Food Matters….

A Personally Healthy and Globally Sane Way of Eating & Living

A Documented Food Journey for 2011!

In my 37 years of life on earth, I have consistently made very few resolutions for the New Year.  This is not because I don’t have things to improve upon or reasons to change and grow but mainly because I am not one to believe in the pressure that we end up putting on ourselves when we pretend our lives will change on this one day. The truth is I think who we are is a lifelong process and the major changes that come into our lives that create BIG changes in us just sort of happen.  So this year the irony of it all is that some major shifts have occurred in some aspects of my thinking regarding to my own well-being and lifestyle that sort of just happened this time of year, thus corresponding to the New Year, aligning with the stars perfectly for me to spin into a New Year’s resolution of some sort. In addition, for the sake of making sure I can discipline myself as I need to for these new life changes, I decided my blog would be a perfect way to document it and hold myself responsible for either succeeding or being human- either way I am content with sharing this journey! 

So what is it?  What can be so profound that I need to write about it, chronicle it, and create somewhat of a resolution for the first time ever?  Food…….. It’s about food. Now unlike many folks that I know, my “foodie-ness” is not overly crazed.  I don’t revel and melt when I taste the best something nor do I look at food as just a way of fueling my body. I have a healthy balance of mind when it comes to food; I enjoy it a great deal but tend not to be fanatical about it one way or another.  I am however attracted to the cultural side of food and most certainly the agricultural side which has led to my methods of cooking, recipe writing, and my overall food philosophies.  I have spent so much of the last six years building my business and concentrating on the small growers we support around the world that I certainly have forgotten about taking good care of myself.  After the first three years of building Ger-Nis I had gained a lot of weight.  The stressful times (personally and professionally) kind of took me over and all my healthy and natural tendencies were thrown out the window.  Now I have to admit, I don’t have a big sweet tooth- with the exception of desserts at Applewood!  I’m not a fan whatsoever of processed foods- never have been.  I have loved fruits and vegetables and for many years and have pretty much eaten only naturally raised, hormone/antibiotic/free range meats and certainly sustainably caught fish.  I support restaurants that follow this ideology as well. 

In general, my food life does not appear to be one that needs too much tweaking.  The reality is I had never eaten breakfast for most of my adult life; I starved myself all day long for many years and just ate huge dinners and drank lots of wine (a crutch!).  I traveled a lot over the last six years of my life and indulged, quite a bit everywhere I went.  Two and half years ago, I said enough was enough. I was sick and tired of being fat and had exhausted my blame on Ger-Nis and its stresses.  It was quite simple in the end- my eating habits, starving all day, gorging at night, and not moving my ass was the only problem I had.  Now I had been doing yoga weekly most of the past ten years of my life at this point off and on.  I bit the bullet two and a half years ago and joined a gym close to my house, and, although I had been active my entire life and an athlete through my youth with a naturally decent metabolism, age had certainly caught up with me.  Not interestingly enough, quite a few amazing things happened to me because of that one small move I made in September of 2008.  That gym, Park Slope Food Collective, doesn’t exist these days.  I liked (and still like) the idea that you could pay per session, and I was not going to fool myself in thinking I didn’t need a person to tell me what to do.  I am not, as I have mentioned, an extremely disciplined person so the idea of personal trainers was perfect. As a single lady with no family and, thus, no money pouring out of my bank account, my budget allowed for it.  What happened next really changed my life.  I eventually was paired with a trainer, Jason Quick (http://www.quickboxing.com/ ) and discovered kickboxing and boxing.  It was the first time in a very long time I had enjoyed using my body for sport.  My natural aggressiveness and my body’s natural power and strength were really made for the sport- especially boxing. 

Kickboxing has not come as naturally to me, but when I lived in Israel I trained with Eran Bert at a professional fighting school where he really taught me the basics of kickboxing and showed me that my body was indeed capable of doing it.  I was also introduced to Brazilian Jui Jitsu while with Eran (www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC0nkiEDXPk ), and it became a small part of my regimen also influenced by my friendship with Josh Skyer.   What I realized by just simply moving my body was that not only physically was I beginning to get into amazing shape, but I was learning so many important life lessons and making lifelong friendships.  These three men influenced my life in profound ways that have not only warped my body into better shape but my mind as well.  Thus appears another gentle reminder by the world about how nothing is really separate after all. 

 

So all this sounds great right?  What the hell am I talking about making life changes now? What happened next is that my pattern of behavior wasn’t altered enough- perhaps I wasn’t ready for the entire change.  I opened the Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center in the spring of 2010.  I moved our offices, remodeled, and designed a space and took on a heck of a lot of new work.  I hired an entirely new staff and had to end some seriously important relationships in my life.  Basically stress, depression, and lack of time became my deterrents for a healthy me.  One thing is certain- having a kitchen in our office (the culinary center) certainly helps with my still difficult issue with eating breakfast and starving myself throughout the work day.  In the end, I cut way back on my daily workouts with Jason, boxing and kickboxing, I stopped with Jui Jitsu (that’s another story), and I began to do a lot of late night eating and drinking.  So yes, I gained some weight back and am not happy about it.  The good news is that my eating is still the same, I love fruits and vegetables, I don’t eat any processed foods, and I still don’t eat mass produced meats and chicken!

What happened next involved my IPAD, Mark Bittman and an overnight realization to move to the next level in taking care of myself, and it just happened to have happened a few weeks ago making it all ripe for the pairing of my new simple changes and 2011……thus brings us to Food Matters, A Personally Healthy and Globally Sane Way of Eating and Living, A Documented Food Journey for 2011.

So the first thing that happened is I got sick and tired of being fat again and started to work out regularly (sorry Jason for the time off!).  I decided that nothing at work was more important that my own health and well-being and decided that I had to from this point forward keep this ideology ahead of all else.  It was time for me to let Ger-Nis live as an adult. It doesn’t need me to breathe for it anymore, so like a parent watching her child go off to college I released Ger-Nis into the world. I am still here for it, but Ger-Nis will no longer consume me in 2011! 

Second thing that happened is that as I am in love with my IPAD like Oprah. One night surfing the web in bed, I ran across Mark Bittman’s new book ‘Food Matters.’  Now I don’t know who Mark Bittman is- or at least didn’t until recently. That’s the big joke here, how sheltered I am sometimes.  But I have to admit, not knowing who he is makes the story even better I think.  I paid the $$, downloaded the book to my IPAD, and began to read. Less than 36 hours later I was done with the book which is a record all in itself as most books lose my interest quickly.  His book is, in a very little nutshell, about eating healthier for oneself and the planet; eating less animal products and more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables; and eliminating all processed foods from one’s diet.  He had me from the very beginning as he referenced Micheal Pollan (who is my favorite author and who I would love to have speak at the ), and he simply reiterates what I know, what I feel, and how I genuinely live day to day.

 He speaks about the ill effects that mass production of corn, cattle, and chickens, and again reiterates a lifestyle choice that is healthier for the planet and all of us.  Really, honestly, there is nothing new to all of this for me except my state of mind. Somehow I knew at that particular moment I could do more than I was doing, that I still had further to go, and that I now required a new discipline in life that I was ready for.  Again the connection between working out regularly and letting Ger-Nis go is one in the same as I needed to make a conscious decision to do better for my own eating habits and “practice what I preach” a lot more.  My hindrances are simple. I just needed consistency to be a part of it all. So here we go, 2011…. the year I vow to eat an “almost vegan” diet with zero processed foods and incorporate more whole grains, eat breakfast, and drink more water!  The exciting part is that I know this will create a whole new process for me- learning to cook with new items, being creative in the kitchen again (we all get lazy), and creating not just fueling.  What I liked about Mark’s book and his ideals is that he wasn’t overly strict. He was reasonable with his diet conditions out of self awareness- self aware that he loved white bread, self aware that he wanted to drink red wine, self aware that he would eat butter sometimes, and self aware that he needed cream in his coffee.

 I have been eating and living this way for the past two weeks, and it has been easy.  The fact is that I just needed some attention and focus placed on me and my health.  I hope to lose about 20 pounds in the next four months, and since I am working out vigorously I assume this is accomplishable!  I have created a new section on the blog where I will document the journey, the recipes, the ups, the downs, and, yes, the WEIGH INS!  I have concocted a little method so I don’t reveal my exact weight (I am a lady and we hate to divulge this sort of thing).  So Micheal Pollan and Mark Bittman, thank you, thank you for giving me a simple life lesson at a time when it was needed. The best to all of you in 2011, and don’t be too hard on yourselves. Life is a journey, and it takes forever to get to the end!