Episode 68 - Andrea Albright, Weight Loss Coach: Conscious Eating in 2009!

Transcript

Welcome to Just for Women, Dating, Relationships and Sex.  I am your host Alissa Kriteman.  This show is dedicated to providing today’s modern women with useful information they make empowered conscious choices.  On the show today, we’re talking about sustainable health and wellness.  We will be looking at the importance of being conscious about the nutrition choices we make.  Today on the show, we’re going to talk about what’s actually in the food we’re consuming, food addiction, why diets fail and of course what can we do to change and sustain healthy eating patterns.  Out guess today is Andrea Albright, Health and Wellness Coach.

People who succeed long-term, they need a stable foundation and it require these four pillars just like the four walls of a house or the four wheels of car, if you don’t have one these pillars, you’re never going to go anywhere.  It’s going to fall apart and so the four pillars are 1) the physical body.  The second pillar is your emotional self.  The third pillar is the mental self and then the fourth pillar is one that I don’t believe we really talk about very often and that is the spiritual pillar.

You’re going to start noticing that you feel differently when you eat natural food.  Notice how you feel not while you’re eating the food because, again food scientists have deciphered the human taste bud so that experience while you’re eating it is probably – a can, it will be full of chemicals because all your senses are all firing and your neurological network is on fire, start really looking at the ongoing energy that you’re getting from food.  Look at it 20 minutes after, then look at it 2 hours.  You should be sustained with energy, happiness, positive thought for 2 hours and yes, your food really does affect your thinking.

Food addiction, first of all is a word that is used so much in our culture that it’s lost its meaning.  People will self identify being food addicts and they say, “oh, I am a chocaholic” or you know, I have an addictive personality or I am a carboholic.  Then you heard all these variations of food addiction label and what this does is that it really distorts the true definition of addition.

Alissa Kriteman: So Andrea, welcome to Just for Women.

Andrea Albright: Hi, thank you so much.  I am so glad to be here.

Alissa Kriteman: So Andrea Albright is a spiritual weight loss coach with an undergraduate degree in biology.  She is a certified yoga instructor and author of “Andrea’s Answer: How to Lose Weight by Feeding and Nourishing Your Spirit”.  So Andrea I think my listeners really care about how we can learn to make better nutritional choices especially in this age of genetically modified food, chemicals, toxins, all that.  So I am really happy to have you on the show today.

Andrea Albright: Thank you, I am really glad to be here.  I think you already mentioned a word that sums all of that up – conscious.  Really that’s what it’s about, just being aware and being able to access your higher levels of consciousness when you’re faced with making a decision, I am running low on time, I am stressed out, my body is telling me I am going to fall apart if I don’t eat something, so what do I chose.  And it’s really about bringing consciousness into those parts of our life because it’s easy when you’re relaxed or maybe you’re on a retreat or you come out of a yoga class and you feel so great and you’re like, I just want to eat a salad; I just want to be totally in this, but how do you bring about state of being from our higher self where we make healthy choices so it becomes a daily practice, even when your life is stressed.

Alissa Kriteman: You’re singing to the choir.

Andrea Albright: How did I know that maybe you could relate?  I can relate.  I have lived through it and I battled with my weight for years.  I started gaining weight as a teenager, obesity runs in my family and I really thought that that was my destiny.  It was very ironic because I was studying biology and I knew so much science, I understood the body and I had all these information but I never had the inspiration to apply it.  And that was the big switch that happened.  After I graduated from college, I was 50 pounds heavier than I had started.  I was the heaviest I had ever been, after yo-yo dieting up and down for years, and then something happened.  I made an accidental discovery where I tapped in to my spirit and I realized that there is a part of me that wants to love my body and this relationship that I had had, I had so much anger and was so mad at my body because I could not force it to lose weight.  Even though I knew what to do, I had all the information, but until I realized I need the inspiration.  The inspiration is what brought on the awareness.

Alissa Kriteman: And so did something happen?  I mean you said you were in college, you knew all these information and yet nothing was really shifting.  What was the thought that you had in your mind?

Andrea Albright: I love that question.  It was actually a lack of thought.  I learned how to meditate, I learned how to quiet my mind, relax the chattering monkey mind, that part of your brain that’s always going, you need to do this and you need to do that and oh, I hate those fat thighs and that belly [xx] and it was just so loud inside of my head that I believed it.  I thought that that was my truth.  And then I had an experience with meditation where I got a glimpse of quiet, of peace and I thought that voice is not me, all that chatter, all that noise, all that body hatred, that’s not the real me.  And it was enough of a glimpse for me to keep seeking it and to keep searching it and it’s been over 9 years since I first started practicing meditation and that awareness that there is a place of peace and love inside of yourself and myself and each one of us, for lack of a better word we can call it the spirit or the higher consciousness, the higher self and when you can connect to that and make choices from that place, it doesn’t become about how can I force my body to lose weight, it’s actually how can I give my body health.  You change your focus because you realize I love this body.  I want to give the body health. 

Alissa Kriteman: That’s an interesting perspective.  I really like that.  Instead of trying to force something, you shifted to how can I give my body what it needs.

Andrea Albright: Exactly.

Alissa Kriteman: You’ve developed four pillars to weight loss.

Andrea Albright: Um-hmm.

Alissa Kriteman: Tell us a little about that.

Andrea Albright: Well, the four pillars of weight loss is what I write about in my book and that is what I really build my life and my clients that I coached and I have seen people who succeed long-term, they need a stable foundation and it requires these four pillars, just like the four walls of a house or the four wheels of car.  If you don’t have one these pillars, you’re never going to go anywhere.  It’s going to fall apart and so the four pillars are 1) the physical body.  So how you eat, how you exercise, taking care of your physical body.  The second pillar is your emotional self.  So, your heart centre, how you process your emotions.  If you have healthy and loving relationship, that is the second pillar.  The third pillar is the mental self.  Everything that’s happening inside of your mind.  I have already told you that it was by quieting my mind that I was able to reach a higher place in myself and the mental pillar is so important because this is where you deal with yourself limiting belief and you also reprogram your thoughts to think positively and that is so important when you are wanting to get healthy, to use your thoughts to guide you, to help you through that process, instead of sabotaging yourself with your thoughts and your negative dialogue all the time.  And then the fourth pillar is one that I don’t believe we really talk about very often.  You may have psychologists talking about behavior in the mind and emotion, which is all very important and then of course we have so much fitness and exercise awareness out there, but this fourth pillar is really something that u believe our culture is not communicating as openly as we should and that is the spiritual pillar, that there is something bigger than just being in this body with the mind and the body and the feelings, there is something that we can’t quite explain or describe.  But we have all touched it at some point in our life.  It maybe when you are lost in a flow state where you’re creating art or maybe you’re writing or you’re singing or you’re doing something where it truly stops time and you don’t feel like you’re really in your body anymore.  It’s not, it’s because you’re in that spiritual state, you’re tapped into your higher self.  It may also come when you’re with your loved ones.  When you feel like you just love them so much that you just can’t even contain it inside of yourself.  That’s also that space, that realm whatever that is, it’s difficult to explain or describe but it is the most important part of getting healthy, losing weight and transcending to a higher level so that this journey that you’re on is not about counting calories and torturing yourself and hating this body that won’t lose weight, it’s about an opening to your higher self so that it can’t come through and so that you make those conscious choices in times that really mattered, which is everyday of your life really matters.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, it sounds like the spiritual component could literally be the foundation because if you don’t have that connection which so many people do, right, which is probably why the yo-yo thing happens.

Andrea Albright: Yeah.

Alissa Kriteman: If that lack of connection to what really lights you up where you’re in that flow where time seems endless, if you don’t have access to that, I can’t imagine that the other components could really stand up.  And that’s what you’re saying and I think that’s why, you know, like you said it’s such a crowded area, health, but what people are missing is this aspect of why do I even want to lose weight, how did I even gain weight.  You know, what is at the core of this yo-yo thing.  I mean, look at Oprah, right?  She is starting to talk now about this yo-yo thing.

Andrea Albright: Exactly.

Alissa Kriteman: And what’s going on and what has been missing there so I appreciate what you’re saying about this spiritual aspect.  And you know it’s so mediation is a way to access it.  What are some other ways that we can connect with this seemingly all important aspect?

Andrea Albright: That’s a great question, I love that.  Before I answer that, I want to just touch on Oprah really quickly because she is doing so many things right.  She is first of all committed to this and she absolutely believes that she is going to get this.  And the one thing that she hasn’t made the connection is like you said this belief that it can’t be a spiritual surrender and Oprah is a very spiritual person.  She has done so much to spread the consciousness of spirituality in our world and yet she still hasn’t made that connection, but the way she cares for her physical body actually affects her physical self.  And so by choosing junk food, you’re harming your spirit.  When you miss workouts or you get overstressed and you don’t take time for yourself, it’s not just hurting your body, your body is a symptom and it’s expressing itself.  But like you said, when you really get that connection it’s a joy, it’s a beautiful journey and it’s an honor to care for your body.  It’s not longer an effort or a struggle, you just continue to get healthier and healthier and you’re right, the yo-yo dieting doesn’t happen anymore. 

Alissa Kriteman: I love you energy. 

Andrea Albright: Oh, thank you.

Alissa Kriteman: And this is another thing too before we take a short break.  You know when we’re eating candy bars and things that have no energy, we’re not going to get sustainable energy. 

Andrea Albright: Right.

Alissa Kriteman: And that’s one thing I really learnt and I think it does connect into spirit which is energy, it’s like wow, it’s really starting to get conscious like you said about what we are putting into our body, knowing that what goes in is so going to have a deep effect on our mood, our attitude, our ability to work, our ability to feel good about ourselves.  It’s like this whole interconnected process but I think we have been missing that and that’s why I wanted to talk to you today because I think it’s so important to put this in especially the spiritual piece.  So we’re going to take a short break to support our sponsors and listeners, I would love for you to listen to these ads, they’re created by my sponsors for Just For Women and they help me bring these great experts like Andrea Albright to you.  So if you can support them, I would really appreciate it.  This is Alissa Kriteman, I am with Andrea Albright and we’ll be right back to talk more about the foundations of lasting health and wellness.

This is Kerry Garrison with Camera Dojo, if you would like to make the most out of your photography come check us out at the Camera Dojo podcast at personallifemedia.com. 

Hello, it’s Alissa Kriteman, host of Just for Women, Dating, Relationships and Sex, and have I got some juicy news for you.  Right now when you go to adamandeve.com, you will get 50 percent off nearly every erotic product of your choice when you type in the special code word, “women”.  With the holidays coming, it’s the perfect time to treat yourself to a night of outrageous pleasure alone or with a partner.  So tell your girlfriends, 50 percent off, DVDs, sex kits and toys galore.  And if you spend more than $17.00, you will get a free gift.  So check out adamandeve.com for 50 per cent off most items with the special code word “women”.

Alissa Kriteman: We’re back!  I’m Alissa Kriteman.  We’re talking to Andrea Albright about how we can learn to love our bodies, connect with our spirit and really utilize these four pillars: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual legs to have the kind of health that we want to have in our lives and make lasting change.  So, Andrea let’s talk a little bit about willpower and you mention something: willpower versus the amazing machine.  What are you talking about?

Andrea Albright: Yeah, willpower versus the amazing machine; the amazing machine is you.  It’s your body, it’s your mind, it’s the way the body and the mind are connected and are actually one.  You know they are doing more and more studies now that it’s not like we’ve got these six figures where we got a head at the top and then out bodies are kind of dangling down there.  The mind and the body are one.  The neuroscientists are discovering an entire neural network in the gut region in the abdomen which actually functions like a second brain.  So we are processing emotion sensation throughout our entire body so that idea first of all, that the mind and body are one, ancient cultures have known it for maybe thousands of years, but in the West, we are just now starting to have scientific proof to back that up, which is really great.  But so yeah the amazing machine is you.  The way you’re made, you are designed perfectly and what we have happen in the last 20-30 years of dieting obsession is that people are trying to trick their body into losing weight.  They are trying to trick it long enough to get some temporary result and then what do you know, it blows back up again.  Of course, because you cannot trick the amazing machine.  It’s been evolving for, who knows, how long and it was designed by something far miraculously than we will ever be able to know or understand.  So it’s best to work with your body.  Understand the science and then also have an appreciation for this amazing interconnected beauty that is changing moment by moment, breath by breath.  What happens when people go on diet and want to lose weight is they get so inspired, perhaps they hear a radio show like this show and they go, yeah, I am determined, I am going to lose.  And they feel this burst of enthusiasm.  This is what is willpower and willpower is great.  If we get it, it’s one of the greatest gifts that we can ever have but yet it’s limited.  It does not last.  And in that burst of enthusiasm, your misconception is that I am going to continue this level of enthusiasm.  But if anyone who’s ever promised that they are going to workout tomorrow and think, yeah I am still gung-ho, I can’t wait, oh man, I just wish I could workout right now, but then the alarm clock goes off the next morning, they rollover and they got, oh god, I just can’t do it.  Well, it’s because their willpower has run out.  It’s a very powerful burst of enthusiasm and energy but it does not last and so what you need to do is learn how to use those bursts of enthusiasm and willpower and setup success that will be inevitable.  Use the enthusiastic burst to understand your body so that you can work with it and maybe a better idea would be in that enthusiastic willpower burst, go clean out all of our cupboards, take out all the junk food, all the processed food, read the ingredient labels and figure out what food have chemicals in them and get rid of them, because that enthusiasm could do that is probably going to last maybe 10 minutes, if you’re lucky.  So use that time to actually do something that will prevent any kind of body sabotage or set you up for success.  So maybe go and book a personal training session for the next morning to show up.  So that would guarantee that you have already paid for it, you have already taken out your credit card and you’re going to lose money if you don’t show up.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Andrea Albright: But if you just expect that you’re going to have willpower, you’re never going to – and then people think I am broken, I am weak.  But it’s not you, it’s the way we’ve bee trained to diet and lose weight and it doesn’t work.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, sounds like we have to go beyond enthusiasm.  Going beyond enthusiasm, it’s a whole new book.  I like that, setting up success, having ourselves be accountable to other people and I think that really makes a difference.  To do that and even put some money down like you said, you know, like really, if you’re really serious to do that.  Now you were talking about how we can’t trick the body and we have to work with.  So how are some ways that we can work with the body in learning more about how to eat and what to eat, what are some guidelines?

Andrea Albright: That’s a great question.  Basically the body can process what it knows.  Okay?  That’s a very simple way to look at it.  You really want to give your body what it can do, what it can use and think about how your body has been connected to an environment for tens of thousands of years.  Only recently have we been living in the concrete structures and separated from nature and now we introduced chemicals into our food.  It just happened 50 years ago.  I don know if you know that Alissa, but before that people ate natural food that grew from the ground and it was about 50 years ago that scientists and food manufacturers got together and they started studying the human taste bud and they realize, I can make products that stimulate the human taste bud and then they will buy more of my food.  And so therefore they integrated science and food and we have processed foods, which are what we have in the abundance of our Western world.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, it’s kind of frightening.

Andrea Albright: It is frightening.

Alissa Kriteman: I have read “Fast Food Nation” and I think if anyone wants to start on the road to personal health and wellness, read that book.

Andrea Albright: It’s crazy.  And so basically we have been as lab rats, because they didn’t know what these chemicals were going to do.  They’re brand new chemicals and now they are abandoned and they are everywhere, and so the obesity epidemic has skyrocketed, depression, anxiety, all kinds of diabetes, cancer, these modern age illnesses are preventable.  You don’t have to just feel like, because I live in the modern world, I am victim of all these other diseases.  It can be prevented by going back to the natural diet, eating food that comes from nature.  So it’s important to read the ingredients on everything that you eat.  The first thing I teach my clients is stop counting calories because calories are an obsession that didn’t work.  Calories have failed us, your body doesn’t care about calories, your body cares about nutrition.  And so nobody likes to count math all day and it’s torture.  So don’t count calories, count chemicals.  I call it my CCC Rule.  Stop counting calories, start counting chemicals.  So on the back read the ingredients.  If there are chemicals in that food, if you don’t know what they are, if you can pronounce those words, you do not want that food in your body.  It’s a chemical, your body will go what the hell is this, I can’t digest it, I can’t use it for energy to make new cells so you know what I am just going to – it caused toxicity and it reacts like it’s been attacked by a germ or an invasion, which it is, it’s a chemical.  And so you’re actually hurting your body versus going back to natural foods.  Natural food is like medicine to your body.  Your body gets it and goes, ah, I know exactly what to do with this, I am going to give you life energy, I am going to make new cells, I am going to make you feel great.

Alissa Kriteman: So say someone is listening in and they are thinking, man but I eat a lot of processed foods, I snack on things that are processed, how would you recommend someone – because I know in our society today, the whole green thing, organic nutrition, it’s definitely in our consciousness now.  It’s in the newspapers, it’s in the media that we have got to pay attention to the planets and recall and do all these things to be aware and start to eat these foods that actually are going to help us.  But what is a process or a way that people who find themselves extremely busy at work, who don’t have time to make these luscious nutritious, healthy, organic meals, what can they do to get off the addiction of chemical laden gem of foods?

Andrea Albright: Well, this is a great question and it’s something that I have been on this journey myself, because I don’t have a lot of money and I can’t afford all organic foods and I don’t have time in my day.  I am very busy and so as a modern woman with stress and obligations, how have I been able to switch over to natural foods.  And it’s very simple that I just follow the CCC Rule.  I always read the ingredients and instead of snacking on things like chips or cookies or crackers, I snack on almonds.  I buy a bag of almonds at the grocery store and raw and salted almonds and I read the ingredient label and it says, almond.  Hey, I know what that is.  I can eat that.

Alissa Kriteman: It’s not even salted?

Andrea Albright: It’s no salt there or anything.  It’s like, I mean and you can make baby steps I mean you need to get salt, you know, at least you know what salt is.  Base is potassium mono hydrate chlorifirate, I mean you don’t know what’s that doing to do to your body and that’s what the chemicals are in the processed foods.  If it comes in a package or a wrapper or it’s frozen, they got to put stuff in there to keep it alive that long for it to not decay.  So my point is read the ingredients.  I eat things like peanut butter, you know, peanut butter and salt.  I know what that is.  I eat apples everyday, I eat bananas, I eat egg whites, I eat a lot.  You know egg whites, I eat salmon, I eat spinach; these are all foods, they have one name, they come from nature and you know exactly what you’re eating.  And they have made them convenient.  You can buy these foods at any grocery store or you can buy them online.  You know, in today’s world you can find health food stores online.

Alissa Kriteman: So what do you recommend for people who maybe intermediate?  So that was the novice right?

Andrea Albright: Uh-huh.

Alissa Kriteman: Doesn’t really know what’s going on, snack fruits, vegetables, almonds, it’s not that hard, it’s just a matter of making better choices.  You’re in the grocery store even if it’s not organic, get fruits, don’t get the ---

Andrea Albright: You have one ingredient that you understand.  The best foods don’t even have labels on them, like broccoli, doesn’t have an ingredient label on it, because there is one ingredient.  It’s broccoli.  That’s all you got to eat.  So stick to those foods that are just one ingredient. 

Alissa Kriteman: Right.  So you would recommend non-organic broccoli over a Twinkie?

Andrea Albright: Oh, totally.  If you can’t make the organic switch yet, just go natural.  Go natural!  You know, it’s about it’s really because your body is going to know what to do with that broccoli even if it’s a conventionally grown broccoli.

Alissa Kriteman: Alright.  So what do you say to people who – they have been eating fruits for a while, they make their own foods, they pack it, they are in the practice of making dinner before and taking it for lunch and you know ---

Andrea Albright: That’s my point.  Don’t skip over that because yeah, make dinner and then make enough so that your food the next day, you make two meals at least at every time you make, so you’ve got two meals there.

Alissa Kriteman: So if you’re already doing that, how do you take your nutrition even deeper?  How do you become even more conscious, like the intermediate healthy person, what are some recommendations for maybe intermediate and advanced?

Andrea Albright: I love it!  Okay, so intermediate to advanced, once you realized, you’re going to start noticing that you feel differently when you eat natural food.  And I want you to really pay attention to that.  Notice how you feel not while you’re eating the food because, again food scientists have deciphered the human taste bud so that experience while you’re eating it is probably – it can be a can, it will be full of chemicals because all your senses are all firing and your neurological network is on fire, you’re consuming a drug is what it is.  A bunch of chemicals, you’re having a drug induced state.  But how do you feel 20 minutes after you eat it?  So you will notice that when you processed food, 20 minute, you feel like crap.  You feel horrible, start really looking at the ongoing energy that you’re getting from food.  Look at it 20 minutes after, then look at it two hours, you should be sustained with energy and happiness, positive thoughts for two hours and yes, your food really does affect your thinking.  So, just do that experiment, eat processed food, notice it at 20 minutes, notice it at two hours and you’ll see a huge difference when you’re eating the natural foods.  Another thing you can start to do is before you ever eat foot, tune into it.  Take a moment to just connect with that food.  This is an opportunity for you to be grateful, for one, that you are a conscious person who’s making a conscious choice.  Even if this food you know is not for your highest good, be conscious of it.  And so, spending a moment, I actually put my hands over the food and I tune into the vibration of it, I look at the health, I look at the color, I look at what the food is and really this food is giving its life for you.  This food isn’t going to be dead in a moment if it’s not dead already so that you can live.  So, there’s an exchange of energy that’s happening.  The more grateful you are for that, the more the universe will reward you.  It’s really – this is what we were talking about at the beginning of being conscious.  How do you bring consciousness into your day-to-day life?  And every time you eat something, it’s an opportunity and a gift to be conscious, to be grateful.  And so, you know, some traditions have blessings and all of that and that’s beautiful.  Have your own personal relationship with the food that you’re eating, whether it’s a blessing or not, but just tuning into the food to where you’re like, “Hey, thanks for doing what you’re about to do for me.  I’m really grateful.”

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, I like that.  I actually have that.  It’s a part of my book, you know, like ,giving gratitude is so important and it’s so important to be grateful for the fresh healthy options we have now in our world.

Andrea Albright: Most people are starving and so here we are, we live in abundance and we are not starving in this world.  Do you know how lucky and how can we not be grateful for that.

Alissa Kriteman: Got to give our gratitude.

Andrea Albright: Ought to give it.

Alissa Kriteman: All right.  So, we’re going to take another short break to support our sponsors.  Again listeners, these are my sponsors, kicking down some great deals for you.  So, if you can support then, I will really appreciate it.  Also, feel free to send me an email at [email protected].  Also, you can call me and leave me a message at 206-350-5333.  It’s a great way for you to get on the show.  So, if you have a question, leave it for me and we will tape it and we will have some of our experts address any questions that you have.  I’d also love your feedback and any ideas you have for guests you want to listen to here on Just for Women.  So, I’m your host, Alissa Kriteman, we’re talking with Andrea Albright, and we will be right back to talk more about food addictions and how we can learn to break old habits that no longer serve us.  We’ll be right back.

--- BREAK ---

Alissa Kriteman: We’re back, I’m Alissa Kriteman.  I’m speaking with Andrea Albright.  So, she’s been giving us some really awesome information about what w can do to be more conscious about the food choices that we make and how important it is to connect with the spirit of the food.  Oh no, it makes a huge difference and I’m glad that now in our society, in our culture, in our media that we’re connecting more and more with these ideas.  So Andrea, let’s talk now about food addictions, you know, and how it can overcome them.

Andrea Albright: Right.  Food addictions, first of all, is a word that is used so much in our culture that it’s lost its meaning.  People self-identify being food addicts and they say, oh, I’m a chocoholic.  Or that, you know, I have an addictive personality, oh, I’m a carboholic.  Then you’ve heard all these variations of food addiction labels and what this does is that it really distorts the true definition of addiction and a lot of research has been done on addiction in the human mind and it turns out that what we think is this physical craving, you know, I got to have chocolate, it’s actually psychological.  Addictions are mostly in the minds and when you can realize that addictions do not happen in a blink of an eye, it happens over the course of time.  So, what we’re rally looking at is habituation.  What are your habits?  And so renaming addiction to habituation takes a little bit of the stigma off of that word.  So, in my book, I talk about how to realize that what you have here is an ongoing habit.  It’s your habituation and that it does mostly grasp in the mind.  So, just like when you’ve got your self-identifying beliefs that I’m a chocoholic, I’m a carb addict and all of that, let’s use your words in your mind to reframe that.  To actually say, I’m a freethinking individual, I am a new person today than I was yesterday.  I am creating myself with purpose and intention.  So, start in your mind by re-associating, the words that you use to define yourself because if you always go around going, I’m a carboholic, I’m a chocoholic, then you’re going to be one forever.  And I’m telling you, you don’t have to be one.  It starts in you just believing that you can be better.

Alissa Kriteman: I like that.  So, it’s kind of like you are what you think and you are what you speak?

Andrea Albright: Absolutely.  And that’s really just the first step.  In my book, I go through an entire chapter of what addiction is and actually habituation and how to undo these bad habits that we’ve gone into.  The thing about eating is that unlike an alcoholic or a heroin addict or a nicotine addict, who can just avoid the drugs that you’re addicted to, you have to eat everyday of your life.  And so, if you are a food habituated person and you have negative food habituations, it’s something that you do have to face everyday of your life.

Alissa Kriteman: Right.

Andrea Albright: And so it’s a different animal and, you know, unlike an alcoholic who could just avoid bars forever, it’s not the same way for a negatively food habituated person.  But there is a process you can break free of it.  I observed this in my own self and after studying yoga and the ancient sutra text, which are 5,000 years old, turn out humans were struggling with the same things back then that we struggle with today.  And it has a lot of my studies through yoga philosophy and then also psychology and I’ve broken – I’ve basically written down a formula for how you can break free of any addiction of any habit that you are ready to let go of.  And that’s just kind of a very first start of realizing that using your mind is really the biggest leverage that you have.

Alissa Kriteman: Is that sort of the nutshell that you have to start noticing what these thought patterns are that you’ve been really habitually thinking, what you’re speaking and then obviously what you’re consuming.

Andrea Albright: Right.

Alissa Kriteman: So, is that -- is there a part of the model that you haven’t mentioned?

Andrea Albright: Well yes, there’s actually five major steps to it.  And that’s just the beginning and that’s a great place to start is to start noticing what do I use my words, what are these words that I self-labeled.  So, catch yourself when you’re saying, I’m a sugar addict, a weakness to, you know, ice cream.  Start recognizing that in yourself.  And then I want to tell you that the last step is the transcendence because you and I are both wired in pretty much the same way and it turns out the mind loves to be addicted.  It loves to be addicted to things.  That’s the nature of our mind and the human mind is amazing.  And again, we want to work with the mind instead of trying to change it for what it is.  So, a transcendence step, the very last step is where you replace that old habitual negative habit with a new one and it turns out that now, I am a full-on addict.  You know what I’m addicted to?  Health.

Alissa Kriteman: I like it.

Andrea Albright: I’m addicted to health.  It’s a positive addiction that I have replaced.  I used to be addicted to red meat, I’ve been addicted to sugar, I have been addicted to carb and pasta and bread.  I no longer eat any of these foods anymore and I’ve broken my habitual negative addiction to them and I observe the process and I’ve taught other people how to do it.  So, regardless if you want to break free from sugar or red meat or red wine or, you know, carbs or processed foods or even if it’s negative relationships or, you know, self-limiting beliefs and self-sabotaging yourself, it’s all the same process because you replaced the old negative addiction with a new positive one.

Alissa Kriteman: Well, I really like that.  I could talk to you all day about this.

Andrea Albright: Yes.

Alissa Kriteman: We are running out of time though.

Andrea Albright: Okay.

Alissa Kriteman: But I want to ask you one final question before we go and that is, if there was just one practice you could recommend to the audience for living a healthy and fit life, what would it be?

Andrea Albright: I love this question.  The breath.  Learn about your breathing.  Your breath is the one thing in life that carries you through your life.  You can live for weeks without food, you can live for days without water, you can only live for a few moments without a breath.  So obviously, something’s going on in the breath.  This is where a life-force life energy and your higher awareness comes from.  It’s amazing because words like inspiration, respiration, these comes from the root word, “to breathe” and you know, to respire, to inspire to breathe in, to expire to breathe out.  But then we also have these words, inspiration.  It comes from the root word, “inspíritus”, which is Latin, to bring in the spirit.  Spíritus is Latin, it’s also the word “for breath” in Latin.  So back in the ancient days, they understood that the spirit and the breath are one and that the spirit travels on the breath, which is why we have the words “inspiration” which means to breathe in and it also means to bring in the spirit, the same thing. 

Alissa Kriteman: Yes.  It’s interesting because when you die, that’s the one thing, your body’s still there, but your breath is gone.

Andrea Albright: You live on the breath.  You come in on a breath, you leave on a breath.  Everything in between is breathing.  So, learning how to – just loving your breath, it’s a relationship that you will never exhaust.  It’s like a best friend that is always there for you.  You don’t have to be – have a lot of money.  You don’t have to have any of money, your breath is free, even if you’re in jail, if somebody locks you up, you still have your breath.  That’s not a coincidence, it’s because your life-force travels through that medium.  So, the more you can connect to your breath and appreciate your breath for all that it does, by having conscious breathing in your life, I teach meditation, I teach breathing, because that’s the leverage, the biggest leverage where a person can transcend into their higher self, into their spirit.

Alissa Kriteman: I love it.  Andrea Albright, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and insight and research and all these incredible content today ---

Andrea Albright: That is my honor.

Alissa Kriteman: --- so we can be healthy.

Andrea Albright: Thank you.  Thank you for your audience and for each person who’s listening, every women who is receiving this message today, I am just honored to be on this path with you.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes, thank you.  And more and more– the more I talk to experts, the more theirs – maybe it’s me that I’m sort of, interested in these people who were talking about spirit and breath and as well as practical useful tools for changing our lives, but really common denominator time and time again is chilling out and connecting with our bodies, with our breath and using those as vehicles to change your mind and develop new habits.  It’s like, “wow!  It’s been here the whole time.”

Andrea Albright: Exactly.

Alissa Kriteman: We need these reminders.  So, thank you for reminding us.

Andrea Albright: My pleasure.  Thank you for what you represent in this container that you’re bringing all these new awarenesses because you’re right, there is a consciousness that’s happening.  I think it’s a quickening of the planet and we are talking with higher awareness because we’re searching for it and we’re longing for it and like you said, it’s so simple, it’s like Dorothy’s red shoes.  It’s been with us all the time.

Alissa Kriteman: Who knew?  And they look great.

Andrea Albright: And they look great too, sparkly.

Alissa Kriteman: Can you tell us how we can find you?

Andrea Albright: Go to amazingbodynow.com.  I have a free newsletter, I send out every few days and that’s the best place to stay up-to-date with all my products and all my projects and I also have a YouTube channel at youtube.com/amazingbodynow.  I have lots of videos and I encourage you to stay connected to me because I am really committed to bringing the latest in scientific evidence to, like you said, bring out what we’ve always known so that you can have practical advice and be inspired to live your highest self.  It really is a great time to be alive.

Alissa Kriteman: Thank you for reminding us of that, especially nowadays.

Andrea Albright: Yes.  It is a great time to be alive.  We have access to more awareness and the potential to have so much happiness and freedom in our daily life and freedom from our minds and, you know, the tools are there for the person who is seeking.

Alissa Kriteman: Exactly.  Practice, practice, practice.  Thank you so much.

Andrea Albright: Thank you.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes.  That brings us to the end of the show and thank you everyone for listening.  For text and transcripts of this show and other shows on the Personal Life Media Network, please visit our website at personallifemedia.com.  And for a copy of my book, Alissa’s Four Cornerstones to Living Your Dreams, just go to my website sacredspot.org and click on the book cover icon.  I’m your host, Alissa Kriteman, always expanding your choices here on Just for Women, Dating, Relationship & Sex.  Tune in next week for more juicy news you can use.