To spend time with family and take care of some things in my birth country, Bulgaria. If you feel inspired to post something or comment on posts that are up, please do! That would help keep the community thriving while I’m away. And if you don’t wanna do that, that’s totally fine too! If you need to reach me for any reason, direct message is a great way to do that…I’ll be checking those periodically. Sending you a virtual hug from Eastern Europe!

First of all, welcome to our newest members, @Tatyana Madzharova , @Elena Maren , @Elizabeth R , @René Barlow , @Steven Bornstein , @Chelsea Sachs , and @Andrea Lecos !! Relaxation Saturday serves as a reminder for us to take time to relax TODAY, this weekend, and beyond. Relaxing can be as simple as taking a few deep breaths, humming and singing to yourself as you drive somewhere, or as involved as spending an hour in meditation and prayer. Whatever works for you, however you can fit it in, is just right! Sharing some videos of our amazing animals on this relaxation Saturday. Sheep eating grass, guinea hen doing the ancient art of “dirt bathing”… Spending time with animals and watching them just do their thing is one of my favorite ways to relax.

I was grateful and blessed to spend the day yesterday with a cousin I hadn’t seen in over two years. At one point, she asked me what my fasting strategy is, how much I fast every day. I said something like…it varies day to day. I hadn’t really thought about what my fasting strategy is right now. When I started fasting, I had all sorts of plans and strategies. At first, it was 16:8 that I tried. 16:8 helped me curb nighttime binges and balance my blood sugar. Then, I experimented with 18:6. I extended my fasts to 24 hours, 36, and eventually 48. At some point, I got into a pattern of doing two fasts a week of 42 hours, doing one feasting day with 3 meals or more, and the rest of the time doing 16:8, or something like that. Every 3 months, I would do a 3-5 day fast to get into deeper autophagy. This pattern was ReALLY effective for helping me let go of over 70 pounds of excess weight. Most recently though, my pattern is “I do what I feel like.” The technical term for it is IDWIFL :oP It’s been working pretty well for me. I strive for doing at least one fast of 36-42 hours per week, but it doesn’t always happen. Last week, I had 3 days of one meal a day, and one 36 hour fast. This week, I’ve had 3 days of 3 meals a day. For my birthday in the beginning of May, I did a 5 day fast to gift myself stem cells. Then, I parent chaperoned a trip to Catalina Island and didn’t fast at all for a week. Well ok, I fasted once for 18 hours, but that was it. If I find myself feasting a lot, I make it a point to take more pauses in between eating and lean into fasting. If I find myself fasting a lot, I recognize it’s time to feast and throw in a day or two of feasting. I don’t stress about it at all, just strive for having some sort of balance between fasting and feasting. And it works for me :) What’s your fasting strategy? Do you have one? How about a JOY strategy? I’ll share about my joy strategy in the comments.

1.) Spend time daily in deep relaxation, at least an hour throughout the day...more if possible. This is a powerful way to balance and decrease the stress hormone cortisol. The more cortisol you have running through your body, the more your body will gain and hold onto weight like there's no tomorrow. 2.) Take longer pauses between your meals. You can do this by eliminating snacking throughout the day, or extending the time between dinner and breakfast. Doesn't have to be the same pause every day, it's actually great to vary it up, but more time pausing between meals will help you lose weight. Some people call this intermittent fasting. Don't matter what you call it. It works by decreasing insulin and countering insulin resistance. Insulin resistance can make weight loss almost impossible. Similar to cortisol...the more insulin you have running through your body, the more your body will gain weight and refuse to let it go. 3.) Start a Food and Mood Journal. Write down everything you eat, and how you felt while eating and afterwards. No judgment, just data. You can use dirty napkins to write it down, or a fancy journal. Don't matter, just write it. No need to analyze, or think about it after you write it. Simple, straightforward, just write it down. Anything we bring awareness to, we naturally and automatically start to change for the better. As long as we don't judge it and bring shame to this process. 4.) Eat more vegetables and low sugar fruits. If you are looking to let go of weight, strive for at least 50 percent of each meal being veg/fruit. The nutrients from these foods prevent cravings that come from malnourishment. The fiber helps you get full faster and keeps your digestion humming along nicely. These are some of the basic steps I took to let go of over 70 pounds in just a few months. I had an aunt that also let go of a lot of weight during the same time. She worked REALLY hard...exercising daily, for an hour or more, eating special foods. I respect her immensely. I felt guilty sometimes that I was doing less and having similar results. You're welcome to chime in here, in the comments, and share about your amazing transformation, if you'd like @Bev Elton :)

So why not take some time today, right NOW, to connect with JOY and GRATITuDE, and maybe even a dash of DEEP Peace?! Having goals and things to strive for is wonderful…it can give purpose, meaning, and direction to our lives. But, if we WAIT to reach our goals to experience joy, fulfillment, and peace, we may never get to those feelings. The goals we have may not be as fulfilling as we expected when we actually attain them, and… There will always be new goals around the corner to strive for. You can spend a lifetime WAITiNG to feel GOOD. And yet, joy and gratitude are available to us at every moment. We just need to slow down and allow ourselves to feel them. It’s important to create goals and work towards them. And it’s equally important to build our CAPACITY for feeling good along the way. Like anything, the more you practice feeling good, and taking time for joy and positive emotions, the better you get at it! If there is an inner, emotional block to feeling GOOD, there are tools that can help you move past the block… Tools like Tapping, Prayer/Meditation, the emotional tools created by Dr. Laurel Mellin, and many such tools ⚒️ What’s one way that you can slow down and give yourself the experience of JoY, or maybe even BLISS today?