How to Stress Less & Love Yourself More

How to Stress Less & Love Yourself More

Stress & Release We are such creatures of taking everything personally and feeling the weight of hurt and pain, rejection or worth. I love Anthony Hopkins philosophy that it’s none of my business what other’s think of me. The problem is I didn’t know that as a teenager and took EVERYTHING personally. Until a few years ago, well into my thirties, my mind and body was filled with the anguish of thinking I wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, and especially not thin enough… I ended up spending the majority of my life creating my own internal stress and contributing to my

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Lose the Stress and Lose the Weight

Lose the Stress and Lose the Weight

Mind-Body Weight Loss If you’re stressed out, worried, fearful or lonely, the impact on your health is immediate and the hormonal imbalances created are the same imbalances that cause food cravings, which also lead to weight gain. This stress, tension and fear might be a demanding job, a hectic family life, an abusive spouse or any of the millions of emotional challenges we all face in life—but the biochemical result is the same. Your hormones become imbalanced, your food cravings increase, and you’ll very likely gain weight. As time goes on, your cortisol levels rise, your blood sugar sky-rockets, your

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What Works When Dieting Doesn’t

What Works When Dieting Doesn't

Dieting Disasters It annoys and saddens me when people ask, “So what diet do you follow Viki?” Let’s be clear: I DON’T diet. I spent years dieting and it got me nowhere. I tried diet after diet. I was hungry, miserable, tired, cranky and didn’t really learn much at all about myself, my body or why I was eating the way I was, to get to that point in the first place. Following a plan was challenging because I wasn’t allowed to be in control. I had to follow what was laid out in front of me and make myself adhere

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Gluten Free Grain Free Dairy Free Bread Recipe!

Gluten Free Grain Free Dairy Free Bread Recipe!

Don’t Miss Out! I’m a huge believer in never feeling like you’re missing out, especially when it comes to food and food intolerances. It’s simply a matter of finding a way to enjoy similar foods in a healthful way for your individual biochemistry. Foods that your body thrives on! Let’s take bread for example. So many people are showing intolerances to wheat and gluten these days – two things found in many common foods that add bulk to your meals. Below is a fantastic recipe from Tania Hubbard of Gluten Free Grain Free Co. for a small, nutritious, dense bread

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Chocolate Cashew Cheesecake with Salty Caramel & Choc Sauce

Chocolate Cashew Cheesecake with Salty Caramel & Choc Sauce

Decadent AND Healthy! My parents were big on entertaining and hosting parties when I was growing up. We’d often have large groups of people in our backyard and patio indulging on the delights of 80’s finger food and flans. There would usually be a spread of colourful desserts like lemon slice, custard slice, chocolate éclairs, chocolate tarts, lemon tarts, fruit salad, jelly and ice-cream, trifle and of course, cheesecakes! Even though it would be many years until I connected the dots between dairy and the immediate phlegm, biliousness and sick feeling – like you’ve swallowed something well past its’ due

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How Mind-Body Stress is Causing Your Weight Gain

How Mind-Body Stress is Causing Your Weight Gain

Stress and YOUR Belly Many of you know how passionately I feel about educating everyone on STRESS – understanding what it is, your personal stress triggers, how your body responds to YOUR stress, and ways to induce the relaxation response regularly in COUNTERACTING your stress response. Stress affects our whole body – functions and hormones – especially our weight. And weight is something that we all have issues with at some stage in our lives. Cortisol, also known as THE stress hormone and the FAT storing hormone, is a major contributor to our excess belly fat when we’re chronically excreting stress hormones that

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Take positive steps forward and climb mountains of fitness

Take positive steps forward and climb mountains of fitness

Move it or lose it This morning we challenged our fitness climbing Tabletop Mountain, on the Toowoomba range, for the fourth time in a week. spokeconsulting.com/statistics/loans for unemployment benefits Last Saturday morning. Wednesday morning. Friday morning. And today – Sunday morning –  the first time with the children. Last Saturday’s effort was the second time we’d ever climbed this local historic mountain. The first time we climbed it in 2011 was memorable, and not just because we left the water in the car! Rather because: 1. We took the children (slow & dramatic!) 2. It was before Beloveds knee surgery when his

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Benefits of Blending Your Greens for Vitality, Health & Wellbeing

Benefits of Blending Your Greens for Vitality, Health & Wellbeing

Super Greens! Ok, be honest with yourself now. How many percentage of leafy greens, vegetables and fruits do you eat in a day? A week? What percentage of your nutrient intake is processed, packaged, refined and tinned or loaded with fat, sugar and salt? Just allowing yourself some time to consider what you’re actually eating and putting into your body can be a realisation that your eating habits and choices perhaps aren’t so healthy after all. Depending on whether your diet is predominantly full of leafy greens, vegetables and fruits or packed full of chemicals, toxins, fat, sugar and salt, you

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The Most Important Message You’ll Read Today

The Most Important Message You'll Read Today

The Inside Job Do you ever look in the mirror and make a point of finding something positive about yourself – instead of only seeing the bits you don’t like and want to change? So many people wait for the right moment or circumstance before they allow themselves to be happy: “When I’m thin, I’ll be happy. After I’m married, I’ll be happy. When I’m driving that car, working in that job, feel like I deserve it… then I’ll be happy.” How would you like to: > look in the mirror and love your reflection? > feel positive about yourself and your life?

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Transform your mind, body and life for wellness

Transform your mind, body and life for wellness

From Medication to Freedom! How my Achieving Your Wellness coaching program has helped my client move from medication to freedom. I have an intelligent, insightful and attractive young client who came to meet and work with me late last year in 2013. At only 18 she had spent years on anti-depressants suffering low moods, unhappiness, isolation and body image concerns that bordered on disordered eating. Her dreams of travel, true happiness, connection and vibrant health were being hindered by limiting beliefs and unhealthy habits and behaviours. She came to me with a desperate need to combat the life she had created for herself and turn

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Healthy & Easy Sweet Summer Rolls

Healthy & Easy Sweet Summer Rolls

Sugar Free Goodness Healthy and nutritious snacks for the kids using three ingredients. Yes! Only THREE! You can buy a version of these snacks at the supermarkets and fruit shops but when it’s so easy to make your own on demand and know exactly what’s in them… why buy them? These yummy Sweet Summer Rolls are naturally sweetened, full of fibre, minerals, vitamins, bit of protein and healthy fats. They’re also vegan, raw, paleo and gluten free. An easy, ready snack to make healthy eating and whole-food nourishment a cinch! You simply need a food processor and some baking paper. Quick Nutritional

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Women’s Wellness & Meditation Retreat Sneak Peek + Q & A with Viki

Women's Wellness & Meditation Retreat Sneak Peek + Q & A with Viki

Women’s Wellness I am very excited to announce that my first Women’s Wellness & Meditation Retreat is now confirmed and set for October 10th – 13th! This has been many years of dreams and hard work and now finally I can bring my life, work and personal experience all together in these 4 special days to share with you 🙂 To make it very easy to get a sense of the purpose, aim and intention of my Women’s Retreat, we recorded a short Q & A video, plus an even shorter personal tour video of the beautiful venue, Woodlands of Marburg.

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How I let go of holiday stress & returned to energy, balance & breath

How I let go of holiday stress & returned to energy, balance & breath

Breathe, Relax, Let Go! Happy Wellness Wednesday Friends! 🙂 After the chaos and energy-focused Christmas and school holidays, I realised how much I had compromised my daily self-care practices for other “stuff” that really weren’t a priority. Did you do that too? As soon as I realised my energy, enthusiasm and moods were diminishing I took the warning signs to heart and immediately returned to my heart centre and breath. I knew I was missing and needed my daily self-care of meditation, full breath and mindfulness to keep on top of my self-talk, exercise and food choices.  So I shifted priorities to nourish myself first, and very soon balance

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How to Combat Stress in Daily Life + New Toowoomba Meditation Classes

How to Combat Stress in Daily Life + New Toowoomba Meditation Classes

To Fight or Flight ? Understand your stress responses  PLUS 10 Tips to combat stress in daily life! Stress: A pesky little word that gets tossed around a great deal in modern day life. We stress about things, we feel stressed by stuff, and situations are stressful… But do you really understand stress, and more importantly, how it affects your body? To combat stress, our bodies have a built-in protection mechanism called the Fight or Flight response. Normal day to day interactions aren’t likely to cause us physical harm, so most of the time our body is (or it should be!)

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New Women’s Wellness & Meditation Retreat in 2014!

New Women's Wellness & Meditation Retreat in 2014!

NEW Women’s Wellness Retreat + Group Coaching Course! This year I turn 40! My dream has always been to host a Women’s Wellness + Meditation Retreat – the kind of spiritual experience that I myself would love to go to and share with like-minded souls; the kind of retreat where you are fully allowed to immerse yourself into your inner world and give yourself permission to let go of the past and rebuild or strengthen your most important relationship… (hint: it’s with YOURSELF!) What better way to celebrate my 40th year than to host my very own inaugural MindBodyFood “Women’s Wellness + Meditation Retreat“

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