Body Love. Books.

I started my body love journey in 2012, after reading Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon. But my weight soared after a miscarriage at 11 weeks and then an immediate pregnancy resulting in the birth of my youngest. I was so uncomfortable that I figured I would just get the weight off first and then I would work on normalizing my eating. In 2013 I started reading a wonderful book called Nourished Metabolism by Elizabeth Walling. It was another love your body now approach that I figured I would eventually get to once I finished losing all of the extra baby weight.  After another year of intense dieting I could do no more. I stumbled upon Marna Thall’s Rewire Your Brain event in the fall of 2014 and knew I had to change. Starting in January I took off blogging and worked with her for 6 months as well as my MD because the stress of dieting forever was bringing about food allergies and discomfort. I started elimination protocols to identify problems and then began really listening to what my body could handle and enjoy. I’ve learned a lot. Raw veggies don’t sit well with me (yes, even the mighty salad). Goods baked with nut flours are not my friend. I love drinking my raw milk regardless of macronutrients. Ice cream is still amazing stuff and because I am waiting until I am truly hungry to eat it I may have a bowl of ice cream before lunch once in a while. Yes, before lunch so I actually have room to enjoy it. I love to read and have read several good books along this journey, I finally went back and re-read/ finished Nourished Metabolism right before I committed to this series. I’ve read a few other books on this journey related to this topic (Intuitive Eating by Triboli and Resch, as well as a few Matt Stone books, and Scott Abel books) but mostly I took the advice of Marna Thall and expanded my reading palate.  Instead of dieting books I have books by Maria Montessori on childhood education filling up my nightstand, decorating and decluttering books seeping into my kindle, and even an adult coloring book alongside my cookbooks. It definitely feels good to stretch a bit.

October 28: Today I embrace the path that my body and my turbulent relationship with my body has taken. Not good or bad, it just is.

This picture has nothing to do with today's post. I was simply playing at an indoor playground with my youngsters and took a picture. Once I uploaded the picture I realized that the obvious choice for today would have been a picture of me reading. But it is late and there is not enough light, so playground picture complete with sudden rain shower hair it is.

Frugal Self-Care today: I colored in that adult coloring book I mentioned, with a cup of excellent dark roast coffee.