It’s hard to know whether a new handbag is buy-able without a budget & why this matters to us.

Hello Thrivers!!

Can I brag for a second? I’m getting better at picking really good books for our Pearl Four book-dessert. I’m getting great suggestions from various Facebook pages and I’m also discovering new authors — like John Boyne and Rachel Joyce — and end up wanting to read all of their books.

I wanted to point out my favorite pearl today, but I think all five are impactful for our quest to lose after age fifty in a food-culture gone berserko. ♥

Pearl One

If you and I are talking money and I say to you, “Save more” you wouldn’t know what I meant in terms of your day-to-day money decisions.

Seeing you look puzzled, I might add, “Save, don’t consume.”

At that – and because you’re so industrious — you might begin to squirrel away every last cent. You won’t travel, you’ll buy your clothes at the thrift store, and you’ve ditched the idea of having grand kids because — hello?! — they’re expensive and never hit the clearance rack. (You have to remind yourself to give your adult kids your decision.)

Without a larger, overall financial plan, it would be natural for you to wonder, “Can I afford a fancy hand-bag? I’m not really sure.”

In this situation, you’re attempting to purchase an item without having a greater plan — in the case of money, we call it “a budget” –, and without that guiding light you’d have no idea whether you can afford an item or not.

But that’s exactly how it rolls when various and sundry people tell us, “lose a few pounds.” And yet nobody explains further. It’s as if somebody hands us a parachute and says, “You’ll be fine, just jump out of the plane.”

So, you see where I’m going with this.

For you and I to transform our relationship with food on a day-to-day basis, we must first create a big-picture plan that will help us make wise choices as we go about our minute-by-minute lives.

The Art of Going Rogue

Like using a budget, choosing an eating plan is vital for our long-term success.

In the late ’90s, I just happened to be on WW’s old points, liked the plan a lot, and have been on it to this day. But when they switched to “new points,” it was no matter to me, I just stuck with my pal, the old points system.

I thought, “if it’s not broke, why fix it?”

And bam! that was the dawning of my realization that our lovely diet-culture didn’t — and doesn’t — have my best interest at heart.

At all.

I sensed that switching eating plans every two or three years – old points, new points, colors, eat carbs, don’t eat carbs, fats are good, no they’re bad and so forth — would not help me in the least. (Years later, I agree with me even more today about keeping the same plan throughout your life.)

My Thought

Create your big picture plan. Write out exactly what you’d most love to have in life re: your weight, your clothes fitting well and the like. Maybe you want to be in great shape for the grand kids. Maybe you want to be able to easily ride your horse without worrying that you’re too heavy for him. Or even – like me – you grew up as a butterball and want to experience what a size-10 jean feels like for the next few decades.

Whatever your dream, journal-write about it, create an Oprah-like vision board, and plan to go a bit overboard as you bring your plan into reality. Remember, by calling losing after fifty a “part-time job” we’ve freed up time to let our unconscious speak to us through our pen or keyboard, and our vision board too. ♥

Pearl Two

This Pearl originally appeared in an earlier post.

I started losing weight in earnest back in ‘97 just before my sweet cousin’s wedding.

I was at the heaviest I’d ever been and, no, I wasn’t all lush and gorgeous like Christina Hendricks or Oprah.

Back then I attended weekly Weight Watcher’s meeting on the regular, and I’ll never forget one leader’s masterpiece of a metaphor.

Here’s the picture she painted:

Let’s say you need groceries.

You slide into your sexy red Corvette and drive to Whole Paycheck. Along the way you breeze through three green lights, park where nobody can scratch your baby, and head into the store.

All good, right?

But then the Weight Watcher leader said, “Wait! What if – as you’re driving to your favorite grocery store — you soar right through two green lights, but then come to a stop at a red?”

Do you roll your eyes thinking, knew it. Other people can go to the grocery store, I guess I don’t have what it takes. And then do you turn around and drive home?

Of course not.

That would be ridiculous.

But — her point was — we do exactly that when we swerve off the Smart Eating Path; we eat cake or Snickers or whatever and think, “everything’s ruined” and we commence to overeat for the next six months. Until many months later when we try again and end up in the same loop.

Year-in and year-out.

Manage Your Expectations

Here’s the thing: as you lose weight expect road bumps, slow trucks, and red stop lights.

Stop signs happen. We call them “slips.” Prepare for slips by creating a rock-solid back- up plan. (More on the back-up plan here.) ♥

Pearl Three

James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, “Conventional wisdom holds that motivation is the key to habit change. Maybe if you really wanted it, you’d actually do it. But the truth is, our real motivation is to be lazy and to do what is convenient. And despite what the latest productivity best-seller will tell you, this is a smart strategy, not a dumb one.”

There’s gold in them thar words. Mr. Clear is saying that the human being is motivated to be sloth-like and to do what is easy. My guess is that you and I love the easy life because our ancestors needed to conserve energy every chance they got in order to see the next morning.

So, awesome news: there was a time when our lazy gene served us well.

Even better, Clear is advising us to work with our lazy gene, and not against it. The idea is to make it difficult to get donuts, and super easy to pull together an oatmeal/blueberry bowl.

Clear is essentially telling us to get rid of the food in our kitchen that doesn’t have our best interests at heart, to put small hand weights in the bathroom where we’ll most likely lift them two or three times a day (ten reps each), and to carry a protein granola bar in our purse so we don’t stop at Burger King.

The plan: make smart eating super easy on yourself. Make it a pain in the neck to access the junk-food.

In the old days, motivation was all we knew, today we have a deeper understanding about humans in general and how habits directly affect the outcome of our lives. ♥

Pearl Four

I guess I’m a little bit of a book snob in that I’m far more likely to pick up a book that’s been at least nominated for a bunch of awards. But then I came upon Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys. I opened the book only to find a page packed in awards, notables and honors. We’re talking “#1 New York Times bestseller”, “Winner of the Carnegie Medal”, a “Wall Street Journal Best Book” and on and on. Twenty in total. I’ve never seen a book’s list that garnered so many awards.

That said, I’ve only just dipped into Salt to the Sea’s first few chapters. Salt grabbed me on page one. Set in WW2, the book is told from four people’s perspectives. Reviewing the book, Booklist wrote, “An impeccably researched story of hardship and survival in Eastern Europe. “The New York Times said, ” Ruta Sepetys acts as champion of the interstitial people so often ignored — whole populations lost in the cracks of history.”

But when Salt to the Sea grabbed me from page one I thought, “this will be one amazing book-desert.“

P.S. The reason I’m not further into Salt to the Sea is because I was finishing up last week’s book-dessert: The Echo Chamber. Fun and highly recommended. ♥

Pearl Five

“There is no substitute for persistence. The person who makes persistence his watch-word, discovers that ‘Old Man Failure’ finally becomes tired, and makes his departure. Failure cannot cope with persistence.” ♥

Napolean Hill

When I visited CA last week, would you believe that I left my phone’s charging cord at home? And that the four stores I went to didn’t carry the “special” cord that my phone requires? In the end, it was totally fine. But the funny part was that my sister and niece were more horrified by the situation than I was.

I’d love a follow on Instagram or Facebook!

Have a wonderful weekend, All!!

♥, Wendy

P.S. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!

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I am not an expert, a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. ♥

My favorite cold tote-bag to carry smart snacks.

My five-star book list.