Mindful Eats

How to Grocery Shop

Whole Foods Market, Union Square, 1/31/09

"He who fails to plan, plans to fail."

Some people fantasize about going to the market every morning to pick up their freshly picked, baked or butchered food for the day's meals. Not me. I don't have time for that, and even if I did, I've got other things to do with my time.  

 

 

 

I've been eating for decades, but I only recently figured out that that eating is a process, not a big project that I could finish and be done with. The problem with eating mindfully was that I could eat well one day, but then I would have to do it the next day and the next day and the day after that. It never stops! The only way for me to eat healthily is to plan.  Plan your meals and snacks a full week at a time. You will actually waste less time on food shopping and prep, and you will be eating healthy most of the time instead of in a hit-and-miss way. Eating healthy doesn't just happen. It takes a little work, but the payoff is huge. You will have more energy and look better - the energy boost from being healthy will more than compensate for the extra time spent planning, and the confidence from looking and feeling great is priceless. Invest a little time in a weekly food plan, and you're batting average for mindful eating is going to skyrocket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foundation for Health: Mindful Food and Exercise Log

Dawn in Cappadocia, a time for reflection

"He that will not reflect is a ruined man." - Asian Proverb

You want to be healthier. We want you to be healthier. So where do you start? Just like anything else in life, you have to understand where you're starting from if you want to make improvements. I couldn't have lowered my cholesterol if I didn't know what it was to begin with.  In fact, I didn't even know I had a potential problem without the baseline.

The foundation of your success is understanding how healthy your diet is, and how much you exercise. You can only do that by paying laser-sharp attention to what you eat, and being mindful of everything you're putting in your mouth. You deserve the effort and the attention! The first time I kept a food journal, I was shocked to discover how much and what I was eating. I'd been spending years putting "food" in my mouth, hardly noticing or tasting it.  I also weighed the most I'd ever weighed in my life, and had no ideas how many calories I ate in a day - that was a big wake-up call. Life's too short - don't let it go by without noticing.  

You're going to develop your baseline so you can start to set Mindful Goals.  (More about that in a later post).

Your Snacks are Killing You - Here's the Solution, Part 2

My winter fruit bowl 

"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy." -Albert Einstein

Everyone needs to snack.  In Part I you threw away your nasty processed junk food and learned how to make your own Mindful Mix.  If you still held on to a couple bags of snacks, throw them away now.  The first law of food is: if it's in your house, you will eat it. Don't forget a snack strategy for work too.

Your second snack is a Fruit Bowl.  It is simple to make, and doubles as a pretty tableau for your table.  

What you do - Make a Fruit Bowl

1. Go the market and buy enough seasonal fruit for the week.  In the winter you can load up on citrus, apples, pears and bananas.  In the summer your options open up to include peaches, plums, nectarines, etc.  You can also create a berry bowl that you keep in your refrigerator.  If you can afford it, you can support sustainable agriculture by buying organic.  If you are prioritizing your organic purchases, start with no-peel fruit that is more difficult to wash (berries).  Peelable fruit (like oranges) is more protected from pesticides.
2. Find a beautiful bowl that makes you smile.  Arrange the fruit, leave it somewhere convenient, and enjoy. 

Your Snacks are Killing You - Here's the Solution, Part 1

 My Mindful Mix

Food is an important part of a balanced diet. ~Fran Lebowitz

I've met very few people that only eat at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Personally, I snack all day long.  If I don't, I go into a ravenous rampage and eat everything in sight. Sound familiar? As someone that has grown up on potato chips, Cheetos, cheese puffs, and anything salty, I was addicted to junk food. That stuff is crap. It's processed and filled with sodium, transfat and lacks nutrition. I weaned myself off it with higher-quality crap like baked pita chips, Terra chips, and Pirate's Booty. Still, crap is crap. And if any of this processed stuff is in your house, throw it away. I know, I know, you paid a lot of money for it and it's perfectly good. I give you permission to chuck it. It's called junk food for a reason.  Just. Throw. It. Away.

You are going to replace it with two tasty snacks. The first one is your own Mindful Mix. You're going to love it because you're going to mindfully fill it with your favorite things. I started making it because trail mix always had things I didn't like, and creating my own Mindful Mix ended up being cheaper as well. If you're like me and you need to have some crunch, throw in almonds. Don't forget to plan your snacks out for work with the Mindful Battle Plan.

What to do - Mindful Mix

Pay Up for Your Food

Picture of my grocery cart on 1-24-09

 

"Penny-Wise, Pound-Foolish"

It's a cliche but it's true - the human body is an amazing feat of engineering. It's made up of complicated systems, from vision to vascular, and it works remarkably effectively. It can absorb years (even decades) of abuse, and it has the ability to heal itself. But like any machine (think of your car), once one system starts to fail, other parts begin to fail too.  

It only takes four things to keep your body running - food, water, exercise and sleep. The better quality the inputs, the healthier you will be. Don't scrimp! It's like a car - if you cut the gas with cheap filler, it will save you money in the short run, but you are going to muck up the engine  and spend a lot of money fixing it - and in the end you're cutting the life of the car short anyway. The answer is simple. To run the best you can, eat high-quality food and exercise. It might seem cheaper and easier to fuel up at McDonald's on the dollar menu, but you are paying for it with your body. For those of you who are sick (with a cold, diabetes, a bad back, cancer, bad luck), you need to treat yourself well. You probably feel like your body has turned on you. It's the illness. Recruit your body as an ally. Feed it a consistent high-quality diet. Your body can amaze you, even though your illness is pissing you off. 

What to eat

Knowing what to eat is simple. You should eat high-quality, clean food. These are unprocessed "whole foods". Food that has not been refined - whole grains, fruit, vegetables, and meats in their natural state. If there is a food label (like on a jar of honey), you will only see a few non-chemical ingredients. In fact, the best foods have no labels (when is the last time you saw broccoli with a label on it?).

Eating at home

Eating healthy will take some work on your part. I recommend that you prepare most of your food at home and eat out less. That way you know exactly what goes in your food. This means that you will spend time in the grocery store. It's best to plan out your week's meals, and go to the store prepared with a list (saving you time and money). When you're at the store.

1. Shop the outside aisles. This is where most of the whole foods are - produce, meat, dairy - and where the majority of your food should come. The inside aisles are where the packaged, processed goods are. Stay away from the chips, boxed meals and processed crap. 
2. Look at the food label. Do not buy things with ingredients you can't pronounce and hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils. Put back anything that has sugar as one of the first three ingredients. Remember, fewer ingredients are better.
3. Talk to the person at the counter. They will know what the freshest seafoods and meats are.
4. Buy whole grains. Brown rice, quinoa, whole wheat bread. I love pasta, and after searching far and wide for a whole grain pasta, the only one I that I liked (even more than regular) was Whole Foods whole wheat spaghetti.
5. If it's fried, put it down. Stay away from fried foods, whether it's chips, chicken, or fries. 

Eating at restaurants

If you're eating out, be mindful of what you order. Treat yourself, but be moderate. Don't eat fried foods. Do a little research beforehand - look at the menu and determine what the healthiest options are, then feel free to ask your server questions when you get there. And don't feel compelled to polish your plate - you can always take home a doggie bag.

For pre-restaurant research, find comparable items at this great restaurant-specific guide, or by fast food type.If you have an iPhone, you must download the Restaurant Nutrition app - you will have nutritional information at your fingertips.

Buy the highest-quality food you can afford

Always go for whole foods. If you prepare meals at home, you will save more money than you will eating out. As you shop, you will notice that there are foods that are labeled organic, and these are more expensive than the conventional foods.  

Organic foods have been grown without chemicals. They are more expensive because:

1. It takes more labor to grow them. Growers can't use pesticides on the produce, and they can't use hormones or antibiotics on the animals.  That means they have to find alternatives which aren't as efficient as chemicals (which is why farmers used chemicals to begin with - they could produce more with less resources).
2. It takes longer to grow the food. Without using supplemental growth hormones, it takes ~20-24 months to grow beef cattle instead of ~16 months. That means the organic cow is taking up more rent, food and care than the unorganic cow. Same for veggies and other animals. 
3. They don't last as long. They aren't pumped full with preservatives so they have a shorter shelf life.
4. It's usually smaller scale. Many organic farmers are smaller operations than the large corporate farms, and they just don't have as much volume. It costs more to manufacture on a smaller scale.  

Now, if you're buying and eating whole foods, you are doing great. You don't need to buy all-organic. Buy what you can afford. But don't scrimp on yourself. If you're saving money on your food to fund a vacation, you are not really saving. Your body is taking the toll. For me, it's worth it to buy organic because 1) I don't like to have artificial things in my body (food or plastic surgery), and 2) it's better for the environment. I believe that supporting sustainable farming is just as effective as giving a donation to an environmental group. When I tally it up, I spend an extra $10 a week on buying organic (for a single person). That's the same as a movie ticket, taking my lunch to work twice a week or cutting out one restaurant meal a month. I could save the money for clothes, but I'd rather be healthy and look great in my current clothes than look unhealthy and chunky in new designer duds. However, if I lost my job tomorrow, you bet I would be buying and eating the nonorganic stuff without any second thoughts.

What I ate today: 1 slice banana bread, 1 coffee, 1 navel orange, 2/3 c. brown rice, salmon, spinach, shitake mushrooms, 6 squares dark chocolate, 2 clementines, 1 apple, 1 chip (bad), blackberry yogurt, roasted vegetables and pasta, 6 roasted brussel sprouts, hot chocolate, almonds, 50 oz water, 1 multivitamin

 

Exercies: None