Keep On Keeping On--and Eat your Veggies!

The past few months have found me busier than Cinderella on the night of the ball! So much to do before the clock strikes 12!

New office space. New contacts and opportunities coming in. Deadlines abound. Missed calls from good friends. An imminent move to a new home--something I've been needing and wanting for years. A home.

And what's keeping the machine running? Good food--both what I eat and how I live.

Right before I left for Miami in early February to attend the Immersion Conference hosted by the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, I did what I had done so many times in my life and decided that eating a lot of sugar was the way to deal with the stressors that were building each day. What happened? I got two back to back colds. And it wasn't pretty. And it wasted my time. I had less energy and a foggy head when I needed efficiency and productivity.

That ended my sugar fix.

What helped me come to that conclusion? Well, try spending four days with this crowd:

There was no way I could spend 4 days around such inspirational people and life-giving speakers and come home and even think about continuing to get in my own way. IIN has taught me more about making progress and making change than any education I got anywhere else in my life.

The way to progress is to set concrete goals, action steps for each one and eat healthier food. It isn't easy--grabbing donuts, muffins and pizza is far more convenient. But those choices only make things harder, slower--more arduous.

Why make an already jam-packed life MORE complicated by eating things that make thinking feel like running a marathon in jello?!

Dumb. I know better. So I did better.


Here are some tips I follow each day to work against the flow of old habits that want to bring me down:

• Say It and let it go: When I want to eat something that I know won't serve me I say, "I want a scone." and then I wait 10 seconds. I then say, "I don't really want that. I only said it because..." I honor that the craving is there, but don't feed it because I know it won't serve me later.

•  Reach Out. No one does this work alone. My friends call me. I call them. We connect, we listen, we encourage one another on facebook. It works!

• Prioritize veggies: I am between apartments right now so my home-cooking is temporarily at a level I'm not lovin'. It's temporary. It will get better, like most things in life. In the meantime? I seek out veggies every chance I get and make sure I'm eating them in balance with other healthy foods. Always make the best choice of what's available.

As I run to catch the bus on my last day before a big change in my life, I am thinking about two things:

I am grateful to be living a life that feels like a canvas. Each day I get to wake up and paint another part of the picture that is my ever-evolving life.

I will be very glad when I have a home with a full kitchen so I can store life-giving foods to create and sustain more balance in my life. Take a moment to appreciate this if you've got it--and begin to clean out the cabinets and fridge of any food that does not feed your body and rejuvenate your SPIRIT!!