I love food. Not in the abstract, “Oh sure, I could eat” kind of way. I love food in the deeply personal, memory-making, sensory-awakening kind of way. Cooking and eating together with my favorite people is not just my jam. It’s my homemade sourdough and hand-churned, extra-salty butter, too.
Yes, food is pleasure for me. It lets me engage with the world in a real, adventurous, delicious way I crave. But it’s obviously also fuel. I need energy to keep up with my kids—and my husband, and work, and friends, and everything else on my plate! And I think it goes without saying: I don’t really do the whole deprivation thing. I know from experience that when we focus on how not to eat, we miss the mark—for health and for happiness.
But in order to press the reset button in those periods of my life when I felt overwhelmed and in need of an extra boost—so I could truly savor my meals long-term and still feel strong and happy in my skin in and day out—I adopted a simple strategy. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s simple enough to stick with (even for me!), and it really works.