Feeding Your Soul

As the creator of the Feed Your Soul, Feed Your Body workshop, I have done a lot of work on finding ways to feed the soul that don’t involve food. I think it’s really important to know what to do for yourself to feed your soul but there’s also a way to allow food to feed the soul without eating for emotional reasons. For years, I saw food or the enjoyment of food as the enemy. I thought that if I allowed myself to eat something that I enjoyed, I would never stop eating it. I didn’t understand that the enjoyment doesn’t always come from eating fun, fattening foods. It comes from the circumstances around the food that you’re eating. It’s what the Buddhists call “mindful eating”. I had a wonderfully spontaneous example of this when I was in Mexico in March and I know just like everything else it works if you work it.

I’ve had a a lot of resistance to bringing more attention to my eating because for years I was hyper obsessed with it. But I was putting the wrong kind of attention on it. I was mainly focused on eating what I thought were the right foods whether I liked them or not. My focus was on eating the lowest calorie foods that I could find and not deviating from my food program--needless to say I didn’t experience a lot of pleasure during meal time. Mindful eating is not about eating fattening foods and getting the pleasure from them, it’s about eating healthy foods and taking the time to sit down, use a plate and proper cutlery and experience the food that you are eating without distracting yourself by reading or watching TV while you are eating. I have to say that this is very hard for me to do most of the time and I’m really not sure why. I think some of it has to do with always being in a hurry and if I’m being totally honest there is still a part of me (and I know there are millions of you out there) who feels guilty about eating in general. Wow, that’s a big realization. I actually had no idea that I still felt that way but it totally makes sense. If it were published I could refer you to my play: Thin Body, Fat Mind: One Woman’s Lifelong Struggle with Dieting, Bingeing, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Fit and you could find out exactly why that is, but I have told that story so many times that I just can’t revisit it now. Maybe in 10 years I’ll do a revival.

In the meantime I’m working on mindful eating. Savoring my food, taking in my surroundings while I eat and just crafting a whole new experience out of the whole thing. You’re not going to find me using my car keys to cut into a frozen Sara Lee cheesecake and wolfing it down while I’m driving home from the supermarket because I don’t want to wait until I get home to eat it. Nope, not me sister.

Being at Peace With Food Is the New Weight Loss

As I move toward wanting to feel healthy and clear and away from needing to be a certain weight or look a certain way, I notice that my body is changing; I have a lot more energy to work out and I’m not looking to food to fill in the missing pieces of my day. I eat what is going to make my body, not my mouth feel good. I am really thankful that I pulled it together and did the five day Blueprint cleanse. I really needed it. I went way off the reservation this winter and was in food hell. Going on the cleanse was my last ditch effort to bring back some balance into my diet.

For those of you who don’t understand this syndrome here it is in a nutshell: You get a little lazy, you eat a little more and because you can’t dedicate your entire day to physical activity you start gaining weight. You get a little nervous and think, I should really start pulling back with the eating but you just can’t seem to get it together so you keep eating and then you start noticing that your clothes are tight. Very tight. Now you’re getting scared and you think, I’ve really got to get a grip. But you’ve got dinner plans with friends at a great restaurant and you decide to enjoy yourself and eat and drink whatever you want and boy, do you. You feel so bad about your discretion that the next day you just say “what the hell” and eat whatever you want because you feel like a pig. One day turns into the next, and the next and before you know it, a couple of weeks have gone by. A few more pairs of pants go into the “no longer fit” pile. You are headed for a brick wall. You now know that you’ve got to seriously clean up your diet because you don’t want to get to the point of no return. Only you’re almost there but you can’t see it. It’s getting harder and harder for you to work out because you feel so fat and disgusting that there is nothing to motivate you to go to the gym. The terror that you experience at the thought of not being able to lose the weight that you have gained has paralyzed you. You think more about the clean up and you decide that you have not had enough chances over the years to indulge in pancakes because of fear of getting fat so you will take the opportunity now before you clean up to go to brunch and eat 3 pancakes the are the size of dinner plates. So there you are in the thick of food hell, eating something because you think you should, and because you are trying to somehow make up for past deprivation. You know that what you are doing is neither giving you much pleasure or solving the issues of the past. You realize that you are in Food Hell and you are the only one who can dig yourself out.

10 Reasons to embark on a juice fast

1. If you make it through, you’ll feel so good about yourself for having the discipline you’ll forget why you went on it to begin with (lack of discipline and polluting your insides)
2. It wakes up your tastebuds. Flavors are really intense. Everything tastes really good.
3. You need much less food to feel satisfied.
4 You have tons of energy once it’s over.
5. It wipes out your cravings for sugar.
6. All your friends will marvel at your discipline.
7. You will be astounded by your discipline.
8. Bloated stomach--gone.
9. You think twice about what you put into your body
10. It can release you from Food Hell

Finally Over!!!

Yesterday was the last day of the Blueprint Cleanse. I really didn't think I was going to make it. Still not sure why it was so excrutiating but I'm glad it's over. Now of course, I have to go back to eating very slowly. So far today I had an apple and a salad of cucumber and avocado with lemon and olive oil. That was at least two hours ago and I'm still full. Anyway, I'm really trying to embrace my state of inner cleanliness and think carefully about my food choices from now on.

The fact of the matter is that I had so many years where I couldn't stand the feeling of heavy food in my stomach. It was easy to eat well because I was kind of addicted to feeling light inside. These days I could pretty much eat a plate of rice pasta whenever. So I'm hoping that the cleanse kind of re-set everything and that I will naturally gravitate towards lighter stuff and quit the carbo loading.

For now I feel very good. We'll see how long it lasts.

Blueprint Cleanse - Day 3

Where is Blueprint Cleanse Day 2 you ask? Let's just say you don't want to know. At one point, I was ready to eat my own fist. It was so not like this last time. I really had a few moments yesterday of just saying the hell with it and eating something. Only one thing stopped me--this cleanse was a lot of money and I couldn't bear to just flush money down the toilet. Maybe that's why it's so expensive so that people will stick it out.

Today was definitely a better day. I hardly thought about food except for 3 or 4 times which I think is pretty good. My energy was good and I had good concentration. I actually accomplished a lot today. I'm looking forward to tomorrow as being even better, and by day 5 I should be experiencing some kind of euphoria. I hope.

Spring Cleaning

Blueprint Cleanse - Day 1

So it’s that time of year again--spring cleaning for the house and for me. I decided once again to do the Blueprint cleanse which is a juice fast that consists of 6 different raw, organic juices per day (4 green, one lemonade and one nut milk)

The juices are really tasty, much better than if you went to the juice bar in a health food store. They mix in just the right amount of lemon and apple in the green juices so it doesn’t taste like you’re drinking dirt and the lemonade (sweetened with agave of course) and the nut milk are really good too.

The whole thing is pretty pricey but they do all the work for you--the juices are labeled by number so you know when to drink what. Now that’s the kind of pampering I’m happy to pay for. No thinking about it, just follow the numbers. You have the option of doing a one day, three day, five day or 10 day cleanse. I did the three day last year and was really nervous about it. I’ve always been afraid to fast. Let’s see, could that be because my mother pounded into my head that if I didn’t eat enough and my blood sugar got too low I would pass out, hit the floor and crack my head open on the hard surface and bleed to death? Correct! So even though I had heard great things about the benefits of fasting, it took me a long time to get up the courage to finally do it. I’m doing the 5 day program this time. Last year I only did the 3 day and I breezed through it. Even though I did a really good preparation: for the last 3 weeks I had no alcohol, sugar,wheat, dairy I was kind of struggling today. I did decide to go to the gym and then take a yoga class which may be why I’m super hungry but hopefully tomorrow will be better.

So what’s up with the juice fast you ask. Well yes, in the whole idea of “spring cleaning” does apply to the body and I suffer with very bad hay fever in the springtime which I knew the cleaning out my diet would help with (especially no alcohol--that is the worst thing to have if you have allergies), but I must say I had a lot of congestion yesterday before I started the juices and today I have no symptoms which is great. I’d just kill for some solid food.

I had a really bad winter food-wise and spent a lot of time eating things I would not normally eat and the whole thing just kind of spiraled out of control. Since overeating behavior has both a physical and psychological component to it, I decided that in addition to addressing the psychological it would be helpful to address the physical.

Here’s the biology: The more sugar and high calorie crap food you eat, the more you want to eat and cleaning out your system makes a lot of the physical cravings go away so that you’re not constantly having to fight the cravings off. I guess it’s kind of like a food intervention. Which I needed desperately. Just something to interrupt the crazy overeating behavior.

I’m thinking about watching some TV but my first thought is, what’s the point if I can’t snack while I do it? I mean I’m going to need to eat something if I have to watch those bitch housewives from New York City. Maybe read a book. I just got Hungry Woman In Paris out of the library. OK, so I won’t start that this week. Maybe just go to bed and I’ll have one day less without eating. I’ll be keeping you posted on my progress for the next few days so check back.

Do You See What I See Part 2

It’s interesting how sometimes how certain themes are just swirling around in the air. My previous blog post (see below) which was about having a hard time taking compliments seems to have generated some interesting e-mails. One of my good friends who (did not happen to read that post) randomly sent me an e-mail today that said:

Slightly off-topic, but I do want to add, that now that Susan Boyle has become well-known, I can accurately describe my own body dysmorphia. She looks very much like the way that I have thought that I look. I have thought like this since sometime in my early to mid 20s. Intellectually, I know that I don't really look like that, but emotionally, that is how I feel, act, and that is how I conduct my life. I live just as though I looked like her. Fortunately, I was raised to believe that looks were far below kindness, talent, brains, and friendliness, and here in the Midwest, this is pretty much true, so I have done well here.

My first thought was, how could the gap between how she looks in person and what she thinks she looks like in person be so huge? And then I thought, well I do the same thing and I just wrote a blog post about it two days ago. It turns out that the post was sent to the friend of my sister-in-law and she responded with this:

This is real life stuff ... and I'm somehow continually amazed at how
our distorted perception of ourselves (and reality) limits us and our place in the world and the many ways in which we can contribute. Thankfully, and somehow mysteriously, we can still make our mark ... but how much more joyful would we be if only we would get it--who we are, and how we're perceived by others.

I’ve been teaching these principles in the workshops that I do with high school girls and certainly my workshops with women and I’m really trying to walk the walk myself.

If only we could see ourselves, our beauty, our wonder, our female exquisiteness...we are all manifestations of the Goddess. How great it would be if we could all be in touch with our divine feminine now; if only we could see our own beauty instead of being startled by it when we look at pictures of ourselves in our younger years. I hear it over and over again: I wish I knew how beautiful I was then, I wish I thought more of myself, I wish I wasn’t thinking I was fat, because I was gorgeous. If only we knew. I had a realization today: the “me” that I look at with disapproval in the mirror today is the “she” that I will think was gorgeous 10 or 20 years from now. As Carly Simon so aptly put it; These are the good old days. And I’ve decided to embrace who I am and what I look like now and to tell that chick staring back at me in the mirror that she’s not going to have to wait 20 years before she hears that she is beautiful. I’m telling her NOW. And you can do the same for yourself.

Every moment of your life, including this one, is a fresh start. -BJ Marshal

Do You See What I See

I was in the city today running around to appointments and stuff so I was wearing a black dress and boots- definitely more dressed up than usual. At the end of the day, I stopped in for a workout at the gym. The cute little gay boy behind the counter greeted me with, “I love your outfit.” I immediately snapped back “really, I always think I look like a total hag.” He said, “no you don't, I was going to ask you if you work in fashion.” WOW. Now that's a compliment.

I'm always so taken aback when anyone says anything like this to me. I think the shock comes not from the comment but the discrepancy between how I see myself and how others see me. The two points of view could not be farther apart.

I've been thinking a lot about this and I know I'm not alone here. Why is it so difficult for us to see ourselves the way others do?

In the workshops that I do with high school girls, I often give them the following self-esteem building exercise: ask your best friend or one of your close friends to describe how they see you and write down everything that they tell you. I've done this myself and it's incredibly eye opening. My friend Susan said wonderful things about me that I never would have thought about myself. Try it sometime—I guarantee it will make your day.

It will also help to remember these words from Neil Young:
Do not judge yourself too harsh my love or one day you may find your soul endangered.