Sticking with healthy habits can be hard. You might start out with intentions of becoming a green-juice-drinking, exercising, raw vegan yogi, only to turn into a Ben & Jerry's eating, sloth-like couch potato a few days later. If this sounds familiar, take heart. You're not alone.

As a body image coach and mentor, the subject of weight is pretty common among my students–some are overweight, some are underweight, and some are struggling with their weight – even if it’s perfect (as far as the numbers are concerned).  There’s an irony, huh? That there could be a “perfect” weight anywhere in our society. The truth is that we are fed lies upon lies about “perfect” body image and perfect weight, and we eat them and STARVE on the inside while growing larger and larger on the outside.

No matter where you are with your health, consider today your fresh start – even if you are already active and eat well, each of us can stand to “kick it up a notch.”  Today, you can begin a journey that has no destination; it is a journey of discovery and action – a healthy way to lose weight.

I don’t know what I’ve been doing for the past 25 years. I must have had my head up my arse to have missed reading Dr. Bernie Siegel’s, Love, Medicine & Miracles: Lessons Learned About Self-Healing From A Surgeon’s Experience With Exceptional Patients. But I’m reading it now as research for my next book The Prescripton: 5 Spiritual Steps To Healing Yourself From Illness, Trauma, Or Loss. And holy AWESOME SAUCE, Batman!

By page 3, I was madly in love with Dr. Bernie Siegel (who doesn’t wear a white coat and prefers to be called Bernie). By page 27, I was crying my eyes out. By page 61, I decided I must have read this book in a past life because so much of it mirrors what I have already written (so much so that some will surely think I’m knocking off Bernie). And by page 76, when I read, “The simple truth is, happy people generally don’t get sick. Ones attitude towards oneself is the single most important factor in healing or staying well,” I knew I had to meet this remarkable doctor.

So I wrote to him after my friend and mentor Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and a long time friend of Bernie’s, gave me his email address. 

Turns out he’s even more awesome than I imagined. Not only has he been guiding me in helping a patient who really needs love and support; he’s also a Yale surgeon who believes love heals, hugs his patients, employs the use of art therapy, and thinks we need to revolutionize the way we deliver health care. He’s also a Renaissance man - a poet, an artist, the author of many books, and a genuine, authentic man who really cares, as well as a role model for doctors like me and an inspiration for millions of patients around the world.

I could keep gushing, but instead, let me introduce you to my new friend and Owning Pink’s newest blogger - Dr. Bernie Siegel (cue wild applause!) Take it away, Bernie!

- Lissa 

What Does Every Woman Want

By Bernie Siegel, MD

Many years ago a childhood friend of mine, due to a gambling addiction, got into a difficult situation involving some very significant debts. One day he shared with me that the organized crime group involved had threatened to break every bone in his body or worse if he did not pay up. He said when he told them he had no funds available and asked if he could repay the debt in some other way he was told that if he married the crime lord’s daughter they would let him off.