My piece in the New York Times, Less Talk, More Therapy, has received a lot of attention, and I feel compelled to add and clarify some information.
First, I make the assertion that “being with Ann E. feels a little like being in psychotherapy.” This is due both to the nature of our conversations during sessions and the information she imparts. Our conversations emerge organically; often we talk about our pasts and our relationships. The fact that she’s a wise woman and a good listener make it feel “a little” like therapy. But make no mistake, she is a body worker.
The other “psychotherapy-like” aspect, to me, is that she discusses and demystifies how the body works as an organic entity in a way that I have never experienced through talking to doctors. She has a paradigm for understanding the body that she shares with me, the way my psychotherapists have instructed me about how my mind “works” – triggers, patterns, explanations for reactions. Again, this is her style – the way she does things. Most body workers I’ve been to (which, admittedly, are not vast in numbers) happen to be talkative. But not all of them have reminded me of being in psychotherapy. This is why I wrote about her for Couch.
I originally had included the type(s) of therapy Ann E. practices in the piece, but the editor and I believed that that information wasn’t germane to the story. Silly us. We had agreed that we didn’t want it to sound like I (or the Times) was somehow endorsing a particular type of therapy. The essay was meant to be a personal story, nothing more.
At the time, I had no idea there were so many people in so much pain.
Ann E. practices a combination of two types of therapy: Structural Integration (she calls it “soft Rolfing”) and Source Point Therapy (which is the technique she uses that engages the body’s energy, the one where her hand remains inches away from the body). Her teacher/mentor is located in New Mexico. Here is a link:
http://www.sourcepointtherapy.com/
I have not spent a lot of time on the site, but I do know there’s a place that invites you to contact them to locate practitioners in your area. Rolfing seems easy enough to find anywhere in the world.
Another thing that was cut from the article that you might find useful is reading Dr. John Sarno’s book The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain (or really any book by him). This was probably my first introduction to the idea of real physical pain resulting from emotions. I offer this up because many people I know (myself included) have moved through a tremendous amount of longstanding physical pain simply from reading his book. It’s maybe a $20 investment, and fascinating stuff.
I wish I were able to provide contact information for Ann E., but she’s a solo practitioner who works from her house and the sheer volume of phone calls would take her down.
I hope some of this is helpful, and if you ended up here because you’re in pain, I hope that you’re able to find relief in your life. I’m quietly rooting for you.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Monday, November 17, 2014
Less Talk, More Therapy
I just got my first piece in The New York Times!
I'd love for you to read it. If you're inclined to comment, please say something nice!
To see the essay:
Less Talk, More Therapy
(My title was "A Place To Unwind," which they liked, but not enough to use. But I wanted to share that because I think it goes kinda nicely with the piece.)
I'd love for you to read it. If you're inclined to comment, please say something nice!
To see the essay:
Less Talk, More Therapy
(My title was "A Place To Unwind," which they liked, but not enough to use. But I wanted to share that because I think it goes kinda nicely with the piece.)
Friday, October 24, 2014
Running You In
My friend Jane runs marathons. Once she said to me: Sometimes when I run a marathon, Henry (her teenage son) meets up with me at mile X and runs me in. She said that just having someone at that really hard part of the race to run along with, to keep pace with for a five-mile stretch, gave her what she needed to keep at it.
When I was starting Week 6 of my first Whole Life Challenge, Sharon Egan ran me in. She didn’t do much except tell me that she, too, did not tend to lose any weight for the first many weeks of the challenge, and then it came off at the end. “Just stick with it,” she texted me. It doesn’t seem like much, maybe, but at the time it was exactly what I needed to get to the end.
Although I consider myself analogy-impaired, I am going to offer you a metaphor that occurred to me this morning, because I've been trying to wrap my head around how to explain my impression of why it takes so long for the weight to come off.
Imagine you have a huge basement full of clutter and crap that you’ve been tossing down there for years. Then, one day, you decide you want a clean basement. (I’m sure you think you know exactly where this is going, but just humor me.)
Yes, it will take a lot of time to clean all that stuff out – you need to get a dumpster (that always takes time) and maybe a hazmat suit. But even if you devote an entire weekend to doing nothing but purging your crap, what you find under the crap is not necessarily the newly-renovated rec-room you were dreaming of. The walls may be peeling; there are big gaps in the baseboards that you’ve never even seen because they were obscured by all your overflow of stuff.
Now, imagine your basement is a self-repairing entity. Meaning, all that stuff that needs fixing is going to fix itself. Your only job is to get rid of all the garbage. But, all of it.
So, here we are. Weeks of "cleaning out." And you’re wondering why your basement is dragging its feet about its end of the bargain.
“Look,” says your basement, “I’m not going to fix all these baseboards just yet because chances are, you’re just going to dump more crap down here. That’s what you’ve been doing for years.”
And you’re like, “Fair enough. But I’m really not going to this time. No more junk. I swear.”
And your basement is like, “Well, what about that little pile of junk you threw down here yesterday?”
And you’re like, “Well, that was just small. And besides, I had an Indulgence Token.”
And your basement is basically, like, “Fuck the Indulgence Tokens. If you want me to start fixing things, I really need to know that you’re not going to junk things up again.”
And you’re like, “Seriously? I used to throw stuff down here with abandon, and now I barely do.” But your basement is feeling like maybe you really don’t know what belongs down there and what doesn’t.
That’s what I’m talking about.
I’m not saying you can never have cheese or bread or chocolate ever again. All I’m saying is that it takes a long time for your basement to trust that you’re going to keep things pretty clean. And the only way it knows that is for you to prove it, over what feels like an unspeakably long time.
But once your basement really believes you know what you're doing and doesn’t need to deal with your errant clutter anymore, you will not believe how spiffy it will make itself. You can just sit upstairs brewing hot, buttered coffee. It will do all the repairs on its own.
I’m not sure how that’s going to go over with anyone. I’m not a runner and maybe this isn’t inspiring at all. But if it is…consider yourself “run in.”
When I was starting Week 6 of my first Whole Life Challenge, Sharon Egan ran me in. She didn’t do much except tell me that she, too, did not tend to lose any weight for the first many weeks of the challenge, and then it came off at the end. “Just stick with it,” she texted me. It doesn’t seem like much, maybe, but at the time it was exactly what I needed to get to the end.
Although I consider myself analogy-impaired, I am going to offer you a metaphor that occurred to me this morning, because I've been trying to wrap my head around how to explain my impression of why it takes so long for the weight to come off.
Imagine you have a huge basement full of clutter and crap that you’ve been tossing down there for years. Then, one day, you decide you want a clean basement. (I’m sure you think you know exactly where this is going, but just humor me.)
Yes, it will take a lot of time to clean all that stuff out – you need to get a dumpster (that always takes time) and maybe a hazmat suit. But even if you devote an entire weekend to doing nothing but purging your crap, what you find under the crap is not necessarily the newly-renovated rec-room you were dreaming of. The walls may be peeling; there are big gaps in the baseboards that you’ve never even seen because they were obscured by all your overflow of stuff.
Now, imagine your basement is a self-repairing entity. Meaning, all that stuff that needs fixing is going to fix itself. Your only job is to get rid of all the garbage. But, all of it.
So, here we are. Weeks of "cleaning out." And you’re wondering why your basement is dragging its feet about its end of the bargain.
“Look,” says your basement, “I’m not going to fix all these baseboards just yet because chances are, you’re just going to dump more crap down here. That’s what you’ve been doing for years.”
And you’re like, “Fair enough. But I’m really not going to this time. No more junk. I swear.”
And your basement is like, “Well, what about that little pile of junk you threw down here yesterday?”
And you’re like, “Well, that was just small. And besides, I had an Indulgence Token.”
And your basement is basically, like, “Fuck the Indulgence Tokens. If you want me to start fixing things, I really need to know that you’re not going to junk things up again.”
And you’re like, “Seriously? I used to throw stuff down here with abandon, and now I barely do.” But your basement is feeling like maybe you really don’t know what belongs down there and what doesn’t.
That’s what I’m talking about.
I’m not saying you can never have cheese or bread or chocolate ever again. All I’m saying is that it takes a long time for your basement to trust that you’re going to keep things pretty clean. And the only way it knows that is for you to prove it, over what feels like an unspeakably long time.
But once your basement really believes you know what you're doing and doesn’t need to deal with your errant clutter anymore, you will not believe how spiffy it will make itself. You can just sit upstairs brewing hot, buttered coffee. It will do all the repairs on its own.
I’m not sure how that’s going to go over with anyone. I’m not a runner and maybe this isn’t inspiring at all. But if it is…consider yourself “run in.”
Friday, October 17, 2014
Old Dogs, New Tricks (WLC)
Sometimes, when I talk about this “food challenge,” people get the impression that I have a great deal of will power.
I don’t.
Anyone who knows me even a little bit, knows I have practically no tolerance for discomfort of any kind. And breaking habits is uncomfortable.
I was talking to someone the other day and explaining how a big part of “changing the way I eat” has had to do with changing when, where and why I eat – maybe even more than “what” I eat. Early on, I made a pact with myself that I would try and only eat when I was actually hungry. And I would eat however much I wanted at that time, until I felt satisfied.
When I have something to write and am not sure how to attack it, my first response is to go eat something. When I go out and run an errand, as soon as I return home I go to the kitchen and eat something. Even if I’d just eaten 15 minutes before. When I have to make order out of chaos on my desk, I eat something first. I’m rarely ever hungry during these times. It’s more of a habit – something I do to soothe myself, something I do to transition to the next thing. Those were the habits I broke early in this challenge – and they were as hard (if not harder) than giving up sugar. Partly, because I was forced to figure out other ways to soothe myself. Or (far worse) exist in a state of unsoothiness. (Yes, I just made up that word. But, I’m pretty sure I’m going to start using it often.)
I now do not eat if I’m not hungry. Even if I’m at a party, or out to dinner. I need to be hungry to eat. That’s the deal I made with myself. It may seem completely insane from the outside looking in, but to me, it feels like the first sane way I’ve approached food in my entire life.
There aren’t that many weeks to go on this challenge. If you have habits you need to break, use this challenge and the support here to try breaking them. It takes a long time (some people estimate 3 months, others 6 months) to develop a new habit, but certainly the early weeks are the hardest.
I don’t give food a second thought on this challenges, but the lifestyle challenges – decluttering, getting more sleep, stretching – are things I still need to develop habits around. Here, I get a taste of what my life could be like if I get more sleep for a week, and I can decide if it’s worth the effort to make that a priority. You can too.
NEXT WLC POST
I don’t.
Anyone who knows me even a little bit, knows I have practically no tolerance for discomfort of any kind. And breaking habits is uncomfortable.
I was talking to someone the other day and explaining how a big part of “changing the way I eat” has had to do with changing when, where and why I eat – maybe even more than “what” I eat. Early on, I made a pact with myself that I would try and only eat when I was actually hungry. And I would eat however much I wanted at that time, until I felt satisfied.
When I have something to write and am not sure how to attack it, my first response is to go eat something. When I go out and run an errand, as soon as I return home I go to the kitchen and eat something. Even if I’d just eaten 15 minutes before. When I have to make order out of chaos on my desk, I eat something first. I’m rarely ever hungry during these times. It’s more of a habit – something I do to soothe myself, something I do to transition to the next thing. Those were the habits I broke early in this challenge – and they were as hard (if not harder) than giving up sugar. Partly, because I was forced to figure out other ways to soothe myself. Or (far worse) exist in a state of unsoothiness. (Yes, I just made up that word. But, I’m pretty sure I’m going to start using it often.)
I now do not eat if I’m not hungry. Even if I’m at a party, or out to dinner. I need to be hungry to eat. That’s the deal I made with myself. It may seem completely insane from the outside looking in, but to me, it feels like the first sane way I’ve approached food in my entire life.
There aren’t that many weeks to go on this challenge. If you have habits you need to break, use this challenge and the support here to try breaking them. It takes a long time (some people estimate 3 months, others 6 months) to develop a new habit, but certainly the early weeks are the hardest.
I don’t give food a second thought on this challenges, but the lifestyle challenges – decluttering, getting more sleep, stretching – are things I still need to develop habits around. Here, I get a taste of what my life could be like if I get more sleep for a week, and I can decide if it’s worth the effort to make that a priority. You can too.
NEXT WLC POST
Monday, September 22, 2014
The Waiting Is The Hardest Part
After a week on The Whole Life Challenge everybody seems to report feeling better. But a lot of people are complaining that they're not losing weight.
I mentioned this before, but now that you have a week under your belt, I'm going to mention it again. You will, in all likelihood, lose weight on this plan...but it probably won't happen for a few weeks. This was the pattern for most everyone in previous games. I was despondent by week 2 that I had been 100 percent compliant and not lost a single pound. I felt great, but I didn't give a shit about that...I wanted to be thinner.
Captain Sharon urged me to stick it out, sharing that she didn't lose any weight until the very end -- and then dropped like 13 pounds. I did stick it out and the scale did not move until week 6. Yes, that is a lot of weeks with no cheese and no weight loss to show for it.
But in that time, even though my weight was the same, I could already feel my body starting to change. Yours will too.
I know, I know, I know...it's too long.
I don't know what to tell you except to say this: Your body will work better without sugar and bread in it. Period. Your body will work better with plenty of healthy fats in it. Your body will work better with lots of nutritious fruits and vegetables in it. And once your body really believes that you're going to feed it properly, for the long haul, it can finally let go of the fat it holds onto because you've been (nutritionally) starving it.
I, like you, thought I used to "eat healthy." If anyone told me I was starving my body nutritionally, I would have just told them flat out they were wrong. But I don't think I understood the toll it takes on our bodies to process all the "crap" we put into it in addition to the healthy stuff. I'm on the verge of using a grade-of-gas-in-your-car metaphor, but I don't really think I have to.
Is this true? I have no idea. But a lot of new research bears it out and, besides, you feel good, so just hang in there.
As soon as I have time I'm going to try and write about hormones and how they seemingly play into this whole process.
(If you're not feeling better yet, I would try to get off all sugar completely. Even if it's just for a week.)
NEXT WLC POST
I mentioned this before, but now that you have a week under your belt, I'm going to mention it again. You will, in all likelihood, lose weight on this plan...but it probably won't happen for a few weeks. This was the pattern for most everyone in previous games. I was despondent by week 2 that I had been 100 percent compliant and not lost a single pound. I felt great, but I didn't give a shit about that...I wanted to be thinner.
Captain Sharon urged me to stick it out, sharing that she didn't lose any weight until the very end -- and then dropped like 13 pounds. I did stick it out and the scale did not move until week 6. Yes, that is a lot of weeks with no cheese and no weight loss to show for it.
But in that time, even though my weight was the same, I could already feel my body starting to change. Yours will too.
I know, I know, I know...it's too long.
I don't know what to tell you except to say this: Your body will work better without sugar and bread in it. Period. Your body will work better with plenty of healthy fats in it. Your body will work better with lots of nutritious fruits and vegetables in it. And once your body really believes that you're going to feed it properly, for the long haul, it can finally let go of the fat it holds onto because you've been (nutritionally) starving it.
I, like you, thought I used to "eat healthy." If anyone told me I was starving my body nutritionally, I would have just told them flat out they were wrong. But I don't think I understood the toll it takes on our bodies to process all the "crap" we put into it in addition to the healthy stuff. I'm on the verge of using a grade-of-gas-in-your-car metaphor, but I don't really think I have to.
Is this true? I have no idea. But a lot of new research bears it out and, besides, you feel good, so just hang in there.
As soon as I have time I'm going to try and write about hormones and how they seemingly play into this whole process.
(If you're not feeling better yet, I would try to get off all sugar completely. Even if it's just for a week.)
NEXT WLC POST
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Is That A Banana In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?
Last night at Back to School Night, l ran into easily a dozen people doing the challenge. Most shared with me that they were packing almonds and bananas for their journey out. I (perhaps weirdly) love that feeling of all of us being in one place and "in it" together. The Whole Life Challenge website has been a mess — the most distressing to me is the fact that we all can’t see and respond to each other’s reflections. That was the one thing that made it fun the first time I did it — because giving up cheese and chocolate was decidedly unfun.
First, I just want to say, I’m sorry that the website has been a bust. I am still optimistic that it will get sorted out soon, and I know it’s not “my fault,” but somehow I feel responsible for dragging y’all into this and making you deal with a less than perfect system. Mostly I feel bad about the reflections, because aside from it being the fun part, it also ended up being a really helpful part, for me anyway, getting people’s encouragement and tips on how to cope.
I’m very big on coping tips.
I feel like I’ve covered food here at length, but still I get a lot of questions about what I eat all day. (And I do…I eat ALL DAY.) In fact the other day, a friend stopped by on her way to the market and asked me exactly what she should buy. These are some of the things I have on hand all the time (I know this may be a repeat of earlier posts, but this is very specific, if you like that sort of thing):
Broccoli, Cauliflower, Portabello Mushrooms, Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash, Onions, Asparagus - these are veggies that I oil and roast ALL THE TIME. Olive oil, salt, garlic powder. I either roast daily or I roast big batches and keep them in the fridge and heat them up for snacks.
Chicken Sausage and Chicken Breasts - I cook up batches and keep them in the fridge to throw into other things, like soups or veggie stews.
Eggplant, Peppers, Carrots, Zucchini, White Mushrooms - I keep these on hand and make ratatouille in big batches, or some cooked vegetable melange that I throw on brown rice or quinoa.
Cucumber, Calamata Olives, Grape Tomatoes, Celery, Avacado, Red Onion — I make Mediterranean salads, with or without chickpeas — just oil and lemon and salt, and eat it with hard boiled egg, or tuna or mixed in a batch of quinoa or brown rice.
Eggs — hard boiled or scrambled with sautéed veggies
Romaine lettuce that I top with tomatoes, red onion, hard boiled eggs, pumpkin seeds and avacado — often I put fruit on it, either mango or pear, which is unbearably delicious, and then oil/balsamic/mustard as dressing.
Plain Greek yogurt, banana, walnuts, chia seeds (I eat this once a day).
Frozen blueberries, almond milk, banana, yogurt smoothie (I make smoothies with anything; this is really good if you need something sweet. If you need it sweeter, add a stevia packet.)
Oatmeal and fresh berries and a few raw almonds (this is my breakfast every morning) (I like eating the same thing every day.) (I also sometimes have it at night if I’m hungry and need a filling snack.)
Lentils (to make soup) and cans of beans (to throw in everything). Once, someone on FB asked her crowd for a good lentil soup recipe and I "captured" five of them which I make in nearly constant rotation.
As you can see, there are very few things that come in a package. No one is more surprised by this than me. A year ago, if you told me I wouldn’t be eating anything from a package by September 2014, I would have laughed in your face. In fact, I probably would have laughed while ripping open a bag of Tostitos.
On Sunday, I cooked for a few hours to have things in the house and ready to eat all week. Doing this makes me unspeakably happy because then I know I have food available for many days. I am a reluctant cook and have discovered that the process is much more pleasurable with a great iTunes playlist or the Classic Rock station on Serius XM blaring in the kitchen. This Sunday, while hitting “repeat” on Heart’s “Crazy on You,” I made:
For my birthday last month, my son's girlfriend got me a Vegetarian cookbook from Anthropologie. I cook out of it all the time, omitting the cheese. I like eating vegetarian, so, again, this is not hard for me.
If you are craving sweets, I really urge you to try nuts. As a “Weight Watcher,” I used to mete out almonds, eating them 6 at a time, no more than 24 in a day. This will not do if you’re trying to get on top of a craving. My friend, Laura, believes that when our body is craving “chocolate,” what it really wants is “fat.” So, I mainline the nuts to get through a craving. I pour myself a small bowl (in a restaurant it would be called a Monkey Dish) of roasted salted almonds and salted sunflower seeds, and I eat the whole bowl. And if the craving is not gone, I have another bowl. I have adopted an ABC approach to the craving — Anything But Chocolate — and I give myself permission to eat ANY compliant food, and as much of it as I need to, in order to feel sated. This has worked for me consistently over the last 8 months.
Would it be easier to just eat some chocolate? Probably. But I know me. I’m not a person who will stop at one Ghirardelli square. I will eat them all and then eat more of them tomorrow. That’s possibly the only good thing about being a middle aged woman. You know exactly where you stand with chocolate.
If I need something truly sweet, I might add raisins to the nuts. Or I’ll put some frozen bananas (yes, I keep bananas frozen for emergencies) in the Cuisinart with a little coconut milk or almond milk — it tastes like soft-serve ice cream. Or I’ll have the sweetest fruit in the house (often mango). Or I’ll make a smoothie. Or, my favorite, is a cup of Chai tea with stevia and almond milk, which is sweet and soothing and allows you to still feel really good about yourself the next day.
Side note: If you all go buy up all the Greek yogurt in town, as seemed to have happened on Sunday, I'm not posting anymore. :-)
If you're new to the party, this series of posts started here: My Big Fat Whole Life Challenge Blog Post
NEXT WLC POST
First, I just want to say, I’m sorry that the website has been a bust. I am still optimistic that it will get sorted out soon, and I know it’s not “my fault,” but somehow I feel responsible for dragging y’all into this and making you deal with a less than perfect system. Mostly I feel bad about the reflections, because aside from it being the fun part, it also ended up being a really helpful part, for me anyway, getting people’s encouragement and tips on how to cope.
I’m very big on coping tips.
I feel like I’ve covered food here at length, but still I get a lot of questions about what I eat all day. (And I do…I eat ALL DAY.) In fact the other day, a friend stopped by on her way to the market and asked me exactly what she should buy. These are some of the things I have on hand all the time (I know this may be a repeat of earlier posts, but this is very specific, if you like that sort of thing):
Broccoli, Cauliflower, Portabello Mushrooms, Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash, Onions, Asparagus - these are veggies that I oil and roast ALL THE TIME. Olive oil, salt, garlic powder. I either roast daily or I roast big batches and keep them in the fridge and heat them up for snacks.
Chicken Sausage and Chicken Breasts - I cook up batches and keep them in the fridge to throw into other things, like soups or veggie stews.
Eggplant, Peppers, Carrots, Zucchini, White Mushrooms - I keep these on hand and make ratatouille in big batches, or some cooked vegetable melange that I throw on brown rice or quinoa.
Cucumber, Calamata Olives, Grape Tomatoes, Celery, Avacado, Red Onion — I make Mediterranean salads, with or without chickpeas — just oil and lemon and salt, and eat it with hard boiled egg, or tuna or mixed in a batch of quinoa or brown rice.
Eggs — hard boiled or scrambled with sautéed veggies
Romaine lettuce that I top with tomatoes, red onion, hard boiled eggs, pumpkin seeds and avacado — often I put fruit on it, either mango or pear, which is unbearably delicious, and then oil/balsamic/mustard as dressing.
Plain Greek yogurt, banana, walnuts, chia seeds (I eat this once a day).
Frozen blueberries, almond milk, banana, yogurt smoothie (I make smoothies with anything; this is really good if you need something sweet. If you need it sweeter, add a stevia packet.)
Oatmeal and fresh berries and a few raw almonds (this is my breakfast every morning) (I like eating the same thing every day.) (I also sometimes have it at night if I’m hungry and need a filling snack.)
Lentils (to make soup) and cans of beans (to throw in everything). Once, someone on FB asked her crowd for a good lentil soup recipe and I "captured" five of them which I make in nearly constant rotation.
As you can see, there are very few things that come in a package. No one is more surprised by this than me. A year ago, if you told me I wouldn’t be eating anything from a package by September 2014, I would have laughed in your face. In fact, I probably would have laughed while ripping open a bag of Tostitos.
On Sunday, I cooked for a few hours to have things in the house and ready to eat all week. Doing this makes me unspeakably happy because then I know I have food available for many days. I am a reluctant cook and have discovered that the process is much more pleasurable with a great iTunes playlist or the Classic Rock station on Serius XM blaring in the kitchen. This Sunday, while hitting “repeat” on Heart’s “Crazy on You,” I made:
- Chana Masala (a chickpea and tomato stew)
- 5 different roasted vegetables (broccoli, cauli, mushrooms, squash, Brussels sprouts)
- Chicken Sausage
- Baked Chicken
- Baked Rice
- Red Lentil Soup
- Roasted Sweet Potatoes
For my birthday last month, my son's girlfriend got me a Vegetarian cookbook from Anthropologie. I cook out of it all the time, omitting the cheese. I like eating vegetarian, so, again, this is not hard for me.
If you are craving sweets, I really urge you to try nuts. As a “Weight Watcher,” I used to mete out almonds, eating them 6 at a time, no more than 24 in a day. This will not do if you’re trying to get on top of a craving. My friend, Laura, believes that when our body is craving “chocolate,” what it really wants is “fat.” So, I mainline the nuts to get through a craving. I pour myself a small bowl (in a restaurant it would be called a Monkey Dish) of roasted salted almonds and salted sunflower seeds, and I eat the whole bowl. And if the craving is not gone, I have another bowl. I have adopted an ABC approach to the craving — Anything But Chocolate — and I give myself permission to eat ANY compliant food, and as much of it as I need to, in order to feel sated. This has worked for me consistently over the last 8 months.
Would it be easier to just eat some chocolate? Probably. But I know me. I’m not a person who will stop at one Ghirardelli square. I will eat them all and then eat more of them tomorrow. That’s possibly the only good thing about being a middle aged woman. You know exactly where you stand with chocolate.
If I need something truly sweet, I might add raisins to the nuts. Or I’ll put some frozen bananas (yes, I keep bananas frozen for emergencies) in the Cuisinart with a little coconut milk or almond milk — it tastes like soft-serve ice cream. Or I’ll have the sweetest fruit in the house (often mango). Or I’ll make a smoothie. Or, my favorite, is a cup of Chai tea with stevia and almond milk, which is sweet and soothing and allows you to still feel really good about yourself the next day.
Side note: If you all go buy up all the Greek yogurt in town, as seemed to have happened on Sunday, I'm not posting anymore. :-)
If you're new to the party, this series of posts started here: My Big Fat Whole Life Challenge Blog Post
NEXT WLC POST
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Gulp! (WLC)
The only thing left that I know about on this challenge is Water, and I don’t really even “know” about that.
This time around, one daily requirement is to drink a third of your body weight in ounces of water. During my first two challenges, this was a “Lifestyle” challenge — meaning it was a special thing you did just for a week or two — and it was half your weight in ounces. I literally prayed each day that I would lose substantial poundage quickly so I didn’t have to drink so much water.
Silly me.
One of the reasons it’s become a regular staple of the challenge is because everyone could quickly see the benefits of the water-drinking. In January it was our very first Lifestyle Challenge, it lasted two weeks, and at the end, everyone wrote in their reflections that they were going to continue the practice throughout the challenge, even though they would garner no more points for it.
I like water and it has always been my beverage of choice, but that much water was painful for me to drink at first. At 150 lbs I had to drink 75 oz of water. That may not sound like that much to you, but even as a regular water drinker, it was going right through me. I could not stray far from a bathroom and if I had to travel into the city, I strategized the hours preceding my trip to make sure I would have an empty bladder during that 45-60 minutes.
Then, after about eight days, things changed. I could hold the water more easily and didn’t panic so much about being out and away from a loo. Not surprisingly, my skin started to look better and I started having a lot more energy. I came up with a theory (although I can’t remember if I came up with it on my own or if my friend Amy Romano, fitness and nutrition guru extraordinaire, came up with it for me).
Imagine a houseplant that is withering because you haven’t watered it in weeks. You feel bad because the dirt is all dry and dusty and the plant itself is droopy and lifeless, so you get your watering can and give it a nice, big drink. What happens? The dirt is so dry, all the water runs straight to the bottom of the pot and out the drain holes.
That’s us. Most of us are dehydrated — very, very dehydrated. I didn’t think that was me because I thought I drank plenty of water every day. I was wrong.
Eventually, the plant will absorb the water, the soil will get moist and the leaves will perk up, but it takes a few days. When we start this water regimen, that’s what we are offering our dry, shriveled cells. Once they’re hydrated again, they start to work better. They’re able to receive the nutrients in our food, which they really weren’t receiving before. (Amy definitely told me that part.) So this combination of hydrating your cells and eating nutritious REAL FOOD creates this awesome Super You — a You that probably needs less sleep, can bound up stairs, can work out harder — all because your organs aren’t so starving for food and water that they can do their job with a fraction of the life-energy they required before. And all that extra life-energy goes to you!
As I said, Amy told me about our cells’ ability to process nutrients, but I may have made the rest of it up. It totally makes sense to me and has been borne out by my experience, but it may have no basis in science or fact. If that’s a sticking point for you, feel free to disregard all of this. But commit to the water-drinking with a vengeance nonetheless.
I used to think drinking water on a “diet plan” was about filling yourself up so you didn’t eat as much — a strategy that has never, not once, worked for me. Now I think it’s about making us big, lush, frond-laden houseplants, which is kind of a nice image, don’t you think?
NEXT WLC POST
This time around, one daily requirement is to drink a third of your body weight in ounces of water. During my first two challenges, this was a “Lifestyle” challenge — meaning it was a special thing you did just for a week or two — and it was half your weight in ounces. I literally prayed each day that I would lose substantial poundage quickly so I didn’t have to drink so much water.
Silly me.
One of the reasons it’s become a regular staple of the challenge is because everyone could quickly see the benefits of the water-drinking. In January it was our very first Lifestyle Challenge, it lasted two weeks, and at the end, everyone wrote in their reflections that they were going to continue the practice throughout the challenge, even though they would garner no more points for it.
I like water and it has always been my beverage of choice, but that much water was painful for me to drink at first. At 150 lbs I had to drink 75 oz of water. That may not sound like that much to you, but even as a regular water drinker, it was going right through me. I could not stray far from a bathroom and if I had to travel into the city, I strategized the hours preceding my trip to make sure I would have an empty bladder during that 45-60 minutes.
Then, after about eight days, things changed. I could hold the water more easily and didn’t panic so much about being out and away from a loo. Not surprisingly, my skin started to look better and I started having a lot more energy. I came up with a theory (although I can’t remember if I came up with it on my own or if my friend Amy Romano, fitness and nutrition guru extraordinaire, came up with it for me).
Imagine a houseplant that is withering because you haven’t watered it in weeks. You feel bad because the dirt is all dry and dusty and the plant itself is droopy and lifeless, so you get your watering can and give it a nice, big drink. What happens? The dirt is so dry, all the water runs straight to the bottom of the pot and out the drain holes.
That’s us. Most of us are dehydrated — very, very dehydrated. I didn’t think that was me because I thought I drank plenty of water every day. I was wrong.
Eventually, the plant will absorb the water, the soil will get moist and the leaves will perk up, but it takes a few days. When we start this water regimen, that’s what we are offering our dry, shriveled cells. Once they’re hydrated again, they start to work better. They’re able to receive the nutrients in our food, which they really weren’t receiving before. (Amy definitely told me that part.) So this combination of hydrating your cells and eating nutritious REAL FOOD creates this awesome Super You — a You that probably needs less sleep, can bound up stairs, can work out harder — all because your organs aren’t so starving for food and water that they can do their job with a fraction of the life-energy they required before. And all that extra life-energy goes to you!
As I said, Amy told me about our cells’ ability to process nutrients, but I may have made the rest of it up. It totally makes sense to me and has been borne out by my experience, but it may have no basis in science or fact. If that’s a sticking point for you, feel free to disregard all of this. But commit to the water-drinking with a vengeance nonetheless.
I used to think drinking water on a “diet plan” was about filling yourself up so you didn’t eat as much — a strategy that has never, not once, worked for me. Now I think it’s about making us big, lush, frond-laden houseplants, which is kind of a nice image, don’t you think?
NEXT WLC POST
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