We go through a lot of transitions in our lives as we move towards a healthier way of living. Just this morning, as Josh and I were sipping on our raw cacao, home-made coconut milk and sea moss smoothies we both thought how amazing it is that we were so excited about a sea moss smoothie (recipe coming soon!). We have each made these transitions over the course of a few years, and it becomes easy to forget how far we have come, or where our clients might be right now, versus where we would like to get them to. A few years ago, I definitely wouldn’t have been salivating over a wine glass filled with blended green goodness.
Living in the world that I have created, I often forget what is going on outside of this little nutrition bubble. I was reminded yesterday when I went to do a little post holiday nutrition session for one of my favourite corporate clients.
In the span of just four days, I went from beach to boardroom.
In St. Lucia, I taught barefoot in my yoga clothes…
And spent rush hour here….
To the boardroom (or meeting room but you know what I am saying)…
And this was an abrupt transition for me to make. I went from talking about nutrition to my retreat guests who, for the most part, were very well versed in the goods I was selling, to presenting to people who are understandably challenged by the conflicts between the truths I am imparting and the snazzy tales of the advertisers and label health claims.
Transitioning over to a healthy, whole foods way of living is not an easy switch to make, but there are a few basic tips and tactics that can help get you started.
Easing The Transition
- Drink a full glass of water first thing in the morning, before any food is consumed.
- Buy two new healthy foods on every trip to the store (meaning two things you have never tried)
- Rotate the vegetables and fruits that your purchase. If you bought broccoli one week, get cauliflower the next.
- Pair up with someone in your workplace for snacks and lunch. Even better- get a group of five together and rotate. That leaves you responsible for just one day/week and ensures you will get five days worth of healthy eating all day long.
- Have something fresh, perhaps raw, with every meal.
- Prep your veggies when you come home from the store
- Make an effort to ask yourself whether what you are eating is supporting your health or building disease.
- Ignore the food labels. Calories from fat versus calories from sugar etc. etc. is senseless, complicated and no fun at all. Stick with a balance of whole foods and none of that matters. Don’t be a label whore!
- Keep the meals simple and clean.
Be reasonable, based on where you are at and make changes that are subtle, sustainable and okay for you right now (and get those made up excuses out of your head). Start with something! Anything. Some is better than nothing!!!
Healthy habits are contagious in the workplace and it is clear to me that my help (and the help of my colleagues) is needed to help keep things running on the up and up.
And now here is a special offerlicious to my blog readers. If you intitiate my coming in to your office for a little presentation action, than you are invited to attend a class or workshop of your choice as my extra special guest. Check our the corporate details here!
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I actually instinctively have been doing the water drinking in the morning thing, sometimes adding some apple cider vinegar, cayenne pepper and/or lemon juice. But, out of curiosity, what is the “why” behind doing this? Drinking water first thing in the morning before eating, I mean.
It’s like a bath for the cells. The lemon/vinegar can serve as a flush to the liver and the cayenne increases circulation to get all the waste leftover from the body’s night work of building and repairing out of the body. Have a read here for more: http://meghantelpnerblog.com/2009/06/08/lemon-juice-makes-me-wince/
Holly – Since we all pee first thing in the morning, we need to drink that water to rehydrate.
Such great tips – was feeling a bit ‘bleh’ about things and this has reinvigorated me!
I tried your raw apple ‘cider’ drink (the ‘hot’ raw apple juice with spices) the other night, and it was amazing by the way, so yummy!
Meghan, looks like you had a great time. Your smoothie looks super tasty and your visit in the ocean looks like so much fun.
First of all, as a person who loves photography, can I say that I LOVE that picture of you in the ocean! The lighting and the composition are so nice, and there is something just surreal to that picture, like it was taken in a whole other world. Just had to say it
And it’s true, how easy it is to forget how far we’ve come. I tend to beat myself up because I have this ideal that I want to eat a mostly raw vegan diet, and I’m not even close to that right now. But then I remember how I was eating (and what I thought I knew about food) just a year ago, and wow, what an improvement! I try to remind myself that it’s a journey, and we all evolve at our own pace.
My husband was an *extremely* picky eater growing up, and I basically only wanted vegetables that had been drowned in fat. (They weren’t too hard to come by in the South.) Sometimes when we’re sitting down to a healthy, delicious, veggie-packed meal, I’ll say to him, “Wouldn’t our 8-year-old selves be horrified to see this in the future?,” and we get a good laugh.