I know – diet and lifestyle are both loaded terms. But until my genius subconscious comes up with something better, let’s redefine what we already have to work with.

The Takeaway: Realize the fundamental changes in thinking that precede any major life or habit change – and use it to cultivate success!

Actions: Observe your thoughts. Use non-judgmental language. Start a journal. (Details below!)

I spun my wheels for a good 10 years on diet-thinking, leaving me totally and utterly exhausted, frustrated, and frazzled. Often crabby too, as my siblings will attest. I got a burst of inspiration from a bunch of podcasts that I listened to in the past two weeks on my walk to work and weekly walk in the hills around my home. Here are all the best thoughts & intentions, cobbled together, so we can have a reference list. Some of these may not resonate with you right now, but they’ll be great tools further down the line when you need to find a way around the resistance blocking your path.

I. The Differences Between a Diet and a Lifestyle

The first thing about diets is that they take all your other behaviors and old baggage and stuff them into a shiny new label. No diet will work well if you don’t address all the underlying causes – including stress management, sleep, emotions, exercise, past events and traumas, and your world outlook. Lifestyles are sustainable, practical, and easily broken down into small action steps.

Diets are something you must endure, while a lifestyle is something you enjoy.

Diets use force and extremes to drive people with fear and negative perspectives. Lifestyles are about small changes to gradually open you up to a new way of thinking, living, and loving. 

Diet-thinking puts the responsibility on external factors to fix you. Lifestyle-thinking takes ownership and responsibility. You don’t need to be fixed, because you are not broken. You just need to reconnect with yourself.

Underneath your relationship to food is your relationship to yourself and life. Dieting is a behavior-pattern that seeks to repress and stifle this relationship, or cover it up or numb it because of shame.

Dieting focuses only on weight loss. Lifestyles focus on health in all facets of your life.

II. Diet-thinking vs. Lifestyle Thinking

Diet-thinking focuses on problems: what’s wrong or bad about you or your situation.

• (Here’s a little known fact: NOTHING is wrong with you!)

Lifestyle-thinking focuses on solutions: what works for you and your unique, individual needs.

Diet-thinking is win at all costs, and don’t even try if you can’t be perfect.

• So many people won’t even start something because they are afraid they are “doing it wrong”. That if you can’t be perfect, it isn’t worth it.

Lifestyle thinking recognizes that we can’t be perfect all the time, and despite this we are still worthy and deserve to have the things we want in life. Making mistakes is a crucial part of the process, and having compassion and self-love will help us learn what is best for our needs.

*Lack of self-compassion, the all or nothing attitude, means that when perfection doesn’t work, people will assume that they just aren’t trying hard enough. This traps you in an endlessly negative cycle of perfection, judgment and lack of self-worth. Basically, it means you will always feel like you are never enough. Once we shed the weight of shame, the path to shedding physical weight becomes lighter and much less cluttered.

Diet-thinking enforces constant judgment of every aspect of your life: actions, thoughts, food, behaviors, habits, results, worthiness.

Lifestyle thinking promotes self-kindness – promoting positive behaviors, gentle encouragement, & healthy self-talk to move forward and improve. Speak to yourself as you would a loved one, such as your daughter or son (real or theoretical).

Diet-thinking promotes isolation and resentment. We shut ourselves off from food, friends, and pleasure in order not to be tempted to “be bad” or eat “bad food”. We resent others for seemingly being able to eat whatever they want or having an “ideal body”. Most of all, we resent ourselves for our situation and needlessly blame ourselves.

Lifestyle thinking promotes connection and a shared feeling of humanity. We’re open about our struggles without feeling self-pity or self-hate, because we know we are not alone. We share our experiences, listen to others share their stories, and work together to heal and enjoy life.

Diet-thinking promotes over-identifying with your problems. You define yourself by your disease or disorder. You are consumed by negative thoughts and feelings.

Lifestyle thinking promotes mindfulness. You are aware of your thoughts, feelings, challenges and strengths without judgment. You know that your weight or ailment isn’t the true you, but just an opportunity to bring out the unique wisdom of your true self – the resilient being that can create blessings and opportunities from obstacles.

III. How to Move Forward

If you’re like me and you’ve been trapped in diet-land for years or decades, this type of thinking won’t fall away overnight. But gradually shifting to a lifestyle mindset, inviting positive actions and thoughts into your life, will make you stronger and stronger until maintaining a lifestyle is easier than the life of restriction and self-hate brought on by diet-learned behaviors. Some tools that have helped me to shift are:

1. Meditation.

Before you start protesting that you’re not a hippy and I can take my unshowered, crunchy granola self to the backwoods and stay there, I just want to say that meditation is simply a practice of observing your thoughts.

• I know because I used to be that same reactionist cynic, until I found language that resonated with me. I like to be efficient, and I realized the amount of time and effort I spent judging my every move was a huge waste of energy. I didn’t go off and join a zazen sect of monks in Japan (though after a few years I’m contemplating a retreat). But, like anything, I STARTED SMALL.
• Guided meditation was so helpful, so go over and check out Meditation Oasis. Or try sitting for 3 minutes each day and simply observing what thoughts come into your head. One of my favorite techniques is to imagine my thoughts as clouds, and I’m lying on the ground watching them. They are still there – I’m not trying to push them out or blank my mind (which always makes me think of the tv room in the original Willy Wonka), but I’m separate from them. I enjoy watching clouds in reality, so I associate positive feelings with observing my thoughts.

2. Use non-judgmental language.

We are cruel, and we are cruelest to ourselves. No one is born hating anyone, including ourselves. We learn it from magazines that teach us to focus on our imperfections so we buy advertised products out of insecurity. We learn it from a society and culture that promotes the COMPLETELY FALSE idea that if there are two people in a room and one is beautiful, the other person must be less beautiful. I suffered for years thinking that I couldn’t be pretty, talented, athletic, or attractive because there was always someone more pretty, talented, attractive or athletic than I was.

• We are not in a zero-sum game of scarcity. The person next to you is just as awesome as you are, so celebrate your mutual admiration and awesomeness together. We rock, people!
• Stop berating yourself. Screaming at a clerk doesn’t get you better service. Telling children how terrible they are doesn’t make them play any better in a game. Constantly critiquing yourself, exaggerating your faults, and losing sight of the positive and beautiful parts of you will not only leave you stuck in an endless dieting cycle, but also tired, unhappy, and not enjoying your life.
• Embrace the idea that you are totally worth loving exactly as you are right now. You can have a goals for your future, but take a moment to be grateful for what is good in the present.

3. Start a journal. Or find your own therapeutic medium.

Writing is cathartic for me. It helps me release pent up emotions and thoughts that I struggle to deal with. It allows me to reflect on things and put pieces together so I become more aware of how I react to my life, especially obstacles. A journal gave a purpose to my healing. It helped me learn more about how my body works. It helped me sort out difficult emotions and remember good advice. It is a safe space to share my deepest fears and release shame – the first  step is often admitting things to yourself, and growing comfortable with the idea of discomfort. Once you share in a journal, you can get a clearer headspace and start to consider the idea of sharing with a friend, family, or professional.

• Try writing in a journal for at least 30 days. If it really doesn’t resonate with you, find some other activity that helps to heal the rift with yourself – preferably one that makes you feel connected and a sense of belonging.
• Attending meetings, finding some form of therapy (creative ones like art-based therapies would be great), talking through your problems out loud, starting a blog: any way that allows you to express your struggles and then go back and reflect on them is a great place to start.

4. Be your own coach (or find one).

I think we all should work with a coach at some point in our lives. They can hold open a compassionate space for wisdom, reflection, and awareness. Not everyone is comfortable with that idea or can afford private coaching. But you can start with being your own coach – using a compassionate voice and being solution-focused. “Experts” of any kind are problem-focused, so that makes me an expert in criticism, doubt, and shame. But I am slowly learning to be more open, to share my story, to gradually engage with discomfort. And all that started when I learned to coach myself with self-love, vulnerability, and sharing raw truths with myself and others.

• I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the practice of self-love.
• It’s all about a new way of communication – with yourself and your place in the world.

4. Change

Diets don’t change you. You may be divided in two states – on the wagon, off the wagon, “being good” or “being bad”, but you don’t change. At the end of the day, you find yourself still miserable, still desperate, and longing for happiness – despite having a lost a few pounds or seen a small result.

With a lifestyle, you empower yourself to change. It’s scary, but you learn that fear is an essential part of life, one that can lead to positive results. It leaves you feeling vulnerable, but you realize that when you live openly, you invite greater connection, love, friendship, compassion, and understanding into your life, in addition to positive experiences and happiness. Vulnerability is actually the root of joy, but that’s a story for another post.

The crazy thing about lifestyles is that it isn’t about forever and always. You don’t have to say “I’ll never do —— again.” Because you might, and that’s ok. You just concentrate on making the best possible choice in that moment. And if you make a mistake – you can forgive yourself and clear your mind in order to make your next choice a good one. Lifestyles are a way to enjoy each day, more and more, which is why they are sustainable. Not because you are perfect 100% of the time, but because you like what you are doing or where it leads you, and you have a better quality of life. 

Choose joy. Choose enjoyment. Choose living full out – the good and the bad, because it is better than being numb on the sidelines. I know you can do it. Trust yourself – you’ve got an inner wisdom, intuition, resilience, and unbreakable love that you may not realize is there. I know for a fact that it is, and discovering it is just one great adventure called a good life.

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Thanks to Underground Wellness and their podcast on The End of Diet Thinking with Greg Hottinger & Michael Sholtz and 15 Fat Loss Shifts with Dean Dwyer.

Two things to give you a rocking Wednesday: a post about womanhood, realizing I’m not broken, and living with chronic conditions over at Paleo for Women. And Bacon Jam, upgraded. And a welcome for new visitors below. Read on!

Guys. Seriously. Today, I am over the freakin’ moon because I’ve got a guest post on one of my all time favorite blogs: Paleo for Women. Stefani is awesome and through her work, she has helped me transform the relationship I have with my body. I don’t talk about PCOS much on my  blog, but I have it and it’s troublesome. Stefani helps me to cope with it, and I’ve got a post today over at Paleo for Women about my emotionally-broken uterus. I realized I didn’t feel like enough of a woman because of PCOS, and how that affected my emotions and ability to self-heal. It’s a post about coping with feeling broken & (yet again) the emotional side of healing.

If you’re not interested in uteruses (uteri?), which you should be because everyone has to deal with one in some way or another, I’ve still got some bacon jam for you. Except I made it better. I added prosciutto!!! Probably my all-time favorite pork products (I’ve got a lot of all-time favorites today). I swapped out half of the bacon for prosciutto and used half broth/half coconut milk for a richer combo. And, just for kicks, I blended it all with chicken livers and leftover roast beef to create the best pate ever: salty, creamy, and not one bit liver-y. Why I never thought of bacon mousse before this is beyond me.

If you’ve come on over from PfW, welcome! I am super thrilled to have you here because I already know you are awesome since you read Stefani’s blog. I’ve got recipes, a Whole Foods Ladder, posts on self-love, emotional eating, eco-friendly lifestyle tips, and some other seriousness and silliness. Lately I’ve been getting into POSITIVE 30 day challenges, like not spending money, dancing, meditating, and eating 9 cups of vegetables a day…

But what I would like to do most is give you a GIANT bear hug, because they are wonderful, but instead I’ll wish you a happy day full of hugs & joy instead. And bacon jam.

That’s my sentiment right now, regarding challenges. Positive challenges are the best thing I’ve decided to do. Adding good into my life makes change so much better. Dancing makes me happy. Meditation makes me mindful. And we’ll see what happens to my mitochondria after July 5th…

Actions: 1. Do what you enjoy. 2. Don’t judge yourself.

The Back Story:

I’ve been enthusiastically biking to the gym the past few months. EVEN in the rain, because I know the squat bar will be more open. I like squatting too! I used to dread that exercise over anything else. Now I look forward to improving each week and adding more.

This has never happened in all my 26 years of life. Well, maybe I liked squatting as a 3 year old, but so far as I can remember, “working out” has been a chore. Something I need to force myself to do and have willpower to complete. Something I had to berate myself for if I wasn’t doing it right, doing it hard enough, or naturally enjoying it. I’m not sure if anyone really enjoys something if they’ve got an inner drill sergeant egging them on with insults and “you’re not good enoughs” day in and day out.

I ran a marathon to prove to myself that I wasn’t fat and lazy. Every time I got up off the couch and went for a run, I was “sticking it” to the part of me that wasn’t good enough. Or so I thought. We have a pervasive cultural belief that if you are overweight, you are just lazy – you’re not trying hard enough, and you don’t deserve to have a skinny body because you’re not working for it. That’s what I told myself anyway. We don’t realize that excess weight is a symptom of something – malnourished diet, autoimmune disorders, depression, and the many number of lifestyle diseases and factors that we suffer from today.

So I ran a marathon and proved my point, so I thought. And then running became less and less enjoyable. I thought it was just my natural lack of consistency and some sort of personality flaw – I just didn’t have the discipline to be a lifelong runner/athlete/yogi.

Never mind that my body was trying to tell me that long distance running was promoting inflammation in my system. That my adrenals were nearing burnout and things just weren’t working for me in terms of health. I still had the mental block that I wasn’t good enough.

It’s a continual theme in my life.

I had decided to do a triathlon this year, in September of 2013. I thought I needed something to motivate my “lazy” resistant brain and get me back on track. And then I realized that this triathlon was all about my ego, not my health. I still felt I had something to prove. Running a marathon, good of an experience as it was, wasn’t enough (see a theme here?). I had watched many marathons in years past, feeling like I was stuck on the sidelines of life because of some personality flaw, and then I ran one – on pure will. But it still wasn’t enough. I wasn’t on the sidelines anymore, but I wasn’t skinny either, so I must not be doing it right.

I realized that the physical stress of a triathlon would not promote healing, so I had to set ego aside and focus on health first. I did only yoga for a few months to promote adrenal balance, and then moved on to some “energy building” exercises from Paul Chek’s book. And then I started Crossfit. I don’t go to the actual Crossfit gym often, because it is in Tokyo, but one month check ins with a trainer keep me on track. In the meantime, it’s all up to me to go to the gym.

And I enjoy it. I love freaking out all the Japanese men by picking up free weights or lifting bars over my head, etc. I look forward to putting on some of the plethora of exercise clothes I have, greeting the bemused workers at our city gym, and doing the best I can to improve, without any one there to hold me accountable but myself.

What is different now? Why do I look forward to doing exercise, when before I needed trainers or marathons or some form of “motivation” to keep me on track?

I took judgment out of the equation.

I was always comparing myself to others – I wasn’t the best soccer player on the team. I wasn’t an Olympic athlete. I wasn’t a personal trainer who woke up at 4am to teach kettlebell classes. I wasn’t the most flexible person in yoga. I still can’t do a pull up to save my life. I’m a slow sprinter.

And I don’t care anymore. Because I’m exercising.

I’m still a little embarrassed. I do burpees in the privacy of my own home, and haven’t done a group class in Crossfit yet. I’m still a little afraid of being the worst at something, but I’ll work on that fear in time. In the meantime – I’ve found my consistency. I’ve found my inner drive. And discipline and will-power have nothing to do with it.

Right now, for me, exercising is enough. Improving, relative to my own strengths and weaknesses, is enough. I’m not the fittest, fastest, strongest, or best. But it is finally enough for me. Exercise is no longer a judgement of my flawed character, flabby arms, or lack of fanatical enthusiasm.

I like moving my body, and I do exercise that I like. Of course, there are a few times when I do things that aren’t my favorite, but I know are great for my health. Sprint exercises, for example, to sharpen insulin sensitivity. Even yesterday, I had a lot of stomach cramps and lower intestinal pain, so I went for a long walk instead of sprinting, and that was ok. But mostly, I do what is right for me – yoga, sprints, weight lifting, interval training, bouts of intense dancing, and long walks when I’m tired or out of sorts or don’t have the gumption to sprint around like a crazy person or do crazy primal exercises in front of a bunch of macho Japanese musclemen. As long as I move, that is enough right now.

If you struggle with exercise, I invite you to try two things:

1. Do what you enjoy.

2. Don’t judge yourself.

3. Try something new once and a while.

You don’t have to do 3 hours of elliptical work per day if you don’t want to (who would?!). You don’t have to do Crossfit if it isn’t for you (though I will say that when I heard 60 year old women did Crossfit, I figured I might be able to handle it). If you exercise SMARTER, not harder, you will find you are stronger than you think, and you just need a little belief to get yourself going. I know I did. Get out there and try it, and don’t make up any story around how good or bad you were. Just be grateful that you moved around, it felt good (or good to be done , and you’re making awesome choices for lifelong health and enjoyment.

Bonus! Check out my friend the Holistic Health Nerd’s superfun blog on 3 exercises that make you Superman.

What exercises do you enjoy? Where do you find resistance to exercise in your life? I’d love to hear about it!

Friends – I’m going to let this one speak for itself. I can’t even write about this without salivating. Since I’m already hungry and I’ve got a solid 90 minutes before lunch time, only brevity will save me now.

Slow cooker – easy.

Lidless – incredibly amazing smell wafting throughout your kitchen.

Bacon + a touch of maple syrup = the perfect, backwoods kind of combination.

Good on anything, alone, or even with liver. I’d just eat liver pate and bacon jam all day if I could.

Save a little, or make a double quadruple batch!

Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Magazine

Slow Cooker Bacon Jam with Lemon

1 1/2 pounds sliced bacon (pastures, grass-fed, humanely harvested!)

2 medium yellow onions

3 cloves of garlic

1/3 c apple cider vinegar

2/3 c beef broth

1 T maple syrup

1 t cinnamon

1 T coconut butter

1-2 T of fresh squeezed lemon juice

1. Slice the bacon into 1 inch pieces. Saute in a medium size pan until golden brown and crisp – about 5-10 minutes. Set the bacon aside. Pour out 2/3 of the bacon grease and save it for another use.

2. Dice the yellow onion and smash the garlic. Add those into the pan with the remaining bacon grease and cook on medium until golden brown and soft. Add the apple cider vinegar, beef broth, maple syrup, cinnamon, and coconut butter. Turn the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil. Boil for two minutes. Then turn off the heat.

3. Stir in the cooked bacon and incorporate the mixture together. Add to a slow cooker and cook on high for 3-4 hours, WITHOUT a lid.

4. Allow the mixture to cool slightly. Add the lemon juice. Use an immersion blender to pulse the mixture into a jam consistency. I like a few chunks of bacon in my jam, but if you puree the mixture it comes out as a wonderful pate consistency. You can also use a food processor, but just be careful that the bacon mixture isn’t too hot, otherwise you’ll burn yourself with jam splatter – egads!

5. Allow to cool to room temperature and then chow down! I put it on anything – lettuce wraps, salad, liver pate, kabocha squash or sweet potatoes, etc etc.

Shared at Allergy-Free Lunchbox Fridays, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, Allergy-Free Wednesdays

This Green Tip might be the most important of all: the easiest to talk about and the hardest to implement. REDUCE.

image credit: greenpeace.org

The Takeaway: Our environment is filled with toxins, and slowly shifting away from them, one at a time, is the best way to create a sustainable, nourishing lifestyle.

Actions: Repeat Step 6, as necessary.

This is a step you can always come back to. In fact you can alternate between the other Whole Foods Ladder steps and shifting away from toxins. There are a lot of them in our lives. Here are ways I’ve shifted, slowly, over months and sometimes years. Remember, DO LESS than you think and you will not only achieve more in the long run but maintain it.

1. Eliminating food toxins, one at a time, such as soda, refined sugar, candy, processed food, most packaged food, etc.

2. Eliminating toxins in my home by making my own home cleaners, shampoo, and laundry detergent. Not only is this waaay cheaper, but it smells fantastic and is free of chemicals. Check out my Green Tips posts for more ideas.

3. Eliminating toxins in my kitchen utensils. I use glass jars and tupperware in place of plastic, which I repurposed to use for other non-food storage and organization. I use cast-iron pans instead of non-stick or aluminum, and I try to avoid plastic as much as possible in all my appliances, opting for more traditional materials like copper, earthenware, crocks, etc.

4. Eliminating toxins in my body care. This is a big one, and the bible has been provided for us by Liz Wolfe and her Skintervention Guide. Go to the free website, Skin Deep, which was created by the EWG to show consumers how toxic or non-toxic their personal care products are. Our skin is highly absorbent, and I realized that I was inserting toxins into my body at every turn!

5. READING LABELS. so. much. junk. Once you are aware that your favorite snack has as many chemicals as a New Jersey perfume factory, you may think twice about eating it. I read labels every single time.

6. Reading labels gets to be annoying, so I’ve eliminated, as much as possible, buying food with a shelf life. I do buy some foods in packages and cans, but for day-to-day living I buy whole, fresh foods and prepare them myself. Don’t feel obligated to do this overnight. Just keep in mind that food with a label can easily cross into the realm of “food-like substances” that provide zero nourishment and leave you with bad cravings.

I just want to emphasize that I did NOT do all of this overnight. If you feel especially compelled to wipe out your supply of home cleaners or beauty care products and start with a clean slate – by all means. But do what is best for you. Some people are “all or nothing” with their food choices, but for the most part I’ve seen that approach lead to an “on again, off again” lifestyle with a lot of guilt, shame, and other toxic emotions. Low and slow has been what worked for me – even if I wanted to do more, I made small choices slowly to ensure consistency. I spent two months focusing on exercising for at least 15 minutes per day, even if I thought “I should be doing more”. Consistency has always been a stumbling block for me. I took about a year to heal emotional scars and poor sleep habits before I went back to cleaning up my diet and tweaking foods to find what worked for me. Emotions are sometimes my biggest block when it comes to habits and food choices.

7. Toxic emotions: This is a big one, and probably what I am coping with right now. I’m working through my feelings of shame, guilt over my past lifestyle choices, and anxiety/stress/uncertainty that leads to emotional eating. The best things I’ve done to work on this have been: reading Daring Greatly, opening up to close friends about my feelings, and writing in a journal or on the blog about my emotional eating endeavors. I’m currently doing the 30 Day Anti-Diet Challenge, lead by Iris Higgins of Your Fairy Angel and the Daily Dietribe, which is as much about emotional healing and spiritual growth as it is about learning to love your body no matter where you are in your relationship with it.

Last week was this (image from What Should We Call Paleo Life?):

This past week was this:

Man. Last week I was leveraging my strengths (still am), and just ROCKING it.

And then Sunday I had a bit of an emotional morning. I didn’t like that. This has been a week of crappy sleep. Why couldn’t I keep on rocking?

Kahlil Gibran tells me why:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

~Kahlil Gibran♥

Ok fine, Kahlil. You’re a super smart poet whose words transform my universe. I guess I’ll believe you.

One good thing about Sunday was that it was just the morning that wasn’t ideal. I didn’t let it sink in and pervade the whole day. So while I wrote about identifying and being aware of your food triggers on Sunday, I’ll share some tips on how to recover after you have a less than ideal eating experience. Or spiritual experience too.

Writing about things just makes me feel better. I mentioned some guided journal exercises that I am doing as part of Iris from the Daily Dietribe’s 30 Day Anti-Diet Challenge. I’m all about focusing on health, because with health the weight loss will happen easily. But I need something new and positive to replace the constant evaluation and thinking I have about my body type, size, and how my clothes fit.

Writing doesn’t work for everyone though, so here is what I did after I wrote my post:

- Went outside. I felt immediately better breathing fresh air, and the sunshine was an added bonus.

- Gentle exercise. I made a mental gratitude list while out on my bike

- Strength training. I was tired and drained from a few nights of poor sleep, so I went to the gym and lifted weights. This improved my mood a whole bunch. BUT, I knew I was drained, so I didn’t do my usual Sunday sprint exercises. I worked out to build energy, not drain myself of it.

- Trying something new. I took a new route home on my bike from the gym. Nothing fancy, just a little change of pace to keep my brain & senses sharp. I like to try and notice new things about familiar places as an exercise in awareness building.

- Guided meditation. I laid on my floor and just melted into myself. It was a delicious feeling.

- I wasn’t hungry (I think for psychological reasons), but I made sure to take in some nourishment in the form of bone broth. And I ate dinner, because I don’t think fasting after weight lifting is the best idea.

- Self care – give yourself a break. I took it easy at work on Monday, and then I came home and released myself from any obligation. I only did what I wanted to do – make dinner, fold some laundry & watch a BBC drama.

Awareness is so important, because it holds open a space of calm for us to retreat to in the midst of a storm of emotional cravings or whatever other food triggers threaten to overwhelm us. I can’t always hold back the storm, but I surrender and move on. I do all these things in order to build energy, in order to recover and also prepare for the next time, hoping that I will build an awareness strong enough to prevent an emotional eating episode. If I can’t or don’t, it isn’t a big deal. I just move on and look forward to tomorrow, or the next moment.

—————–

I have to mention that I’ve been listening to the speakers on the Sexy Back Summit and learning a whole bunch about how my body should be working, hormonally, week by week. Since I have PCOS, my hormones are a bit out of whack, some weeks more than others. And it just so happens that last week was a really good, balanced week for me, but this week (starting with my little flop Sunday morning) is the week where everything can go wrong, if you have hormonal imbalance like I do. In the picture above, I am the irate Emperor and my endocrine system is the sweet old man (who I swear is the same actor who does Piglet’s voice). So I’m just being more aware that I need a little extra care, patience, and gentleness this week, since my poor little endocrine system is under siege. So part of it is Khalil Gibran, and part of it is body system imbalance. Either way, I remind myself that 1. this isn’t my fault, 2. my greatest pains and problems are actually my greatest opportunities and 3. This is a really great time to reintroduce sweet potatoes back into my diet.

——————

What do you do to recover – from anything?

Sending you all GIANT hugs,

A tired but grateful Kate

The Takeaway: Gain awareness for eating triggers that are unrelated to physical hunger.

Actions:

I. identify triggers that make you want to eat: stress, emotional discomfort, shame

II. surround yourself with healthy food so that if you can’t avoid your food crutches, they are at least healthy ones

Note: This is the long story. If you want the short story – my suggestions for lateral food substitutions, scroll to the bottom.

I’m in an odd sort of mood as I write this. Maybe it is because I woke up at 4:30am, which would have been fine if I had gone to bed at my usual time. Actually, it is fine, but I get caught up in telling myself certain stories and worrying about how I’ll be at work tomorrow with a weekend of less than optimal sleep behind me. But I had a wonderful day yesterday – planting rice, spending time out in the community with friends, and enjoying a solitary dinner journaling and connecting with myself rather than doing something mindless like watching tv.

But now? I’m in an odd state of restlessness about my morning. I couldn’t fall back asleep, I think because a part of me wanted to get up with the sun and tackle tons of chores and feel extremely productive. I want to accomplish my weekend sometimes, but I don’t know if that means that I enjoy it. I just ate the rest of my breakfast, sort of a second breakfast – I think because I was trying to cover up an emotion I didn’t even know was there. I had told myself to go to the gym by 10am, and it is now 10:17. I probably won’t get to the gym before 11, what with this food to digest and weird emotion to sort out. But as long as I get there before noon…

One of my emotional eating triggers is an agenda anxiety, much milder than what it once was, but still a thought that preoccupies my time more often than I’d like. I plan out the day in advance, trying to achieve as much as possible in certain time frames. Yet I covet time to myself, time where I feel neither guilt nor need to do nothing or anything. It’s an odd cycle, and beyond puzzlement I don’t know what to feel about it. I try really hard not to be judgmental about my emotions anymore. But the hardest thing is the letting go – I tell myself to just enjoy the day as it comes, and things will work out. I tell myself this, but believing it is another story.

Don’t let worry over the next moment take away the joy of the current one.

Reflecting on it a bit more, I have a mix of emotions – a twinge of sadness, a little bit of concern for friends, and a whole lot of uncertainty. I’m a little bit sad right now, because my sister is graduating this weekend and I’m not there with her, or the rest of my family, to celebrate. I don’t like to admit these little twinges of homesickness, for fear that it somehow diminishes the lovely life I’ve built here, far off in another country. But it’s there, and I’m dissolving my resistance to admitting it very slowly. Two friends opened up to me about problems they are facing in their life yesterday, and while I was grateful of their trust and able to give some advice – I often don’t know how to be empathetic in a helpful way. I want to take on everyone’s worries and hurts and fix them for my loved ones. That isn’t possible, so I’ll find a way to make peace with it. So I’m a little sad, a little worried, but I’m a whole lot uncertain. And I’m not even sure what I’m uncertain about! How I feel about this day. How I feel with so little sleep. If I can accomplish and enjoy a weekend all in the same. Whether or not I should return the gray pants I bought on Friday for fear they look like pantaloons rather than pleasantly billowy (though my butt looks pretty good in them).

I’m off to make my peace with uncertainty, and trusting the universe that the nourishing breakfast I ate, whether I needed to eat all of it or not, will be metabolized with my own forgiveness, awareness, and a series of very deep breaths throughout the day when my brain needs a break from all the thinking.

Of course, I always advocate dealing with emotions or triggers instead of covering up your problem with food. But that isn’t to say that I’m perfect at all! I just ate some lamb and vegetables that maybe I didn’t need – maybe I could have gone to the gym sooner and stuck with my “plan” for the day. Either way, between emotional eating or agenda anxiety, it takes a superhuman effort to walk out of the kitchen and seek spiritual, rather than physical, nourishment. Sometimes I’m up to it, and other times I am not. If I really am in a jam and can’t avoid a stress eating match, I at least go for the most nutrient dense food first. When I can at least feel good about what I am eating, knowing that it is nourishing me, I won’t perpetuate the cycle of shame that comes with emotional eating. Here are a few ideas to help you transition:

- make sweet potato or taro chips in coconut oil

- find brands of veggie or fruit chips made with whole foods (avoid fractured oils)

- cut up raw veg for a crunchy snack

- choose veggies first! always

- relax with a cup of tea

- get carb comfort from squash or sweet potatoes

- buy nuts in the shell, which requires you to slow down and contemplate what you`re eating.

- try recipes for whole foods, homemade treats like jello

- Review the Whole Foods Ladder!

The Back-Story

I was a stress eater. First I stress-ate Ben & Jerrys. Six months later I was stress eating green beans and vegetables.

I used to be a huge gum chewer, and now that I eat a whole foods diet with more satiating meals, I’ve found my desire to chew gum has evaporated. This step is a long term step, and you’ll fall back into old patterns sometimes. That’s ok. Forgive yourself.

- Forgiveness is part of self-love. There is a cycle to eat foods that make us feel bad, and then we want to punish ourselves for eating that food and feeling bad, so we eat more. I was a pro at this in high school and college. Negative self-talk never helped me, not once, to make better choices and eat in a way that supported my body. Self-love and forgiveness has. You can pause the vicious cycle with forgiveness, and move to a new path with self-love.

It takes a lot of courage to go out and embrace the uncertainty in our lives. It can send some of us running to the pantry to seek a certain amount of comfort from grounding ourselves with the physical act of feeding, nourishing, and foisting sustenance in order to remind ourselves we are okay. Others may run away from their emotions, or suffer slowly and silently with shame while their spirit withers away in darkness. But slowly, bit by bit, we can open up to awareness and uncertainty, nourishing ourselves appropriately with whole foods, when the time is right, nourishing ourselves with emotional attention, and mustering the courage we all have inside to reclaim our spiritual light.

From the poem To This Day by Shane Koyczan:

”  . . . and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror, look a little closer, stare a little longer, because there’s something inside you that made you keep trying despite everyone who told you to quit.”

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Was that too heavy? I’m sorry. My updates are funnier. I promise. Until Thursday, go here and have yourself a laugh. Or watch fainting goat videos on YouTube. Whatever makes your day – you deserve a laugh! I think that is the one thing I’m going to accomplish today – actively seeking some laughter.