Eat, Move, Live, Repeat

Most of you come to this blog for recipes. I have the best recipe for you today. Eat, move, live, repeat. Tara’s 3-ingredient recipe for living your best life – healthier, happier, stronger, meeting the demands of your everyday life with more energy + less illness. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it (or maybe a little bit like a commercial 🤣)? Not really. It’s never too early or too late to learn these tips. Small changes add up to big results. Eat well, move more, live mindfully. Let me show you how easy these three things can be.

Tara’s Tuesday Tips:

Recipe For Living Your Best Life

Eat Well, Move More, Live Mindfully

What does this mean?

I’m going to make it very simple: there is no weight loss pill or meal replacement program. No matter how many green smoothies you drink, how many food groups you ban from your life, or how much money you spend on weight loss ‘tools’ purchased from your favorite Instagram influencer, there is no shortcut. None of these things are sustainable or practical.

If these things don’t work, then what does? Feeding your body right isn’t the only answer. Adding exercise alone won’t do it either. Living mindfully is a critical component.

Ingredient #1: Eat Well

Eating well is not a diet. You can’t label it, and it doesn’t have a start and end point on your calendar. Eating well means giving your body the fuel it needs to accomplish the things you set out to do. I have come to understand that some of you reading this don’t actually know what it means to ‘feel good’. It has been so long since you properly nourished your body that you don’t really know how to do it. Start by adding not subtracting. Add fiber to your daily intake, then color, then additional water. Next keep notes of what foods give you energy, keep you feeling full longer, increase (or decrease) cravings. Then, begin to explore what you think might be ‘everyday foods’ or ‘sometimes foods’ and be sure to build your meals around the ‘everyday foods’ leaving the others for only sometimes.

My last bit of advice about the ‘eat’ ingredient in the recipe for living your best life is to give time restricted eating a try. Instead of counting calories or macronutrients or carbs, count time. Create an eating window and eat only within those hours of the day. It works! Start here for my tips on Intermittent Fasting.

Ingredient #2: Move More

It is no secret that I love running. I actually love all forms of movement. You name it, I’m in. In the same way that eating well comes easily to me, movement does too. I love both. Again, I understand this is not the case for most of you, but it can be possible. Notice I call it movement? Not exercise. Similarly, I call it eating well, not dieting? It’s not punishment! It’s an ingredient in the recipe to living your best life. It does not have to be formal or grueling or intense. Walk, dance, swim, climb stairs, ride a bike. Study after study tells us that the more we move, the less chance we have of developing dementia, diabetes, stroke, age-related bone loss, and even depression. Try starting with a little and then slowly add in more or different forms of movement.

Ingredient #3: Live Mindfully

I know, you are probably asking yourself what this has to do with losing the weight, getting your blood pressure down, or finding out the right things to eat. Everything! It has everything to do with it! This should be the first ingredient in the recipe for living your best life. Being mindful means purposefully focusing on the present. Accepting our feelings (and our past decisions/experiences) without judgement, letting go of what is “right” or “wrong”. Instead, paying attention to self-awareness, trust, experiencing of the food we eat instead of just eating it, and choosing our actions instead of reacting. Mindful eating and mindful living. Start here for my tips on Mindful Snacking.

I won’t get into all of the details of mindful eating here in my little vegetarian food blog but if you are curious for more you should check out this article published in Diabetes Spectrum (Mindful Eating: The Art of Presence While You Eat) and try the raisin experiment.