Path Helpers

While in the audience last week to hear Kevin Hall, author of “Aspire,” I learned: when you are on your true path you will discover people who will help you reach your goals. He defined true path as having such passion for what we do that we would do it even if we didn’t get paid. It made me sit up and think: would I write and speak, teach, and blog, if I never made a dime doing it? The answer is unequivocally, YES! I would, in fact, share my story with others, even if there was no book involved. I know this because I spoke for free to audiences for years before I ever wrote the book. My heart connected with his theory on “path helpers” because the twelve-year progression toward releasing my book in print was dotted by my collision with numerous talented people who provided me with inspired editing, beautiful graphics, ideas, marketing, referrals, and opportunities. None of those people would have crossed my path if I had not had the itch at the back of my soul to put down in words the solutions so salient to learning how to manage my body well. I had to start down the right road and “Shazam!” these folks were waiting for me all along. It turns out I had to put in the time, do the work, and have the dream, but my “helpers” were there exactly on cue at my moment of need.

May you face your true path, take a step and then another. And may you feel the same giddy sense of mystification I felt when your guide/friend/coach/expert steps forward with a hand extended and says, “Yes, I can help you do that.”

Learn more about “Aspire” and hear author Kevin Hall’s weekly podcast:

https://aspireleadership.infusionsoft.com/he/40333/b586c4d3a92ffb5ff1db09fe3ea8f59c

Tres Hatch is the author of Miracle Pill 10 Truths to Healthy, Thin, & Sexy.

Recipe: 5 Minute Puree of Pea Soup with Sour Cream

I'm all about bridging the gap between eating yummy and staying thin. And I encourage folks to create a repertoire of great dishes they love to enjoy. Having said that, I'm not gonna lie, we have cereal night at my house all the time because I am too busy, tired, or absent of any inspiration to cook. At those times I turn to this tried and true recipe (featured in my book: Miracle Pill 10 Truths to Heatlhy, Thin, & Sexy) that goes from prep-to-eat in 5 MINUTES. Really. Enjoy.

5 Minute Puree of Pea Soup

with Sour Cream

Serves 6

By Tres Prier Hatch

This “crazy easy” soup has a smooth texture and clean, pure flavors. When made with vegetable stock it is completely vegetarian, but the chicken stock gives it more body and depth. To expedite cooking, dice the carrot and celery very fine. Or, in a rush, leave them out altogether. Just boil and puree. In place of chives you can substitute finely minced green onion, shallot, or yellow onion. However, with so few ingredients in this soup the delicate flavor of chive is featured and makes for an elegant dish.

3 cups frozen peas

1 small carrot, peeled and very finely diced (optional)

1 stalk celery, very finely diced (optional)

2 teaspoons fresh chives, snipped fine

5 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock

Salt and pepper

Fresh mint or chive for garnish

Sour cream

Heat first five ingredients in a large pot. Simmer until carrots and celery are tender, about 5 minutes. Immerse long-necked hand blender in pot and puree until smooth. Alternately, puree in a blender in batches. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream and fresh mint or chive.

Tres Prier Hatch is the author of: Miracle Pill 10 Truths to Healthy, Thin, & Sexy

Fear

Fear of: spiders, supernatural specters, illness, snakes, hair sprouting out of a witches’ wart, public speaking, race riots, bad cheese… There are certainly plenty of things to be scared of. But, this week I realized I am most terrified of the thing least likely to hurt me. I am referring to success. How could success make my neck slick with sweat and my stomach churn? Before I answer, I want to share this profound experience:

At a book signing yesterday I spoke at length with (Elza). She shared many truths she had learned from reading my book. She showed me her copy with highlighted passages, dog-eared pages, and completed workbook exercises. With great purpose she described her strategy to permanently lose her remaining weight. But, at the very end, she asked me how she could get over her fear of food. She described it thus: “I’m scared that what I am eating will actually make me fat. Tres, you tell me to eat what my body wants, but what if it makes me gain weight?” I realized she was attributing fear of failure to fear of food. I gently asked if she was, in fact, not so much afraid of food, but afraid of success. Tears streamed down her cheeks as tender feelings were laid bare. She admitted to being scared of changing herself—even if that change is something she desperately wants. Elza was scared of going down an unknown road.

I can relate. In book promotion when I make a cold call, or rather, procrastinate making that cold call I am letting fear decide my fate. But to “man up” and make the call—with absolute belief that my work has value, I experience sweet success and find opportunities otherwise hidden. So, why do we grapple with fear? The answer is best phrased in my favorite quote by Marianne Williamson:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
— Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles)

This year, in 2011, I choose to liberate myself and those around me by remembering: I am meant to shine. And I will save my fear for hairy witch warts.

Tres Hatch is the author of: Miracle Pill 10 Truths to Healthy, Thin, & Sexy.

Bacon Jam

We opened the brown-paper wrapped parcel and felt a bit mystified at the contents: a small gray pot of "Skillet Bacon Spread," better known as "bacon jam." With its black plastic lid and mottled contents it looks a bit more like high-end French face mask than a condiment. Operating solely on faith that this birthday present from dear friends would neither explode nor poison us, we opened it up and spread a bit on toast. What a symphony of comfort flavors exploded in our mouths. This heady concoction of shredded non-cured belly pork, a hint of balsamic, and rich caramelized onions combines together for a perfect burger topping, scrambled egg enhancer, mashed potato addition, and of course, on toast. In fact, we found it excellent spooned straight out of the pot. On grilled cheese sandwiches, as a base for a vinaigrette, drizzled with butter over asparagus...the possibilities are dizzying. Tissues please--I'm getting verclempt. Sure it boasts a swirl of congealed pork fat that Americans are hesitant to fully appreciate, and the color would never make for sexy food shots in a culinary magazine, but the smell hits you like you just stepped into a farmhouse kitchen. It's like: slow-cooked meats, biscuits, and savory-sweet things bubbling in a pot.

What is more, this stuff has a fantastic story behind it. A businessman in Seattle played with the formula for bacon jam out of his Airstream trailer gourmet mobile restaurant, called Skillet (I'm not kidding). Shortly after contracting to supply Williams-Sonoma the product got a mention on the Today Show as one of the Top 10 Gourmet items of the year. Sales have skyrocketed, Seattle residents are queuing up for hours to eat Skillet's gourmet burgers smeared with bacon jam, and my life is changed forever. Only 8 more hours to go before breakfast and I can once again whisk a dollop into my scrambled eggs and spread a bit on my cream-cheese bagel. Oh, if morning could only come a bit sooner.

Find Skillet Mobile Restaurant and Skillet Bacon Spread at: skilletbaconjam.com

Tres Hatch is the author of : Miracle Pill 10 Truths to Healthy, Thin, & Sexy.

The Backside

Strategies

1) Compensation

As we slide down the backside of the holidays and into a new year, let’s examine the impact of too much holiday food on our backsides. I know mine has felt threatened for weeks by extra cookies, ham, and a proliferation of salted nuts. If I don't have a strategy for partaking without unwanted consequences my thighs will swell up like Elvis in a jumpsuit. At a time like this there is only one thing to do: compensate.

Compensation sounds totalitarian, but it is really less punishment and more balancing the scales between the excess of food I did not need with an increase of the food I do. For instance, at yesterday’s family New Year’s Day Chinese dinner, I left the fried dishes alone and went for a Vietnamese brothy soup known as Pho (pronounced fuh). It features rice vermicelli noodles in a flavorful stock of beef, onion, and star anise. Then it is garnished with a handful of super-fresh bean sprouts, herbs, and wedges of fresh lime. It was a cold night and a hot bowl of soup containing mostly vegetables and noodles not only filled my belly with warmth, but it didn’t weigh me down. This choice was compensation for the many big meals I had been blessed with for the previous two weeks.

The trick to compensation is to allow enough light meals in between heavy meals to negate any weight gain from the latter. Compounding extraordinarily heavy meals day after day makes me fat. In my case, since Christmas I have enjoyed tiny bowls of granola in the morning, a piece of fruit with my small sandwich at lunch, and key choices for dinner. This kind of compensation provides forgiveness for the Haagen Dasz Bananas Foster ice cream I refused to pass up at a party yesterday. I know this is breathtakingly simple, yet many of us get on a roll and end up with…an extra roll. Beware the twelve days of Christmas with each day more rich than the last. If last night was meatballs, this morning avoid the French toast and bacon. Say yes to truffles, cinnamon pastry, and egg nog, but go back to the foundation of the food pyramid (vegetables and whole grain), immediately after the splurge—and your backside won’t suffer.

Gingerbread Binge

Ancient civilizations believed they became stronger by eating the organs of their enemies. Considering all the gingerbread men I ate this week, I should be able to pull a freight train with my eyelashes. Why do we binge eat, and why does a “reformed” binger occasionally find herself on the wrong side of the empty M&M dish? This question spends a lot of time being batted around my book discussions because it seems to define the considerable differences between those who battle weight and those that do not. The call of food is loudest to those that don’t want it, while the bowl of Doritos is maddeningly mute to those that seemingly, cannot be bothered to have more than a handful. What is going on here that I bit the heads off three gingerbread men in a row, (cue shocked exclamation), only to polish off the rest of their white frosting, ric rac-enhanced bodies?

My recent holiday overload forced me to re-examine my own compulsive eating; I discovered nothing new. I continue to preach the same gospel of overcoming overeating by giving myself permission to taste that triple-layer chocolate mousse torte with the little chocolate shavings on top. Yes, permission! The phenomenon of compulsive eating is driven by the need to escape—meaning we mentally check out while putting stuff in our mouths. The antidote seems suspiciously simple: taste. Actively allow ourselves to eat. We either tune in and taste the food, or use the action of eating to provide an escape from conscious focus. We simply are not present when we tune out and mentally go to another place. It’s kind of like driving from point A to point B and having little memory of the journey, except it can happen within seconds while we pound the onion dip. The devastating effect of this emotional departure is: we prevent our brains from taking in taste and texture. Without fully involving our minds and souls our brains cannot return the favor by telling us when we are starting to become satisfied, and when to stop. When we actively taste, we assess smell, flavor, texture, quality, freshness—to determine if the food is worthy of us. If we habitually tune out, we never feel “done.”

We are all designed to receive the message of “satisfied,” but only if we “think” like a thin person and truly taste the food going in. That’s it. That is the difference between me and my super-skinny cousin who can eat anything she wants and never gets fat. She doesn’t feel guilty about food and therefore, she tunes in and tastes every bite of crab cheese ball with crackers. When her mind starts to respond with messages of satisfaction, she stops eating because she feels satisfied. Upon examination of my binge, I realize I already enjoyed my chocolate chip cookie for the day and did not really need the gingerbread men. My daily treat quota was fulfilled. But I wanted to celebrate Christmas by eating my holiday handiwork. So, as if I could trick my own body, I tuned out while munching the poor little dears. Because my brain participated in none of the experience, it reliably gave me no cues to stop. One-by-one, I continued to eat (while escaping to the fatty planet), and the carnage expanded to include the full clan.

The funny thing is, without tuning in we deny ourselves the full experience of the food. Whether it is salad or ice cream, without truly tasting, we lose out on the opportunity to be fed on a level our minds and souls can relate to. The very people who live to eat (and struggle with weight) are the same ones failing to experience full contact with their food. How ironic. Can anyone else relate here?

By way of compensation, the next day included cut up vegetables with a squeeze of lemon juice and drizzle of olive oil. I savored the bright red strip of sweet bell pepper and tasted all the crunchy lettuce and cucumber slices on my plate. I even dug into the sour cream dip with a celery stick. It was rich and creamy, but I did not need much. How did I know? Because I tasted with intention, which resulted in feeling full on less veg than I initially intended to eat. From this experience I am again reminded how it feels to escape. I prefer to stay present and taste. So, that’s good. And gingerbread men everywhere have breathed a collective sigh of relief.

By Tres Prier Hatch

Author of: Miracle Pill 10 Truths to Heatlhy, Thin, & Sexy