Healthy lifestyle

When you cook you either go through the motions of preparing food or you love the process, as well as the end result. And it doesn’t matter how much you spend on sourcing the finest quality ingredients, if this one element is missing eating your food just won’t be a great experience for you or those you serve it to. Of course the essential component is:

LOVE!

Leave that out at your peril. The ripples that emanate from it are intangible but deeply felt, prior to sitting down, during the meal, and once it’s over. And if you’ve ever had the experience of attending a family meal served up with a dollop of resentment you’ll know the exact flavour we’re going for here.

What are your eating experiences like?

And this leads us into all manner of food-related territory doesn’t it? Our relationships with food start very early on, and mostly learned through the family. Let’s start with putting food on the table, have you been or are you now the main cook in your home?

• Do you enjoy it?
• Are you stingy?
• Do you try to overfeed your flock?
• How do you behave around food at the table?
• What language do you use?
• How old are your kids?
• What food-patterns have you taught them?
• How long have they been listening to your food-and-weight-hangups?

How aware are you of the impact that your attitudes towards food, eating, and how you talk about your weight have had on your own children’s psyche? What food-related patterns have they developed, that either support yours or rebel against them? Here’s an example of a lady I worked with where her family patterns held a firm grip:

In her early 50’s, we’ll call her Jennifer, she grew up with a mum who was obsessed with dieting; she would feed the family, didn’t sit with them at the table, and didn’t seem to eat. She put her daughter, Jennifer, on a diet from early puberty, having firmly planted the idea that her she was overweight as early as primary school. She and her sisters would sneak treats into the house, store them away like squirrels, awaiting an opportunity to have secret snacking sessions in their bedrooms. Unsurprisingly Jennifer didn’t feel good about herself, and became a serial dieter too, and it’s easy enough to see how that happened?

My mum passed away (aged 93) at the end of 2013, and was a bit of a minx when it came to food, because she used it to replace her emotions. A very common trait of her generation, and born in 1920, between the two world wars.

Killing them with kindness

A bit harsh, but my mum was typical of her generation, she overfed us, always wanting to push more food our way, but it’s a dysfunctional way of showing love. My mum found it almost impossible to be demonstrative, either physically or verbally.

And her own very challenging upbringing is responsible for much of that. She was in a hospital bed for most of her childhood, treats were not on the agenda, so it’s understandable that she would want to compensate that lack with her kids. And she was as much a victim as anyone, of society’s growing consumerism, that developed post WWII.

I wouldn’t be much of an alternative therapist if I’d not spent time addressing the ramifications that impacted me, but I’m still a work in progress. And I didn’t have children, so perhaps I missed an opportunity to heal it more organically, as our children often reflect back and highlight our less desirable traits.

But similarly, had I had kids what patterns would I have unconsciously passed on, oblivious in how much my upbringing was impacting them, that they would then have passed down the line to their own children?

What food-related behaviours are you teaching others?

Maybe something similar happened to you, because it’s not unusual, and along with the vast changes that have taken place in food manufacturing, we now have a level of obesity that’s growing exponentially. Of course food gets blamed, but we know don’t we, that there’s far more going on under-the-car-bonnet of gaining weight, losing it, then gaining it all back again?

But what are we teaching our kids when it comes to emotional eating, are you teaching the Clean Plate method of eating. Cornell University released a study in 2014 that showed 92% of adults eat everything they put on their plate. It’s clearly a common practice, passed down the generations, unnoticed and without question.

These are current findings on child and adolescent obesity:

The psychology of food choice

Bringing it back to the kitchen, and cooking, and putting food on the table, there are a number of things you can do that will help to break the patterns that your family have been passing down the ancestral line, which all come back to love:

• Look at how you feel about the food you produce for your table, and put as much love as you can muster into every spoonful
• Cook things you enjoy eating
• Eat natural foods that you recognise as growing, or roaming below the ground, on land, or in the sea
• Stay away from synthetically manufactured foods (and non-foods), because your body needs nutrients it can easily recognise, digest and absorb
• Celebrate food, it sustains us, it’s provides the fuel you need to live
• Buy the best quality ingredients you can afford and take the less is more approach
• It’s about quality not quantity
• Look at your portion sizes, are you overdoing it?
• Can you start reducing the amount incrementally, because the all or nothing approach to food is difficult to sustain in the long-term?
• Being more mindful of the language that you use and the behaviour you’re displaying unconconsiously
• Find someone to help you change some things without battling your willpower each day, despite your best intentions, or contact on that link
• Set the best example you can

As a fellow foodie I know the importance of not losing your love of food, because loving food is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s social and celebratory. But altering any unhelpful relationships with food will bring noticeable differences.

And the benefit of all-things-weight and eating, is how highly measurable this is, which includes your feelings as you progress.

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Take the next steps

One of the most common ways of celebrating in the run-up to Christmas, the period of Christmas and the run-up to New Year is with food, nibbles and alcohol.

During the whole nine-yards of the festivities, it’s natural enough to break bread and share lovely produce, much of which only appears in the shops at this time of year. And why not? The old adage of ‘everything in moderation’ stands true and if there was ever a season to over-indulge a little, then this would be it.

But for most of you reading this, it’s probably the one season when it’s a-okay to over-indulge alongside everyone else, even though it may be your habit for most of the year. But this is a time when no-one really notices or you’re the target the party host zooms in on when it comes to dishing out the second helpings. They feel good about having their food appreciated, but there’s an assumption that you will eat more (than your average bear – as Yogi might have said back in the day), it may even feel churlish to refuse. The downside may of course leave you feeling like a bit of a ‘greedy-guts’ which is by-the-way.

Are You Overeating At Christmas

So is this the one time of year when you can feel justified about filling-your-face? It just might be. Because having lots of lovely goodies in the shops provides a great temptation and having people over, family and friends, provides the perfect excuse 🙂 …

People overeat at Christmas! It’s a fact. Sure the bottom-line is obvious, and if over-eating is a problem for you all year round then the answer lies elsewhere. And there are questions you can ask yourself, to ascertain where the habit started, such as:

• How did it start?
• What was happening at that time in my life?
• Who was around and what influence have they had on my eating habits?
• How did they cope when things weren’t going well?
• Did I grow up dealing with everything through food?
• Were these habits learned from my family?
• Why am I still carrying them out to this day?

Here Are Some Other Questions

These are throw-away questions that may help shed light, or at least get you thinking about how you learned to turn to food, as a comforting coping tool or strategy. Getting some insight is a good place to start the journey of taking control of your weight and what you chose to eat on a daily basis.

It is Christmas so enjoy all the goodies, because they’ll be plenty of time come the New Year when you can start to make an impact without having to start another diet.

In the meanwhile have a very Merry Christmas!

A Balanced Life

What has life balance come to mean in society , in particular we hear time and again about worklife balance, and how important this is to ensure we live a healthy well-balanced life.

But what does it mean for you? I think of it like a pendulum, one week may be mad busy with social events, the next has more of a work emphasis, staying late at the office, orders to fulfill, and maybe it’s more about having balance over time?

I think we know when something needs adjusting and no-one gets under the wire, most of us have or have had challenges in our lives. But it’s not the challenges is it, so much as how we deal with them!

A Simple Fix

And how we deal with life’s challenges mostly stems from a mixture of nurture, nature and life experience. We’re influenced by others throughout life, which can only be a good thing, especially once we realise what works for us, the best influences come from those we respect, teach or learn from.

We instinctively know when we’re with the right people because:

• It’s like you’ve known them all your life
• They speak the same language
• We have things in common
• They can say things to us we wouldn’t tolerate from those outside our circle of influence

But at the same time it’s vital we listen to our own instincts or what you hear people refer to as the heart these days.

Work Stress

People are all too often so wrapped up in the daily grind, especially in the areas where they feel they have the least power, and maybe that’s more about survival than anything. If you consider work and the stress that builds in the workplace and what you bring home, it’s no wonder that holiday time sees a lot of people falling ill, when it’s their chance to relax.

META-Medicine gives us a wonderful explanation for this …

Quality Of Work Life

If you work for others and have to fall in with their timetable, this can mean very early starts, or late finishes. It can make demands on your nervous system, having to be on, when you’d so rather be off, off somewhere else doing your own thing with those people you’d rather spend time with.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with a bit of pressure to bring out our best performances, even a bit of good old-fashioned competition, but sometimes we overdo it, and as the western model of life is so inherently fast where people want that vital piece of information yesterday, it becomes all too easy to keep taking on more when you really want to say no.

Worklife Balance

These aspects impose strain and stresses on the physiological and emotional systems, so it’s as well to have some decent strategies in place to help yourself. Of course, one of the things we often do is keep a stiff upper lip, in order to hold it all together for the sake of keeping up appearances.

But how do we keep stress from building in order to develop a healthier life balance?

There are a number of factors and the more we do on a regular (if not daily) basis to reduce stress, the less likely we are to overact to stressful situations or fall ill, which can throw the body into chaos, resulting in disease or worse still a chronic condition that comes and goes.

Life Balance

With this we’re really talking about that old chestnut lifestyle and we can already see the obvious need to take the reigns and cultivate a better balance in our lives so that we’re alert, and ever-ready to experience a better quality, and be more present to enjoy it. The alternative is pretty grim; remaining stuck in a foggy haze, with fewer choices as the body disintegrates through a slow, painful, unhealthy aging process. I for one don’t want to go there.

So if you want to stick around, really experience in your life as the driver, instead of a reluctant, maybe miserable passenger, you might want to consider doing some things differently. Here are a few suggestions to consider:

Meditation

You might want to try some regular meditation, practicing being in silence with yourself is a lovely way of quietening the mind, being still and peaceful and if you haven’t tried it before, it is like anything else it just requires practice. There are lots of programmes out there, I’ve been using one with Bill Harris, it’s just sound and he offers a range of progressive levels if you want to check it out. But I find it equally effective to set a timer and just sit for 20 or 30 minutes once or twice a day.

Daily Diet

Look at what you’re eating, as this has an effect on the whole system in how it optimizes and digests your intake. Often our system is bereft of nutrients, and this has a massive effect of the equilibrium. The body is calmer if it’s able to function properly (instead of being engaged in the uphill battle when we eat lots of high fat, sugar, salt products).

Sleep Patterns

Sleep is an important area, and the time we sleep, because there is a nightly pattern when the body is repairing the organs, when the REM is optimized and affects the quality of sleep. If you’re waking up feeling tired then you need to look at what you can do to improve that.

SMART Goals

Setting some Smart Goals and we’ll look at that again, because we won’t move on with or in our lives unless we set some intention and goal setting is a way of taking conscious-action to have something be different. SMART Goals are:

• S-specific
• M-measurable
• A-attainable
• R-relevant
• T-time bound

Start thinking about what you can do to reduce the stresses in your life and bring you back into a more balanced life through your work life balance, so you can live a longer, healthier life feeling great and enjoying every minute.

You may already have your own strategies, which would be great to hear about, please leave your thoughts on this. Or are you experiencing undue stress and wanting to find the space to even be able to get on board with yourself, to make a difference. Please contact Jane for a chat to explore how these up-to-the-minute change techniques really help to make a difference.