Your Yummy Life - Blog

New Year's Reset

1/5/2017

It’s January—again. The time when everyone’s thoughts turn to new beginnings. When we vow (once again?) to truly get healthy this year. Or at least get back to feeling some of the energy and lightness that seem to have been lost in the overindulgence of the holidays.

One of the things that is most important for making any kind of change is belief that it’s possible. Do you ever hear that voice in your head saying, “Who do you think you are? You’ve tried to get in shape and lose that weight a million times. Why would this time be any different?”

I’ve talked before about how fear is a positive thing. In this case, it’s actually asking a really good question—what’s going to be different?

So, what can you do to set yourself up for success this year? First and foremost, get support. Get some cheerleaders who will believe in you on those days when you are having a hard time having faith in yourself. Surround yourself with people who are walking the same path and they know you can do it because they’ve done it themselves.

Secondly, it’s much easier to follow a program than try to make it up as you go along. A good program gives you step by step instructions and feels like a good road map to get you started.

To that end, I am super excited to be partnering again with Christa Whiteman of Evolve Movement and Wellness to offer the Primal Reset Program. This three week program will offer tons of support and guidance to get you moving and eating the way your body was designed.

Ready to get back on track with your daily food and movement self-care routine? Join our Primal Reset program and let us help you get reconnect to your best self!

3 weeks of nourishing, delicious lower-carb Paleo recipes and meal plan
Hunt & Gather shopping list compatible with meal plan
MovNat® based workout plan with 3) 30-minute workouts each week to do at home or in the gym
Daily motivational email with a Natural Movement® daily focus
Ongoing support through our exclusive Facebook group

The program will be delivered by email and weekly live calls so it can be done from anywhere.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Or sign up here. The program starts this Sunday, January 8 with an introductory live call.

The Stories we tell Ourselves

9/5/2016

A few months ago I attended a retreat with the theme of “The stories we tell ourselves.” We were given permission to call each other out whenever we caught someone telling a ‘story.’ It was enlightening.

We all tell ourselves stories. They help us define the world around us. But they can also keep us stuck.

Our brains are marvelous machines. The two halves have very different functions. The right side is responsible for receiving information just as it is, without judgement. It feels very peaceful to live on the right side of the brain. We can reconnect with this non-judgement by practicing meditation or creating art.

But...judgement is necessary for functioning in the world. The left side of the brain filters, categorizes and judges incoming information to figure out if it requires our attention or not. We would never get anything done if we had to stop and assess every single thing we encountered before we could move on.
The left side of the brain says that’s a tree, no threat there. That’s a cat, probably not a problem. It’s job is to put as many things into categories as possible specifically so we don’t have to think about them.

So, we create stories, which are really short hand for understanding our place in the world. The problem is that our situations change and a lot of our stories actually need to examined and reassessed on a regular basis. These stories often start with phrases like “I am not a…” or “I have always been…” or “That person never…”

One of my stories that I’ve been re-examining lately is “I am not an athlete.” All of my siblings were athletes, they were on organized teams and were thin and ran around a lot. I did none of those things. I was a quiet bookish, fattish kid. So I understood that I was not an athlete. In my 20s I had a very physical job and was in really good shape but I still didn’t play any sports, so I was “not an athlete.” For the last 15 years, I have had a desk job and struggled with autoimmune health problems, so I have definitely not been an athlete.

Now, I am training for a triathlon. Almost no one does that. Most people tell themselves the story that they can’t do a triathlon. But for some reason I thought I might be able to do it. So now I swim a mile a week, regularly go for 15 miles bike rides, and attempt to run on a regular basis. Am I an athlete now? I’m not sure because I’m not on a team, and I’m not thin. But my definition might be changing. I’m definitely in better shape than I was a year ago.

One of the reasons that it’s super important to reexamine our stories is that it’s almost impossible to change unless you believe you can. If, like my husband, you believe you can’t dance, you will never be able to dance. If you are attached to the story that you are an unhealthy person, you will have a very hard time becoming a healthy person.

But if you are willing to change the story to maybe I can dance, or maybe I can be healthy, or maybe I can be an athlete, then you make space for new things to come in and new patterns to establish themselves.

It takes effort to dislodge our stories, sometimes quite a lot of effort. I have found that it’s super helpful to surround myself with people who don’t believe the stories that I hold that keep me stuck, who are willing to point out to me when I am holding myself back for no apparent reason, and who hold space for me to tell some new stories.

Being that person for my coaching clients is one my favorite parts of the job. Seeing people begin to light up with their own possibilities is one of the greatest gifts in the world!

H.A.L.T.

7/2/2016

The other night I got only about four hours broken sleep. The next morning my body was craving energy and I felt myself yearning to go on a carby rampage. This experience brought me back to HALT, which is short for “Never get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.”
It sounds a little obvious to say in order to avoid a food binge, don’t get too hungry. But stick with me here. I have had several clients lately who are workaholics. They are routinely working 12+ hour days. They tend to grab sugary “treats” during the day to keep going. And on the way home they are (or were before we straightened it out) tempted to stop at the nearest fast food joint to grab what was easy and ready to eat.
Getting too hungry leads to making bad decisions, especially if your blood sugar drops very low. Workaholics especially tend to forget to eat during the day, until their bodies can’t stand it one more minute and force them to grab the nearest calories whatever the cost.
I worked with these clients to make sure that they had balanced snacks to eat during the day—with protein, fat, and carbs. Maybe a banana or apple and some almond butter. And that they scheduled a regular time to make sure they actually ate their snack. In this way, they had plenty of energy left at the end of the day to drive right past the Taco Bell and go home to a real food dinner.
As for getting too angry or lonely, I’m sure most of us have experienced emotionally driven eating once in a while. Who hasn’t said, “I’m so angry I’m going to eat a whole pizza.”? Be honest.
There is a close, two way link between stress and digestion. Stress actually makes good digestion harder. But eating well can also contribute to lowering stress. If you’re finding you’re often uncontrollably angry you might want to check your blood sugar. Low blood sugar can lead to irrational anger. I have also observed that people who enough good healthy saturated fats like butter and coconut oil tend to be much more patient and tolerant.
If pizza is the anger food, ice cream is the go to food for loneliness. With fats for satiety, and fresh fruit for brightness and sweetness, ice cream done right can actually be healing (See my recipe for Blueberry Lemon Mint ice cream).
But, I am a holistic health coach and so I don’t think food is the answer to all my troubles. I also have to make sure that I’m meditating regularly and doing the necessary things to maintain my relationships to avoid unnecessary anger and loneliness.Similarly, my first suggestion when you are tired is to sleep. I am a very big fan of sleep. Getting plenty of sleep at night, and taking naps too if needed. Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to a vicious cycle of exhaustion as we seek stimulants (like caffeine and carbs) to keep going during the day and then are unable to sleep well at night because we over-stimulated.
My first career often required very long days and I was chronically sleep deprived. It was amazing how much better my mood and energy would be when I finally was able to catch up on my sleep. No amount of caffeine or carbs can make up for good sleep.
All of these things can be interrelated too. If I’m too hungry, I can get cranky, which makes people not want to hang out with me, which makes me stay up all night worrying. Despite what the advertisers would have you believe, Snickers is not the answer. But a good supportive diet and lifestyle can help.

Step by Step

5/31/2016

I am training for a triathalon. I know! I had a hard time believing it at first too.

Several years ago I heard a radio interview with a triathlete. Each race differs but the standard is more or less swim a mile, bike 25 miles, and run 5 miles. I’ve never been a good runner, but there was a time in my life when I could easily swim a mile and/or bike 25. I decided I wanted to get back to that place.

I finally made the commitment in early February of this year. I am not participating in any organized race, just going to pick a day and do it for myself. Just to prove that I can. I picked September 21. It’s the harvest season and it seemed like this would be my project, the thing I would “grow” this spring and summer.

So, I sat down and crunched some numbers and made a spreadsheet. Starting from zero and getting up to the above goals in 7 months meant I would have to add .2 miles per week to my running capacity, 2 miles to my biking game, and 2 lengths of the pool to my swim.

Those tiny increments seemed easily doable. The only challenge really would be to stick with it. I’ve tried to create exercise goals for myself before, but never been able to sustain them. I knew there was no way I could accomplish my goal unless I made slow and steady improvement. I couldn’t train once a month and expect to reach my goals.

One mile is 70 lengths of the pool I swim in. My first try I did four and that felt like a lot. The next time I did ten. Now I am up to 40 (over half a mile) and it feels like a nice workout. My last bike ride was 19.5 miles. It was exhausting. I would not have been able to walk, let alone run 5 miles after that ride. But I made it and will do it again until it becomes easy.

As expected the running is the hardest for me. And so it is the training I least like to do. It took me about six weeks to figure out that one of the reasons it didn’t feel like I was making as much progress is that I thought that there is no way to rest while running. On a bike you can coast down hills. In the pool you can back stroke while you catch your breath. But there’s no coasting in running. Then I remembered a friend who had run the New York City marathon by running half a mile and walking half a mile the whole way. Walking is the resting of running!

My running endurance is now slowly improving. My last time out I ran about a mile out of 1.6 mile total distance covered.

Apparently, I had a lot of fixed ideas and expectations for how this was going to go. I am disappointed that I have not lost any weight yet with all this extra exercise. But I have noticed that things are a lot less jiggly. Maybe the weight loss will come.

There have been some completely unexpected benefits. My mood has improved. (Should have listened to that therapist all those years ago who told me that moving was a better antidepressant than pills.) I’m getting to spend time outside in what I think must be the most beautiful spring in the history of springs. Someone told me I’m glowing the other day. Most importantly, I’m feeling more confident.

This feels like the first goal I have chosen purely for myself in my life. No one is making me do this. There’s no prize at the end, no public recognition. When I gave myself the pep talk about consistency I had no idea if I’d be able to keep up with it. I had no idea if I’d be able to reach my goal. I still don’t .

It’s always easy to get distracted, to find that thing that’s more important. Especially in this case when I have no outside accountability, no consequences if I don’t make it. For some reason, I am keeping up with it. The most unexpected benefit is that I am keeping a promise to myself. I’ve not been really good at that in the past; I’m much better at keeping promises when there’s someone holding me responsible. Whenever I open my spreadsheet and mark down that I’ve been able to go a little farther than last time, I’m keeping that promise to myself.

I’m also learning something about incremental benchmarks along the way. I set a stretch goal and gave myself plenty of time to reach it. Because the end was so far off I felt like the whole thing had a lot of time to fall apart. Each time it doesn’t fall apart I have an opportunity to celebrate getting a little closer and not giving up. There’s still that voice that’s telling me that I won’t make it but it’s getting drowned out by a lot of celebrating these days.

My next goal is to learn how to really internalize all these lessons. I’m not sure what will motivate me when I pass this goal. I’m kind of afraid that I’ll just stop on September 22, but I’m hoping I will be so in love with honoring the promises I make to myself that I’ll keep going.

I had no idea that this was going to be a process of inner growth. I thought I was setting myself a purely physical challenge. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I know perfectly well that any time I can’t do something, going deep and looking at what’s really holding me back will probably get me past the resistance.

I LOVE finding growth opportunities where I least expect them.

I’ll keep you posted as I progress, but right now, I gotta go for a run.

Set Yourself up for Success

5/1/2016

Spring is in full swing around here. Life is budding out all over; you can feel the abundance and fertility. It’s natural for our thoughts to turn to new beginnings.As I was thinking about what personal experience or advice can I share on the topic, it occurred to me that this might be a good place for a plug for coaching. All of us have had the experience of having a great idea, lots of good intentions, getting a really good start on something and then petering out.

Getting support and an accountability partner can really change that outcome and set you up for success. The modern use of the term “coach” is often not well understood. It conjures up images of a high school football coach standing on the sidelines yelling at the team. Why would you hire someone to yell at you? Or that you didn’t understand?

This article describes well in a general way what coaches do. “We help clients identify the areas in their lives that they want to change or improve and help them create a plan to get there. We then provide structure, accountability, expertise and inspiration to enable clients to grow, increase self-awareness, commitment and confidence beyond what they can achieve on their own.”

As an example, I am a certified holistic health coach. Part of what I do is help people identify a diet that works best for their body and lifestyle, to create really great physical, mental, and emotional health. Many people think that because I work with diet I am a dietician. In fact, there’s a big difference. Most of us already know what we should and shouldn’t be eating but we can’t seem to get started or stick to it. A health coach works with you to identify and explore what’s holding you back and what motivates you to move forward. So when your doctor says you need to lose weight or your nutritionist says you need to eat more vegetables, but neither has the time to help you figure out how to actually do that, you might want to hire a coach.

“Usually when clients come to me "stuck," it's because they haven't explored the mental, emotional or spiritual factors that affect their health. It's often here where fears, resistance, self-sabotaging behaviors and self-deprecating thoughts must be healed.” says Dr. Deborah Caldwell, naturopathic physician and health coach.

If you’ve already tried to solve a problem on your own and not been able to achieve the goals you set for yourself, you might consider hiring a coach to help. In addition to helping improve a myriad of health issues with diet and nutrition, I also help people stop rushing around like crazy, one of the biggest root causes that prevent people from enjoying life and feeling grounded, uncluttered, and present .

Coaching works in just about every area of life, not just health and diet. “Good coaches identify gaps between where the client is and where the client needs or wants to be; ask for more intentional thought, action and behavior changes than the client might have asked of him or herself; and guide the building of the structure, accountability, and support necessary to ensure sustained commitment.” This articletalks more about the benefits of coaching for both employees and companies.

Whether in your personal life or your career, if you want more energy, less stress, more self-confidence, and more effectiveness in all your endeavors, drop me a line.

May all your new beginnings be blessed with the resources needed to make your dreams come true.

A version of this essay first appeared on holisticperformancegroup.com

Body Hunger vs. Cravings

1/31/2016

I realized the other day that I rarely have cravings any more. How on Earth is that was possible?! It’s because I have worked hard at learning to listen to my body.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of hunger: tummy hunger and what I call body hunger. Tummy hunger is when your stomach is empty and you get the message that you need to fill it up. That’s what most of us think of as hunger.

Body hunger is everything else. I’ve noticed lately that sometimes after I finish a meal I’m definitely not tummy hungry any more but I still feel like I want something. My body is asking for something I didn’t provide.

So, instead of assuming that I’m having a craving, I slow down and ask my body what it needs. Maybe there weren’t enough carbs in the main meal, and then I’ll have a piece of fruit for dessert. Or maybe my meal had a lot of fat in it and my body is asking for something bitter to stimulate bile. That’s when chocolate or coffee sounds like a good after-dinner option. A couple of bites of very dark chocolate or a cup of decaf can meet that need with minimal anti-nutrients.

My body can ask for support in any area—physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. The need for a boost to my mental function might manifest as a craving for donuts. When I take a moment to break down what a donut might actually provide, I realize that what my body is asking for is some carbs and fats for quick energy and brain support. A spoonful of nut butter might be a better choice than a donut while fulfilling the same need.

Emotional cravings can be harder to parse. Once I attended a birthday party with people I didn’t know very well. It was a lovely warm afternoon, there was a bluegrass band-my favorite kind of music–and I was having a great time, until they brought out the table COVERED with sugary desserts. I started craving some dessert and there was no one there I could talk to it about. I felt more and more lonely until I was almost crying; I must be the only person in the world who might be trying to avoid sugar. It seemed like the only answer was to eat the cake (and cookies and whatever else was on the table) so that I could be part of the crowd. Finally, I was able to reach a friend on the phone who told me she loved me. Turned out it wasn’t sugar but oxytocin that I needed. Even a virtual hug was enough to overcome the craving and allow me to go back into the party and dance and laugh my ass off.

It’s difficult to separate the biological from the emotional or spiritual. Emotions have such an influence on the biological, and biological processes have such an influence on how feel and experience the world.

In the end, mindfulness is the key. When I can refrain from judgement and ask what’s really going on, I can make better choices based in reality.

No More Rushing Around like Crazy III

12/31/2015

My third technique for how to not feel so rushed all the time is called “Follow the Fear.” This works best with a coach or trusted advisor because it can get pretty real, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.
Procrastination is another mega time thief. Most procrastination is fear-based. But there is really good news! All fear is positive. Fear is an instinct to protect us from something. By sitting quietly and asking what we are really afraid of, what the fear is trying to protect us from, we can deal with that directly. Once we’ve followed the fear and identified the root cause, we can find better ways to protect ourselves than avoidance or self-sabotage.

As an example, many entrepreneurs subconsciously resist taking the steps necessary to be really successful because they’re afraid that success means that they won’t have any personal time left, that the business will take up their whole life and there will be no time for family, friends, or self-care. Ah ha! Now we can look for a more balanced way to protect against that. We can write into the schedule time for a lunch date with a friend at least once a week, or a spa visit once a month. Because the truth is that if we are always working and not taking time to take care of our body, mind, and spirit, we will eventually find down time in some indirect way, like becoming sick, or being so exhausted that we need to take a mental health day.

When I see someone who is consistently overwhelmed and exhausted, often late, and always guilty because they *should* be doing more, I feel compassion. I know from personal experience that’s not a fun place to be. But I also know that there are some gentle, loving means to become more balanced, and have more energy and greater equilibrium.

Please let me know if you would like support around this. You don’t have to do it alone.

No More Rushing Around Like Crazy II

11/30/2015

Haha. I didn’t plan to write about gratitude just after Thanksgiving. I swear, it’s a coincidence! This is the second in a series on how to not feel so rushed all the time, that just happened to start last month.

Last month I talked about keeping a journal to help with planning. My second strategy is to notice what is already good. Gratitude goes a long way towards making life feel full – in the good way, not the overwhelming way - and getting rid of the need for striving.

This may not feel like a time management tool but it really is. When I focus only on all-the-things-that-aren’t-done-yet that is all I can see. It adds an amazing amount of stress into an already busy life, drains energy, and actually makes it harder to accomplish stuff. When I’m in that frame of mind, I get easily overwhelmed and the pressure I put on myself to get something, anything! done is actually counterproductive.

I have a daily practice of texting a gratitude list to a friend. It doesn’t have to be long or all encompassing. I just list a few things that have gone right in my day – like a good snuggle with my dogs, and a good meal with the hubby – and I stop feeling like a total failure because of all-the-things-that-aren’t-done-yet.

A big part of “rushing around like crazy” is mental. I find, and my clients have found, that without even changing anything on the calendar, focusing on what’s going well leads to a shift in attitude and a feeling of calm and lightness that is wayyy better than feeling crazy busy.

No More Rushing Around Like Crazy

10/31/2015

Time management is a problem for many of us. We’re always late, or rushing. Or thinking about the next thing that has to be done and not giving our full attention to what’s in front of us. Which, of course, means that we are rarely fully present or fully effective.

It *seems* that if we just get our shit together we’d be able to achieve so much! If we could just push ourselves harder, be stricter…The actual journey to becoming a paragon of organization and effectiveness can be very overwhelming. Many people think that what is required is just more discipline.

I actually don’t think being harder on ourselves is the answer. I’ve become much gentler with myself and others over time. I’ve given up thinking that being mean to ourselves is the way to get to our goals. I think time management is much more sacred than that. I think it means being mindful, it means honoring our actual capacities and being fully present.

I have a few tools that I use with clients to help them achieve a more balanced relationship with rushing. I’m going to talk about them over the next few months, in hopes of giving you some tools that will help you get through the holidays with more grace and ease.

My first tip is to keep a journal of when life feels overbooked. Write down how much time everything actually takes. One of the biggest time bandits is denial. As an example, if the meeting gets over at 11:30, and it takes 15 minutes to get to the next thing, it may seem logical to book the next thing for 11:45. But in reality, one never is out the door the second a meeting is over. There are always follow up comments to be made and hands to be shaken. We might need to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water.

Once we see how long things habitually take, we can begin living in reality. If we find that it almost always takes a quarter of an hour to finish our business and we are committed to giving ourselves breathing room, then we can schedule the next thing for noon.

When we arrive on time for the next thing, having already taken care of the little things, we will have time to land, take a breath, and we will be much more present, balanced, and productive. We might even find that we start allowing extra time instead of just enough, in case there’s heavy traffic.

When I see someone who is consistently overwhelmed and exhausted, often late, and always guilty because they *should* be doing more, I feel compassion. I know from personal experience that’s not a fun place to be. But I also know that there are some gentle, loving means to become more balanced, and have more energy and greater equilibrium. Please let us know if you would like support around this. You don’t have to do it alone.

A version of this essay first appeared on holisticperformancegroup.com

Harvest

9/30/2015

The area where I live is very rural. Among my neighbors are Dutch families that have been farming the same land for 300 or more years. Although there are not as many farms as there once were, we still have a lot of farm stands that sell local produce in season.

Since I moved here I have really come to base my life on the agricultural calendar. I only eat raspberries in July and tomatoes in August and September. I love waiting until things are locally ripe to eat them. It makes each harvest a celebration.

But even more than the food calendar, I use the rhythms of the earth to inform my personal rhythms. In the winter I try to rest and renew myself. In early spring, when the ground is still covered in snow but the days are clearly getting longer, I think about what I want to grow in my life, and I put out that intention. In the spring and summer I work to try to make those things manifest.

And it often seems that vague ideas that I had in the spring, really come home by about this time of year. The past couple of weeks have been like that for me. I was invited to give a talk at a library. Plans for a slow food dinner are finally coming together. I’ve been invited to give another talk at a business incubator (more about this as soon as the plans are finalized). I’ve been offered offices in three different places in the last week!It feels like a lot of the work that I’ve been doing over the last while, to get Your Yummy Life known and seen, is coming together.

I now want to take time to consolidate these advances, and figure out how to draw the energy into my roots, so that it is solidly a part of myself. And get ready to grow some more in the spring.

I’d love to hear what you’ve been harvesting recently—be it pumpkins or projects.