Tag: Women Food and God

Eggstra special breakfast

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, raising chickens, tweens
A double yoked egg!

I decided to cook a big breakfast last Sunday morning, so my daughter and I headed to the kitchen to strategize.

Me: Pumpkin Pancakes?
Izzy: No.
Me: Waffles?
Iz: No.
Me: Bacon and eggs?
Iz: Yes! And sausage!
Well, no surprise there; that’s almost always her breakfast of choice (we do raise chickens, after all!).
I headed to the cupboard for a pan; she headed to the fridge for the eggs.
She brought two eggs over to me for inspection, one of which was a very large egg with a network of funky ridges on it surface.
Now, I had been watching that egg for a few days…often when a young hen first starts laying, she will produce eggs of interesting sizes, shapes, and … textures.
I made Izzy her “tween omelet”:  egg scrambled with the mushrooms cooked separately and served on the side.
Then I bit the bullet and cracked the unusual egg into the bowl…and it had two yolks! Now, this wasn’t our first chicken egg that contained two yolks, but it was the first one that I’d ever personally cracked that did.
I was absurdly pleased by this.
One great thing about this egg was how bright and beautiful the yolks were. What was also great was that it was big enough to make an entire omelet from just the one egg!
Note: I put my mushrooms (and spinach!) in the actual omelet, as opposed to the “tween” version with them on the side. 🙂

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Conscious eating, Part 3

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, fitness, restaurants

So, now that more weeks have passed and I have totally not given the Women, Food, and God  (by Geneen Roth) approach a passing thought until today, I decided to recommit to some of the strategies I have learned along the weight loss way.

  1. Drink 16 oz of water before every meal. This can be excessive, and at times make you feel like tossing your cookies before you even get to eat them, so modify accordingly. If you can only choke down a half a cup, go for it! It’s better than nothing. The theory is that it will make you feel fuller sooner, thereby displacing some of the food that you presumably would have consumed if not for the presence of the water in your gut. Seems like it’s worth a shot.
  2. Green tea. I am down to only a cup per day, two at most. Green tea is tricky because it has caffeine, and blood thinning properties (just to mention, there are other side effects as well)… it may interact with aspirin, the NSAIDs, coumadin, and so forth. . . but just in case it does contribute to weight loss, a little may be better than none.
  3. Throw out the first bite of your cookie/cupcake/whoopie pie/muffin/miscellaneous baked good of your choice. This is from One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer. I’m definitely still trying to work up the courage to try this one.
  4. Check online before you go out to eat to scope out the menu; get tips from WebMD or Weight Watchers on healthy (or at least less bad) choices.
  5. Oh, yeah: that smaller plate thing. Ever hear the saying that “work expands to fill the allotted time”? Well, I think that this rule applies to food too: the amount of food you (think it’s reasonable to) consume will expand to fill the allotted plate/bowl size.

Question to ponder: Does doing the Happy Dance (a la Snoopy) burn off the equivalent of whoopie pie that I just ate?

Conscious eating (WF&G week 2)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, education, family, health

There I was,  in week 2. Here is what I’ve learned:  conscious eating is hard. Applying those 7 principles is hard.

 Regarding principle #3:  It is very hard to not do another blessed thing when you are eating, ever. Plus, I totally miss reading while I’m eating if I am eating alone. Regarding principle #2:  It also is hard for me to always sit down while eating. I sit down for 10 hours (plus commuting time) every day that I go to work, so I always stand while I am eating on my lunch breaks.  Regarding principle #4: It’s not always possible to tell if it’s my body or my mind that wants the tiramisu.

I know now why author Geneen Roth gives workshops about how to eat consciously: I’m guessing that few, if any, people would stick with it if they didn’t have the structure imposed upon them by another (structure that they had to pay for; money motivates).

I briefly entertained the idea of applying the “80/20” rule to conscious eating, but decided that it sort of demeaned it. I mean, I could have lived with it if I eliminated numbers 2, 3 and 4….

So, bottom line is this: week 2 was a bust.

Women Food and God

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, health

Women Food and God: an unexpected path to almost everything is written by Geneen Roth, who has written many books about compulsive eating and weight. She will be presenting a program at Kripalu in Lenox, MA this September. She has been on the Oprah show and some of her writings are on Oprah’s website as well.  Her recent article is entitled: The Cupcake Dialogues….hello? I mean, it doesn’t even matter what she has to say really: she had me at “cupcake”. 🙂

She also offers a self-guided online retreat.  This gave me an idea…why not try a self-guided- retreat, period? Seems like a (potentially) more cost-effective route (I say “potentially”, because if I really am eating everything I want, well, serving after serving of  tiramisu can really add up!).

So, for August, I’m going to try to live by Geneen’s 7 guidelines for just one month: August.  I wonder how it will turn out?