Stress Eating: How I Break the Cycle

There is something incredibly rewarding about enjoying a daily donut with a cup of coffee. It’s a cheap fix and for two dollars, that perfect combination of caffeine, sugar, and carbs will hit my blood stream, and send me buzzing right into the afternoon. 

For another hour or two, my compulsion to find solace in food is curbed. Maybe.

 When I give into these cravings, it’s as if a switch gets flipped, I go into “fuck it mode” and all bets are off for the day.

 There’s nothing quite like stress eating to throw a wrench in my nutrition game, especially when I can’t exercise due to illness or injury. I can only describe stress eating as if it has been some kind of possession. It can manifest in in various ways for different people but for me it tends to be a blatant disregard for all that is logical and rational when it comes to my health.

 So, do you know why this happens?  Because it does work. It gets the job done. It makes me feel better, albeit fleetingly, but I anticipate that.

This response is dictated by the reward zone in my brain that, upon ingestion of said favorite treat, will trigger the release of the chemical dopamine. This neurotransmitter known as one of the ‘happy chemicals’ is associated with feelings of pleasure, and serves to perpetuate the cycle, reinforcing my addiction.

The rational side of me understands that satisfying every whim I have to satiate these cravings has a directly negative effect on my overall well-being: my blood pressure creeps back up, I get tired more easily, my gastritis flares up, and it becomes increasingly evident that I am slipping back into insulin resistance.       

 My body feels like the culmination of the junk I’ve been feeding it, and my mind is over run by yucky thoughts and feelings. I’ve been unconsciously cultivating sickness again, and my outsides most definitely reflect my insides and I vibrate with an anxiety that I can’t seem to shake.

How far down the rabbit hole I go depends on how long I choose to stay in denial. It’s time to practice a more healing diet that will focus on reducing on my body’s inflammation and nurturing my gastro intestinal track.

  I sit at my computer to begin purging this feeling through words, and I am brought back to my own rallying cry. “I will not quit.” And I remember to breathe.

Coming back to the breath is a huge theme throughout any yoga practice. Sometimes, when I feel like this, yoga can be my only tether to a better reality. It breaks me out of this negative thought loop just long enough to start healing again. For me practicing yoga is practicing wellness, and the more regularly I practice yoga the more I find myself inclined to keep in line with healthier lifestyle choices.

So, after many years of experiencing this cycle of binge/ depression/ binge/ depression on repeat, I have put together a wellness ritual surrounding my yoga practice, designed to pull me out of this unhealthy behavioral pattern.

The more I practice wellness, the easier it is to fend off my self-destructive tendencies. One day I hope to hit a stride in this lifestyle, and never go back. Until then, all I can do is work towards that vision that keeps calling to me. The best version of myself.

The ritual: Step 1

The anticipation of my yoga practice, will actually trigger my memory reminding me that I want to drink my mushroom-turmeric tea.  I try and take this tea almost every day as well as a vitamin D supplement because my research has lead me to believe that they are strong tools for healing the pre-caner in my cervix. Since I have been following this regimen my precancerous cells have in fact healed by one entire standard.

 I squeeze a dropper full of maitaki extract along with a full dropper of liquid turmeric into a mug of hot or cold water. The maitaki is an immunity builder, and the turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory. I top all this off with an extra glass of water, and I imagine this goodness fighting for me as it goes to work circulating during my yoga practice.

        Step 2

At least a half an hour before my pre-yoga snack I also try to get some probiotics in me because I want to start re- building my inner flora so that my digestive track may begin running more effectively and efficiently. Scientists are discovering more and more about how the bacteria in our gut can affect our general outlook on life and can play a major role in healing not only anxiety and depression, but migraines as well. I get migraines too, so all the more reason for me to focus on cultivating a healthy G.I.

 Some experts claim that the bad bacteria will even hijack your cravings and cause you to want more of what is good for them I.E. that craving for my beloved doughnut. As it turns out, is just feeding the cycle, literally.

 And so I begin, cultivating the good bacteria to fight the good fight in my gut. Feeding myself a doughnut at this point is like selling ammunition to the enemy.  But that doesn’t always stop me. So I try and eat more prebiotics to reinforce my microbial troopers.

Step 3

Prebiotics are subsequently what we already think of as healthy foods: fresh fruits, veggies, and leafy greens. So I eat a healthy snack of prebiotics to support my probiotics about an hour before my yoga practice. It’s always something light: a fresh juice with a raw nutrient dense energy ball, you know, the kind you might get at a health food store. Or some other nutritious snack, like a green smoothie, or a salad, or maybe some almond butter, with a couple of sticks of carrots and celery or a banana.  I want to make sure I get some kind of raw fiber in me at this point. Something that will sustain me through an hour of asana practice.

Step 4

Yoga. Even when I am sick or injured there is always a way to modify my practice. There are a diverse range of yoga styles to accommodate different situations and particular needs. Yoga is so versatile and it is so much more than asana, there are eight whole limbs to explore. But more on that later. The key here is consistency. Showing up on the mat is more than half the battle.

 Whenever I am able to successfully follow this regimen of watering, feeding, and moving my body, I feel substantially better within about a day. Building this ritual around a steady yoga practice reinforces all the other decisions I make throughout my day and living a healthy life becomes more like second nature rather than the struggle it once was.

This is all part of an ever evolving process that is one person’s wellness. My journey. Soon I will be a certified yoga teacher, and I want to get into better health also so that I may hold a safe space for my students and be encouragement to them as they navigate their own way. I want to walk the walk so to speak, and be a clear example of how yoga’s ripple effect can transform one person’s entire experience.

 *If you would like to be a part of helping me become the best yoga teacher I can be, please visit my fundraiser page www.gofundme.com/yoga4all *

Love,

Jess

Note: I am not a doctor, and none of this is medical advice. It is only the story of my experience.

Falling off the Wellness Wagon

 I had eaten mostly clean for a solid year. After nearly half a decade of stubbornly inching my way in that direction, all of the small changes I had made culminated into a beautiful year of self-love, and self-care. I felt fully energized and engaged.  For the first time in my life, I was happy and content. It was a miraculous experience, and I felt a drive to share it with everyone I loved. Everyone deserves a chance to experience a happy energetic life.

This year I fell off the wellness wagon. When you are on the wellness wagon, you are making a clear effort towards self-improvement, you are on a journey of becoming the best version of yourself and you don’t have to be perfect to be on the wellness wagon, you just have to try. But a series of major life events began to take their toll on my willpower.

  I had been at the top of my game, and the first thing to knock me off the wagon was a bicycle accident. It wasn’t terrible but I sustained a couple of fractured ribs and some whiplash. There is something about being slammed to the asphalt off a bike that will ground you in more ways than one. 

I continued to redirect my efforts and stay in self-care but then I learned the distressing news that my body was leaning towards cervical cancer. I had put off following up on my abnormal pap for at least four years. I always hated going for those damned paps.  There is something about a stranger poking around in my lady parts would trigger severe anxiety and I just couldn’t bring myself to go. Now that I was in a place of self-care, I knew that I had to face this fear.   I knew that I had to follow up because my health could be at risk. By the time I could bring myself go, those cells had mutated three stages into a moderate form of pre-cancer.

 That was another wake-up call for me. The news that I had pre-cancer was hard to wrap my head around. It was like that part of my body had physically up and quit on me. It broke open a pandora's box of scar tissue left over from the IUD that had migrated up into me, and unhealed emotional wounds. I believed that if I wanted to heal physically, I would have to also begin the work of healing emotionally. That was the hardest part.

I am grateful that I got a hold of myself in time to really do something about it. My latest follow- up lab results proved hopeful; the pre-cancerous cells had improved by a stage. So if anything, this incident has become a major force driving my practice of self-care, self-love, and willpower.

 Shortly thereafter, my father was hospitalized, and we almost lost him. Tension was building in my family and I could feel myself getting more and more frustrated. I think that tension went straight into my neck because during this time, my neck went out and wouldn’t stay put.

That was the final blow. It was a drain emotionally, physically, and financially. Weekly chiropractor appointments afforded me temporary neck relief, but I had to stop working out and lifting weights, which had been a major factor in my stress management. This multi-faceted frustration became a kind of  perma-anger, which underscored everything that went wrong in my life. I began indulging in negative thought patterns, and I found myself stress eating again.

So there I was again, in the darkness, not a wagon in site. I knew this place well, and it was not a place I intended to stay. I had not completely given up, and I wasn’t broken, I was just tired.  It was time to re-group and game plan, time to modify and simplify, time to find that wagon, and get back on it.

     We all go through our cycles when our reality isn't so stable, and our wellness ebs and flows.

You may find yourself in the darkness, outside the wellness wagon too. I just want you to know, I'm right there with ya. I've got a flashlight, and another perspective. Now lets go find that bitch! 

My First Day of Yoga Teacher Training

                                                                         
  

Arranging my life around yoga teacher training was surprisingly simple. I had mentioned my goal to attend a teacher training this year during the interview with Trader Joes, so when the time came, my managers could not have been more accommodating.

Me: The first day of teacher training.

Nothing could put a damper on my spirits; I felt like a child before Christmas, impatient with anticipatory excitement. My teacher training was to be my reward at the end of the longest eight day work week of my life.

I woke up that morning energized, but still lavishly granted myself a few extra hours in bed.  Teacher training was not until six p.m. and I was determined to have a restful day.  When I finally got up around ten, I fixed myself my very favorite breakfast: A scrambled egg quesadilla, with Havarti cheese, sour cream, avocado, tapatillo, and a cup of coffee. I cuddled with my kitty as I watched a show, and then I turned on my computer to check the latest stats on my fundraiser.

Two hundred and fifty three people had been to my site that day, but not a single donation within the past four days. I was a bit perplexed, so I took another hard look at my fundraiser, and I was finally I was able to look at my story with an objective eye. I noticed, that even though I had been honest about the benefits I had received from yoga, the whole page looked pretty generic. Almost cliché. So I deleted everything I had written, and started from scratch. My story finally came together in the flow of inspiration I had been waiting for, and I spent a few lovely hours typing away.

 When I finished my story I hadn’t ever been more proud of one of my pieces. It wasn’t perfect, but it was authentically my story, so that’s all that mattered.

When I was finished with my story, it was two p.m. I had been sitting on my couch for about four hours, and I figured it was time to do some light cleaning.

As I was making the bed, my vision board caught my eye, and I became overwhelmed with gratitude. I made my way over to the dresser where it was displayed, and just sat on the edge of the bed marveling at it for a while.

 I recalled the night I had put it together at Hua’s house on the winter solstice. I remembered the excitement, feeling those first moments of wonder and possibility capture me while cutting up the magazines and gluing them to the poster board. I just had to stop and acknowledge how far I’ve come.

Today was the day, the fruit from my intention that had been planted in the darkness of the winter solstice. I wept.

 Tears of gratitude overflowing from my heart, I offered my tears as give aways to my spirit family, thanking them for their protection, and guidance. I humbly prayed to Spirit to protect me, and to ensure my physical safety through this process. I visualized my body strong and undamaged, infused with golden light. I saw all of my supporters, spirit and human; they were standing behind me, holding me up, giving me strength and I was filled with pure love. And I allowed myself to sit with that love until my tears subsided. What a fabulous day already.

Recovering from that powerful experience, I got into the shower. I stood there, letting the hot water run down my body, clutching my gratitude. I leaned my neck back, preparing to wash my hair, and that’s when I felt a crunch. A jolt of electricity ran down my left arm. “Oh shit.”  I’ve felt that before, and continued to open the shampoo bottle, somewhat in disbelief, squeezing the shampoo into my left palm, I reached up to my head and ZAP!

“UUHHgg,” the audible sound of discomfort escaped my lips. “No!” I pleaded, “This can’t be happening!! Not today. No. no, no, no, no, no.” I began to test my range of motion and ZAP, down my left arm again. “What the holy Fuck!? Why!?” I petitioned the universe bewildered. Was this some kind of karmic joke? How could this be happening right now!?

  My heart rate began to pick up speed as my thoughts began to whirl. “Oh my god” I thought, I remembered the last time I had felt the effects of a pinched nerve, when the other side went out, it took a full eight weeks to recover “Could this mean, no teacher training?”  I was falling into a panic attack.

I took a deep breath. “Breath” I reminded myself “This ain’t your first rodeo.”

 Brain storming for anything I could do, I began foam rolling my upper back, hoping that whatever went out might pop back into place. Rolling just seemed to aggravate it. “Ice.”  I spoke the word, as it came to mind. Ice will help the inflammation I recalled. I didn’t have ibuprophen, but I had some turmeric, which has helped me with migraines in the past. I took some, and iced my neck and shoulders, and tried to do some breathing to clear my mind.

It was three o’clock and orientation was not until six. I realized that I had enough time to see my chiropractor whose office is about twenty minutes away. I made the phone call, cleared my day, and was on the road in about fifteen minutes. Dr. Mike put me back together, and I asked him if it was going to take  another eight weeks  to heal this time, and he told me that it was good that I got to him so soon because the longer a nerve is being pinched, the longer it takes to heal. It was also a good thing that we weren’t going to be doing any postures on our first day, and it was at that point I felt gratitude that my neck hadn’t gone out during asana practice that weekend. I would not have been able to get to Dr. Mike, and the whole situation could have been much worse.

I got to orientation that day still feeling a little unsure and sorry for myself. As we went through our personal introductions, I was listening to people’s stories. One person was crippled for five years. He had to re-learn how to walk. Another has an aggressive auto immune disorder where her body attacks her organs. And another had been paralyzed on one side of her body and is still working around those limitations. It all really put my experience into perspective. I remembered why I wanted this. I want to help people with limitations, starting with myself.

*If you would like to support my yoga teacher training journey, check out my fundraising page: www.gofundme.com/yoga4all  I still have a long way to go to be able to pay for this yoga education. Every dollar is appreciated. Lets make this happen!

Why I Must Blog

                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Artwork "Taking Chances" by Gina Shleif

                                                                                                               

Growing up, teachers would always tell me that I was a good writer, but my sense of self-worth would trick me into thinking they were lying. I was a miserable teen and I would journal as a means of venting, but besides that my writing experience was limited to basic homework assignments and book reports.

I never did enjoy school, it was just something else my parents would yell about. I did the absolute minimum to get by until I was ushered on to the next grade level. I was interested in the kind of topics they didn’t seem to teach in high school: Psychology, philosophy, spirituality.

I just drifted like that through high school until one day at the beginning of my senior year, I literally ran into the AP English teacher on my way to class. Books and papers went flying every which way and as we scurried about to pick up the mess, he happened to take notice of my chosen reading material: Plato’s Republic, An Introduction to Jungian Psychology, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and the Bhagavad Gita.

“We’re studying those in my class.” He gestured to the sonnets. “Why aren’t you with us?” he asked.

My answer was because I had never considered myself an AP student. Most of them had been in some sort of honors program for the majority of their education, and AP was something you had to test into. I hadn’t taken any tests, so I just looked at him quizzically.

I told him that I would love to be in a class where they studied pieces such as these, and that the English teacher I was stuck with refused to spend any of his time discussing them with me because they weren’t part of his curriculum.

              The teacher paused for a second as a thought flashed through his face, and he told me to make an appointment with my academic counselor. By the end of the week, I found myself transferred into his classroom.

I was never a model student, but his class was always enjoyable and at the end of the year, I was one of only three students who passed the AP English exam. I fully considered myself to be the underdog, and this victory meant the world to me. It allowed me to finally admit that maybe I was good at something. This breakthrough lead me into the direction of perusing English at the local community college. I enjoyed myself there until the turbulence of migraines and panic attacks hit, with which came the dissociation of my limbs, which is apparently one of the many elusive symptoms of anxiety, and the very act of writing would trigger an attack. And so I laid down my pen, and I left college.

After I turned twenty-one, I spent the next couple of years coping with alcohol. I gained sixty pounds in about six months and continued to shamelessly self-destruct. My health began to decline overall, and by the age of twenty three I was pre-diabetic. 

One night, the shit hit the fan and I found myself at rock bottom. I could not believe the person I had become, the things I had done, bridges I had burned, I gazed back the mess I had created in the wake of my descent. It must have been then that I had a fleeting moment that snapped me out of denial. I am grateful for that moment, facing myself and emerging from denial has been one of the hardest things I have ever done. Owning my decisions, but also moving forwards, to heal. I could still lead a meaningful, happy and contented life, but my behavior had to change, and so did my mind. My journey towards wellness began at that moment.

I really have come so far. Cultivating self-love, learning self-care, giving my-self respect. Exercising my will power and my body. I am discovering who I am. I am a spirit who enjoys being in her physical form: a woman filled with gratitude. I can now finally accept my gifts, and begin to cultivate them for the first time in my life. And one of those things that I am, is a writer. And I will honor that part of myself and invite you all to witness.

This is why I must blog. It is different than writing for the sake of writing. It motivates me to continue to walk the walk of being in self-care while serving a double purpose of motivating others along the way. I am daring to be vulnerable by sharing my process but also my humble hope is that I may inspire others to do the same. We live in some strange disillusioned times, and I want my pen to be part of the shifting tide that is our newparadigm. And my intention for anyone who comes across this blog is that they find the courage to be the expression of their true self. It’s okay to be vulnerable, forget the haters, let’s just be ourselves so that we may heal the world.