Daily Archive

This post is part of the Natural Cures Blog Carnival hosted by Hartkeisonline.

I’ve been on a myriad of weight loss diets in my life. I’ve lost and regained over 700 pounds in 40 years of trying every diet put forth by “medical science.” Know what I got? Fat. Know what else? Guilt. If you are struggling today, may I offer a piece of advice?

Hop off the carousel. Just like you can’t lose weight (healthily and permanently) by eating pre-packaged superproccessed diet bars and meals, looking at the same numbers over and over will give you a brain cramp. Sure, you used to be 34-24-34 and 110 pounds and wear a size 10 off the rack. But honey, those are just numbers, not some pie-in-the-sky ideal to get back to. Stop looking for a goal and focus on getting healthy. Ideally, you shouldn’t need any numbers of comparison.

“But,” you say, “I need a guideline, a reference, a comparison point.” Yeah, me too. Okay, let’s define a new set of comparison points. Get a 5 foot long, 3 foot wide sheet of paper, or tape several sheets together. Get four different colored pens, pencils or markers. Get naked.

First measurement, first color: Tape your paper to the wall. Stand with your back to the wall. Hold your arm out straight and point at something. Remember what you are pointing at, because you’ll need to repeat this next time you measure. Now put a line at the top of your arm and at the bottom, at the place it hangs lowest. Let’s call that Arm Drop. Date the bottom line. Next time you measure, point at the same thing and line up your arm with the top line before drawing the bottom line.

Second measurement, second color: Lean hard against the wall and flatten your belly out against the paper. Get as flat against the wall as you can. Put a circle where your nose touches the paper. Mark the left and right sides of the widest spot of your stomach on the paper. Let’s call that Tummy Width. Date both lines. Next time you measure, be sure your nose is on the circle.

Third measurement, third color: Put the paper on the floor. Sit on the paper with your legs out straight. Put a line on one side of your rear end, and a line on the other. Let’s call that Spread. Date the right line. Next time you measure, scooch until your left side is even with the left line you measured before.

Fourth measurement, Fourth color: Leave the paper on the floor. Stand with your left foot so that the outside of your foot is even with the edge of the paper. “Walk” your right foot out to where the top of your thigh just begins to touch the other thigh. Mark the outside edge of your right foot. Let’s call that Stand Span. Date the right line.

Now make a legend on the paper for what colors you used for what measurement. DO NOT MEASURE THE LINES. Do not associate these non-judgemental lines with numbers. These lines are your friends! They are happy lines that will move closer together as you move toward a healthy, traditional way of eating. They are friends coming together, not numbers that tell you what a bad person you’ve been. Make friends with your lines. Make peace with your lines. They aren’t judging you, they are just there. They don’t appear on any graphs in doctor’s offices, you won’t find a calculation in the BMI for them. If you don’t tell anyone what they are, they can’t compare their lines with yours. Now, roll up your paper and put it away for a whole month. Don’t remeasure before a month is up.

I developed these four measurements to help me with my four problem areas, but any measurement you invent is valid for you. The goal is to get healthy first and foremost. Thin does not automatically mean healthy. It’s time we stop judging ourselves by the numbers put forth by flawed scientific data and start getting healthy.

Something strange is happening to my taste buds. We have certain food traditions here, not the healthy kind Pollan talks about (sharing meals leisurely with friends) but the more unhealthy kind (something salty with TV at night, soda on errand running days, etc.)

But the more I enjoy the traditional, nourishing foods I’m eating lately, the more spoiled I become. I used to have a soda from the checkstand cooler when I did the grocery shopping. It was kind of my “payment” for a job well done or, at least, well…done. Last week, I bought it, cracked it open in my car for that first big swig and…ew. It was sickeningly sweet, one-dimensional and stung my tongue. I capped it and gave it to hubby when I got home. I think I’ve licked that bad habit.

Same thing at the movie the other night. I used to get the biggest, refillable soda. It was a monstrous 44 ounces. I’d fill it up prior to the movie and again in mid-movie. (Have I mentioned I like to drink a lot?) Last week, we took the kids to see Monsters vs. Aliens. I got a smaller one, I think 30-odd ounces. I took about three sips during the course of the movie and kicked myself for not bringing coconut kefir instead. Hubby drank about half of the cup and we tossed what was left. I’ve lost my taste for it. I actually don’t enjoy it anymore, which is very surprising. The sweet, the bubbles, what’s not to like? Turns out I was probably more addicted than I’d like to admit, because the flavor just doesn’t do it for me.

We had our first 80° day, the day before yesterday. It was hot and muggy and the kids begged me to pick up some ice cream for dessert. I found some Alden’s ice cream that had mostly natural ingredients. I remember Alden’s very fondly from my time in Oregon. I grabbed it up quite excitedly. What a great finale it would make to a salad dinner.

But again, the sweetness overwhelmed me. One spoonful and I scooped what was left of my serving back into the tub. Later that night when the TV munchies struck, I had some whole milk yogurt with fermented berry sauce (from the NT cookbook) and it was just right. Not too sweet, lots of flavor and smoothness, cool and refreshing. Just what I was looking for in the ice cream and couldn’t find.

It’s not just sweet that’s different for me. Remember that beet kvass recipe I concocted to tone down the beet flavor? I like the beet flavor now! It’s sweet, but not flatly sweet. It has layers of sweet, salty, bitter, tart, and is just good! I’m thinking that my constant diet of cooked refined sugar with a nice refined sugar sauce on top might have dulled my sense of taste to the point that I couldn’t taste layers of flavor. It is really exciting to really taste food again.

And disgusting. I had no idea the coffee I was drinking was so icky. This will be an easy one to quit. Blech.