Earlier this summer I had a classic “post-college-finals crash.” After closing a big house sale, I turned into a pile of mush, unable to do much besides stare out the window.
Of course the workaholic part of me demanded that I get up and do something productive. But fortunately, I got calls from each of my son and daughter, supporting and encouraging me to take whatever time I needed to rest and rejuvenate.
You see, we’re all big believers in life balance–and we put our actions behind our beliefs. We’ve experienced and totally trust in the formula that 1 unit of break time = 2 units of increased productivity.
What I’m getting at is that I felt fully supported in taking some down time!
The Connection
So what’s the healthy eating connection? Just as we need support to live a balanced life in culture that glamorizes busy-ness, so we need support to eat well in a culture that encourages (and even compels) eating for sickness and ill health.
Consider how precious little our modern lives support taking the time to make and eat health-supporting, real whole food meals. Almost everything supports and encourages just the opposite!
- Turn on the television and it’s filled with ads for all manner of restaurants and drive-thrus all serving highly processed foods.
- Go grocery shopping and you’re bombarded with aisle after aisle of mostly health-damaging packaged foods, ready-made foods and sugary snacks, candy and desserts
- Drive anywhere and you’re forced through a gauntlet of fast food joints screaming for your patronage.
- Sit at the table with friends, family or coworkers and there’s a good chance they are eating what you no longer want to eat–and they are wondering why you’re not partaking as well!
So if you feel like the Lone Ranger on the healthy eating frontier, that’s likely because you are! Check out this little quiz:
The Lone Ranger Quick Quiz
Q1 On a scale of 1 to 10, do you have a good support system? (1 = not at all; 10 = it’s great)
Q2 What does your support system look like (or not)?
- Maybe a couple friends, neighbors or co-workers
- Maybe your family sticks together, like mine does
- Maybe you’ve stopped watching TV–or can successfully tune out the food ads (which is hard!)
- Maybe you click past the gorgeous (but unhealthy) food pictures trying to grab your attention on the Internet
- Maybe you change your driving habits to avoid fast food gauntlets, even if it takes a little longer
- Maybe you go grocery shopping with a list and don’t allow yourself to stray from it
- Maybe you stick to the perimeter of the store, only allowing forays into the center aisles for specific items
- Maybe you dig deep and tap into your own powerful inner strength
Q3 If your supports system isn’t very supportive, can you nurture it?
Just yesterday I got an email from Kylie Slavik, a nationally recognized marketing expert. Despite her credentials and success, she still gets negative criticisms on a regular basis. In yesterday’s email she wrote about creating a balanced life so she isn’t consumed by work and the negative comments that come with it. Her key strategy: “choosing friends that are high achieving but also work to have balance in their lives – not sacrificing family or health for work.”
In a similar vein, can you broaden your friend circle to include more supporters?
You can’t scour up new family members of course, but can you have a deep conversation with one or two requesting that, for your health’s sake, they support or at least refrain commenting on your eating approach?
Could you limit your exposure to unsupportive messaging and marketing in the ways suggested in Q2 above?
How about taking time to read an article or book on the food-health connection? This always helps reinforce and support my commitment to healthy meal making.
Two Things to Remember
I’m Here! The whole point of The New Kitchen is to support us all in transitioning to a way of eating that nurtures and nourishes us. I’m always excited to hear success stories–even if small. And I’m equally happy to offer an encouraging word when needed. Hopefully these posts will also serve as sources of encouragement and support.
Courage Finally, remember the post about how it takes courage to eat well? I hope you can take the first courageous step of imagining a food world:
- where making and eating good meals is just what everybody does
- where we don’t feel dowdy or uncool for organizing our lives to make time for cooking meals that support our health
- and where we don’t feel all alone on the healthy eating frontier
That’s what a New Eating Culture looks like–where the kitchen, food, cooking and eating are valued and celebrated as the pathways to good health, connection, stress relief—and fun and pleasure! We can begin creating this new supportive culture now, in our own lives and then in our families, social circles and communities.
Interestingly, while this kind of culture is “new” in today’s world, it is actually the way things are in other cultures that have not been invaded by western food companies. It’s also the way things were in our food world before the dawn of convenience foods and the crush of marketing that accompanied them.
Hope you’ll join me in creating this New Eating Culture!
Feel the support!