The Joy of Eating

Through a series of seemingly random events, the organic solution I knew would show up fell right into my lap! Seemingly random. I found a healthy eating style that made me feel great, that was totally satisfying, and with no struggle at all the weight started to take care of itself. What empowered me to be able to find my own healthy way of eating was to make peace with food and accept where I was minute to minute. If you struggle with fear around food, diet, and body image, and subsequently with your weight and health, my hope is to help you find the joy of eating, to make peace with food and find a way of eating that you love and that gets you back to health and your naturally thin self. And in the midst of this process I think you will find that peace will spill into other areas of your life. Eat good food; feel good about what you eat. That is my wish for you. Chapter 2 Eat Good Food; Feel Good about What You Eat I often check Google analytics to see what keywords people are searching to get to my website. I should be doing this to strategize on my search engine optimization plan, but really I do it because it often cracks me up. One day, I came upon a phrase that really struck me: fat, sick, and feeling dead inside. I don’t know if this person meant to input the movie title Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and messed it up, which would be funny in my book. But I wondered, Is somebody out there really feeling dead inside because they are overweight and sick? Not so funny. Nobody, in my experience, wants to be fat—it sucks! It’s tiring, it’s uncomfortable, and being overweight can also bring a long list of health problems. So not only is the overweight upsetting, the aching joints and stomach problems, among other things, add to the dismay. Recent statistics show that in the US 68.5% of adults are overweight or obese; 34.9% are obese. Wow, those numbers are huge, but I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised but I am kind of incensed. Not because so many people are overweight, but why they are overweight. The reason is this: The diet industry has us duped. Artificial sweeteners, diet “foods”, light, low fat, no fat. When we are overweight we are told to go on a diet—count calories, count points, count fat grams, count carbohydrates. Meal plans filled with artificial foods are designed to fit the bill. All of this processed and artificial food is keeping the majority of the United States overweight. We are getting a lot of bad information about what to eat and we need to turn it around. The key to weight loss and health is so simple it’s like it is hidden in plain sight. Here it is: Eat real food. Don’t starve yourself or go on a diet that is not sustainable. Eat lots of nutrient-dense vegetables. Eat whole foods. When you get on the path of eating whole, nutrient-dense food your cravings for processed faux foods will start to dwindle. In the meantime your body will get the nutrients it needs and the weight and health issues will start to take care of themselves. But there is another problem the diet industry creates that will trip us up even if we get on the whole food path. In addition to giving us a lot of bad information and processed diet “foods”, it has us programmed to feel lousy about ourselves at any weight, and to feel extreme guilt when we eat something “bad”. This is the piece that remains hidden; we are susceptible to this programming to feel badly about ourselves and fearful about our food choices, and often we don’t even know it. Instead of being seen as something that nourishes and sustains us, food becomes the enemy conspiring to make us fat. My journey to weight loss was twofold. First I gave up dieting and all diet foods, and made peace with food. Then I changed my focus from weight loss to health. The first step involved changing my thoughts and beliefs around food, diet, and body image. The second step, for me, involved juice cleansing to get my body nourished, and adopting an eating plan of whole, nutrient-dense food. Do I ever stray from my healthy eating plan and eat something crappy? Hell yes! I am human. But I refuse to feel guilty about it. To the diet industry’s chagrin, I eat whatever food it happens to be and enjoy it, rather than eat it and feel so guilty I get no pleasure from it, and overeat because I believed it was “bad” to eat it in the first place so I should never eat it again. So there, take that, insane diet industry! There is another way—a peaceful way that won’t leave you in the 68.5% overweight category. Eat good food; feel good about what you eat. This statement is the succinct version of my philosophy about what it takes to get back to your optimal weight and good health.