Black bean soup with cumin and salsa verde
(Read article summary)A quick, tasty, and good-for-you soup.
Dressing for Maggy and Andy’s wedding over five years ago and then again for Sharon and Tony’s just a few weeks I go, I distinctly remember being grateful that I didn’t have to crash diet for either event. For nearly seven years I’ve kept off the forty pounds I lost between 2004 and 2005.
How did I do it? It all started when I hit bottom in 2003. I was sitting in an empty house physically ailing and emotionally spent. We had just moved to a new town, Maggy was off to England for her junior year abroad, and Sharon was starting her freshman year of college. I spent the next nine months finding a new doctor, tending to my ailing body, and healing emotionally.
Only then was I ready to embrace a new lifestyle, to finally shed the weight. There are two ways to do it – exercise more or eat less. From years of personal experience I knew diets didn’t work. As soon as they were over I reverted back to my old ways and the pounds came back with a vengeance. Normal eating coupled with increased exercise was what worked for me.
I used to use food as a vice to satisfy my overworked, exhausted self. After healing I started to see food as a pleasurable way of taking care of myself. I was finally able to ask myself what I really needed to eat to be happy (see video below for what worked for me). I didn’t deprive myself of anything. I simply set boundaries about when and how much I’d eat. This became the new normal. When I reached my weight loss goal I had established a new pleasurable way of eating. All I had to do was cut back on my exercise (bummer).
