“I am free to set an intention for this meal”
Say this thought to yourself little and often throughout the day. Or may be wait until you can enjoy a nap or its bedtime.
Write it, draw it, meditate on it. Stick a Post It on a mirror. Set yourself a reminder on your phone if you’d like to.
Practicing this thought throughout the day will help you notice this sequence and support you to navigate daily life in many ways.
As many of you know, one of Alexander’s major discoveries about us mammals is that the relationship of the head and spine govern the coordination of the rest of us. Yes – all of us! Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual – we don’t separate – its all one thing – our Self.
Fresh fruit in a Dart Pottery bowl
“I am free to set an intention for this meal”
I have had a couple of requests from reader of these emails for some constructive conscious thinking around food, eating, meal planning and how to sit and eat comfortably. This week, eating is the theme.
I spent the first week of lockdown in a mild state of shock and disbelief and quite a bit of comfort eating.
The second week was a bit more intentional – noticing which stocks I already had in, trying to use things up, not going out for non-essential items – and doing a lot more baking.
What happens when you do more home baking? Yes – you get more cake and biscuits and buns to eat. Well that suits my little one just fine. He is like Tigger and bounces up and down a lot, and even when we are at home with only a walk and a trampoline and a staircase – he can easily clock up 14,000 steps or more.
For me, I sometimes feel tired watching him with all his bouncy energy – and then I still have meals to cook, washing up to do and washing to do – plus work and the things I enjoy. Of course, being at home more means I am teaching him the art of team work and joining in with the many mundane activities which support our life too.
He’s with his dad this week, so I get to eat according to my appetite and wishes. Now this could easily mean, I get the whole packet of biscuits to myself, and eat the whole cake myself – and its a choice, and this week I intend to say No!
So instead I have set myself an intention – to eat up everything that I already have from my fruit and veg box and not have any non-fruit snacks this week. Now this is a mighty mountain for me. Though who know me, know I am very fond of crisps – ready salted ones, of course. I am very fond of biscuits – almost every kind (not fig rolls though). I am very fond of cake, and homemade cookies, and hot cross buns – and you get the idea…
So for me to have a just fruit and vegetable week is quite a change.
“I am free to set an intention for this meal”
This is not a diet, this is not a recommendation, this is not advice. I have got many of these ideas from an American nutritionist and medical Dr Joel Furhman who brings science and passion and health together with yummy recipes. He calls his way of eating Nutritarian – how can we get the most nutrition from the least number of calories. Plant based food essentially (this is not an affiliate link, I do not gain from pointing you in this direction, and I hope you will benefit hugely from the information he shares). https://www.drfuhrman.com
It helps me if I just think about one meal at a time. One snack at a time. What is my intention for breakfast? Something fruit based and healthy….
Breakfast: Fruit salad – chopped apple, banana, kiwi, orange and a few purple grapes with a 1/2 oz of walnut pieces
What is my intention for a snack – nothing to eat
Mid morning – black decaff coffee
What is my intention for lunch?
To eat a huge salad with beans.
Lunch – a big salad with boiled beetroot leftover from making beetroot chocolate cake, some white and red cabbage finely chopped, some homemade hummus (wow that has quite a bite of garlic – one sure advantage of seeing clients online is that I don’t need to worry about this!), carrots, a dollop of guacamole and some butter beans.
What is my intention for my lunch-pudding
(I know – an extra treat my son invented!) fruit
– a very ripe pear
What is my intention for dinner?
Most veggies – lightly cooked
Dinner – veggie stir fry – green cruciferous vegetables – some cavalo nero from my garden, more cabbage, leeks, beetroot, carrot, onions and more butter beans.
A piece of fruit for pudding.
What is my intention for the evening.
Nothing more to eat.
It helps me if I go and brush my teeth at this point and don’t eat any more until breakfast – which I leave as late as possible on a solo-day.
Now once I eat all of this – Yes I am full. Very full. I’ve satisfied my sweet tooth with some fruit, the beans help with feeling full without starchy bread, rice or pasta and are good at staving off cravings. Having even a mouthful of fruit after dinner helps satisfy my cravings – the habit I have of expecting something sweet after I’ve eaten.
I’m sure the desire for sweetness has a big emotional aspect to it as well. When life feels tough, difficult to tolerate emotions come up and it can be instant for me to try and distract myself with something sweet (did I tell you I love chocolate?). So finding ways which I can soothe and acknowledge my discomfort without numbing myself is another useful strategy. Sometimes I can phone a friend, or ask for a hug, or have a bath instead. Sometimes the fruit will do. Sometimes I have the fruit, then a piece of chocolate. Sometimes – I manage to Just Say No to the distraction – stay tall, be breathable and the emotion comes and goes like a wave.
And sometimes I eat the whole bar of chocolate!
With my son, he has an aversion to knowingly eating cooked vegetables it seems! However, I have managed to make various vegetable soups, adding one or two ingredients in small quantities which he wouldn’t normally eat. It doesn’t affect the taste or look too much, and when I know he ate a mushroom or a leafy green – ahhh something in me relaxes knowing he has some proper veg in him.
Don’t worry, he will eat crunchy carrots, cucumber and red peppers, sweetcorn etc. He even eats red peppers like you would munch on an apple – a whole one for a snack sometimes.
I also make fortefied tomato sauce for pasta. A tin of tomato, an onion, something green, a mushroom, a carrot, a chunk of courgette and some pesto to make it tasty. Once its whizzed up, no one can tell what the individual ingredients are.
The more I put these good nutrients into my body – the more my gut and brain ask for good nutrition. The less I want other manufactured foods.
Fruit salad, soup, smoothie, salad, veggies… on we go.
“I am free to set an intention for this meal”
I’d love to know how this thought exercise is for you?
What do you notice?
How does your body respond?
I love hearing what you are enjoying about these daily writings and how your are benefitting and applying this in your lives. lucyascham@hotmail.com
