CROCKPOT CHICKEN SAUSAGE, PEPPERS AND ONIONS

It’s so nice to come home to a hot meal!

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in pan and brown the sausage, set aside to cool.

2. Chop onion and peppers, add to pan, cook until softened, then add garlic. Cook for 1-2 minutes then add to crockpot. Once sausage is cooled, cut into 1-inch pieces and add to the crockpot.

3. Cook on low for five hours.

“My favorite thing to do is teach how to cook easy, healthy, budget-friendly meals with minimal ingredients!”

Jaime Alonso, certified health coach

I received my initial training and certification as a wellness coach at Spencer Institute. I then continued my training as a health coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition’s cutting-edge health coach training program. During my training, I studied more than100 dietary theories, practical lifestyle management techniques, and innovative coaching methods with some of the world’s top health and wellness experts. My teachers included Dr. Andrew Weil, director of The Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine; Dr. Deepak Chopra, leader in the field of mindbody medicine; Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center; Dr. Walter Willet, chair of nutrition at Harvard University; Geenan Roth, best-selling author and expert on emotional eating; and many other leading researchers and nutrition authorities.

My responsibility at TNT is to help you create a “sustainable” lifestyle change. Meeting you where you are in your journey and equipping you with practical tools to grow and learn new strategies; teaching you how to shop and meal plan; helping you create new ideas; and learning how to go out to eat are a few of the hands-on lessons you receive. I teach you how to live well for life!

ADDICTED TO LOVE.

WRITER: ANNE HALIFAX

If like most other people, you’ve had a crush at some point, you know the giddy feeling of having your mind and mood all tangled up in thoughts of another person. Now imagine that feeling pervading all aspects of your life and becoming the only thing you’re able to focus on. This describes the phenomenon of limerence, a term coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in her 1979 book “Love and Limerence.” As strange as it sounds, limerence is a literal addiction to another person.

Limerence is far more intense than a crush. Much of the time, a crush is a seed from which limerence grows. As limerence develops, the affected person starts thinking more and more often, sometimes involuntarily, of the person they like. (The object of a limerent’s affection is usually called the limerent object, or LO, by psychologists.) Eventually, the LO becomes an all-consuming fixation.

The limerent person gets lost in fantasies numerous times every day and somehow finds a way to relate all their thoughts and actions to their LO. They may start acting in ways they think their LO would approve, even when they’re alone, or they may rearrange their schedule in hopes of “accidentally” running into their LO. The inability to stop thinking about the object of affection is one of the hallmarks of limerence.

Someone with a crush will probably seek some resolution eventually by asking the person they like on a date or telling them how they feel. For someone in the grip of limerence, the possibility of being rejected is too much to handle, so they avoid revealing their feelings.

Healthy love requires openness and communication, but limerence thrives on secrecy and ambiguity. Someone who’s experiencing limerence develops an uncanny talent for hyper-interpretation. They become extremely alert to everything their LO does and says, and analyze the smallest, most innocuous actions for signs the LO secretly returns their feelings.

When a person is experiencing limerence, they lose their emotional autonomy. Their mood is dependent on the LO’s behavior, and they can swing quickly between the height of elation and a state of despair, depending on how their LO acts toward them. Something as small as the LO making eye contact or smiling at them can give a limerent person a buzz of joy that lasts for days. Similarly, overblown feeling of despondence results if the limerent person perceives their LO is ignoring them or is interested in another person. If a limerent person can’t see their LO at all, they tend to become anxious and out of sorts. Some cases of limerence are so bad the limerent person contemplates suicide after being slighted. A limerent person can’t regulate their emotions. They usually feel either fantastic or terrible, and mood is dictated by the most recent interaction with the person on whom they fixate.

Needless to say, limerence is destructive to the person experiencing it. They may find themselves abnormally shy and awkward around their LO, or they may start engaging in stalker-like behaviors. This is something they would never condone in a clearer state of mind. Many people feel ashamed or embarrassed about their limerent behaviors, but at the same time are powerless to stop them. Limerence can also affect a person’s ability to function in day-to-day life. Their grades will drop, performance at work suffers, and responsibilities at home are ignored. If an affected person has a partner or spouse already, limerence almost always damages the existing relationship due disengagement and emotional distance. In a limerent person’s life, everything takes a back seat to their compulsive thoughts and fantasies about the LO.

Limerence bears a strong resemblance to addiction because that’s exactly what it is. It’s not known exactly why limerence arises in some people and not in others. Some experts blame an overactive limbic system, others consider limerence a cousin of OCD because of the obsessive thoughts it causes, and still others argue that limerence stems from a deep feeling of inadequacy or a desire for acceptance, perhaps originating from emotional trauma in childhood.

Whatever the cause, one thing is known for sure: as far as your brain is concerned, love and attachment to other people truly can be an addiction. Studies show that the walking-on-air feeling of “falling in love” is the result of hormones and chemicals in the brain that produce feelings similar to the highs experienced by drug users. This is why many limerent people, despite knowing that their condition is negatively impacting their lives and causing them pain, don’t seek help or attempt to change. Despite all the destructive effects of limerence, they’re hooked on the rush they get from interacting with and thinking about their LO.

Limerence might look like love or a crush from the outside, but don’t make the mistake of confusing them. Limerence has a dark side due to its addictive nature. It might feel enjoyable for a while, but obsessing over another person and feeling totally emotionally dependent on them is not a healthy way to live. The good news is limerence doesn’t normally last forever. Because the brain cannot keep producing the chemicals that create the feeling of addictive love, the majority of cases of limerence go away by themselves within two to three years.