My Body and Physical Health

I woke up from a short nap a little while ago.  I'd been reading, and started to drift, and rather than fighting that feeling, decided to go with it today, within limits.  I slept for about an hour, not super deeply, but it was lovely.

When I woke up, I was feeling a little foggy and lethargic (that's what napping often does to me), so I decided I'd finish off my planned exercise for the day by doing one six minute circuit from Jillian Michael's Banish Fat Boost Metabolism DVD.  That's done and now I'm sitting down to write.

Wait!  Before I lose you (because a blog post where the first two paragraphs read like that would probably lose me), let me explain.  I've spent the last week and a half thinking, reading, researching, pondering and praying about the idea of health. I've read voices that range from an auyervedic yogi to Dr. Oz.  From diet books to women's health.  I even did a two-day cleanse last week with the unfortunate name of "Look Better Naked Two-Day Cleanse".  (Full confession - I totally picked this cleanse because it was the easiest one I came across, where I didn't have to eat anything really gross!  I could care less at this point what I look like naked!)

Health and I, at least physical health and my body, have not exactly got the best relationship track record.  In fact, we kind of ignore if not downright dislike each other.  And yet, as I settled in last week to do some of that reading and research, I was pretty aware of the need for that to start changing.

I weigh more than I ever have (a number that is creeping scarily close to the "obese" range on the BMI charts for my height). I'm also in a position to start changing some things.  I start my final practicum next week, the second last hurdle for me to cross before I'm officially a registered nurse.  I'm within six-eight weeks of being fully weaned off of the medication that I've been on for the last two years to manage moods and anxiety.  It's been a great medication, but I don't feel like I need the support at this point in my life, and it has contributed significantly to the weight gain challenges I've had in those two years. My schedule is about to be more consistent, and I'm removing a major obstacle.  I'm very aware that with coming off medication, I need to have a mentally and physically healthy lifestyle in place to hopefully stay off the pills.  And plus, in terms of a lot of other things in my life, I'm in a healthier place than I've been in a long time, so it's time to make some changes with my body and physical health.

So I did a lot of reading and research, because half the battle for me is convincing myself this is actually worth it.  I historically hate almost all forms of exercise, and when I get hungry I crave sweets.  You can see the problem.  I watched shows on neflix and on veria living to motivate and inform me.  I began to accumulate viewpoints and opinions that would work for me, and discard others.  For example, I watched a whole series with an auyervedic practitioner and discovered that I can definitely get on board with the holistic idea that all parts of my lifestyle (even how much stuff I own) impacts my health.  But I hated his method of talking about food, which treated food as utilitarian, not something to be done really for enjoyment or to be done in a social setting, but just as energy.  I can't get on board with that - it contradicts deeply held beliefs rooted in my faith that say that sharing a meal with people is a sacred and connecting practice - a form of communion that is beyond the body.

And all that reading and research ultimately led me to a few doable ideas to start making changes.  I can't get on board with spending twenty minutes a day focused on exercises for my abs, but I can use Dr. Oz's 7 Day Belly Workout Cheat Sheet, where I need to spend 2-5 minutes doing a different exercise each day.  I can't at this point commit to doing a whole 45 minute Jillian Michael's video, but I can commit to doing one (or sometimes two) six minute circuits 4-5 times a week.  I can't (and won't) go on a major diet, but I can use tools like the My Fitness Pal website to track what I'm eating, and set a doable calorie goal (usually the 0.5lb weight loss a week range). I can drink a glass of water with lime (I hate lemon in water and most other things) every day to help my body detox.  I can stick to a basic regimen of vitamins and probiotics. I can't always make it to the reccomended 10000 steps a day using my Fitbit tracker, but I can shoot realistically for greater that 6000 a day, and go from there. I can eat lots of fruits and veggies and limit gluten and starch in my diet.

And the reason that I think I can make these changes is that most of them are already somewhat in place in my life, while the others fit into a window of time and activity that doesn't feel like it will overwhelm me. For me, that's the key - to figure out what is doable for me, what I won't hate and immediately quit - and then build from there.  I'm working on that figuring out what's doable thing in the whole of my life right now, and it seems to be helping.

Here's hoping that figuring out doable in the realm of my body and physical health is going to improve for it!

(and p.s. also in the realm of doable - I'm going to look at an elliptical machine off of Kijiji with my dad tonight! I'm thinking my neflix sessions are going to require a bit more physical activity in the near future if all goes as planned!)

Revisiting Thoughts on the Body and Food

I was pretty sure when I wrote my last post on this topic that the next post I would write in this series would be detailing the way I was managing to "control" my struggle with food and my body.  How I was losing weight, changing my diet, and being successful at those things.

That's not the post I'm sitting down to write today.

The truth is, I think I have more questions than answers.

I read that last post to my therapist, and she asked me to take a break from the plan for weight loss that had been working for me for the first three months of the year.  She asked me to take a break and spend some time learning how to honor my body.

In the month or so that I've been doing that, I've learned that I'm not very good at it.  I've learned that discipline and willpower are not my strengths, and that an at times addictive personality just might another challenge I'll need to face. I'm fairly certain that I've gained back the weight I worked hard to lose (almost half of my goal) over those first three months of the year.  I've been procrastinating on the homework she assigned, because I just can't quite figure out how to write a letter of appreciation and gratitude to my body.  It hasn't been that hard to do as she asked and do one nice thing for my body each day.  She set the limits wide, and since I live a generally healthy lifestyle, it wasn't hard to think of things like walking the stairs instead of taking the elevator, drinking lots of water, and using my SAD lamp as little gifts.

I could make excuses - that this was the worst month ever to remove limits.  After all, it was the final month of the semester, and I was stressed beyond my limits by group work. Who could blame me if I had one cookie, or ten? Who would blame me for wanting to go for drinks with the girls after class, and deciding I needed a big juicy hamburger to go with the drink (after all, I'm a light weight when it comes to alcohol, and if I don't eat, well, half a drink can make me seriously tipsy.)

But the excuses ring hollow as I've pondered what I'd write here.  They're just that - excuses for a lack of self-discipline.  Excuses for not treating my body well.  (Though I wonder if the guilt I feel for failing, and then making excuses is equally negative for this journey.)

I don't have any answers today.

I have a lot of questions.

How do I learn to see my body differently?

How long will it take?

Can I create limits without them being a mechanism for control? A mechanism for beating back fear? How do I do that?

What does healthy look like in my circumstances?

What are the lines between healthy choices and those self-care moments when chocolate or a drink with the girls really is a helpful thing?

Am I attractive?

Can I ever be attractive to others if I don't believe it about myself?

And most of all, what does Jesus think of all of this? How does he see me? How does he ask me to care for my body?

I don't have answers, just a lot of questions, and I'm inviting you into those today.  I'd love to hear your questions, or just your thoughts about your own journeys with your body and food.

Friday Reflections, March 2, 2012

Given that yesterday I shared in greater depth about my journey with food and eating disorders, it seems somehow appropriate to share some reflections from Henri Nouwen on the spiritual value of sharing a meal today.  Nouwen's thoughts on this subject have shaped some of my passion for sharing meals with friends, and for cooking, and fit nicely into the themes I seem to be exploring in this space lately.


The Meal That Makes Us Family and Friends

We all need to eat and drink to stay alive. But having a meal is more than eating and drinking. It is celebrating the gifts of life we share. A meal together is one of the most intimate and sacred human events. Around the table we become vulnerable, filling one another's plates and cups and encouraging one another to eat and drink. Much more happens at a meal than satisfying hunger and quenching thirst. Around the table we become family, friends, community, yes, a body.

That is why it is so important to "set" the table. Flowers, candles, colorful napkins all help us to say to one another, "This is a very special time for us, let's enjoy it!"

Admitting A Disorder (More Thoughts on the Body)

On Monday I started talking about a new journey I've been walking with Jesus the last few months, surrounding my relationship with my body, and my relationship with food. I wasn't planning to get this intense this quickly in sharing some of my journey with my body and food, but then I discovered that in the United States, February 26-March 3, 2012 is Eating Disorder Awareness week, and I knew it was time to tell this piece of my story.

Food and I, well, we have a conflicted, love-hate kind of relationship.  I love food, but my body has often hated it.

If you ask my family about me as a child, they might tell you the story of the time my cousin (five weeks younger than me) was crawling around the house, eating a cracker, when I spotted him.  Apparently my immediate response was to follow him, and eat any crumbs or bits he dropped.  I grew up thinking of myself as "chubby" and this fit with the family lore.  There are comments about my love of food, and my weight that were made by male members of my family burned in my memory permanently, causing an ache, and helping me define myself.

Years as a synchronized swimmer meant that I never developed the "I look horrible in a swimsuit" complex that other girls dealt with.  I knew I didn't look great, but I loved the water, and the sport, and, well, you couldn't participate without a swimsuit.  I was comfortable standing in front of a crowd in my one-piece, or teaching a class, while continually aware that my figure was far from the cultural ideal.

It didn't help that the women in my family are tiny.  In case I've never mentioned, I'm the only girl in my generation on both sides of the family, so the women I had to compare myself to were parents, aunts, and grandparents.  My mom's generation in particular is comprised of tiny women.  The fact that as I hit puberty it became clear that my body was a throwback to my grandmother's generation, with, well, curves, did not help.

But mostly, I didn't worry too much about it.  I was continually aware of those extra five or ten pounds I needed to lose, but I spent almost no time on a scale, and just chose not to focus my thoughts there.

My first bout with food problems came in eleventh grade, and it started a pattern that continued for the next fifteen years or so, off and on.  Nearly every day I'd throw most of my lunch away (this after eating minimal or no breakfast), because I felt ill.  It fluctuated, and eventually passed.  (It should be noted that somewhere in those years was the onset of my battle with severe depression, and all the spiritual questioning that came with it.)

I lost probably 10 pounds that year, without trying.  I just couldn't eat.

The weight came and went for the next few years, my ability to eat nearly almost diminishing to nothing during the more highly stressful periods of my life.  I subsisted on cookies, bread, crackers - anything and everything that was loaded with carbs and generally fit into the sweet or bland categories of consumption.  The rare times I was hungry, it was sweets that I craved, and my body wasn't satisfied unless I ate and ate a lot.

It was manageable, though, with more weight gain than loss (though never anything excessive), until I traveled to Malta about four years ago.  When I think back on that trip, and my relationship with food around it, what stands out to me is that the moment the trip became real, the night I went out for a goodbye dinner with my family, I became instantly sick.  I returned home from that meal, vomited unexpectedly, and ultimately ate almost nothing for the next five days.  The first food I consumed was on the airplane.  I also spent those five days begging God to quiet my notoriously picky stomach for the next month or so, knowing that I wouldn't make it through the trip if my stomach and its aversions acted up.  He did, and I ate comfortably (for me anyway!) until the day I boarded a plan in London to return home.

In the months following my return, my life began to fall apart - a process that altogether took more than a year.  Relationships shattered and my emotions shattered with them.  My body couldn't cope.  I spent days and weeks and months fasting, in an attempt to please people, to please God, to bargain my sacrifice for some sort of relief that never came.  Over the course of that year, I lost somewhere between 25 and 30 pounds.  I worried silently about the weight that slipped off without me ever trying, but always silently, because it was nice to have this newer body, this tinier body that people were noticing.  It was a conflicted thing the noticing.  I was sick, ill, broken all the time, emotionally shattered, but my body had never looked better.  I'm nothing if not often described as bluntly honest, and I spent a lot of time that year answering compliments and questions about my weight loss with the honest truth "no, I haven't been trying to lose weight, I've just been really sick."  Ironically, when I looked in the mirror, my body looked the same through my shattered eyes.  I didn't see my waist-line, I saw the tired and sad eyes, the soul that was always out of step.

I was afraid to say it out loud, but I began wondering if I was fighting a new battle with mental illness, this time with an eating disorder.  When someone in my life challenged me specifically on eating habits, on embracing life, I grasped at it, and immediately implemented a strict regimen of meals.  For months I used stickers on a calendar to display the fact that for maybe the first time since I was a child, I was eating three meals a day.  It worked for me, this grasping for control.  The weight loss stopped, and I even gained a little.  I still didn't have to worry about what I ate, since my emotions were still in shambles.  I never said the words "eating disorder" to anyone, though deep down I knew that this was what I was fighting to control.  I'd had years to make peace with admitting that I suffered from depression, but adding other diagnoses to the list felt overwhelming.  I carefully avoided questions from my doctor at annual physicals, skirting the issue of eating habits without ever lying - working the system just so.  And I managed it.  No more fasting, no more excuses to starve myself - just a strict three sticker a day regimen - one on the calendar for each meal I consumed.

I was proud of this success, and I shared it, celebrated it.  I didn't tell anyone about the fears that haunted me.  I didn't tell anyone about how I wondered what would happen when my body would again fail me by rejecting food.  I didn't talk about and tried to ignore the fear of waiting and expecting another of the usual onslaught of a week or so where food would just not be an option.  I just forced myself to eat those meals, and celebrated with stickers and with pride every little milestone - a day, a week, a month, three months, six months - I had this under control, or at least that was what I was telling the world.

After life finally seemed to hit bottom, I spent some time with a friend who rather forcefully (though gently) pushed through my objections to seeking professional help.  I found a therapist and began the work of piecing a life back together, but I never mentioned the challenges with food.  After all, I still had them under control.  I may not have had an appetite, but I didn't have trouble eating three small meals a day anymore.  I still craved mostly sugar (likely the calories my body simply wasn't getting), and indulged those cravings.  My weight had stabilized - I wasn't gaining, I wasn't losing.

And then, somewhere in the process of therapy, Jesus and I started talking about medication to help my ongoing battle with depression and anxiety.  I never wanted to admit that need.  I wanted to do this on my own terms, and admitting a need for medication felt like a failure.  Feeling defeated, but convinced this was something Jesus was inviting me to try, I landed myself in my doctor's office and described what I'd been dealing with.  She listened, addressed some of my fears and concerns, and then handed me  a prescription.  I started taking it about nine months ago now.

Medication in combination with ongoing therapy has made all the difference in the world in my emotional, mental and spiritual health, but it highlighted my issues with food in new ways.  When I started the meds, I spent a week in bed.  My body reacted strongly to this sudden onslaught of chemicals it had learned to live without, and the period of adjustment was rough.  I didn't eat that week, lived on 7-Up (the only thing that sounded good, and the only time in more than 10 years that I'd been able to drink a carbonated beverage), and slept for hours and hours at a time.  The next month wasn't much fun.  The nausea passed, but my appetite was gone, and I was back to forcing the issue with eating.  My fears were back in force, as I felt my carefully controlled world slipping.  And then? A month in we adjusted the dosage, and on the first day of the new dose I woke up feeling truly good for the first time in probably five years.  I didn't look back.  My appetite was back in a real way for the first time since high school.  I ate anything and everything, without considering consequences.  My body didn't seem to be changing, so I didn't worry.  I wasn't battling the nausea I so often had with emotional stress.  I was HUNGRY, and that was huge.

Except that last November I tried on a dress and it didn't fit.  A couple more incidents over the holidays landed me on a scale, and I discovered that the medication and appetite had had consequences.  I'd gained 25 pounds, because I'd never learned to manage my eating habits.  They'd been broken so long that I didn't understand the way "normal" worked.

And that has left me here.  Today I'm saying out loud that I have an eating disorder.  Not the typical kind you think of, but there is unhealth in relationship with food, and I think that this is something that's important to say out loud.

As the new year began, I came up with some goals for handling my newfound appetite, and for losing some weight, and I'll talk about those in posts to come, but today, in this week where awareness of eating disorders is being raised, I'm going to say it out loud - I suffer from a mild eating disorder.  And in the invitation to say that out loud, in the invitation of that honesty that I've felt from Jesus over the last couple months, I am finding freedom, and a renewed invitation to heal.  I am finding healing in the new ways I'm managing my diet, and I'm finding freedom in not needing to fear my body.  And I'm going to walk through some more emotional healing, starting by reading this post to my therapist the next time I meet with her, and inviting her to help me work through this part of my life as well.

So, again, I invite you to journey with me, but today I also feel Jesus smiling at each of you, offering his presence in these journeys with our bodies, and with food.  Offering healing and His delight in each of us.  Offering to let us step more fully into the light.  Won't you step into this in your own journey today?

A Temple? (Some Thoughts on the Body)

                        Source: tonedcurves.tumblr.com via Lisa on Pinterest

I have for quite some time now been staring at a tab with the above image displayed on it in my web browser.  The tab has been open for days, weeks even, as I ponder the words in the image, and ponder the way they relate to how my heart is being shaped in this season.  It has been open, and I've stared at it as I pondered how on earth to broach this topic in this space, and if I even would.  This topic feels like a risk.

It seems funny to say that talking about my relationship with my body and food seems like a risk.  In this space I've spoken openly about my journey with mental illness, spirituality and other very personal things.  Things that are in some ways nearer and dearer to my heart, more personal in many ways than the topic of my body and food.  But talking about this feels risky.

And yet, I don't believe it's an option to NOT talk about it.  This is something new, something that is being outworked in my life, something Jesus is drawing my attention to.  For a couple of months now, I've been quietly paying attention to it, noticing it, dialoging about it in select trusted circles.  And now, quietly, though I by no means have it all sorted out, I'm going to start talking about it here in this space where I share the ways my life is being shaped, moulded, and changed.  I imagine it will take more posts than just this one and that this, like mental illness and spirituality and all those other personal things I share in this space, is a journey that will be an ongoing topic of discussion.  But, for a little while, I'll probably talk about it regularly as I explore in writing these things that are surfacing within me and demanding my attention.

"The food you eat can either be the safest and most powerful form or medicine or the slowest form of poison." (Ann Wigmore)

This quote hit a raw and poignant place when I read it for the first time a month or so ago.  I was about a month into a new habit of paying very close attention to what I eat and noticing how it affects my body.

This whole thing started sometime in mid-November, when I tried on a dress I hadn't worn in a while - a  dress I was planning to wear to an engagement party being held for my brother and his fiancee.  It didn't fit.  It should have fit.  I was convinced that it had been shrunken accidentally in the laundry by the last person who wore it - a friend I'd loaned it to - one who usually wore slightly larger clothing than me.  I was frustrated that my dress didn't fit, but didn't connect it to my body.  Over the next month, a few other encounters with clothes from my closet that fit differently than I expected them to led me to dragging out the bathroom scale sometime around the beginning of the new year.

Twenty-five pounds.

Twenty-five pounds.  I'd never in my life worried about weight or what I ate, but it seemed that the combination of a medication I began taking about eight months earlier to treat anxiety and depression, and the appetite that I had for the first time in a decade as a result of the medication had taken their toll.  I'd gained twenty-five pounds.

The number registering on the scale ushered in a new season of life in my body.  Suddenly, this thing that I never acknowledged unless it somehow failed me, was demanding my attention.  It was calling for me to notice it, to notice my habits surrounding it, to be open to them, and to letting Jesus share with me how he sees me in a new way.  I've explored how Jesus sees me quite a lot the last few years, and fallen in love with him more deeply along the way, but I don't think we've ever talked about my body.  Why would we?  My body was utilitarian, and I preferred to ignore it, rather than acknowledge it.  I was afraid of it too - afraid of it failing me, afraid of acknowledging that I couldn't control it at times, afraid of acknowledging that I failed it.

Around the same time as the numbers registered on the scale began to signal that there was something I needed to pay attention to, my friend Christianne began to write about her own journey with her body.  I found in Christianne's words the comfort that comes from realizing that a journey that seemed strange and odd to me was perhaps not quite so strange and odd, and was not one that is being walked alone, but one that was and is walked out continually by people all over the face of the planet.

And so with the awareness of the scale and the comfort of knowing that this was not a journey that I was the first or only one to walk, I began to walk.  I made plans silently as the new year began, starting with setting the goal of losing those twenty-five pounds over the next six months to a year.  I explored ways and means to help me achieve that goal, and I began to listen to my body more closely.  I began to prayerfully put this new awareness in front of Jesus, and wait to see where he would guide.  I became aware of the others who were talking about caring for their body, consuming food in a mindful way, discussing the fact that our bodies are holy.

I've never had to think about weight or the food I consumed - my physical response to my emotional and mental state took care of that.  I would gain a little weight when times were good and I felt stable, but I never worried about those pounds, because the one thing I knew about my body was that it consistently failed me.  That times would get bad again thanks to the battles I fought with depression and anxiety, and those pounds would melt away along with my appetite, and sometimes my ability to keep food down.

I'm going to talk more about my relationship with food in the future, but I want to highlight this - the only thing that I trusted about my body was that it would fail me.  I had learned that this was it's one consistent behavior.  My brain chemistry would get wonky, the hard times would come, and my appetite would disappear.  I didn't notice or acknowledge my body except to berate it.  To be frustrated with it. To wonder why it continually let me down.

In Christianne's first post in her series on the body, she shared a question she asked Jesus, "Help me to learn how you view my body, and help me learn how you want me to care for it."

She posted that question about a week after I'd really begun in earnest to notice my body, to try to treat it differently, and in that question I found words for the things rolling around in my head and heart.  As I began to ask Jesus how he saw my body, and what he wanted me to know about it, the first thing that sprang to mind was a passage of scripture that talks about our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit.

My love of all things liturgical caused that phrase to conjure up an incredible set of memories and images.  Images of beauty, of holiness.  Memories of the first Catholic mass I attended at St. Mary's Cathedral here in Calgary, and of the churches I sat and prayed in in Rome and Malta.  Thoughts of the four and a half years I spent studying to obtain a degree in church history, and the feeling of setting foot in some of those places several years later when I travelled to Europe for the first time.  Memories of being a small child, and having my first "job" helping my grandparents who worked as church custodians - cleaning bathrooms, watering plants, cleaning glass, and carefully dusting the pews each week.  Mental images from childhood of watching pilgrims prayerfully ascend the steps to St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal, and more recent ones of the moment I stood before a priest in St. Peter's Basillica in Rome, to receive the ashes in the last mass of the day on Ash Wednesday, of the feeling of the ashes on my head as I stood in the center of that magnificent church.

I thought about temples as I read through Leviticus in my daily scripture readings, encountering the strict commands that God gave to his people about the construction of this place of worship - about the beauty and awe it should generate.  I thought about temples as I considered the churches, cathedrals, and sacred spaces that I've visited all over North America and during my time in Europe.  I thought about how these are the places that have been made sacred, set apart for God to dwell in, to meet with his people in.  And I thought about the maintenance devoted to these spaces - how their sacred nature demands care.  And then I returned again to the passage of Scripture that seemed to be Jesus' immediate answer to my question.

Eugene Peterson translates the passage like this:

Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.  (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 The Message)

As I explored the context of these verses and the passages that surround them, I came across others in the same chapter:


You know the old saying, "First you eat to live, and then you live to eat"? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that's no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!


God honored the Master's body by raising it from the grave. He'll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master's body. You wouldn't take the Master's body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not. (1 Corinthians 6:13-15 The Message)

Three things became strikingly clear to me, and are the things that I continue to ponder daily.

First, my body is a temple.  It is a sacred space, set aside for God to reside in, and for Him to meet with me.  The implications of that stun me.  I've heard the passage in context of arguments for not smoking, not consuming excessive amounts of alcohol, and even the need for regular exercise.  All of these were arguments that meant little to me.  But hearing Jesus remind me that I am his temple?  That was a different story, and I find myself pondering the implications of being a temple, given my associations of temples with sacred space, holiness and deep beauty.  I find myself pondering the fact that a temple is designed to display the glory of God, and maintained to continue that display for ages to come.  It leaves me with questions about my own display of God's glory.  Questions about the teaching I grew up with that it is the inner beauty that displays the glory of God, and the inner beauty only.  Questions about how it is that I care for this temple - how I maintain it so that it continues to display God's glory.

Second, this phrase in Peterson's rendering of these verses jumped out at me: "Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!"  My body is an honor given to me by Christ.  That's a thought that is going to require some further meditation and conversation with Jesus.

And finally, my body is created with the same dignity as Christ's body.  Hello!  Did you catch that in the passages I quoted?  It stopped me in my tracks.  Peterson's version reads, "...remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master's body. You wouldn't take the Master's body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not."  It's a rather striking image, this age old question of "Would I take Jesus there or subject Him to that, and if not, why am I taking myself there, or subjecting myself to it?"  I have a thousand arguments to answer those questions and justify various things in my life or the life of others around me, but it boils down to this: when this is a personal question, when I am talking with Jesus and he is asking me if I am treating my own body and how I see it in the way I would treat and see his body, I need to stop and think a bit.


And so I'm pondering, and asking questions, and listening, and implementing new habits and practices.  And I'm going to talk about those things here.  I set out to write one post about the changing way in which I am relating to my body, and my history with my body, and as I wrote I discovered that I have stories to tell.   For the next while I will share these stories and ponderings and questions in this space, and I'd like to invite you to journey with me as I talk about food, about my body, about being a temple, about weight and eating, about health and self-image, and coming into myself more fully.  You're welcome to come along, and I'd definitely love to hear your thoughts and interact with you about this.  Feel free to leave a comment, or to email me at the address in my profile.

Move. Learn. Eat.

Have you seen these videos yet?  I loved them.



MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.




EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Monday Musings

I started my day with a shower, and my first attempt at styling my new haircut on my own.  It probably won't be straight again until I return to the stylist, but I'm still quite happy with how it looks.

Then, as I ate a muffin and sat curled up in an armchair, I made a list - these are the things I need to do today and this week - the sort of list full of things like "run to the library to return the book that's due" and "finish cleaning up the house after yesterday's party". 

Somewhere around noon I glanced at my list and realized that I'd crossed more than half of my list of must be dones for the week off, and it was only noon.  On Monday. 

I'm not sure what that says about my life this week.

I called the temp agency I'm working for this morning, to check in.  They thanked me for calling and told me to hang tight, they'd be in touch. 

I'm quite enjoying the realities of house-sitting.  Of being upstairs, in a part of a house kissed by sun, instead of in a basement.

But I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with all my time this week if a call from work doesn't come.

This afternoon I finished the novel I'm reading, and I'm pondering the merits of schlepping myself to an 8:00 yoga class tonight - the first class I'll have taken in a month or so.

I'm considering the possibilities of food, and cooking, and throwing everything I have into lots of creative inspiration.  The trouble is that more than I love to cook, I love to feed people.  And just at this moment I don't really have anyone except myself to feed.  And there is only so much food that I can consume before I will begin to resemble a blimp.  (Did I mention that I haven't made it to a yoga class in a month or so?  Although, I did walk almost 9km at a steady pace on Saturday...)

So, I might do a bit of cooking, and, as I'm writing this, I'm thinking that I probably will go to that yoga class.

I'll probably tackle some writing for this space for this week (this is probably going to be the last week of You Ask, I Answer, unless more questions come in), and some reading that I've kind of been putting off in favor of more entertaining reads.  I might watch a little bit of television, or throw a movie in the dvd player while I work.  Or maybe I'll put on music and have my own little dance party in the kitchen.  Or not.  I'm working on being more and more unfettered, but I don't think I'm quite at kitchen dance party yet, even when I'm home alone!

I might even see if I can come up with some other ways to feed the part of my soul that craves creativity and inspiration.  As long as they're free.  Or very cheap.  Because did I mention that the temp agency hasn't hooked me up with another job yet?

It's Monday, and I'm rambling.  Nothing new there!  I'm off to tackle some more of the items on my list, and figure out what sorts of tasty treats I might create from the ingredients I still have on hand!

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 356

Today's Daily 5:

1. 28th birthday.  I'm one of a very few people who actually seems to like getting older.  I don't always love birthdays, but I like getting older.  28 seems special, particularly in this year where my one word is "heal" and in this year where so much has changed dramatically.  I'm excited to begin another year of life and see what it holds!
2. spending the whole day mostly puttering and cooking.  In the last 24 hours, pinterest recipes have been my inspiration, and I've made 4 recipes that I'd never made before (muffins, a brownie cake, mango sangria, and a salad)
3. two different bouquets of flowers from a family member and a friend (fun because I actually went out to buy flowers during a different errand this morning, and couldn't find any I like, so left it!)
4. an evening spent with nine wonderful friends, laughing, talking, and sharing food.
5. cuddling the baby daughter of a friend
6. lovely and creative gifts from several friends, thinks that reflect me, and/or our relationships
7. the beauty of a dishwasher for clean-up after a big party (have I mentioned that I like house-sitting?)
8. an evening where we could sit outside on the back patio at mom and dad's to enjoy our dinner
9. hugs from a whole bunch of people I love
10. an overwhelming number of loving facebook greetings and emails from friends far and near
11. calls and texts from the family members I usually spend the day with
12. mango sangria - tiny little bit of heaven!
13. brownie cake - also a bit of heaven
14. a break from cooking midafternoon to soak in a bath and read for a bit
15. listening to some new music sent by a friend while I cooked this morning.

You Ask, I Answer, Take 8

Today's question comes from Christianne again.  She asked:

What is your favorite food?

Hands down the answer to that is a Vietnamese dish that appears on the menus here as "bun".  There are good Vietnamese restaurants on almost every corner here in Calgary, and one of my favorites is about a 5 minute walk from my parent's place.  It's called Bow River Restaurant.  The variety of "bun" that I love is a bed of rice vermicelli, with lettuce, cucumber, shredded pickled carrots, bean sprouts, peanuts, grilled pork and spring rolls on top of it, and then doused with this "fish sauce" (more like a sweet tangy slighly spicy sauce with bits of chili and carrot in it) and a bit of hoisin sauce  It is SO good.  Best of all, a huge bowl, which will often feed me for two meals is usually prepared in about 10 minutes of waiting in a restaurant, and usually costs around $10.

In general, I like most ethnic food.  I draw the line at anything that at one point lived in water or swam.  I don't do fish or seafood.  I also don't do bugs.  If I eat out in Calgary and it's not fast food of some sort, it's almost always at an ethnic restaurant of some sort.  In the last several months I've had Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Korean, Italian and Mexican, and quite possibly a few others besides!

Chocolate and Berries

A couple weeks ago, while my parents were away, and I was housesitting and had the run of a full-sized, well-equipped kitchen, I decided to do a bit of culinary experimentation.  One of the things I made was chocolate dipped and filled strawberries, and another was chocolate filled raspberries.  They were pretty much fantastic.

I created an improvised double-boiler of sorts, and melted a combination of semi-sweet bakers chocolate and milk chocolate chips, then, after dipping the the cored strawberries, put the remainder of the chocolate into a ziploc bag, cut a corner off the bag, and used it as a piping bag of sorts.  I filled the space created by the removal of the strawberry cores, and the inside of the raspberries with the chocolate mixture, and then put them in the refrigerator for the chocolate to cool and set.  I served them with whipped cream, and they were fabulous!  Totally a treat that I would repeat, though finicky and just a bit time consuming.

Thinking about Food

It's Monday morning, the first full day of enjoying house-sitting for my folks, and I am still in bed, writing with my laptop propped on top of me, and me propped on top of various pillows.

I'm thinking about food.  Because today I need to make a grocery list.  I need to go through some recipes, make a grocery list, and then go to the grocery store. 

Fruit is going to be a major ingredient on my list, I think.  I want to make a giant fruit salad, and then stash it in the fridge to be consumed all week.

And I want asparagus, and maybe the ingredients to make chicken Caesar Salad.

And I think I'll pick out a couple of new recipes.  Maybe one baking one, and one or two main courses.

I'm craving the fruit, mostly.  And other raw vegetables, too.  I want multiple kinds of berries and nectarines, and maybe some mango. 

And I'm looking forward to turning on some great music and enjoying myself in the kitchen over the next couple of weeks.

How awesome to have that chance to creatively express myself in that way again!

Feeling Good

Having days where I feel good physically and emotionally have been a bit of a rarity lately, and are worth celebrating!

So, I'm sitting here waiting for my class to start, having a curly hair day, wearing a cute hat and handmade orange earrings with turquoise butterflies on them, and eating my favorite Vietnamese dish. Hooray for feeling good, and for blogging from my iPhone!

Random Things

A whole variety of random thoughts crossing my mind this morning:

• The clicking sound that high heels make is totally a thing that makes you feel empowered when you're wearing them.  It's a fun sound.  Until you're not the one wearing the shoes, and they're the only sound in an otherwise very peaceful hallway.  Then the sound is just annoying
• Getting books out of the university library to write term papers is going to be a pain this semester.  They're in the process of moving the entire library from one building to a new one.  Why, you ask, are they moving the library?  Well, it turns out that the old library tower is quite literally sinking into the ground under the weight of all those books thanks to some construction faults way back when.  The books that have been moved to the new building are on floors that students can't access yet.  You have to request them, and wait 24 hours for a librarian to retrieve them.  No easy trip to pick up 5 books this semester.
• Yoga.  I'm thinking about yoga.  I have hated exercise my whole life (with the possible exception of all those years of synchronized swimming.)  Yoga is the first thing I've ever encountered that not only do I not hate it, I actually like it.  I can make it through a 90 minute Hatha Yoga class without looking at my watch and wondering when it's going to be over.  This is a revelation for me - that there is something that will not only help with my stress level, but will help keep my body in good health, AND I can actually enjoy it!
• I will spend close to 4 hours on the bus today, transiting between school and various appointments.  I wish it was a bus reading circuit, but it's not.  I will however likely manage to do (or at least get a good start on) the ethics reading for next Monday's class while riding the bus for all of those hours.
• I am a back row student.  Always have been, probably always will be.  I like the quiet and the anonymity.  I like that there's no distraction of someone moving and making noise behind me.  It's just my preference.  Plus, if I'm not into the lecture, I can do something totally other than the work for that class far more unobtrusively than if I sat at the front.
• An oatmeal raisin cookie and a bottle of juice is a viable breakfast, right?  Because that's definitely what I had today.  I figure, it contains oatmeal and raisins - both normally part of the breakfast genre.  And fruit juice - lots of healthy stuff in there, right?

Do it Differently

I have long proclaimed New Year's Eve to be my least favorite holiday of the year.  All of the other big holidays tend to be about family, but New Year's is about partying with friends.  This is challenging when you don't particularly like to party, and the vast majority of your closest friends live far away.

I've spent most of the last 5 New Year's Eve's alone, and tonight won't be any different.

However, this year I've decided that lonely and melancholy can take a hike!

I'm quite looking forward to a quiet evening alone at mom and dad's (my parent's are going to a party - they have more of a social life than me - how funny is that!)

My plans for the evening involve a Top Chef marathon on the Food Network, maybe a funny movie or some Grey's Anatomy on DVD, Vietnamese take out, cozy pajamas, writing, reflecting, dreaming, a cup of tea, puttering around online, maybe painting my toenails, and maybe even a bubble bath.

I'm actually almost giddy with anticipation at the prospect of a nice evening in, alone, with a show I like being played in marathon format on the Food Network, and just chilling and having time to be peaceful and reflect and pray and plan for the year to come.

This is a day that finds me smiling, and not dreading the evening ahead.  I don't know when that happened, but I'm rather delighted to be doing it differently this year!

Stay tuned tonight for the final reverb 10 post, the final daily 5 post of 2010, and tomorrow for posts about my one little word, and plans for the year to come!

Reverb 10: Day 26 - Soul Food

Today's Reverb 10 Prompt:

December 26 – Soul Food

What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul?

(Author: Elise Marie Collins)

Anyone who reads my daily 5 lists on a regular basis knows that food has an amazing power to make me smile and that it often makes the list of things I'm thankful for.

That said, a couple of meals this year stand out.

I've had some pretty great food prepared by family members this year, including yesterday's turkey dinner.  (And I say that as someone who actually doesn't like turkey!)  I have a cousin who is training to be a chef, and the food he and his mom have been preparing for our family gatherings has been pretty incredible.  Yesterday's meal included appetizers, a soup course, a salad course, and then the main buffet dinner, and it was fantastic, particularly the spinach salad my cousin made.  So good.

I ate some "new" foods this year, including the "butter burger" from Culver's in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  My dad had been raving about that burger for a while, and I have to tell you, it was pretty tasty.

Some of my favorite food memories from this year involve friends, and the best of those happened during my trip to California.  One of the first things we did after I met my friend in the airport was go for lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  My friend introduced me to a dish called Mizithra, and, well, I may have fallen in love.  (So in love that I was absolutely delighted to discover that I can get that particular delicacy here in Calgary, and that I found a friend who would indulge my tastes and meet me at Old Spaghetti Factory here for dinner!)  In California I also ate the best steak dinner I've ever had, some fantastic authentic Mexican food, and what was quite possibly the best cheesecake I've ever eaten (and I say that as someone who doesn't like cheesecake very much!)  Oh, and I almost forgot, but I had these crazy good chicken bite things for breakfast on the way to Disneyland.  I can't remember the name of the fast food place where we got them, but they were TASTY, and I've wished since that I could find them here.

And then, there's the comfort food category.  For me, that includes Almond Joy bars, Vietnamese, Subway, and Macdonalds.  Almond Joy bars fall into a unique category, because they can't be purchased in the part of Canada that I live in, so any Almond Joy in my possession is either purchased when I travel, or sent/delivered to me by friends who live in the United States, or travel there for work or pleasure.  The other three categories are simple, because I order the same things every time.  At Vietnamese restaurants I always order "bun" - rice vermicelli with veggies, pork, and spring rolls.  At Subway, it's always a turkey breast sub on honey oat bread, with lettuce, cucumber, sub sauce, sweet onion sauce, and light mayo.  At Macdonalds, it's some combination of a cheeseburger, fries, and mcnuggets.  These are the foods I eat when I want familiar and happy.

I love that taste has the ability to make me smile, and I look forward to meals, particularly when I can share those meals with the people who are dear to me.  There's something unique and beautiful about sharing fabulous food and conversation with loved ones that I can't quite put words to, except to say that it is fabulous, and I long for more of those moments.

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 51

Today's Daily 5:

1. sunshine
2. a day in the mountains with mom's cousin, who I really enjoy
3. hiking up to Grassi Lakes and then appreciating the waterfall on the way back down
4. eating lunch at a tea shop I'd always wanted to eat at
5. driving home the back way
6. Vietnamese for dinner
7. sharing dinner with a long time friend
8. sarcasm and laughter over dinner and a walk and curling up in the basement at mom and dad's to keep talking and laughing
9. praying with a good friend too
10. laughing at an inadvertent discovery that a friend and I who bought the same scarf together were both wearing them in our separate cities today, and both thought of texting the other to tell them, but never quite got to it.  the random coincidence made me giggle.

Food Rules

I've talked before about my love of Jamie Oliver and cooking.  About the healthy changes in eating, cooking, and supplement taking I've been making over the last few years.  However, if you had told me two years ago that I would be the kind of person who would read an entire book (even if it was a smallish book) on the topic of simple ways to have a healthier diet, I'd have laughed at you.  Long and hard.  And then I was converted to healthier ways because of necessity when my own health failed me, and last week I actually read a whole book on the topic of healthier eating.  I read Michael Pollan's "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual"

I borrowed this one from the public library, but it's one I'll be ordering and adding to my own library.  I'm also, having whet my appetite on one of his shorter works, planning to read at least one more of Pollan's books on the topic of food - where our food comes from, and how to eat in a way that will make us healthier.  Pollan sums up his healthy eating philosophy in seven words.  "Eat food.  Not too much. Mostly Plants."  You can't get much simpler than that.  More than that, though, this particular book was funny in preventing it's wisdom.  It was broken into three sections of rules, 64 total, one for each sentence in Pollan's seven word philosophy of eating.  I'm including some of my favorite rules from each section below:

Eat Food:

• Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food
• Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce
• Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle
• Eat only foods that will eventually rot
• If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.
• It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car.
• It's not food if it's called by the same name in every language.  (Think Big Mac, Cheetos, or Pringles.)

Mostly Plants:

• Eat your colors
• Eat animals that have themselves eaten well
• Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk
• "The whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead."
• Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

Not too much:

• ...Eat less
• Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.
• Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it
• Don't get your fuel from the same place you car does.
• Treat treats as treats
• Cook
• Break the rules once in a while

Realistically, this was one of the most practical, doable, and basic books I've ever read on this topic.  (Well, it's the only book I've ever read on the topic, but I've read a whole lot of magazine articles and this is still the most basic compilation I've come across.)  More than that, though, what I appreciated was Pollan's sense of moderation.  He doesn't suggest that you make all 64 rules hard and fast - his advice is to pick some from each section and make those changes.  The explanations that go with each of the rules were simple, yet convincing, filling in the gaps of some of the less obvious things, and I actually felt like I walked away from this book with some new ideas for healthy eating, and knowing things about food that I didn't realize before.  Like I said at the beginning, though I initially borrowed this one from the public library, I'll be purchasing a copy ASAP for my own library.

My question is this - which of these rules do you like the best, or what "rules" of your own do you live by for healthy eating?

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 21

Today's Daily 5:

1. "Holding" the door for a pair of peacocks at the zoo this morning - they wander the grounds freely, and wanted to leave the building to join two others just outside, but weren't large enough to trip the sensors for the sliding doors, so I "held" the doors open for them as they slowly ambled through.
2. Watching the hippos eat breakfast - they're kind of like vacuum cleaners, but big, chubby, enormous, scary, and very funny vacuum cleaners that heave themselves into a bath once they're done cleaning.
3. sitting down on a bench to eat my own breakfast and having the zebras walk over to check me out
4. the laughter of small children
5. colobus monkeys and cotton top tamarins, with their tiny serious faces
6. the majesty of the butterfly garden, and it's warm, damp, sweet smelling air
7. the face of a little girl, hand over her mouth in delight when she spotted the gelato stall at the farmer's market
8. spinach and goat feta hummus
9. the smell of the rain
10. eating supper with relatives at my favorite Mexican restaurant

A Grown-Up Taste

It all started when I wrote a post about being well, and choosing to love anyway, even in the really hard moments.  I scheduled it to go live, and forgot about it.

Until the day it went live, and I discovered my own words were being used by God to convict me. 

That was new.

Until it happened again this week.  I wrote a post on the weekend, just some quick thoughts, forgot what day it was scheduled for, and, on the day it went live, spent the day eating the words I'd written.

I even wrote a post about eating my own words, complaining about being a grown-up, and having to make choices.

And then, with my own post about eating my words ringing in my ears, I made the mistake of chatting with a dear friend, and whining a little about this newfound method of God's voice and conviction speaking to me.  I sent her the post I'd written and her response was telling.

"Why do your words have to taste bad?"

umm... excuse me?

"If you write good words, and you eat them, why do they have to taste bad?"

I hate it when God borrows her voice.

I've been thinking a lot lately about "grown-up" tastes.  I love to cook, and these days I'm far more brave about the recipes I'll try.  I don't reject a recipe out of hand because it has one ingredient in it that I'm not necessarily fond of.  I learned to broaden my tastes because of compromise, and I learned compromise sharing a grocery budget with my roommate.  I can honestly tell you that these days I eat dishes with mushrooms, onions, and even cook regularly with ground beef because of her.  They are foods (well, not ground beef, that was just over-exposure as a kid) that to me, are grown up tastes.

My friend's word's resonated.

Why do your words have to taste bad?

I was whining about conviction.  She was pointing out that I pray regularly to hear God speak clearly, and I was now hearing him in my own writing, and complaining about it.  "Not like that, God.  You can't speak like that."

I talked in an earlier post about wrestling with the choices before me right now.  Choose life, not death.  Choose joy, not despair.  Choose healing, not festering wounds.  Choose forgiveness.  Choose to love even when it costs something.  About how those feel like really "grown-up" choices to have to deal with, and about how my default response is a favorite Meredith quote from Grey's Anatomy, in which in a rather stunned and panicked tone she cries out, "I'm an adult!  When did that happen, and how do I make it stop?"

But even in those moments I heard the echoes of scripture reminding me of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians, "When I was a child, I spoke and thought as a child.  But when I grew up, I put childish things away."

And I am struck, too, by these words from the author of Hebrews, "You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others.  Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God's word.  You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is right.  Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong."

Maybe it's time to develop a grown-up taste?  Maybe the words God offers don't have to taste bad when I need to eat them.  Maybe it's time to develop a taste for the word of God - his conviction, guidance and direction - in whatever form they come in.  Even if it means eating my own words.

Don't Tell Jamie Oliver

Nineteen times out of twenty, I'm devoted to the cause.  I think real people should cook real food.  Healthy food, made from real ingredients and not processed crap.  I definitely think people should be able to identify the difference between a potato and a tomato.  I eat real food, that I've generally prepared myself.  These days I'm even learning a bit about cutting back on or eliminating some of the white sugar and white flour in things.  I'm on board with the "Food Revolution"

But the twentieth time?  That time I just want Macdonalds.  And not one of their new salad options either.  I want a cheeseburger (no mustard, no onions, no pickles), and chicken mcnuggets, and french fries.  Preferably all consumed in the same artery clogging meal.  I still want chicken mcnuggets even after Jamie demonstrated how they're made and what they're made of last year on "The Food Revolution."

I had Macdonalds last night.  The very meal described above.  It motivated me all afternoon as I trekked across the city on foot and by transit, crossing errands off my list of things to do.  I plotted what I would order, and thought about how much I was going to enjoy it.  And I didn't even feel guilty about it (well, maybe a little guilty, but it was totally guilty pleasure!)

Today, I'll be back on the wagon.

Please don't tell Jamie.

(and, by the way, if you haven't watched Jamie's TED prize talk, you need to.  It's linked up above where I mention that I think it's important for kids to be able to identify vegetables correctly.)