Welcome to the Peaceful Power Podcast I’m Andrea Claassen the host of the show. Today I’m talking about how I changed my food relationship. Hint- it’s an Ayurvedic based approach.
First let’s breakdown my past food relationship to truly understand where the transformation happened. It all started when I was in high school. I’m not sure when, why or where I got this idea from but I thought I was bigger then all the other girls in my class. I’m 5’10” and so were many of my female classmates most of the guys were well over 6 feet tall. Yes I come from the tallest small town ever lol. But I decided I needed to restrain my snacking & eating to not gain weight. So I remember putting food into ziplock baggies exactly counted out to how many calories were in a serving size. Now mind you this was crackers, cookies, and teddy grahams. Along with my counting of calories I rarely ate much for lunch. My best friend and I always sat at a table by ourselves and waited for the line to go down and just hung out and picked at our food. Mostly we didn’t like the school lunch food so I remember having the top of the cheese pizza and an oreo cookie as my lunch. I then would have sports practice and come home for dinner famished. Then to start the following day it was a pop tart on the way to school where I would lift weights 3 mornings a week. Horrible start at my nutrition game.
My mom did her best of getting veggies at every meal but when you live 30 miles away from the nearest grocery store we mostly had canned veggies. We thankfully did have a garden so in the summer we had amazing fresh fruits & veggies to consume. After my high school days I was off to college where I remember filling up my cabinet with a ton of processed junk food. I had crackers galore, cookies, and blow pop suckers. I remember coming home from college and having my first ever cavity knowing I needed to change my eating habits. 5 minutes
By the time I was a senior in college I was living alone and could cook whatever I wanted in a nice clean kitchen. So I started using cookbooks and cooking meals like my mom used to cook. Which was better then a diet with processed foods but not quite the delicious vegetable dishes I would have preferred but had yet to learn that. So fast forward from college to my first jobs. I really stuck to plain chicken, brown rice & broccoli. I never even knew what seasoning spices were so you can see that was a pretty bland meal. I ate that as that is what the fitness magazines said all of the fitness competitors ate so I figured if I ate like that I would magically look like that. That didn’t quite happen as I liked to have a little too much fun on my weekends for the hardcore lean physique but nonetheless I got by looking like a trainer.
Fast forward to 2015 I decided to take a healthy habits course with my yoga mentor Rachel. I was introduced to Ayurveda food techniques such as eating before 6pm. As a trainer who worked until 8pm most nights and then came home to eat afterwards that was something I didn’t see as possible. She also introduced us to new recipes such as soups, salads & kitchari as main staples in your diet as well as no snacking! I absorbed what she was saying but wasn’t quite ready to make changes. I went through the course and didn’t change much about my current routine. I was pregnant at the time I went through the course and should have felt like I should be eating exactly as she was saying but didn’t find that motivation.
Then after the birth of my son in February of 2016 I joined a 9 month Ayurveda course where I have been deep diving into how I can incorporate Ayurveda into my life in a better manner. I have found that I feel so much better now then ever before all because of some simple tweaks to my approach to food and paying attention to what I eat and not just shoving food in my face in between meetings, or feeding my son. Some of the biggest things that have changed for me with this new strategy.
- Eating mostly plant based meals
- Early, lighter dinners
- Eating in season
- Paying attention to how I feel after I eat
- Watching my snacking in between meals
- Planning what I want to eat
All of those have been game changers. I no longer have stomach issues where I feel such intense pain because I over indulged in peanut butter m&m’s. I choose not to eat ice cream very often if ever as it doesn’t sit right with me. Knowing that I want to feel healthy motivates me to make the changes that will affect my health in the present and future moments.
Weekly Challenge
Try to eat early, lighter dinners for the upcoming week. Eat before 7pm and have a bowl of soup and or a salad. Notice how you feel the next morning.
Where to connect with Andrea
- Instagram- @andreaclaassen21
- Facebook- @andreaclaassen21
- Website- andreaclaassen.com
- Facebook Group- facebook.com/groups/peacefulpower
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