Not Just the Absence of Illness

Today’s message from DailyOm, a woo-woo website that sends me daily wisdom, is marvelous, and I’ll just quote it in full here.

Redefining Health: Throw Away Your Scale

Health is not a numerical concept and cannot be defined using statistics. Human beings, however, tend to want to quantify well-being into easily understandable figures. We feel compelled to ascribe numbers to every aspect of wellness, from the qualities of our food to our fitness levels to the physical space we occupy. As a consequence of social pressures, we turn our attention away from health and focus instead on the most contentious of these figures—weight—checking our scales to see how we measure up to our peers and role models. Yet each of us is equipped to gauge our relative healthfulness without any equipment whatsoever. When we have achieved a state of wellness, we feel buoyant and energetic. Some of us are naturally slim, while others will always be curvy. No matter what our weight, we can use the cues we receive from our physical and mental selves to judge how healthy we really are.

When you throw away your scale, you commit to a lifestyle that honors the innate wisdom that comes from within your body and within your mind. It is logical to examine how you feel while considering your health—a strong, fit, and well-nourished individual will seldom feel heavy, bloated, or fatigued. If you have concerns regarding your weight, remind yourself that at its proper weight, your body will feel buoyant and agile. Movement becomes a source of joy. Sitting, standing, walking, and bending are all easy to do because your joints and organs are functioning as they were meant to. When you are physically healthy, your mind will also typically occupy a place of well-being. Mental clarity and an ability to focus are two natural traits of whole-self health. Surprisingly, promoting this type of easy-to-discern wellness within yourself takes no special effort outside of satisfying your hunger with nourishing, wholesome foods and moving your body.

The numbers you see on the scale, while nominally informative, can prevent you from reaching your healthful eating goals by giving you a false indicator of health. You will know when you have achieved true health because every fiber of your being will send you signals of wellness. When you choose to listen to these signals instead of relying on the scale, your definition of well-being will be uniquely adapted to the needs of your body and of your mind.

Why Substitution Doesn’t Work

One of the gifts I got for my birthday was a cookbook called The Conscious Cook, by Tal Ronnen. Ronnen is apparently a highly respected vegan chef who is trying to bring meatless cuisine to the forefront. There’s much discussion in the book about why removing animal products entirely from one’s diet is the best way to eat. Although the self-righteousness is definitely present, the attitude is more…cultish: well, don’t you see that it’s just simpler, and just right, to think the way that we do?

For over a year now I’ve been trying to keep meat out of my diet as best as I can. It started because I had to lower my cholesterol, but then I found that the less meat I ate, the better I felt. There are fewer calories in non-meat protein alternatives, so it’s easier to lose or maintain weight with them, and they are much less expensive.

The issues I have with vegetarianism and veganism are another post for another time (I’ve written and deleted hundreds of words here because they’re off-track), and I’m really just trying to get at something weird in this cookbook that I’ve noticed elsewhere in the vegetarian world. That thing is the matter of substitutes.

The Conflict of Weight Loss

The connection that yoga gives you with your body is one that I find unique. Since I was never an athlete, it’s possible that as an athlete you become just as connected to your body, using it constantly to do what you do, and I just never experienced this. But with yoga, I certainly have.

The Fire’s in My Shoulders

Good things about doing the Fire series every other day:

• Increased strength in my shoulders and triceps.
• Further-toned abdominals.
• The food I gobble after completing the workout is far more delicious than usual.

Bad things about doing the Fire series every other day:

• FRIGGIN’ OW.

When Hypoglycemia, Security Issues, and IBS Collide

A couple of things have been going on with my body lately.

For the last three weeks or so, I have been fighting the urge to eat constantly. I want to eat immediately after a nice filling meal. I want to eat an hour later. I want to eat before dinner and during dinner and in the middle of the night. I know full well that I’m not actually hungry during all of these times, only some of them, but the urge is there all the time.

Pet Peeve: Gym Yoga

As most of you know, I’m on vacation in sunny Florida with my mom right now. Of course I can’t leave yoga behind when I go on vacation, so I brought my mat and some clothes with me so I could practice on my own and, hopefully, find a class somewhere. IMHO, it’s always a good idea to take classes in your favorite mode of exercise in all sorts of places, because the climate, the naming conventions, and the level of difficulty can vary so widely that it’ll always be an interesting experience.

My mom told me she had a class that she’d love for me to take. It was too hard for her, she said, but she thought it would be great for me. I didn’t learn until I’d already agreed to this that the class was at her gym. I kind of went “oh, it’s a gym yoga class” when I found out, and she said “is that a problem?” and I tried, and ultimately failed, to explain that the mood of gym yoga is just a whole different thing than studio yoga.

Israeli Couscous Salad Recipe

Several weeks back at a potluck lunch I ate a salad with a mysterious grain in it. It was round with flat edges, and white. A bit bouncy, and quite delicious with a little cilantro, cucumber, and tomatoes. After some diligent Googling, I found out that this grain was Israeli couscous, and that although it seems like it might be the kind of food found only at Whole Foods, you can get it in the kosher aisle of normal grocery stores.

I bought some, and yesterday I used it, trying to recreate the salad I had with some nice cool touches for summertime. Since I’ve only used it the one time, I can’t guarantee that what I’ll write about here will be consistent every time Israeli couscous is used, but this time it turned out pretty well, so that’s what I’ll write about.

How I See Myself

And I’m actually not talking about self-image so much here.

Even though I struggled briefly with an eating disorder, and also hated the way I looked in my underwear when I weighed about twenty pounds more than I do now, I consider my self-image to be kind of normal. I think I’m okay-looking, and I think my weight at present looks right on me. But it’s amazing how seeing yourself in pictures, or on video, can wildly throw off your interior self-image in one direction or another.

I was happy with my weight throughout college, right up until I included myself as an extra in one of the short films I shot during my senior year. I set up the camera and taped myself and my male star walking up the steps to my dorm, me pretending to chatter away, him pretending to seethe with private murderous rage. When I (eventually) got to the editing room, I was shocked to see myself – I WAS SO FAT!

Food Primer: Lentils

Okay, I’m half winging this and half stealing it from utilizing Wikipedia. Let’s see what happens.

Trying to find foods that are low-calorie, high-nutrition, and work with my various tummy and blood sugar issues has led me deeper into a pescatarian diet as time has rolled by. One of the great helps on this journey has been lentils. The humble lentil, too often resigned to mushy, flavorless soups, is a versatile, nutritious, tasty pulse, and after only a try or two of some classic recipes, you’ll find yourself ogling lentils as if they were bouncy boobs at the gym.

THE Best Healthy Sweet Treat Ever

I made these cake bars just about every week for a few months and ate them a couple of times a day. I have a sweet tooth that matches perfectly to the characteristics of these bars: cakey, a bit of chocolate, and not too sugary. They’re the single best no-guilt sweet snack I’ve ever heard of: naturally low-fat and, if you use carob chips, vegan. The recipe credit goes here, but I just had to transcribe it with my own tips for y’all.

Nom Nom Chocolate Chip Bars

3.5 cups of flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp baking soda
.5 tsp salt
1.5 cups dry sweetener (she means sugar, but you could use one of The Evil Sweeteners if you must, Splenda etc.)
1 cup natural applesauce (get the natural stuff, really)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup soy milk, water, or milk (I always use vanilla soy milk, and it’s perfect…I think water wouldn’t work all too well)
1 cup chocolate chips or carob chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Sift or, if lazy like me, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt in large bowl. In second bowl, mix together applesauce, soy milk, vanilla, and chocolate chips. (The applesauce is actually a substitute for one cup of oil, but don’t use the oil, trust me, the bars are a thousand times better and healthier with the applesauce.) Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until batter comes together. Pour it into a greased/Pammed 9×13 pan. Stick it in the oven for 25-30 minutes (it should be a bit brown on top, although the middle top may have no color), let cool for 10 minutes, slice into squares and consume with zero guilt.

The applesauce instead of oil trick will work with any number of baked goods. I was dubious too, but make one single batch of these bars and you’ll be a convert. It does make them a bit stickier than they probably would be otherwise, especially if you put them in sandwich bags and take them to work like I do, but it’s so worth it in terms of calorie savings.

Enjoy!