Food, Glorious Food.

Food. It MUST be good if a Broadway musical starts out singing about it!

Food is both a curse and a blessing. I'd venture to guess that no one reading this blog has ever actually been truly starving. We all say it, "OMG I'm staaaaaarving!", but we live in a highly developed nation where food is readily available. Even if you have little to no cash, you can scrape enough together to get SOMETHING...or go raid the partner fridge at Sbux. Food used to be a reward for a hard earned victory, fighting off that saber-toothed tiger, trekking miles to get back to your cave. Nowadays, the biggest fight is which pizza joint to order from. Many of you out in readerland there may be like me and don't actually own a car. You MAY walk a lot and use public transportation. BUT, most of you have cars and the most walking you do is from the door to the car and the car to the door. Humans were designed to move...otherwise we probably wouldn't have legs. We were intended to hunt and gather...not sit on our fat asses staring at computer screens. (Ahhh cruel irony of blogging...)

It certainly doesn't help that the idea of food has become a business. Luckily, we are living in a time where people are actually starting to question what all of those chemicals are doing to our bodies. We are starting to move back to the basics, or at least towards more natural and organic products. Although, let's be clear here, organic doth not equal healthy all of the time. All of those products exclaiming "Fat free", "Non-fat", "Sugar Free", etc are merely filling those voids with sodium and other unpronounceable words. Speaking as someone who used to do all of her eating from boxes, it's easy to do. We live in a busy, busy society. No one has "the time" to cook, or to shop or to prepare a meal in a decent way to nourish your body and your mind. You hurry from one stop to the next, just trying to make it to tomorrow. You pick up convenience food and watch the pounds pile on. (Or, if you're lucky enough to be one of those folks who can eat anything, congrats...) Along my journey, I've learned how important it is to eat things that were growing, or had a mother. (I'm not a vegetarian, and never will be, sorry. To each his own.) Gradually learning to like vegetables as an adult has been quite an interesting process in itself. Growing up, my idea of veggies were iceberg lettuce, cucumbers and corn. That was it. I apparently ate a ton of carrots as a young kid, but couldn't bear to eat them as I got older. I am very excited to eat veggies nowadays, sure, not as often as I should. But THAT is part of my journey. I am refocusing and making veggies a higher priority. Like I said before, no one is perfect. :-)

As I've been going along my journey, I've found a good number of friends in many corners of my life who are also doing a similar thing. One of these friends said that she's doing her best to try to eat more food from plants, and not from the Plant. I would definitely suggest that you try to eat less processed foods and go for fresh. Your body will thank you for it! Trust me.

One of my lovely readers, a woman on her own journey, asked me to include a meal plan. I think that different things work for different people. I may start including recipes or food ideas, but I would suggest including as many veggies as possible. You'll definitely need some protein to keep you full, but only 4-5 oz perhaps. One of my latest crazes has been one of my pre-ghost dinners. (I'm a tour guide for a ghost tour in Boston...not much time for breaks and eating, gotta get enough energy beforehand.) I like to cook up peppers, onions, mushrooms, broccoli, basically whatever veggies are laying around in the fridge in a little bit of oil, add some chicken or turkey, maybe some teriyaki sauce if I'm really feeling adventurous. A yummy little stir-fry in less than 10 minutes...if the chix is precooked. I suppose while I'm handing out ideas, a favorite breakfast of mine right now is a cup of fruit (berries, oranges, or watermelon), topped with 1 cup of Stonyfield Plain Nonfat Yogurt, and a cup of granola. SO delicious and keeps me going for a few hours.

Eating can be trouble for many of us. Many of us eat, or don't eat, for reasons other than hunger. I have a hard time thinking of anyone I know who has a completely free and clear relationship with food. Who wasn't rewarded as a kid for "being good" with an ice cream cone? happy meal? Food became a prize. Or if you didn't have a lot to go around, you scarfed down as much as you could, so that you could get seconds before everyone else. We may not have a clearly identifiable eating disorder, but we are clearly disordered eaters. Everyone has their struggles. Everyone suffers silently. You are not alone. Don't let food run your life. Don't let food dictate how long that life will be. You deserve much better than that.