Primary Food [Ep. 90]

0:00 This is the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast. I'm Lisa Salsbury, and this is episode 90. Primary food. Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. Hi friends. I've been thinking about you and wondering what I could share with you this week that might be meaningful to you.

0:40 I want you to know that I think about you the listener a lot. I wonder what you're up to when you're listening to me. And I wonder if you're able to implement the topics I'm teaching about each week. After 90 episodes, I realized there is some repeat in what I say and I'm okay with that. I think it's kind of like church, if you're a church or a synagogue or a temple goer, you know that essentially you're going to hear the same thing each week. It's going to be some form of here's how to be a good human this week. It will vary like maybe. You know, it's about kindness and forgiveness this week and next week it's about service or getting through trials, but ultimately there's an overarching theme about how to live a good life.

1:21 And so if I find myself repeating concepts about how to live a healthy life here on this podcast, I feel like I'm in good company. With a lot of the teachers and the pastors out there. So today though, I'm finally going to share a concept that I've never shared before on the podcast. It is something I learned during my health coaching certification. And definitely I want to give credit where credit is due. This concept is designed by the Institute for integrative nutrition, where I was certified as a health coach. It's called primary food, and we're going to use a tool called the circle of life to really dig deep on this. I will be letting you know at the end, how to get a copy of the circle of life.

2:03 So be sure to stay tuned for that. Primary food. Is the idea that our nutrition is a secondary source of energy. And that primary foods or non-food sources of nourishment are what really fuel us. This is the core of my program, ideal that states that I want to help you make your life amazing. So food doesn't have the job of comfort or compensator in celebrator. If our primary foods are nourishing us. We don't need the food. On our plates nearly as much to make up the difference especially with joy. This is really similar to being in flow or being in the zone.

2:45 As people say, flow and positive psychology as defined by Wikipedia. Is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed. In a feeling of energized focus, full involvement and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence. Flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time. So when you are in this state, you can imagine, or if you've been in this state before you know that you have very little need for food. Now, this is not to say that you don't get hungry eventually, or that you don't need to fill your physical requirements.

3:28 Of course you do. It's just that the need for a mid-afternoon treat or a big lunch break. Is not actually what you're looking forward to. When you are in the zone. You are less focused on what you are going to eat next. And it hardly matters because you just want to get back to doing what you were doing. This could be an exciting work project, but it also could be totally focused on playing with or caring for your grandchild. It could be being with a new love and totally focusing on them and your new relationship. It could also be improving your lifting at the gym and going all in, on your physical body and improving that relationship. So there's a lot of ways that we can kind of be in flow, I find that if we tend to be in flow with our lives, it's because our primary food is really fueling us.

4:19 On a day to day, hour by hour sort of basis. So there are four areas that we define as the primary food. And those are career relationships, physical activity and spirituality. Under each of those pillars lie to sub categories so that there ends up being 12 total subcategories. I know this can be kind of hard to visualize as I'm talking, and you're probably not actively taking notes because I imagine. You're walking your dog or making dinner because that's when I listen to podcasts too. So bear with me while I try to explain this. Imagine you're looking at a circle. And you've drawn spokes like the spokes on a bike tire and each line is one of these categories.

5:03 Okay. So the first one we're going to talk about is under career. So you have career and then finances and education. We're going to give ratings on your level of satisfaction within each area at the end of the podcast, using that circle of life tools. So more than just thinking if you like, or don't like these things. I want you to consider your level of satisfaction with it. As you think about what you do and I'm talking about in this sub category of your career, I want to make special mention that if you are. A stay at home mother that is also your career. But as you think about this, think about how much pleasure you derive from your chosen career.

5:48 And then the subcategories. How does satisfied are you with your education, whether that is formal or ongoing or your own education on even YouTube? Um, I'm not joking. You can seriously learn almost anything now on YouTube and it can be completely legitimate as long as you are confident in the source. And you're not just scrolling. but you're going there intentionally to learn something. This can also be non-fiction books that you read or listen to or study and just think about what do you want to learn? About or even learn to do. So there's lots of ways that we can be satisfied with our education, whether that is something that we did formally long ago, something that we're currently doing.

6:31 Uh, or your ongoing education. Lastly in this section, is your finances. How satisfied are you there? This doesn't mean how much money do you have, but how satisfied with how you are managing or handling the money you do have. Some of the most miserable people in the world you might consider rich. By the way I almost said lottery winners here, but I did look that up and apparently it's a myth that lottery winners always blow their money and end up miserable. So I don't want to perpetuate that. But I think you do know people that never seem quite happy. With the money that they have. There's also the issue of being okay with having money, no matter how much it is.

7:14 A lot of times when people get money, it burns a hole in their pocket, so to speak and they just want to spend it. Some of your satisfaction can come from your ability to just have money and not feel the need to go out and buy a bunch of things, but also not on the other end of the spectrum where you feel like you have to save every dime that comes in. So finances, the satisfaction, there is just confidence in your ability to get money, as well as your ability to have and save money and spend in. Smart ways that line up with your values. Okay. The next section of our wheel is relationships.

7:56 This is clearly a big one and can encompass everything from romantic relationships to our parent child and child, parent relationships. Meaning you as the parent and you ask the child. And if you are caring for an aging parent, you know, that the relationship can look pretty different than it did when the parent was younger. The two other categories here, our social life and home environment. How satisfied are you with your social life? Do you leave the house on the right frequency for you? Do you see friends as often as you like to. your social life is way more than just how many times a week.

8:36 Do you go out for dinner, but also, do you engage with people in your everyday activities, such as your gym classes or at school pickup? How often do you meet friends for outings? And is it the right frequency for you? this isn't a contest for who goes out the most. But a gauge of your satisfaction on the frequency. You might be going out too often for your comfort level on your social life. You might think you want to scale it back. Some people are going to think I could scale it up your preferred frequency maybe once a week and someone else might be once a quarter. Give some thought here too. Your relationships in general, are there any that bring greater satisfaction?

9:18 And is there a general sense of your level of happiness with all your relationships? Do you see any common threads running through with relationships where you might be noticing there's a general dissatisfaction or were they opposite? Okay then with your home environment again, this does not mean we have to live in the most Instagram worthy homes in order to be satisfied. Are you satisfied with the way that you care for your home? And this I think is why the home environment is under relationships. Because we have relationships with all kinds of seemingly inanimate objects. But our homes, I think are a big one. If we don't like the clutter or the dog hair on the floor, we tend to say things like, oh, I just hate my house.

10:03 But really the dissatisfaction is coming from the way we are taking care of the home. Be it an apartment, a house or a tiny house. We can care for it in the way that feels best to us. So try when you're thinking about your satisfaction with the home, not to see its flaws. And to think it could be bigger, could be better. It could be more like so-and-so's, but how does this home work for you? I don't want to live in a bigger home than what I already live in. It it's plenty to take care of. So that would not be something that would satisfy me more to have more space. The next quadrant on our wheel.

10:43 Is physical activity and The other two sub categories that go with this are health and home cooking. I just love these categories. So I think these two categories to physical activity are just really fascinating. So first with physical activity itself, are you satisfied with your level of movement? Could it be more? Does it need to slow down? Are you constantly sore because of your workouts? Or do you need to add in more mobility as you age? Do you feel like you've finally gotten here physical activity dialed in? And you're working out because you love moving your body. You want to reward yourself with that movement? I hope this is what we're all aiming for, honestly.

11:26 Your general health is also a section under physical activity. This can be a tough one because sometimes we're in poor health because of genetics. Despite all we are doing, but when you are thinking about that satisfaction score, you can also be thinking of how you care for that body that might not be functioning as you had hoped. Are you satisfied with what you are doing to improve your health? With your focus on your health. That could be another way we rate it is. How much of a priority we're giving to our health can also help with our satisfaction. And then comes a home cooking. According to Harvard medical school, the more people cook at home, the healthier their diet, the fewer calories they consume, and the less likely they are to be obese or develop type two diabetes, a growing body of scientific evidence.

12:18 Supports teaching patients how to cook meals at home as an effective medical intervention for improving diet quality, weight loss, and diabetes prevention. I think that's fascinating that we can consider home cooking a medical intervention. I did dedicate an entire podcast to this topic of home cooking last year, because it is such an effective tool in improving your physical health. So your health, your home cooking and your physical activity are all intricately related here in this quadrant. And the last quadrant is spirituality with the sub categories of creativity and joy. I so love this category, your dedication to your spirit greatly impacts your health.

13:04 According to the university of Minnesota. Prayer has a couple of significant health benefits. So they say first. Prayer elicits the relaxation response, which lowers blood pressure and other factors heightened by stress. Second. Prayer releases control to something greater than oneself, which can reduce the stress of needing to be in charge. Whether you believe in a traditional Judeo-Christian God or the universe, or just a higher presence in your life, something higher than yourself. Having a spiritual practice is actually a health behavior. This again, I find fascinating.

13:47 What is your level of satisfaction with your spiritual practice? This can be a weekly church attendance, a daily scripture study, or a meditation. A yoga practice. I don't have a lot Of education in world religions. So there has to be a thousand ways. To really emphasize a spiritual practice in your life. And there's no qualification on that study about prayer. It's going to benefit you. Even if you just acknowledged that we are not alone in the universe and that there is something higher and more powerful than human beings. Underlying. This is creativity.

14:27 I'm actually looking for ways to be more creative in my life and consume less all the time. The opposite of creativity is not dullness or being boring. I believe the opposite of creativity is actually consumption. Think about Pinterest, especially when Pinterest first came out. It was a big, giant way to source all the creative people in the world. All the crafts and the recipes and the sewing projects and home decor. We're all finally together and you could save all the ideas you wanted to do. And copy, and we all felt so creative after perusing Pinterest for an hour. But all you did was consume other people's work.

15:08 You didn't actually create anything. How different do you feel when you actually create something? Be that sewing a skirt, putting together a puzzle, fixing a meal that nourishes your family. All of that is creation and it feels much different than consuming social media or Pinterest for that same amount of time. It's not to say. That we can't ever consume. Sometimes that's what my brain needs at the end of the day is to not continually output. But to just sit. And sometimes I say, sit and vege, sometimes that CV, sometimes that's reading. So it's not that we have to be creative all the time, but how satisfied are you with your level of creativity?

15:52 And I think a really good measure of that. Is to just contrast that with how much you are consuming. Are you creating more than you consume? That can be a really good gauge on your satisfaction here. And lastly, we have joy and I think this one can be sort of a culmination of many of the other areas on the circle. But it can also be independent when we think about how much joy we create or notice for the small things. Are you intentionally joyful on your morning walk or when you're talking with a friend, do we purposely notice the feeling of joy? And then think on how that feeling was created. Meaning what were we thinking about? To create that joy.

16:33 This is how we recreate it and increase it. Before this exercise, we are just rating our satisfaction on maybe how often we feel joy, or if we have the quote unquote right. Amount of joy in our lives. Feels like we can't ever have enough. Right. I think a lot of times we pressure ourselves to be happier than we maybe are by saying, oh, look. I'm so blessed and it could be worse. So be sure when you're thinking on this one to really tap into that true joy feeling and notice if you are feeling joy on a somewhat regular basis. Okay. So again, I want you to imagine that each of these categories are all those spokes on a wheel.

17:14 And, um, add another way you can think of this is attached to numbers on a clock because there are 12 categories total, but if you think about the spokes coming out from the center for each category, You're going to put a dot on the line, rating your satisfaction in this area of your life. So the closer to the center of the circle, you are. The less satisfied you are and the farther to the edge. The more satisfied you are. So for example, on the home cooking one. I would put my level of satisfaction on home cooking really out close to the edge because I cook the amount I want to cook, but we still go out enough.

17:57 That I get a break. And so that feels like the right amount. Of home cooking to me, I'm fairly good at it. It comes naturally and fairly easily to me. I make a lot of recipes without a recipe. My. A lot of meals without a recipe. So. All of those things go into having a high satisfaction score. So that thought would go far out on the line, near the edge. And then, um, Something that may be, would go closer to the center for me would be. Social life. Sometimes I think I could do a better job with how often I reach out to friends. Or the plans that I make that maybe I could leave the house a little more often.

18:39 I think I've let my social life go a little bit with working from home. So that dot then would go more towards the center, you know, somewhere in the middle Between the center point where they all converge. And the exterior edge. Okay. So then you're going to get all of these dots. If we got dots all around the circle, one on each line. And now you're going to connect all the dots around in the circle and see what that new circle that line looks like. The goal is to have a fairly regular looking circle, but no one does obviously. Everyone is going to have circles that are irregular and dip in and out.

19:21 What you want to do is identify where the imbalances are. If you notice that one side or section of the circle tends to be way out to the edge. And then another one is dipped in way into the middle. You can see very clearly, very visually. Where you might want to focus your efforts or your goals for the next quarter or the next year? You can redo this rating once or twice a year and check in to see how you are doing. Now, if you want a copy of my circle of life, that's in full color and ready for you to print out and hang up to remind you of these categories. I'm going to be including it in my free food planning sessions.

20:04 I'm doing just 10 of these in the next four weeks. I extended it a little since I realized I'm going out of town for almost a week. So. Um, last week, I said I was opening up my calendar for the next four weeks, but then when I was opening it up lots more times. I realized I'm going to be at my son's graduation for college. So anyway, I'm just doing 10 appointments. They are filling up fast, but you do have still four weeks from now. So I'll be giving you a jumpstart, your weight loss workbook, and a copy of this circle of life. That is something new I'm offering this time around on these free food planning sessions that I did last August.

20:45 Um, I didn't do this, so it is something new, but because this is pre proprietary art from Institute for integrative nutrition, I can't just offer it for free download for everyone. You need to be more like my client. But when you come to one of my free sessions and I have the opportunity to coach you, I just already love you and consider you one of my clients. So I that's how I get around it by giving it to you that way. So you're going to love having this circle of life for yourself. You're going to love your free food planning session because you'll leave, knowing exactly what to eat to start losing weight. And this is why I'm including this important new tool. Because we need to know where the imbalances lie in your primary food.

21:27 Before we get lost in the weeds of your secondary food or the food on your plate. The link for scheduling that of course is in the show notes. Please let me know if you have any questions about those free sessions. You can always DM me on Instagram. That's probably the easiest way, or just reply to one of my emails. If you're on my email list. I send out really nice emails. So if you're not there, how come get on, get him in there. Okay. That's it for today. Thanks as always for listening and sharing the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast.