Ho Ho Ho….. Oh, the holiday season. It’s good spending time with family and friends but all of the festivities and wonderful food can make healthy eating a challenge. We tend to put on half of our annual weight gain between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.  In fact, the average American typically gains between one and five pounds during these months. Though it’s only a few pounds, if it happens year after year, it can add up. The holidays are a time for spending much needed fellowship with our friends and family and It often happens that when hosting a holiday get together that you spend more time getting the feast on the table and cleaning up than actually spending  with your loved ones. Isn’t this the whole reason you hosted Christmas anyway, right?

I was recently honored to be one of the speakers for the leadership conference of an organization that supports and empowers women and children around the globe. I invite you to visit their website to see all the good things they are doing to matter in this world: www.diningforwomen.org.

One thing that makes the organization unique is that it does an excellent job educating and connecting donors with the face of its recipients. And the conference was filled with inspirational stories of how lives have been changed.

During one of the presentations, I was astounded to hear the personal story of a woman growing up in India. As one of two daughters, she never heard her name used when she was introduced to others. In fact, she and her sister were merely known in the village as the “number one” and “number two” daughters or “the daughter of _____.” If someone came calling to the door of her home and she answered it, she would have to state that “No one is home” if no male members were present. Heartbreaking to hear how little value was put on females in her culture.

As stress and symptoms of depression rise in this day and age, having a time for regular outings and vacations can give you some solutions to maintaining a healthy condition.  Many people plan a vacation wherein fast paced activities are planned everyday of the week. Therefore, the vacation often ends up being as demanding as the job that you left behind. A lot of people evoke the feeling of being crushed by the time they return from their holiday, and this is the point. In order to get the wonderful health benefits of a vacation, it is important for you to do as little as possible and set aside the time to relax your mind and soul that you need to replenish so you can return home feeling rejuvenated.

Here is my duh-aha! moment for the day, from Keith Ferrazzi's new book, Who's Got Your Back: The Secret to Finding the 3 People Who Will Change Your Life.

(If you don't know Ferrazzi, he is also the author of Never Eat Alone. That book, a soulful approach to networking, helped transform me from an academic into a solopreneur. I recommend it highly, and often.)

In this new book, Ferrazzi makes an excellent, clarifying distinction between performance goals (outcomes) and learning goals (process). And he recommends that we translate performance goals into learning goals. Instead of: "lose 10 pounds," focus on "learn to cook healthier meals." Instead of "get promoted to manager," focus on "learn how to lead meetings.

This week Time magazine is asking "What Women Want Now." I must have been busy polishing my nails when the Time editors called for my opinion, so I'll share my desires here:

I want a woman president.

I want women's careers to be valued equally to those of men's careers.

I want childcare and the domestic sphere to be an equally paternal and maternal responsibility.

I want women's smarts to be seen before their bodies.

I want women to feel as entitled to success as men do.

I want equal pay for all.

I want at least as many women as men at the top.

I want girls to experience limitless ambition.

I want to end the fantasy that sexism is dead.

I want women to want power.

What if every woman expressed her desires? Tell me, what are yours?

Meaningful sexuality in a sexually immature culture is becoming increasingly harder and harder to achieve. Promoting intimacy and other-centered sexuality can be difficult when navigating the communication barriers between men and women. Men and women have different communications styles and attitudes. The result is often that neither partner tells the other their true feelings. Then they complain because they don't know, and expect the other to understand what they did not say. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen this very thing in my practice. Trying to explain to couples that communication is one of the most important things that they can work on is often fallen on deaf ears.

It is believed by many that men tend to deal with problems in a logical, reasonable manner and that women tend to think in terms of emotions and feelings. For the most part, this has been proven to be true. However, both genders are sometimes not very good at communicating well with their partners at all. Some women want to infer or hint rather than come out and say it like it is. Then there are women who resort to demanding sexual satisfaction, which they often don't get from their partner, and are learning to be more outspoken. The opposite of this is when women hide their true feelings and become resentful of being unfulfilled. The same can be true for men. This simply shows the differences between how some men and women think. We are so used to this that if someone switches roles it can also be a problem. A man who breaks out into tears is very confusing or is considered feminine or needy. A woman who becomes logical and analytical in her dealings with men may be seen as cold and hard. Because we expect these roles, we play them, we don't even realize we're playing them, and we consciously don't understand them, because they've been part of us for so long. We aren't seeing them directly and they can affect how we communicate our need for intimacy.