No fuss, no drama. Sometimes we just need to quietly remove ourselves from the situation when others are being rude.
Hi Thrivers!!
Holy cow, you guys. I’m on day twelve (as I type) of my no sugar challenge and I’m annoyed at how annoying going no-sugar is.
Now, of course there’s sugar in fruit and funny places like spaghetti sauce, but I’m staying well under the twenty-four grams of sugar a day that’s recommended. My main move is to steer completely clear of cake, candy, cookies, ice cream, donuts, brownies; the usual.
And it’s been annoying.
But as I like to say, “the first fourteen days are the most formidable.” So, I’ll let you know how I’m doing by day 16.
Pearl One
You and I forever have been told not to “beat ourselves up” about, say, baking red velvet brownies from scratch “for the family,” but then eating most of the pan myself, I mean, yourself.
But – really – what does “don’t beat yourself up” encompass? Because I think it’s much more than just critical self-talk.
It’s my thought that “beating ourselves up” can take several forms like allowing ourselves to continually ruminate on “shameful” moments from our past or memories from childhood of someone being cruel to us.
I combat the habit of ruminating about a sad or cringy memories by using a symbol – I’ve mentioned before that I think of a cathedral I once saw in Savannah — to pull me out of a not-helpful thought. It takes practice but you can shift out of a detrimental thinking pattern.
But we’re also “beating ourselves up” when we allow others to treat us badly and don’t immediately remove ourselves from the line of fire by walking away.
And to be super-clear, I’m not suggesting you throw a metaphorical rock at someone being rude/abusive and then walking away. I’m saying walk away with an internal attitude of, “no, this situation has gone too far and I’m taking a break.” (Try to keep in mind that when others are being awful to you, they might be fighting with you, but they’re actually arguing with old ghosts like their parents. Remember: it’s not about you – okay, maybe a kernel is about you — mainly your family member is fighting with a yesteryear loved one.)
And, of course, we have the traditional use of “don’t beat yourself up” that means don’t use attacking self-talk when something funky happens in life. Do I sometimes look at the scale and think, “what the hell?” Absolutely I do. I have a negative thought for literally two seconds or so and then shift into, “let’s be curious, let’s be determined, let’s be loving.”
I’ve worked hard to stay chill and not think, “I’ll always be big, god dang it, why is this so hard?! Why can’t I do this?!” Habituate yourself into talking kindly to you. Why? Because there’s zero evidence that beating up on ourselves helps us in anything, ever.
Authors don’t beat themselves up as they write a book. My son didn’t beat himself up while taking ten years of piano lessons. And I didn’t preserve my loss for seventeen years by beating myself up as each day went by.
Whether we’re beating ourselves up by ruminating on old hurts, letting someone else verbally attack us, or using highly critical self-talk, it’s time to internalize the truth that none of this helps us conquer our goals.
The only way to move into the future with confidence is to take a deep breath and tell yourself, “Wendy believes I can do this, I guess I can do this. I’ll work to habituate a loving internal voice and insist on respectful external conversations with loved ones. Sounds tough, but I’m tougher. Yes, in fact, I think I can do this.” ♥
Pearl Two
This genius idea comes from Thriver and writer of a gorgeous blog called Mantel and Table. Thank you, Barbara, for sharing your beautiful creativity with the planet!
From Barbara:
“I have either four or five ingredients in my summer salad formula. Four, if I’m not adding a protein; five, if I am. When I go to the store, I just buy my favorites in each ingredient category. Then when I’m ready for a salad, I add one of each category, and I’ve got a fabulous summer salad!
The ingredient categories I like best are these (Wendy’s comments in parenthesis):
Salad greens – (like butter lettuce or spinach)
Cheese – (feta is a great one)
Nuts – (such as pecans or almonds)
Fruits – (chopped apple or sliced strawberry)
Protein – (I often use Trader Joe’s vegan chicken; found in cold case with yogurts.)
The point is to have a simple formula so you don’t have to think about it too much – just make your delicious salad and leave more time to sit down and enjoy it!”
I love this idea so much! Thank you again Barbara. I plan to forever take this formula with me when I shop. ♥
Pearl Three
A different challenge each Friday in August
Today’s challenge: Build a salad and eat it for lunch at least three times this week. I hope you’ll write to me and share what salad was on your plate each day. Seriously I want to hear from you! ♥
Pearl Four
Books love us and want us to be happy
As I type, we’re in August which makes me think that I should be recommending fun, bubbly books. Friends, failure! (I’ll do better next summer, I promise.)
For now, check out this marvel of a story that won the Pulitzer in 2016 (which is one of many that the author’s been awarded). He teaches at UCLA and is one of those people who seem super-human from another planet.
As I’ve mentioned a thousand times, I love books that tell an awesome story, begin with a bang, and also expands my mind (teaches me something good). The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen brings it.
Many call the opening sentence “the best they’ve read in years.” The book starts in Vietnam and moves to Los Angeles in the U.S.
I’m only half-way through, but so far I’d call this a must-read and deserving of book-dessert status. ♥
Pearl Five
“It’s not about perfection, it’s about how quick you are to recover.” ♥
— James Clear
If you’ve enjoyed these Pearls it would be awesome if you’d share with a loved one. Also, you can follow me on Facebook and Instagram. And the Inspired Eater: the Book is half off all week until 8/10 for our wonderful group.
Have a great weekend everyone!
♥, 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!
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
It is so exciting to hear about your successes! I’m also hearing how frustrated you are once you’re in the preserving-the-loss mode. This is where the new change takes place. Pearl One gets into the details about preserving your very precious loss for the long-run.
No longer will preserving our loss get short-shrift as maintenance got back-in-the-day. Preserving our loss is now taking center stage.
Pearl One
Let’s keep talking about forever preserving your original loss. I’m learning that some Thrivers reach their preferred weight, but can’t seem to stay in the weight-window they picked for themselves.
Some people lose too much weight to the great concern of people around them, and others struggle with gaining.
Life has changed and we’re no longer doing the old didn’t-really-work-anyhow maintenance thing. Let’s look at preserving your original loss as if you’ve been given a large, beautifully cut diamond to take great care of. That’s how precious your weight-loss is.
The main thing to do in the first years of preserving your original loss is to stay on your eating plan and deviating occasionally, add to it the REP and work on strengthening your habits.
The overriding self-talk is, “we don’t eat like that anymore.” And then show your brain how serious you are: pour salt over the calories or similar. Your brain is always watching what you’re doing and if you consistently give it the message, “I’m not playing around anymore. It’s not going to be easy, but I am turning away from junk-food and instead reading a book, walking the dog, or planning a future day-trip.”
I will always add: if you’re pining for junk-food, it means that you’re hungry for food-food. Also women over 50 sometimes feel really tired when they’re hungry. I still tell myself daily, “Reach for real food.”
Remind yourself daily that there are no short cuts to success and that “Nobody said it would be easy. They just promised it would be worth it.” Thank you Mae West for this quote-nugget.
Bottom Line
Feed your mind well. Find the quotes that speak to you and sprinkle them throughout your life. Even better: memorize the quotes. This micro-step has helped me so much through the years.
Work to strengthen your habits. You want to be handed a beautiful box of donuts and say, “Yeah, I don’t do donuts anymore, but thanks for the thought.” (Hint: you can have a donut in about three to five years of preserving).
When preserving your loss, don’t let yourself move from the sandbox at the park to the freeway in one fell swoop. Take yourself in stages. Getting too thin? Whole-milk cottage cheese, not junk-food or large portions of fettuccine. Gaining? Re-revisit your habits and write in your journal about what’s working and what’s not.
And plan, plan, plan how you’ll step more firmly onto the Smart Eating Path.
It always comes back to “don’t get cranky, get curious.” ♥
Pearl Two
Have I told you guys about the first junk-food? Back in 1883 at the World’s Fair in Chicago, Cracker Jack made its debut on the national stage. (Candy existed decades earlier and honey has been around forever, but Cracker Jack was the first mass-produced junk food.)
Nobody could possibly have foreseen that the simple snack would develop into a world-gone-wild junk-food landscape. Our moms and grandmas didn’t stand a chance at the tsunami of calories that flooded their world because the monster-wave did not come with instructions.
In response to our “Twinkie-lifestyle” the diet-cartel rode up on a white horse to save us from what I call the perfect storm: 1) fast-food 2) Grocery stores packed in junk-food and 3) restaurants that serve humongous-portion sizes of low-nutrition food.
Thing is, we didn’t need to be saved; what we’ve needed all along are real tools that’ll take us where we want to go.
What’s my point? That you and I — and our moms and grandmas – are the ones who’ve consistently accepted the blame when a diet “doesn’t work.” And after being consistently blamed for so long, we then develop a deep sense of shame.
We think, “Why can’t I do this?” “I regained the 50-pounds. What is wrong with me?!” “I’m to blame, I do overeat, it is my fault.”
You guys, this is how domestic-violence survivors talk. They say, “Well, if I hadn’t done blank, he wouldn’t have gotten so mad.” Until they see the reality of their situation, they take the blame over and over.
The reality of our situation is that we live in a food-porn culture. Until the junk-food phenomena goes the way of the cigarette (it’s a little different with junk-food, but it could be done) we need to stay dubious about the diet-cartel’s “help” and their money-making shenanigans.
My thought: let’s use the diet-cartel’s products as tools to help us trek up the “losing after 50 mountain.” But let’s stop seeing these companies as our rescuer. Their product is merely a tool that we might choose to use or not depending on our need at the moment. ♥
Pearl Three
Sequencing is taken directly from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The purpose of sequences is to help us move from reacting to circumstances to responding. I encourage you to do a sequence a day in your journal. Powerful stuff.
Default-Sequence
I’m writing from a dear friend’s point of view:
Situation (be very concrete): I weigh 250-pounds, I stand 5’5.
Thought: I hate being this large and am beyond frustrated and angry with diets.
Feeling: Furious at the whole damn thing of trying to lose, regain etc.
Action: I talk a lot about how nothing seems to work.
Result: I’d like to lose about a hundred pounds, but never do.
Chosen Thoughtful Sequence (a bridge)
Situation (be very concrete): I weigh 250-pounds, I stand 5’5.
Chosen thought: Times are changing. Maybe new, cutting-edge ideas are appearing in weight loss. Hmm. We’ll see.
Feeling: Very wary, but with a sliver of hope.
Action: Reads the latest and greatest of weight-loss in 2024.
Result: After having some success on the intermittent diet, but I’d like to improve my habits around food, so I started to read the Inspired Eater blog and begin to work on my mind-set. ♥
Pearl Four
I just finished a book-dessert of the highest caliber. If you like an absorbing story line about a female friendship set in modern time history then you’ll love The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali. Like The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini did for Afghanistan, Lion Women is now doing for Iran (just came out in July 2024). One of my favorite things in life is to learn about other cultures and their history while reading a gripping story line. ♥
Pearl Five
There are moments of frustration in life. You must build good relations to support you in these moments. You must also learn to encourage yourself and decide to stay encouraged in life.” ♥
Lailah Gifty Akita
i love this quote. Decide to stay encouraged. This thought is what I’m working to embed into my mind.
I’d love a comment below on how you’re doing while living on the Smart Eating Lifestyle.
Make it a wonderful week!
♥, Wendy
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
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!!
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. ♥
“You know what? Time for something new and amazing just for me.”
Pearl One
I want you to know about the most powerful mind-shift I clung to when I began my smart eating trek in earnest and continue to rely on as I preserve my loss.
“I won’t live like this anymore.”
That’s it. Nothing fancy. Nothing “aha-ish.” Just the plain truth: I was sick and tired of constantly dealing with the battle between me, overeating, and clothes cutting off my ability to breathe.
My really abysmal eating habits had been winning for decades.
When I finally decided that “I won’t live like this anymore” the goodness hit the fan, and I was on a roll.
Even today, I use this phrase almost daily still because it immediately reminds me that living an overeating lifestyle guarantees nothing but annoyance, emotional pain, and a constant urge to beat myself up (which, btw, doesn’t help anything).
“I won’t live like this anymore.” Tell yourself this phrase two or three times a day. Write it on stickies and put them wherever only you will see them. And write in your journal about what the phrase means to you.
In other words, don’t just read these words, the magic happens when you engage with the deeper wisdom behind “I won’t live like this anymore.”
Because once you do, you won’t. ♥
Pearl Two
As you know, I’m not a nutritionist, dietician, doctor or even a barista, but when I find smart food that makes our life a smidge easier, I share.
A thriver sent in this fantastic recipe.
Hi Wendy,
I just wanted to share my newest “muffin” creation with you. They are scrambled eggs in muffin form. And I baked them in my toaster oven. I used 4 eggs and got 6 “muffins.”
In addition to salt and pepper, I added a little cheddar cheese and bacon bits. But you could add onions, peppers, or whatever strikes your fancy. I plan to freeze them, then get one out when I want an egg. — Signed, M.
Wendy included: I used six eggs for six cups. Spray a 6-cup capacity muffin tin with nonstick oil spray or use the silicone cups I use. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and onion. Add egg mixture halfway up into each muffin cup.
Include your preferred topping combinations into the cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until set. Let cool.
Yum.
Thank you, M!! Keep them coming! ♥
Pearl Three
A different challenge each Friday in August!
Our challenge: be honest. Do you actually go to bed with a great book early every evening? Or do you agree that it’s a fabulous idea, but haven’t established the habit for yourself?
If you’re in the middle of watching an absorbing streaming show, I get it. Finish your show and avoid getting hooked on another one.
I’m not against a streaming-dessert as long as the screen is in your bedroom and away from the kitchen. Sitting in your living room to watch TV is a sure-fire way to fall off the Smart Eating Path and overeat.
Your goal is to disrupt the pattern or habit. And I’ve found the most success by taking a phenomenal book (cannot be dry and boring) to my bedroom every evening around 8 p.m.
I know. It’s sounds early, but here’s what I’m convinced of: after a long day we’re at our lowest mood in the evenings when it’s way too easy to think, oh what the hell? and descend on the cookies, cake, and ice cream.
So instead of “white-knuckling” it and forcing yourself to give up the evening calories – which we know doesn’t really work in the long-run anyhow – swap the negative eating for positive reading.
When we take something away from ourselves (like evening sugar), it’s important to give ourselves something in return like a spectacular book.
And I say books because if you give yourself, for example, a luxurious hot bath-dessert, the bath alone isn’t likely to lure you to your bedroom at 8 p.m. every single night for years on-end.
So do your nighttime routine: at 8 p.m. brush your teeth, jump into your jams and read your book-dessert for the next hour and a half. You’ll catch up on sleep and deep-six those evening calories. ♥
Pearl Four
My first inclination is to just say, “read this!” and not give you the plot because you might not really care about the story-line, but a masterful author can do it all even spin whitewashing a fence into a critical part of character-development, so keep the fence in mind as I give you the details. The Heart’s Invisible Furies is about a young Irish girl who’s thrown out of her community because she’s pregnant. The first chapter will grab you, no doubt, but just know that while the first chapter is super compelling it doesn’t contain the dry wit that the following chapters have. And this author John Boynce can write the blank out of dry wit, tragedy, everything. This dude can write.
I’m only half-way through this large book, but it’s such a great story that I stayed up (too) late last night reading. And if you love learning a bit of history as you read you’re in luck because the story takes us from the cultural morays of 1945 Ireland and into (much improved, thankfully) modern times. People magazine wrote, “By turns whimsical and heartbreaking, Boyne’s sprawling novel treads Dickensian territory across seven decades of Irish history, ending with a redemption for both a country and a native son.”
The book also won important awards and was on several “best of” lists when it came out in 2017.
My review: a five-star book-dessert. ♥
Pearl Five
Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”
Michael Jordan
My book — the Inspired Eater: the Book — is available at the moment at no charge to KindleUnlimited members. If selling a book on Amazon, I’m required to give the book at no price on KindleUnlimited before I can release it to everyone. And if you’re a KindleUnlimited member, you’ll find the book here. 🙂
If you like the book, I would appreciate it so much if you’d leave an Amazon review. (And thank you.)
For the rest of us, the book will be available at fifty percent off ($3.99) starting next Thursday, August 3.
Have a great weekend everyone!
♥, 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!
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
Flourishing after age fifty is a real thing. Owning your “flourish” allows you to feel like you belong with the billions of us trekking the Smart Eating Path.
Pearl One
You’ve tried a million times to lose weight, and are highly skeptical that the micro-steps I share will actually produce results?
I get it.
But consider this: we’re late bloomers. Tell yourself, “Some bloom in their younger years; I happen to be blooming in my second half of life.”
All kinds of blooming applauded!
In decades past, we didn’t know that we didn’t know (about how to lose after age fifty for the long haul).
And for whatever reason, I stumbled upon the map.
But the map doesn’t belong to me.
So — as you continue to bloom — I want you to have and know this map too. And then, spread the word. ♥
Pearl Two
Last month a home-bound friend and I wanted to get together for lunch, but she wasn’t ready to go out to eat. So, it was left to me to bring restaurant meals for us both.
What did she feel like? Mexican? Pizza? Thai? Chinese?
She didn’t really care; I should just get whatever I wanted.
Oh, great. I really don’t love trying to deduce what someone else might like.
But, knowing that Mexican or pizza are not the smartest food choices, I narrowed my options down to: Thai or Chinese?
At that, I turned to Google asking “which type of food is the best for those trying to keep it healthy”?
You know, I totally assumed that I’d find a rather namby-pamby “both cuisines are wonderful in their own special way” type of response.
But that is NOT what I learned!!
I was so surprised to discover that Thai is far and away preferable health-wise to those of us helicoptering our health.
Why Thai?
There are several key differences between Thai and Chinese, like the following:
(1) Thai food isn’t made with heavy sauces, but with light delicate herbs and spices.
(2) Thai dishes are packed in non-starchy veggies like carrots, cucumber, bean sprouts, onions and the like.
(3) Many dishes substitute coconut milk instead of heavy cream for great flavor.
(4) Thai has brown rice as an option which is what I always order.
(5) Rather than fried spring rolls, order “summer rolls” at Thai that clock in around 110 calories each, aren’t fried, and are stuffed with healthy veggies.
My Two Favorite Orders
I have two go-tos that I always order:
Thai “yum, yum” salad made with tofu. (The word “yum” in Thai means “mixed” or “tossed together.” But in any language this salad rocks!)
Green curry. I order mine with tofu as the protein and request extra vegetables. (I mean, so good!) ♥
Pearl Three
Back in the day, Saturday morning cartoon commercials were sophisticated thanks to the Mad Men who aimed their laser directly at kids who were too young to see the dangers of highly sugared cereals behind Tony the Tigers, Franken Berrys, and the count Choculas.
Shelby (my sister) and I — thoroughly brainwashed thanks to those ads – couldn’t help but notice that “the other kids got to be ‘coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs’, why not us?!”
So, my mom relented. (Phew, we thought, finally.)
Every December she he wrapped mini-boxes of sugared cereal and stuffed them into our Christmas stockings.
And it wasn’t just sugary cereal my mom disapproved of. We weren’t allowed to have Tang, Kool-Aid, Hostess-anything, Jif peanut butter and so on. (Don’t get me wrong, my mom wasn’t a health nut. She bought all of the Hostess cupcakes and Ho Hos she and my dad partied after we’d gone to bed.)
Then when fast-food began mushrooming across the land, true-to-form my mom wasn’t biting and rarely allowed us to partake.
The woman was psycho.
All that said I want you to know about the book titled: Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Usby Michael Moss. You’ll be stunned at how sneaky and (frankly) immoral the people behind the junk food explosion really are.
Salt, Sugar, Fat isn’t a book-dessert read; it’s just not juicy enough. But once I skimmed the boring first part, this book became hard to put down.
It’s a keeper and here’s why: reading just a page or a day and highlighting your favorite passages will allow your smart eating life to soar.
It’s that good.
And that annoying. Just a few pages into Moss’s book and I was checking the sugar ingredient on everything I thought was innocent like spaghetti sauce, bread, even my favorite whole-wheat bagels.
Salt, Sugar, Fat should be called titled, How Big Food Tricked Us Into Eating Chemicals as a way of Life. ♥
Pearl Four
I’ve shared this book before, but if you haven’t had the pleasure: lucky you because a wonderful story is coming your way! Min Jin Lee’s first book, Pachinko, snagged the Pulitzer’s Fiction Runner Up in 2018 and is proof that aliens live among us (meaning the advanced level of writing is beyond comprehension). Her second book Free Food for Millionaires is a phenomenal read too! ♥
Pearl Five
Don’t wait your turn. Bet on yourself and have the confidence to stand up and say, ‘My time is now.'” ♥
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!
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
Many high caloric foods have dropped off my radar entirely, except for this one little ingredient.
Hello Everyone!
I’m coming to you from oven-central. I know. It’s hot almost everywhere; hope you’re staying cool. ♥
Pearl One
I can’t stop thinking about a question a reader asked me ages ago, “doesn’t it get easier? Does keeping the weight off become an automatic habit or will I forever be battling my cravings?”
Flippantly I replied, “you’ll always want the raspberry pastry.”
But over the last few months, her question keeps tapping me on the shoulder, and when it does I ask myself, “after these seventeen years of preserving my original loss, is it easier? Did I give “C” the right answer?”
So, after a lot of thought, my final answer is that yes, it does get easier.
I can forgo fast-food and junk-food 24/7, no problem at all. I’m also great at dealing with the endless porn-food in the grocery store aisles largely because I never shop hungry.
And you should know that – back in the day, I could eat a whole Pringles can by myself. No trouble whatsoever. It took the magic of time, but once I’d fully embedded the habit to never eat cracker/chip type snacks, it’s become very easy to bypass them.
It Wasn’t Overnight
Looking back, I lost interest in crunchy/salty artificial “food” in stages like at first it was somewhat difficult to say no to the chip then it became a bit easier and so forth until I got to the point where I have absolutely no lingering, “oh, I’d love a whole box of Cheez-Its right now.”
But here’s what I do still have issues with: anything made with sugar. And since I have zero intention of gaining the weight back, I monitor my sugar intake carefully.
How I Helicopter the Sugar
Habit Alert! As with any entrenched craving, I keep myself relatively full so that I don’t get hungry and commence to lobbying myself for an ice cream sundae (homemade or Dairy Queen; either suits).
When The Scarfer (my husband) brings home a pink box from the bakery filled with fancy cookies, yes, I still yearn to try one. At that, I have an automatic question I ask myself to put the cookies in their rightful place: do I want a double-fudge chocolate shortbread cookie or do I want to be a size 8? This question gets me out of the danger zone immediately.
But, again, it took time for this muscle of asking the right question to develop.
To combat the sugar-urge, I also eat fruit to provide the sweet vibe I’m looking for. My favorites are strawberries, grapes, watermelon and cherries. In my world, there is nothing better – outside of our fur-kids – than laying down with a great book and a bowl of grapes or cherries on my tummy. In the olden days I’d crunch through Oreo after Oreo as I read a book; but not anymore. I’m very happy to report that I completely detoxed from Oreos and have replaced them with fruit.
Going Cold-Turkey
These days, I want to not want sugar, the same way that I don’t want chips or french fries. I want to be done with sugar (other than fruit). So that said I’m implementing an action-plan right now (mid-July) to stop my extraneous sugar habit. A reader reported that she reads food labels and allows herself twenty-four grams of sugar a day (because sugar shows up in places you wouldn’t expect like bread). Note to reader: As you know, I’ve given up all evening sugar and haven’t relapsed. The evening sugar is definitely gone — detailed here — but I still partake a little here or there during the day and that’s the type of sugar I want to put an end to.)
As I ditch the sugar, I’ll keep notes and let you know exactly how this challenge is going. I’ll share the times I goof up and the times I got it right. My promise to you is that I will not give you the rosy picture. I will share every bit of the trek.
Wish me luck. ♥
Pearl Two
Have you read When You Give a Mouse a Cookie? This darling five-star children’s book details the chain of events that unfolds when a hungry mouse shows up at a little kid’s home and requests a cookie, and then needs a glass of milk, then looks in the mirror to check out his milk-mustache, and upon seeing his scraggly hair requests a pair of scissors to trim his bangs and so on and so forth.
You and I are living When You Give a Mouse a Cookie every day of our lives. We just haven’t known that we’re both the mouse and the little kid.
Here’s what I mean.
Say you eat beautifully at breakfast and lunch, and only “ruin everything” (drama-alert!) around three in the afternoon.
A micro-chain of events leads you to the Snickers bar at mid-day.
In your journal, deconstruct how you end up at the candy bar.
Write about:
what you eat for lunch.
what small snack you have at 2 p.m.
how you’re feeling (both emotionally and physically) at 2:30 p.m.
how you’re feeling (again, both emotionally and physically) at 2:45 p.m.
how you’re feeling at the hour you usually lunge for the chocolate.
Write your sequence of events that lead to afternoon junk eating for six or seven days and become an expert on why/how you’re caving into candy around 3ish every day. (Get to know your sequence so well that you could give a TED Talk on the subject. No, I’m not kidding.)
There can be both highly personal reasons why you specifically want sugar in the mid-afternoon (such as when you were a kid, your mom returned home from work in a terrible mood at 3 p.m.), but at some level my guess is that you’re also merely hungry.
Journal-write about emotional pain from your past, but at the same time, keep yourself relatively full during the toughest windows of your day.
Because learning how to shut down your particular mouse and cookie — the immediate trigger — is the hack to creating so much goodness in our lives. ♥
Pearl Three
Topic for July: how to keep steering yourself back onto the SmartEating Path.
I live in Atlanta and it’s super hot in July. My sister lives in Arizona where its a billion degrees beyond hot.
We call Atlanta’s heat, “humid.”
Shelbie calls Tucson’s heat, “dry.”
My grandma referred to the heat she lived in as “muggy.”
If I tell you that it’s “blazing” or “freezing” outside, you immediately get the picture.
Naming things makes them real and helps us talk about about them without calling concepts or items “the thingy.” We can’t call everything “a thingy” we need to give “the thing” a real name.
Which leads to my point, we don’t have enough words for smart eating, but that’s about to change.
Today, we’re talking “intentional eating.”
When I’ve strayed off the Smart Eating Path and have become intimately involved with Publix’s ice cream aisle, one of the ways I rein myself in is with smart self-talk; I ask myself, “are you ready to get back to intentional-eating or do you want to continue ravaging the kitchen?”
Asking myself this question is powerful because it floods my brain with all that “intentional-eating” encompasses which to me includes: having my smart foods on hand in the kitchen, going everywhere with my cold-tote packed in smart snacks, stopping food at 6 p.m. and going to bed around 8 p.m. with a delicious book-dessert.
Intentional-eating also includes the very effective “drip, drip, drip” method I featured here in Pearl Three of this post.
Your Takeaway
Write what intentional eating means to you. Edit the list and write some more.
The next time you’ve overeaten or binged, and are ready to hop back onto the Smart Eating Path, pull out your intentional eating list and steer yourself back on course. ♥
Pearl Four
Books love us and want us to be happy.
Richard Powers, won a Pulitzer Prize for The Overstory, but I “met” him reading his 2021 book: Bewilderment. An Oprah Book Club selection, Bewilderment delivered one of my most favorite things: a first chapter that draws me into the story immediately. Too many amazing reads start slow, so I often remind myself to be patient and chill. Bewilderment‘s story is about a nine-year-old boy and his astrobiologist dad (studies the possibility of life on other planets).
I was feeling blue when I picked up Bewilderment, but finished the book feeling positive and perky. Also, Bewilderment is slim meaning you can read it in a weekend. I give it a solid four-stars, and have already ordered The Overstory at the library. ♥
Pearl Five
Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions. Small minds will always do that, but great minds will give you a feeling that you can become great too.” ♥
Mark Twain
Sounds harsh, but it’s important to say good-bye to the “that’ll never work, it never did before” crowd. Let them dump their Eeyore-thoughts elsewhere.
Protect yourself by staying mum re: your burgeoning smart eating habits.
Have a good one and see you on Tuesday!
♥, 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!
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
I don’t have a thing against Starbucks, per se. I’m just not wild about any fast-food drive-thrus and their artificial ingredients that wreak havoc on our weight and health.
What’s that?
Starbucks isn’t really fast-food? It’s actually in a luxury class all its own?
Well, let’s get quick background on the subject.
Last summer the famous McD featured a Chocolatey Pretzel McSomething, but it’s been replaced.
This coming summer the king of fast-food is bringing us the Strawberry Shortcake McCalories made with vanilla ice cream, strawberry-flavored clusters (whatever those are), and shortbread cookies.
And here’s what’s important to remember, the summer McFrozen is “limited time only” so you and I need to move our caboose. Like, stat.
So back to Starbucks. Their featured summer drinks are the Chocolate Java Mint Frappiccino and the White Chocolate Macadamia Cream Cold Brew.
According to Starbucks’s press release the drinks are available starting in May in the U.S. for a limited time, while supplies last.
See what I mean?
McD’s McFlurry and Starbucks’s drinks are both “limited time only” and we need to move fast or we’ll lose out on this spectacular drink experience.
But my guess is, dig under the surface and you’ll find that the fast-food giants are actually serving “limited time only” desserts as a way to create a habit.
The fast-food peeps are aware that they have “true fans”, what I’m betting is they hope their specialty drinks will tempt on-the-fence customers and the never-evers (like myself) to drive screaming into their drive-thrus for a drink-dessert that’s the living end.
But here are the two pain-points for you and me:
1) Training our taste-buds to love a bowl of plain strawberries maybe capped with a swish of whipped cream is our life-long plan. If our mouths are having a party with the high-sugar and/or high-fat desserts like the McFlurry, the humble strawberry doesn’t stand a chance.
2) Eliminating our habit of stopping at any fast-food is the whole idea. Big Fast-Food wants to obliterate our good habit of cutting them out of our lives entirely.
How to get around the fast-food in your life? Read on. ♥
Pearl Two
You want fun-food? I once told myself, “Hey, no problem, you can have the food, as long as you first study the nutrition count.”
My rule for myself was that if I read the nutrition labels on a product or the nutrition count online then I could have the fun-food.
But somehow that gorgeous pizza didn’t look so awesome when I realized that – holy cow — a slice of Mellow Mushroom’s meat pizza is 530 calories, 27 g fat, 1,370 mg sodium, and 48 g carbs. And who stops at one slice?
The sodium alone is crazy.
Figuring out the nutrition count on donuts, fast food burgers and ice cream is life-changing.
Do you see what’s actually happening? It’s your cavewoman who wants to chow the pizza. But it’s your prefrontal who reads the nutrition info. leading you to make smart food choices.
Get the prefrontal involved and it becomes your decision what you’ll eat and when. ♥
Pearl Three
June’s topic for the month: what cannot be an afterthought in our smart eating lives. Every week we’ll talk activities that require hard-core planning rather than off-the-cuff moves we might normally make.
Today’s topic: we’re heading into summer vacations and planning how and what you’ll eat on the trip needs to be given serious thought.
I’ve been a travel writer for 16 years now, and I never gained weight on trips. Having a solid plan in place and not winging it moment by moment gets all the credit. Whether I was traveling by car or plane, I knew exactly how the food-situation would go down.
Bottom line: Know before you go. ♥
Pearl Four
Books love us and want us to be at our preferred weight.
You are owed an apology. And the Mountains Echoed by one of my favorite authors, Khaled Hosseini, should have been one of the first book-desserts I shared. The book’s genre falls under both “historical fiction” and “domestic fiction.”
Total honesty: if I’d read a description about this title’s plot I’d have thought, “hard pass.” But I’d read Hosseini’s other two masterpieces — The Kite Runnerand A Thousand Splendid Suns– so I was 100-percent in. When I came up with the idea of book-dessert it was because of books like And the Mountains Echoed.
So, that’s my review: 100-percent. ♥
Pearl Five
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” C.G. Jung ♥
We can access our subconscious when we pick up our journal and allow our subconscious to talk with us through the pen. ♥
Have a fantastic 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!
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
Our daily motto: full immersion. Full immersion. Full immersion. Say it often and in time your brain will latch on and begin to make better smart eating choices.
Hi Thrivers,
Fun week babysitting an African grey parrot. So sweet, so smart.
On with the show! ♥
Pearl One
When my boys were young, we moved often enough that homeschooling them seemed like the best plan. Also, as a travel writer destinations and hotels don’t want to deal with media during their busy seasons, but in bleak February they’re like, “come on down!” So, the boys being homeschooled made it easier to travel.
And one son’s personality did not lend itself to the school system. (To put it mildly.)
So, I put one toe on the home school yellow brick road and never looked back. It wasn’t long before I realized that to do a spectacular job, I had to go all-in.
It was time: go full immersion or go home.
Homeschooling my boys became my thing, I even put reading my own books on-hold for many years because reading kid-lit was an enormous slice of our homeschooling life. If we weren’t doing an actual lesson, we were with Laura and Pa watching a railroad being built.
Point is: weight loss and preservation after age fifty also requires full immersion.
I know. I can hear you saying, “look, lady. My schedule is packed. I might be retired but I’m regularly knee-deep in a, b, and c. Full immersion might be a lovely concept for others, but it won’t fit my lifestyle. What else have ya got?”
That’s the thing.
I don’t have anything else. Attempting to live the Smart Eating Lifestyle without calling it a part-time job and living like it’s your part-time job is the only way I know of to preserve a forever-loss.
If you want the Ozempek quick-fix then, of course, you can lose twenty pounds for the upcoming reunion.
But if you’ve had it with losing and regaining the same pounds over and over again, the time is now to fully immerse into the Smart Eating Lifestyle. (Why is “the time now”? Because we’re not twelve, that’s why.)
As I’ve said, follow my bread crumbs. I want to forge a new chapter for women over fifty; one where we create the best, healthiest second half of life as we possibly can. And that starts with learning how to get to your preferred weight and preserve the loss for a lifetime.
I’ve mentioned before that when I caught a picture of myself at my cousin’s wedding, I honestly didn’t know at first who the heavy woman in the red dress was until I saw my very round face peering back at me.
We’ve got this. I’ll share every micro-step I ever took over the last two decades. Just follow my lead and we can make this happen. But first, commit to the full immersion. ♥
Pearl Two
Put succinctly, being bored when we’re living the Smart Eating Lifestyle is playing with fire. Insert fun into the harder windows of your day. Don’t take boredom lightly. Along with stress and grief, boredom is one of the top three smart eating day-destroyers. ♥
Pearl Three
Topic for July: how to keep steering yourself back onto the Smart Eating Path.
Acknowledging that you will slip into negative eating is the first step in dropping the traditional drama around food (“what’s wrong with me?” “I’ll never be a size 12” and so on). So, you ate the cheesecake. I mean, who hasn’t?
Here’s the new modern-day drama you’re fully encouraged to embrace: grab the ketchup (or salt, whichever’s handy) and squirt the blank out of the offending food that you might inhale. Or take a slice and then squirt it. You have to move fast for this trick to work.
Squirt like your life depends on it. No little blob-squirts, douse the sucker!
The ketchup or salt is doing double-duty for you. 1) Squirting the cheesecake with ketchup means that that particular offensive food is done. Now you can easily throw it away. But 2) the ketchupping action shouts to your brain that life is changing. No longer will we – you and your brain – be at the whim of food. Your brain is always watching, always soaking in what you’re up to. If your brain see’s you decimating negative food often enough it will think, “we don’t like porn-food. Good to know.”
After you’ve ketchupped the last of the cheesecake, wait an hour or two, keep yourself busy, and get back to your happy and healthy food plan (for me that usually means I make my blueberry-oatmeal bowl). And remember, even if you only ketchup the very last bite of cheesecake, you can still call it a win. ♥
Pearl Four
Books love us and want us to be happy.
Summer is for light and frothy books. Who wants to sit at the pool reading the Grapes of Wrath (awesome page-turner, by the way). In honor of summer, I highly recommend Lisa Scottoline’s — rhymes with fettuccine — memoir-funny books.
The books are a LOL-hilarious and a very frank peek behind a successful writer’s curtain. Also, they’re best read in order. 🙂
Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman
My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space
Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: The Lighter Side of Life as a Mother and Daughter
Happy and Merry
Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim
Have a Nice Guilt Trip
Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?:True Stories and Confessions
I’ve Got Sand In All the Wrong Places
I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere But the Pool
I See Life Through Rose-Colored Glasses ♥
Pearl Five
Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.” ― Steve Maraboli ♥
And as we’re getting stronger and more resilient in parts of our lives, we need to acknowledge and high-five ourselves when we pull off something wonderful like getting the colonoscopy we’ve long ignored or taking a new route to see clients so you don’t drive by your (once) favorite donut shop. Throw a little internal party for yourself as in, “wow, look at me. I haven’t had a chip or a cracker in a year!” (Large parties allowed too.)
Thank you so much for everyone who follows me on Facebook and Instagram. Very appreciated.
I would love it if you’d share a post with family, friends, even doctors. 🙂
Have the kind of weekend where you stop and appreciate how cool and accomplished you are.
♥, 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!
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
Is drawing more elegance into your life even on your radar? You’re likely low in Vitamin Elegance and here’s why we need to prioritize this beautiful intention.
Hello Thrivers!
I’m sorry I’m so late today. I’m not even sure why I’m so late! Thank you for hanging in there with me!
My book — thanks to the extreme help of “C” and everyone who contributed titles — will be out in early August. And the price will be set at fifty percent off for you guys.
I’m excited for you to put the ideas into action and continue to create your forever-loss. ♥
Pearl One
I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the show’s host told a story about a large friend who’d explained that he was heavy because “he just loved food so much.”
That it was just that simple
The podcast host snickered and said something like “that’s pretty much what I’ve always figured is true for everyone.” (Chuckle, chuckle.)
I mean, we’re supposed to believe that the podcaster’s friend “liked to eat” so much that he hobby-ate himself into being severely obese?
Doubtful.
We might tell ourselves that we “merely love to eat” but when most of us overeat, binge-eat, eat and vomit, or stop eating altogether, generally something much deeper is triggering the food-behavior.
Survival-Eating
It’s my thought that when kids are growing up in a tough situation, they survival-eat. Life was terrifying and out of our control so we self-soothed by overeating.
I understand that you beat yourself up about your weight and your “inability to lose” but try to look at it from little-you’s perspective: she was merely trying to survive a bad scene. And keep in mind that little-you had no job, no car keys, no way of extricating herself from the horrible situation.
She was stuck.
Viktor Frankl’s quote says it perfectly, “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”
That said, cut yourself some slack. Empathize with kid-you. Entrenched eating problems don’t just arrive out of the blue for no reason.
Boredom-Eating
So, if we’ve established the habit of leaning on food as kids, we end up – naturally — turning to food as adults.
We end up overeating for several different emotional reasons: We’re sad: we eat. We’re celebrating: we eat. We’re bored. . . we eat?
I think boredom gets short-shrift as being a trigger for overeating.
Let’s return to little-you. If you had a childhood where your interests weren’t encouraged it’s not likely that you champion your passion-topics today.
Say you always wanted to be in the Girl Scouts like the kids in your class, but your mom didn’t make it a priority to do everything involved like pay the fees, buy the uniform, take you to the many meetings, help you get the gear for camping and so forth.
Or even, say your mom was a single parent and held two jobs while raising you and your brother. There simply wasn’t money or time for your interests to be nurtured.
If your interests were largely ignored when you were young it’s likely that you ignore your interests today as an adult.
So, journal-write and journal-write about what makes you sparkle in life. My sparkle moments come from a LOVE of animals, travel, writing, and hanging out with my kids on the rare moments they want to see me.
It’s not that having a more exciting life will make us slender, of course not. But infusing life with your personal brand of fun, makes staying on the Smart Eating Path a whole lot easier.
No-Dignity Eating
And now we come to “no-dignity eating”. Let’s go back again to kid-you. If you were allowed very little dignity and respect in your young life, – like you were screamed at for forgetting a, b, or c – you weren’t given the dignity that every child needs to flourish.
We’re not eating with dignity today when we binge-eat. Or maybe we ate dinner with the family, but then also ate the leftovers clandestinely in the kitchen.
And we’re sure not eating with dignity when we crunch through a box of Cheeze-It’s while zoning out on a show.
Journal-write about dignity, what it means to you, and how you can slowly began to bring more and more respect for your ownself into your life. ♥
Pearl Two
As I’ve mentioned, I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, or dietician. I just love sharing foods I like with you guys.
I can’t believe it’s taken me this long, but I’ve finally switched to eating only whole-wheat pasta. I’ve eaten whole-wheat bread and whole-wheat rice forever, but I never got around to dealing with the white pasta. (I just avoided it for the most part.)
Here’s how I make it: I boil the brown spaghetti. After it goes into the colander, I take about one cup’s worth and spray “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” on the noodles and then sprinkle in some Parmesan.
Yum-city. ♥
Pearl Three
Topic for July: how to keep steering yourself back onto the Smart Eating Path.
Ooo, this is such a good topic. Here’s what I do on a regular basis: every day I note whether I’m having an I-want-to-chow-every-thing-in-sight kind of day or a I-can-stick-to-the-plan-no-problem day.
If I’m sensing the former, I literally eat something every hour or hour-and-a-half.
I call this the “drip, drip, drip” eating method and it’s a heavy-lifter. This method is my go-to every time I need to get myself back on track.
The idea is to keep your hunger on simmer, so that it never gets to a rolling boil.
What do I eat? I might have a large kale salad at noon (topped with fake chicken or polenta rounds both found at Trader Joe’s), and half of an apple at 1:30. Then I’ll have the other half of the apple at 2:00. At 3:00 I’ll eat my blueberry-oatmeal bowl and so on. Then I stop eating completely by 6 p.m. and go to bed early with a great book. (Like the one in Pearl Four.)
See? I just have light bites throughout the day, but I do a total of zero “intuitive eating” and work closely with the clock.
And of course, I track what I eat.
For the latter situation: just keep on trucking, but remind yourself to never, ever get smug about how you eat, what you weigh, the size of your jeans etc.
Keeping the weight off for seventeen years now is directly related to staying humble and ready to learn. ♥
Pearl Four
Books love us and want us to be happy.
You know what’s tough about having a “book pearl”? Finding a new book every single week that I really want to recommend is harder than it sounds.
I read what I think of as a lot of junk before I find an “Aretha Franklin singing R-E-S-P-E-C-T” type of book to recommend.
In that vein, I have a GREAT one for you today: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese.
Covenant is the kind of book I wish I could read every week. I don’t know why, but I haven’t paid much attention to Oprah’s Book Club, but that changes today.
One of my favorite authors ever has had two books on her list and that’s all I need to know.
Covenant is one of the books. I’m only a few chapters in but I can tell: an excellent, white-tie of a read. Cutting for Stone is Verghese’s other masterpiece that was on Oprah’s list back in ’08.
The book’s genre is historical-fiction which I can’t get enough of. I mean, reading really good historical fiction is like learning history at the hands of a master author.
To sit and be enveloped in a gripping story while simultaneously learning how South and North Korea came to be (Pachinko); how Winston Churchill fought the Nazi military machine on his own long before the U.S. showed up (the Splendid and the Vile); and how the largest storm to ever hit America crashed into the history books (Isaac’s Storm) is one of the greatest luxuries of modern life. We all would have had a scored an A+ in our history classes if we’d had these books to devour.
I swear, get to a certain age and you spend half your life in the doctor’s office. 🙂 ♥
Pearl One is from an earlier post. I believe so strongly in this method of bringing something great into our lives.
Pearl One
“We are bleeding money.”
Over the last four years my husband and I had been — 24/7 — diapering, feeding and caring for twin infants slash toddlers. Once my boys were semi-functional, I was raring to take family-trips to Lake Tahoe, the beach, various Children’s Museums and so forth.
In short, I wanted our family to travel.
“We can afford to drive around the corner,” my husband said. “Call me when you arrive.”
Thanks to the ’08 crash, the planet was reeling. Money problems everywhere, houses not selling, belts tightening.
Even that said, Oh, the Places I Wanted to Go.
After my husband announced, “not a chance”, I didn’t argue or suggest ways we could “rob Peter to pay Paul,” or call my best friend crying about the dumb choice I’d made in a husband.
I said to myself only, “My. Kids. Will. Travel.” I felt those words into my very marrow. I had no idea how we’d find the bucks for travel; I only knew that – contrary to all of the evidence around me – we were going places.
And we did.
Here’s how it went down.
After a handful of false starts, I asked an editor-friend who produced a local parenting magazine if she’d be interested in a travel column.
She jumped at the idea and — with that email to Barb — I’d created a small job for myself. My family and I traveled and after each trip, I’d write about our experiences for Barbara’s mag. (We had a blast and, I was getting paid — not a ton — but still.)
Was it a fluke?
Back then, I didn’t have the vocab to talk about why my travel-determination worked, but I knew something – outside of the ordinary – had taken place and I wanted to figure out what it was, so that I could replicate my results. Here’s what I learned.
Turns out, those in the coaching world – like Tony Robbins — call what I stumbled upon “massive action.” Tony Robbins didn’t invent massive action any more than Ben Franklin invented electricity, but they both noticed a reality and pointed it out to the world.
To me, massive action is feeling — into the very fiber of my being — that something I want will happen (come hell or high water).
Before I knew the term “massive action,” I called it “leaving no stone unturned.” Quick example: Long before I had kids, I had to pass a licensing exam and I used “no stone unturned” to study for the big, scary test. I did everything conceivable to pass, and I figured, if I didn’t pass then it must be due to something outside of my control.
But I passed. (And trust me, every stone was turned.)
How Massive Action Works
Massive action is happening when you throw everything you can possibly think of at a project or a problem until the door swings open. It’s when you’re at your most determined.
When you go massive action on something that matters deeply to you, it’s almost as if the Universe says, “Oh, brother. This mom in California will not stop knocking at the door. Just give her travel so we can get onto other things.”
Writing is Your Portal
To know what’s going on in your heart and head, write. Writing is free therapy and is always there for you. Free-write in the mornings. Free-write like nobody is going to read it (because they won’t). Free-write to discover what makes you tick.
Every morning, ask yourself these questions and see what your super sophisticated brain spills forth:
• What does future-me in six months most want? • What are five things that matter most to me in life? • If I had a life mission, what would it be? (Give three life mission answers.) • What is something that matters to me that the rest of our culture tends to overlook?
Consciously Using Massive Action
Once I heard the term “massive action,” I was far more successful in wielding its power. Through the last ten or so years, here’s how I’ve added to my life using massive action:
My sister and I – who, at one-time, couldn’t talk on the phone for twenty-minutes without both of flying off the handle – are currently going on four years of a loving, argument-free relationship.
I added a recumbent trike to my life that was “too pricey to afford,” but thanks to massive action, I bought a demo model that wiped $1500 off the price tag (plus it came with a bunch of upgrades and I didn’t pay shipping).
I massive actioned us into a gorgeous home in Atlanta just eight-minutes from my husband’s job (a commute practically unheard of in Atlanta).
Your challenge:
Think massive action is too woo-woo for your life and probably doesn’t work anyway? Okay, then try this challenge: choose one thing you’d like to have in your life that’s just a tad out of reach. (Let’s start slow.)
Then apply massive action to your project:
One
Begin by writing about your project. What will you feel when you’ve brought home the new item/lifestyle? (Write about ten feelings you’ll experience when you lose twenty pounds, slide that new kayak into the river, or hand over $1,000 to your favorite charity.)
Two
Free-write ten common sense actions you can take to attain your item/lifestyle.
Three
Now free-write ten insane, totally wild actions you can take to attain your goal. (As in, “I could steal a kayak, I could build my own” and so forth. As Prince said, “Let’s go crazy.”)
Four
Now, take action from your list, all the while telling yourself that stopping is not an option. Just keep on keeping on:
If it takes longer than you’d assumed, keep going.
If it’s much harder than you’d imagined, also keep going. (Your mantra: we can do hard things.)
If the December holidays, your birthday, rain, snow, a hot summer, a bad cold etc creates more of an obstacle than you’d anticipated, keep going: no excuse to stop.
The main directive: don’t stop writing, experiencing your feelings, and engaging in action until that kayak is under your butt in the river.
That said, here’s one wrinkle in the massive action story:
Let’s say, I want to walk into my garage and find a gorgeous, fire-engine red Jeep waiting for me. But – and this is key – I don’t want the Jeep to the exclusion of my sons’ (pricey) lessons like theater, piano, and Krav Maga.
Or say I love the ocean and want to live near it, but uprooting my kids from Atlanta is a deal-killer. (The boys would be horrified to leave friends, infrastructure and so forth.)
And say I need a weekly bathroom cleaner. (Don’t we all?) But at $100 a week (or more), it’s a no-go currently because of the boys’ many lessons.
You see, I only go massive action on an item or lifestyle if I know — from my free-writing — that I won’t let a single thing stop me from achieving that change in my life. Sure, I could go all massive action and put a gorgeous red Jeep in my garage, but I know that other goals that also truly matter to me would go sideways.
Massive action can only happen if nothing will stand in our way of getting what we want like – in my case — family travel, or getting along with my sister, or buying a recumbent trike.
I massive action something that matters to me – as long as the item/lifestyle doesn’t threaten other aspects of my life that are also high priorities (like my family and animals). ♥
Pearl Two
I have a new Costco food I want to share with everyone. As you know, I’m a huge believer in the REP way of eating – breakfast like a king, lunch like a princess, and eat dinner like a pauper.
The last time I was in Costco, on a whim, I added their “organic acai bowls” to my cart (found in frozen near huge bag of frozen strawberries and blueberries).
For some reason I thought the acai bowls had a dessert element to them, but they don’t. They have more of a crunch, granola, blueberry vibe.
At first, I wasn’t impressed, but after eating all six bowls I now think, “these guys are tasty.”
They’re vegan, gluten free, and with the little packet of granola-like crunchy things you put on top of these bowls, the calorie count comes to just 180. Not bad, right?
Last week I wrote about trying to stick with only five-ingredient foods, but this bowl is way more than five.
I can’t emphasize enough that to stay on the Smart Eating Path, keeping your food fun and interesting is major-league important. Make at least one meal in your day something you really love. ♥
Pearl Three
June’s topic for the month: what cannot be an afterthought in our smart eating lives. Every week we’ll talk circumstances that require hard-core planning rather than “winging it.”
June 2 topic: We’re heading into vacation-season, do you have a plan about how and what you’ll eat on your trip?
June 9 topic: Do you have a plan for how you’ll handle the negative-food that “shows up” in your kitchen?
June 16 topic: Do you have a written plan for the moments when you’re furious or super sad? If your former “fix” to these emotions was food, have you given conscious thought to how you’ll manage the overflow of feelings without food around?
I should tell you that when I was losing the final of fifty-five pounds, I was furiously determined (is that a term?) about getting down to my preferred weight. At the time I was losing, I was still attending WW sessions every week. Just as I’d lost the last five pounds, we moved to VA and WW meetings came to an end.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I understood that my coping mechanism was food and that I had to figure out better ways of dealing with bad feelings.
My go-tos. Reading, rock music, shower or bath, doing things like coloring my hair or doing my nails, listening to an inspirational podcast; my list helped me get through rough times and overwhelming emotional moments. Definitely getting away from the TV and the kitchen were part of the success too.
My mind-shifts. It was a huge shift for me to write to myself from future-me. I wrote from that evening-me, tomorrow-me, autumn-me, five years from now-me and so forth. In my journal I told current-me how much I appreciated that she did a, b, c for me (like lock-in a fantastic habit, or do things over the summer that I loved).
I also was into the idea of micro-rewards. I’d talk to myself and say, “This evening is a tough one. If we stick to our eating plan and go to bed early, have a hot shower, and read a great book: we’ll get a pedicure tomorrow.” But here’s the thing: you must follow-through. Don’t tell yourself, “Do well tonight and I’m buying those pricey earrings you liked!” (And then the next day bail on the idea because the earring are just plain too expensive. You never want her to feel tricked.)
Reasonable rewards for the next day are like a two-hour block of reading time, getting the car cleaned, or even purchasing an inexpensive pool float.
Planning your hard times before they happen is like 80-percent of the job handled. ♥
Pearl Four
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré is a coming-of-age novel by a powerhouse of a writer. Her daughters encouraged their mom to write her first book and omg is it good. Daré has an MA in creative writing from Birkbeck, University of London along with other degrees. She’s a brain.
Her book reminds me a lot of the internist Khaled Hosseini who wrote the acclaimed novels: The Kite Runner (2003) and its follow-up A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007).
The Girl with the Louding Voice is about a poor girl growing up in Nigeria. How she learns and grows in a wealthy household is a testament to resilience and strength.
Daré’s book won The Bath Novel Award for unpublished manuscripts in 2018 and was selected as a finalist in 2018 for The Literary Consultancy Pen Factor competition. Absolutely five-stars. ♥
Pearl Five
It is facile (something done easily without an understanding of the difficulty involved) to imply that smoking, alcoholism, overeating, or other ingrained patterns can be upended without real effort. Genuine change requires work and self-understanding of the cravings driving behaviors.”
— Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business ♥
I love this quote so much because it flies directly in the face of our world’s diet-culture who love to yammer on about how losing and preserving weight “is easy.”
Total baloney sauce.
But, I will tell you, that while it’s not easy, it is learnable. It’s doable. It sounds trite to say, “if I can, you can.” I only wish you had known me from childhood to my mid-30s. You would have met someone who always had food on the brain and never fit into most (all?) of her clothes.
I’m headed to the pool this weekend (it’s something autumn-me asked for). I love the pool, I just don’t like the work involved like putting on a bathing suit, walking to the pool, putting on sunscreen, hoping I’ll find an umbrella and blah, blah, blah.
Have a sun-block weekend, everyone!
♥, 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!
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
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. ♥
If you’re tempted this weekend, just remind yourself you can have your treat in the morning with coffee. Still want 4th of July dessert? Think: pretty popsicles, macaroni at Trader Joe’s or Costco, and watermelon. And always keep your cold-tote full and by your side.
Hi Thrivers,
I’m spending the entire weekend taking my clutter to the local dog and cat thrift store for drop-off. It feels so good to get rid of stuff that I didn’t even know I had anymore. ♥
Pearl One
I get it. The many how-to-have-the-best-body types have their own ideas about what is smart eating and what’s not. It’s crazy-confusing when one “expert” encourages saving a dessert for the morning while the another is clearly in the all-sugar-is-bad camp.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the “dueling experts” idea after a Thriver sent an email saying that her favorite fitness guy espouses the no-sugar way of living. This man did an amazing job of taking his body from pudgy to ripped so I’m guessing that his readers are those who lift weights and want to eat well to optimize their workouts.
All good.
Here’s the thing: This man is totally right. Zero sugar is the gold-standard for optimal health.
But he and I have two different approaches to losing and preserving a loss because we have two different end-games.
He’s teaching others how to live their best weight lifting-life that leaves no room for sugar.
Whereas I’m addressing the psychological reasons for overeating and binge-eating in women over fifty, a topic he probably doesn’t want to touch.
When you and I transfer our nighttime sugar raids to eating one dessert in the morning with our coffee, we’re slowly weaning ourselves off of sugar. (That said, if even a bite of chocolate triggers you into a week of overeating, clearly having a brownie at breakfast won’t work for you, for now.)
I’d like to get us to zero nighttime eating. Eating one dessert at night generally turns into more: a bowl of ice cream becomes two, one cupcake turns into three. And, let’s face it, a lot of us pile the ice cream and cupcakes together for the best dessert ever.
You see my point.
By scheduling the treat in the morning were doing the following:
1) We’re extinguishing the evening habit of having two, three or more desserts at night. We’re putting sugar into a time of day when few of us go overboard on a treat and eat too much.
2) We’re helping ourselves “not feel cheated” because “everyone” is having desserts after dinner.
3) Our bodies don’t grip onto calories the way they do at night. I know this is a controversial idea, but those in the field of science are starting to take note, and it sure works in my life..
Basically, I’m coming more from a let’s use mind-sets and strategies to keep our weight down after age fifty. And he’s coming from an “optimizing our food, for a better lifting body” viewpoint.
Here’s the upshot: the longer I told myself I could have my dessert in the morning, I’d find that I didn’t want sugar in the morning. I mean, sometimes yes, but for the most part I reach for cereal instead. ♥
Pearl Two
Trust me, if I allowed certain treats into my home, they wouldn’t be safe. My brain would say, “it’s only oatmeal. In cookie-form. Okay, with sugar. But – really — what’s the big deal? It’s just oatmeal?”
I’m about to rant. I’m afraid I’ll sound smug and pompous, but I’m not. I just think I look at food-porn differently than the average bear.
In the same week, I read two different people talk nonchalantly about food-porn: a blogger said, “I had a Sonic Blast and I refuse to feel guilty about it.” (A Sonic Blast is a milkshake with your choice of M&Ms, Snickers, Peanut Butter Cups or Butterfingers.)
Food-porn on steroids.
The man, a guy with an extreme obesity issue who writes about very much wanting to lose weight, said something similar and described how he wandered around a store while nursing a milkshake.
But the milkshakes aren’t my point. We all have our version of the milkshake and I’m certainly no different than you.
My point is the attitude both the blogger and writer shared. The blogger wrote that she “refused to feel guilty” and the guy’s essay was written in a very blase voice, he treated his junk-food like “it’s just one milk shake” type of thing.
Do I want them to beat themselves up? Of course not.
That’s a quick ride to nowheres-ville.
The part that bothers me is that they don’t yet get that our brains only need one milkshake to establish a habit. You might be thinking, “Well, they each had only one milkshake. Thing is, our cavewoman brain is a like three-year-old. Do something super fun one time and — as she sees it — a habit has been instilled.
No discussion. It’s done.
We don’t have to have six milk shakes to embed an awful habit that will be tough to correct.
It just takes one time.
So, when I’m eyeing the fancy cookies that The Scarfer keeps in his stash I ask myself this heavy-lifter of a question:
Is this thing I’m about to do or eat, add to my strong habits or take me down the overeating road?
This question reminds me that I don’t need to have three, four or five milkshakes to form a habit. ♥
I only need one. ♥
Pearl Three
June’s topic for the month: what cannot be an afterthought in our smart eating lives. Every week we’ll talk circumstances that require hard-core planning rather than “winging it.”
I love the term “sweet spot.” It’s a fun way to talk about something particularly wonderful like, “my sweet spot for reading a great book is at night, in my cozy bed.”
But what if we flip the script and talk about a “bitter spot” as in, “my bitter spot for choosing porn-food is definitely right after dinner.”
So much power and magic appear when we’ve taken planning seriously. In your journal, write about your bitter spots and how you’ll address them.
Take it one day at a time. And rewrite a new plan every single morning.
Writing a plan for your bitter spot March 1 and never looking at it again until June 1 is no way to deal with a bitter spot. Every single morning write a brand new plan detailing how you’ll bookend your bitter spot with smart activities. ♥
Pearl Four
The readers in the book clubs I follow on Facebook rave about Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Some even say it’s their most favorite book of the year. And these people read a lot.
But be forewarned: the cover of this book gives the assumption that it’s a rom-com or chick lit. It’s neither. It’s a thoughtful story filled with dry humor somewhat like The 100 Year OId Man Who Jumped Out of the Window and Disappeared.
Many call this book A+. I’m more in the A- camp. A great read, but my two favorites so far this year:
A Woman of No Importance the Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell. This woman was such a success at her “work” that she was considered the most feared spy by the Nazis.
The Beauty of Dusk by Frank Bruni. An absorbing memoir about his life and a tough medical situation. ♥
Pearl Five
“Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.” ― Angela Duckworth ♥
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
♥, Wendy
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
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!!
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. ♥
