Eat Right For Your Soul

There is only one you walking around this Earthly planet we all call home. You are unique, billions of cells and multi-trillions of atoms all consisting of matter that is (some of it at least) as old as the dinosaurs. Your soul hovers around all of that.  Just as you need to feed your body, you need to feed your soul too, and it doesn't follow all the rules about eating less, moving more, and it takes more than JUST food to feed your soul.

Your soul also takes a hit every single time you sit there and get yourself into a stressed out state before or during eating. Who hasn't had that 20 min conversation with themselves about WHY muffins are bad, and will add to us being bad if we eat them? or felt the guilt after reading someone else's rant about 'meat as murder' just after chowing down to a family roast dinner? It all gets too much for so many of us that we switch off - tune out the information coming in and go on autopilot while eating. And then the guilt and self-shame after the fact starts up and the whole vicious cycle starts again ("damn that greasy burger was a bad idea. Look at my stomach and OH GOD THOSE THIGHS! Mmmmmnnn burger. Enter workmate saying 'want to get McDonalds for lunch?'")

Or we become vicious advocates for some particular 'diet' or way of eating without respecting each individual person's food journey.

Wouldn't you rather be able to make a snap decision - say yes or no and be done with it - knowing you can handle the consequences whatever they might be? I knew I would, so I taught myself how.

I'm here to say there is a way around this. A way you can change any food habit you want to, a way to eat so that you get the nutrition you need and avoid diseases but can have FUN in your life. There is a process involved. There is a bit of 'work' to be done learning to listen to your own body properly, but do it once, stay accountable for your actions and you're pretty much set for life!

You also have to do this for yourself, and by yourself - and I can't stress this enough.

No two people are exactly alike, food affects us all differently, even in the same family. So why is it that we consistently buy into this idea that the same diet will work for everyone? Or even work for one person for their entire life without  changing? It's something I have become more and more passionate about fixing.

We see what someone else is doing and say 'it must have worked for her so it's got to work for me, right?'...WRONG. That's taking someone else's solution at face value if you don't go through your own internal process and experiment for yourself. I know I am going against the grain with a lot of what I say, and I know that the 'diet' industry thrives on people looking at others and thinking 'it must have worked for them'. But it's really really really just not that easy. There's something that IS that easy though - and it's these couple of food rules I have started to live by courtesy of Michael Pollen:

1) EAT REAL FOOD ( do you KNOW what the ingredients on the label are? Does it look like food?)
2) NOT TOO MUCH (listen to the signals, eat consciously, savour each bite)
3) MOSTLY PLANT BASED (plants are YUMMY!)

All the evidence points towards a healthy person if you can follow this at least 80-90% of the time - and the rest is all just optional, and can be handled through other work not involving food. It's not exactly a life or death decision when you live by those three rules either.

A very wise person once said that there is only one type of food you should eat - the food that sings to you. I've got a secret to tell you about this too - if McDonalds or muffins 'sing' to you today, after a bit of experience and experimenting with the fruits, vegetables and grains that you like you will realise that McDonalds is to food what Justin Bieber is to music (no offence to him, he's obviously doing pretty damn well for the corporations behind his success and happily enjoying the spoils, but I'd like to see him evolve a bit before I'd spend money on one of his albums). Myself, I prefer to listen to something more along the lines of Daft Punk, Mumford and Sons, U2 or any music which touches my soul.

If you want a free piece of advice to take away from this blog post with you it must be this - EAT RIGHT FOR YOUR SOUL and don't be afraid to try something new and different. To experiment. Then watch your life improve in every single way. No stress, no freak outs, no out and out binges on rubbish. Just nourishment, pure and simple.

I can help you learn to eat right for your soul, and have maintained the same weight for the best part of 2 years after dropping 10 kilos doing so. E-mail me or contact me via Facebook or twitter (@kaliannagrace) to get started.

Happy soulful eating x

Marriage in the time of 'conscious uncoupling'

Poor Gwyneth and Chris! I mean that sincerely - she had previously been engaged to Brad Pitt and they lasted 10 years, pretty much a few life times by Hollywood marriage standards. They were a couple that seemed to have a soul level connection. I am sure they do, but something has gone wrong...

The ridicule over Gwyneth's lifestyle choices was already really harsh but both had talents, amazing independent careers and a healthy sense of privacy about their family life (we'll let slide Gwyn's attempts at singing, everyone's entitled to an indulgence aren't they? no harm no foul in my world). 

It's a little unnerving for me to read this sort of news right now, as I am newly engaged and planning to marry once, for life. Witness the gorgeous ring, which does attract comments from everyone. He knew I liked the teardrop shape, knew he wanted white gold and came up with something that works perfectly. That's a man who knows how to pay attention (even if it takes a few attempts to get him to do it). 

A week ago I would have held Gwyneth and Chris up as an example of two people who can love and support each other, nurturing each individual's talents and raising healthy, intelligent children. But if you believe the press and the gossip then there have been affairs, lack of sex, arguments over how to feed their kids and they just couldn't live together anymore. What does this say about them? Are they sensible, conscious people who didn't want to wait until they became 'empty nesters' to get on with living their own lives? The idea that they are 'consciously uncoupling' definitely says so. I will forever love Gwyneth for supplying the fodder for such funny tweets as you'll find on the hashtag #ConsciousUncoupling, but the question remains: was this two people who just didn't want to do the work involved in being married anymore? If they didn't, with everything they had, will I? Look at Bruce Willis and Demi Moore - apparently still best friends after being divorced for so long. I guess if that's 'conscious uncoupling' then there's nothing to be afraid of, but if they get along so well living apart what's the problem living together? Demi and Ashton have ended and Bruce clearly took years and years to find someone else. Did he find the right someone else? 

A lot of people don't want to do all that work people talk about when they get married, and the decision to split is fair enough. I actually agree with the idea behind conscious uncoupling - releasing rigidity and belief structures around marriage. In this day and age it's absolutely necessary. Check out this article from the National Post that explains it a bit more. But a split won't do you any good if you don't really work on yourself and sort out your own heart and happiness. It can be done inside a relationship, but doesn't always look pretty. It looks, a lot of the time, like unacceptable compromise, like failure, or like not being able to get things to happen fast enough. Egos are such brutal things, and when they clash it's worth getting out of the way at all costs.

I've been in a relationship for 7 (nearly 8) years now, and can confidently say compromise is constant, and yes I have asked myself (do ask myself) frequently whether I'm losing something by staying. That leads to a lot of what feels like 'pushiness' sometimes, but I figure if he stays, and I can stay as long as I'm able to be pushy and get my way then it's worthwhile staying together.

When I look at the fact that he surprises me with Burberry handbags as Christmas gifts, that he helps me fund my penchant for further study, and that the state of my relationship has led to tears of bewilderment and longing from people going through their own issues it shows me I have something incredibly special in my life. It means I get to take a month off and do yoga teacher training in Bali. It means I don't cook meat at home anymore. It means he's quitting smoking (finally!!), and it means that slowly, gradually, inch by inch, we continue to claim our own space within the relationship and hopefully avoid stifling each other or losing ourselves.

It doesn't happen 'easily' at all though, and if you drop the ball for even a few weeks you'll be in danger of losing the progress you do make. Let me be honest and say some of the simplest things are taking YEARS to turn around. 

I'd be interested to know from anyone reading this how long do you think it's acceptable to wait for something in a relationship to change (something that you can't wholeheartedly embrace after a lot of trying...like smoking)? At what point are you being selfish or unselfish if/when you leave? At what point do you give up? It's something i've never known how to do well. I finished a law degree purely for the sake of finishing. I had no clear plan or idea of what I would do with it. I thought about relationships for years after they were over, and went through endless amounts of 'letting go' to get to a relatively clean and clear space where my life can move forward.

In my heart of hearts I'm still holding out hope that Gwyneth and Chris will work out their differences, but it's just the incurable romantic in me I guess! Whether they do work it out depends on a lot of things, including how serious those differences really are. It's the same for them as it is for me and whatever happens I'm pretty sure we'll all survive.

Why I didn't take a #nomakeupselfie for cancer research

It's interesting to see the media and Facebook, instagram, twitter and other social platforms all-a-flutter over the latest 'good cause' - supporting breast cancer research with the #nomakeupeslfie hashtag. What's been achieved, raising something like AUD$3m equivalent for a cause is really commendable - the universe knows I'd be flying pretty high if there was $3m committed to teaching people the value of health coaching and supplying plants and organic food to needy communities. Something about this really bothers me though, and it's time to speak up about it. Before I do, here's my version - taken on a regular makeup free day. It was, until yesterday, also my facebook profile photo and I don't believe I was 'brave' to post a photo of myself without makeup (but that's really a subject for another post).

What irks me is the fact that all over the world cancer survival is considered living beyond 5 years after diagnosis, and that people still hold out so much hope for  a pill to deal with something so endemic, that impacts every physical and psychological level of the human condition. Do not misunderstand me, my position is that western medicine and cancer research are invaluable in the right circumstances. What I would say is that we've probably reached that point by now, especially with an affliction like cancer, so widespread and widely known. If I have a car accident, if I get blown up by a suicide bomber and need to be put back together, I'll be the one asking to be taken to the hospital, and for insurance dollars to help, but there is a limit to what these sorts of institutions can do. Ultimately my firm belief is that our own health is in our own hands. It involves choices (and yes, you do have a choice whether or not it's a hard one to make when it comes to what you put into your body and expose yourself to). Education, less carcinogens in your food and your environment and lots of love and laughter are never even talked about in any serious way. Western medicine except for a few enlightened practitioners at the very top remains helpless...hopeless, and we think throwing more dollars at the research looking for drugs is the solution?

Pills can relieve pain in someone who is days away form dying, and pills or drugs in the form of antibiotics can stem the onslaught of an infection in the short term, in a time of dire need - but people in their childhood, their teens, their 20s and 30s are going down with cancer. Stem cell research, quantum biology and areas where real progress can be made are still ignored or pooh-poohed by most of mainstream western society. The dollars go to big pharmaceutical studies from what I have read (correct me if I am wrong please!) - so that's really the issue for me. Where's the emphasis on prevention with all of the research going on? and the dollars going towards it?

Don't we all by now have some personal experience with this insidious disease? My aunt was a cancer survivor, and she just died in her sixties after her sister died a few years ago of a different form of cancer. Friends of my family have 'survived' cancer and more have been taken by the disease, or live with the knowledge that it might come back at any time. They live with what they were told: that cancer is irreversible, and that there's nothing you can do in your own life to mitigate it. Is that really the truth? Food Matters, The Gerson Institute, The Wellness Warrior and people like Anita Moorjani actually say otherwise.

Mothers and grandmothers, fathers and sons with everything to live for are subjecting themselves to the most horrific treatments mankind ever invented in the hopes of lasting another few months or years - with no guarantee of even that (doctors will admit that they are still CLUELESS in a lot of areas when it comes to cancer). At this point, when the dollars spent on cancer research number more than $200 BILLION per year worldwide, when as the research increases and intensifies the answers seem further and further away - and most treatments do more harm than good - can't we start to ask ourselves whether maybe, just maybe, there's enough money being spent on this type of research?Maybe there's a way we can all individually be more proactive about preventing and dealing with cancer in ways that don't involve using known carcinogens in the form of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery to make a bad situation utterly horrific? If the $200bn is being spent that way, well, then great! if not, then we need a new type of cancer research in my view.

I  know that so many people do the fun runs, colour themselves in rainbows, bake sugary cancer causing treats and do all manner of things to hold out some glimmer of hope, and ease feelings of helplessness. Here's a thought though - what if we're not helpless at all? What if we're just seriously misinformed and under-educated about what we can all do today to prevent and mitigate the risks of cancer? hmmmn

Now that the ranty part of this post is over, I'll quickly add that no, I am not a great fan of the 'selfie' and what it says about participants in this #nomakeupselfie project. Please check out this great article on the subject by Clementine Ford, who I agree with for the most part (except where she also says that cancer research just needs 'serious dollars' and does not address the direction the research is going).

I also took this one makeup free selfie way back in January 2011 before selfies were even that much of a 'thing'. I also never wear makeup except for a rare occasion a couple of times a year, and I love my life that way.

If you want to see more makeup free selfies just friend me on facebook, or follow me on twitter (@kaliannagrace) ;)

Going Organic – a beginner’s guide

It’s a buzz topic that’s been around for quite a while now; how and why eating organic food is better for you. What started out as a ‘hippy’ craze, strongly refuted by scientists and ‘Big Food’ companies, has started to take on a new significance in the last 4-5 years. Organic food, people are deciding, IS better, and so we see more of it pop up. If you haven’t give it a try and let your own taste buds be the judge. Organic produce is available in sections at major supermarkets (depends what time of day you shop and where you are how much you can get though) and farmers’ markets have seen a massive uplift in popularity and exposure. Two years ago I didn’t even know there were markets close to me in inner-west Sydney, but now I have discovered no less than 4 big ones within a 10k radius, and they are bustling on the weekends, are featured in magazines and a huge number of my friends started going before I did. The idea is spreading, and the campaigns overseas against companies like Monsanto have highlighted the issue to a whole new generation. Monsanto in particular is being singled out for two reasons: pesticides and GMOs.

I only have a judgment on whether one of those is bad, and it’s pesticides for sure. You can read all about what’s happening, and hear arguments against both but in my opinion we only know for sure that the chemicals used in growing massive crops are harmful, and deplete the land apart from what they do to the body when ingested. GMOs, genetically modified organisms, are a completely different story – and scientists argue that they are necessary to feed a booming population and are harmless. In a lot of cases that could turn out to be true, but it’s way too soon to tell, and the real issue is whether or not you get to find out whether your food is from a GMO crop. That’s a problem and makes it virtually impossible to avoid GMO if you decide you want to in my opinion, so worth avoiding any risk and going organic on both counts, at least for now.

I’m not going to list everything that’s bad about non-organic fruit and vegetables, and don’t judge anyone for going along with what’s available and what’s affordable when they do their shopping. The only purpose here is to give those who are new to the world of organics a couple of tips about how to source local, or at least Australian, produce and some hints I wish I knew before I learned about them. Cost is always a factor but the only thing to say about that is ‘what price is your and your family’s health worth to you’? The problems associated with chemicals found in pesticides and herbicides are too many to mention and will cost you in both time, medical costs and your sanity– they run the gambit from mild allergies or headaches or fatigue you think you just have to live with to cancers, digestion problems, a greater rate of infections, symptoms attributed to gluten intolerance and a lot more.

Start with the Dirty Dozen

If you do have to make a choice or can’t afford organic prices, or are still learning your way around, there is a compromise – you can make the effort to avoid these 12 foods when they’re not available organic. They have been found to have the highest concentration of pesticides when grown through ‘normal’ methods (peeling doesn’t get rid of it all either):

1)   Apples

2)   Capsicum/Peppers

3)   Blueberries

4)   Celery

5)   Cucumbers

6)   Grapes

7)   Lettuce

8)   Nectarines

9)   Peaches

10)Potatoes

11) Spinach

12) Strawberries

When it comes to everything else, or when you have no other option available, you can remove a lot of the harmful chemicals by washing your remaining produce thoroughly with warm water and at least 2-3 capfuls (or tablespoons) of apple cider vinegar. Soak them for at least a minute, remove, rinse in cold water and enjoy without all the nastiness J

To avoid laziness  (my biggest weakness) you can just do this to all your vegetables at once - throw them in the clean sink - when you get home from shopping then you don’t have to worry about anything but a really quick run under water before using them.

Is ‘pesticide free’ the same?

If you shop at a fruit and vegetable shop – or ideally a farmer’s market, you can always ask whether the produce they sell is at least ‘pesticide free’. In Australia, at least for now, this can be a pretty good assurance that what you’re eating is ok. The fact of the matter is that yes, organic food is more expensive, but it also costs a lot to get organic certification and there are farming methods that have to be followed, so if you can find a place supplying pesticide free produce, but not necessarily certified then so long as they’re not lying it’s probably safe! If you’re in doubt, just use the washing method I’ve described above – it’s just great knowing that what you bought wasn’t grown using harmful poisons in the first place though.

Get organic delivered

5 years or so ago, there were not so many places delivering quality, organic produce, but the numbers have swelled – and chances are that if you do a google search in your area you’ll find someone who brings boxes to your area either weekly or fortnightly. This almost always works out cheaper than store-bought and you can’t argue with the convenience of a box of fresh, yummy food at your doorstep! If you haven’t done it, give it a try and see what’s available. The more demand there is for this type of food the more readily available and cheap it will become, it’s just a matter of time thankfully.

Get friendly with your favourite organic websites

There are huge resources available online to support an organic lifestyle – and often these deliver and have great tips and recipes too. Here are my top resources to get you started incase you hadn’t heard of them already:

The additive free pantry – great for navigating food labels and brands, totally inspiring and makes you realize that anyone can do this.

Australian Organic Directory – listings of what you can get organically grown and made here in Australia and locations. Very useful especially if you travel a lot or are moving.

Organics On a Budget – This is a nice site sourcing unusual and quirky things like fun little mashies to fill up with home made goodness for kids to take to school. Unfortunately a lot comes from overseas, which is a shame and means things may be unavailable for a short period. 

People for Plants – If you’re into the organic lifestyle that also means your skincare and beauty routine needs an overhaul. There are a lot of brands popping up selling organic skincare ranges, and I love People for Plants, which is associated with master gardener Jamie Durie.

Regenerative Leadership Institute – A great free permaculture course with lots of resources available on the website, and a paid course you can choose to join too to get started growing your own food and living sustainably.

The Wellness Warrior – Jess Ainscough’s gorgeous blog is full of great recipes, discussion about organic foods and brands, why it’s so important and how to transition to an organic lifestyle. She also does celebrity foodie interviews and has a new book out, having just completed the national tour and you can read all about those there too.

Grow your own

A surefire way to supply yourself with at least some fresh organic herbs and produce is to start to grow some of your own. If you’re not lucky enough to have a garden or yard, don’t give up on the idea. Small herbs and greens can be grown on tables, along footpaths, up and down doors and walls and on terraces (Indira Naidoo’s fantastic book shows you how to start a whole garden on nothing but a small terrace if you’re game!). There is a great online permaculture course available through the Regenerative Leadership Institute link above, and there’s a free guidebook on green living too. Jess Ainscough aka the Wellness Warrior also has a video blog post on growing your own garden, well worth a look.

Ease into it with simple swaps

The fact is we were designed to feel good, and function on a much higher level, but we’ve somehow accepted so many illnesses as a part of life. No one ‘has’ to put up with feeling crappy, it isn’t ‘normal’ and it might take work and a lot of experimenting with different foods but most of the time what you put into your body really is the answer to the problem. Trying simple swaps, like making your own guacamole or mayonnaise, is how I have started, and the difference in taste, quality and the fun factor knowing you made something from scratch are enough to keep me motivated. Keep an eye on the blog for some simple recipes and get creative and come up with your own too! The whole process of learning to eat well is actually a joy – and speaks for itself when you start to feel better, when people ask you what you’ve been doing, and you realize you don’t even like chemical laden food anymore. It doesn’t happen overnight, and we all have our ‘weak spots’ when it comes to food but with a bit of energy and effort you will get the transformation everybody talks about.

If you’ve been experiencing mild health problems you don’t know how best to deal with, my first piece of advice would be to start cutting the crap from your diet meaning packaged food and pesticide laden produce– whether or not you need additional help or medication down the track. The results of switching to organic can be astounding, and if you fall off the wagon it’s all the better because it shows you how much a difference it was making to your life and helps you stay on track longer the next time.

I don’t advocate cutting out any food group except for a short period to test for allergies on an elimination style diet, but what I DO tell every single person who asks is that yes, you should be eating organic and it matters.

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