Reflections on Self Love: Eating Naturally

Another overly busy day, so again this is going to be a brief check-in with reflections on self love. And we might take our postponed trip across the bay tomorrow, fog permitting, so I don't even know if I'll get to post tomorrow, but I'll surely try and read the post before we leave so that I can reflect on it.

(latest batch of no-sugar cookies, super-simple, chia-sweet, flax meal, shredded coconut, ground walnuts, a little carob) 

Well, I love the wonderful serendipity of the ways that these posts feed into one another! Today's post is about eating naturally and finding a comfortable relationship with food and how to make dietary choices. Tina asks, "Have you experienced any shifts in how you view food? What are the biggest influences in your food choices?"

And here I was at the naturopath's for a good chunk of time this morning, and we talked quite a bit about some of that. Not what I eat but how I eat. I've been frustrated because of feeling like I've gained some weight; he says that I'm approaching a healthy weight. But he also says that because of my long starvation history, my body's pathways will be predisposed to store fuel as fat rather than build muscles, simply because storing fat is efficient and it's used to expecting 'famine.' The important take-home message was that the longer I continue not to starve myself, for any reason or pretext, the sooner my metabolism will get back on track, and so the easier it will be to build muscle and lose weight. He warned me that if I go back to self-starvation as soon as we're finished with the whole series of chelation/yeast killing/etc, I'll go straight back to square one with the metabolic and hormonal problems. 

The sane side of myself also knows that I'm into the 'water retaining' end of the month (plus chelating bloats me) and he added that women with hormonal imbalances tend to retain more water at those times, that I could bet on a fluctuation of a good 5-10lbs! Since I'm not very big to begin with, that's a huge fluctuation. And it's another thing that will even out, the longer I continue to eat regularly. 

So, that ties in with yesterday's reflection on perseverance also! To keep on eating regularly, no matter what the 'demon' says, no matter what, and to trust that my metabolism will right itself, that I will continue to be able to exercise more, that eventually I'll feel comfortable in my body.

I'm working on a big shift in how I view food: from a scary, deceptive enemy to a kind of medicine and sometimes a source of pleasure. Most of the 'pleasure' foods I make are for other people and I don't partake, but just recently, especially since having the Vita-Mix, I've been wanting to enjoy food more.

My food choices are influenced by… that could be a long list. Fresh is important.

Plant-based is important. How it feels in my tummy is very important. A big shift in my food choices has been toward fat and protein and away from sugar. I used to fear fat and avoid it completely, and even though my guts aren't great now, I feel so much better minimizing sugar than I did when I ate almost exclusively fruit. Sometimes I'm drawn to something just because it tastes good, but I've had so many bad experiences with things that tasted good in the moment and made me sick afterwards that I'm wary of that most of the time. But if there are things that taste good but that also have medicinal qualities that I'm aware of (like fermented foods with probiotics, spices with antioxidants and healing powers, etc), I'm much more likely to really go with them.

Thanks for reading - please share your own ideas too!