My top 10 favorite ways to enhance my day

Feeling good every day is my number 1 priority. These are my top 10 ways to improve my mood and attitude!

1. meditate

2. Set my intentions for the day

3. Hot water with lemon or ginger tea

4. workout

5. listen to Abraham Hicks audio or dvd

6.Drink a vegetable juice

7. sit in the sun for a few minutes

8.Journal about my dreams and desires

9 play some great music and sing along

10. Reach out to a family member or friend to catch up and say hi!

What are your favorites?

Love,

Patricia

Did you have a Sati meal today? Have one today!

Here are some great habits to practice to improve your relationship to your body and your food. Try making two meals a week "Sati" meals. Bringing more intention and awareness to your eating habits will help you bring more love and balance into your life! What is a Sati meal? Sati means mindfulness and a Sati meal is a meal where your intention is to bring more mindfulness to the art of eating with intention and awareness. Making a few mealtimes a week your time to connect your heart, body and mind will help you become more aware of the sacredness of nourishing your body as a gift.

Twice a week have a Sati meal! Sit, smell, taste, chew, enjoy and respect the moment. Sit. No matter how big your small your meal is, take time to sit down and pay attention to what you are eating. Smell. Use all of your senses to bring in the beauty of whatever you are eating. Before you take your first bite pause and take in the beautiful smell. When you invite all your senses to participate you will enjoy it more. Taste. Don't talk while you have food in your mouth, taste it! Feel and taste each bite. Feel the textures, the spices, the temperature, the whole experience. Chew. Watch how people eat around you. Notice how many people gobble or literally inhale food. During your sati meal make it a point to chew your food. Some experts recommend 20 times. Try it. Enjoy. Don't eat things that don't agree with you because you think you "should" eat it. Every body is different and everything doesn't work for every body. Choose foods you enjoy and enjoy the foods you choose. Absolutely refuse to allow guilt to ruin your enjoyment of the meal. Feeling guilty is worse than the calories. Take the time to enjoy your meal. Respect the moment. Beginning or ending a meal with a prayer of gratitude is a powerful practice. It doesn't have to be long, out loud or even noticeable to anyone at the table. Simply take a moment to look at the meal with eyes of appreciation before your first bite and repeating mentally to yourself, "Thank You" will help you remember to honor and respect your food and your body. You don't have to eat this way every meal but setting aside a few meals a week to practice a sati meal will help you create a healthier and a more loving relationship to food. Eat food, mostly plants, not so much, 90% of the time. Patricia

Take action today! If not now, when?

Today is another day to appreciate that you always have the chance to improve your life, your health, your state of mind or any other area you want to upgrade.

It is important as we face our life, our dreams and our desires to make sure that when we start looking at the things we feel need a little fixing that we don't just sit around condemning what we have, where we are or what we are going through. This is the mistake so many people make. Complaining and condemning cements the problem exactly where it is.

Whether you want to lose weight, improve your health, upgrade your nutritional habits or organize your home, train yourself to focus more attention on what you want and why you want it instead of just letting yourself hang out in disappointment or frustration.

Write down what you want and why you want it. Inspire yourself, give the vision you want for yourself life. Most people never even take this first action step, instead they just moan and groan about what is not good. Write it down! Know what you want! Be clear.

Next, take an action TODAY! If you feel frustrated about where you are there is only one way out and that is to get yourself to take some kind of positive action. If you feel like success is impossible you will not take any action, but if you think success is possible you will open your mind to divine guidance, that is guidance from you heart. Divine guidance will lead you to taking right action!

So ask yourself now "If I didn't think this was impossible what action would I take today?" "Can I take it?" "Will I take it?" "When?". Hopefully the answer is YES and NOW!

There are no wasted steps or actions and no dream is ever realized without action! ACT NOW! You cannot become who you want to be by remaining who you are! It is so empowering to finally take a step in the direction of your dreams! Do it today!

Feel free to post what action steps you decided to take today!

Love

Patricia

YOU ARE INVITED! Have you never tried intenSati before? Do you live in NYC or nearby? On September 22, Tuesday night at 6:30pm you can come by Equinox for a free intenSati workout!

If you are interested rsvp@intenSati.com and we will add your name to the guest list! Check it out!

Pay attention. Your body knows best!

If you want to change your habits for the long run it is important that you pay attention to the amount of food you are eating. Your body is always giving you feedback and learning to pay attention to the signals your body is giving you will help you determine what you need.

Your body has a natural intelligence that is built in to guide you in your life. It is always guiding you towards your perfect weight and health by giving you signs of comfort and discomfort. According to Deepak Chopra, if you are feeling comfort emotionally, physically and spiritually you are headed in the right direction. Learn to pay attention to the signals you are getting.

Many of us reach for food to ease stress, because of our social situation or out of habit. Deepak Chopra gives us a very important and easy assignment, "eat only when you are hungry"

By practicing paying attention to the signals of hunger and satisfaction and training ourselves to follow the cues our body is giving, us we can develop new lifestyle habits that will lead us to achieve our long term goals.

This scale is from Deepak Chopra's book Perfect weight.

Level 0-1 Your stomach feels completely empty. You are not starving but there is a genuine need that requires satisfaction. You should eat at this level.

Level 2,3 or 4 describes how you feel when you are eating or after you have eaten and you sense the presence of food in your stomach. There is no sensation of hunger present.

Level 5 you start to feel satisfied

Level 6 is the point of maximum comfort. This is where you should stop eating.

Level 7 or 8 is when you feel uncomfortably full

Level F is when you are so full that when you think of food it makes you sick. This is where you cannot eat another bite. This level should be completely avoided.

Level E is when the stomach is completely empty and the feeling of starvation is present. You should eat before you get to this level

Deepak Chopra suggests that you eat to about 3/4 of your stomachs capacity. You should practice stopping at level 6

Try taking on this practice and eating only when you are hungry! Pay attention. Your body is your best friend and your best guide. Let is help you learn to feed it well.

Love

Patricia

Check out Deepak Chopra's book "Perfect Weight"

It's time to go shopping!

I have been feeling good these past few days. I think that promising not to eat bread no matter what made a big difference. Today my negotiator came up for a minute when I tried to tell myself that a wrap was not the same as having bread but luckily that conversation didn't last too long and I left with a salad and a side of vegetables. Phew! Victory!

This week I went to the grocery story and filled up the refrigerator with lots of vegetables, fruits and my salad favorites! Luckily for me Kellen likes to eat healthfully and we don't have anything in our home that is tempting. That makes a huge difference.

What's in your refrigerator? If you want to succeed in eating more healthfully make sure you have what you need in your home. If you have things you love to eat that are healthy it is going to be easier for you. Do whatever you need to do to support your goals. Take out the tempting options. If you are craving sugar and you don't have it in the house, how likely is it that you will jump in a taxi, or the car and go and get it? Get rid of anything that is tempting. I know some of you have husbands, children that you think won't live without the junk but give it a try! Get then some healthier versions of the treats like frozen fruit instead of ice cream, fruit and yogurt instead of cookies, popcorn instead of potato chips. Yeah, they might whine a complain a little but encourage them to try new things! Just try it! Don't assume they will not want to feel good all the time too!

My food journal today

cup of oatmeal with a teaspoon of coconut oil, agave and sliced almonds

a large salad with 1/4 avocado, zucchini, walnuts, olive oil and vinegar

A cup and 1/2 of nonfat yogurt with mixed berries, agave and a sprinkle of cacao nibs

Chicken soup

Workout Journal

30 minutes of weight training

I am keeping my personal promise to skip the bread no matter what!

What is your personal no matter what promise? What did you choose to eat today? Did you workout? Come on let's hear it! No secrets.

Love

Patricia

Eating with intention and awareness Having it all call notes

I just finished the eating with intention and awareness call and posting the assignment and follow up info. If you were not on the call and you want to get the recording of it you can order it online at satilife.com by the end of the week or send an email to rsvp@intensati.com and request it.

The topic of the call was "Having it all" I talked about creating your intention for yourself. Mine is to feel good all the time, to feel energized, lean, healthy and better with age. What's yours?

I talked about what it means to have it all for me. Basically I like a version of Michael Pollacks mantra, Eat food, mostly plants, not so much, except I added 90% of the time. To me having it all means there is nothing on my "never eat" list. I believe if I follow this mantra I will be able to 'have it all" and fulfill my intention. How you do you want to eat? Write it out.

The main point of the call was to remember that the way to having it all is by practicing self discipline. You must train yourself to keep your word and silence the negotiator, the voice inside you head that keeps telling you it's ok to break your promise and you can start tomorrow.

The assignment.

Look for people that inspire you and are living in a way you want to live in relationship to food.

It may be more than one. Model them, ask them how they do it. Interview them

Write your intention and memorize it.

Add more vegetables to your diet, if you already eat many vegetables try new ones, get creative.

Watch your portion size especially of the part of your meal that is lower quality and higher calorie food. Keep protein like meat, fish and chicken to the size of a deck of cards or the palm of your hand.

Eat more slowly so you can tell when you are satisfied before you are stuffed. Use a smaller plate and take time before you take the second helping. Check in with yourself and see if you are satisfied enough to walk away.

When you are satisfied or if someone offers you more food when you have decided you are done say "no thank you I am completely satisfied"

Post your daily or weekly commitments here and check in with us daily or every few days and let us know how it is going. Choose things that you can keep your word on no matter what. As you get better at it you can promise bigger things.

Remember these words "No matter what" when you make your promise keep these words tattooed on my mind and the negotiator will not show up as often, if you mean it.

If you are interested in coaching in this area email coach@handelgroup.com. There is a new group starting soon called Dream Body. You will be trained in this area. It is extremely beneficial. Email them for details

Want a great book for food ideas buy "Ultra metabolism by Dr. Mark Hyman or In the defense of food my Michael Pollack.

Give me your feed back, and let me know if you have suggestions for the next call!

LOVE,

Patricia

www.satilife.com

Are you a good negotiator?

This past weekend was a great relaxing and enjoyable weekend with friends in East Hampton. Kellen and I officially got married on Friday and spent the weekend celebrating! It was lovely.

On Saturday we went to our friends beautiful home, Michelle and Beth. They invited us over for lunch and since they knew I declared to lose 10lbs they cooked a beautiful lunch to support me. It was so sweet!

One of my commitments to myself was not eat processed or refined carbs. I think the hardest thing for me to pass on is bread. I ate bread twice this past weekend. I had it today when we picked up a lobster roll before our drive home and before dinner on Saturday night i had a 1/2 of a piece of focaccia that was on the dinner table.

So the question is, what is the conversation you have with yourself right before you choose to give up on your promise to yourself?

This is the magic moment. Once you ate it or drank it or skipped a workout it's too late. The precious moment is the conversation you have where you are either talking yourself into or out of keeping your word.

This is a very different approach then simply counting calories. Often what we do is we say, ok I'll just have it this time and I will skip____ later. Or we negotiate with ourselves that we will workout extra tomorrow. There is usually one way you negotiate with yourself and talk yourself out of keeping your word to yourself. Usually mine is that I will workout more later!

The important thing here is to remember the way to succeed is to be able to trust yourself to keep your word. Once you are able to make a promise and keep it, you will not have those negotiating conversations with yourself anymore.

Take notice this week when you are negotiating with yourself about whether to keep your promise to yourself or not. What kind of excuses or new promises do you make to yourself to get you off the hook of having to keep your original promise?

If you can catch your negotiator before you give in and say "no negotiating here" you will find that soon that negotiator learns to keep quiet. When you know yourself to be good on your word no matter how much you whine and complain, beg and negotiate you will be able to get yourself to do anything you want to do and that negotiator disappears.

This takes some real sati, mindfulness, and a real desire to succeed. My suggestion, don't over promise. Make one promise a day that you are using as your personal trainer. Pick something that is fairly easy but takes some effort to attain.

Use the mantra "no matter what" and think of your little negotiator as someone who is out to trip you up, get you to fail, is not on your side, is an imposter!!

I myself have not been taking my own advice very well but this week I plan to take my advice!

This week I will not have any bread whatsoever! No matter what! Even if I have nothing else to eat, even if it is my favorite kind, even if it means I have to skip a meal. I will not have bread no matter what!

Keep this in mind, whenever you make a promise not to have something you WILL be tempted. Just be ready to say, "no matter what!" You will feel amazing when you stop the negotiator dead in her tracks and you come out victorious!

One day at a time!

Love

Patricia

Don't forget to rsvp for the Eating with intention and awareness call this Wednesday at 8:30pm. Email rsvp@intensati.com for the dial in number. It's free! The topic is "Having it all"

Cut 500 calories a day to lose 1lb a week easily.

Eating with intention and awareness call September 9th at 8:30pm ET. It's free. The topic is "Having it all" email rsvp@intensati.com for the dial in number!

3500 calories = 1lb. If you want to lose 1lb a week you have to cut 3500 calories a week or 500 a day.

We can all be enticed by the promise of losing weight fast with quick fixes or extreme diets but the real challenge is to redesign your daily habits so you have a long term transformation instead of the typical ups and downs. This approach is not very appealing because by the time we get to the point the we are fed up and want to lose weight and lose it quick! At this point losing 1lb a week doesn't sound like very appealing, especially if you want to lose a significant amount of weight. But if you are tired of going up and down and ready to make long lasting changes, slow and steady is the answer.

Why I like this approach is because if you take the time to slowly redesign your habits your body will not go into panic mode. If you are used to eating 3000 calories a day and you drop it to 1500 calories all of a sudden your body will react by slowing down your metabolism because it is not getting the excess it is used to.

Look for ways to cut 500 calories from you daily intake of calories. Remember every bite that goes into your mouth counts whether it is off your plate or someone else's, whether you are eating it or drinking it, standing or sitting down or you enjoy it or not! There is a consequence to every thing you put in your mouth. Take your time, eat with intention and awareness and make it fun to look for the extra calories to cut.

Some ways to cut the calories

1. Look for empty calories in your drinks. Soda, juice, sports drinks, alcohol. If you have any of these items in your diet start here! If you drink 2 20 oz bottles of soda a day you are already up to 250-275 cals. Cut this and lose a lb of fat a week!

2. Do you drink or eat dairy products. If you are not using skim milk but 2% or whole milk you can significantly cut calories here. Change your yogurt, milk in your cereal, coffee and cheese to non fat.

3. Look at your portions. If you usually have a large portion of protein and fewer vegetables reverse the portions. Increase your vegetables and decrease your protein to 3-4 oz. This shift will help you decrease the calories, increase fiber, vitamins, minerals and phyto nutrients that are only available in vegetables. If you eat normally eat the skin of the chicken breast take it off and you cut the calories almost in half. With the skin a 40z chicken breast is about 340 cal and without it is about 140.

These are just a few ideas. Take a look at your own diet and see where you can easily begin to trim those 500 calories. If you have been keeping a food journal go back and take a look at it and see where you can shave those extra calories. Make it fun! Be a detective all in the name of love!

My Food for today. I left this morning without having breakfast! Not a good idea when I am on the road, hungry and looking for something healthy to eat. Note to self, be prepared, eat breakfast or pack a snack!

Breakfast on the road choice, a corn muffin

Lunch salad of greens, 1/4 avocado, cabbage, arugula, mixed greens, tabouli salad with olive oil. 1 cup of nonfat greek yogurt with a teaspoon of agave and a teaspoon of raw cacao nibs

Dinner 3 oz of salmon, salad of greens, tomatoes and beans, a tablespoon of brown rice, olive oil dressing.

Water 16 oz

Workout 1 hour weight training

lost 3.5 lbs feeling good. Slowly but surely.

Where can you cut your 500 calories tomorrow? What did you eat today?

Do not use the word diet, you are upgrading your habits!

It is kind of quiet this week!

Here are a few very important points in the weight loss game!

1. Don't expect to be perfect. It really is ok!

2. One bad day does not make you bad, weak or a failure

3. If one way doesn't work, find another

4. Do the best you can do and that is all you can do

5. If one day you eat more than you wish you would tomorrow just get back in the game no starving, punishing or guilt trip necessary

6. Drink a lot of water even if you don't feel like it

7. Do not use the word diet, you are upgrading your habits!

I haven't seen any posts from any of you recently so I am assuming either you are out of town, you are off feeling guilty or bad that you haven't kept yourself in the game, or you just lost your motivation.

I understand I have not been perfect either. I have not been grocery shopping all week so I am not very prepared to succeed. Although I have been eating well and not overeating I did have a piece of chocolate tonight and that is not on my plan.

So come back, post about where you are, it doesn't always have to be good news but if you don't post about your hard times and let it go you just might be sitting around at home feeling bad or guilty or some other really counter productive emotion.

Say where you are and tomorrow is another day!

Love

patricia

Don't forget to rsvp for eating with intention and awareness sept 9th 8:30pm Et for dial in info email rsvp@intensati.com

Are you done complaining, and ready for creating a life you really love?

Yeah we made top 10 but I need at least 800 more votes so every vote counts! Please take a moment to endorse sati life. Once again here are the directions.

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click on NOMINEES

Enter Sati Life in the search box

Click on "support this story, endorse now"

Please vote today. My dream is to have 500 intenSati leaders spreading the intenSati practice and this will help my dream come true!

Are you ready to accept what you cannot change? Do you have the courage to change what you cannot accept? If not now when?

This affirmation is based on the serenity prayer used to begin all 12 step meetings. It is a powerful prayer because we are reminding ourselves of the power of acceptance. There are so many things we cannot change in our lives yet we allow ourselves to complain, judge, hate, dislike, be annoyed with or simply refuse to let go of the complaints we have about them.

Accepting what you cannot change is a major part of recovery of any illness, emotional upset, addiction or non well-being. You must be willing to let go of the very energy that feeds the discomfort, the addiction, the injury or illness and that is hatred, anger or resentment.

Are you still complaining about things that happened in your past, when you were a child, teenager or even yesterday? Why? You will never change them no matter how much you complain, it is a waste of time.

Are you complaining about someone else and how they don't behave like you wish they would? Why? It will never change them, no matter how much you complain!

Are you complaining about your age? Come on! Get over it! The alternative is death.

Even complaining or wishing you weren't sick, injured or overweight is a waste of time. It does not promote healing in any way whatsoever. In fact depletes your energy, your immune system, decreases your physical strength and gets you off the hook from taking action. If you want to heal you have to at least have hope and you cannot be complaining and hopeful at the same time.

Make a list of the things you are complaining about that you cannot change and when you catch yourself complaining reverse it and say to yourself, "Oh! I used to complain about that but it is a waste of my precious time. I have changed my mind!"

Then make a list of things you want to change but you haven't had the courage to change yet and start developing your courage and strength to take any action at all. Any action you take is a huge step. Do what you can do, do anything, do something! What you can do is enough because it is all you can do, and it is enough!

If you want to lose weight order "Think and Get Slim" By Abraham Hicks on amazon.com

It is not a workout but an empowering lesson on how to change your mind.

Today is the only day you have! Don't waste it complaining! Instead spend the time creating and living a life you really love!

Love

Patricia

Don't forget to reserve a spot for the eating with intention and awareness call on September 9th Wednesday 8:30pm ET. email rsvp@intensati.com for the dial in number!