Why: My Golden Center for Change
Lifestyle changes can be challenging work as we go through the ups and downs of life. Knowing our reasons for making long-term change is important, especially during challenging times. Our reason(s) for change is often known as our why.
I love Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle, which places the why in the center of action, change, and doing. I have found this way of thinking to be helpful in many areas of my life. I continually think through making and maintaining my lifestyle changes through my why.
Eating Less Frequently
I typically eat either 2 or 3 meals a day, depending on my hunger, my day, and my schedule. Getting rid of addictive foods changed how I experienced hunger, and once I felt that change, I was able to eat at meal times instead of more frequently.
Changes: Follow Me Here
Lifestyle changes are inevitable, and they can be hard to navigate. I am currently reflecting on what these changes mean for me. Creating new routines around changes takes time, patience, and grace—all of which I need right now.
Eat When Hungry: Decisions of a Lifetime
Eat When Hungry. This idea takes on different meanings every day, and I want to highlight the ongoing nature of my health, wellness, and weight loss journey. This is a process, not a destination, even if losing half my weight looks like a final destination.
I made big changes in 2020 around the idea of eating when hungry, and I found greater success. These changes still define my life. Even so, I am learning, growing, and changing in how I understand myself. I am only starting to think deeply about the ongoing nature of the journey, largely because others think I have arrived in some way.
Eat When Hungry: Journey from the Desert to the Theme Park
Understanding Mirages of Food, Hunger, and Eating
In this episode of Eat When Hungry, Dr. Lisle and I discuss food, hunger, and eating. Like mirages in the desert, this episode is not what it seems. Barely an actual food is mentioned in our broad, sprawling conversation.
Dr. Lisle takes us from the desert of human origin and survival to today’s theme parks as a symbol of our society where supernormal foods and their pleasure trap reigns supreme. I share my personal experiences from an educational perspective, having been caught in this trap for decades.
We probe what is under the surface to help us understand what humans are up against in the modern food environment. At the heart this problem: humans were not meant to solve the problem of supernormal foods in our environment.
Choose Health: Fail for Success Series, 1
SHADOW BOXING
Fighting Myself for Myself: Failing Within Boundaries
I am in the middle of several back-to-back travel experiences that make it difficult to keep a health routine. And, I am in the busy season in a new job that I am still learning. This is a recipe for failing grandly.
I have a history of failing grandly in times like this. The details were different, but the feeling was the same. To stay successful, I have had to let some things go and keep my eye on the big things for long-term success. And, I have fallen off my usual game – within boundaries of short-term failures that make long-term successes possible.
Defy My Own expectations: Travel Edition
Choosing Health When Traveling
Making healthy choices when I travel has always been difficult. I have failed so many times that I still expect to fail. So, this trip is about defying my own expectations.
This week, I travel for work. I have distinct struggles before, during, and after a trip. I was doing okay until I heard I was going to be traveling into Hurricane Hilary.
I am not sure what about Hurricane Hilary prompted me to run for the cashews and bananas, but she did! And, so I failed. But, I failed according to plan.
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.