I'd been feeling it, the low-energy slog through the landscape of my changing body as I make change after change to help condition my body for weight release and vibrant good health. These are my goals. Vibrant good health and weight release.
The hardest part so far is doing the deep work of listening to my inner dialogue around food choices, the things I tell myself about what I had been choosing to eat. The first two weeks of this process there were few changes beyond listening to what lies beneath the extra weight, the things I've been masking and cushioning myself against.
The body never lies.
Supported by attention to the breath and deep breathing five times a day and hydration to the tune of at least six to eight, eight-ounce glasses of water every day, I spent time being still and listening, allowing years of what has remained beneath the surface and mostly unconscious to begin to emerge. Choosing not to numb it with sugar or cheese or bread or wine or even black tea. Choosing to listen. To be present. To love myself differently.
The first two weeks I could eat anything I wanted, but the cost was listening to what I said to myself. I was glad to be able to have that freedom at the beginning, especially since I'd planned a trip to visit my daughter and we'd planned to go and eat good food out, exploring the Chicago food scene with gusto. Instead, we enjoyed a more tempered approach. My daughter shared that she would love to have my home cooking, that she missed it, so we ate most of our meals in. And they were wonderful! Beautiful and delicious, as I like to say. Healthy, for the most part.
We did eat out four times. I wanted to try Pequod's Pizza. I saw it on Somebody Feed Phil, and I was dying to have real Chicago deep-dish pizza in Chicago. And we did, but we did it differently. We ordered a personal pan pizza and shared it. We ordered a salad and shared that. And we ordered two Blue Moons and each had our own. It was just right.
We also ate at Le Buchon, a beautiful French bistro. Each had our own appetizers, shared an entrée, had a cocktail, and a glass of wine with dinner. Decided to skip dessert and enjoy beautiful chocolate (from a fine chocolate shop) back at the apartment I'd rented for us during my stay.
We ate at the café in the Museum of Contemporary Art, and got carry out at a Mediterranean place my daughter likes the night I flew in. The meal at the museum was especially yummy ~ a burrata appetizer, grilled ham and cheese on sourdough, dessert and beautiful tea. My daughter had affogato, espresso poured over ice cream. I had a cookie to go with my tea. My descriptions don't do it justice. It's not your mother's grilled cheese, that's for sure. The burrata was served with arugula and dressed with a balsamic glaze and kumquats. Even that does not do it justice. The wine was lovely.
I am not eating that way these days, but my wilderness is green. All the varieties of greens. At least fifty shades of green. Next to me on the table is my mother's Lilly Pulitzer lidded 24-oz. tumbler with a green smoothie to live for. I sip two of these a day. Over my counter sprawl finds from the Yardley Farmer's Market today ~ two heads of beautiful leaf lettuce, bags of baby kale and pea shoots, a tub of microgreens, a tiny head of broccoli, and a jar of salsa verde (no sugar, no artificial preservatives). There's also some pastured chicken and grass fed and finished beef.
I didn't get here overnight. It's been a long and harrowing journey, forty days of it so far. There are forty more, and forty after that. I'm taking it in stages and noticing the miracles on the way.
The Green Wilderness is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience.
Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.
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