“If there is love in your cooking, there is love in your tummy! You and Maria have found yet another way to express your love for each other and yourselves by nourishing your bodies with good healthy homemade meals. And your blogs about it have been inspirational to me, and I am sure many others. Thanks again for sharing your lives with your readers!” Â — Rosemary, a blog reader.
I’m beginning to understand what the Mayo Clinic means when they say being healthy and losing weight is not about dieting, really, but much more about changing one’s relationship with food.
Working at home much of the time and writing for most of every day, I got into the habit of snacking – corn chips, popcorn, “healthy” chickpea, and veggie straw checks.
The corporate food companies had my number – if it said healthy, low fat, or organic, I would often go for it. My body embraced habit. If I eat it often, I like it and rationalize how I eat. Eating habits have been formed over many years; it takes some thinking and planning to change.
Weight is a complex issue for people with diabetes; insulin makes it easy to put on weight and hard to lose it.
So here I am, losing weight and snacking as often as I wish. Only the snacks are different. They are beans, red peppers, celery, and carrots. I am coming to love the taste of fresh vegetables; the more I eat them, the more I like them. And I can eat as many of these snacks as I wish.
Rosemary was also right about love. Maria and I are doing this together, even though she doesn’t need or want to lose weight. But she does want to be healthy. She also wants me to live a while longer.
We love working together to nourish our bodies. I used to do all the shopping; now we love to shop together (she always hated shopping).
We support each other, cheer one another on, use our creativity to stamp on the food we buy and eat. The clinic food plan helped get us started, but we are making this journey our own.
Every morning I can’t wait to weigh myself and tell Maria the news, good or bad. And these days, it’s almost always good. Nourishing each other is another way to love and broaden and deepen our love.
Like a healthy body, a good marriage takes work, compromise, and sacrifice. We never take each other for granted; this kind of love need nourishment and care.
I see food in a completely different way. I shop in a completely different way. Our cabinet has completely other things in it. And we do this together.
I am enjoying this change in my life, and for that reason, I have a hunch it just might stick. I finished my snack cup this morning—time to get some more carrots and celery.
Yes, yes, and yes! I am so glad you posted about joining the Mayo plan as I did the same two weeks ago. Mark and I are having such fun with all the new ingredients we’re trying. And, he’s the chopper (way more precise than I) and I do the cooking. We comment every single evening, how much fun it’s been…and we feel so much better!
Our snack is seedless grapes. We get through lbs of them. We have also started to add chopped, peeled apples and nuts to our green salads., sometimes making a complete meal of these when not particularly hungry.
We both have large breakfasts of whatever takes our fancies. Not unhealthy but not bothering to be consciously healthy either. This morning we had buckwheat pancakes with butter and maple syrup and then grapes. Our main meal, which we have just finished , was green pea and ham soup, using the bone from our Thanksgiving ham, which we then put out for the foxes which wander by in the evening and early morning. Plus we had wholewheat bread nd butter.
Tomorrow we will have a postponed Burns night supper as a bow to my husband’s Scottish ancestors on his father’s side. (With a canned Haggis) But it was my husband who craved green pea and ham soup today!
It’s interesting how changing your diet can change your tastes. I went on a food elimination diet to test for food allergies. I could no longer stand the taste of diet coke anymore at the end of it. I have been mostly on the autoimmune protocol diet for a few years. (Can’t give up chocolate and now eat some nuts because my doctor wants me to.) I do cheat once in awhile. I’ve discovered that I can no longer stand the taste of bell peppers. Over time I discovered that I’m allergic to soy, which is one of the 8 major food allergens.
Hasn’t put my autoimmune issues into remission, but I’ve lost the weight I put on due to stress and grief. A lot of weight.
So glad this is working out for you. Looking forward to seeing pictures of the new you.
Eating your way,which we frequently do, last nights dinner was a farro tomato dish with a quinoa pear salad, has one draw back. I find myself struggling to keep my weight over one hundred. I know people think this should not be a problem and it has only been one for me after extensive back surgery. Nuts are a calorie rich snack as are some fruits and breads, but it is hard.