, with new symptoms occurring either in discrete attacks (relapsing forms) or slowly accumulating over time (progressive forms). Between attacks, symptoms may go away completely, but permanent neurological problems often occur, especially as the disease advances.

There is no known cure for MS. Treatments attempt to return function after an attack, prevent new attacks, and prevent disability. MS medications can have adverse effects or be poorly tolerated, and many patients pursue alternative treatments, despite the lack of supporting scientific study. The prognosis is difficult to predict; it depends on the subtype of the disease, the individual patient's disease characteristics, the initial symptoms and the degree of disability the person experiences as time advances. Life expectancy of patients is nearly the same as that of the unaffected population."

Easy Way To Eat Healthy: How To Prepare A Filling Healthy Meal In 2 Minutes

This is a VERY short video where I show you the containers that I keep in my fridge, and what I keep in the containers. For me it is an ideal way to make sure I have EASY access to food during my very busy week. I have started to soak and cook my own beans. It is cheaper and a lot tastier. Just soak them over night and then cook them in the morning while you are getting ready for work, kids to school or whatever. 

Do You Feel As If You Are Truly Capable Of Losing Weight?

This is something we emailed out Sunday, May 2nd: We are working on a "mission statement" at PEERtrainer, and in the process trying to hone in on "the thing we do best." It is a tough question to answer because we do a lot of things in response to the needs of different people.

From Habib's perspective the thing we do best is simply foster communication and conversation. Ideally we ask questions in a way that really gets you thinking.

Joshua Wayne is focused on the coaching aspect of PEERtrainer, and his response was very interesting. We had asked him "what is the single thing we do best with the coaching program and what have been the results?"

As an exercise this Sunday, read his response, and then think for a few moments about the question asked in the subject of this email:

"One of the key things we have set out to accomplish, from my perspective, is helping people feel like they are in control of their relationship to food so they can get where they want to go.

Feeling out of control is one of the worst feelings in life. Desperately wanting something, like to lose weight, and not feeling capable of getting there is a terrible feeling. Feeling like you'll always be overwhelmed by your lousy habits and that you'll never really be in control of them. Feeling like no matter how hard you try, and no matter how many times you try, that your negative emotions will ultimately derail you. These feelings build and build and build which leads to hopelessness.

So one of our main goals was to help people get back in control. One of the key ways we do that is to teach them to start being easy on themselves - not beating themselves up endlessly. People add insult to injury when they beat themselves up after they "screw up" on their diet. We see that many people have this "perfectionist"streak and we start to break that up by teaching them to be patient with themselves.

Simultaneously we're giving them REALLY good diet info. Not fad type stuff - in fact exactly the opposite. We help them lay the foundation for healthy, sustainable lifestyle change.

We also really embed this whole program smack dab in the middle of their lives too. This is crucial. We're not forcing them to create an alternate reality in their life where they can get healthy. They have to be able to do it in the middle of the crazy day with job, boss, kids, husband/wife because that's their reality and that's where they live.

If they have to attend to all that stuff, AND THEN have to go and carve out time for 3 elaborate meals per day (plus all the shopping and prep) so they can eat pistacio- crusted tilapia with carmelized onion asparagus consomme for dinner it's just not going to happen. Same with the exercise piece. It has to be centrally located in their life.

Not an alternate reality where they have to now squeeze 5 trips to the gym into their life.

Building on that, they have to be able to deal with: work dinners out, frenemies sabotaging them, the "crappy" food inertia of their family when they go home to visit. All that comes up and you have to have a "tool-kit" to deal with it. We give them that tool-kit.

Lastly, we provide consistent support. We're there for 12 weeks, at least a couple times a week. Sometimes with an email saying hi and a friendly reminder to look at the bright side, sometimes with a video or an article and of course the weekly calls.

Everyone needs consistency to make things happen, whether it's building a business, making a relationship work well or losing weight. We provide that consistent support which helps people internalize this optimism and get back to that place of self-control.

Fostering self-control is the key."

I thought that this was a very helpful observation for us, and a great question to ask everyone. This "Tip Of The Day" list that you are reading right now is designed to communicate with you and get you thinking.

And if you are one of those people looking to get in control, I would highly encourage you to try the first month of the Point Of No Return, and let Joshua work some of his magic. We often find ourselves "soft-selling" his work, but as we go through all the feedback from people who finish the program we see that he is very good at accomplishing his objective.

This isn't the kind of situation where we are promising this crazy quick weight loss. This is the complete opposite of all that. Joshua helps you take a step back, and helps you examine all of your assumptions.

At the core it is really about your relationship to yourself. So often at PEERtrainer we soft pedal what we do. But this is something we are doing well, and for many people it is the most important thing in their life that they can be working on.

When we help people to make better decisions for the rest of their life, the ripple effect that has is powerful. Frankly, if you are struggling with food and then do the work to gain control, there is almost nothing in life you cannot successfully tackle. The belief that you develop in yourself will be the new fuel that you can use in all parts of your life.

-Jackie 

P.S. One more thing I want to add here. Joshua wrote a book about emotional eating based entirely on what he saw in the PEERtrainer community, and we turned it into a downloadable digital guide. We sell it for $27, but we thought it made sense to offer it free to people who have opened this email and read the whole message for the next two days or so. If you are still reading this particular email, we have said something that has resonated with you.

Even if you decide to opt out of the program during the $1 month one trial period, Joshua's guide to emotional eating is yours to keep. The book is 175 pages, so there is a LOT in there to digest. Lots of ideas.

When you sign up via this link for the program, you will be sent the book in three days. There is a lot we throw at you, and we want to make sure you get acclimated.

http://www.peertrainer.com/coaching

What Is Your Portion Distortion Profile?

This is something new that we've coined at PEERtrainer -- What Is Your Portion Distortion Profile?

Read this short list, watch the video below and then identify what your portion distortion profile is. These are the four basic categories:

1. You distort what a portion size is because you never knew. You didn't pay attention, you just never new. 

2. Life has changed on you (you've just had a baby or you've started a new job and your hours have changed): you have moved to a new stage of your life.

3. People who get rid of the processed foods and move to real food, whole grains- but who have a hard time losing weight.

4. People who work out all the time and look at their portions in relation to their workouts.

Share and discuss your portion distortion profile in the PEERtrainer Community:

http://www.peertrainer.com/LoungeCommunityThread.aspx?ForumID=1&ThreadID=172168