Many of us use food to numb ourselves, to prop us up when we’re down, to quiet our mind or to fill us up when we feel empty. At first glance, food seems like the easiest and quickest solution in so many ways. Food is cheap, legal and simple to obtain, available in every corner shop, cafe, restaurant, home, office, vending machine and lunch bag! In other words, food is a drug and when we come right down to it – we use drugs because they work. At least for a little while…

But then something happens. We find that we don’t like our behaviours or ourselves much anymore. We start looking for solutions.

To create a step by step model of beating food addiction and emotional eating we need a highly personalised and comprehensive plan. Freedom from emotional eating must work in your day to day life for you or it won’t work at all. For me, the entire point is to enjoy and celebrate the gift of food every day in a stress-free and easy manner. Below are a few vital notes to keep in mind when it comes to developing a healthy relationship with food.

1.  Use your food as medicine.
If we can see every morsel that passes our lips as either contributing to our health and wellbeing or taking away from it, we are in a much better position to take control of our food habits. When the food we eat has little nutritional value it impacts on our state of mind – we cannot produce the perfect levels of neurotransmitters so our mood fluctuates. Because we in the habit of using food like processed carbohydrates or caffeine to make ourselves feel better and because they are quick and easy, we eat them and so perpetuate the cycle of poor food, leading to poor state of mind, leading to poor food choices and so on. When we start to take in the best quality, nutrient-dense, freshest and most vibrant food we can get our hands on, our physical, mental and emotional health will flourish.

2.  Eliminate completely all addictive substances from your diet. With food, start with MSG, then move on to sugar.
There’s no two ways about it. MSG and sugar are drugs that cause a consistent and reliable chemical shift in our bodies and our brains. They are damaging and addictive. Start slowly. Begin by learning why they’re so bad for us. Learn how to recognise them and how they’re hidden in our packaged, canned, frozen and processed food. Then look for substitutes that are more natural and do not contain addictive food chemicals. Find out how many of the foods in your pantry and fridge contain sugar and MSG and start eliminating them. Every person I’ve ever worked with who has removed sugar and MSG from their diet feels profoundly different – strong and clear and much, much more energetic and healthy. The bottom line is, it’s really hard, if not impossible to change your eating habits if you continue to ingest addictive substances daily. I’m not talking about a life of never enjoying a glass of wine or chocolate, rather, recognising that these substances do have power over some of us and taking back control.

3.  Be easy on yourself.
Food and mood are intimately connected and have been since the day you were born. By choosing to educate and enlighten yourself around your food habits and comfort eating, you are in many ways, going against the grain and reversing ways of eating that have been in place for many years. This does not happen overnight. Or, it may happen overnight, only to prove unsustainable so you go back again and again to comfort and compulsive eating. The majority of us have been taught by well meaning and loving parents to use food as a reward (be quiet and you’ll get McDonalds for dinner!), as punishment (if you don’t eat your greens you won’t get desert) and as a distraction (when crying children are given something to eat, they generally shut up immediately). This is not about blame, more about seeing the biggest possible picture of who you are and your intricate relationship with food. What is your food story? What did you learn about food as a child?

By beginning to integrate these concepts we come up with much more than a simple, step by step guide to beating emotional eating and putting an end to strict discipline and self-control – we come up with a way of life and a way to live in harmony with the health of our bodies, the health of our families, the health of our communities and our homes and the health of our earth. By taking charge of your food habits, you will discover an inner freedom that will allow you to do anything you want and more!

It’s true, I swear! Utterly decadent, rich, creamy, but healthy all at the same time. This is not like a traditional pie that can be overpoweringly sweet or makes you feel heavy in the tummy after eating – this pie must be tried to be believed and will have folks begging for more!

Filling

• 1 cup cacao powder (you can use cocoa but cacao is less processed and refined and so retains more nutrients)
• 4 big avocados
• 3/4 cup agave or honey
• 1 tsp pure vanilla essence (make sure you splurge on the good stuff not that vanilla flavouring fake stuff – you can really taste the difference!)

Pie Crust

• 2 cups almonds / macadamias / walnuts / brazil nuts / pecans (or any nut you like really! Peanuts are probably a bit too, well, peanutty though)
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1 cup of firmly packed dates
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries  (I can’t stand cranberry sauce so just adding a bit of the Christmas dinner shine here but without the turkey)

Method

1. Soak the dates for 10 mins or so in water
2. Combine all the crust ingredients in a food processor (unless your food processor breaks down halfway through crushing the nuts and you have to put the remainder inside a plastic bag and wrap it in a tea towel and go outside and find some cement and smash the nuts with a meat masher that your brilliant 15 year old stepson made in Metalworks). Use the water from the date soaking to lubricate the mix. Don’t add too much date water, just enough for the mix to move through your processor until it’s a nice, crusty consistency. It doesn’t have to be too smooth.
3. Grab a pie dish and line it with baking paper. Press your crust mix evenly into your pie dish going up the sides and everywhere.
4. Now for the filling. Combine all the filling ingredients too a deliciously smooth texture. You can use a food processor if you like (once you’ve cleaned out the filling remnants) but by hand in a big bowl works quite well too. Make sure you stick a finger in along the way and try it – SOOOOO yummy!
5. Pour the filling into your pie crust.
6. Freeze your pie for 2 – 3 hours. It will go pretty solid and it’s quite easy to slice. You can carefully pull it out all in one piece for easy slicing of pieces once the cake has frozen.
7. For best eating results, slice and serve the pie and wait about 15 minutes for the filling to gently soften for the absolute chocolate melt in your mouth experience. You decorate the top with strawberries or blueberries or sprigs of mint or sprinkles of coconut – whatever you like!

The start of a new Christmas tradition methinks…

This 20 minute talk by Dan Buettner is an inspiration for those of us wanting life to be a continual celebration that gets better and better as we age not just a slow, steady unavoidable decline. From his travels and studies of the most long-lived communities on earth, he has clearly identified the most important things we need to know about living a long and healthy life:

1. Eat a plant based diet
2. Move naturally – organise your life so that you can exercise doing what you need to do. For example, sit on the floor so you burn calories getting up, mix things by hand rather than using a food processor, walk to the shops rather than allowing convenience to make all your choices for you.
3. Be part of a community, belong and feel at home with the people you move through life with. Cultivate a healthy outlook on life and always, always, have a reason to get up in the morning that fills you with joy.

The most important realisation seems to be that our ability to live long and healthy lives is not about one thing in particular – it’s not about diet or drinking red wine every day. It’s not about cardiovascular health or hygiene or having all of our physical needs met. It’s not just about feeling good and being happy either (although, I think most of us would settle for this no matter how long we live!). Longevity is about the rhythm and flow of life and having a connection to and understanding of the bigger picture.

It seems in our western culture many of us often wind up feeling isolated, alone and purposeless with no real sense of connection to others. I’ve felt my life being drawn down this same path over the past few years – maintaining and building friendships seem like too much hard work and it’s easier after a long days work to relax with my husband, do what we need to do for our boys and just sit and watch a DVD while life cruises along.

Recently however, a small tendril of hope has been seen wisping gently out of my heart – I want to feel part of something again! I’ve been part of spiritual communities in the past and of course, at school and college and networking events it’s easy to relate to those around you and feel connected but I let that get run over somewhere along the mad highway of a busy life . So, I’ve decided to create my own community around me by my actions and by the wise distribution of my time. I’ve begun to really nourish and give to the people in my life – to show them my appreciation by my presence and by helping them out with the simple things – by listening, by vacuuming the floor, by using a skill I’ve been trained in. This giving is not born out of some sense of obligation normally reserved for family. I’m not doing it because I’m getting paid to or because of some future merit I’m earning. I’m doing it because I can. Pure and simple.

This kind of giving isn’t easy for me – it doesn’t come naturally and requires effort but the sense of connection and of how by just being me and showing up I can impact on the lives of those around me is satisfying in a whole new way. This is a way I want to continue for as long as I possibly can!

How do you create these elements of longevity in your life now?
How do you create and nourish your community?

Talk about simple! These green wraps are a great substitute for traditional sandwiches. I once heard bread referred to as “bum glue” by a naturopath so if you’re wanting to reduce your carbohydrate intake, these are a brilliant, yummy and utterly healthy idea. Very satisfying too.

Ingredients

• a few large leafy green pieces – collard is good or cos lettuce (it doesn’t matter what you use as long as it’s green!)
• something to put inside it – tomatoes, olives, hommus, pesto, nut butter, zucchini, cucumber, onion, capsicum, sprouts, avocado, all of these or anything else that takes your fancy!

Method

1. Wash and rinse your green leaves
2. Put your filling inside it
3. Wrap it up and roll it
4. Enjoy!

Seriously.
That’s it.
Chop it. Slice it. Mash it if you like. Soak the dates if that turns you on.
Eat it.
Spoon, fork or fingers.
It’s yum.
It’s vibrant.
It’s healthy.
Try it.
Did I mention yummy?

Have you ever thought about where our food comes from? I don’t just mean from the ground, or from a farmer or from a supermarket but how all that food actually gets to us? How are cities are designed around getting food in to the people? Apart from the end product, most of never actually get to see where our food comes from and apart from dim and faded memories of learning the ABCs with farm animal pictures we are generally quite separate and distinct from the act of sustaining the human body from seed to feed. That’s someone else’s job.

The video below is a fascinating look at the bigger, societal impact our busy lives and ever-increasing city populations have on our food choices. Unless we grow our own food in our backyard there’s a certain anonymity to the whole buying and selling of food process. It used to be a social thing, a gathering of people around a vital need at hugely thriving outdoor markets – now, shopping is more a chore and something to get out of the way as quickly as possible.

These words of wisdom come from a 97 year old Japanese man. May they inspire you as they’ve inspired me! I certainly want to be here and so full of life when I’m 97! Sourced from the Japanese Times 29/1/09.

At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world’s longest-serving physicians and educators. He has been healing patients at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke’s College of Nursing since 1941. He has published around 150 books since his 75th birthday, including “Living Long, Living Good” which has sold more than 1.2 million copies. As the founder of the New Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to live a long and happy life, a quest in which no role model is better than the doctor himself and here are his secrets:

1. Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot
   Hinohara says we all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. He believes that we can keep that attitude as adults, too, and that it’s best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.
2. All people who live long — regardless of nationality, race or gender — share one thing in common: None are overweight.
   For breakfast Hinohara drinks coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. His lunch is milk and a few cookies. His dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean meat.
3. Always plan ahead
   His schedule book is already full until 2014. In 2016 he plans to attend the Tokyo Olympics!
4. There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65
   The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was much lower.
5. Share what you know
   Hinohara gives 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school children, others for 4,500 business people.
6. When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure
   Contrary to popular belief, doctors can’t cure everyone — so why cause unnecessary pain with surgery? Hinohara thinks that music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine.
7. To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff
   He take two stairs at a time, to get his muscles moving.
8. Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it
   Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients, and we all want to have fun.
9. Don’t be crazy about amassing material things
   Remember, you don’t know when your number is up, and you can’t take it with you to the next place.
10. Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they must accept every patient who appears at their doors
    Hinohara helped design St. Luke’s so that it was possible to operate anywhere: in the basement, in the corridors, in the chapel. Most people thought he was crazy, but on March 20, 1995, he was unfortunately proven right when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. St. Luke’s accepted 740 victims and in two hours figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly they lost one person, but they saved 739 lives.
11. Science alone can’t cure or help people
    Illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, there is a need for liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.
12. Life is filled with incidents
    On March 31, 1970, when Hinohara was 59 years old, he boarded the Yodogo, a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka. The plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. He spent the next four days handcuffed to his seat. As a doctor, he looked at it all as an experiment and was amazed at how his body slowed down in a crisis.
13. Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do
    Hinohara’s role model was his father, who went to the United States in 1900 to study at Duke University, in North Carolina.
14. It’s wonderful to live long
    Since the age of 65, Hinohara has worked as a volunteer. He still puts in 18 hours, seven days a week, and loves every minute of it.

I don’t know about the milk and cookies bit but the rest all sounds pretty good to me! (Well… maybe if you could find raw milk and organic cookies with free range eggs it’d be OK. Grin.) The basic theme of vibrant longevity seems to be don’t worry too much about anything, take life as it comes, look outside the square, move every day, always have something to look forward too and don’t forget the sweet things in life.

I think I can do that… I’m gonna have a darn good crack anyway!

How about you?
Have you given much thought to prolonging your life or what ageing will be like?
What’s your philosophy on living a long and healthy life?

Fasting Demands Mental Toughness (apparently)

Someone I was speaking to today compared the act of fasting or going without food for a prolonged period to time to doing the Kokoda Challenge – 96 kms of rough and rocky terrain by foot in one hit. You can walk, run or crawl and it usually takes between 11 hours and 59 minutes (the record) and 39 hours depending on the fitness, consistency and efficacy and calluses of your two feet (Band aids anyone?). Hmmm… Interesting concept. We were talking about the kind of focus and determination it takes to complete the Kokoda Challenge – the courage to even attempt something that’s so out of ordinary, everyday experience.

To do the Kokoda Challenge Australian style you team up with some buds and start training months before the event. You get prepared. You have a taste of what it’s like to keep going and the specifics of the challenges you may experience. You get encouragement from your team and the people in your life who know how much hard work you’re putting in. There’s an aura of respect for the person who’s challenging their body in this way. There’s also lot of support – detailed instructions, your team of fellow walkers/runners/joggers, ambulance folk standing by, water and hydration specialists and even a crowd cheering you on at times! The Kokoda Challenge is about pushing the body and mind beyond normal limits (with a bit of history thrown in).

Fasting is also completely out of our ordinary, everyday experience. It’s a pretty solitary venture though. We don’t form “fasting” teams to support each other. Most people you speak to about it don’t really get it and you may be faced with a bit of judgement about your sanity before you even begin. There are many excellent books and resources freely available as well as detailed instructions on what to expect but none of it really prepares you. Not really. There’s a TON of history with fasting too! People have been doing it for thousands of years to cure themselves of all sorts of things but it’s never had the world-wide acclaim of war. Yes, absolutely fasting demands mental toughness, focus and determination. It is not easy. Fasting is like a Kokoda Challenge for the mind I reckon! I was speaking to my man about this comparison and his comment was he’d have no problems contemplating doing the Challenge but couldn’t even begin to comprehend what it would take to go without food for 2 days, let alone 10 or 40!

There’s something in this I’m sure – we seem to have a better understanding of pushing through physical limits and physical pain and physical exertion but not pushing through the limits and blockages of the mind… (This isn’t complete yet, it’s a kind of simplistic view and I know both fasting and the Kokoda Challenge require huge amounts of mental toughness and focus – I’m just interesting in how they are different – why one might be “easier” than another…) At the end of the day though both the Kokoda Challenge and a fast of any length are completed one step at a time, one moment at a time.

I’m really frigging hungry right now. I think my brain is using up too much glucose writing this. I’ve been thinking about food a lot today. I’m not interested in anything sweet, just give me ladles of avocado with shaved parmesan cheese please. Please? Pretty please? With cherries on top?

I came across a great question today – a way to differentiate physical hunger from emotional hunger, cravings and food addictions. The next time you have a craving for something, anything, ask yourself:

“Would a big, green leafy salad satisfy me right now?”

If the answer’s YES you are genuinely hungry. Congratulations! You should eat. If the answer’s NO, you are wanting something other than food and are trying to fill an emotional need.

YES! YES! YES! I am genuinely hungry. Saliva is dripping out of the corners of my mouth… (nearly there Susan! Last day on lemonade!!!)

I will use this question in the future though. Very easy way to see what’s really going on underneath the surface.

What are your views on what it takes to push yourself
physically and mentally beyond the norm?
Are they different? What’s your experience?

From up to down with a toilet break in between

Earlier…
I feel like an energiser bunny today! The perfect word is “manic” actually (no cute images of pink, fluffy rabbits bouncing up and down annoyingly rather a too bright to look at rotating orb of fire. Yup. That’s me.) I feel like my mind is expanding beyond the limits of my skin – like it can’t contain me, like I’m exploding out my pores! Everything’s speeding up. Can’t sit still enough to grab hold of the thoughts in my mind. Best high ever. No anxiety. No fear. No pressure. A constant surge of brilliant creativity. Just life and me and I am fuller than I’ve ever been, fuller than I could ever imagine it was possible to be. Can’t hold on to anything and don’t want to. I am in the flow. I am going (and going and going). I am perfect.

In between…
I really don’t like laxative tea I’ve decided. Pain in my tummy and lots of plops and mini explosions and urgency. Doesn’t feel very natural. Better out than in though as my mum always said!

Later…
Low battery… almost flat… running on empty… losing focus… hollow inside… no more steam… fizzleing out… I look at my face in the mirror and I look tired. Blackness under my eyes. The fasting face is not the face of vibrant health. That comes later. Maybe not today though…

You looking at me, punk?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!

Anger, angry, angered:
severely inflamed and painful, a strong emotion that is oriented toward some real or opposed grievance; wrath; belligerence; indignation; vex; annoyed; take umbrage; rage; fury, furious; intense, explosive and often destructive emotion; seeking vengeance or punishment; righteous anger at something wrongful, unjust or evil, a feeling of great annoyance or antagonism; incense; infuriate; raise the roof; let off steam; get ticked off, pissed off, fucked off and more…

I’ve been angry from the moment I opened my eyes this morning! I hate the world. I hate everything in it. I hate you and I hate me. I am hard, resistant, uptight, blind, irritated, agitated, frustrated, complicated, over-rated, always baited, deflated, belated, under stated, everything’s hated! AAAAARRRRRRRRGH!!!! I wish I’d waited.

Anger is an enormously powerful emotion and it’s kinda blowing me away right now! There’s no reason for it (or rather, everything’s a reason for it!) My body is SO powerful – to think that it can generate this feeling from physiological processes. I’m in awe.

I’ve been doing a bit of googling (as you do) and the accounts I’ve come across from others experiencing anger while fasting seem to be related to sense of deprivation or hunger. I don’t feel deprived or hungry at all. Just bloody angry – like I’ve been taken over by a force beyond my control that has descended a heavy, dark cloud upon me and I am helpless under it’s weight.

I found this rather beautiful entry from Transforming Spirituality about anger while fasting:

The ideas in this entry are far too profound and lofty for me to even contemplate approaching at the moment. Very beautiful. I agree…

Back to looking for reasons to be angry. My skin’s been absolutely pristine up to this point but today there are ANGRY zits around my mouth, my nose, between my eyes, my neck and my chest. Big balls of pus just waiting to be released upon the world to purge their toxic load.

Ugh. I think I’ll stop there. I’m getting angry at my fingers. I’m getting angry at my keyboard. For further explanations of fasting anger have a squiz at Day 13 of Susan’s 40 Day Fast.