Winter—it’s been a tough one here on Long Island. The cold and dreary skies have not been good for my constitution. Not sure if I would call it seasonal affective disorder, but it sure seems close! One of the problem
s for me every winter is that I come out of summer feeling healthy, having spent those months paddle surfing, running and doing yoga. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, in comes the dreaded winter. I swap running on the boardwalk for running to buy some fattening latte drink, telling myself, “I have to; it will warm me up.” Driving to yoga doesn’t happen either. The days are shorter, and when I am finished with work, the only thing I want to do is lie on the couch.
Probably the most critical part of the winter blues is that I forgo my healthy-living habits of good nutrition. The cold makes me hanker for comfort foods, which are often heavy, made with large amounts of animal products, and overall not good for you.
Enter March—I start feeling better, knowing that summer is around the corner. But I don’t have to wait until May (although I may want to ☺) to go back to living my healthiest self.
This month’s issue is focused on conscious eating. Do you eat consciously? Do you pause before grocery shopping, cooking or even sitting at a restaurant and think: “Food is fuel for my body; yes, it can taste good, but eating nachos is like putting water in a gas tank instead of gas”?
This month, we should revert back to our summer habits, and also incorporate some of the valuable tips, information and recipes found in this edition of Natural Awakenings. Let these pages help remind you that eating is what powers us through our work day, our runs on the boardwalk, our yoga classes—hell, it even gives us our power when dealing with teens. And, let’s face it, we want to be powerful. To do this, we need to stop and consider how we fuel our bodies; we need to recognize that tasting good and good for you do not have to be mutually exclusive, and that eating until you are stuffed is a compulsive behavior, not a drive for fuel.
One trick I used to do is for 21 days, no matter what I was eating or how much I was enjoying it, I would stop and leave one-fourth on my plate. Now you may say this is wasting food, but for someone like me who feels a bit compulsive about food, it is much more important for me to show myself that I HAVE POWER over food; it doesn’t have power over me. I found when I was doing this that my runs were faster, indigestion was much less, and my overall health was better.
I hope that March and the March issue of Natural Awakenings Long Island inspire you to eat healthy, make adjustments to your relationship with food, and to get out there and live your healthiest life ever.
Malama Pono,
Kelly
