You’ve Gotta Give THANKS (to be EnergyRich)

For some Thanksgiving Dinner has us feeling not so well. Well, good! Not good that you feel terrible, but good because we are going to look at doing something about it. Did you know that a sure sign of a successful person is someone who takes action? Notice I didn’t say earth shattering action – just action. All you need to do is take a step that you haven’t before. Instead of just rushing around before the holiday and ending up at the table eating too much stuffing and then waking up on New Years Day (yes, I know, we don't even know what happened to Christmas) with it all having been one big blur … let’s DOOOO something about it.

Take a little time for yourself before next Thursday and look at where you’ve come from and then YOU choose how you want to be this holiday (psst! I’m rooting for EnergyRich!)

Identify Your Family Recipe

One of the first things I do when starting to work with a private client is ask them what they ate growing up – preferably before high school. Most of my clients look at me like I am crazy. I know they are thinking, “I can’t even remember what I ate last week and you want me to remember what I ate when I was seven?” The thing is, once we start to get those wheels turning the memories start to come together. At first I hear a lot of the same things: cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, meat and potatoes for dinner, but then the story starts to come alive and suddenly it is, “Oh, we ALWAYS had pot-roast on Sundays” or “It was pizza on every other Tuesday because my dad passed the local joint whenever he was coming in from business out of town.” Personally, strawberry rubarb pie. For breakfast. On Sundays. Homemade from Lewis Supermarket on the corner. It was my dad’s favorite (and still is) and that was part of what made it special.

So what’s the point?


Most of us have, what I call, “Family Recipes” that we are living by and don’t even realize it. We are creatures of habit in more ways than one and many of the ways that we choose to eat and live were set up for us years ago. Well, guess what? A lot has changed since then. The world has certainly changed. My guess is so has your body. Interestingly, we often form a loyalty alliance with our past which blocks us from being pulled into our future and slows down our growth to the point of experiencing energy drags, weight gain and feelings of being just plain old stuck.

One of the most important things you can ever do when making a life change is to take a step back and I mean b-a-c-k. Yes, as far as you can go and be as objective as you can to look at how it is that you got to where you are. When it comes to upping your energy that means starting with taking a look at your food. It is your fuel. So where is your original source coming from?

I recommend that you start by making three lists titled:

1 – Childhood
2 – Highschool
3 – In the past year

For each list create 5 categories:

1 – Breakfast
2 – Lunch
3 – Dinner
4 – Snacks
5 – Drinks

For each list, under each category, write down everything that you remember. Just let your mind free flow. No judgment (you will hear me say this a lot), just fact finding. If you remember something later, go back and fill it in.

Now, what do you noticed? See any patterns? Anything jump out at you? Take note of any discoveries! You’ve got to know where you came from to get to where you are going. You’ve got to get conscious to get rich … energy or otherwise … so realize that this holiday you don’t HAVE to do/eat/be what you use to do. Make a choice that has you truly feeling great and this puts you in a very grounded place to give your most authentic thanks.

Blessings to you.