Another Lesson on Self-Love Brought to Me by Ice Cream

Do you ever feel like you are over something, donezo, moved on, grown past it, and then...BOOM! all of a sudden there you are doing something you thought you were done with?!

That just happened to me.

I've had a really easy time with food for the past few weeks, and it's been refreshingly awesome. So awesome that I caught myself thinking, a couple of times, "maybe this is the new ME! maybe i'm healed FOREVER!"

hahaha little yogi...nothing is permanent :)

The rest of the time, by the way, my thoughts went like this: "This is amazing and I'm so so so grateful and I know this is just one part of the flow wave, but it's really beautiful, and I know it won't last but maybe I could ride this for a while, but I'll be ok when it ends, I can go with the flow..."

This afternoon I bought a bunch of my favorite protein bars on my way to work. In my car, I opened one and bit in and it was totally stale and disgusting and kind of smelled like play-doh. I finished my first bite, and then took another one to see if maybe I was....mistaken? I don't know.

I then decided I should not eat something that smells like children's modeling clay, so I opened another bar hoping it would be fresher. It was not. But I ate some of it because I kept hoping the taste would grow on me. And then I had this thought, "My entire food day is ruined. Even though I know logically that shit happens and sometimes you buy food that is stale, I know this is going to fuck up the rest of my day because I suck at dealing with shit when it doesn't go my way. Crap."

Self-fulfilling prophecy, much?!

So the rest of the day was ok....not much of a change in how I normally eat. But then when I got home, I went straight for the ice cream. (Why is it always ice cream with me?) I felt justified, like, I've been really great the past few weeks, so I can just do this thing that makes me feel like crap, because everyone has to feel like crap once in a while right?! I mean...I don't deserve for things to be going this well, so I might as well just get this crap-moment over with and then go back to feeling good tomorrow.

OH HEY, past behaviors of binge-diet-binge. Nice to see you again.

The good news is that I had one bowl of ice cream and I didn't stuff myself. The bad news is that I feel guilty about eating one bowl of ice cream. But this is the work, loving myself right here in this very moment of imperfection, and I'm doing my best at it. I'm thankful for this reminder that I might always have this food-wound, but it doesn't control my life the way that it used to. And I know that tomorrow really will feel good.

Return of the Blog!! ;)

Hi friends & blog followers!! I am so excited to back, talking about food, yoga, self-love, and all kinds of good stuff. I hope you'll join me in conversation about how we can all live healthier, happier, and more peaceful lives.

I knew I needed to get back to writing last week during a particularly overwhelming and stressful couple of days. As many of you know, I am crazy busy this fall as I complete my last year of school and continue to teach yoga and study astrology. Last week I felt totally exhausted and like my body was running on empty; my muscles and bones felt like sludge during my yoga practice, and my mood was a little low. This is nothing new for me, especially during this time of year. As the seasons transition from summer into fall and fall into winter, I notice a palpable change in my mood and energy.  It's really helpful for me to have some extra support systems already in place, before it gets too cold and too dark outside. Last winter, my blog was one of those support systems, and since I know I'm not the only one who feels a change in bodymindspirit during winter, I thought we could all benefit from this open space to talk and share.

I have to say, I am not very proud of how I handled my low levels of energy last week. My first reaction was to get really angry at my body for not performing the way I wanted it to, and to then freak out that focusing more on school this year means that my yoga practice (read: flexibility) is going to slip away. It felt like yoga was being taken away from me, and I did not like that. More than a few times I caught myself beating myself up, saying really mean things like "you aren't good enough" and "if you can't be perfectly awake and open and flexible in class then you're an embarrassment as a teacher." WHOA!! Now that I write it out, seems a bit extreme, no?!

Then, it suddenly hit me: YOGA IS FOR HEALING. My time on my mat should be a place where I can just be, where I don't have to do or teach or behave in any kind of way that doesn't feel natural. If you took one of my yoga classes last week after I had this remembrance, I shared it with you and reminded you to be as gentle as possible with yourself as you moved through your flow. Well, I want to extend that further and invite everyone, myself included, to be as gentle as possible to ourselves as we move through our lives. We might not be able to do it at every moment, but we can try. Change doesn't happen, well-being and health don't happen, when we are berating ourselves. We can't beat ourselves into feeling good, yet we still try to do it all the time. Instead, let's try and be a little more compassionate with who we are.

The answer is always self-love. Every. Single. Time. There's no way around it, so we might as well just start there.

Have a wonderful day, everyone, and I look forward to blogging with you again!!!
Lots of love,
Nina

Days 14-21: Self Sabotage

Every morning for the past week I've woken up and started off on a really good foot with food.
And every night I completely sabotage what was a healthy day of eating.
It's like I get to the end of the evening and I'm afraid to be done eating, so instead I stand in my kitchen eating ice cream and cereal.
I am trying to figure out what it is that I am afraid of, and I think I know.

When I was fifteen, I started Weight Watchers. I weighed 133 pounds, so I was not overweight. Not even close. But I had a couple friends who were doing it so I though I'd give it a shot too. No expectations, just curiosity.

I lost almost twenty pounds in two months, and I didn't have to work very hard. I don't remember being hungry or feeling deprived, only excited that every time I went to a meeting I got on the scale and had lost weight. It felt great.

What was not great was that people began to notice that I lost weight and started complimenting me. It was very confusing and I started to question what I must look like. I thought things like, "If people are telling me how great I look now, does that mean I was fat before?" I was not able to see myself clearly, and that is something I still struggle with: having a totally warped self perception. A lot of times I look in the mirror and am shocked not to see a fat person staring back at me because I walk around feeling enormous. Other times I look in the mirror and am totally disgusted by certain parts of my body. It's really hard for me to know what is real and what is my imagination.

After losing the twenty pounds in only two months, I went to New York with my family for Thanksgiving. It was my first time not being in my routine or eating my normal diet foods (it was my first time not in control) and it lead to my first binge. I remember going to Trader Joe's with my mom's cousin,  buying a box of chocolate chip cookies, and eating almost the entire thing that night. I didn't have the self awareness then that I do now, and I remember not really understanding what was happening. Instead, it felt like the binge was just happening to me, rather than me actively doing it.

This was the beginning of about a year of dieting and bingeing, over and over and over. Then I gained a bunch of weight, and lost it, and gained it again, and lost it again....I've been doing this ever since. I've had highs and lows, and years where I felt more in control than others, but I am always struggling with food.

So, when I get to the end of the day, and I've been very healthy and mindful (not restrictive) all day, it often feels like I'm depriving myself even though I am not. The lines are blurry and I think I go back to that place of being fifteen and on a diet, so by the end of the night I eat out of fear. Fear that if I lose weight, it will all happen again: the compliments, the body confusion, the bingeing and dieting cycle.

But I am not fifteen anymore. And I really want to move past this. I want to be able to eat healthfully and not feel the need to sabotage my day of eating mindfully. So I'm just putting it out there, asking the universe to please help me to do this. It would be awesome if I could go to bed feeling content and satisfied, instead of either deprived or ashamed. Isn't there an in between?

I hope the next 80 days can lead me to that balance and I can stop living in old patterns from ten years ago. So here's to that!

Days 9-13: Mouth-Eating

I've been doing a lot of mouth-eating lately.

What is mouth-eating? It's what I call eating when you aren't hungry, but your mouth really wants to taste something.

Stomach-eating is eating when your body needs food.

I mouth-eat all the time and it's a tough habit to break!

Today after lunch, my stomach was full, but I convinced myself that I needed something else. My meal did not feel complete even though my hunger was satiated.

I'm just sharing this as an observation and wanted to put the intention out in the the universe, in writing, to the blogosphere, that I'd like to stop mouth-eating so much and stomach-eat more.

Ommmmmmm

Days 5-8: Ego Love

I've been pondering the way that ego shows up in my life, particularly in my food/body/love life, and I'm here to say that I officially do not want to dissolve my ego.

I think I've been over-saturated with this philosophical notion that ego = bad. Ego = superficial.
But what if ego just equals our drive to achieve personal goals, values, hard work, dedication, overcoming fear, and moving into the life we want to create? This is my new definition of ego.

The past two weeks I've been really lazy. I think I was mostly just exhausted from the end of my semester (yay!), but I also thought it would be interesting to do a little experiment to see just how laid-back and un-perfectionist I could get. What I realized in the process is that ego has a purpose, and if we use it wisely rather than get carried away with it, our egos can serve us in a beautiful way.

The first few days of my little experiment felt really great and very necessary. I needed to not "do" for a while, and it was good for me to have down time to decompress from my semester. I watched a bunch of crap reality TV, ate a lot (sans sugar, of course!), napped, allowed myself to slack off from my asana practice a bit, and embodied the nature and life of a sloth.

But a few days ago, it started to feel like my chilled-out-ness was no longer serving my best interest. I missed working hard at something and feeling like I was actively pursuing my goals. One of my goals is to feel confident and comfortable in a bikini this summer. I noticed that during this period of down time, I started to feel really guilty about that goal. I felt like it was too superficial and was ashamed that something external, like feeling good about my body, was of importance to me. Aren't I only supposed to care about what's on the inside? Aren't I supposed to be this yoga teacher who doesn't care at all about what's on the surface, and only about what's underneath and on a deeper level?

No. I don't think so, anyway.

As I pondered some more, I thought about all the ways in which my goal-driven nature and go-for-my-dreams attitude has been a really amazing thing in my life. Without it, I would not be a yoga teacher. I would not be almost done with grad school. I would not have dared to start my first 100 Days, or be here now, in the beginning of this next round. I'm a make-shit-happen kind of gal, and it's something I like about myself.

It's ok that I want to feel good about my body in a bathing suit. It doesn't mean I'm shallow. It's not about what my body actually looks like, anyway, but how I feel about it. And I believe that feeling good is a marker that we are moving in the right direction. And I also believe that working towards and achieving a goal is a perfectly ok thing to feel proud of, especially if I can do it with awareness and curiosity.

So, here's to embracing my ego and yours. :) Tell me...how has your ego helped you??

Days 3 & 4: On NOT Dieting

It is a strange, strange thing to consciously choose each day not to diet, when it's what I've been used to for so long.

The past few months are really the first time in my life since I was 15 that I've been working on loving myself rather than changing myself.

Sometimes it's really hard. Yesterday I spent some time really thinking about joining Weight Watchers so that I could lose 10 pounds and feel skinny and happy for bikini season. But there is something in me now that knows that only leads to deprivation, highs and lows, and eventual weight gain.

So...what is there to do instead of diet?? Nothing, really. Meditate. Yoga. Spiritual practice. Mindful eating. Enjoying my life. No Drama.

But...I admit, sometimes I long for the drama!

I figured out the food stuff during the first 100 Days, which foods feel good to eat, which don't, etc., and I'm noticing that this round is more about me just being with myself and feeling content with what is. Just continuing to trudge along without sugar and feel happy in this moment because this moment is complete and beautiful on it's own.

Ahhhh....deep sigh.  

Day 2: Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia!

I've been making chia seed pudding for a while now, and I finally found the perfect combo of ingredients for a sweet and sugar-free treat!

I wish I had a picture to share, but it was so delicious that I ate it all up before I thought to grab my camera.

Here's what you need:

1/2 cup almond milk - (or whatever kind of nut milk you prefer)
2 tablespoons raw chia seeds (you can get these at any health food store or Whole Foods; I buy Navitas)
1 tablespoon organic cocoa powder
1/2 tablespoon maple syrup (all natural, not Aunt Jemima's!!!)

Mix the almond milk, chia seeds, and cocoa powder in a container that has a lid. Stir it until most of the cocoa powder has been absorbed.
Cover it with the lid, and refrigerate overnight.
Before you eat it the next day, stir in the maple syrup (you could try agave or honey, too, but I like this the best).

Enjoy!!

Today feels great and I've been so moved by the intentions of all the other ladies who are doing this with me. We have a great group and who knows, maybe this will become something I lead, or write a book about...dreaming of possibilities.

Day One

I can't believe I just wrote "Day One" again.

But today felt like putting my hand into a worn glove that fit perfectly. There is so much relief in knowing that I'm doing this, because I know it leads to freedom.

My day was pretty boring food-wise, and since it was my day off, I spent most of my time sitting on my couch :)

I don't think I would have been able to do this a few months ago. No, a few months ago I would have been mentally beating myself up for not doing anything, for accomplishing nothing, for lacking in productivity. Part of learning to be more compassionate towards myself is allowing myself to have a "day of nothing" once in a while. I watched crap TV, I made some chocolate chia seed pudding, I drank coffee and green juice, and I started reading The Ramayana (one of my summer goals; it's almost 700 pages, ahhh!) So it's not exactly that nothing happened, it's that I didn't do anything with a goal in mind. I just did what I felt like doing in the moment.

This is so new for me. And, when half an hour before the yoga class I'd planned to go to this evening something else suddenly came up, I didn't sweat it. Shit happens. Life happens. This is where the real practice really is. So what if my back feels a little tight tomorrow and I can't do the splits every single time I practice. WHO CARES?!???

It's time for me to let go of my attachment to this idea that crazy poses = I'm good enough. I am already good enough, and so are you. And I got here by feeling my feelings, accepting everything as is, and being honest with myself about my issues.

I think Rumi says it best: "The wound is the place where the light enters you."

Welcome, light..... ;)

On the Eve of the Next 100 Days...

Hi Blog Family!

It's been less than a month since I've written but it feels like much longer than that. A lot has happened in the past few weeks, and here I am about to start my next 100 Days of vegan, sugar free living.

Since my last entry, I have totally backslided into my sugar addiction. It started slow: there was one day where I ate a cookie. Then I ate some chocolate on another day. Then i ate ice cream later that week. And this turned into me eating ice cream, plus cookies, plus other sweets all in one meal (and not really eating, but more stuffing) and feeling sick (physically & mentally) after. It is obvious to me that sugar is as real as any other addiction. In fact, last night I went on a total sugar binge and have felt "hungover" all day. I think back to when I was doing my first 100 Days, and how much easier my life felt. So that's what's inspired me to do it again.

The past few weeks have given me insight into how truly hard any addict must work in order to stay sober. I think one of the things that allowed me to just sort of forget about going to OA or being abstinent is that the idea of giving up sugar for the rest of my life terrifies me. Like, that is a huge fucking task. I finally understand why the motto of 12 step programs is "one day at a time."

So, I will be going about it in just that way, one day at a time. If I think about the possibility of me never eating sugar again, I will freak out and go on a sugar bender, guaranteed. So my task is to practice presence, and take it all as it comes. I'm excited to do this again and see how it unfolds!

I've also opened this up for others to join in, so there will hopefully be some guest blogging going on. If you want to join in, let me know! We will begin tomorrow. And you don't have to choose sugar to abstain from, you can choose anything that you'd like to experiment with cutting out of your life.

Despite feeling some disappointment about the past few weeks, I am happy to report that I've noticed one change that has stayed with me: being compassionate to myself. Not always, but more often. THIS IS HUGE. Also, my hangover today (read: dizziness) taught me something about my yoga practice. I was reminded as I went through my poses this morning just how healing and transformative yoga is, if we allow it. I've spent a lot of time in the past few months obsessing about advanced poses, rather than allowing myself to experience the beauty of yoga as a vehicle for self-love and enlightenment. Oops!

I can't wait for tomorrow & thank you all for following me on this journey!

Updates!

Thank you to everyone who's checked in with me since my last post. Your care and concern remind me that I am loved by so many amazing people.

Since then, I've started going to a weekly OA meeting. It feels like there's so much information, so I'm just taking it one day at a time. As many of you know, the 12 steps are based upon surrendering to god/universe/spirit/higher power, and although I've always been a spiritual person, I feel this relationship with something greater than myself beginning to deepen.

The other day I made something called a "god box." This was actually a suggestion from another book on spirituality and manifestation that I'm reading, but it blends with what I'm learning in OA. I took an old box that I've had lying around for a while, and decided that I would begin a practice of writing down on little slips of paper things that I want to let go of having control over (or thinking that I have control over), and instead allow the universe to handle. For example: I don't really want to be in charge of healing from food. I'd really like it if the spirit above could just do that for me.

It feels freeing to realize that I don't have to do everything myself and that I am protected by the universe. The picture to the right is of my god box, and I always leave it open a crack so that the divine forces can get in and see what I've written.

Switching gears a little, I wanted to share an easy recipe that I made to bring to a potluck baby shower (Hi, Deb!) today. I made a quinoa taboule, and it's really healthy and delicious. First I cooked about one and a quarter cups of quinoa, and then I let it cool. Later on I added about two tablespoons of olive oil, lemon juice from one lemon, diced tomatoes, scallions, and pine nuts. Voila!

Addiction is a Nine Letter Word

Every day since the 100 Days have been up, I've had the following thought: "Well, now my commitment is over so I'm allowed to eat whatever I want. No one is watching me anymore, or rooting for me, so maybe I'll just go back to eating all the foods I used to eat."

Each day this week it's been harder and harder for me to resist sugar and today I finally caved. And this taught/confirmed two things for me: 1. that I am a food addict, and 2. that I must really care about what others think because without the external support or the feeling that I'm accountable to others in my food choices, I don't make healthy choices. Oh hi, more work on self-love. Will I ever be done with you??

I ate coconut macaroons. It was very reminiscent of the ice cream incident back in December. They were delicious and I felt like shit eating them. I also could not stop eating them. I felt compulsive, I felt gross, I felt out of control, and I felt like I was relapsing. I felt like an alcoholic having a glass of wine. It's probably time to really commit to OA.

So...I guess now that the 100 Days are up, I have to commit to abstaining from sugar because I'm an addict and because I want my life to be happy, not because anyone is cheering me on or because I come up with an arbitrary number of days to try this abstinence thing on for size. I already did those things, so now's the real deal. I guess this is where the real work starts....

WHOA.

100 Day Follow-Up

Hey Friends,

I've been feeling like now that my 100 Days are up, I can technically eat or drink whatever I want, although I haven't really been interested in changing my diet. I did feel like a rebel badass ordering a diet coke last night, which obviously tells you just how tame I am. Nice girls for the win.

It was so sweet and delicious. But since I'm pretty sure diet coke is cancer in a bottle, this will not be a regular thing.

There is something I want to clarify from my last blog post. I wrote that I feel healed and like I've broken away from my emotional eating binges and cycles, and that is true. What I want to make clear, though, is that although my behavior has changed, a lot of my thoughts are still the same. The difference is that I don't act on them anymore. So it's not that I all of a sudden love my body one hundred percent of the time or feel confident and healthy at every moment. Actually, this past weekend, my "you should go on a diet" voice was ever present and I had to work really hard not to listen to it. I let it be there, I acknowledged it's presence, and then I did nothing. And that is the real change that these 100 days have given me. The thoughts are still there, I just don't give in to them.

I don't want to be one of those people who swears that BOOM! YOU CAN BE DONE WITH ALL THIS FOOD/BODY DRAMA FOR GOOD! because that is not what my experience has been. This truly is a process of recovery, and I'm still very much in it.

Next topic: I'm still going back and forth about eating frozen yogurt. And last night as I drifted off to sleep I was dreaming of cheese. Literally.

I have a few fears and hesitations about going from vegan to vegetarian. The main one is that if I do start eating some dairy, I can no longer say I'm a vegan and then people might serve me cheesy things that I don't really want to eat. The control freak in me would die.

The other concern is that I may get sick. After no animal products in my body for over three months, I'm a little scared of what a milk product would do to my stomach.

I'm sure I'll figure these things out along the way...just wanted to share where I'm at with my readers.

DAY 100!!!!!!!!

I made it!!!! Day 100 is here!

Yesterday I was having lunch with my wisest friend (yes, KC, of course you are my wisest friend) and I remarked how I've become someone I'd never thought I'd become. Let me explain:

For years and years I have been reading self-help books, books about food addiction and emotional eating, books about healing, wellness, yoga....I have a book case which rivals the self-help section of Barnes and Noble. And I was starting to feel really angry, because it seemed like the more that I read about promises to break free from food addiction and emotional eating, the more I struggled. I felt like I was being lied to and that freedom was not possible.

But now I'm one of those people who believes that it is. I somehow paved my own path, dug myself through, and got to the other side of this battle.

And it's not that I've landed somewhere. Instead, it is a constant process of trust, self-love, and open awareness. Now when I eat more than I'd like or when I forget to breathe and forget that I am loved, I see it for what it is: forgetting. I don't have to freak out because I know I can always come back to center. The past 100 days have taught me that I am ok. That I don't have to use food to deal with life.

The 100 Days may be over, but I'm going to continue blogging about my relationship with food (which is really just a mirror for my relationship with life itself). I feel a bit underwhelmed, and it's a good thing. If this had been a 100-day diet with a goal weight in mind, there would be the high of getting "there," or the let-down of not reaching it by today. But that isn't what this is about, and it does a feel a little anti-climactic. It's calming to be free from the drama of it all though, and I am so grateful.

Thank you, readers, for all of the support over the past few months. This blog would not exist without you, and my journey wouldn't be the same if I couldn't share it with my friends.

Now, on to the rest of my life....

Day 97: On Trusting My Body

It's Day 97 and I feel fantastic!

Major shifts have been happening, and I feel like I've settled into a new place with my eating. It's amazing what will happen when you let go of the reins, soften the hold, and let yourself go with the flow. Eating has felt much lighter these days, I haven't been thinking about food as much, and it feels as though I've come into a new and easy rhythm in my life.

I lost track of days this week; I knew I was somewhere in the nineties but didn't know I was this close to Day 100 until I counted this morning.

Since I'm coming close to the end (of the counting, not the new way of eating), here's what I really want to say: doing this has changed my life. Not just a little, but in enormous, earth-shaking, tide-shifting, mountain-moving kinds of ways.

I NEVER (EVER, EVER) thought I would allow myself to go with the flow with eating. Remember that post I wrote earlier, about how intuitive eating is bullshit, and I need to be on top of my calories, etc? Somehow I've bridged the gap between being on a restrictive diet and having total freedom, and listening to my body is a lot less daunting these days. I am learning to trust my body's signals, and I cannot describe what it feels like to actually honor the messages that I get about being hungry and full. I have spent YEARS ignoring those signals, and to finally hear them and know that I can trust them is something I never thought I'd be doing. Incredible.

This also makes me realize how little I trusted my body in the first place. What amazes me is now that I'm allowing myself to eat when I'm hungry, exploring why I might be interested in eating when I'm not, I find that I don't have an especially large appetite. I used to think that I fell under the category of people who were insatiable, nothing was ever enough, I could eat and never be satisfied, but that has changed. Maybe it's partly due to the fact that I've stopped putting processed and addictive chemicals (read: SUGAR) into my system, but I believe the real reason for this is that I'm finally relaxed about food. Once I let go of the guilt, and instead began to look at this as a process of self-inquiry, everything changed. Oh yeah, and that whole part about self-love helped a lot too.

A lot of you are reading this blog because you care about me and want to support me, which is amazing. But there are others of you reading who I know are in a place quite similar to the one I began in almost 100 days ago. To you, I say this: you can heal your relationship with food. Your journey will be different than mine, but I truly believe that the healing and peace that I've found is available if you set out to find it.

Om shanti....on to Day 100!

Day 88: Effort and Ease

Sometimes, I like to kick it old school. With Pantanjali and The Yoga Sutras.

Yesterday while I was in the shower (I always come up with my themes for class either in the shower, in my car, or in my sleep), I heard a strong voice saying, "Sthira sukham asanam."

Translation: My connection to the earth (or my body) is joyful.

Another translation: The posture should be steady, comfortable, and grounded in joy.

This balance is something I'm constantly reaching for, on my yoga mat, and everywhere else. I saw it show up for me in my eating this week, so no wonder I felt compelled to share these words in my teaching.

Now that I'm trying to go with the flow a little bit more in my eating, I see the need to balance my grounding commitment to health (steadiness/sthira) and the lightness and ease (sukkha) I want to feel in body, mind, and spirit. I want to be strong and remain focused in my effort to eat a clean diet, but I also want to enjoy my life and allow flexibility to be present.

This might sound easy and light-hearted....but it's not, at least not for me. I tend to go in one direction, toward sthira. I'm pretty much all earth element over here, so I can get really heavy sometimes. Sometimes I find that I'm over-grounded, which can show up in my tendency to pull back, restrict, and think that I have to be 100% perfect and deliberate in my food choices all the time. Not very much room for ease.

It's been fun watching it all unfold this week. I see moments where I really do need to be strong and stick to my guns, and other moments when I need to chill the fuck out and relax.

What about you? Where could you be a little more steady, and where could you invite more flow in?

Have a lovely weekend, everyone! :)

Day 87: Inviting in Flow

This week has been significantly better than last. Partly because of my blog prayer, but mostly because of my awesome and insightful therapist.

On Monday, when I came in to see her freaking out about what had been going on with food the past 10 days, she said this to me: "You are in the flow in every other area of your life, so why don't you let yourself be in the flow with food? You obviously are capable, since you do it everywhere else."

Um, yeah. She is right. I often times allow myself to be flexible and easy-going in every other facet of my life, but when it comes to eating, I am a control freak. I am afraid of not being in charge, for fear that if I'm not super strict and restrictive with myself, all hell will break loose and I will go off the deep end and eat and eat and eat.

So this week was an experiment in riding the waves. If I was hungry, I ate something. If I wasn't, I tried not to. But I've been emotionally eating pretty much since birth, so it's going to take a while to stop that behavior. And I'm starting to feel ok with knowing that it will take time, which is a big step forward in itself. Not here for a quick fix. I already did the easy part, which is abstaining from foods that don't feel right for me. Now is the hard part, which I think brought on my frustrations last week: actually changing the patterns and behaviors that are so ingrained in me, yet don't really serve me anymore.

I should've known this was coming, because things had gotten way too easy and boring. Yet I was still blindsided by this internal upheaval. So now the task is to let go, allow myself to flow with the natural rhythms of my hunger, and trust my body. YIKES.

Day 83: Blog Prayer for Myself

I gained three pounds this week.

I was hoping that this weird funk I'm in would pass and I could avoid writing about it on here, so as to seem like this path of healing I'm carving out is an almost perfect solution to eating issues, but that's just not the case. And if there's one thing about this blog that I hold sacred in my heart, it's my promise to be completely honest about what I'm going through.

In the past week I've felt like a failure, a sham, to my blog and this community, because controlling the amount of food I eat suddenly got really hard. I usually cap myself off at a certain number of calories each day, but that didn't happen this week, and I don't know why. Every day felt like groundhog day, where I was trapped in the same cycle.

Here's how it went:

Wake up: feel like crap about what I ate the night before (I should clarify: I'm not bingeing. I'm just eating more than I need to, more than feels good for my body).

Mid-morning: Start to feel a little better, tell myself that it's all going to be ok, and that today is a new day and a fresh start.

Mid-afternoon: Feel pretty good about how the day is going and like I'm getting back in my groove.

Evening: Still feeling good and hopeful that I won't overeat before I go to bed.

Late-evening: Eat a couple extra snacks/meals, and go bed feeling full and guilty.

And this happened for seven days in a row, literally.

I'm writing this blog entry more for me than anyone else, in the hopes that today is different. In the hopes that I can somehow transcend this pattern that's been showing up for me the past seven days. This blog is my prayer that things will turn around today and feel easier and lighter. I do not have an answer for why this happened, and maybe an explanation isn't even relevant. What matters is this: this blog and journey is not about a straight line to success. It's about trying to be really strong when it would be easier to go back into old patterns of conditioning and behavior.

On Saturday I walked by a mirror and was genuinely surprised not to see a fat person looking back at me. Say what? Yes, for all my wisdom and work I am doing to love myself and heal my relationship with food, I still have those kinds of moments.

This week has been really positive for other reasons: I had some extra time off and was able to practice yoga more, I also meditated quite a bit, I got to spend time with people I love, and I did some soul-work which is helping me to feel more open to the possibility of love in my life. I don't know why the food piece wasn't there, but it just wasn't.

Something else worth mentioning: when I am struggling, it helps me to reach out. This is why I am so public on facebook and so transparent in this blog. I need to know that there are other people out there who are struggling too, because we are all in this together. When I'm in a moment where I feel like the universe is not on my side or like I'm a total fuck-up, I need to talk about it. Because otherwise, I just turn it round and round in my mind, and that's where it can get overwhelming and feel out of control.

So, here's to today. I really hope this cloud of heaviness lifts and I can get back to feeling light and alive. Maybe if all my readers commit to their own lightness and ease, I'll feel the collective sigh and somehow find my way back...thank you everyone for your continued love and support!

Shake the dust from Anis Mojgani on Vimeo.

Days 79-82: The Home Stretch!

I am daydreaming about eating frozen yogurt.

I haven't acted yet, but it's getting me thinking about what my food habits will be like post 100 Days. I've got 18 to go, so I'm really in the home stretch!

Here's what's not going to change: minimal sugar. I say minimal because eating zero sugar is nearly impossible. I've already decided that Clif Bars are allowed to be my one sugar (they have organic cane sugar) of the day, because they help me out when I'm running all over to my classes and don't always have time (or the desire) to prepare food.

I'm on the fence about dairy. My body feels really good being vegan, and I don't like the idea of consuming the milk of another animal, but frozen yogurt calls to me. Maybe by the time I get to Day 101 I'll be more clear on this. Something to look into: does the plain tart froyo at Yogi Berri have sugar?

Something else I want to keep doing: Eating a VARIETY of foods. It can be very easy when you're on any kind of diet or food plan to wind up eating the same things everyday. In fact, I found myself in that kind of rut this week. So I'm starting to pay attention to the foods I eat and why I eat them: habit, or hunger?

Something I want to change: Less coffee. I do enjoy coffee...actually I really enjoy coffee. It's a sweet moment in my day when I get to just drink a warm cup of creamy coffee and not be doing anything else. But lately I've noticed my tendency to use coffee in the same way that I used to use sugar: for comfort. When I see that happening, it is a moment to ask myself what I'm really in need of, what uncomfortable feeling am I trying to avoid feeling, and can I just sit with it until it passes, as it always does. More confirmation that the food itself is not the problem, but it's my behavior of using food to numb/comfort/avoid that is the real issue.

On Day 2 of this journey, a friend said to me, "I can't wait to be there on Day 101!!!" But I don't think it's going to be the all out binge fest (although that is certainly tempting) that she was joking about. I think it's going to be just another day of me working on my relationships with food and myself, not eating what doesn't work for me and eating what does, but more importantly, being open to any changes that come my way and to life itself. Cause that's what this is all about anyway...

Days 77 & 78: On Why Maintenance is Harder than First Steps

I am finally beginning to move out of this rut I've been in for the last week. Hallelujah!

You know when you think you're over something, past it, healed, and then BOOM all your old shit is suddenly in your face again? That is what the past 7 days have been like for me. Big UGH.

Here's what I think happened: I got lazy. I got through the initial changes of this new way of eating, lost weight, felt better, and then I stopped doing a lot of the things that brought me to this better feeling state in the first place. I lost my momentum. For example: eating in solitude, without distraction, and chewing slowly. I haven't done it since the first few weeks of this blog. Oops.

Why is the upkeep so challenging? I think it's part of human nature. It's hard to constantly be in the fire, always strong and always committed. Willpower is finite, and exhaustion happens. The task then becomes to allow these little hiccups to be seen as just that: hiccups. I am not a failure just because I overate one night this week. (My inner critic wants me to think I am, and that I'm a disgrace to my blog, but she's wrong). Now that I feel like I'm moving in the right direction again, I remember why I made the choice to do this project in the first place: because when I eat foods that I know won't trigger me, I can stop thinking about food and my body all the time. I have more space to just be. And what a breath of fresh air that is.

Thank you to everyone this week who reminded me that most of the stories I have going on in my head are nonsense. I can be so serious sometimes, and your love and lightness reminded me that I'm allowed to go easy on myself.

Happy Wednesday, everyone! :)

Days 70-76: Mantra for Imperfection

My inner perfectionist was ROARING this week. She is always there, and I've been doing a pretty good job lately at keeping her at bay, but she managed to come out kicking and screaming and knock me over. I spent the duration of a 90 minute yoga class yesterday angry at how imperfect I am. I don't think I breathed one full ujayii breath during that practice. UGH.

But at least I know that most of what she says is just a story. Nonsense.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how making positive changes, and in my case, losing weight and feeling better about myself, comes with it's own set of challenges. First of all, every feeling or emotion that I have in addition to the energy that I sense from different people or experiences, I now feel on a much stronger level. I'm not using food to create numbness in myself anymore, which is amazing, but the flip side is that it sometimes feels like my emotions or moods are swallowing me. For example, last Wednesday it was a rainy day and I didn't have much going on, so I stayed home. I wasn't productive and didn't do the work I needed to do, or practice yoga, or read, and I started to feel the rainy blues pretty strongly. It was hard. Enter this voice: "you're lazy, you're not accomplishing anything, you suck, people won't like you if you aren't always doing or producing something..."

I'm choosing to see this experience and the emergence of my inner critic as growth. I've stuck with my new eating plan for 76 days, and we all know that most of the time, love and happiness and ease are born from a really shitty experience, a struggle. Maybe my inner perfectionist is here to take me to the next level of self-love. Part of my own personal practice, in food and in life, is being ok with the cyclical nature of things. Most paths are not linear, and it's natural to go in and out, up and down.

So I want to start this week off reminding myself (and my readers) that I am never going to get "there." Every time I get closer to what I think the perfect me looks like, she moves farther away. Because she's a fucking illusion and there will always be imperfection, mistakes, fuck-ups, hiccups, dumb moments, and life is not a straight shot to any destination. It's a weird and sometimes ugly winding road where we sometimes get lost or repeat the same part of the circle over and over until we figure out that it doesn't matter where we're going in the first place (because truthfully, there's no way we can know that information anyway).

New mantra: I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. Repeat, repeat, repeat...

Day 69: Family......

The further and further I go down this path of inquiry and self-awareness, the easier it becomes to be compassionate and loving toward myself.

This weekend I went to New York to celebrate my grandma's 85th (!) birthday. A few days before the dinner, I found myself getting totally anxious about said dinner. Ever heard of the term "undifferentiated family ego mass?" These words kept ringing in my ears all week. It means what it sounds like....when your family dynamics pretty much become their own entity and you can't separate from the patterns you've been participating in since childhood. Yikes.

I love my family. Everyone is very loving, but also very loud, blunt, opinionated, and INTENSE. Not so easy for a quiet and pretty sensitive person like myself, especially when I was a kid. At dinner, I started having memories of being at family (read: food) functions, and just stuffing my face. Totally overeating and not understanding why. But now I get it: it was an escape from the intensity of it all. Now that I see it for what it was, I don't have to feel angry or frustrated, or like I'm intrinsically flawed. I was a little kid, and I coped the best way that I could at the time.

It was really tempting to just break my 100 Day guidelines on Saturday night, say "Fuck It," and binge out on Italian food. But I am so committed to this blog and to you readers, and also to seeing what's on the other side of reacting and covering up my emotions with food. So instead, I just sat there and took it all in. I noticed how I felt when everyone was eating their first course and I was still waiting for my main dish (uncomfortable). I noticed how I felt when people started to get into a debate about something (like I wanted to hide). I noticed how I felt about biting into a breadstick that I immediately realized was not vegan (like I fucked up). I noticed how I felt about not being able to control that we were eating very late at night and that eating this meal was going to mean me going over my preferred calorie amount for that day (annoyed and bothered).

But the best part was me realizing how flexible I've become. Very different from my meltdowns in high school when I was on weight watchers (oh yes there will be another blog on that) and literally went into hysterical cry-fests if I was not in control of my food for even just one moment.

I had some bread, shared some appetizers, and ate had half of my meal. Not perfect and more calories than I would've liked, but it didn't send me into a raging binge. And in my head, I said things like, "It's ok. You are a divine light, and you are still beautiful no matter how much you eat." I know that abstaining from sugar and going vegan seems so strict, but it has somehow shown me the way to being more flexible and more gentle with myself, and I am so grateful.

Now I'm home, and I can go back to my normal routine and foods that I feel really good about eating. It might just sound like a family dinner, which isn't that big of a deal, but it is actually pretty amazing that I broke away from my "undifferentiated family ego mass," as well as my own habit of bingeing, and just ate a regular meal. AWESOME.

I've Lost Track of Days....

Isn't it amazing how one minute we can feel on top the world, perfect, like an expression of divine love and bliss....and the next, we can feel small, like crap, and less than worthy of all the goodness that there is?

I had one of those moments this afternoon. After a week or so of feeling fantastic about myself, my life, and my body, today I had a wave of BLAH. BLAH feels like me forgetting that I'm a participant in this perfectly imperfect playground called life, that the universe has my back, and that the ebbs are just as important as the flows. Deep breath.

So many people have asked me if I'm still going strong on my 100 days, and I'm happy to report that I am! Even through all my travel and crazy schedule this month, I've managed to stand strong in my new food habits. Sure, a tiny amount of sugar did happen, but the point of this is not to be rigid and harsh with myself, it's to create guidelines that serve me best and allow me to remember my wholeness.

The truth is that I will forget. And then I will remember. And that's the nature of the mind, and it's ok. I'm so lucky to have all of my friends and family to remind me of why I'm writing this blog in the first place: to encourage all of us to stand in our own power, to face our demons, and to live in the sunshine. Wow, I sound like a freaky-deaky new age yoga lady :)

Thank you all so much for the support and for reading! The blog hiatus is over and I'm happy to say that I'm still going strong!

Days 45-50: DAY FIFTY - Whoa!

Today is Day 50! I can hardly believe it!

My life has become a whirlwind of teaching, friends, school, travel, and reflection. I can truly say that being grounded and abstinent around food makes all the chaos (good chaos) much easier to keep up with.

This weekend I spent time in New York just visiting with my grandma, taking yoga classes at Jivamukti, and chilling out. I really enjoyed the time I spent on my bus rides to and from the city because I rarely have a block of time to myself to just relax, read, listen to music, and daydream.

While I was in New York, I thought a lot about how there's no way I'm going to stop what I'm doing after Day 100. I can honestly say that abstaining from sugar and other trigger foods has radically changed my life. I am so much happier now, and my former mantra, "Everything in my life is perfect and wonderful except for my relationship with food, which fucking sucks and makes the rest of the good stuff not as good as it could be if I could just get it together with eating and love myself...." is gone. Truly incredible.

I also spent a lot of time reflecting on the evolution of my eating habits over the last 50 days. Where I feel myself moving towards is a really healthy and whole place, where I eat for nourishment and don't bother putting things in my body that don't really have a purpose. I know this is not for everyone. I know so many people who can eat a piece of chocolate just because it's tasty and pleasant, and if you are one of those people, enjoy!

But I am not one of those people. In New York, I went to brunch with my grandma and after eating got a little vegan pastry to go...it had no sugar and no animal products, so I figured, "why not?" But after I ate it, I didn't feel very happy about it. It didn't make me feel good, and I realized I was eating it to prove that I could eat something not super healthy and be "normal" like everyone else. So there's the voice again, the one that feels not good enough or not normal or not the same.

But I see it for what it is now, and I'm becoming much more interested in just doing what feels right for me. I took the pastry experience and got something out of it, and I did my best not to beat myself up for it. There will always be experiences like this as long as I am alive. It's part of being human, and I would be misguided to believe that I'm someday going to become perfectly balanced and make the right choice every single time. I'm not.

I'm starting to like all the mistakes, the learning, the growth, the ebb and flow. It's all good.

Days 43 & 44: Greeeeeeeeeeeeeen!

Green smoothies ahoy!

Apparently I'm so psyched about my green drinks that I'm going pirate.

Anyways, I was very inspired by my friend Leslie's latest nutrition video on green smoothies, and they've become a part of my diet this week. (P.S. Leslie is a kick-ass yoga teacher & health coach...check out her website linked above!)

In my smoothies, I use Garden of Life's raw protein powder, which contains 17 grams of natural protein per serving! Perfect for a non-meat eater like me. Then I add in a cup of almond milk (you could use any nut milk), a big handful of spinach leaves, and a banana. I also tried frozen pineapple instead of the banana one day, but I prefer fresh fruit and the banana makes it nice and thick.

Drinking something green makes me feel vibrant and ALIVE!

Another suggestion: add in half an avocado for the same creamy effect as the banana. Yum.

If you have any other smoothie recipes or ideas, please comment below!

Days 40-42: On Strength

There's that part in Into the Wild where Chris McCandless mentions the importance of not being strong, but feeling strong.

I feel really strong this week. On Monday I subbed a yoga class in a room full of mirrors (YIKES!). At first I was freaked out and my "this is not yoga" rant was bubbling up to the surface. But it actually turned out to be a great experience. I've never been able to see myself teaching before, and it was kind of cool. I was able to notice my body in different poses, and what surprised me was how strong I looked throughout the class. I didn't look skinny, and for the first time in a long time, that was ok. I just looked strong and sturdy, and I keep thinking, "Whoa! Is that what I look like?" Luckily, it was usually followed by, "I am really strong and I like it!" There were of course moments of noticing imperfection, or wishing I didn't look a certain way in some poses, but I just breathed through those and let them go.

The day before I taught this class I went to my first OA meeting. It was really excellent and stayed with me the whole day, just like a morning yoga practice does. I understand that part of 12 step programs are not promoting or discussing them publicly, so I'll just say that it was truly a great experience and I'm going to continue to explore the 12 step path, through both literature and meetings. It feels like a natural progression of this journey.

I know that I'm only beginning to notice my own strength because I've allowed myself to be vulnerable, to be sad, to be open, and to just let go and trust my intuition. We don't get to be strong by muscling or powering through our lives. We gain strength by being real with ourselves, even when it's painful. We get real by facing our DDS (my new acronym for Deep Dark Shit) and accepting who we are. We aren't going to gain strength by berating ourselves or beating ourselves into who we think we're supposed to be.

BE KIND TO YOURSELF.

Day 39: Recipe Time!

Cooking makes me feel like a zen lady and a rockstar at the same time. It slows me down, it grounds me, and it makes me remember what eating is all about: nourishment.

So why is it so difficult to do it? I think it's cause of my lady-friend, Resistance. Bitch.

I always find time to say yes to everything and everyone else in my life, but I never want to make space for taking care of myself. Can you say life-long problem that I will constantly have to work with? Yeah.

Anyways, I decided to put myself first this afternoon and cook! I'll share one recipe with you for a quinoa porridge that makes a great breakfast or snack.

It's based on a recipe I tried when I did my Ayurvedic cleanse with Dr. Blossom. Just like the kale recipe I posted not long ago, it's super easy and quite tasty.

All you need is a cup of quinoa, a half tablespoon of oil (I use coconut), your choice of nut milk (I prefer rice in this recipe, but only had almond on hand today, so that's what I used. Soy works too. As always, I go for the unflavored, unrefined stuff), and a half teaspoon each of cinnamon, cardamom, and salt.

Let the oil heat for a couple minutes in a large pot, and then add in the quinoa (it's a good idea to rinse the quinoa first, btw). Then add 1 1/2 cups of nut milk and 1 1/2 cups of water, and the spices, and let it boil. After a couple minutes, turn it down to a simmer and cover the pot. Done.

I put a little maple syrup in mine to sweeten. It's so good!

My goal this week is to create space in my schedule to cook and take better care of myself. We'll see how it goes!

Days 37 & 38: The Next Step

Last night as I was eating cashew butter out of the jar on a piece of matzoh while standing over my kitchen sink, I thought, "I really need to go to an OA meeting."

And so, I am going on Sunday morning. I'm announcing it here because if I don't, I probably won't go. But now I've put it out there, and I will follow through.

I love cashew butter and I'm ambivalent about matzoh, but I hated the way I was eating it. Not tasting or chewing, just swallowing and numbing. Yikes.

I've spent some time today trying to argue my way out of reasons why I should just get over my fear and go to a meeting, but I haven't really come up with anything good enough to talk myself out of it. So I guess I'll just have to feel the fear and do it anyways.

Aside from last night's sink-eating affair, I'm still feeling pretty fantastic. 2012, you've been so good to me, and I feel giggly deep down in my soul about you. Thanks.

In my classes this week, I'm drawing inspiration from a conversation I had last night with a friend, and from a quote that another yogini shared with me: "Muddy waters, let stand, become clear." Isn't that beautiful? Can't you just picture the mud and dirt of a pond slowly settling to the bottom to become part of the seabed, leaving clear and pure water at the top? I love this image, and I've been meditating on it all day. We are always trying to fix, to change, to manipulate...what if we just walked away and let things settle on their own? I really believe with all my heart and soul that the task of life is to follow our hearts and commit to our path, and let everything else fall into place. To get out of our own way and let things unfold as they are meant to. Going to an OA meeting is just another way for me to explore my relationship with food as a path to wholeness, clarity, and ultimately, true happiness. What comes of the OA meeting isn't really as significant as me showing up and giving it a shot, and I don't need to worry about the rest.

Onward....

Days 34, 35, & 36: Sunshine & Imperfection

I'm happy to say that things are on the upswing!

Sunday and Monday found me in full-on winter blues mode, but the sun came back yesterday and so did my good mood and attitude.

On Monday I did a lot of reflecting on the past 36 (!) days, and what I spent the most time contemplating is how some days it is so easy to just notice my thoughts, let them be, and move on, yet other days it is so challenging. It's all a practice, I suppose, and I have to remember that there will be days that for whatever reason, I just can't do it. I just can't stay peaceful and zen and be the calm in the center of the storm. Some days I'm going to get lost in all the irrational thoughts. So instead, I'm trying to make peace with that. Rather than expect myself to respond perfectly every time, I need to learn that sometimes I will just react, and that's ok. It's not the end of the world and it doesn't cancel out any of the times in which I do respond mindfully.

What I am enjoying the most about this practice is noticing that even if negative thought patterns do arise, I don't have to take action and participate. As Margaret Cho says in the last video I posted, "I can pull myself out of the game." The game is still happening; it will always be happening, actually. But I don't have to play. And that is what this is all about anyways; it's about knowing that the thoughts, the craziness of my mind and of this world is going to go on and on, but it can go on without me. I don't have to get caught up in it.

And when I do...oh well. Then the practice shifts to become about acceptance, to remembering that perfection is not a real place, but just another figment of my imagination. I'll leave you with my current mantra, originally said by Carl Jung: "Perfection is the enemy of the good."

I hope everyone has a beautiful and totally imperfect day :)

Days 32 & 33: There are No Answers

The past couple of days I've felt really torn between two things: the desire to be thin and the desire to eat all the time.

I'm still holding strong on the no sugar/vegan/no processed foods thing (which is awesome and something I do feel so proud of), but sometimes I just want to eat. And I mean EAT. And the past few days I have not been able to separate my desire to EAT from my desire to have the "perfect" body. (By the way, I know this does not exist and that no one is perfect, but I somehow still find myself wanting to move toward perfection, which I realize is a mythological place in my mind in which I weigh 120 pounds, am never hungry, and can effortlessly do crazy yoga poses. Um, yeah right.)

What usually ends up happening is me eating anyway, almost in defiance. On Friday night as I scarfed (literally) down a bowl of cereal, I realized I was eating out of rebellion. Eating to prove that I could eat, that I wasn't on a diet. Instead of tasting my granola, I tasted my conviction.

During the first few weeks of this 100 Days, when I noticed myself wanting to eat for other reasons than hunger, I just gave it up and left the kitchen, found something else to do, felt my feelings, and moved on. It was pretty easy. Well, this week it became very difficult. I think because I got so hung up on my weight, practicing all of the mindfulness and non-emotional eating behaviors became secondary. So what if I eat my feelings tonight, I can go on a diet tomorrow. Yeah, back to that again.

This week has revealed how much work I still have to do on this part of my life. Maybe I'm someone who will always want to eat yet simultaneously desire to be thinner, and that is something I have to accept about myself the way an alcoholic has to accept that they are addicted to alcohol. Maybe I am addicted to the drama of proving to myself that I can "overcome" and lose weight, only to regain it and do it all over again. Maybe I should stop weighing myself. Maybe I should work hard at the strategies I know that curb my emotional eating. Everything feels like a maybe right now, and I just have to be ok with that. I do know one thing: writing helps. Bringing voice and life to all this stuff floating around in my mind that can easily make me feel different or weird or separate from everyone else helps. So does taking deep breaths, and surrounding myself with supportive people (you!).

What I really am trying to figure out is this: if I am in fact a food/sugar addict (and I do believe I am), and I start going to OA and get on board with having a very strict eating schedule, is it going to feel like another diet? Am I going to continue to go through my weekly cycle of diet-binge-diet, etc? This is my fear. Hello, fear. Part of me really wants to just set up a schedule and stick to it. But part of me wants to rebel and eat crazily and binge just to prove that I'm not being restrictive. Where is balance? Where is middle ground? Where is freedom?

One of my favorite quotes comes to mind: "There are no answers, only questions."

Here's to the questions, the uncertainty, the moments of me feeling like WTF am I doing?!, the doubt, the blahs, and all the rest. In my dreams I'd wake up tomorrow knowing everything and never struggling with food again. But if that doesn't happen, at least I'm taking it all in.

Days 27-31: The Past 5 Days...

Half-Truth: I haven't blogged in 6 days because I've been really busy.

Whole-Truth: I haven't blogged in 6 days because I've been really busy and I haven't wanted to face my shit.

Ugh.

This week has been strange. I found myself obsessing over how much I weigh, and seemed to forget that this whole thing isn't about my weight at all. Funny how that happened.

It started on Monday when I bought a new (and very tight!) red dress that I'm going to wear this Saturday. At first I was just excited to have an event to wear a dress to (cause my yoga outfits are getting kind of tired). But then it was like the dress took on a life of it's own. Everything I ate became about the dress. Would I still fit into it on Saturday? Would I look hot? Would I have to suck in my stomach the entire night? What if I don't look perfect? Can I manipulate how much I eat in the next 5 days to be even thinner on Saturday than I am now? And on and on.

By Thursday I'd lost a pound. Not very noticeable to anyone else or even myself. What I did notice, though, is how completely unsatisfying eating became. Why would I slow down and enjoy my food if I'm only eating to lose weight and fit into a dress? I wouldn't. So of course eating became annoying and anxiety-provoking instead of nourishing. I also noticed how easily removed from the present moment I became. Instead of enjoying the moments of my day, I was focusing on Saturday night. It was like Monday through Friday were only there to get me to Saturday. On Thursday morning when I weighed myself I also noticed how little I cared about losing that pound. Like, so the fuck what? It's not going to make me happy.

But I think this is all a good thing. Never before have I not really cared about losing a pound. I guess I am growing and moving past some old patterns, because in the past my entire day would've been marked as good or bad, depending on what I weighed in the morning. If anyone knows about letting the scale dictate moods, it's me.

And so even though I am happy to see that I am realizing that true happiness has nothing to do with what I weigh, I am also sad. Because now I can't rely on the scale to bring me joy. My weight has become inconsequential. And now my dress is just a dress again, and nothing more. It doesn't have the power to make me happy or sad. Kind of boring, but also kind of nice.

This whole video is hilarious, but if you're short on time skip to 6 minutes in and watch til the end:

Day 26: KALE

Is it possible for me to cook kale without listening to Michael Franti and dancing along?

No.

Sundays are the perfect day to cook for the rest of the week. Today I made garlicky kale with mushrooms from a vegan cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. It's the simplest and tastiest recipe. I just heat a little olive oil (about a teaspoon) and about 6 cloves of garlic in a pan, then add in a bunch of mushrooms. I usually just buy one 8 oz container of white sliced mushrooms and throw them all in. Then I just stir in a ton of kale (16 0z). And that's it.

Yummmmmm.

I hope everyone has a lovely and restful Sunday. And here's another picture that has nothing to do with anything, but I bet it will make you smile:

Day 25: Experiencing Fullness

25 Days! Holy crap!

Today was all about experiencing fullness. Yesterday I wrote about moving with the changing tides of life, and today I explored one end of the spectrum: what it means to be truly full. Not just in my belly, but in my life.

This is the first winter of my entire life that I don't feel the effects of seasonal depression. The sunny days and milder weather, combined with my new found freedom around food are making this the first January where I feel as happy as I typically do in the summer. Today as I was practicing yoga on my own at home and looking out my window at the trees and sky, I thought to myself, "I am so in love with my life right now!"

I don't think I've ever had this in-love feeling on my own, and it's really special. My life feels so full and wonderful, and I know that part of the sweetness of this is because I'm no longer using food to numb out uncomfortable moments. Instead, I am experiencing them, breathing them in, and then letting them pass on their own. It's a lot less "doing" on my part, and I feel more calm and steady than I ever have.

I also experimented with feeling full today in the way that I ate. Saturday afternoons are the start to my weekend, and it's often very hard for me to let go of the past week and just relax (I know I don't have a stressful job and I'm very lucky, so I'm not complaining. I'm just stating that even I have a hard time letting go and doing nothing). Today, after I got home from teaching my morning classes, I noticed that I wanted to eat for the sake of eating and experience true fullness. I usually try and stop eating before I get too full, since I have a history of overeating way past a healthy level of satiety. But today, I just wanted to experience a full belly, so I did.

I really enjoyed all of the foods that I ate. I enjoyed eating for the pleasure of eating. It felt really good to me. This isn't a way I want to eat every day, but it was lovely to experience it for an afternoon. My belly got very full and I didn't hate it. I didn't feel fat or gross or ugly, I just felt full. This might not sound like a big deal, but it is. Being comfortable with feeling full is not something I've ever felt in the past. I can't believe what a shift I've experienced since this journey began.

(Just as an FYI: I did not sit around and binge eat this afternoon. It wasn't a food free-for-all, and I still stuck to my vegan, unprocessed, no sugar foods. I just didn't worry about examining my hunger levels, and I ate because I wanted to taste something good.)

I want to keep welcoming in the fullness of my life. I want to be unafraid of saying YES. I want to step into my own power and take deep, juicy breaths. I want to arrive, awake and fully present, and just be.

Days 22, 23, & 24: Riding the Waves

The past few days have been very challenging.

I want to do bad things with bad people! Like go to Whole Foods and buy every item from the bakery and just sit and eat until I feel sick. There is this one bag of trail mix that I fantasize about every time I see it.

Or eat the entire box of chocolate chip and M&M cookies that my dad bought tonight.

But, I'm not going to.

Last week, I had about six days in a row of feeling strong, powerful, and happy. I had a sense of ease in my life that I hadn't felt in a long, long time. My mind felt free because I was happy with my body and didn't spend time worrying about what I looked like.

But then, something shifted. The past few days have been different. I got lazy (which I'm now blaming on Mars being in retrograde) and slacked on cooking. I started to eat out of habit rather than taking time to notice my hunger and fullness levels. I really do believe humans are creatures of routine...

But that is not what this post is about. This post is about noticing the ebbs and flows of life, and understanding that there will always be shifts and changes. We may enjoy routine and habit, but we are not stagnant beings.

Thinking back to those six lovely days, I do recall the thought, "Maybe things can always be like this from now on and everyday will be AWESOME."

Yeah, right. Even though I know this isn't how life works, I still catch myself pretending that maybe, just maybe, I will find some way to be in an eternally sunny mood.

And then I realize how boring that would be. One of my favorite lines from the film Crazy Sexy Cancer (you should see movie this if you haven't) is, "We can't always be in the fire." To that, I'd like to add this: We can't always be in the light.

We have to have moments of boredom, dullness, sadness, darkness, blahness, etc. And to me, the task is not to try and escape them (which is what I would've done 24 days ago by eating my feelings). Instead, the task is to ride the ebb and wait for the flow. It will come. And then it will be gone, and so on and so forth.

Part of what's keeping me from caving and going on a sugar binge is remembering that in a few days, I'll feel differently. I don't know exactly how I'll feel, but I won't be the same as I am right now. I am choosing to trust that another flow is on it's way, and that I can continue to ride these waves as gracefully as possible, even when I have the instinct to throw it all away.

In this way, I'm also choosing to let go of my attachment to what happens, and instead be open to all of life, even when it kind of sucks. I really do believe there is beauty in the shitty moments.

Days 19, 20, & 21: A Few Thoughts on Food and Diets

Hello Blog Family! :)

Thank you all so much for the response and feedback so many of you have given me via comments, emails, phone calls, and hugs. Your support is a wonderful reminder of the amazing community of people I'm surrounded by. I am beyond grateful.

I can't believe it's already been 21 days since I began this journey! WOW. It doesn't feel like I'm counting, though, because I don't think I'll want to stop once I reach Day 101.

I don't usually plan what I'll share in my blog; instead I wait until something just comes up and then if it feels right I go with it (just like how I teach yoga :). The past three days have been fairly uneventful, so I thought I'd take some time today to share my own personal thoughts on some widely discussed and very heavily opinionated food topics.

The first one: INTUITIVE EATING.

Blah. I'm not what you would call a "naturally thin" person or a "normal" eater. I actually don't know what that is or what those terms really mean, but they are not me. And I know there is some really lovely writing out there on intuitive eating, and how we can all become aligned with our body's natural eating cycles, but I gotta say, it's not the path for me. I've actually spent a lot of time trying to become an intuitive eater, but always ended up feeling like a failure. And since I was born with the "not-good-enough gene," I don't really need more of that in my life. For me, intuitive eating just became another kind of diet, and one that made me feel like I would never find peace around food. I do believe this is a way of eating that can work for some people. But for those of us who struggle with food in what feels like an unending manner, maybe a different kind of eating program is necessary. Intuitive eating doesn't make sense to me because most of the time my gut feeling tells me to eat copious amounts of sugar and carbs. Not exactly the healthiest diet. I do believe that I am a food addict (not to mention a Virgo who loves routine, schedules, and steadiness), and that I need a little bit more order in my diet. Which brings me to my next topic...

CALORIES.

Everyone wants to declare a war against calories. Everyone wants to say that counting calories isn't necessary, and that if you just listen to your body, it will tell you when to eat and when to stop. I'm sure this is true for a lot of non-food addicts. But counting calories really helps me remember to eat healthily and to eat normal portion sizes. I'm not saying that we should all go on the 1200 calorie diet (why is that the chosen calorie number for women, by the way?). I eat far more than that, and I discovered the right amount of calories for me in a day through lots and lots of experimentation. Fun fact: When you stop eating crap and cut out all the processed foods and sugar, you can actually eat way more and not gain weight. Awesome.

And finally: CONTROL.

Being in control gets such a bad rap, especially for women. And I'm sick of it. I feel really great when I am choosing what, where, and how much to eat. This doesn't mean that I need to be in charge all the time and that I only do what I want to do. But it is a remembrance that only I know what's right for me. Only I know what I need. And only you know what you need. So I'm just doing my best to honor and love myself, and how that manifests changes day to day. I really do believe that we can be in control and strong, yet simultaneously flexible. In yoga, this is the balance of effort and ease, or sthira and sukha. Some days we may need a little more of one than the other, but the path to wholeness is paved with strength and courage, as well as opening, flexibility, and welcoming the unknown.

These are just my thoughts as of today on these topics. Please chime in with what's worked for you or what hasn't. I always love knowing how others are finding what's right for them and moving forward with it.

Day 18: Reflection

On Day 6 I wrote that it would be impossible for me to have a food blog without mention of how my beliefs toward food and my body interweave with my relationships with men.

Well, today I had a big "ah-ha" moment. I can thank being in a counseling grad program where all we do is explore our past for this one. JHU may not be crazy-hard academically, but it is pretty good at kicking my ass emotionally.

When I was 7, I was at the beach with my grandparents and other family members. I was sitting on the sand in my bikini, maybe eating a snack but I don't remember, and my grandfather casually remarked that I had "two stomachs." What he was talking about were my little 7 year old belly rolls. To him, it was no big deal.

I will never forget this because it was the beginning. Of hatred towards my stomach, of understanding that what I put in my mouth affects how I look, and of never feeling skinny enough.

I remember the bikini I was wearing: black with orange and yellow neon letters on the top half that spelled out BEACH. I remember not eating chex mix that afternoon because I was afraid. I also remember that I stopped talking to my grandpa, and he didn't understand why until I told my aunt and she relayed it to him. And he felt so bad that he started crying and apologized for hurting my feelings, but I still didn't want to talk to him until later that evening at home. When I did, we ate some watermelon together, and didn't talk about it ever again.

I loved my grandpa and he was not a mean person. And maybe there were other underlying disordered eating factors already in place, but for whatever reason this really sticks in my mind as the beginning. I get teary when I think about this moment; when I close my eyes and see myself sitting on the beach hearing those words, I feel so sad.

But what I'm learning is that exploring memories like this doesn't mean being controlled by them. It makes sense that I've spent a lot of time worrying about what men think about my body. But I'm moving away from that, and instead moving toward loving myself. I'm sure if I wanted to, I could be angry, cast blame, and continue to torture myself about my body. But I don't see how that will help.

Because I'd rather be free.

Days 16 & 17: HAPPY!

Before I sat down to write today, I thought to myself: "I can't blog today because I feel really happy and no one wants to hear about how happy I am. People only like it when I have some struggle-nugget of wisdom to share."

BUT FUCK THAT.

I am feeling really excited about my life and amazed at how my instinct to cut out certain foods - really, to just stop participating in an act of suffering - has changed everything. I used to have this mantra of, "everything in my life is wonderful and perfect except my relationship with food," but I didn't know what to do about it. Well, I think I've finally (only took my entire life so far) figured out what to do about it.

The past 17 days have been so incredible, even with the challenges that arose. I'm noticing lots of small changes. For example, I am not as interested as I used to be in eating past fullness. It's just not as exciting anymore. I'm also less interested in eating because of a thought or feeling, rather than the sensation of hunger. And it doesn't feel like a battle, either. Rather than standing in my kitchen fighting with myself over if I should eat, what, why, how much, etc...I just leave the kitchen. How simple.

All of this is making it crystal clear that if I can just get out of my own way, if I can let go of my mental masturbation, my life will flow. And it's not that I get to decide how it flows; I don't think that's really up to me. Instead, the practice is to be open. To anything, to everything, to life itself in all it's complicated beauty.

So my challenge to you, dear reader, is this: Notice your thoughts, see them for what they are, and then move on. Let them go. Give yourself over to the flow.

Days 14 & 15: Surrendering to the Unknown

Not doing yoga for 5 days is weird. Like, really, really, really, weird. I know my body looks the same on the outside, but on the inside, the tightness is so apparent. I miss all the space and opening!

I'm still dizzy, so taking a class is just not an option right now. And I'm surprised at how easily I've accepted this. In the past, I think I would have kicked and screamed and fought myself in a losing battle. Because really, what can I do? Nothing. All I can do is rest, knowing that I will get back to my practice when my body is ready.

Surrendering is not my forte. I prefer to be stubborn and hold on to my attachments of what I believe is supposed to happen. As if that were up to me, ha! But being sick this week has shown me that I do have the capacity to be gentle towards myself and to just accept what is in front of me.

There is a teaching by the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron on attachment that comes to mind. She speaks about how even though we know nothing is permanent, and there is no way for us to know what will happen next, we grasp and cling to our ideas (aka...thoughts) just to have something to hold on to. We convince ourselves that we know, but how can we? In my mind, I will practice yoga every single day and never get sick or tired or need rest or....the list goes on. In reality, though, shit happens and I'm not in charge. Control is an illusion.

I also feel like this week has allowed me to slow down and see that I'm really getting into the groove of my new eating habits. I haven't needed to be as strict as I thought I'd need to, and other than the dizziness, I feel great. And then the thoughts come in, and they sound something like this: "Maybe it could be like this everyday, forever, for the rest of my life, and it will be perfect." But then I remember that's only a thought. I don't know where this journey will take me, and that's part of the fun.

Days 12 & 13: Slowing Down

The past three days have been a great lesson for me in slowing down. On Saturday I woke up with vertigo (something that happens to me about every season, blah) and really couldn't do much. Yesterday was better, although moving my head suddenly or upside down gave me the spins. Not fun for a yoga teacher.

Here are some of the thoughts that accompanied me this weekend:

- If I don't practice yoga everyday, I'm going to lose all my flexibility

- My body is going to get totally messed up from not being able to go to yoga

- I'm going to gain weight because I can't exercise

Reality check: My body is fine. I'll be a little stiff when I return to my mat, but I haven't lost my flexibility. I haven't gained weight.

Just more thoughts to monitor, notice, and let go. On Saturday, when I really wasn't able to move my head at all, I did a very slow yoga practice with only a few poses, which I held for a long time. It was actually really calming and made me remember what the practice is about anyways: connecting to breath, to myself, and to god. It's not about being able to do the splits because that will finally prove that I'm good enough.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to assist a yoga class, which I haven't done since I first got my teaching certification. A lot of times when I'm teaching my eyes are closed or I'm just really "in it," so I don't get to observe and take it all in. But yesterday I got to just watch, and it was really beautiful. What an amazing thing it is to see a room full of people committed to breathing fully, opening their minds, bodies, and hearts, and surrendering to something greater than their humanness. Not that our humanness isn't beautiful, too. Assisting and observing the class was another reminder to me of why I fell in love with yoga in the first place: because it offers me moments of nothing. No thoughts, no judgements, just me. And underneath all of my irrational thoughts and feelings, there is peace.

I can't say that I'm not excited for tonight or tomorrow, when I hope to be well enough to go to a class, but I know that I'm not losing anything in the meantime. Sometimes I think my body plans these little dizzy spells on purpose, to gently remind me of why I'm on this path. Om Shanti.