After 2 1/2 weeks of IIN training

I've been having so much fun with my IIN course and materials, that I forget to take time out to blog about it!

One lecture I watched this week was presented by Denise Lamothe, called "Taming of the Chew."
It's based on her book, and it had many valuable ideas about dealing with emotional eating. Two in particular that attracted me was derailing negative thinking by using "In Reality" statements and the other was herbal remedies by Dr. Bach.

Her advice to short-circuit negative thinking that leads to emotional eating, is to listen to it, recognize it and then tell yourself  - for instance - "I want a cookie, but Reality is I'm not hungry. Reality is that it would make me feel awful physically AND emotionally."  I haven't tried the Bach's herbal remedies yet, but I've asked around and they have gotten good reviews. I intend to learn a little more before I try them out myself. Let me know if you've had any experience with them!

One of the dietary changes I've made, is to have more meatless meals. These are mostly nothing fancy - I'll stir fry whatever veggies we have on hand and then serve them over brown rice or whole wheat pasta. I still eat meat occasionally, but now I realize that it's not intended to be part of every single meal. Tonight I'm going  to fix roast veggies. I'll cut up big chunks of zucchini and squash, onion, carrots, and parsnip, toss them with olive oil and seasoning, cover them and roast them for a half hour, uncover them and cook 20 - 30 more minutes. I hope they're yummy!

As I set up my business web page as required by the school, I am considering incorporating a book club about health issues. I tend to believe that every diet, exercise, self-help, or healthy lifestyle book out there has something of value in it. I just purchased one on my Kindle today called Whitewash by Joe Keon. I think this will be my June book since it happens to be the first of the month.  If you would like to read along , please join my new facebook page for group discussion.

The other dietary change I've made is to let go of my reliance on dairy foods. I will still eat them as a treat, but I realize now they are not nutritionally relevant to me. When I was pregnant, I was drinking a glass in the middle of the night whenever I woke up hungry, plus at least 2 glasses during the day. Did you know that even the organic milk with "no hormones added" is fraught with bovine pregnancy hormones? These hormones are designed in nature to make for fat, healthy calves!  Ten years later, my calves are fat enough, thank you very much!  Also these hormones are linked to all sorts of problems such as prostate cancer, women's reproductive cancer, childhood obesity, diabetes, and more. And I haven't even opened the book yet. While Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution is pushing to schools to stop selling sugary flavored milks to kids, it looks like we should stop serving milk altogether! This idea shocked me when I first heard it from Harvard nutrition professor Walter Willette, but what he says makes a lot of sense. Look at his suggested "My Plate" visual recommendations for wellness.

It incorporates everything that has worked for me in the past!