I don't set great store by New Year's, because I have always believed that any moment can be a beginning. I remember as a kid saying incredulously "but every minute, a new year starts." Perhaps it was easier for me to recognize this, with Jewish New Year--and school year, for that matter--both falling in September, and then everyone's birthday is their own new year's beginning.
All that said, it's a useful time to take stock and reflect, to align with the collective energy, to join the chorus. I'll be back tomorrow with some more general reflections about the year as a whole, but today, perhaps prompted by a bizarre comment I left on Gena's blog, saying that I was going to have carrot 'slaw for breakfast the next day, I'll start with that oddity, and go back over a year of odd breakfasts. I really like to have the same thing for breakfast every day, mostly for convenience, but over the course of the year, that "same thing" has shifted often. It may be that I'd be better off varying my breakfasts throughout a given week: it seems I'm prone to feeling nauseous after breakfast, and something can work for a while and then suddenly "not work."
I did, in fact, have carrot 'slaw for breakfast the morning after that comment. It may not be surprising, given my obsession with carrots, that I thought of them when feeling out of sorts with my regular breakfast and generally a little under the weather.
Carrot Breakfast 'Slaw for 1
1 large grated carrot
1 tablespoon melted coconut butter
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
squeeze of lemon juice
Mix all these together and let sit overnight.
Top with a teaspoon of ground flax meal, a teaspoon of lecithin, and a tablespoon or two of goji berries and raisins. Can also add some spirulina for protein.
I also had a kiwi and half an orange to round this breakfast out. It may not sound like a lot, but it sure was delicious.
In the early part of the year, I was having a smoothie with a bazillion different superfoods and vegetables and no fruit or sugar.
Then, that stopped working, or I stopped being willing to have it "not work," and I was eating leftover salads and carrots for breakfast. For a while, I was eating only yams, carrots, nettles and some coconut kefir, so the first three of those were my breakfasts.
...or other fruit medley was my breakfast.
Lately, my breakfast has been chia pudding made from one tablespoon of chia seeds soaked overnight in water or herbal tea, sometimes adding some thawed acai juice, with some protein powder, lecithin and tocotrienols added in the morning and some fruit on the side.
It's amazing to me how filling that breakfast is for so few calories! You'd also think (I also thought) that with so few calories, there'd be no way I'd get nauseous.
Wrong! Just the past couple weeks, after a month or so of chia pudding for breakfast every morning, I've been nauseous until lunchtime after eating it.
Hence the carrot 'slaw, and very occasionally, if something like this is marked down at the store...
Maybe I'll go back to chia pudding tomorrow, or perhaps I'll just have to have carrot 'slaw again!
It seems like I've come in a full circle from minimal sugar and low calories but lots of 'superfood' type stuff, through just fruit with no protein at all, through starchy porridge, porridge with added protein powder, and back to minimal sugar and low calories with 'superfood'-type stuff, albeit in a simpler version. Perhaps it's natural to go more fruity in the summer, even up here. But if anything, I'm eating a higher percentage of raw foods now than I was in the summer, when I was eating quite a bit of cooked starch.
My inner minimalist is definitely in the ascendant right now, both for frugality and for the simple, academic interest of seeing how little food I actually "need." That's an area in which I can claim to some expertise, actually, and in the new year I'm going to start sharing some tips for "going lightly." When I have time, I'll write a whole book about it!
Would you be interested in a book on "going lightly," or are you more interested in the "rev your metabolism and eat all you want" approach (which I don't have the expertise to offer!)?
Is there any breakfast I haven't tried and should try?
My dear, I think you know what my response to this will be :)
ReplyDeleteI have been in a cycle of new breakfast ideas, it hits me hard when I feel too cold for a green smoothie with frozen fruit (although hopefully we'll warm up here soon, but we're in a cold snap). I like a good chia pudding too, love the idea of putting them in some tea. I've got just the chai tea for that.
ReplyDeleteI do worry for you when you say you are trying to do with less food. I would think it would be hard when you've had such a period of restriction and eating disorder in the past. But I know sometimes it's a different mindset which can make a difference. Would love to hear more thoughts on that.
Ela, I love your blog - and your writing - despite never having commented before. I, like Bitt, worry about the focus of your proposed book. I do not find it appealing coming from you (from whom, for many reasons, I welcome most content).
ReplyDeleteIn an ideal world, I'd want a raging metabolism that'd allow me to eat anything I want. But that's just not going to happy, so "going lightly" is, unfortunately, what I need to get better about doing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, like other commenters here, I worry that what you're telling yourself is "academic interest" may be another type of self-interest (or disinterest, depending on how you look at it) at work. =/
Gena, I think I probably do know ;) But does that really mean that I shouldn't write about something on which I have expertise that might help others? I'd love to know what you think.
ReplyDeletelove
Ela
bitt--chai tea for chia pudding is one of my favorites. Can you thaw the fruit out before you make the smoothie? (I remember getting that advice myself earlier in the year). I hope you're keeping warm!
ReplyDeleteI love how openminded you are on the eating disorder/restricting thing. I'm hoping that an adjustment of mindset will be successful for it, but no one else seems to think so!
love
Ela
Anonymous--thank you so much for commenting. I am truly grateful, and I hear it, although (as I said in my "next" post), I'm not really sure what to do with it yet. I do hear you, and appreciate your forthrightness.
ReplyDeletelove
Ela
Amber, thanks for your concern--I think most people who know me share it, it turns out. But, while I don't actually like eating much, so don't have a great desire for the 'raging metabolism and eat anything,' I've come to the same conclusion as you, that going lightly is the only way. It's true that both my ND and my therapist disagree, but what else can I do? And I really think I might be able to help some people by writing about it...
ReplyDeletelove
Ela