Janice Taylor, your weight loss coach, wholeheartedly agrees on all counts, and shares with you now some of her secrets on how to stay motivated!

How to stay permanently jazzed! (excerpt from All Is Forgiven, Move On: Our Lady of Weight Loss’s 101 Fat-Burning Steps on Your Journal to Sveltesville)

Have you ever watched an Olympic swimmer push off the side of the pool? It is quite amazing, isnt’ it? The thrust, the power, their determination is enormous. Often the strength of this one solitary push can propel the Olympian right straight to the middle of the Olympic sized pool.

When we decide to go on a ‘diet,’ we essentially push off from the side of the pool of discontent. We gather a vast amount of energy from not liking ourselves, being disgusted, and ashamed of how we look. We don’t like ourselves. No, we sure don’t.

Sometimes this energy takes us half way to our goal weight. Sometimes all the way … 10, 20, 30, 100, 200 pounds lost. Then what?

Unlike the Olympic swimmer who has a plan; who is moving toward her big win; who sees herself as a champion and knows with every cell and fiber of her being that she is the victor, we only know ourselves to be losers. We are basing this attempt on past attempts to lose, which have failed.

It is easy to get lost if you don’t know where you are going.
If you want to be victorious at the game of Permanent Fat Removal a.k.a. Weight Loss, then you need to have a compelling future. You need to know where you are going; what you want; what truly moves, shakes and feeds your soul. The fat does not live alone. This is a holistic event.

How to Stay Permanently Jazzed, Motivated and Inspired

Have a Vision.
The root of the word motivation is “motive.” The definition of “motive” is “A reason to act.” You need a reason to act. You need both an external and internal vision of the new you. You need to be moving towards a compelling future! What’s your reason to act?

Be Passionate.
Motivation is not task driven. It’s all about emotion. It’s fire driven. You’ve got to fuel your passion (just like you have to fuel your body and fuel your car!). You have to set yourself a goal that connects to an all consuming desire. What moves you?

Stay Focused.
The more focused you are the more results you’ll be getting. The more results, the more motivated. It’s called the ‘upward spiral.’ Don’t worry about getting dizzy. You’re getting lighter and lighter. Keep on spiraling, Up, Up, Up!!

Build on Your Successes.
If you permanently remove a pound, be proud. When you drop a size, get fired up. Woo hoo! Keep on going!

Acknowledge All that You Do Well.
We have a tendency to negate our wins by focusing on the minor slips of the day. If you said “No, thank you” four times. ” Rejoice. What else did you do today that was stupendous? (It could be as simple as filling up a bowl with fresh fruit for the kitchen counter. Filling the room with good energy.)

Positive Messages
Read positive books, listen to good music, anything with an uplifting message. Fill your brain with stories of successful people. It will take hold. Think positive!

Platters Full of Motivation!
The 21 Day Cure: Blow the Fat Cells Out of Your Mind
New Year’s Resolutions: From Gung Ho to Oh NO and Back AGAIN!!!
28 Days: 28 Tips!
Spread the word … NOT the icing!
Janice

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A must read & cook … or cook & read!
Harper Collins

Nancy Garfinkel and Andrea Israel, authors of The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship (a must read and cook!) are going to be at Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, 167 Seventh Avenue at 6th Street, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 19th.  They are as delicious as their book and recipes!

Here follows info about the book, an interview and a bonus recipe!

The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship is a must read. It speaks to loyalty, loss, and the ties that bind. These are the ingredients of The Recipe Club, a “novel cookbook” that combines an authentic story of friendship with more than 80 delicious recipes.

The Book:
Lilly and Val are lifelong friends, united as much by their differences as by their similarities. Lilly, dramatic and confident, lives in the shadow of her beautiful, wayward mother and craves the attention of her distant, disapproving father. Val, shy and idealistic–and surprisingly ambitious– struggles with her desire to break free from her demanding housebound mother and a father whose dreams never seem to come true.

In childhood, “LillyPad” and “ValPal” form an exclusive two-person club, writing intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets–and recipes, from Lilly’s “Lovelorn Lasagna” to Valerie’s “Forgiveness Tapenade.”

Readers can cook along as the friends travel through time facing the challenges of independence, the joys and heartbreaks of first love, and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred.

The Recipe Club sustains Lilly and Val’s bond through the decades, regardless of what different paths they take or what misunderstandings threaten to break them apart . . . until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal.

Now, years later, while trying to recapture the trust they’ve lost, Lilly and Val reunite once more–only to uncover a shocking secret. Will it destroy their friendship, or bring them ever closer?

The Interview:
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Nancy Garfinkel and Andrea Israel, authors of The Recipe Club: A Tale of Food and Friendship.

JT: The book’s subtitle, A Tale of Food and Friendship, really encapsulates the appeal of your novel. Why do you think food and friendship strike such a resonant chord with readers around the world?

Nancy/Andrea: Whether it’s positive or negative, everybody has a relationship to food; it transcends any demographic divides, like gender, nationality, religion, age, or race. We eat to survive, to share, to celebrate, to mourn…we eat alone, in family groups, and with friends. And friendship–a form of love–is just as basic a need. It provides emotional sustenance which is essential for a life well-lived.

JT: The book has a little of everything: it’s a novel-cookbook, and the story is told through emails and then letters, and finally a third-person narrative. That must have been a complicated collaboration for two writers. How did you do it?

Nancy/Andrea: Just as the book begins with e-mails, we started out by writing emails to each other in the voice of a specific character. What made it fun was never knowing what the other one would write. So when Andrea’s character emailed something like, “I can’t believe you did that!” to Nancy’s character, Nancy would have to figure out what exactly her character did…and why. And if Nancy’s character wrote back, “Well I did that because you said THAT,” then Andrea would have to come up with a convincing back story. It kept us on our toes, and in an active state of creative imagination. And we both kept trying to challenge ourselves–and each other–by pushing the language and actions of each character. At a certain point they took on a life of their own–and we didn’t always approve of their behavior! We ended up tossing out a large portion of the first draft, and writing the next draft together, side-by-side. Our ability to write together like that is very unusual, and it remains something of a beautiful mystery to us.

As for it being both a novel and a cookbook, that just adds an extra measure of fun–and extends the life of the book. Each of our more than 80 terrific recipes closely relates to the story of the novel (with evocative titles like Lovelorn Lasagna and Better-Late-Than-Never Zucchini Bread), so long after you’ve finished the novel you can keep thinking about the characters–and keep on cooking!

JT: Was one of you Lilly, and the other Val?

Nancy/Andrea: In short: no. Both of us are both of them–and neither of them–in equal measure. It is purely a work of fiction. We are flattered by how many people have asked if it’s autobiographical. We’ve heard readers say, “it must be real because it sounds so real.”

JT: We hear the book is sparking a grassroots movement called “Recipe Clubs,” which you describe as “a way of creating community through story-telling circles.” What does that mean, and how does it work?

Nancy/Andrea: Recipe Clubs are being formed by readers who want to share their own true stories of food and friendship. They are taking place across the country. Typically six to eight women gather to exchange food-related memories and the recipes that go along with it. The stories are about anything and everything: food and family, food and joy, food and anger, love, travel, creativity, empowerment…it’s limitless. The common denominator is that they always have an emotional component which resonates with the group.

For example, one woman’s story about smashing a baked Alaska (just as it was about to be served to an undeserving suitor) was really a tale of unrequited love and seizing back personal power. Another woman remembered being a young girl who pretended to be sick at school in order to be taken home by her aunt, knowing full well she would be fed a delicious home-cooked lunch; her story was about craving the comfort and safety of family in stressful times. You can see some of our Recipe Clubs in action on our website: www.therecipeclubbook.com.

While every Recipe Club story is different, all of them share a hunger for connecting to memory, to other people, and to self-understanding. That’s essentially true of our novel, as well. And we’re thrilled that our book has ignited something so positive and life-affirming.

JT: Thanks, Nancy and Andrea! A delicious interview!!

From THE RECIPE CLUB: A TALE OF FOOD AND FRIENDSHIP,
Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel
HarperCollins (November 2009)

“Real Life” Red Snapper / Serves 8

Here’s a recipe for brain food. One bite and you’re a genius. Two bites and you get into the college of your choice.

8 (8-ounce) red snapper fillets
Salt
Ground black pepper
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
3 tablespoons fresh shopped dill
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 450 F. Season the fish on both sides with salt and pepper.

2. Combine the breadcrumbs, butter, parsley, dill, lemon zest, and garlic in a bowl. Divide the mixture among the fish fillets, coating each fillet evenly with topping. Transfer the fillets to a baking sheet.

3. Bake for 8 minutes. Reduce the heat to broil and cook, watching carefully, for 1 to 2 minutes more, until just golden.

Enjoy!

Cuckoo Self-Portrait by Janice Taylor

Melissa Wadsworth, Dream Leader, recently spoke with Janice Taylor, Our Lady of Weight Loss (me!). Melissa is an amazing person, with whom I have much in common. First and foremost, our love of glue, scissors and paper. We are both collagists and use our art to manifest our dreams. My dream – to not only lose over 50 pounds, but to reinvent myself; and Melissa to create her own ‘dream’ business. Here follows the interview. Be sure to visit Melissa’s site!

Melissa Wadsworth on Janice Taylor: Weight Loss Fun and aHA Moments!

I just had a great AHA! as I was talking with “Our Lady of Weight Loss” Janice Taylor. She was talking about the fact that many of us see weight loss as difficult. She says, “weight loss is as difficult as you make it.”

Ding, ding, ding, light bulbs went off in my head. I realized that I think having abundance in my personal potential coaching business can be easy. Creating intuitive dream boards can be the most amazing and easy process ever, but I realized I still hang on to the perspective that losing weight is a very, very, very difficult endeavor. Huh? How freeing it would be to change that thought!

Janice Taylor is a coach, guided imagery innovator, motivational speaker, and author of All is Forgiven MOVE ON: Our Lady of Weight Loss’s 101 Fat-Burning Steps on Your Journey to Sveltesville, and she’s the only person I’ve ever heard of who dares to make the subject of weight loss fun! What a great gift to the world.

“I can be serious, but I’m never heavy,” says Janice (no pun intended), who contended with a lifelong weight problem and who has managed to maintain her 50-pound weight loss for more than eight years. “People tell me I come across as the least judgmental person on the planet. Who am I to judge others?”

Just in speaking with Janice I sense the loving, peaceful and playful qualities that must attract people who are tired of beating themselves up about how they look and who want a kinder, more enjoyable way to approach their physical, emotional and even spiritual well-being. ,,, for the fully skinny, Read On!