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F’ it! Wear the bikini!: 3 Ways to silence the self-doubt and start living

May 18, 2017 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

F’ it! Wear the bikini!: 3 Ways to silence the self-doubt and start living

It is a seasonal right of passage. The weather warms up and people start to feel self-conscious about how their bodies look. We start to see ads for diets and workout plans that will “get you ready for summer.” Maybe it is just me, but I have found that even as I roll my eyes at these ads, some deep-down chord is struck and I find myself looking more closely at my thighs/stomach/butt/etc. I then I start wondering if I need to change me.

Then, this week, I saw an awesome post on Facebook that helped me wake up. A friend posted:

This year’s new mantra applied in different ways (figuratively) to different circumstances: F’ it! Wear the bikini!

If you have been following my blog for a while you will know that I have spent years working to get to a place where I am (more or less) at peace with my body. This has been a long road and I absolutely see this as a life-long journey. You see, even though I have come far in terms of my own self-acceptance and have in many way comes to peace with my relationship with food and exercise, I still have those old habits and negative thoughts buried down in there and every once in a while they come back up. My friend’s statement on Facebook helped to realize that I was in a self-deprecating rut and that I needed to get out of it so that I could relax and be present for the important things like enjoying time with my family and savoring delicious food without guilt.

As I worked to reset my attitude, I realized that over time I have come up with some tricks to shift my perspective and I wanted to share those with you. An important note: while my recent struggles have been around body image, these tricks can work with any kind of negative self-talk that you may be struggling with. Here are three strategies I use when I am working to overcome negative thoughts:

  1. Three good things. When I catch myself tearing myself down or listening to that nasty voice in my head, I try to stop myself and challenge myself to come up with three good things that have happened that day (or recently) and what my role in those good things has been. This incredibly powerful act helps me to see the good things that I am capable of, it boosts my mood, and it shuts that nasty voice in my head up.
  2. What would you tell a friend? If I am ripping myself apart, I try to pause and ask myself, “if a friend was saying these things about her/himself, what would I say them her/him?” Chances are, it wouldn’t be “yeah, you’re totally right…”
  3. Find the pattern, then break it! I have noticed that my negative thoughts tend to come up when I am stressed, over-tired, and around milestones like birthdays/graduations/big transitions when I am taking stock of things. Once I recognized these patterns it became easier to notice when they were rearing their ugly, nasty heads. What this means is that now, when I am starting to feel crummy about myself, I try to pause and ask, “is this coming from an old pattern?” If the answer is yes, then I can use my logical brain to see the other side of the coin. Once I do that, I can then move forward, usually starting with some deep breaths to calm my mind. Your triggers for negative thoughts may be different from mine. I have clients who have discovered that their negative thoughts start when they see a family member who stresses them out, on Sundays before starting the next work week, when they are at different stages in their menstrual cycle, the list goes on and on. As you go through these cycles, try to notice the patterns. What led to the feelings? What else is going on in your life? And then, as you start to identify those patterns, you’ll be better able to counter-act them with logical thinking, self-care, and reminding yourself that this a pattern, not reality.

Once you are able to shift your perspective and be kinder to yourself, you will find that it is much easier to put on that literal or figurative bikini and enjoy the life you are living.

Do you have tricks to snaps yourself out of these sorts of ruts? If so, I’d love to hear about them in the comments section!

Filed Under: Healthy Eating, Life Balance, Tips and Tricks Tagged With: healthy eating, life balance, self care, stress

Breaking Bread in a Modern World

January 19, 2017 By Jessica Braider 4 Comments

Breaking Bread in a Modern World

This week I had the amazing opportunity to go to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture with my 8-year-old’s 3rd and 4th grade class. It was a powerful experience in many ways and brought many emotions to the surface for all of us—sadness, pain, anger, joy, and hope. After touring the museum the whole group met in the cafeteria for lunch and as we sat there discussing what we had seen and the many emotions and thoughts it had brought up for us I looked up and saw this quote:

 

I’m concerned that Americans are losing that place of meeting. There are very few times we can be more intimate as to share food together.”

                                                -Maya Angelou

 

As I sat there, sharing a meal with these children and the other chaperones, I was struck by the fact that in that little moment we were living out the power of Maya Angelou’s words: we were sharing in the intimacy and the power of the experience we had just had, while we ate together….

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Filed Under: Culture of Food, Family Dinner, Healthy Eating, Life Balance Tagged With: culture of food, family dinner, life balance, self care

Holiday Self-Care: 6 Cooking and Self-Care Hacks in Times of Overwhelm

December 15, 2016 By Jessica Braider 1 Comment

Holiday Self-Care: 6 Cooking and Self-Care Hacks in Times of Overwhelm

I don’t know about you guys but my to do list is killing me these days! It just doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter no matter how many things I cross off. Sometimes I think that there is a little gremlin who sneaks out in the middle of the night to add tasks to the list(s). Stupid gremlin. I keep telling myself to just keep plugging away and it will all get done, somehow, and I know that is true, but there are definitely moments when it just feels like too much.

In the past few months I have read in a number of different places the analogy that self-care is like putting your own oxygen mask on first when a plane is going down—you can’t help anyone else until you are taken care of. As someone who is a chronic “helper” this can be very hard for me to do, but as much as I resist it, I have found that not only do I do better if I practice some self-care in times of stress, but everyone else in my family does too because I am more patient, kind, and efficient. At the same time, though, in these times of craziness I just don’t have time to go get a massage, sleep late, go to a yoga class, or take half a day off for some “me” time. So instead I have been working on finding ways to simplify and create the space for mini-breaks and I wanted to share them with you to help you get through the seasonal insanity, or to store away for a time when you need a boost….

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Filed Under: Life Balance, Tips and Tricks Tagged With: holiday, leftovers, quick, self care

How I Survived Stress Eating And How You Can Too

November 10, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

How I Survived Stress Eating And How You Can Too

I don’t know about any of you but on Tuesday night, in the midst of my anxiety about the unknown, I resorted to stress eating. Crackers, chocolate chips, and dried mango were my foods of choice. And here’s the thing: in the past I would have hated myself for doing it. I would have negotiated with myself for “one more” of this or that, and then would have ended up having five more. I would have eaten until I felt sick, and then possibly even eaten some more. But on Tuesday night I approached the situation differently than I would have done in the past in a couple of ways and the end result was a less guilt-ridden, overfull self.

I thought this would be a timely post because not only are some of us still feeling very stressed and anxious about what is to come, but we are also entering a time of year (holiday season) when old habits show up, when emotional buttons get pushed, and when we often lose track of our own self-care. So if stress eating and/or “eating your feelings” tend to be a fall back for you, maybe hearing how I handled it differently this time will help….

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Filed Under: Culture of Food, Healthy Eating Tagged With: balance, eating, emotions, health, self care, stress

3 Simple Steps to Take Now to Prepare for the Holiday Season

October 27, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

3 Simple Steps to Take Now to Prepare for the Holiday Season

We are on the edge of the holiday abyss. That time of year when there is so much happening and so much to do that we can easily lose track of our own self-care. Ironically, it is the time of year when we most need to be feeding ourselves well in order to fight off colds, flus, and other nasty bugs and yet we often find ourselves grabbing take out an extra time (or two or three or five) a week or falling back on convenience foods that we know don’t make us feel that great but are easy and comforting when we are feeling stressed. Yup, we are on the edge of that time. Ugh.

In years past I have shared recipes (like this, this, this, and this) and tricks (like these and these) that can help to boost ourselves up at these stressful times, but this time around I want to get super practical, people. I want to share with you what I decided was going to be the most helpful for me and it isn’t sexy or glitzy, but I am pretty darn sure that it is going to save my butt in the weeks to come… I am organizing and stocking up….

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Filed Under: Freezer Cooking, Life Balance, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized Tagged With: holiday, pantry, self care, staples

3 Ways I Let Go of Hating My Body and Learned to Love It (at least a little bit)

September 29, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

On Tuesday night I went to see the new movie Embrace which is an incredibly powerful documentary about the struggles that so many of us face around body image. It discussed the ways in which women are sent messages that their bodies are not good enough and the cycles of self-loathing and shame that build up over our lifetimes. And yet it was also an incredibly hopeful and empowering movie because it really made the case for another way. It set out a new approach for how we should honor and love our bodies as vehicles for life rather than objects to be judged by those around us (and ourselves).

As I was sitting there, I was thinking about all of the conversations I have had in the course of my work with clients, workshop participants, and friends about the anxieties that so many of us have about how our bodies look and how much shame and worry we experience around food, which we see as our Achilles heal. We believe that if we were just more controlled about what we ate, everything would be better. I say “we” here because this used to be my life. I lived in a constant state of obsession about what I was eating. I would negotiate with myself, deprive myself, count calories, workout to “earn” calories back, and not even enjoy the food I did eat because I was either anxious about whether or not I had made the “right” choice or I was wolfing it down because I was so hungry. In short, I was miserable. In the past few years, though, things have gotten much better for me. I no longer track what I eat or feel guilty when I have “junk food.” Sure, I still have days when I am not happy with my body or feel like I have overeaten, but those are now short lived, and often hormonal, which I’m cool with.

I am so grateful that this shift has happened for me and I wanted to share with you a couple of things that I truly believe have helped me to find this path:…

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Filed Under: Culture of Food, Healthy Eating, Life Balance Tagged With: balance, body image, healthy, self care, weight

Embracing the Imperfect: The power and productiveness of accepting reality

June 16, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

Embracing the Imperfect: The power and productiveness of accepting reality

This is our dead week without school, camps, or travel plans and it was supposed to be a fun and highly productive week full of adventures with my boys and major things getting crossed off my to-do list. I had a vision: we were going to explore new playgrounds and go for bike rides, we were going to go to museums, and the boys were going to help me with some house projects I have been longing to do. I was going to be a supermom and we were going to have an amazing time!

And then my 8-year-old got sick. For two days he didn’t leave the couch, which led my 5-year-old to get squirrely and crabby, and my plans for our perfect week to go up in smoke. Normally this kind of week would have made me grumpy, stressed, and anxious to get out of the house but I was shocked to find that, for the most part, I was able to just accept the reality that was my home-bound life.

So this morning, instead of going for a bike ride, we ended up at a local coffee shop, board games in hand, to eat a late breakfast of chocolate croissants and juice. Gone were my mealtimes and generally healthy food choices. Gone was my hope for some exercise and time outside with the boys. But when I stopped to notice, it was more than ok, it was actually fun. I didn’t feel anxious about the calories consumed, the sugar ingested, the lack of fruit or vegetables, or the fact that nothing was getting crossed off my list, instead I just embraced the reality of what was possible and enjoyed the time we were having….

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Filed Under: Life Balance Tagged With: family, kids, self care

7 Tips to Help You Actually Enjoy Thanksgiving

November 20, 2015 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

7 Tips to Help You Actually Enjoy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I love the coming together of family (whether actual or adopted), the sharing of foods, and the practice of expressing gratitude. Since marrying into a Brazilian family I have also loved seeing the different cultural interpretations that families bring to the table—tropical fruits in place of cranberry sauce, salad instead of green bean casserole (don’t miss that), and Brazilian desserts as well as pumpkin pie.

But for many of us Thanksgiving can also be overwhelming. It is a lot of work to produce so much food. There is a lot of pressure to have it be the perfect day. And that is where I think we need to shift our expectations. For me, the importance of Thanksgiving is in the coming together of people, it is in the sharing of plenty, and it is in the expression of gratitude for all that we have, which feels especially poignant to me this year as we are witnessing so much misery around the world.

As we prepare for Thanksgiving this year, this time of year to give thanks, I wanted to advocate for all of us to be kind to ourselves and to take the stress out of the day, so that we can truly focus on the important aspects of this holiday.

So here are my tips for ways to make Thanksgiving a little more relaxed and pleasurable, so that you can stay present and enjoy the day for what it is meant to be….

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Filed Under: Tips and Tricks Tagged With: family, holidays, self care, Thanksgiving

The Night When I Should Have Ordered Delivery Pizza But Didn’t

October 15, 2015 By Jessica Braider 4 Comments

The Night When I Should Have Ordered Delivery Pizza But Didn’t

Warning: This story contains injury, floods, smoke detectors, yelling and tears. And no pizza.

Last week was a rough one at our house. My husband had major deadlines that resulted in his working late every night, including one almost-all-nighter (he got 2 hours of sleep, can we just call that an all-nighter at our age?), and I was swamped with work and picking up the slack at home. So by Wednesday night I announced that on Friday evening we were going to order pizza. This was a bold statement for me as we almost never order delivery, but I was really reaching my limit and needed to have that light at the end of the tunnel. To be honest, I felt good about the decision. I was looking forward to that pizza. It was a motivator.

But then Friday came and I remembered that the boys were having pizza day at school and my guilt started to sneak in. Could I really legitimize feeding them pizza twice in one day just because I was tired? Pizza is one of those demonized foods and I am an advocate for home cooking, what was I thinking? Surely I could power through and make another home-cooked meal. So I tried to muster up a second wind. I took stock of what was in our freezer, fridge, and pantry and decided that I would make it easy on myself. We’d have a meal of appetizers. Some would be things I had stockpiled in the freezer and some I would make from scratch. In all, it would only take, I estimated, about 45 minutes, most of that just cooking time. I felt virtuous.

So I started cooking. I decided that since I was making mostly stuff straight out of the freezer, that I was going to try out a new recipe for the additional dish. It was labor intensive, but I figured I could make it work. I put the ingredients on to boil and started pre-heating the oven to a high heat and that’s when the trouble started. …

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Filed Under: Family Dinner, Feeding Kids, Life Balance Tagged With: self care

Self-Care: How my mother and my Facebook feed got me off my butt and taking care of myself when I needed it most

August 20, 2015 By Jessica Braider 1 Comment

Self-Care: How my mother and my Facebook feed got me off my butt and taking care of myself when I needed it most

Every August my boys and I head out to Colorado to stay with my parents for a few weeks. It is a very special time of year for us. We have very little planned or scheduled, we go on hikes, we ride horses, and we eat amazing food, much of which comes straight from the garden. It is wonderful, rejuvenating, and lots and lots of fun!

But in the past two years, as my business has grown, I have had to do more and more work while I am in Colorado and have had to try to find a balance between working and vacationing. This time around I have found it really difficult to turn my work brain off, especially with so many exciting things happening this Fall (like the 10-Day Cooking Challenge and this family-friendly workshop). And yesterday, after a morning of working, I found that I was grumpy, stressed, and having trouble engaging with my boys. My mom, being the insightful woman she is, noticed and suggested that she and my dad take the boys so I could work more and maybe go for a walk. I guiltily took them up on the offer, and off they went.

When they left I thought to myself: “Ok. I’ll just work while they are gone, that will get me into a better mood.” And then something small, but powerful happened that reset my day. I set down to work. I was busy getting things checked off my list when a blog post showed up on my feed about the importance of self-care. Just seeing the title (confession: I didn’t even read the post) was enough of a wake-up call. At that moment I knew: more than getting work done I needed to practice some self-care.…

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Filed Under: Life Balance Tagged With: colorado, hiking, nature, self care, work-life balance

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Jessica Braider

Hi! I'm Jessica. I love delicious food that is simple and easy. As a busy mom, I am always on the lookout for ways to make life easier and tastier! Read More…

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