the next 50 needs more good food
Jamie's Italian, Bath, England -- November 2011.
It's July, which is my birth month -- and this year is a big one, I'm turning 50! Because I swim in a gene pool shared by long livers (three of my grandparents lived past 95, and one lived until 102!), I figure I'm only halfway done. So to celebrate my birthday, I've decided that for every day for the first two weeks of this month, I'm going to share images and words representing what I hope the next 50 years will have more of. Time to say it and claim it, by gum. And maybe, if what I say resonates with you, you'll be inspired to get more of these things for your next 50 years, too.
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
~ Virginia Woolf
As I approach 50, I have decided that I am absolutely over diets. Over the years, I have tried dozens of diets, and while some of resulted in me losing weight, and others haven't, one thing is true of all of them: I am never happier having done them. Don't get me wrong: I am incredibly anti-junk food (to the chagrin of both my husband and my daughter). I literally haven't had a soda in over a decade. I don't remember the last time I went through a fast-food drive-thru. I am horrified by the chemicals and preservatives that are in many of the foods that are sold on grocery store shelves. I am, admittedly, pretty uptight about foods in a lot of ways.
But, dammit, I love a good wine or a good rum. I believe that cheese is one of the gifts God graces us with on this Earth, to say nothing of a good, rich, dark chocolate. And because I tend to be so crazed about food in the rest of my life, I really resent any diet that tells me that I can no longer eat any more of X, if X doesn't cause me any medical issues.
So until such time as my doctor tells me otherwise, I plan on living pursuant to the mantra "all good things in moderation." I talk about this more in Make Light, but suffice to say that going forward, I'll be careful I don't overindulge, and I'll continue to exercise with regularity, but after that, I plan on enjoying food. Enough of viewing food as penance, punishment and deprivation. Food is, after all, where I commune with family and friends. Food is celebration and bonding.
Food is nourishment. And viewing it that way, how could it be anything but good?
Soundtrack: Starfish and coffee by Prince
Also for my birthday, I thought I'd give a nice, deep discount to one of my most popular online courses, GLOW: a 21-day ecourse for claiming your light! So if you'd like to get more light in your life, enter coupon code WATCHMEGLOW for 30% off the course. It really is a great course: one participant said she was so happy to rediscover "how blessed I am in my life"; another said, "GLOW came into my life at the perfect time. It is slowly changing my mental state and I have been focusing on the positives for the first time in ages." So join me. It's the perfect self-care for the summer.