Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Just a heads up that this will be my last FTLOF post for a couple of months, as I’m going back on maternity leave. You can keep up with the baby rosebuds on Instagram @daryarose.

This week decide earlier to make healthier choices, more adults getting food allergies, and what “natural flavors” really means.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week standing desks are overrated, the new EPA head is terrifying, and how mushrooms might save the bees.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week plastics are more dangerous than you think, farmers are in crisis, and mindful people feel less pain.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week low-carb is a bust, no edge to human longevity, and writing to improve body image.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. I missed last week, so added a few more to the mix this week.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week spin class can kill your muscle tissue, Round Up found in Ben & Jerry’s, and carbs aren’t the enemy.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

We have all been there. You walk into the break room at work or get to an event and there it is, a table full of free (and not-so-healthy) treats that are yours for the taking.

For Kristen these moments trigger her into what she calls “opportunistic eating,” mindlessly eating food that would normally not appeal to her just because it is there.

Kristen knows that this behavior is preventing her from dropping the last few pounds she would like to lose. She’s also missing out on enjoying better quality treats in the rest of her life because she has “blown her calories” on eating free junk food at work.

She feels she is undermining her personal values of both good health and enjoying delicious food because of this habit.

Together Kristen and I we come up with strategies that can help her bring awareness to her behavior and get in touch with her core values so that she can make better choices when tempted.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Mindful Meal Challenge

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

Weighty Matters

The Diet Fix: Why Diets Fail and How to Make Yours Work by Yoni Freedhoff M.D.

Listen:

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If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Reshanda had a very stressful job that ultimately led her to develop a binge eating habit and gain a significant amount of weight. The weight gain naturally led her to try to correct it with dieting, which instead led instead to more bingeing.

In her work to find the solution to her bingeing and weight gain, Reshanda stumbled upon Summer Tomato and started addressing her habits and psychology. As an active part of the community here and on Facebook, I’ve watched her develop new habits over the years from learning to cook in Foodist Kitchen to mindful eating in the Mindful Meal Challenge.

Today Reshanda shares her story of how she overcame bingeing, lost 28 lbs, and more importantly learned how to develop the self-compassion, mindfulness and habits she needs to live a fulfilling life that isn’t dictated by stress and avoidance.

Her story is incredibly powerful and full of wisdom and insights into how to develop the psychological tools to build a sustainable and life-affirming healthstyle. It’s an incredible story that shows the power of self-reflection to solve even the deepest and most intractable problems.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Foodist Kitchen

Mindful Meal Challenge

The 4-Hour Body, by Tim Ferriss

Triggers, by Marshall Goldsmith

The “I Don’t Feel Like It” Fallacy

I Thought It Was Just Me and critical awareness by Brené Brown

Calm app

Listen:

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If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

“It’s like 1000% or nothing at all.” ~Rachelle

Rachelle was in a snowboarding accident when she was 15 years old that cost her the use of both of her legs. After 18 years of battling both illness and body image issues, she is finally in a place where she is healthy and has a better relationship with food, and she’s ready to feel strong and fit again. She’d also love to lose 20 lbs.

Rachelle believes that being in a wheelchair makes getting enough exercise too difficult and time consuming to be practical for her busy life. She’s juggling both a family and a career as a lawyer, so it’s clear that both time and physical limitations create barriers for her workout habits. After a little digging in our conversation though, it starts to become clear that Rachelle’s psychological barriers are the main obstacle.

All her life Rachelle has been ambitious. Her previous attempts at getting fit involved intense exercise programs with personal trainers and sports like boxing––things that take a ton of time, energy and resources. She knows that with her career and family, activities like this cause her to burn out. But when she compares herself to her husband who has lost 20 lbs in three months she believes she needs to be doing intense training like this in order to see results.

Together Rachelle and I work to reframe her goals in a way that makes them compatible with her work and family life, while still allowing her to lose weight. We discuss specific mental exercises she can do to help maintain this perspective (often the hardest part) and give her the cognitive flexibility to be more creative in finding new ways to be active.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related Links:

Mindful Meal Challenge

Whole30

Peloton bike

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Jason is an old friend of my husband’s who also happens to be the editor of this podcast. Since he’s started listening to the show he’s become more and more health conscious, and when I launched the Mindful Meal Challenge he decided to give mindful eating a try.

Jason is a perfect test subject for mindful eating, because as he was already trying to get his healthstyle in a better place he already has a set menu for breakfast and lunch. This means that what he was eating didn’t change, so any change in his eating habits can be directly attributed to mindfulness.

He found that his morning three egg omelet was in fact larger than he needed to be satisfied, so he has now cut back to two. He also found that even though he found himself consuming less for breakfast, he wasn’t as hungry when lunch and dinner came around.

Simply by eating one Mindful Meal per day in the morning, Jason lost 4 lbs in the first week of the challenge.

Although he is still trying to figure out the best healthstyle for himself moving forward (which I help him troubleshoot in this episode as well), mindful eating is now a major part of his weight control strategy.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Relate links:

Mindful Meal Challenge

Foodist Kitchen

Simple Gourmet: Roasted Beets With Fresh Mint and Chèvre

Aeropress coffee maker

Hamilton Beach toaster oven

Blue Bottle Coffee

“The reason you’re suffering is you’re focused on yourself.” -Tony Robbins from Tools of Titans, by Tim Ferriss

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

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Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of mindful eating. Research has repeatedly shown that mindful eating helps people make better food choices, stop bingeing, enjoy meals more and naturally eat less.

It can help you break unhealthy eating patterns and replace them with healthier ones.

And it is often the last piece of the puzzle for healthy eaters who still struggling to lose those last few stubborn pounds.

But mindful eating is hard to do. Your brain naturally rejects mindful awareness and desperately seeks to follow your impulses to think and/or judge your current situation rather than simply observe it.

These impulses are STRONG. And fighting them to bring your attention back to the present moment can feel exhausting, especially in the early days of your practice.

This is usually when people start to question if mindfulness is even worth it. Enjoying your food more and eating less sounds great and all, but at what price?

How can you enjoy your meal when you’re in a tug of war with your own mind?

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