Don’t obsess. Don’t over-think. And, above all, don’t judge yourself.
This is just some of the advice Susan Lebel Young is passing on to the participants in her 30 Day Real Food Challenge.
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“I wanted to do something that was different than just the next diet,” said Young, a retired psychotherapist who teaches mindfulness and yoga. “The common goal is to lean more toward health, vitality and wellness.”
Bringing together her personal interest in food with her training in mindfulness-based stress reduction, Young has crafted a program for people who want to eat food in its whole, natural state while becoming more aware of themselves. Those who sign up get a daily email with inspirational and motivational wisdom, access to a peer support group and at least one potluck dinner at Young’s Falmouth home.
At a recent potluck dinner, dishes included black bean and sweet potato chili, pumpkin-cashew soup, hummus with cut vegetables, avocado, cucumber and brown rice salad, cut fruit and mandarin oranges.
While the 30 Day Real Food Challenge doesn’t espouse a particular eating style, the potlucks have defined food criteria to ensure most people will be able to sample all the dishes. To this end, Young asks that the potluck dishes don’t include animal products or oils, and are as close to a whole food as possible.
“Plant-based eating is ancient,” Young said. “The new stuff we’re eating is all manufactured.”
Young encourages each participant to not only set personal goals (such as lowering cholesterol) but also to state an over-arching intention (such as living longer).
If the participant plans to abstain from a particular food, Young also wants the person to articulate what it is that he or she will do instead. (For example: Avoid processed sugar and eat more fruit.)
“Everyone will make their own choice that is compassionate to themselves and challenging,” Young said.
It’s an approach that resonates with people seeking to improve the nutritional quality of their food.
“What I really like about Sue’s program is, she’s leaving it open for us to decide what we want the program to be,” said Jane Honeck of Freeport, who is participating in the current challenge.
Honeck said she accepts too many dinner invitations where she finds herself faced with nutritionally inferior food choices. Her goal is to learn to say “no” to more invitations.
“I have to say ‘no’ three times a day before I’ll say ‘yes’ to an indulgence,” Honeck said. “If I can say ‘no,’ that gives me a pause to say, ‘I want to do this instead.’“
This sort of self-awareness and intentional action is exactly what the program is designed to foster.
It’s an approach that appeals to participant Nancy Randolph of Topsham.
“I don’t think we have to do everything perfectly,” Randolph said. “We have to just do what we can.”
Randolph, who grew up on a farm, has long embraced whole foods cooking. But she’s not immune to the siren song of candy and treats.
“My thing I have a problem with is, I love sweets,” Randolph said. “I’ve gone off sweets for months. As long as I don’t eat any of it, I’m fine. But as soon as I have some, I want more.”
Randolph is using the challenge to focus her attention on the number of empty calories in these sweets.
“If I’m willing to walk four miles to have that brownie, then that’s OK,” Randolph said. “Otherwise, I put it down.”
Randolph got involved in the challenge because she is publishing a book Young has written about food. Called “Food Fix: Old Nourishment for New Hungers,” the book is due out in the spring, and will be published by Just Write Books.
“I’m a self-identified junk-food junkie, so it’s no easier for me than anyone else,” Young said of the 30 Day Real Food Challenge.
But she’s careful not to judge herself should she indulge in something other than whole food.
“In mindfulness, there is no right or wrong,” Young said. “It’s not about being good. It’s about asking, ‘What does the body really want?’ Not the mind, not the ego and not the marketers.”
The answer, more often than not, is real food.
Staff Writer Avery Yale Kamila can be contacted at 791-6297 or at: akamila@pressherald.com
Twitter: AveryYaleKamila
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