Posted by Bonnie Rogers on 7/22/2014 to
Healthy Recipes
To Eat or Not to Eat..... That is always the question.
I wanted to share with you what's been going on in my life for the past 6 months. As many of you know I had a huge scare last October. I had been off my blood pressure meds for a short time and it led to a cerebral hemorrhage. Now that's not supposed to happen to anyone, but in my head, how can a health coach and herbalist have this happen is what kept coming up.
I had to make a big decision. I was lucky, I was at a meeting at a hospital when this occurred and was treated immediately. IF I wasn't the prognosis would not have been good. There are many angels watching over me for who I will always be grateful.
Was it the excess weight I was carrying around with me or what? What actually was causing the high blood pressure. There are plenty of very thin people with blood pressure issues but I made the decision that I needed to Release the excess weight I was carrying as it wasn't serving me at this point in time.
How to release this weight is always the question that we all ask ourselves. Do I diet and if so which one? There are so many options. I gave this a lot of thought. When I go on a "diet" I'm always mean and nasty to everyone around me including myself. I knew that I couldn't eat gluten because for me it makes me all bloated so that was one thing I wouldn't compromise on. So, the bottom line was that I needed to change my lifestyle.
How many of you just eat what you put on your plate and then don't even stop before you go for seconds, or finish what is on your kids plates? How much food do you really need? What will satisfy you?
I made the conscious decision to become really, really aware of how my body felt when I ate certain foods and how much I ate. I began to eat for about 5 minutes and then to stop and talk to someone at the table or if eating myself to read something for a few minutes and then reevaluate if I needed more food. I remember one evening we had grilled zucchini and hamburgers. I ate the zucchini and half my burger. Stopped to chat with my husband and decided I really didn't need to eat any more. He asked me why I wasn't eating the other half of the burger and I offered it to him. What a change, I had never given up any of my food before. It felt very freeing.
Last night I ate a bowl of delicious soup (I'll share that recipe next week) and then put on my plate some leftover meat, an ear of corn and some veggies. I ate half the meat and the veggies and proceeded to eat the corn while one part of my brain said "you're not hungry, why are you eating this" and the other said yummmm, I'm going to eat it. I should have listened to the evil brain that said you're not hungry because all night long I felt uncomfortable.
It's learning to listen to our own bodies and be true to what we know we should do. It's not always an easy choice but I'll tell you this, next time I'll listen because when you feel amazing and then you will like crap, it doesn't work for me any more.
I like to say that i'm releasing this excess weight instead of loosing weight because when you loose something you generally want to find it and I certainly do not want to find this weight again. I'm consciously releasing it to the earth and allowing it to stay there.
Images below of me and my husband 2 years ago and this weekend. I've released 30 lbs so far and working on more.
Leave a comment below what your philosophy is on this issue, I'd love to hear.
Below is a recipe for a delicious Escarole and Bean Soup I made last week.
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Bonnie's Escarole and Bean Soup
Ingredients:
1 quart chicken bone broth (or plain chicken soup)
4 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb or a large head of escarole
1 14 oz can of cannellini beans
Parmesan cheese
In a large pan saute chopped garlic with the olive oil for a minute.
add in chopped up escarole and stir until limp, approx 2 minutes
add in bone broth and cannellini beans
bring to a boil and let simmer for 20 minutes
serve and put grated Parmesan cheese on to taste.
ENJOY!!!!