Round Four: Freeing You!
Well, I want to apologize to my readers for posting this nearly two months after I said I would. As some of you already know I was in Memphis for about a month and it is hard to stick to your normal routine while on vacation.
I will make this short and to the point. As woman we typically are our biggest critics and no one can punish us more than we punish ourselves. We berate ourselves for every imperfection when in fact we should be celebrating them. It is what makes us unique and if we can learn to appreciate and even love our bodies we might find that it is the best relationship we have ever had.
I have a wonderful relationship with food –we laugh, we cry, and we sometimes over indulge. I have learned a few tricks along the way, some healthy and some not. The best advice I can give is don’t starve yourself and don’t deny yourself anything, but do watch how much you eat. I read a book called Naturally Thin written by my favorite NYC Housewife, Bethenny Frankel. In her words, “treat your diet like a bank account”. If you overindulge at one meal then balance that out with the next meal or two. And as they do in the old country, taste everything and eat nothing. Meaning, you have little bites of everything instead of gorging yourself on one meal, that way you feel as though you have had a wonderful meal, you have tasted everything, and you can still fit into you cloths. You can also keep yourself from overeating by remembering this one very simple fact; the food isn’t going to get any better than it was during the first few bites… You don’t have to force yourself to finish everything on your plate as if you were a 4 year old all over again. Your mother isn’t going to scold you and you’re not getting grounded, so stop eating so much. Remember 7th grade science, it takes about 10 minutes for satiation to begin. Why do think in other countries, like France for instance, a meal is more of an event rather than the instant gratification we indulge in as busy and overworked American’s. Every bite of French food is decadent, buttery, creamy, and typically all the things we are told to stay away from, but the difference is the French know how to eat to enjoy and not eat to the point of a food coma. There is also something to be said about the people of the Mediterranean and the fact that they have a longer life expectancy than we do. They drink wine with every meal and everything is fresh, nothing processed, and they eat a ton of fresh fish.
To conclude this chapter, food is a form of art in many cultures; ergo people tend to have a healthier relationship with food. You can be healthy and thin and yet still enjoy all the wonderful things food has to offer. Remember these few simple tricks and you can enjoy yourself without all the guilt associated with too much of a good thing… Moderation is the key to happiness or at least that is what I believe.
Hope this helps and thanks for taking the time to read my posts!
Works’ Cited: Frankel, Bethenny, and Eve Adamson. Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print
