I sat cuddled up with my daughter reading the ear worm of a book, Dr. Seuss's ABC's. Every page begins with Big A, little a (going through each letter of the alphabet) what begins with A? This question is followed by some ridiculous string of things that start with that particular letter. When we got to Big T, little t, what begins with T? Ten tired turtles on a tuttle tuttle tree, I started thinking about another meaning for Big T, little t which is the T that stands for trauma. 

Trauma is hard to ignore these days. The unspoken, and sometimes spoken, traumas that we all carry and have experienced over the last two years are very real and seem to be growing. The unthinkable trauma that the people of Ukraine are facing, the trauma related to an ongoing pandemic, the trauma from our past and even the trauma that years of dieting does to your body are just a handful of the traumas you and I have endured. 

What do we do with our Big and little T’s? Do we ignore...

Our boys are obsessed with numbers. 

Digital clocks, digital thermostats and phones don't stand a chance against their number hungry brains. 

They've taken their ability to read numbers competition to nutrition labels, too. 

"How much is your cereal?" one child will shout. 
"150!" gloats another child. 
"Oh, man, that's a LOT....yesssssss!" brags another. 

They go from cereal box labels, to bread, to granola bars, to gold fish packets to salad dressing. Each boy boasting the caloric contents to their brother and, of course, the higher the number the better. 

"Mom, what is a calorie anyways?" asked one of the boys. 

"Well, it's a measure that tells you how much energy a particular serving of food will give you. If you eat something with not very many calories and you're really hungry, you're probably going to be hungry again pretty quickly" I explained. 

"Oh, that's weird" he proclaimed as he ran off to build another tower in the living...

I hate it when people try to sell me on something when they’re really using a thin veil of lies to cover the real truth. Like when you get those calls about the warranty on your car. 

“I’m calling you about very important information regarding your car’s extended warranty” says robo-call in her monotonous voice. 

Except robo-call isn’t selling me a warranty. Oh no, she wants to pocket thousands so she can take her cash winnings to Vegas or go buy some Bitcoin or an NFT.

You know who else is deceiving you with their "product"? Every so-called weight loss expert out there.

Here's an example straight from a fellow life coach: "we will be learning how to embrace and love our bodies. To eat in a way that fuels our bodies because we love them. To reward our bodies for all the hard work they do with the kind of care our bodies crave". 

Oh, that’s a good one. Did you see what she did there? She wrapped her diet program promising...

Our son burst in the car from school with an exciting parent assignment. He was to construct a vehicle with homemade ingredients that would travel twelve feet via balloon power. An instruction sheet, one balloon, two thin wooden sticks and one plastic straw was included in the “starter” kit.

With two days left until the due date we did what every good parent would do…..we got to work googled. 

From what we found, this vehicle assembly looked easy enough thanks to a few gatorade bottles and caps we had leftover from a marathon basketball Saturday. 

Guess what, it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Needless to say my son was getting extremely mad. 

“Ok, buddy. Instead of getting upset, let’s just get curious. What part is working? What’s not working? What could we change? Did your teacher give you any ideas?” I questioned. 

He paused. Silence. He walked away. An hour later…..

“Dad, let’s try another plan...

I grabbed my paper plate filled with crackers, cheese and apple slices and found my spot on the rainbow rug next to my bestie, Debbie. We proudly wore our brown sashes filled with crafty patches commemorating all our Brownie triumphs. Our meetings always started with that catchy tune, the Brownie Smile Song. 

"I've got something in my pocket that belongs across my face. I keep it very close at hand in a most convenient place. I'm sure you couldn't guess it if you guessed a long, long while. So I'll take it out and put it on, it's a Great Big Brownie Smile!" 

I thought back to this song when my daughter said she was going to put a candy cane in her pocket today. I asked her why and she said she didn't want to go to school but if she had a candy cane to munch on, that would make her happy. 

I said, "Yes, you absolutely should put that candy cane in your pocket. Great idea!"

Food gets such a bad wrap for bringing on any feeling other than satisfying basic...

Just when I thought my days of belting out “Let It Go” from Disney’s Frozen were long gone, our one year old has fallen prey to this cult classic. Nearly everyone you know has at least part of, if not all of, this song memorized. Just in case you need a refresher….

Let it go, let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I don’t care
What they’re going to say

Aaaaaand we’re back to 2013 just like that. It’s fitting to sing this song around this time of year and all year, really. Mind Body Monday's anti-diet journey in a nutshell is all about Letting. It. Go.
Letting go of society’s unrealistic ideals of beauty and thinness.
Letting go of trying to control your body size (we’re animals, after all).
Letting go of worrying about what other people think about your choices around food and body.
Letting go of trying to control your food. 

When you’ve been on this journey for a...

Ever since I can remember, I've been plagued with terrible motion sickness. Just like your favorite holiday movie title, I've been sick on Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Don't forget about boats. Forcing me to sit on a boat in the waves ranks high on my top nightmares list. 

Recently, my motion sickness has been EXTRA bad. Like run-out-of-my-barf-bags tucked-in-the-fetal-position-on-the-airplane-bad. As you can imagine, this isn't a very feasible scenario while trying to manage six kids. While I've dealt with this situation my whole life, I felt like I had crossed the line of "normal" and needed to find out what *might* be wrong with me. 

My doctor recommended a trip to an ENT. I also made an appointment with a neurologist. It felt good to be doing "something" towards solving this problem just having the appointments booked. 

I walked into the ENT with high hopes that she'd have the answer. ANY answer. 

After a quick conversation...

My sister and I used to love dumping our candy loot on the ground and organize it into categories right after Halloween. My sister would tear through her candy, but not me. I'd eat a few pieces and save the rest to eat over time so I could torture her with a Reese's in the dark days of February. 

As a kid, I also loved meeting my friend on her bike so we could ride into town to the local pharmacy where I would buy my favorite candy. My friend and I would swap sweets and laughs on Saturday mornings. 

Going Trick or Treating with our kids last night reminded me that sweets and candy were a part of my childhood. My favorites, Twizzlers and Reese's, still bring a little thrill with the first bite. But there was a period of time during my dieting days where I wouldn't go near candy. Too much sugar, too many "empty" calories, and not even close to a "clean" food. 

If you're staring a pile of leftover candy in the face this morning and feeling nervous instead of...

A friend of mine was raving about her looks-like-I-was-in-the-kitchen all day cranberry chicken that only takes 15 minutes to make. Cranberry sauce, a stick of butter, and some spices get mixed on the stovetop and then poured over the chicken. A magical 30 minutes later, your gourmet chicken comes out of the oven and your kids are ready to sign you up for Top Chef.  

She had me at the 15 minute prep time, but I let her go on about how it tastes so good and smells so delicious (insert gesticulating arms). But, she lamented quietly, it’s not very healthy with that stick of butter. 

I thought about what “health” really meant to her (and maybe you) at that moment.

Health didn’t mean having a meal on the table for her family to enjoy each other’s company and conversation.
Health didn’t mean gaining back minutes or hours of food prep time so that she had more time to do what she needed/wanted that night.
Health didn’t mean eating...

I’ve found myself doom scrolling on Facebook lately. 

We’ve recently moved which has prompted a flurry of activity on Facebook marketplace. I normally don’t like to hang out in Zuckerburg’s world, but I made the exception so we could unload our stuff. 

Whenever I check one of my “for sale” listings, I inevitably see the first story in my Facebook feed. Those evil geniuses know how to suck you down their rabbit hole. It really is hard to stop at that first story and the doom scrolling begins. 

Yesterday, the top post was from a friend who had my scrolling thumb hovering in mid-air after I read her announcement: “day one ready to reset, no gluten, dairy, sugar, wheat, coffee or alcohol for 30 days wish me luck!!!”

My heart sank as I read the over 60 comments which sounded mostly like this:

“You got this!”

“Good luck!”

“Gooooood for you!”

“Get it girlfriend.”

“Yay!...