Thinking Your Way To Healthy

Tis the season to be stressy! Between shopping, planning, travel, cooking, baking, house guests, parties and spreading cheer - the holidays add a full-time job on top of your already regularly scheduled life. It can be overwhelming and can oftentimes lead to stress that can even manifest into depression. It is for this reason that it is of extreme importance that we all pay extra special attention to our health during this time.

While food, drink and all that we consume during the holiday does play a vital role in how we feel (and often celebrate), we too often forget about the power of thought. It is incredibly important that you are of sound mind if you wish to maintain health.

“The human mind can be trained to play an important part both in preventing disease and in overcoming it when it occurs.”The Anatomy of Illness by Norman Cousins

So our jobs this holiday season is to do all we can to prevent sickness. As we search for sustenance in the form of foods we consume, we must also remember to sustain our spirit. Here is a brief prescription for wellness of mind:

Clearing your mind is one way of leaving space for self-love to enter.

• Take some time each day to stop, clear your mind and breathe deeply. You can do this when you wake up, when you are standing on line in a store, a minute or two before you begin your blog reading - whenever you can fit it in. This is YOU time. Even if you do this for two to three minutes per day, it is probably more YOU time that you would normally allow yourself during the holidays.

•  Start thinking out of the box, or, perhaps I should say out of your body. According to a blog on the "Self-Love diet" talking about your body in the third person can do wonders for your self esteem and body awareness. She writes:

"… you are not your body. Your body is the package that carries the you around. Instead of calling it “me” or “my”, try referring to your body as “the body”, “these feet”, “this brain”, etc.... It sounds crazy, but my perspective started to change. I stopped feeling self-conscious about my weight; in fact, I stopped feeling self-conscious about all the physical quirks that I notice."

It is often easy for us to see when others have over reached themselves, Why not turn that skill on ourselves this season by thinking in the third person?

•  Ready yourself for what is to come and rather than brace yourself for it - embrace it.  George Bernard Shaw said, "If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance." Whether it is the dreaded trip to Aunt Millie's house with the smelly dog and even smellier holiday meal, your out of control nephew unable to behave for more than five minutes straight, a sneer from your in laws about your choice of gift that will somehow never be perfect or the house guests from hell, remember that family is an adventure. Dance with the skeletons, laugh with the nay-sayers, bring an air freshener to Aunt Millie's, have a fit with your nephew, engage the in-laaws in a in-depth conversation about the gift you just purchased them and play continuous pranks on the heinous house guests. Have fun, they all will too, when everyone sees you are stress-free, in good spirits and just trying to spread some happiness.

Your crib notes: breathe deeply, think out-of-body and seek joy in the insanity. Easy as pie.
HEY! watch that pie! You don't want to destroy all your happy thoughts with unhappy eating! Well... I'll let you off the hook this time. That's a chat for another post.

Share YOUR thoughts:

How do you keep your sanity during the holiday season?

What are your techniques for a healthy holiday?

*Artistic credit goes to Nicole Rivera, who created both images using the Drawing Online site. *

Eating Through The Meat...

Slowly, but surely, we are getting through the meat in our house one meal at a time. I am trying to do the right thing in terms of waste and NOT throw away what we have already purchased. Since we are members at CostCo, this has been no small feat to get through restaurant-sized bags of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, scallops, Ahai Tuna Steaks, Salmon and what was left of some Flounder. I feel as though I can finally see the end of this and begin, once again, to look forward to a new path. However, this waiting period has given me time to think about our plans, come up with some pretty concrete steps in the right direction, and to give us things to think about in terms of possible issues for our future with this, IF we are successful.

1. PLANS - Start small. See if we can find 'healthier" meat while we figure out not-meat alternatives we actually like. Be realistic, not too idealistic; this is a life changer and we have to find a way to fit it into our reality, otherwise it will not last.

2. CONCRETE STEPS - This week my husband and I will be taking our first trip to one of our local farms to possibly buy chicken and eggs along with some produce. In addition, we agreed that we should also take a trip to a Whole Foods Market to see if we feel they have anything of value to us that may be worth a return visit. (I definitely need to restock my quinoa stash, I remember how difficult it was for me to find, and I am pretty sure they have it there.) Also, there is a year-long farmer's market pretty close by that I have not taken advantage of (I did not realize it was YEAR ROUND!), so I hope to swing by that this week as well.

About a week ago I purchased a book I have been wanting for over a month, at least: The Conscious Cook. It is an actual book (no .pdf or audio on this one...) so it is slow-going, but I think there is a lot of potential for me to learn from. In short, it is a vegan cookbook, but what I like is how is takes time to describe various grains, proteins, et cetera and gives little ignorant me a little synopsis on their cool-factors.

3. POSSIBLE ISSUES - Just one word sums it up fine I think: family. What happens if you make this commitment, you go over to your in-law's house and, based on your new lifestyle, you suddenly can not eat that which you have eaten for years? Or, the more terrifying prospect for my family: I cook BOTH Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for everyone - do I still serve turkey on those nights of food celebration? In other words, do I expose those I love to my beliefs in a way that compromises their own food choices and/or selections, or do I compromise my own in their presence? And if I choose to compromise, am I not defeating the purpose of the entire act? ...Anyway, these are very big questions for a later blog, when I am steeped in my decision and confirmed in my resolutions about my meals.

For now, I am going to grab The Conscious Cook again and see how much I can learn before bedtime without making myself to hungry (is it wise to read a cookbook before bed??).

BIG Questions... with MY Answer, so far

So while I am home sick (again!) today, I am thinking about lots of food conversations I had at work yesterday and over the remainder of my weekend (well, as much as one can think about things after waking up at 2pm!). Lots of information has been shared, lots of questions have been asked and in the process both my curiosity and skepticism have been piqued again... One thing keeps itching at me and clawing at me: being healthy and eating is becoming a pretty popular topic in this country as of late and because of that some "healthy" food options are becoming more readily available to the public as a whole. You may be asking, "Nicole, what is wrong with that?" and, at first, I would have said, "Nothing, that's great," but as I said, my inner skeptic has been wakened.

An example: bison meat/bison burgers. My husband LOVES burgers, I mean really, loves them and will order them anywhere. In fact, one of the signs to me that he was truly growing as a person was the first time the two of us went on a date, there was a burger on the menu, and he opted to order something else - it was a big deal for him. Anyway, while they are not always his first choice, they are still one of his comfort foods, so when he learned he had a high cholesterol, he was a little upset... until he read about bison burgers. He tried them, liked them, and has been happy with his substitution. Here is what, unprompted by any conversations of my recent skepticisms, my husband said to me last night, "You know bison burger? Well, I can get that just about anywhere now - health food restaurants, but also diners - all types of restaurants have it on their menus. Do you think that bison are getting treated like the other cattle because they are so popular?" And I thought... that's a really good damn question.

To piggyback this statement - what about soy? Not only has it always been a mainstay in the litany of ingredients on the sides of many of our packaged foods, but now it has been lauded as the key to the health and longevity of those in the Orient. We heard the stories, we wanted to try soy for ourselves, now it is everywhere - soy milks, soy ice creams, tofu, soy nuts, edamame I am sure the list goes on. Was it this level of demand that allowed/allows the GMO (Genetically Modified Organism http://www.ebfarm.com/WhyOrganic/library/Glossary.aspx#G_glossary) to continue to be processed?

So, the big questions these ideas (and others) keep swirling in my head:

• how do you know when your "healthy" food has taken an unnatural turn?
• who can you trust to ask about how to use your purchasing power as what I like to call a "capitalist vote" by BUYING the right kinds of products? AND
• (scary question) when does the "capitalist vote" actually work against progress by making demand so high on the right product that a BIG business comes in, buys it up, takes it over and tries to ruin it?

I am thinking, still, that my one true power remains in going to a family farm to buy my products. In this way I am using my capitalist vote ($$$) to support not only a product, but a system.

If you have any other ideas, I would love to hear/read them!

Baby Steps Toward a Solution

A number of weeks ago, a friend of mine, Jen, who had started to put the pieces together about my preoccupations (probably after entirely too many conversations about food), highly recommended that I see the movie Food, Inc.

In fact, I believe she said I needed to see it.

I believed her, and did want to see it right away, but without being able to drive anymore due to my vision impairment, I often feel guilty about asking my husband to drive me here and there even if it is only to the video store! Anyway, last night I had an epiphany: I have Apple TV - I can watch Food, Inc. without going anywhere. Needless to say, that is what I (and very quickly WE) did.

I didn't want to tell my husband, "You NEED to watch this," especially since I have been torturing him with various sound clips from my Eating Animals audiobook all week, so I just planned on watching the film alone. My husband was engrossed in his reading as I began the film, but approximately five minutes into it I heard him say,

"Wait a minute... What?"

His book was closed, placed down on the ottoman and not touched again until after the movie. We were both engrossed (and maybe I should emphasize the "grossed" part of that word) through and through. Everything I had been reading about over the years had been brought to life in film with farmers, families and pictures, moving pictures to support it all. At the completion of watching it all, I was overcome. I almost blogged again last night, but then I realized - I had much more important things to do.

I began first with spreading the word. I am a bit of a Facebook junkie, so I posted a link to the film's site and stated to all of my Facebook friends,

"If you eat in the USA, then you must see this."

I also explored the film's website for myself to see what they had on there - I was thrilled, of course, to find out they have a companion book. I futzed around on the site reading this and that, making a mental reading list for the future and began thinking about HOW I was going eat, HOW I was going to shop for food and if I truly had what it took to pull this all off...

But then I remembered - I am not sure I can afford (physically) not to. Hello rock... hello hard place... I guess I will be right here in the middle digging my way out!

And then, through a series of clicks here and there, surfing the web and getting tangled up in the process, I ended up back at a website I had visited earlier in the week - http://www.localharvest.org/ Of course! I typed in my zip code and clicked and read (on super-zoom, of course :) ) about family farm after family farm, about farmer's markets and about poultry farmers that have seasons (just like nature intended...) and with all of this I began to exhale.

HOPE...
POSSIBILITY...
maybe even some SUSTENANCE?

There were farms under 50 miles from my home, that would sell directly to me, where I could see where things come from because it is not shameful, it is natural.

I was so enthralled by what I found I was up until 2 am doing nothing but reading about farms. I went to sleep making a private commitment, hoping my husband would be on board, or at least supportive of my decision for myself. We will finish the food we have in the house (I do not want to waste, even if I have lost faith in the meats I have awaiting me here), and then we will pick one of our local farms to try out to get some eggs, chicken and, of course, produce. I was excited and I thought I would have a hard time sleeping, but my body knew better as soon as my head hit the pillow.

When I woke this morning, a surprise was waiting for me in my Inbox - two e-mails from another friend of mine, who, after seeing my Facebook Food, Inc outburst, also noticed I started a blog and read that as well. She has also become food-aware as of late and actually sent me .pdfs (I can SEE those!!) of two books she felt were really helpful The Raw Food Diet and The Raw Food Bible. Of course I have not had time to read them both yet, but after a quick scroll and stop here and there within each of the books I am already having some more paradigm shifts! Is my very delicious soy milk possibly working against me? What an intriguing possibility... these books are definite MUST-READS for me!

There is still so much to learn. There is probably even more I need to "un-know." My thoughts and ideas about food have been based, far too long, in blind, unquestioning trust in food distributors. I have a picture of a farm in my head - maybe the one I saw in Charlotte's Web as a child - and I have grown up believing that all of my food comes from a place that looks just like that. I know that is not true anymore, but, based on the baby steps I took last night and this morning, I think that can be true again. I simply have to agree to do something completely un-American: I must sacrifice convenience!