Eat Naked

Tonight I was searching the web for information for a group I have on Thursday and I ran across this wonderful blog post from the Eating Naked by Margaret Floyd.  At first I took it literally, but then I read on.  The post is really talking about getting in touch with your real, authentic self - the naked you.  Then allowing yourself to connect with your inner wisdom - the body wisdom.  She does a great job describing how to make the connection.

Here's the post - read it - you'll think about EATING NAKED in a whole new way!

http://www.eatnakednow.com/nakedlifestyle/2011/02/15/cook-from-your-heart-not-your-head/

Eat Naked is about eating healthy, local, organic foods.  The blog/website seems like it has tons of info, and her philosophy sounds like it is rooted in a great place.   I am not promoting any food plan - that is up to each individual.  As you know, the  first step in the Body Belief process is to give up the diet mentality.  But that doesn't mean you have to give up healthy eating.  It's all in how you look at it!  When eating turns into a diet, there is normally one outcome - going OFF the diet and the binge that follows.  Making the choice to eat healthy because you choose to; because you want to have mental clarity; because you love yourself and want to be healthy - now, that is a good thing!  Just be ready when you do.  Meanwhile, enjoy the blog post from Eat Naked.

Drew Barrymore & Weight

Last week I watched Oprah interview Drew Barrymore about her new baby and the launch of her cosmetics line called FLOWER.  She is so adorable and full of life!  Plus she rocks that red lipstick like no one else!

During the interview Oprah asked her if she felt any pressure about losing her “baby weight”.  In Hollywood it seems celebrities give birth and are back in shape within a few weeks.  Drew was very candid and told Oprah that she didn’t buy into that whole expectation.  She is is letting her body return to what ever normal is when it is ready.  Then she said the thing that made we write this blog post.  

“I want to be healthy enough so I feel good mentally.”  ~Drew Barrymore

What an interesting thought.  Making a health decision based on feeling good mentally.  It really got me thinking.  If feeling good mentally was my goal, instead of losing weight, how would it change things in my life?  Here’s a few things I came up with:

• Exercise would be something I did everyday, because when I exercise I feel better, think clearer, and sleep better.
• Sugar, high fat, starchy foods, and processed junk would be off the back - because they make me feel terrible and mentally foggy.
• Yoga and meditation would start my day because that daily practice keeps me connected spiritually and frees my mind of a lot of crazy chatter.  
• Naps, relaxation, quiet time reading would be on my “To Do” list because taking care of myself keeps the stress at bay and helps me feel nurtured. 
• Thursday Farmers Market would be my weekly destination for whole, organic healthy foods that support a healthy body, which then creates a healthy mind.
• I would refrain from negative situations and people.  Limit my time in crowded, stressful places and find space for peace and serenity. 

This list sounds like the life I want to live - but I have never been able to make all the changes because I am doing it from a place of shoulds, have to’s and musts so I can lose the dreaded weight that makes me feel terrible about myself.  Just flipping it around makes such a difference.  A change of focus shifts everything.  Choosing to feel good mentally is about so much more!  It is about living a full life, getting up each day being happy and excited about the day ahead.  It’s about thinking clearly and being able to make good decisions.  It means putting yourself at the top of your priority list and treating yourself with loving kindness.  Taking time to make decisions about your life and who, how and when you interact with people.  What a different way of looking at life!

Thanks Drew for the inspiration to flip my focus!  Sometimes just looking at a situation with new eyes makes all the difference.

(And speaking of eyes, I think I'll try some of her new eye liner called "On Your Mark")

My Petulant Inner Kid is Wise

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.  - Aristotle

Yesterday I wrote about the petulant kid inside me that wants what she wants and won’t be told what to do.  I have thought about that some more and today I have a different perspective.  

What if that inner kid is not petulant, but just tired of being forced to follow a path that isn’t natural to her.  That kid could be my inner knowing and I have been ignoring her completely for a really long time!  I have been ignoring her to the point that she is really acting out trying to get my attention.  Does that sound crazy?  Maybe so. But I think I am on to something here.

When we are born we come equipped with an inner knowing about what our bodies need.  We cry when we are hungry.  We stop eating when we have had enough.  Even if someone tries to fed us more - we turn our head away, or spit the food out.  I can clearly remember by daughter and granddaughters doing this.  There were many other things that we did instinctually, too.  Kids will automatically be drawn to foods they need, some kids have been known to eat dirt - their bodies missing some type of mineral.  We are born with all the instincts of an animal, but as humans we are gifted with the human mind which includes the freedom of choice.  Something animals don’t have.  Otherwise, how could a dog eat the same food week after week and always be thrilled to see that bowl set down in front of him.  Or cows, endlessly eating grass, birds eating worms, etc.

Once we are born we are immediately influenced by those around us and start learning about choice, power and a deep seated need to be loved.  That’s when we start to change.  We learn about food from our parents and family, what is good, what is bad, and how it’s eaten.  We learn quickly how to make them happy.  Our inward focus rapidly changes and we become outwardly focused on these people who are caring for us and providing us with all our needs.  Food and love get interrelated and if the family has issues with food, then the child will have them shorty as well.  These early years are the beginning stages of the disconnect.  A part of this system is called Memetics.

“The meme, analogous to a gene, was conceived as a "unit of culture" (an idea, belief, pattern of behavior, etc.) which is "hosted" in one or more individual minds, and which can reproduce itself, thereby jumping from mind to mind.”

What ever we want to call it - it is an effective pattern of systematic disconnect from our inner knowing, our body awareness.  So maybe it’s time I listen to my inner kid, who is trying to bring my attention back inside.  She knows that as long as I keep looking outside myself for indicators of what my body needs, I will always be searching.  But, when I look inside and pay attention to my body wisdom and inner knowing, then the real changes can begin.

I think my petulant kid is pretty darn smart!

Blood Type A+

"The second day of a diet is always easier than the first.  By the second day you're off it." - Jackie Gleason

Yesterday I was visiting my Mom and she starting talking about the Blood Type diet.  She had the book on the kitchen table and she started reading parts of it to me.   We are both A+ and she was reading off the A+ food list.  It says the only protein type A’s should eat is chicken, cornish game hens, turkey and some types of fish.  

As she was talking my mind drifted off and I was thinking about a big juicy hamburger, or meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy, or maybe some nice thick pork chops with a bowl of applesauce on the side.  I realized that no matter what diet or plan of eating I tried to attempt in the past, the minute something was restricted it became the object of my desires.  

And I am not alone in that. It’s our nature.  Take a kid and put three toys in front of them and then tell them it’s okay to play with the toys except the middle toy and then leave the room.  I guarantee that as soon as you are out of sight the kid is playing with the middle toy.  It’s nature!  And if the kid isn’t playing with the toy - they are sitting there using massive amounts of willpower trying NOT to play with the toy.  Either way all the attention is focused on that toy!

That is what dieting is like for me.  It brings out my petulant kid - who  wants what she wants and won’t be told what to do!  There is something more exciting and desirable about the forbidden.  

Looking Outside for the Answer

'Change happens when you do something different than you have before.'

It always seems that I am looking for the answer to life’s big issues outside myself.  If I read the right book, find the right teacher, take the right class, meet the right person, or find the right food plan (diet) than all my problems will be solved.  If I could just find the answer to this one big problem, than all would be well.

That has been my experience with dieting my entire life.  Always looking for the answer outside myself.  Seeking the “cure” to the fat blues.  Going from diet to diet, weight loss program to  weight loss program, crazy fat cures (like stapling your ear) and a variety of exercise regimes.  Not to mention pills, potions, vitamins and extracts.   Even Twelve Step programs, workshops, retreats and anti-diet groups.  I even started my own group called Living Life Large - a size acceptance group that promoted loving yourself as you are, no matter what size or weight. Unfortunately, I could never really accomplish the self love part.

Change happens when you do something different than you have before.  It’s like the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  You can’t get different results, unless you do something different!  So why on earth am I looking outside myself for the answer?

My body knows.  It knows what feels right, it knows when I eat something that it doesn't like.  It responds - there are signals.  Like I get headaches when I eat raisins, my intestines go crazy when I eat certain legumes or fermented foods.  When I drink regular coffee I get a buzz like I have just taken speed.  When I eat chocolate I get that same buzz and then my body craves it like heroin.  When I eat combinations of sugar, flour and butter I get light headed, a slight headache followed in a couple of hours by ravenous hunger.  And I am sure there are many other signals that I am missing - because I have been focusing my attention outside of my body.  I have been ignoring the most powerful knowledge that I possess - the wisdom of my body!

Fat Cheerleader - No Super Bowl for Her

Baltimore Ravens Cheerleader Benched for Gaining Weight?

This crazy, thin, and beauty obsessed world has claimed another victim.  Baltimore Ravens cheerleader Courtney Lenz. It seems she didn’t make the cut to cheer at the Super Bowl because she gained too much weight.  Here’s what she said.  “I’d been benched earlier in the season for a little bit of a weight gain. We do get weighed every week during the season, and you can’t fluctuate at all. I gained, I think it was 1.8 pounds.”

Courtney Lenz
Baltimore Ravens Cheerleader

It is reported that she was benched for weighing 125.4 pounds after weighing 124 for most of the season and that the organization wanted her to get down to 120 pounds.  No one would confirm it was the cause of her being left out of the SB XLVII, but it sure sounds like the weigh gain may have played a role.  There was even a petition drive on Facebook to try and save her spot for the big game, but no luck.  The good news is the petition got nearly 25,000 signers in just a few short days.  

I just don’t know what else to say?  Really? 1.8 pounds?  What kind of crazy is that.  

Do you think that she should have been benched?  Or is this too high a standard to uphold?  How does news like this effect the female population at large?  Are women in America judging themselves this harshly?  What about all the little girls across America that are cheerleaders?  How much do they worry about getting “fat”? (Like gaining nearly 2 pounds is getting fat!)

This story speaks to a much bigger issue - how the media, entertainment, and advertising industries have created an epidemic of weight and size obsessed woman (and a growing number of men).  I’ll have to write about that soon!