by Martha on August 6, 2009
What’s the best way to lose weight and get healthy? Could it be to step back into the kitchen and get cooking?
Michael Pollan wrote an interesting article for New York Times Magazine recently, called Out of the Kitchen onto the Couch, in which he explores the paradox between the rise in popularity of The Food Network and stature of cooking icons such as Mario Batali, Emeril Lagasse, Julia Child, and Martha Stewart with the decline of everyday home cooking. “Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up).”
[click to continue…]
by Martha on July 27, 2009
Studies continue to report that fewer and fewer people are cooking at home, which makes me sad. Clearly we are much more interested in and knowledgeable about food these days, as reflected in the increasing popularity of cooking shows, magazines, and cookbooks; yet we seem to be cooking at home less and less. Why?
Have all the television food shows, better restaurants, fancy cookbooks, and glossy cooking magazines created unrealistic expectations for the home cook? Are we special occasion only cooks? Does cooking feel like drudgery that takes too much time? Are we uncomfortable in the kitchen because we didn’t learn the basics while growing so choose to avoid it?
[click to continue…]
by Martha on June 4, 2009
No recipe here. Just some food for thought. And a Question. Is food simply fuel or something more? What do you think?
[click to continue…]
by Martha on November 2, 2008
“There is no love sincerer, than the love of food.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
Eating well isn’t that complicated. It’s actually very simple. Of course, that doesn’t make it easy, given how busy we are and how plentiful and cheap unhealthy food choices can be. To keep healthy eating simple, I’ve devised my list of 12 simple steps for eating well that you can take:
[click to continue…]
by Martha on November 1, 2008
There is a great article by Peggy Hall in the Fall 2000 Issue of Clean Eating magazine that explores the power of ending the food battle and befriending it instead. It is a message being paralleled in the Psychology of Eating teletraining with Marc David that I am currently taking, and is supported by my personal life experience.
Peggy relates what happened to her diet of deprivation, processed diet foods, and diet coke when she joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to Morocco. Diet coke was only available at the US Embassy snack bar, six hours away from the small town where she was assigned and low fat, processed foods were non-existent. With no other choice, she decided to accept her situation and began eating the locally available food - real homemade food. She ate bread, fruit, yogurt, soups, cookies, and delicious tangines (meat and veggie stews). Putting aside her fear of losing control and gaining weight, she ate what she wanted when she wanted - effective waiving the white flag and ending the food battle.
An amazing thing happened - she lost weight and felt great. She was forced into a situation that allowed her to develop a healthy, pleasurable relationship with real food. She stopped struggling, stopped dieting, started enjoying real food and lost weight!
[click to continue…]
by Martha on August 8, 2008
“Far more indispensable than food for the physical body is spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can do without food for a considerable time, but a man of the spirit cannot exist for a single second without spiritual nourishment.”
~ Gandhi
Is there a recipe for healthy eating?
The quality of what you eat is important to your overall health and wellness. But is there something that is even more important? The folks at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition think so. Advocates of a holistic approach to nutrition, they postulate that what you eat is secondary to the quality of your life - your relationships, your career, your physical activity, and your spirituality - considered primary food in their unique recipe for healthy eating.
[click to continue…]
by Martha on June 6, 2008
“Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.”
~Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Do we really wear only 20 percent of our clothes 80 percent of the time? It seems hard to believe, but studies say it’s true for most of us.
How many of your clothes have been languishing in your closet for years? Do you have items with the tags still on them? I am guilty on both counts. Who hasn’t made an impulsive clothing purchase they’ve later regretted?
[click to continue…]
by Martha on June 4, 2008
Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.
~Henry David Thoreau
A re you drowning in your stuff? Starved for time? Feeling overwhelmed? Ready to get out of the vicious work and spend cycle? Do you long for a a life that reflects your priorities and values? Do the headlines and economic indicators - skyrocketing gas prices, declining house values, increasing job layoffs, and diminishing dollar - have you exploring ways to tighten your belt?
The time may be right to take a closer look at Simple Living , an approach to life practiced for centuries by the Shakers, Amish and Mennonites and advocated by Henry David Thoreau back in the 1850s.
[click to continue…]
by Martha on May 13, 2008
There’s an interesting article in today’s Wall Street Journal called, Putting an end to Mindless Munching. According to the article, Mindful Eating, the art of slowing down and paying attention to what you are eating, is being studied at several academic medical centers and the National Institutes of Health as a way to combat eating disorders and the results are promising. [click to continue…]
by Martha on May 12, 2008
Does our clutter make us fat? Simplification and organization expert Peter Walsh thinks so. This is the topic of his book, Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?: An Easy Plan for Losing Weight and Living More.
He makes a strong case for the link between excess stuff and excess body weight. “As a society we keep getting fatter and fatter and our stuff keeps getting bigger and bigger from the size of our burgers and fries to the size of our houses and cars. We keep filling ourselves up inside and out with more and more stuff.”
[click to continue…]
