Life by Design: Eating With Love

Food has been a big part of my life story and even part of my identity at times.  That’s not a good or bad thing – it just is.

Let me share my story in case it inspires any food for thought for your own journey.  I shared a part of it with a few ladies last November and was told how much it had helped.  That’s why I don’t mind sharing so much and being so transparent in this blog.

The bottom line is that I’ve learned it’s worth paying attention
to what, why, and how we eat since these are often
correlated with other aspects of our lives.

I’ve found out a lot about my body, mind, and spirit as I’ve journeyed the long road to eating in a way that supports my overall well-being. I’ve still got a ways to go. My body is good at telling me how things are going – especially my eczema. I’ve had this skin issue since I was a baby, and it’s been a good teacher.

I’ve also learned a lot from both health professionals and literature over the years, but my my inner guidance system is indispensable at knowing what’s good for me on any given day – when I listen to it instead of to the temporary emotional hole that is begging to be filled (that’s when chips come in…).  For example,  I’ve read countless articles on the health benefits of tomatoes, but I’ve learned that they’re one of the worst trigger foods for my eczema (although delicious on pizza!).

There simply isn’t a magic formula or a one-size diet for all.

I’ve also learned that I need to be flexible as my location and needs change.

I may have thought I was doing well by being a gluten-free vegan for 3 years, but I came to understand that I was simply being too hard on myself through yet another form of perfectionism. My diet wasn’t necessarily bad – it was the healthiest of my entire life if you consider a lot of the information out there.  The way I was managing it, however, wasn’t great. I was being so strict with it, making eating out and traveling so challenging that it simply wasn’t helping my digestion any.  Plus I became sensitive to a new list of foods.

These days, I simply can’t put any labels on myself – although I’ve been known to say that I’m a health food nut and a chipaholic. Basically, I’m very glad I’m informed on some general truths about healthy eating habits and nutrition, but I also recognize that my body is unique and so are its needs.

A Life Seen Through Food Memories:

Ages 5 – 10 (in Europe):

• There was always an abundance of food around and my mother prepared well-balanced meals, often followed by desert.  The list of foods I refused to eat, however, was embarrassingly long.  My poor mother would often cook 2 meals because I wouldn’t eat what the rest of the family did – she said that it was either that or bring me to the hospital to get me hooked up to an IV.
• At one point, she even decided to cook what I wanted for breakfast to ensure I would be nourished before school – ex: homemade hamburgers. I now believe I was dairy intolerant and had been nauseous most mornings after my bowl of cereals.
• Like most kids, I loved candy and chips. I confess I sometimes used my school money to buy some small food item instead of the full meal deal, so that I could spend the rest on candy and chips.
• I was crazy for German-style pizza (my inner child fully indulged last year in Vienna!). Once, when I was sick, my parents offered to go out for pizza, and when I said no, they knew I wasn’t faking.
• I was so offended one day when a friend’s mother took us out to a café with the promise that we’d get a gift if we behaved.  When I gagged on the alcohol in the Black Forest cake she ordered for us, she decided there would be no gift. I judged her harshly for her bad judgment at the time… I still don’t like the smell or taste of alcohol, and so I don’t drink.  I’ve also never tasted coffee – I’m just a strange one 🙂

Back in Canada at 10:

• The first thing I remember about my return to Canada was running into the airport store to buy Hostess BBQ chips – that I had tasted the year before when a classmate brought some to school – a far cry from German paprika chips.
• Mother continued to cook 2 versions of many meals, but I slowly discovered how silly I had been to miss out on her homemade spaghetti sauce, for example.  Why on earth had I insisted on Catelli in a can for so many years?  More and more, I ate what the rest of the family did- but not everything.  I don’t think I’ve ever eaten eggs except in cake and pancakes…
• Going to friends’ houses for dinner was a super stressful event for me as I’d spend hours worried about the menu.
• Going to a fast food restaurant like McDonald’s was a rare treat. Canadian pizza paled in comparison to European, but was still a treat.
• I still spent a part of my allowance on chips and candy.  I even called those tiny plastic Treasure Chests of candy my medicine boxes when I went to summer camp one year.  They discouraged children from bringing candy to camp, but I “convinced” them that I needed “my medicine”.  You can imagine how embarrassed I was at the age of 15 when I went back to work there and they remembered that (I’d forgotten!).

Teenager:

• In addition to my eczema, I had very bad acne, partly genetic and partly due to my diet, I’m sure.  We still ate very healthily at home, but I supplemented that with junk food whenever I had the chance.
• A boy introduced me to many different ethnic foods (Indian, real Chinese, etc.) and I just loved it.  My diet expanded exponentially.

On My Own:

• I moved into my own apartment downtown after graduating from university and worked for the government a few blocks away.  I went out for lunch and dinner a lot.
• Although I mastered the Belgium Truffle Cheesecake, I never really learned to cook well and can’t say I enjoyed it.  I have to admit that there was way more processed food around than I wish to remember.

5 Years Overseas:

• I moved to the Czech Republic to teach and discovered lots of delicious foods – most of which were deep fried or full of sugar.  I gained quite a bit of weight those 2 years in the CZ Republic.
• I remember tearing up when I saw the first cucumber at the market after a long winter without fresh vegetables.
• When I interrupted my time in the Czech republic to do my Certificate in TESL back in Ottawa, my sister thankfully discouraged me from buying a deep fryer to cook meals for her family.
• I met a man in my class (later to become my husband) who was an amazing cook, so he did most of the cooking during our 10 years together.  At restaurants, he would always choose the healthy options and never questioned my choices.  I learned a lot from his example.
• During our years in South Korea, I found it more and more difficult to eat meat as it wasn’t as well camouflaged in markets – none of this ground up cellophane wrapped meat that didn’t look like the animal anymore.
• I developed such painful digestion issues in South Korea (like being stabbed from inside) that doctors had me eating white rice and bland soup for 6 months, following a couple of days on IV. That was the end of super spicy Korean meals, which I’d eaten twice a day for 2.5 years.

Back in Canada:

• When we returned to Canada, our diet became much more vegetarian.
• My eczema had become so bad that I started working more with natural health specialists who introduced me to such things as juicing and cleansing.  I became increasingly health focused. After my first 3-month cleanse, I remember going to my brother’s for Easter.  Going from a super clean system to having a bit too much sugar all at once was more than my brain chemicals could handle.  When I got home, I went from being hyper, to crying uncontrollably, to getting so angry that this is what society was doing to kids. I was on a super intense emotional roller coaster for a couple of hours – scary!
• When my ex and I lovingly decided to go our own ways, I moved to Calgary to do my Masters in Education.  I gave my diet a complete overhaul, taking advantage of the fact that I had no favourite restaurants there to tempt me. Within months of cutting wheat, sugar, meat, anything deep fried or processed, and all the foods I had tested sensitive to out of my diet, my skin cleared up completely.  My life also had less (or a different kind of) stress in it, so that helped too, I’m sure.
• I became vegan for 3 years, ensuring that I had variety and protein in every meal. This was easier to do once I moved to Vancouver Island to study photography for a year.  There were weekly raw vegan buffets, monthly vegan nights at restaurants, and a great juice bar with educational nights. But as I said earlier, I was so strict with myself that it became stressful.  Still, for quite a while, I thought I was the healthiest I had been in years. When the third medical intuitive I consulted (in various provinces as I moved around) told me my vegan diet wasn’t serving me (I had become sensitive to many of my sources of protein), I decided to listen.

Saskatoon:

In 2006, I moved to Saskaton to work with the late photographer Courtney Milne and his wife Sherrill Miller. They introduced me to Michele Kralkay, one of the health specialists I talked about above. After my consultations with her, I knew I needed to re-introduce chicken and fish into my diet, but this was a psychologically difficult thing to do since my reasons for not eating meat were largely based on the cruelty of the meat industry.

Photo by Courtney Milne

My process became easier after doing an inner landscape reading with Sherrill, using Courntey’s photographs.  After asking my Higher Self for guidance and shuffling his photos, I pulled the one above and just started crying.

This image put all my fears and beliefs right in my face, asking me to examine them carefully.  I could see that I had put meat up on a fence like an obstacle in my life. Although I had long seen skulls as frightening representations of death, so many in this sacred land I was living on, including some of the shaman I was introduced to, saw them as symbols of protection, strength, power, wisdom, guidance, and immortality.  This card was asking me to revisit my perceptions to see beyond the gates to the fertile lands waiting to be farmed and harvested.  The riches lay beyond the fence, and I would have to get over my fears and change my perceptions.

I kept crying for a while, grieving as I let go of beliefs that no longer served me.  But after talking with the fisherman at the market where I bought my fish and only buying organic chicken that had lived a happy life, I felt much better, blessing and giving thanks for this life-sustaining food.

I’ll admit, after being so strict for years, letting go of some of my rules had many of them swing the other way until I eventually found a balance.  Apart from still being a chipaholic, I mostly ate organic and healthy foods.  In addition, if I felt moved to eat my mother’s beef-based spaghetti sauce when I visited the family at Christmas, I simply would.  There were no more rules. I learned to simply check in with my body to see if I felt called (vs. compelled like with the sugar) to eat something.

Newfoundland:

When I moved to Newfoundland, it was harder to find a good variety of fresh organic produce on the island. Food here is also more expensive.  Juicing didn’t make sense anymore and buying organic chicken meant having to cook a whole chicken, something I have yet to do in this lifetime.  Still, I eat well.  During my first two years, I continued to feed myself with mostly whole foods cooked in my steamer – variations of my rice/veggie/fish casseroles and big pots of soup that I would freeze. It was simple, yet nourishing.  I still loved my chips, though.

Another Year Overseas:

Studying in Vienna meant being reunited with European style pizza, which I indulged in at least once a week. I discovered that I could handle wheat, tomatoes and dairy if I didn’t overdo it. There was also a wonderful Vietnamese restaurant on my way home from school where she used plenty of fresh ingredients to make such delicious meals at a reasonable price.  I went there a lot! There were also plenty of organic grocers around, so I continued to cook healthy meals and brought the leftovers to school.

After my visit to Ottawa at Christmas, however, my eczema became the worst it had been my whole life. I sought help in Bali (3 kinds of doctors) and it eventually disappeared by the time I returned to Canada in July.  I learned a lot about the excess of fire in my body (from the Chinese, traditional Balinese and Ayurvedic perspectives).

Back in Canada Again:

Moving in with my housemate Orinda has been a blessing on many fronts.  One of them is that she’s a very good cook who often cooks.  I’ve taken full advantage of that, of course, learning to be even more flexible when something with a bit of pork in it appeals to me, for instance. There’s simply a lot more variety in my diet now, but I am eating more wheat and sugar than I would like.  I’m slowly learning to say yes to certain foods at times and to resist it at other times when my body says no.  It takes a bit more discipline than when living on my own.

I was also glad to get back to my morning Vega smoothies.  These have been my breakfast for more than a decade, except when overseas – it’s so nice to have an easily digestible breakfast that sustains me until lunch.  I know I’m starting the day right with this highly nutritious vegan blend of nutrients. I add a cup of organic berries and often add other fruit in it or on the side. Their newest formula includes:

• 20 grams premium plant-based protein
• 6 servings of greens
• 50% daily intake of food-based vitamins and minerals
• 25% DV fiber
• 1.5 grams of Omega-3s
• Antioxidants
• Probiotics (1 billion CFU)
• Only 160 calories.

Soon after my return from Ottawa at Christmas, however, my eczema came back again.  The timing has been the same for the past several years. Is it the dryness of winter? Is it the fact I eat 100 times more sugar at Christmas than at any other time of year (a substance known to tax the liver)? This likely has something to do with it. I know I’m not allergic to my family!  So I’m listening and continuing to learn about myself and my body as I take steps to cleanse my liver through Chinese medicine.

My journey continues  –

Wow, once again, I never expected to spend the day writing, but I’m sure that the process has helped me in some way.  As I’ve mentioned before, this blog is like a journal sometimes.

If something here can be of use to you, great.  If nothing else, you got a much deeper insight into my human-ness. If we are spirits in human bodies, I’m still learning to understand my user’s manual.

What is your user manual saying?
What has your life journey with food taught you about yourself and your needs?
Are there messages you’re receiving about what, how, and why you eat
that can help lead to healthier choices?
Best wishes in this chapter of your Life by Design!

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