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

May 18, 2017 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

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:

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.
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…”
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!

3 Ways to Let Go of Stress in the Kitchen: Lessons I Learned When I Became the Cooking Student

March 16, 2017 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

Last week I had a humbling and wonderful cooking experience that taught me three important lessons that I wanted to share with you. We had the great treat of welcoming an international student, Jing, into our home for part of her Spring Break. It was wonderful to provide a comfortable (I hope!) home for someone who is so far away from her own and also to have the opportunity to share about our cultures. The best part, for me at least, was the fact that she loves to cook and was eager to teach me how to make some of her favorite comfort foods from her childhood in China. So on Monday we made a field trip to the Chinese grocery store, stocked up on ingredients, and then came home to cook!

For Jing, one of the biggest sources of culture shock when she moved here was meal times when one main dish with perhaps a vegetable side was served. You see, in China there are usually many dishes all served family style. So when we were deciding what to cook together in order to make a traditional Chinese meal, she wanted to make sure that there would be many dishes on the table. In the end we made five dishes: winter melon soup, dumplings, pork and green peppers, eggs and tomatoes, and, of course, rice….

How I Survived Stress Eating And How You Can Too

November 10, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

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….

Accepting and Moving on from Kitchen Mess-ups

July 23, 2015 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

This has been a week of cooking missteps and averted crises in my kitchen.

Last Friday night as I was assembling a huge batch of enchiladas for a large group of people, I ran out of tortillas. It was one of those moments of panic in the kitchen. How did I miscount the tortillas? How am I going to feed everyone? What am I going to do with all of this filling I have leftover? So I scrambled, raided the fridge, and decided to turn the pizza dough I had been planning on using for focaccia for dinner the next night into Mexican calzones to serve the kids who would be eating with us.

Last night I was putting away homemade chicken stock and realized that I didn’t have enough containers. So I googled storing stock in Ziploc bags, found it was a common thing, and decided to go for it. Then, during dinner, one of the bags leaked and not only did I lose 2+ cups of liquid gold, but two of my favorite cookbooks took one for the team and soaked up a huge amount of the mess….

Bringing Our Best to the Table: How my own stress messed up family dinners

January 22, 2015 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

There have been a lot of powerful posts going around recently about feeding kids. Two that really spoke to me were one about the pitfalls of pushing the “one bite” and another about the importance of focusing on making family dinners an enjoyable time rather than a time for pushing food or other table manner agendas. Both of these pieces, and many of the others, got me thinking about what life had been like around our dinner table. As I took some time to look honestly at what had been going on I realized three things: 1) we had fallen back into old patterns of pressuring our “picky” eater to try foods, 2) that he had slid backwards in terms of what he was willing to eat, and 3) that this was really a projection of our own, outside stresses that we were putting onto him….

5 Recipes to Help You Stay Sane and Healthy During the Holiday Season

December 10, 2014 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

While this is a wonderful time of year for connecting with friends and loved ones, celebrating community, and giving gifts, it can also be a time of stress, rushing around, and sliding backwards when it comes to the foods we eat. For many of us, myself included, we can fall into the mindset of, “oh well, I haven’t been eating well anyway, so I might as well just eat that…” And while I am all for enjoying the special and comfort foods of the season, I also would like to avoid the colds, flus, and over-exhaustion that are making the rounds these days and one way to do that is to try to keep our meals simple and packed with wholesome ingredients. Here are a five my favorite recipes that help me to do just that.

Slow Cooker Butternut Squash Soup

This one takes all of 10 minutes to prepare and is a family favorite. Pair it with crackers and cheese or grilled cheese sandwiches for dipping, and you’ve got a complete meal!

Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oats

This is a great one to keep breakfasts on track. Make a big batch, freeze the leftovers, and you are set for a whole bunch of mornings. Some of our favorite toppings are: chopped up apple, defrosted frozen blueberries, chopped nuts, dried fruit, and a little bit of maple syrup.

Slow Cooker Fall Veggie Stew

This is a great, warming, comforting meal, and the leftovers freeze well, too!

Real Mac n Cheese

In the same amount of time that it takes to make the boxed stuff, you can make this!

Waffle Omelets

This meal can be made in 8-15 minutes (depending on how many you are making) and always makes my kids giggle.

Do you have favorite, quick, and easy dinners that you use at this time of year to keep your family eating well in the midst of all the craziness?

Surviving Holiday Gatherings with a Picky Eater

November 18, 2014 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

The family is gathering around the table for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone is set up for a beautiful meal full of tastes, abundant food offerings, and gratitude. But then there is your child who is scowling, or maybe even refusing to come to the table. You feel embarrassed, perhaps angry, you are worried that your in-laws or your own family will judge your child or even you. The tension mounts… This is not going to end well.

As we all know, family gatherings can be both wonderful and intensely stressful. As you prepare for the season’s festivities, it can be helpful, both for you and for your child, if you do a little bit of thinking about ways to preemptively manage the tensions at the table. Here are my suggestions:

1) Put yourself in your child’s shoes. All of that food that is either unknown or unappealing to your child is likely to feel overwhelming and even scary. Your kiddo is very aware of the expectation that s/he should eat it all and that pressure probably feels pretty intense. Another way to approach this, think back to when you were a kid. I bet there was at least one dish that you thought was disgusting, but felt pressured to eat. How did that feel when you were little? Just by understanding a little bit about how your child perceives the situation, you may find you have a bit more compassion, patience, and flexibility in the moment.

2) Get on the same page as your partner. Talk about your concerns ahead of time and make sure that the two of you can be a team in your approach, both in terms of how you communicate with your child and how you communicate with any family members who might contribute to tense dynamics. Come to terms with the fact that this is very likely not going to be the meal where your child suddenly eats everything.

3) Talk with your child ahead of time. Discuss the fact that there may be unfamiliar or unappealing foods on the table, and that is ok. Talk about expectations of polite behavior—“No thank you” instead of “I don’t like that!” and staying at the table while everyone is eating together are probably good starting points. And come up with a game plan together for how to approach the meal. What foods is s/he willing to eat? How will you handle desserts (for ideas on this, check out this great piece by Caron Gremont of First Bites)? Is s/he willing to do one bite tries of one or two new foods?

4) Talk with anyone else you think you should talk to. Let your in-laws, parents, siblings, whoever know that in the interest of having a pleasant meal, it would be really helpful if pressure to try new foods was not put on your child during the festivities.

5) Remember to relax. The more tense you are, the more tense your child will be, which increases the likelihood of a meltdown.

Then, relax, and enjoy the time with family and friends, because, in the end, that is what this is really all about.

The Balanced Kitchen

Time for food. Time for Life.