Your Natural Healthy Weight
cooking is a healthy habit • what's for lunch? • IE #8: respect your body
Cooking is a Healthy Habit
Eating well is part of being healthy, for your mind and your body. Cooking with real, grown-in-the-ground (or on the open range, in the sea, on a tree, or in a greenhouse) food is part of eating well. This kind of food feels good—when you look at it, prepare it, eat it, and when you do the dishes.
Cooking has always been a joy for me; I love the colors, the connection to nature’s seasons, how the ingredients feel in my hand, how they smell and taste, and the beautiful shapes and patterns—outside, inside, even in the peelings. Whether I’m at a grocery or a farm stand, I’m in love. (Each issue of Edible Bozeman, I get to draw something I find beautiful and write the In Season column. Check out my work on RIPE or on the magazine’s website.)
I promise you, if you switch your thinking from controlling what you eat to enjoying beautiful food—preparing it and sitting down to eat it—you will reap many benefits.
What’s for lunch?
One of the most challenging meals for me is lunch. When I don’t plan in advance, I can get over hungry and end up eating things that don’t sustain me or aren’t satisfying and then—watch out!—afternoon munchies that are less than mindful, hangry-ness, not good. With a little forethought and some low-key cooking this can be avoided.
After a Friday with a smoothie for lunch (which I know from experience isn’t very satisfying and yet sometimes I still do it), I decided to make some lunch things for this week. Yesterday I swung by the grocery and picked up a pack of boneless-skinless chicken breasts and a bag of grapes and made a batch of this Sonoma Chicken Salad for lunches this week. (Swap out the mayo and sour cream for whatever you like to use, from vegan mayo to oat milk yogurt (which they use in the chicken salad at The Well Juicery which, for the record, is very good!))
More ideas for lunch:
Soba Salad with Almond Butter Dressing
Sonoma Chicken Salad with Poached Chicken
Boiled Eggs (for deviled eggs, egg salad, or just sliced in half and topped with a dab of mayo and a gherkin)
Lemon Beans (use flageolets or any white beans, home-cooked or canned; add tuna, tastes great together)
Intuitive Eating Principle #8: Respect Your Body
A common misconception of Intuitive Eating is that you eat whatever you want regardless of nutrition. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When you’re 10-years-old and learn to go to bed hungry because it might help you weigh less in the morning, you are also learning that your body is not to be trusted. Hungry? Resist it. Distract yourself. Feed it carrots and celery sticks or a low-cal hot cocoa packet. This is dieting and it sets you up for war with your body.
Wouldn’t you rather come at health from a place of peace and calm and connection to your body? Intuitive Eating helped me “accept my genetic blueprint” and stop tormenting myself with dieting. Regardless of how you look on the outside, if you struggle on the inside, I recommend reading the Intuitive Eating book:
Weight loss can be part of your Intuitive Eating journey, but it needs to be a secondary goal, not the primary goal. Respecting your body is #1 with Intuitive Eating and by learning to be there with yourself you will set yourself free.
Smooth Sailing, Fix Your Food Relationship in 2025!
So this is week 9 of what I’m calling Smooth Sailing, how to fix your food relationship in 2025. I’ll keep posting every Monday. Please subscribe and share. Thank you so much for being here!
Here’s a recap so far, since the beginning of January:
About Love & Cookies, homepage
Week 1: Food Addict? Or Something Else?
Week 3: Sugar “Addiction” and Primal Eating
Week 4: One is Never Enough…because None are Allowed
Week 6: Allow Yourself to Receive
Week 7: Think About Food Less + Enjoy it More
Have a great week!
