Nourishing our Temples

As I sit here this morning, thinking about what we shouldn’t eat and more importantly what we SHOULD eat–reading comments/emails from yesterdays blog about the Ocsars and flashing back to images of Sarah Jessica Parker, I am once again shaking my head about how challenging  it is to be PERFECT!  When I say that, I mean not only “perfect” visually, but also on the inside.

I watched part of Oprah yesterday (the “just after” interviews with some of the award winners) and I heard Sandra Bullock say she didn’t eat a burger for 3 months!  She probably didn’t eat much of anything.  As a woman, I totally get wanting to do EVERYTHING and ANYTHING possible to be the “perfect” weight for a big event.  Wedding days, high school reunions, The Academy Awards, BIG DAYS!  If you can’t look your best for those, then when can you?  But what about the masses walking around daily and compromising their health, for a “perfect” weigh in?

My own personal struggle is wanting so much to lean into veganism as much as possible but not being able to maintain my weight goals while doing that.  I can be thin, or I can be vegan, but I can’t seem to be both.  So I do my best to compromise.  I do eat A LOT of veggies and but we all need some lean protein and too much soy might be bad for the metabolism, rice and beans are too “starchy”  so I do eat fish and some dairy products.  But I can honestly say from the bottom of my heart, the more “live” food I eat (plants and veggies) the more alive I feel…think about it?!?!

But far more important than managing my weight, is treating the INSIDE of my body like the temple it is.  I no longer look much at what I should not eat, but instead what I should eat.  If I try to nourish my body with all the foods I believe to be good for my health AND count calories, by the time I have eaten all the healthy foods, there is no room for the unhealthy ones.

To this end, I make a huge salad almost every single night.  In that salad, I try to add lots of color and as many layers of the important nutrients as I can without adding the fatty, calorie laden items like creamy dressings or chunks of cheese.  Instead I make a base of several different kinds (and colors) of lettuce, the usual tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and peppers.  I add a sprinkle of some kind of chopped nuts, some fresh fruit like sliced strawberries or cubed apples, a small amount of cubed avocado, a few olives and then I take a very small piece of some type of cheese and crumble it on top.  I make a homemade dressing out of fresh lemon juice, olive oil and a dash of safflower oil (supposedly good for the metabolism) and that is almost always my main course because after all that food, filled with fiber and fluid, my hunger is pretty much satisfied.  If I have some lean protein it will be a small portion of grilled fish or shrimp and I try to make a lot of grilled or baked veggies as well.  If I don’t have a protein with the meal, I will sprinkle some nutritional yeast (high in B vitamins) on my salad or veggies because I am always concerned with get ALL the important vitamins and nutrients in.

At every meal I look at color, balance of nutrients and CALORIES!  I try to include lots of anti-oxidants, healthy fats and fiber.  Looking at what I know I SHOULD eat, leaves very little room for what I shouldn’t eat!  Additionally, if I try to drink the recommended amount of water daily, there really isn’t room for sodas (sugary or sugar substitutes) or store bought juices.  (Mitch has been making fresh squeezed since Christmas so if I am going to drink any juice, it will be that).

This blog was lengthy and maybe went off a bit…What I am trying to express is how important (and challenging) it is to nourish our insides and outsides at the same time.  I remain convinced, however, if we strive to take care of our INSIDES our outsides will glow and even if we aren’t at our “perfect” weight, we will be get and remain pretty darn close and our that internal health will shine through to the world.

I hope you will consider what you put into your bodies today.  It is the temple that houses your mind and your soul.  It deserves to be nourished appropriately!

Thanks for “hearing” me out!  Your health is the most important thing to me!