Healthy Eating and Lentil Soup

Since I have decided to look into holistic health coaching, I figure I should start to make some positive changes in my own life. Last night, I made chicken legs with soy sauce for the family. I made myself a veggie buddha bowl and love every bite. Basically it was quinoa, chickpeas, avocado, and kale. I planned to add sweet potato, but didn’t have room. I am still trying to get used to eating avocado. It’s not my favorite, but not horrible either. I enjoyed this meal much more than I expected to (I did add a small amount of chicken meat to my meal). I have been having problems with heartburn lately, to the point where I vomit. Needless to say, this does not make for a good night sleep. I need to be careful that I don’t overeat, which along with the types of food I eat, causes the heartburn which then causes me to vomit.

Years ago, I read “Eat Right For Your Type”, basically a diet based on your blood type. I am A+ and according to this diet, I should be eating a vegetarian diet. I have never been able to actually fully commit to a vegetarian diet and I’m not sure that I actually want to fully go vegetarian. I do think that I need to decrease my meat consumption and see how that affects my mood, energy, and physical symptoms. I love me a nice juicy steak and will probably never be able to completely give up red meat, but I certainly can work on decreasing my animal consumption and enjoy a good piece of steak once in a while, and increase my intake of good grains, beans, greens. When I look over at my bookcase, I see a lot of vegetarian/vegan cookbooks. Not sure what this says, except I have a history of being interested in a less animal based diet. I guess the term I should be using is a plant based diet. I am not giving up animal products, just increasing my veggie, bean, and grain intake.

Another area that I need to look at with regards to my diet, is eating more mindfully. I have always, even as a kid, had issues with overeating and causing myself to vomit. I have noticed my daughter having a similar issue. What I think is the problem, is we both eat too fast and our brains and our stomachs don’t connect. There is a theory that it takes approximately 20 minutes for your stomach and your brain to connect, and while I am not a doctor or a nutritionist, I can attest to the fact that if my daughter and I eat the way we do, there is a disconnect with how full we are and when our brain tells us to stop eating. This is, at least for me, where I see mindful eating being a really positive means of eating. I think mindful eating is also a great way to really feel satiated and to not overeat increased amount of calories. Jon Kabat-Zinn talks about mindful eating and has an activity to explain it. He uses a raisin, but I have seen it done using a dark chocolate hershey kiss. Basically, you use all your senses to enjoy what you are eating. You look at your food, you smell your food, you feels it’s texture in your hands and/or mouth, you can even hear the crunch of some foods, and finally you actually taste it. When you taste it, you really taste it, not just, “yeah, that’s sweet or salty, or spicy”, you really taste the flavors and enjoy them. This slows down your eating and it helps you to really enjoy the foods you are putting into your mouth. This is something I don’t ever do and I really need to start. The sad part is, I think that this is an issue for a lot of people not just me. My other issue is I don’t chew my food enough and that means it gets stuck and I end up in the bathroom even in a restaurant.

So last night I made a change to my diet and I’m trying to continue that change today. I had plain Greek yogurt with some granola. In time, I’ll make my own, but this one was store bought. It’s not luck time yet, but I’ll probably have leftover quinoa and chickpeas with avocado. and for dinner, I have lentil soup cooking on the stove. I forgot to buy chicken stock last night so I used the bones from dinner and made my own stock. I need to start saving veggie scraps like I used to and start making my own veggie stock. A lot of times, I find veggie stock is my go to as it often tastes better. I used a lentil soup recipe from Yummy Mummy Kitchen. I used tomatoes from my garden and can’t wait to have it for dinner. I may go out and get a nice local loaf of crusty bread to go along with it. I also made a family recipe for vinegar green tomatoes. My husband love them and Is happy to have another batch made. They last about a year in the fridge and make great salsa.