Is Your Food Fueling You?

Without the right kind of fuel in your car, it isn’t going to run optimally (if at all). If you’ve ever made the mistake of putting a gas/oil mixture into a power garden tool that requires gasoline only, you know you’re in for a lot of smoke and sputtering and not only won’t you get the right performance out of your tool but you may in fact ruin the engine.

The same holds true for how we choose to fuel our bodies. While I’ve been very conscious about what I choose to eat for years now, I’ve continued to have some nagging problems that can often get me in a sour mood, low on energy, or just plain not feeling great. No matter how much I work out or fiddle randomly with my diet, I haven’t been able to nip it in the bud.

This month I decided to embark on a 6 month journey of working with energy-nutrition specialist and coach Heather Dominick. I met Heather last winter while I was at a benefit in NYC. After talking for a while and researching more on my own, I decided to take the plunge. Surely food, my relationship to it, and the nagging chronic issues I’ve experienced over the years have become something I have just put up with despite attempting to address it (with incremental success) with acupuncture, various energy work, and diet changes. I decided it was time to delve deeper into this issue on all levels and see how I might transform this area of my life and health.

I’ve just gotten started, but as in most things, the first step is awareness. What is REALLY going on? The process has started with a food and energy journal tracking everything that goes into my body each day (as well as out the other end for lack of a better way to put it) as well as how I am feeling physically and emotionally. Whenever I do this sort of process, there are always some instant insights. Over time I expect we’ll pick up on rhythms and patterns and be able to experiment and address those.

One of my bugaboos is recognizing where I’m resistant. Often I’ll desire a change, but then work really hard to make excuses why I don’t want to let go of doing things exactly the way I have done them forever. Well duh – I want to change, but please don’t make me change anything! I sense that creeping in already, but know I will open up to the experimentation as I go. Sometimes I just need a little too much information before I dive in and this will give me a chance to stretch that trust muscle while being ok with not knowing.

I will share any grand insights or experiences that I think might benefit you as I go. I find my clients inevitably feel more at ease when they realize that in more than one area of my life I, too, am a client doing the difficult work as well.