Wise life coach Marcia Goldberg once wrote, “Intention is the thread on which the pearls of our life experience are strung”. If we go through life without intention – without consciously knowing what we want to embody – we are more likely to have haphazard experiences in life.
There’s a balance between going with the flow and setting the agenda. Intention speaks to why – the motivator – of your actions that can help you know when to let go, and when to lean in.
Finding that balance is a fun and fascinating experience, if you also hold a sense of being open to the odd ironies of life that surround us. First, however, get clear on your why – set intention.
How To Set Intention
As you vision your life unfolding over the next year, consider what you’d like to have more. Peace, abundance, fun, balance? How about taking some time to visualize what it would feel like to embody a life with more of what you vision – can you open your senses to explore how it might feel to be living your intention? What would you be doing most days? How would you be feeling physically, emotionally, in your bones?
Your intention speaks to what you are seeking in life. It speaks to the why behind your actions. When I hear, for example, that someone is interested in addressing metabolic (weight-related) health – things like high blood sugar or high blood pressure – I always ask why. Why do you want to be healthy? That’s when I hear – “I want to see my son graduate from college”, or “I want to see my grandkids get married” – I can feel the energy behind the intention. That’s motivation!
From there, your practices for the year are grounded in and fired by the motivation of intention. In my own life, this adds meaning to my planning and what I choose to do to each day. If I can take some time daily, reminding myself of my intention – the why, it directs my conscious and unconscious being in the direction I’m aiming.
Intention Rather than Resolutions?
New Year’s Resolutions – our declarations about doing this or that, being this or that in the New Year, are designed to fail. “Lose Weight!” “Get Healthy!” “New Job!” These are missives and there is nothing wrong with a declaration. Resolutions fail when they are not rooted in intention and do not follow up with a plan. When it is just a declaration without the why or thought of how, well, that’s when, in March, for forget what your resolutions even are.
So, this year, try something new.
What is your intention for the New Year?
You can see that I have a free transformation workbook available to you to help you find your intention, and then to power it with some mantras and affirmations. This is the type of work that can be fun and helpful in supporting real change. Give it a download.
In the coming year, I plan to continue to cover the connections between nutritional science, spirit, and wisdom and to grow our community with online opportunities (personal & professional!) to learn together.
Hopefully, as the year unfolds, I will see many of you in person at some of our favorite gathering spots. Much of my year, however, will center on online offerings.
Thank you to those of you who have commented, dugg, stumbled, twittered and otherwise reached out.
My wish for you is that you enjoy health, happiness, and the light of your truest self.
Namaste!
Please please share your intentions for the New Year in the comments!
Mindful eating – using the tenets of mindfulness meditation while eating, has done nothing less than transform mind-body nutrition. Practitioners everywhere are incorporating it because it helps our clients change what they eat. Simple as that!
What is Mindful Eating?
Mindful eating is a type of meditation wherein you focus your attention on the sensory and other aspects of eating with an attitude of non-judgmental awareness. In essence, you slow down, eat with all five senses and stay curious about the process, about the food, and about your own relationship with food.
When I work with an individual, I almost always combine clear steps to bring food and lifestyle into balance (the what of lifestyle) with mindfulness (the how of lifestyle).
Since I’ve become a student of mindful eating myself, I enjoy my food more, often eat less, and am more satisfied. It takes longer to eat, (and to do the dishes as I really slow down), but I’m happier. Thich Nhat Hanh (who said he’s happier when he washes this teapot as though it were the baby Buddha or Jesus) is right.
The Science
The research community agrees that mindful eating is an effective tool. It can help promote a healthy natural weight (1) and curb destructive emotional eating (2). While the science is still young, it is evolving quickly – we are learning more about it all the time.
For emotional eating, mindful eating has been found to be most effective when combined with other behavior change techniques like coaching with a qualified nutrition professional. For effective weight management, again, mindful eating is most effective when it is done within a more comprehensive nutrition program and delivered by a well-trained professional.
6 Benefits of Practicing Mindful Eating
Enjoying your food – First off, when people slow things down – and eating is a dramatic example – they tend to taste and enjoy their food more. It might seem ironic, but eating slowly is more interesting and enjoyable, once you get the hang of it.
Epigenetic benefits – Epige-what? Epigenetics is the impact that choices have on gene expression. When you choose to eat a plant-based diet or move your body, you actually impact your gene expression, which in turn builds a more resilient future for you. It’s some of the biggest news in lifestyle medicine now.
Neurobiology benefits – Mindfulness manages stress. When you slow down and breathe – particularly when you extend your exhale – you activate the whole rest-and-recover side of your nervous system. That not only manages stress but can improve digestion.
Turn down the external messages on what and how much to eat. Face it, modern life is filled with messages from the media – commercials for fast food, billboards – it’s just everywhere. We are told we need to be eating basically all the time. It’s hard to ignore, but mindfulness can help you un-hook from those messages. That helps you to begin to find your own way.
Tune in to your internal guidance system – instead of responding to cues from the outside, mindful eating gets you more in-tune with your internal guidance system – to if you are actually hungry, and when you are satisfied.
Improve your relationship with what you eat. Eating is a two-way conversation. Mindfulness is an excellent way to tune in to the conversation. Beginning a mindful eating practice can bring up some uncomfortable aspects of your relationship with food. But, if you stay with it, keep your heart open as best you can, and practice compassionate self-observation, it can be a pathway to profound peace and self-compassion.
An Awareness and Caution
One caveat – this practice can uncouple eating and satiety. It can help you eat less, but it can also help you undercut your nutritional well-being if your emotional eating has evolved into a more serious condition like an eating disorder. This is not a practice to help you stop eating or to eat less than your body actually needs. But, it can be misused in this way. Don’t do it – it won’t end well for you. You can avoid that risk – here’s how.
In addition to mindfulness, use nutrition guidelines for adequacy – adequate protein and energy needs – for your body. For example, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM, formerly the IOM), a non-governmental nonprofit affiliated with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which among other things tracks the research on dietary needs and creates recommendations, suggests that most humans need about 50 gm of protein to be reasonably healthy. I’ve found that a reasonable screen – is a starting place, for someone. A qualified nutritionist can help ensure that you are getting the nutrition you need to be who you want to be – strong, energetic, and healthy.
O’Reilly GA, et al., Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Obesity-Related Eating Behaviors: A Literature Review, Obesity Reviews, Published online 2014 Mar 18. doi: 10.1111/obr.12156
Katterman, Shawn, et. al., Mindfulness meditation as an intervention for binge eating, emotional eating, and weight loss: A systematic review, ScienceDirect – Eating Behaviors, Volume 15, Issue 2, April 2014, Pages 197-204, doi: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2014.01.005
Ready to Practice?
Check out ‘How to Eat’: Mindful Eating Mini-course
These words – emotional eating, disordered eating and eating disorders – are often tossed around by people who don’t understand the complexities of an individual’s relationship with food. Your relationship with food, I’ve learned from decades of serving those struggling with these issues, is as unique as you are. Some folks have very little emotion in their relationship with food, while others are near pure emotion. One is not better nor healthier than the other, though one is easier when it comes to shifting your eating.
Why are some of us so emotional about food? When does it become a problem?
Everybody eats. Every human feels the effect of what they eat. So, in one sense – of what happens in their own body and mind – everyone IS an expert. An expert of their own experience.
When it comes to naming other people’s experiences, however, understanding the deeper currents of our own behaviors, and recognizing when we’ve blasted past the guardrails of healthful behavior, gets complicated. Food is a stand-in for everything – from love to politics to economics. I see a complex relationship with food as a collection of opportunities for self-inquiry and healing.
A Deadly yet Well-Hidden Issue
Why is it important for everyone who eats or cares for an eater to know what these terms mean? Don’t we all want to be slim and look healthy? Actually, no. When it comes to weight, our culture needs a serious re-imagination of what health – and beauty – looks like. I’ve experienced many thin unhealthful people, and many many a healthy full figured woman or man. Science continues to confirm that it’s your behaviors, not the number on the scale, that determines your health. Let’s celebrate our beauty in it’s unique fullness and the beauty of every body shape and size, every age and color.
When my own eating disorder was most active (and I looked most like an ‘after’ weight-loss picture) was the summer of my sophomore year at Cornell, where I was, ironically or not, a nutritional biochemistry major. I worked on the beach on Hilton Head Island with a group of friends, drank a six-pack of diet coke by day, something alcoholic by night and allowed myself one bag of the junk food of my choice each day. Nothing else. There was cocaine.
When I returned to school, I was showered with enthusiastic attention for my petite boniness. My mother cried when she saw me, correctly worried for my health and maybe my life. I eventually found the help I needed, through counseling and a body-kind yoga practice. Aspects of a disordered eating mindset, and the physical fallout of decimating my physical body haunt me to this day. Now, however, I have a bagful of nutritional, emotional, mental and physical tools to rebalance.
Eating disorders are the deadliest of psychological disorders. A young woman with anorexia, for example, is 12 times more likely to die young (2), and 59 more likely to commit suicide (3) than a young woman without it. Eating disorders don’t discriminate – every gender, color, religion, and corner of the planet have their versions, and we are all susceptible – particularly young people in the formative years of their identify. Even the wold of yoga struggles mightily.
In addition to high risk of death, eating disorders are wildly unbalancing to your physical and emotional well-being. When an individual over-restricts their nutrition, they have inadequate vitamins, minerals, healthful fats and energy to maintain a healthy brain and nervous system. Purging (vomiting) erodes teeth, impares digestion in ways that undermine bone and mental health, and sets a body up for future weight gain. Fatigue, low energy, and inability to think clearly are common.
Here is a mini-primer that can help you understand what these words mean, and if and when it’s time to get some help. I hope it helps you know if your health is at risk or you are simply a human enjoying treats. Treats, by the way, are part of healthy eating.
Food is one of life’s great sensory experiences. Enjoying what we eat without feeling bad about it, or getting compulsive about it, however, is for some one of life great struggles. Happily, there are many dietitians well-versed in how to support you in your journey to finding more peace and balance with food.
Emotional Eating
Emotional eating is when you eat to address an emotion rather than your physical body’s need. Eating when you are stressed, uncomfortable, worried, or bored has physical hard-wiring based in our genetics of survival. Biochemically, stress gets relieved for the moments you are eating. Problem being, eating never solves the real emotional problem you’re being invited to address.
Everybody has this biochemistry, and the more you use it the stronger it gets. It’s easy for emotional eating to slide from sensual delight of occasional treats into a daily mechanism for managing emotions. When you begin to use food as a means of getting through the day, or managing stress, you’ve got it. Imbalance isn’t far behind.
Every human who has access to bountiful food and stress does some emotional eating. It’s normal. We all, on occasion, overeat. When emotional eating leads to consistent over-eating or begins cycles of deprivation then binging, and the emotions become fear-dominated and increasingly self-incriminating, that’s when it’s become something else. It has led to disordered eating.
Disordered Eating
Every eating disorder begins with a diet. Whenever you manipulate what you eat to create an effect – be it to lose or gain weight, or even to address a biomarker like high blood glucose (sugar) or high blood pressure, you are on a diet, and therefore at risk. You are no longer eating in balance.
Some nutritionists would say ‘diet’ is a dirty word and we should never ever do them. I would say that whenever you ‘diet’, be under the care of a qualified nutritionist. That’s because any diet as I’ve described it, puts you at some risk for emotional or disordered eating. These are next steps along the continuum toward an eating disorder. A qualified nutritionists will spot that slide (hopefully) and curb it before it becomes a psychological problem.
What, when and how you eat impacts your psychology to a impressive degree. So, when you alter how you eat, it’s serious stuff. The media is a nutrition disaster – filled with conflicting and often incorrect or poorly described nutrition information. Some seeking health quickly get lost in binge-deprivation cycles, obsessiveness or compulsion and compensatory food behaviors. Nutrition doesn’t work like that (quick adjustments don’t work for weight or preventing chronic disease – it’s not a straight-forward equation). Over time restrictions change your body composition, which changes your metabolism and nutrient needs. It also impacts your mental health through long-term inadequacy of nutrients needed for brain and nerve health, and psychologically through deprivation. It’s the plight of the ‘good dieter’ that over time, you loose muscle mass and create physical and psychological imbalance through restricting. When it comes to weight, slow and steady always wins the lifelong health race.
Disordered eating is when you follow a diet that erodes your physical and mental well-being. You continue the pattern even when you experience fatigue, irritability, illness and other signs that the diet isn’t working for you. Overly restrictive diets, over exercise, and eliminating entire types of healthful food for weight, often do the trick to create a lifetime on a rollercoaster of suffering. Managing weight and health doesn’t have to be that way.
Eating disorders
Eating disorders (ED) are a collection of psychological imbalances of abnormal or maladaptive eating and related behaviors. Each type of eating disorder is based on signs, symptoms and behaviors. The science of eating disorders is young and evolving, as people with identical symptoms might have different underlying causes and benefit from different strategies. It’s a fluid, moving line of when and how emotional eating and disordered eating turns into a diagnosable eating disorder. Everyone is different. With effective treatment more available, if you struggle with eating, err on the side of getting help.
Anorexia nervosa (heavily restricted eating, intense fear of weight gain, body image disturbance); Bulimia nervosa (recurrent binge eating, feeling a lack of control, inappropriate compensatory behaviors, self-evaluation focuses on weight); Binge eating disorder (regular binge eating without compensatory behaviors); Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ongoing excessive dieting); Night eating syndrome (binging at night); Purging disorder (vomiting after binging); to name a few.
An individual with an eating disorder can be any weight – under, over or normal. An eating disorder can become more and less severe, based on how frequently the behaviors occur. An eating disorder can be inactive, then reactivate under stress.
Until an individual has long-term treatment that instills confidence in nutritional adequacy without disordered behaviors, the self-knowing to understand when disordered cycles are underway, and when support is needed, their eating disorder remains active. Many nutritionists have issues with their own relationship with food, yet can provide excellent professional support so long as they have participated in treatment, have access to ongoing support and clinical supervision. An individual with an active eating disorder who has not received treatment from a qualified professional may do more harm than good in supporting healing for those they would like to serve. Clinical supervision (ongoing review of clinical cases with an experienced clinician) is especially helpful for those treating eating disorders.
What to Do?
If you think you have an eating disorder and feel ready to make a change, there are many qualified psychological and nutrition professionals to choose from. In fact many doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists work together with nutritionists on an integrated plan for healing. Your doctor may work with someone, so that may be a place to start.
If you’ve read this far, you’d probably benefit from making an appointment with me! I’ve done this work for years, and helped thousands to women & men find more peace with food. Please know there are many dietitians well-trained to help you, so if you are looking for someone in your state or locally, there are great resources to help you find the right a nutritionist.
This Garlicky Leek Soup Recipe was inspired by my love of potatoes. While there is only a little potato in it, that certain creamy potato flavor is there. The combination of potatoes, leeks, and garlic are more than the sum of their parts – they were made to sing together. Lately, I’ve been on the sub cauliflower for white potatoes in everything train, and I did stir some cauliflower into one bowl of this soup and that was delicious. In this vein (of mashed potatoes) you might top a bowl with a little grass-fed organic plain yogurt. This recipe also has a boost of plant protein with a can of white beans in there. All in all, a nutrient-dense and delicious soup, perfect for a cool spring day.
In my humble opinion, potatoes have gotten a bad rap in the healthy food world. They are rich in fiber and vitamin C, and particularly when you can find smaller colorful purple, red or gold fingerlings – all very worth the space in your garden – filled with disease-busting antioxidants.
6large clovesgarlicpeeled, center stem removed, chopped
1 mediumorganic potatoskin on, chopped
1 Tbspolive oil
6 cupsclean water
3 large leekssliced and rinsed
2Tbspthymedry
115-oz can cannelloni beans (Eden brands is a good choice)
1 small bunchparsleychopped
1pinchsalt and black pepperor to taste
Instructions
Place onion, carrots, celery garlic and potato in a heavy soup pot, with olive oil, and simmer over medium heat until vegetables are soft. Add leeks and thyme and stir. Once you smell the leeks and thyme begin to cook (couple minutes), add water and beans.
Turn to medium-low and simmer 30 minutes.
If you have an immersion blender, lucky you - blend the soup. If not, use a blender (to minimize accidents, let the soup cool before you blend it). Alternatively, leave it unblended. Add parsley, black pepper and just a smidgeon of salt.
Other additions if you so choose:1/2 head cauliflower, chopped. Plain organic grass-fed yogurt.
Potato heads unite!
I hope you enjoy my Garlicky Leek Soup Recipe. For more delicious recipes, visit my Easy Healthy Recipes page.
This summer I was breakfast salad crazy – in the garden, knee-deep in some wonderful greens, and the vegetable bowl craze just pointed to making more breakfast salads. Yum.
Now that the weather is just beginning to cool, my breakfast salads are warm. The garden is filled with tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and other delectables. Now, my breakfast salads are one-pan wonders morphing into veggie bowls. All good!
To put together a breakfast salad, pull together whatever you have in the fridge, notice the veggies that are in season (even better, at their peak) now, and think about the flavors you’re pulling together. I choose greens, a vegetable or two, flavorful protein-rich compatibles like nut butter, nuts or seeds, whole grains or soft-boiled eggs.
Salad dressings can boost nutrition – making your own from whole ingredients is worth it! Topping your breakfast salad with a bit of mayo, smooshed avocado, or good olive oil and vinegar works great too.
5 stalksasparagus, sliced Use any vegetable you have on hand.
1/2sweet potato, cooked, sliced I often cook-off 3 or 4 sweet potatoes on a Sunday to use through the week.
2 eggs, soft boilTo soft boil an egg, place them in a small pan in cold water, then turn to high and bring to boil. Turn heat off - when the water is cool enough to peel the eggs (about 15 minutes) the eggs will be soft-boiled.
1 Tbspmayonnaise, good quality organic or it's actually easy to make your own
1 tspDijon mustard
1 TbspFresh dill, diced
Instructions
Toss sweet potatoes, greens, and asparagus in a medium breakfast bowl. Top with 2 soft-boiled eggs, sliced in half. Top with mayo and mustard.
Toss all together, top with dill and enjoy.
Notes
There are so many combinations of breakfast salads.Here are a few combos to try: Spinach - walnut - egg - turkey bacon - poppyseed dressing Cabbage - cashews - carrots - egg - Asian peanut dressing Red or green lettuce - grilled BBQ chicken leftovers - red peppers - balsamic vinaigretteTomatoes - basil - pine nuts - olives - tofu - olive oil
I finally got a glass pitcher with a cylinder in the top so that I can easily make herbal waters – cold water sun infusions. These are really the perfect alternative to soda or even to sparkling water in plastic containers.
Why Drink Herbal Water?
With herbal waters, you take a pass on the sugar and whatever else is in packaged drinks you purchase. But you also get a smidgen of phytonutrient and bioenergetic support (that certain je ne sais quoi – a delight of unknown origin) from herbs and other botanicals. Herbs do contain some of the most potent of nature’s medicines, and the flavors and fragrances you experience are those potent antioxidants that provide health-enhancing benefits like calming inflammation and helping to make your internal environment resilient.
How to Make Herbal Water
The recipe is so straightforward – it’s really more of a reminder.
Herbal water passes on the sugar and expense of soda and soothes your senses with some of the most potent of nature's medicines - phytonutrients.
Course Drinks
Cuisine Plant Medicine
Keyword Herbal Water, Recipes, Plant Medicine
Prep Time 15 minutesminutes
Steeping time 6 hourshours
Servings 4
Author Annie
Cost $2.00
Equipment
Pitcher
Ingredients
1 quartwaterclean, filtered
1 /2cupherbs & flavorings any edible fresh herb, root, flower or spice
Instructions
Fill a one-quart glass pitcher with water.
Place herbs and flavorings in something that will allow their suspension in the water - a clean small cloth bag, for example - I have a pitcher made just for sun-tea, with a plastic cylinder attached to the lid. A tea-ball would do the trick. There are an array of options available commercially.
Place pitcher containing herbs on a sunny windowsill or a sunny spot free from critters.
Leave for at least an hour, preferably several hours.
Remove herbs/flavorers, and enjoy as is or over ice. Keeps refrigerated for about a week.
Notes
This is one of those non-recipe recipes - perhaps it's more a technique. But, having a quart of herbal water around is a wonderful direct and simple way to connect with what is blooming or at it's peak in my yard. Simple refreshing plant medicine.
Here are a few of my favorite herbal water combos I’ve tried over several summers:
Fresh ginger and English mint – refreshing and delicious
Lavender and blueberries – sweet and soothing
Cilantro – like a light green drink – tastes cleansing
Watermelon and lime – sweet and tangy and what is it about watermelon that just makes me happy?
What’s Your Favorite Herbal Water Combo?
If the idea of botanical cooking appeals, check out Kami McBride’s book, Herbal Kitchen. It’s an inspiration, a classic and uses botanicals in a variety of creative ways, from herbal waters to soups to cordials and even bathing and beauty non-products. Check her out!
