The Food-Happy Concept

Diet.

Wow. Something about that word just screams misery.  It embodies all the feelings of deprivation, starvation, "no you can't" and "but I must."  Even the thought of a diet makes my head hurt and my belly churn.  

But being in the fitness and wellness biz, I hear it all the time, and sometimes even from my own mouth (gasp!)  Recently, I have had a lot of people ask me about diets so I figured I would lay it all out there.

I have been victim to this epidemic multiple times.  Trying to find something, anything, that makes me feel better.  Over the years I have tried many things.  I was vegetarian for 8 years, a vegan for a year, a "whatever-imma-eat-that" for some time, and then back to vegetarian, then wedding-dress-panic, lemonade cleanse, then strict paleo, etc.  The thing about all these diets, is that I can comfortably say that I have tried A LOT of things, and have discovered what exactly works for me and why.

My whole life I have been active, athletic, and a lover of food.  I remember being 10 years old and being proud that I could eat a whole pizza by myself.  That was a bragging point.   I exercised because it was fun—life was a game and I freakin' owned it.  Bagels were awesome, cheese was amazing, and I’ll have a sprite with my cupcake please.

Then at some point body issues creep in, and I became aware of what "fat" was, became aware of what foods "made me fat" and acutely aware that the opposite sex does not find fat attractive.   I workout because I must, I dieted because that’s the way to win at life, and I drove myself crazy because, goddamnit, I want to be sexy. Cue the diets!!!

I can tell you what eventually worked for me, and how you can do it too.

Step 1. Get rid of your scale. Unless you are trying to lose over 50lbs, the scale will just literally make you crazy. Here I am at 125lbs (the lightest I had been since middle school):

AND here I am at 148lbs (on the heavier side that I've ever been):

Whoa, what a heifer, right?

So, throw out the stupid scale. I fit into the same clothes I did at my wedding weight as I do now. (Unless of course I do a lot of arm/leg stuff one day and I feel all "swole.") If you follow all the other steps, the numbers won't mean anything to you anyway.

2. Stop counting calories. Eating is fun and eating is delicious, and math is not. If you turn your eating into a chore, a punishment, you won't EVER feel satisfied at the end of the meal. Instead, think of your food as a necessary and crucial part of your day. Feed yourself when you're hungry, not when you're bored and stop when you're full. Easier said then done, right? Follow step 5.

3. Do something active each day, but don't always put a measure to it. High intensity training is all the rage, and I wholeheartedly agree that it works, because it does. But there is a limit. Your body needs both low intensity and high intensity to function. Think about high intensity workouts as high stress moments. Imagine if your life consisted of riding roller coasters every single day. Eventually that adrenalin rush or euphoria will lessen its effect. Same thing if you went to a massage every single day. The effectiveness of both decrease over time. But, alternating between high intensity, low intensity, moderate intensity, etc will keep your mind and body on it's toes. Set a goal to workout hard 3-4x a week, while the rest of the week is committed to yoga, walking, light jogging, and/or biking.

4. Start a food/exercise log. This was extremely helpful for me. Not because I wrote down amounts, calories, or nutritional facts, but because I started to see patterns. I noticed that if I skipped breakfast, I usually had a much bigger lunch, had no motivation to workout, and slept poorly. If I ate a really salty snack (chips are my favorite) I craved sweets at night. Just by writing down what I ate and being accountable for my habits, I saw how the choices I made throughout the day effected me for days after.

5. Eat food that makes you feel good. This is the hardest thing for most of us, myself included, to get right. But if you get this right, everything else becomes easier. This is how I finally stopped dieting and just started eating right. The bottom line is you need to find food that makes your mind and body happy. That means food that tastes good going in, feels comfortable moving around inside and is smooth coming out. That doesn't mean eating baked macaroni and cheese because you looooove cheese and pasta, but suffering through bloating and farting for hours. I am not talking about devouring ice cream after a long hot day and suffering through a sugar headache all night and next morning. These are examples of mental comfort food. The foods that we see as "treats" but are not really treats at all. They make us feel sluggish, bloated, gassy, achey, unsexy, and are keeping us fat.

I started this journey of food-happy discovery when I was vegetarian. I realized beef doesn't mesh well with me. We aren't friends, so I avoid him. Then when I began vegan, I realized all those Greek yogurts I was eating made me feel gassy and cheese made me constipated. They were taken off the favorite list. Then I tried paleo, and I realized I don't digest quinoa well and bread makes me feel bleh. But, I still couldn't quite figure out the food-happy concept, and I kept going back and forth between foods I like and foods my body actually likes. Saying to myself, "well I LOVE beer, so I'm going to drink it anyway!" I kept fighting it because I was trying to commit to set "diets" rather than listen to what exactly I needed.

Then in June, I committed to a 3 weeks "cleanse" which focused on specifically finding the foods that did not agree with me. Liz, founder of free + abel, and the host of the cleanse, and I have talked about our love/hate relationship with the word cleanse. Despite it being exactly what it is, "cleanse" has been used recently to describe a "quick fix" for weightloss, which is NOT what this particular cleanse is. The 21-Day Cleanse Liz runs is about much more. It was the final push I needed and provided me with all the proof I needed to change my eating habits for good. Within a week I felt more energy, within 10 days I found my abs, and by the last day, I didn't crave any of the foods I missed. I have kept many of the habits I learned from that cleanse and I am a way happier eater. I think the key was finding the "Rachael diet' or the foods that make my belly happy. There is no book for the Rachael diet, because it's made just for me.

That's how it should be!

Do yourself a favor this Fall and commit to making your mind and body happy. Know that there are days when you fall into old habits, but they will get fewer and fewer. If you are interested in the cleanse, reach out to Liz directly at liz@freeandabel.com. Get in tune with yourself and all the rest becomes easy. Cheers!

No Time Like The Present

My post yesterday was actually written over a week ago.  I was struggling with getting back into the groove of routine, specifically my workout routine, after weeks of excitement--personally and professionally.

What I didn't know was that that very night, after I wrote that post, my perspective would be drastically shifted.

Last Monday, my husband lost his uncle.  He was relatively young, had a lot of life left in him, and didn't give his family and friends much time to prepare for his passing.  This is the second death in my husband's family this year, and this one hit him hard.  My husband is the hardest working person I know, and yet he is still amazingly giving to anyone who needs him.  He never complains at work, he rarely expresses impatience, frustration, or even annoyance with me (and I can be annoying.)  He just gives and gives and gives.   I could never do what he does, work Monday through Friday, then sit in school on the weekend.  Without envy or complaint, he gives up nearly all of his little spare time to others.  To top things off he had a medical scare that really shook him.  My heart just broke for him.

Phone calls with your mother can always make things better (or at least mine can.)  After listening to me cry and scream, and say things like "why can't we catch a break?! Everyone else has it so easy" she reminded me of something so important, I better never forget it again.  It doesn't get easier.  We just get better at dealing with it--whatever IT is.  Kids, house, job, money, health--there will always be something that tests your patience, your sanity.   There is no, "well, once this is over things will be better."  Or, life would be so much easier if I only had _______.

When a person leaves you relatively suddenly, you begin to think about all the ways you live your life, and if how you spend your time, your energy, is the way you really want to spend it.  For me, it made me really appreciate the people in my life that I love, and how precious each interaction is.  I worked extra hard not to stress the small stuff.  And by small stuff, I mean the things that I will not think about on my deathbed, like the extra $300 I shouldn't have to spend to fix my car mirror that I didn't break.  Or the $100 to take the cat to the vet, which didn't solve the cat's problem.  Or the day(s) I didn't have time for a workout.  Or even the bellyache I had after having delicious cupcakes.  None of these annoying inconveniences will matter in the end, so I really tried not to spend my time being frustrated about them.  

What I can control is how I treat myself and how I treat others.  I can decide to make choices that enhance my well-being, rather than deter me away from my personal goals in life.  As a couple, we decided to take care of ourselves.  My husband has decided that he will take time, everyday, to do something that he loves. Something that will make him happy.  He can't control the hours spent at work, and he knows he chose to follow his dreams by going to school on the weekend.  But he can choose not to be miserable when he has the time.  For that, I truly admire him.

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.” Dumbledore 

Why I Did What I Did

While I don't believe I should have to explain my decisions to anyone, I have realized that we exist in a world now of over-sharing, so one's desire to keep matters private comes off as being prideful, spiteful, or worse--personal.  As if the reason I choose to make life decisions for me is, in any way, for someone else.  I keep a very small intimate group of best friends with whom I share my personal struggles and triumphs--but to all others, I prefer to keep things light and fun.  I don't deliberately choose not to spill my beans to everyone, I have just simply always been this way.

With that said, it has been just over a year since I switched careers originally, and only a few months since the latest change.  Every time, I have made changes that affect a lot of people.  With this last move more people noticed, and it has caused some rippling.  That start of the story is when I went from working in an office from 8am to 4pm, doing something I was not passionate about, to working full-time in fitness and wellness.  While my official journey into health/wellness began in 2010, when I received my teaching certification and began teaching yoga, I believe I have been a health/fitness coach my whole life.  In the end, it took a deeply hurtful event to push me out of my comfortable office job. 

For those of you who know, you know, for those who don't, I won't explain here.  But know that I had to mourn something I had lost, and as we all know, the grieving process is long and complicated and different for everyone.  The event start during our engagement and I melted into yoga to help me move through the sticky situation with ease.  I was deeply hurt, but also deeply in love.  I wanted to make sure I felt everything, savored every moment of our engagement and was truly present at our wedding. I wanted to get through it without breaking.  And I did.  

After the wedding, I didn't want to just be a survivor, I wanted a new beginning.  I didn't want to think or feel anything I felt before. I wanted to be a fighter.  I found CrossFit and a fighter I became.  I fought through workouts, I fought through fear, I fought through emotion.  Before long, my yoga practice was no longer a priority.  Looking back at it now, I know this was all part of my mourning.  CrossFit was the perfect next step.  Something to get me on my feet and punch back.  I had to be strong for the person I loved first, and I was.  I became her strongest support, and gave up a lot of myself in our relationship to be there for her.  I started to feel empowered again.  CrossFit that gave me the courage to leave my office job and it was the people at CrossFit who offered me my next step.

When I started yoga, I worked hard to lose my competitive self.  I was constantly comparing, judging, and fighting myself.  Yoga helped me let that go.  So, it comes to no surprise that CrossFit, in it's natural form, brought a lot of that back.  I didn't mind at first, I felt really strong and super badass.  In fact, I believe I needed some of that fire back in my life, because the event left me feeling vulnerable and soft.  But, because I had the tendency to be self-conscious, self-hating, it wasn't long before instead of feeling proud of my strength and the things I could do, I was beating myself up for not being even better. 

My body is no idiot though, it kept injuring itself to force me to take a step back.  I tried to listen, but I was seduced by the particular culture of the particular CrossFit gym I was a part of.  It's no one's fault.  Our gym was/is a very strong gym. The people are amazing and do amazing things with their bodies.  As one of the better females, I felt pressure to always perform--or if I wasn't--justify why I was resting, or feel bad about doing lighter weight.  I take full responsibility for going back before I should, for pushing too hard, as I know now that I should have known better.  But my co-workers were friends, our members were inspiration, and ultimately my own ego was pushing me.  

At the same time, my job at the gym became very demanding. It was less a 9-to-5, as it was a full-time 24/7 position.  I had to live, breathe, sleep it.  At first, this was a relief--our box brought me so much strength, the strength to get past something so difficult.  But then I began to truly lose myself in it. I was competitive, harsh, and stubborn.  My personal yoga practice was almost nonexistent, my time for my husband had to be second to my desire to work hard at my job.  My own personal interests disappeared.  Instead of being a fighter, I had became a machine.  I know now that my blind drive to keep pushing was all part of my grieving and I know this step was necessary in me being where I am today.  

I guess, as really great things are often born out of tragedy, another heartbreaking event had to take place for me to see I had to make yet another change.  This time it was a deep hurt suffered by my husband.  I saw that while he suffered and needed my support, I was truly detached.  I could not find the emotion to help him or comfort him.  Even at the funeral, I felt nothing, despite me having love and gratitude for the deceased.  

So I had to take a hard look at where I was going, who I was, and I didn't like it.  I wanted some of my vulnerability back, I needed to feel open, I needed to feel free.  It's challenging in our society to say to yourself, 'I have to do something for me' without feeling like you have to justify it to others.  And, we as a social society tend to take other's actions and personalized them.  People are always going to ask you why, are you sure, what will you do, what did I do to you, etc.  Even myself, I had to think, 'is leaving my job smart in this economy?' 'what on earth will I do?'  But the risk of losing all that I loved by staying was too great.

Without a true plan, without a job, I left.  Even my dear friend helped lie for me, saying I was leaving for something, because leaving for nothing didn't make sense.  Free, I felt a surge of inspiration and I began reaching out to all those that were doing something awesome with their lives.  Little time passed before I was involved in a lot of wonderful projects.  I volunteered, I taught yoga, I read, I wrote, I practiced.  I started to pave the way to my own destiny and I had NO IDEA where it would go.  I even began the tough road back to my yoga mat.  It was hard, my body and mind felt rigid. But I had to begin again.  

Then, something amazing happened.  A friend who had been scorned by the same gym I had just left reached out to me with an opportunity.  Scared to jump into something too quickly, I decided to take some of his CrossFit classes to see if his community was right for me.  My husband and I went together, and we both left feeling freshly inspired.  This was a place where I felt I could design my own road, I had the freedom to go at the pace that I wanted, and all were welcome.  He even wanted to start and develop a strong yoga program.  We proposed a partnership, and bada-bing-bada-boom, I had something.  

I believe I had to truly jump-off, with no safety net, to land where I am today.  I am finding the balance between feeling strong and in control, with being flexible and open.  I did this for me, for my life, and even though I don't have to justify it to anyone, I can and I will. 

Feed the Wolf

Often I hear people saying that they want to recreate themselves.  They are coming to yoga to recreate their mind-body connection or getting healthy to recreate their sexy and more youthful self, or the oh-so-cliché post-relationship total image overhaul—recreate, recreate, recreate.  I am guilty of very much the same; feeling an urge to recreate myself into the woman I thought I should be by now.  There is an image of the me that I am and the image I want to be.  I can get stuck believing that because I sit at a desk answering phones, opening doors, and directing people to offices that I am somehow morphing into a one-dimensional secretary from a 1950s sitcom.   It’s easy to latch onto anything that I’ve done in my past and use it to define who I am—label myself a blah.  Then in sheer fear of the person I created, I search to strip down and recreate.

But, the idea of recreating me suggests that I somehow created myself wrong.  And I don’t like that—not one bit. 

In yoga, the belief is that we are all already whole and complete beings.  We have all that be need to be great within ourselves, in the same place where we keep our struggles and our fears.  Everything is inside.  A Native American proverb says it simply,

A fight is going on inside me, he said to the boy. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too.The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, Which wolf will win?

The old Cherokee simply replied, The one you feed.

I posted before about how there are no “wrong steps,” for without what we perceive as mistakes, we would never be where we are today.  In the same way, some of the things we’ve done do not define who we are, but rather help shape who we are becoming.  When I practice yoga, I need to remember that I am connecting to my true self, not getting rid of a version I don’t like.  In the same way, when I push really hard in a CrossFit workout or challenge myself to try something new and scary, I am not recreating myself.  Instead, I am finding a part of me that was left unattended and unfed.  Over time, in the moments that we allow, we can see ourselves as whole and complete human beings.  This reminder comes at a perfect time, as I am faced with some tough choices.  One is daunting, fresh, yet exciting; while the other is safe, boring and tiresome.  

We have the choice of which wolf to feed.