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Thoughts on Diet

Well Folks…!

Consistent with our philosophy, we do not advocate any one dietary regime to follow. We do believe that what you put inside your body is one of the most important factors of health-individual and planetary. But to follow a program designed by another is not the way to go about positive change. You have to find your own way. It's not easy, but with food advice, as with so many things in life, things being made easy for you is a sure sign that you are being shorted, or short changing yourself, which is worse.

What we do teach is how to go about finding your own way. Our book and our workshops focus on the belly and in particular the digestive organs. We encourage people to do further reading and study- with serious, legitimate sources, of course-but to put all that information into the context of how they feel inside their body, on a plane that is below thoughts and words.

Your body knows what it wants-it knows what is good for it, and it is trying at almost every moment to communicate that to you. This is a different experience than merely craving your favorite "vices." Once an inspired (with breath) and unhurried relationship is established between your awareness and your viscera, you can't be led too far astray by your cravings. What is bad for you will begin to lose its attraction. You will literally get sick of it, just like when you go ahead and eat too much ice cream and you get bloated and sick. You'll feel that in advance, either in advance of eating too much or before you even eat it.

And it's a long, no, a lifetime process. It's one of incremental distinctions and refinement. It's exploring and discovering as you go along. Your choices about eating changes from thoughtless behavior, or strict adherence to a regime, to a matter of creative interest and involvement.

If this is starting to sound like yoga, or exercise, or learning about how the world works, instead of gibberish, well, you're half way to understanding what Unwinding is all about. If you want the entire food issue to just go away, or to be tidied up by somebody else, or if you are seeking overnight results, I suppose that's why they call some other approaches the quick fix and fast food. A person has to ask him or herself, just as he or she often does while sitting in one of those brightly colored booths at the hamburger joint: "Am I having fun yet?" It's a stale experience, rushing through life, not paying attention, and having everything prepared for you.

On the opposite side of the spectrum there is the resistance to the blasé consumerism by means of dietary programs that resemble fanatic social advocacy rather than just taking care of oneself. To throw oneself into trying to change everyone else's beliefs and behavior may be more exciting and pay off in feelings of superiority and righteousness. It may even fill up workshop space (because so many people seem to be confused about this subject and are willing to pay to hear lectures). All that may be satisfying for awhile, but in the end it ends up being an experience just as stale as sitting at the greasy burger joint.

I'm not sure which is worse, a processed-food vendor or a food sectarian.

You see, nearly all our clients, and every one of our students ask us about our dietary beliefs. They want to know where we're coming from, what camp we're in. Do we eat anything we feel like or do we follow a strict regime. It's like living in the seventeenth century, where one was required to proclaim his or her standing with the church. You were either a Protestant or a Catholic, and if you said you were neither you were beyond the pale. But nowadays we have more than two choices about food. We can be almost anything: Vegan, Vegetarian, Raw, Dr. Atkins, Dr. Ornish, The Zone, Paleolithic, high protein, high carbohydrate, etc. etc. But you have to be coming from somewhere!

Sure, we have beliefs about nutrition, like anyone else, but as teachers we are reticent to say, specifically. We give a little space to this issue here on the web site because you won't find us talking about it elsewhere. Our book and workshops are about how you start finding the answers for yourself.

On the other hand, it's undersatandable that clients and students ask. They have got so wound up that they really don't know anything about proper food choices or how to go about finding out what they need. That's okay. It's not as if any one of us were taught anything about our body or how to choose and prepare healthy food! We were all grossly misled in school as to what really matters in life. Miseducation is one of those quirky features in life that we must accept, just as we must learn to tolorate the existence of the television news programs and high school PE teachers; all part of the landscape, all part of Maya (the grand theatre of life). And what would we do without all the untruths that are foisted upon us? We'd have nothing left to wise up about!

And so, to answer those students' queries, we find it sometimes necessary to express what we have found to be generally true-for us. Thankless task though it is, we will make a list of guidelines, a list of the fundamentals. The list of guidelines sounds terribly cliché, but truth has the nasty habit of staying true. We hope the novel way we have listed them helps you to not reject them out of hand.

Any legitimate dietary program, for the modern American at least, includes these concepts. Be forewarned the guidelines probably include something you don't want to hear. Believe me, sometimes we don't like them either, but we feel better when we follow them, no way around it.

Please note that we don't presume these are entirely appropriate for everyone. People raised in different cultures are going to have a different matrix of beliefs about what constitutes health and the good eating habits that lead to health. Yet-we do believe that just about anyone would do all right with our suggestions, once personal refinements have been made.

The guidelines come in two flavors: behavior and things.

What we do when we are feeling our best:

Eat slowly, sensually, savoring every bite.

Eat until almost full.

Eat consistently throughout the day, not skipping meals.

Eat a wide variety of food, changing often and with the seasons.

Keep meals simple: combining protein, carbs (mosty vegetables), and good fats, in proper proportions- nothing more nor less.

Break these rules occasionally, while singing and dancing.

The things we avoid, either always, or when we are feeling our best:

White sugar

Store-bought juices

Drugs, including pharmaceuticals

Tobacco

Alcohol

Caffeine, especially sodas, including "diet" sodas

Cow's milk, cheese and butter

Commercially-raised meats

Refined, or heavily processed, beans or grains

Most restaurants

The things we are sure to include; when we feel our best:

Pure water

Authentic sea salt

Extra virgin olive oil, uncooked

Ground flax seed or flax oil

Fresh, organic fruits and vegetables: any and all!

Organically raised and fed meat, poultry and fish

High quality, organic whole grains

Organic nuts and seeds

Well, there you have it. That's the surest way to empty a building (especially during a workshop). Tell someone they can't have their favorite such and such, at least not every day, and they run the other way. But that's not the reason we don't tell them they can't. All of us have heard too much of "no, can't, shouldn't" and we believe that most anybody with food challenges is tapping into the rebel inside who's answering: "Oh yeah, watch me!"

Isn't it better to teach someone that they are also free to feel good, authentically good,-not just "high", but consistently good, right down to the cells inside their bones? When that's going on, eventually, by the grace of only God knows what magic, the habit of dumping confusing and congesting chemicals into the system just fades into the background.

In other words, you are free to have that chocolate cake or whatever else it is you like. But since you're having such an interesting time doing your practice, sport, hobby, art (and preparing meals for yourself) you can put the bad stuff off for another day. With Unwinding you now have the freedom, space, and time to notice how you feel and to make whatever adjustments you choose.

That's what Unwinding is all about: to get curious, find out what's proper for you, taking nothing for granted, to experiment and stick to your internal source of truth. And when all seems lost, as is inevitable with any exploration, to remember the basic guidelines, and try again. One step backward, forgiveness, and then two steps forward.

Communicate with your inner intuition, your primal life movement, your viscera, your self, and you will know what is right, and it will feel like you've always known it.

Why? Because your guts know what they want-they don't want to be ignored, nor do they live by words and beliefs, systems, and programs; they want nurture!

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Home Who We Are Private Consultations Classes, Workshops, and Events Mentoring About the Book To Purchase the Book Excerpts from the Book Journal and Magazine Reviews Contact Us Links The content of this web site is protected under copyright law.	Current Topic Thoughts on Diet Well Folks…! Consistent with our philosophy, we do not advocate any one dietary regime to follow. We do believe that what you put inside your body is one of the most important factors of health-individual and planetary. But to follow a program designed by another is not the way to go about positive change. You have to find your own way. It's not easy, but with food advice, as with so many things in life, things being made easy for you is a sure sign that you are being shorted, or short changing yourself, which is worse. What we do teach is how to go about finding your own way. Our book and our workshops focus on the belly and in particular the digestive organs. We encourage people to do further reading and study- with serious, legitimate sources, of course-but to put all that information into the context of how they feel inside their body, on a plane that is below thoughts and words. Your body knows what it wants-it knows what is good for it, and it is trying at almost every moment to communicate that to you. This is a different experience than merely craving your favorite "vices." Once an inspired (with breath) and unhurried relationship is established between your awareness and your viscera, you can't be led too far astray by your cravings. What is bad for you will begin to lose its attraction. You will literally get sick of it, just like when you go ahead and eat too much ice cream and you get bloated and sick. You'll feel that in advance, either in advance of eating too much or before you even eat it. And it's a long, no, a lifetime process. It's one of incremental distinctions and refinement. It's exploring and discovering as you go along. Your choices about eating changes from thoughtless behavior, or strict adherence to a regime, to a matter of creative interest and involvement. If this is starting to sound like yoga, or exercise, or learning about how the world works, instead of gibberish, well, you're half way to understanding what Unwinding is all about. If you want the entire food issue to just go away, or to be tidied up by somebody else, or if you are seeking overnight results, I suppose that's why they call some other approaches the quick fix and fast food. A person has to ask him or herself, just as he or she often does while sitting in one of those brightly colored booths at the hamburger joint: "Am I having fun yet?" It's a stale experience, rushing through life, not paying attention, and having everything prepared for you. On the opposite side of the spectrum there is the resistance to the blasé consumerism by means of dietary programs that resemble fanatic social advocacy rather than just taking care of oneself. To throw oneself into trying to change everyone else's beliefs and behavior may be more exciting and pay off in feelings of superiority and righteousness. It may even fill up workshop space (because so many people seem to be confused about this subject and are willing to pay to hear lectures). All that may be satisfying for awhile, but in the end it ends up being an experience just as stale as sitting at the greasy burger joint. I'm not sure which is worse, a processed-food vendor or a food sectarian. You see, nearly all our clients, and every one of our students ask us about our dietary beliefs. They want to know where we're coming from, what camp we're in. Do we eat anything we feel like or do we follow a strict regime. It's like living in the seventeenth century, where one was required to proclaim his or her standing with the church. You were either a Protestant or a Catholic, and if you said you were neither you were beyond the pale. But nowadays we have more than two choices about food. We can be almost anything: Vegan, Vegetarian, Raw, Dr. Atkins, Dr. Ornish, The Zone, Paleolithic, high protein, high carbohydrate, etc. etc. But you have to be coming from somewhere! Sure, we have beliefs about nutrition, like anyone else, but as teachers we are reticent to say, specifically. We give a little space to this issue here on the web site because you won't find us talking about it elsewhere. Our book and workshops are about how you start finding the answers for yourself. On the other hand, it's undersatandable that clients and students ask. They have got so wound up that they really don't know anything about proper food choices or how to go about finding out what they need. That's okay. It's not as if any one of us were taught anything about our body or how to choose and prepare healthy food! We were all grossly misled in school as to what really matters in life. Miseducation is one of those quirky features in life that we must accept, just as we must learn to tolorate the existence of the television news programs and high school PE teachers; all part of the landscape, all part of Maya (the grand theatre of life). And what would we do without all the untruths that are foisted upon us? We'd have nothing left to wise up about! And so, to answer those students' queries, we find it sometimes necessary to express what we have found to be generally true-for us. Thankless task though it is, we will make a list of guidelines, a list of the fundamentals. The list of guidelines sounds terribly cliché, but truth has the nasty habit of staying true. We hope the novel way we have listed them helps you to not reject them out of hand. Any legitimate dietary program, for the modern American at least, includes these concepts. Be forewarned the guidelines probably include something you don't want to hear. Believe me, sometimes we don't like them either, but we feel better when we follow them, no way around it. Please note that we don't presume these are entirely appropriate for everyone. People raised in different cultures are going to have a different matrix of beliefs about what constitutes health and the good eating habits that lead to health. Yet-we do believe that just about anyone would do all right with our suggestions, once personal refinements have been made. The guidelines come in two flavors: behavior and things. What we do when we are feeling our best: Eat slowly, sensually, savoring every bite. Eat until almost full. Eat consistently throughout the day, not skipping meals. Eat a wide variety of food, changing often and with the seasons. Keep meals simple: combining protein, carbs (mosty vegetables), and good fats, in proper proportions- nothing more nor less. Break these rules occasionally, while singing and dancing. The things we avoid, either always, or when we are feeling our best: White sugar Store-bought juices Drugs, including pharmaceuticals Tobacco Alcohol Caffeine, especially sodas, including "diet" sodas Cow's milk, cheese and butter Commercially-raised meats Refined, or heavily processed, beans or grains Most restaurants The things we are sure to include; when we feel our best: Pure water Authentic sea salt Extra virgin olive oil, uncooked Ground flax seed or flax oil Fresh, organic fruits and vegetables: any and all! Organically raised and fed meat, poultry and fish High quality, organic whole grains Organic nuts and seeds Well, there you have it. That's the surest way to empty a building (especially during a workshop). Tell someone they can't have their favorite such and such, at least not every day, and they run the other way. But that's not the reason we don't tell them they can't. All of us have heard too much of "no, can't, shouldn't" and we believe that most anybody with food challenges is tapping into the rebel inside who's answering: "Oh yeah, watch me!" Isn't it better to teach someone that they are also free to feel good, authentically good,-not just "high", but consistently good, right down to the cells inside their bones? When that's going on, eventually, by the grace of only God knows what magic, the habit of dumping confusing and congesting chemicals into the system just fades into the background. In other words, you are free to have that chocolate cake or whatever else it is you like. But since you're having such an interesting time doing your practice, sport, hobby, art (and preparing meals for yourself) you can put the bad stuff off for another day. With Unwinding you now have the freedom, space, and time to notice how you feel and to make whatever adjustments you choose. That's what Unwinding is all about: to get curious, find out what's proper for you, taking nothing for granted, to experiment and stick to your internal source of truth. And when all seems lost, as is inevitable with any exploration, to remember the basic guidelines, and try again. One step backward, forgiveness, and then two steps forward. Communicate with your inner intuition, your primal life movement, your viscera, your self, and you will know what is right, and it will feel like you've always known it. Why? Because your guts know what they want-they don't want to be ignored, nor do they live by words and beliefs, systems, and programs; they want nurture! Return to Top