CONFESSION...

 when I refer to "diet" I am referring to a way of life, not a weight loss plan.

I'm DONE reading books about food. 

I started several months ago with one book. It wasn't recommended to me I just wanted to begin an approach to health that wasn't necessarily about shunning food, but understanding it and the role it plays in my overall wellness. I've read so many articles and heard so many opinions...I didn't want to just jump on the next trend.  I was looking for something more than just stories passed from one person to the next in a very elaborate and unreliable game of telephone.

The first book started off well enough. Authored by a lauded physician with credits a mile long. It was chock full of the clinical, scientific data I loved, but was it really the full story? I mean, I know what it's like in a research lab...there's a lot of data that comes out of any study and scientist are known to use what supports their position. I had no reason to be skeptical...except I was.

The following book was the exact opposite. Even spending some time refuting information in the first book. It encouraged a diet based on the foods cavemen ate. It made a lot of sense and the simplicity of the message was compelling to me...but whenever anyone advocates an all or nothing approach to food...well, the jury was still out. That was until it dropped the bombshell "beans are bad." HUH? Well, my mom is a Latina as was her mother before her as was my great grandmother a proud Mayan Indian. Beans are our thing. But, the book was good and I wasn't ready to fling the baby out with the bathwater. I had to be open to the idea that maybe something I thought was good really wasn't.

The next book I read was in complete or at least semi opposition to the two before and I remained on that train over the course of the next ten books. Back and forth with some overlap, some agreement, some disagreement. I was incredibly confused...what's good for me, what's bad for me, What do you mean the "organic" label means nothing and "cage free" doesn't really mean cage free? UGH!!!!!

I was beginning to feel a little crazy and helpless. Vegan, Paleo, Raw, No Gluten, Autoimmune, Vegetarian, Pescetarian, Flexitarian, Real Food. I'm sure there's more I've never even heard of. Should I just throw them all in a hat and draw one out and stick with it. Living off the land like a caveman isn't practical...not to mention the centuries of evolution separating us. Moving to a farm and raising my own shit might happen one day, but not today. Going to the farmer's market and spending 35 bucks on 2 pounds of local grass fed beef and uncured bacon does not fit my budget.

What I gleaned from my literary journey this past year is that everyone just does what he or she thinks is right. You can find a study, in some cases, lots of studies to support just about any idea. Gwyneth Paltrow does not hold the monopoly on health or achieving health. Data is highly subjective and highly prone to manipulation. I won't die if I don't juice or own a Vitamix. Corporations don't care about health they care about money...but so does everybody. If it comes in a box or a bag it's probably not great. Water is precious. A chicken mcnugget won't kill you....but a lot of them...who knows. Stress will most definitely kill you. The body is a most extraordinary vessel. Trust it for the truth for it will not lie to you. Don't eat the foods that make you feel like crap. Do eat the foods that make you feel awesome. I think that any of the aforementioned diets can produce happy healthy people. Good overall health means a lot more than fitting into skinny jeans...but skinny jeans can still be a part of it;)

In case you're interested here are some of the books I read...

The China Study, Eat the Yolks, The Omnivores Dilemma, In Defense of Food,
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Fast Food Nation, Real Food  etc.

In a follow-up to this post I will share more specifically how I eat and the changes I've made that have had some pretty positive results. None of the books I read addressed diet in terms of weight loss.  I'm still really figuring things out and have developed a true love and affinity for cooking. I thought this article kinda summed up how i feel about all of this.

it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday

in addition to the demise of my beloved Domino, I am also bidding a fond farewell to the three columned blog template. How sad that it was Perez Hilton of all people to break the tragic Domino news yesterday about noonish. Go figure, I just subscribed to the mag I've been buying off the newstand for so long, only to find out that its time in the sun is over. I know I must end my lament, but I just can't stand Conde Nast...why don't they get rid of Vogue...there's more than enough fashion fodder on-line. Okay. breathe. I do love Vogue and how it satisfies my sartorial inclinations...but, oh well ces't la vie.

As you can see...I have also axed the old template in favor of something say...a bit more low maintenance. I'm just over the sheer volume of stuff blinking and clogging up my precious white space. I needed to strip back down to the essentials and do a little blog clean-up. I know you don't recognize it, but this started off as the Scribe template and after a flurry of activity is now this. Not too bad, eh? I'm happy with it. I can see a few imperfections that I have just decided to let go. One of the things I hate about uploading a new template is that I lose all my widgets. It's a bit of a pain having to add them all back in...and I always make the mistake of not writing them down somewhere. So this is by memory...if I forgot to put a link to your blog it's not a slight but rather a lapse in memory. I also added a few links. I had no choice but to get rid of blogs that are never updated...that makes me grumpy...

incidentally...speaking of blogs that are not regularly updated...I will try and practice what I preach.

don't stop till you get enough

Since I enjoyed almost success in my attempt to post every day I thought perhaps I would try again...practice makes perfect right? I can't believe we are now well into August. It was difficult rousing myself this morning...my weekend of r+r proved not be to be a weekend of debauchery rather one of sloth and the overindulgence of copious amounts of television and websurfing. I did find the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics every bit as electric as I'd hoped, and I have been watching it into the wee hours of the morn.

Returning to my relaxing weekend...

I had hoped to do very little and on that count I excelled albeit briefly. I am, by nature, a restless spirit and fancy doing many things at once...not paying the proper amount of attention to any. I wish I was more focused, well... not really. I rather like that about myself and it has developed into a deep love of many things. Wasn't it Van Gogh who said..."the way to know life is to love many things?" If that is so, Life and I are well on our way to a beautiful friendship. Anyway...despite my weak attempt at doing nothing I still found time to clean the kitchen, go to Target, crochet a bit, start and finish a book and purge a few magazines. This discourse refers to that...the purging of magazines.

I don't know how I can be so ruthless in the vanquishing of so many past issues of People and US Weekly when I can hardly bear to part with a Creating Keepsakes, Domino or God forbid someone try and pry a back issue of Martha Stewart Living from my hands...they might get cut. Why is that? Sometimes, while watching edited episodes of Sex and the City on TBS I spy all those bookcases in Carrie's living room and I imagine they contain countless volumes of Vogue. I think...what commitment....what utter devotion must she and the set decorator have to lovingly keep and store each one of those precious issues. And, while I find it insane, there is a part of me that longs to do the same. Just not with Vogue...I mean I love fashion as much as the next gal, but I approach it the same way as I do fine art...magic, but sadly I am more of a print kinda girl. I have been known to buy it...usually overpriced and at the airport although I prefer Vanity Fair but despise the insipid faces of all those socialites staring blandly into the camera. Oh and I don't care for Dominick Dunne either, but I digress. This post is really about what I can't throw away.

So I came across this issue of Creating Keepsakes scrapbook magazine. (all of you non-scrappers may want to leave me now) How young Elsie looks on the cover. I began flipping through it and was immediately struck by how much things have changed in the Scrapbook industry in just two short years...and how some things stay the same. I mean...we scrappers are constant in our quest for "fast and easy pages," "low cost accents" and "how to use up those scraps." Wait...didn't the recent issue of the magazine cover the same thing? Uhm yeah. It did. Perhaps that's why I stopped subscribing two years ago. There was some good stuff...like an article on eco-friendly scrapping which is well known now but would have been a bigger deal then and I liked seeing the work of the scrapbookers that I'd forgotten about...but WOW...when I read complaints on message boards about all the contributors being the same...I never really thought or cared about that. But, those complaining people were right. I recognized pretty much all of the names from the last few issues I bought. I even recognized their kids...a few years older, but the same kids. I think they need some new folks. That's why, no matter how they change their cover design or the typeface of their logo they can't do anything unless they work from the inside out...meaning brand new contributors.

In the end...despite my struggle...I tossed it. But not the MS Living's....I plan on meeting my maker with a few of those puppies under my arm.