By Rod Rotondi .jpg)
I know there are a lot of readers who in a perfect world would be doing an hour of yoga every morning, meditating during lunch break, thinking only pure and grateful thoughts throughout the day, and eating a 100 percent raw, vegan, organic diet at all three meals. There is a tendency to want to make a resolution to “do it all” at once. And that might work for about .001 percent of you, but for the rest of us, it’s more about incremental change.
What works best for most people is a steady, gradual, and gentle movement toward a healthier, happier you. Setting unreasonably ambitious goals is only setting yourself up for disappointment and disempowerment.
So, how about 10 minutes of yoga and stretching every morning? Perhaps 5 minutes of meditation before you turn in at night (tuning in before you turn in). Or maybe set a goal of eating raw only a few days a week, so you don’t have to face the prospect of life without that Grand Slam breakfast! Start with something achievable.
Dealing with Food Addictions
Those of us who have grown up on a contemporary Western diet have food addictions galore. I know I do. Fortunately, my three-year-old daughter does not. We are helping our daughter create a very healthy and positive relationship with food.
But for the vast majority of us, we must begin by recognizing that we ourselves are food addicts - and not getting down on ourselves because of it! It simply is what it is, and now it is up to us to decide what to do about it.
Many people who learn about the incredible benefits of raw and living foods try to use willpower to overcome their food addictions. While this will work for a while, usually willpower alone doesn’t work in the long run. Instead, it’s best to take the opportunity to become aware of our beliefs and attitudes about food, educate ourselves, and be loving and gentle with ourselves as we evolve toward a healthier relationship with food.
I will give you an example. There have been times I have really felt like having a piece of traditional baked pizza. I have had an emotional attachment to pizza - So how do I handle the hankering?
When I first feel the desire for a slice, I usually think back to when I was giving up smoking many years ago. The trick was changing “Do I want to eat a piece of pizza?” to “Do I want to live life as a pizza eater?” While asking the second question, I envision a very round version of me eating pizza (my last name, Rotondi, means “the round ones” in Italian). Since I like being slim, light, and energized, this thought often helps me get past the pizza hankering.
I wish I hadn’t
If a desire for a specific food comes up repeatedly, I will go out and eat a small portion of that food. However, I will do it consciously. I will tune in to how my body feels before I eat the pizza and then focus on how the pizza smells, looks, and tastes. I will also be conscious of how I feel five minutes after I eat it, and 30 minutes, and an hour later. Usually what happens is that the first bite is okay but mildly unsatisfying, the second bite is really not a treat at all, after 5 minutes I feel a heaviness in my stomach, and half an hour later, I wish I hadn’t eaten the pizza.
The point is that if we try to suppress all our cravings, in the end we get wound so tight that the spring may break and we might run out and eat three large pepperoni pizzas with extra cheese! It’s better to get out of judgment mode and work on evolving our relationship with food. The more we exercise our body consciousness and really listen to our bodies, the more we will replace old food habits, thought patterns, and addictions.
Rod Rotondi is the author of Raw Food for Real People. He teaches about raw food, he is founder of the Leaf Organics retail product line and Leaf Cuisine restaurants, caters events and lives in Los Angeles.
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Excerpted from the book Raw Food for Real People by Rod Rotondi. Printed with permission from New World Library.