Food Lessons from the Movie Eat Pray Love

In the movie Eat Pray Love, (based on Elizabeth Gilbert's autobiographical book of the same name) Julia Roberts plays the title character who after a broken marriage goes on a year-long sabbatical to Italy, India, and Bali to find herself and reignite her passion and appetite for life.  During the first part of her travels in Italy, she rediscovers the pleasure of eating for nourishment and enjoyment, relishing plates of pasta and slices of pizza, calling it her "no carb left behind experience."  The power of that scene stems from the fact that she lets go of the guilt associated with eating so-called 'bad" foods and is fully present in the moment, focused soley on the joy of eating. 

The movie is so inviting to watch because the main character has the luxury of getting away from it all (in gorgeous locations) while learning how to slow down and tune in to life.  Okay, so maybe we all can't quit our jobs and go on a year-long sabbatical, but we can still take small steps everyday to take time to actually appreciate, taste, and savor our food. 

In today's hectic lifestyle, we're so busy with our family, our jobs, and our activities, that we often give very little thought to the food we eat.  We approach food mindlessly, and we eat it mindlessly.  We eat meal after meal, barely aware of what we're eating and how much we're consuming.  Years of unconscious decisions add up to the point where we gain weight and wonder why.  We didn't choose to gain weight, did we?  Other times we think too much and try to be so restrictive in what we eat that when we overindulge, our internal judgement police march in to harshly scold us for our missteps.
 
So what's the key to creating our own Eat Pray Love experience without having to travel the world?

Mindfulness. 

Mindfulness is is simply the moment-by-moment awareness of what's going on. 

When we learn to eat mindfully, we gain power over food bite by bite.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, simple is not the same as easy.  Being mindful on a consistent basis is very difficult for most people but with practice it can became as natural as breathing. 

Here are 3 steps to practice:

1.  Tune In Before Eating

Take a moment to become aware of the food you're about to eat before scarfing it down.  You can do this by pausing to appreciate the color of the food on your plate and paying attention to the smell of the food - anything that slows you down and brings you into the moment.

2.  Tune In During Eating

The 2nd step involves paying attention while we're actually eating the food.  You can practice this by chewing your food slowly, paying attention to each bite.  Aim to think about how the food tastes, including its texture, temperature, and mixture of flavors.  Now here's the challenge - don't start loading up your fork and putting more food in your mouth until you've completely chewed and swallowed what's already in there. 

3.  Tune In After Eating

Now that you've eaten, how do you feel?  Are you comfortably full or stuffed beyond the gills?  Is your body happy with the food choices you've made or are you ready to put your head down and go to sleep? 

Tuning in and paying attention before, during, and after eating lets you learn how to listen to your body without judgement and learn how to balance your eating and maintain a healthy body weight.  While it takes practice, we can all relearn how to slow down and take time to smell, taste, and enjoy our food.

Need help working on mindful eating?  Contact me for an appointment today.

Do You Count When it Comes to Nutrition?

It's been a busy summer as I've literally had company visiting for the past month.  Since the middle of July, I've had different friends and family members staying with us each week.  You know the saying, when one door closes, another one opens with more people coming to visit. 

While it's been fun to see everyone, each week brought different challenges when trying to figure out what to feed everyone.  With each person having different likes and dislikes, coming up with a meal plan that would work for all was like trying to herd cats - a lot of effort and not always completely successful. 

Since I'm fully aware that I'm a hard core health nut, I always try to be sensitive to the needs of my guests and what they enjoy eating.  One night when we were trying to decide what to have for dinner, one of my visitors jokingly said that my opinion didn't count since my preference for food wasn't exactly simpatico with the rest of the group.  While this comment didn't bother me at the time, I did reflect on it later and think "Hey, I do count!" This made me think about how many times in social situations we give in to peer pressure to eat things we don't really want to but because we want to be part of the group or don't want to appear to be the odd one out.  How many times have you ordered fast food instead of making healthier items because you think your family will complain?  How many times have you given in and ordered an unhealthy dish because you wanted to be part of the group? 

This reminds me of a story a friend of mine told me about how she went out to dinner with friends.  She finished her meal, was perfectly satisfied, and had no desire to order dessert.  One of her dining companions refused to take no for an answer, and proceeded to order dessert and insist she eat it.  She took a few bites to appease this food pusher but it left her with a sick feeling in her stomach - not even so much from the dessert but more from feeling forced to eat when she really didn't want it. 

So my question for you is this:  Do you count when it comes to nutrition? Or do you always put yourself at the bottom of the list?

You deserve to feel good and make healthy choices without feeling like you always have to please others.  If you don't count yourself as being important when it comes to nutrition, who will?

Best Sports Nutrition Supplements: Pros & Cons

Wondering what sports nutrition supplements you should choose when preparing for or running your next race?  Here are some great guidelines from an article from Active.com to help you find the optimal energy foods.

SPORTS DRINKS

Sports drinks are designed to maximize fluid absorption and enhance performance by delivering readily absorbable carbohydrate and electrolytes, the most crucial being sodium. The better-formulated (and tasting) ones intended for use during exercise usually contain both simple carbs (sucrose, fructose and glucose) and complex carbs (glucose polymers, maltodextrin). Choose a sports drink instead of plain water when exercising or running 60 minutes or longer at a moderate intensity.

PROS: Multiple flavors and brands to choose from; readily usable liquid carbohydrates are absorbed more rapidly than solid food; sodium enhances the drive to drink and facilitates the absorption of carbohydrate.

CONS: Unnecessary added ingredients can contribute to digestion woes; you're hostage to the sports drink provided at aid stations unless you carry your own; unlikely to be enough to meet energy needs in marathons and ultras.

ENERGY GELS, CHEWS AND BLOCKS

These sports foods provide fast-acting, easy-to-digest carbohydrate--exactly what hard-working muscles and the brain require to perform while running fast or long.

PROS: Easy to chew and digest; many varieties also provide sodium and small amounts of caffeine, another performance booster during prolonged exercise.

CONS: Need to be taken with recommended amount of water (6 to 8 ounces); semi-solid chews and blocks may boost blood sugar levels more slowly than gels; toting enough with you requires wearing a carrier of some sort.

LIQUID FOOD SUPPLEMENTS

In addition to carbohydrate, these beverages provide varying amounts of protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, electrolytes and other lesser-proven ingredients, such as herbs and metabolites.

These nutrient-dense "liquid energy bars" provide considerably more fuel or energy per ounce than traditional sports drinks.

PROS: Convenient mode for consuming a concentrated dose of energy (calories) and carbohydrate; star as prerace meals or post-recovery drinks due to low fiber and higher energy content; typically a well-tolerated option for ultra-endurance athletes.

CONS: Can lead to digestive problems and dehydration when consumed during moderate-to-high intensity exercise; energy-dense beverage can contribute to unwanted weight gain if routinely consumed in place of meals or snacks.

ENERGY BARS

With practice an energy bar can be easy to carry, chew and digest while running. Unless you'll be on the move longer than four hours, however, choose varieties that obtain most if not all of their calories from carbohydrate (70 percent or more). It's only during longer hauls that the body has time to actually digest and assimilate the fuel from other sources.

PROS: Wide variety of flavors and textures to choose from; travel well; welcome alternative to sweet-tasting drinks, gels, chews and blocks; another option for meeting higher energy requirements of long-distance runs.

CONS: More difficult to chew and digest than liquids, especially when you're fatigued; must take with ample fluid for proper digestion; solids can take much longer to boost blood sugar levels than liquids.

REAL FOOD

Ultra runners can be seen refueling with everything from sports drinks and energy gels to sandwiches, fried chicken and pizza. Ditto for walkers and back-of-the pack marathon runners who often rely on real food for fuel, such as candy, dried fruit or pretzels. The longer duration and slower pace (lower intensity) allows these athletes to profit from consuming real food despite the extra time required to convert energy into fuel the body can use.

PROS: Helps fight "flavor fatigue" common when consuming only sweet-tasting sports foods; allows athletes to meet the high energy demands of prolonged ultra running; can be mentally uplifting or rewarding.

CONS: Protein, fiber and fat in real foods can slow absorption and digestion time and increase potential gastrointestinal problems; more complicated logistics of carrying and consuming while on the move.