Like most women who need to lose
weight, accomplishing and maintaining a goal weight seems impossible. Is it "ever too late" to achieve the level of health
you talk about?
It’s never too late to benefit from
following a healthy lifestyle. If you’ve struggled for years and just aren’t able to lose weight, how about letting
go of the number on the scale (and the struggle), and focusing more on what you actually do? If you are physically active
for an hour or more on most days of the week, and you follow a healthy plant-centered diet, but are still overweight, acknowledge
the work you’ve done and know it is not in vain. It may be that your natural healthy weight is higher than the
image-goal you have in your mind. The beauty image projected in the media is often unhealthy and underweight. Remember, it’s
what you do more than what you weigh that determines how healthy you are.
What do you suggest for people who
binge eat? Is there a way to break the binge cycle, once the "first cookie" is eaten, without eating the entire bag?
At
the point of the first cookie, it’s already too late. The stage gets set hours earlier, by skipping a meal (the deprivation
part of the cycle). Lightening up our eating habits needs to be a gradual thing, or it can backfire. Another aspect of the
bag of cookie scenario is that eating for many is a means of coping with strong emotions or a way to comfort ourselves. Unfortunately,
it’s a short term fix that doesn’t even address the real issue, but creates new problems. So, what you can do
is look for non-food ways to handle stress, and to comfort yourself. I call them non-food rewards, like taking a nice bath,
a short nap if you’re tired, calling a friend, or pampering yourself – everyone has things that make them feel
good. These little comforts actually support the cycle of treating yourself well, and getting to the point of enjoying one
cookie without the need to plow through the bag.
Can women who don't want to do yoga
benefit from your book? If so, how?
Definitely. Every Bite Is Divine is
an eating philosophy book. If someone is drawn to look inward, and interesting in exploring their relationship with food and
eating, they can benefit from the book. I developed characters that share their personal stories throughout the book, most
of whom are not yoga practitioners. People who’ve read the book often say they see themselves in one or the other
of the characters, which shows them how the process may progress.
If a reader is not interesting in doing yoga,
they can choose another physical activity, such as walking or dancing, and substitute that into the program. It’s a
process that is easy to individualize.
How does Every Bite is Divine differ
from other weight loss books?
There is a body-perfect beauty ideal that
is peddled hard in this culture, and those who struggle with weight are often ostracized and stigmatized. People who struggle
with weight often just loath their own bodies – so much unnecessary unhappiness! I think much of the weight loss industry
including books, perpetuates that unhappiness by encouraging deprivation, fad diets and other approaches that promise fast
and easy results but inevitably don’t deliver. I begin not with deprivation, but by undoing some of that loathing that
people have for themselves – to begin to cultivate an appreciation of their bodies as they are right now, and learning
to care for themselves from a more compassionate place.
I also don’t promote one particular
set of foods or diet, but look more at the way you eat and how you make choices. I do plan a follow-up food guide and workbook,
which will help readers take the next steps to cultivating a healthy weight lifestyle.
If a reader doesn't feel comfortable
going to a yoga class, is there a yoga DVD/CD you recommend?
There has been an explosion of yoga DVD and
CDs, and many many good ones. My personal favorites include those from the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, which tend
to be gentle (www.kripalu.org), my teacher Barbara Benagh’s work (www.yogastudio.org), and if you like a more vigorous practice, I like the Jivamukti’s CD
(www.jivamukti.com).
What advice do you have for parents
who are bringing up a generation of diabetic children?
Remember that the greatest determinate of what
a child’s diet will be once they grow up is what their parents ate. So, be a good model, and even if it doesn’t
seem as though they’re listening to you, they’re absorbing your ways! Parents are the flexible gatekeepers of
what their children eat – even though it may not feel that way – parents have the power!
Most schools now are working to improve what
they offer kids, and again, parents’ voices are very powerful in that process.
What has been your greatest personal
challenge in terms of weight loss?
As a woman in her mid-40’s, I’m
definitely experiencing the metabolic downshift, and my body needs fewer calories than it used to. But I still love to eat!
So I am always in the flow of what I talk about in my book – trying to being the best version of myself that I can,
cultivating non-food indulgences, and being at peace with my body as it is. Like many busy people, I’m challenged by
finding time and motivation to be as physically active as I’d like. That energy balance equation just keeps changing
as you age, but that’s where the art of healthy living comes in.
Could you talk a little about
your writing process? How long it took to write the book, if you outlined it first, how many drafts you went through, what
you would do different if you were starting over today, etc.
This book took a long time. About seven years, start to finish. It was a
long learning process, of ‘dumping’ my inspiration in long disorganized free writing sessions, then combing them
into a clearer logical story. The process of a workshop or lifestyle counseling with an individual both follow an organized
progression of assessing, developing a plan, and deepening the work as the plan gets implemented. That pattern was the basic
outline I used for the book.
As I was working and reworking the material, I read lots of diet and lifestyle
books. Some inspired me with their elegant presentation of difficult science, and others were just uninformed fear-based quackery.
I think it’s important that a writer know what their goal is (mine was to reduce suffering in those who struggle with
weight, and to be true to the science), and how their work fits into their genre. I also participated in the national conversations
around therapeutic yoga and weight management, which have both evolved in the last few years, and caused me to continually
reexamine my work.
And finally, many many people reviewed the work, advised me on how to get
the book out, championed the idea, and participating in making the book as beautiful and inspirational as it is. Writing the
acknowledgement was one of my favorite parts of the project.
