My Vacation Break-Up with Mangoes and Pecans
Inviting Failure Foods into My Life
As I said in my Facebook and Instagram post, dried mangoes and pecans caused too much drama this week. I need to cut these ties for awhile.
To be fair, this drama is caused by my own design. Of course, I have a success plan. But, an important part of my success plan is that I also have a failure plan.
Part of how I succeed is that I always have failure foods at home. These are my off-ramp foods—foods good enough to go off-track with but mild enough to make getting back on-track possible.
Keeping failure foods on-hand is counter-intuitive and may go against the advice of experts. But, this journey is an individual one, and this is my journey.
I live in a house full of food triggers that I no longer eat. And, if I did eat them, I would have skyrocketing failure — a degree of failure with which I have a lifetime of experiences. This is a way of life I no longer want.
My failure foods have kept me in check so far. Without salt, oil, and sugar in my life, I live an all-or-nothing life.
Failure foods help me avoid the all-or-nothing mindset that comes with this all-or-nothing life. This is important for my success.
The Equation of My Soup — Packing it with Plant-based Power
I recently wrote a short post for Instagram / Facebook where I referenced making a large pot of soup to freeze into individual containers. And, in this post, I mentioned that I had used more than 25 different kinds of plants in it, and I was asked for the recipe.
I do not follow recipes. There are benefits and drawbacks to my approach. But, recipes cause me stress, and adapting what I have on hand suits me. Instead, I use concepts to guide my cooking. And, I have gotten better at using the concepts over time. So, what I will focus on here is detailing the concepts.
Overall, I find plant-based cooking to be a forgiving form of cooking. And, keep in mind that I am several years into this lifestyle. So, if you are just getting going, you may want to consider taking a concept and experimenting with it in small steps rather than trying to do too much at once.
A significant part of my journey has been a deep dive into understanding my hunger drive and how I feel my best. Eating a soup like this is not something I would have done early into my transition – for a variety of reasons.
But, seeing what others do has helped me find my way, and seeing what I do may help you find your way as well.
Big Rocks and LIttle Rocks: Navigating Terrain Shifts
Since I last wrote, a lot has changed in my life – as I anticipated it would. The changes are good, and I am grateful for that.
I have now started my new job, which has come with a lot of apprehensive excitement. A steep learning curve usurped my capacities for routine and for writing.
But, I am finding my way back, learning how to live my new life, facing myself over and over again in a whole new world.
I am starting to sleep just a little better as I am adjusting to everything. Sleep helps everything.
I am now pausing, taking stock in what it means to navigate my health and wellness through a major turning point in my life.
Keeping My Footing in the Seas of Change
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
I am in the midst of change right now. A lot of it.
Since I last blogged, I retired from one career, traveled several places, and am on the edge of starting a new career. All of this is good.
Changes, even good ones, can be unsettling and upset the balance in my routines, in my life. These changes turned my foundation into a slippery slope – more than I expected.
To keep my footing, I have had to catch my balance several times in the past weeks. Catching my balance always means failure in some way.
I enjoy the beach much more at half my size. I feel younger, better, and more energetic than I ever have in my life, even though my age now gets me some senior discounts.
And, I have failed. More I than planned, and more than I would like to admit. Failure works that way.
But, failures are a natural part of the self-improvement process, the ongoing process of being me, of facing myself, of understanding the shadows that shape my life.
Discovering My Trigger Foods, Part I
Someone asked me recently how I discovered my food triggers. This is an insightful question. I will answer it in two parts.
At the end of 2019, I knew enough about food addiction to name it in myself. I knew, too, that the processed foods of the standard American diet caused problems for me.
At the time, I thought my understanding of food addiction was the capstone of what I needed to lose weight. In some ways, that was true. In other ways, that was just the beginning.
I know this is true: food addiction plays out in my body in the simplest, most predictable ways and in the most complex, challenging ways in today’s food environment.
Discovering My Trigger Foods Was a Process