After an unsuspectingly profound FLASH MOB meditation this morning, I went to a restaurant in downtown Palo Alto with a few of the meditators (the organizers appropriately switched the word “mob” for satsang: “flash satsang meditation”).   As we sat down, and food arrived, my friend asked if I’d like to share as her plate had arrived too full for her appetite.  I politely declined as she extended the offer to the rest of the table.  It was clear that I’d passed on the food, and my friend went on to share, “She’s so healthy! She had broccoli for breakfast!”  In fact, I did have broccoli with hemp oil drizzled on top with a few pumpkin seeds-for some fun crunch 🙂 for breakfast.

I take breakfast pretty seriously.  It’s less about “being healthy” and more about the desire to feel like super woman when I start my day.

nutritional yeast, hemp oil and pumpkin seeds over fresh steamed organic local broccoli!

About eight of the ten people at our table had ordered food from this Palo Alto café.  More than a few had coffee or tea.  I didn’t want to miss out on the social meal gathering, so I consumed what I had brought along. What I pulled out of my purse was water that I had flavored with a few interesting yellow chunks that resembled turds, and even smaller black turds and green leaves.  Of course, the chunks in my water were not turds by any means-they were pieces of fresh ginger that I had peeled and threw in my glass container of water.  The man across from me at the table said, “I have a question for you.”  I sat a little taller and braced myself as I knew what was coming.  After all, you have to be prepared to explain yourself when sipping out of a jar with yellow turds.

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chia seeds, mint leaves, and ginger

He asked something to the extent of, “You seem to know a lot about health.  I try to eat healthy-but what would you recommend…just as an overall…?”

Hmmm…I had five million things to tell him.  Where do I begin?  I started with eating whole foods.

Without going into the details of eating organic and decoding food labels, the key word is simple (as I mentioned in last week’s post).  What should I eat?  What’s best?  What’s going to keep me healthy?  Help me lose weight?  All of these questions do have one answer, without getting analytical and extreme.  Whole foods are best.  Absolutely anything that grew on a tree, or in the dirt (soil, more appropriate term), is best, and better for you than something processed.  When I use the word processed, I am referring to anything that is not exactly the way it was when it was pulled from the ground, picked from the tree or chopped from the stalk, etc.  If you can go outdoors and see the same nourishment in exactly the same form, it’s unprocessed.  This is the real food folks!  Cook it, salt it, season it-just keep it lookin’ like it grew. Ya know?

I went on to tell him, switch all liquids to water.  I went into detail here, but I am not quite ready to share that train of thought (next post, don’t worry).

My spiel ended with alkalizing and the importance of breakfast. What you put in your body to “BREAK-FAST,” break your fast after sleep is essential for maintaining a healthy diet and overall optimal health.

Here’s a way to understand:   Your body’s digestive system is like a restaurant.  The chef has to cook your food and add all of the essential components.  The chef’s assistants are like the intestines, stomach, and liver–all of the very many little guys that make up the system 🙂

“SAD,” the “standard American diet” and regime tends to make these happy little assistants-well, not so happy.  They don’t get enough rest on an average night.  Thus, they can’t get settled enough to clean their homes, more less themselves.  They are forced to sort through a myriad of strange foreign substances—have you ever seen a “gummy bear tree?”  Just wondering… These assistants are asked to work at odd hours, while juggling chocolate cake, a martini glass and horse pill multivitamin.

Let me tell you…I would have quit my job.

What if your digestive system said, screw it!  I quit!  Fortunately, these hard working assistant really don’t ever do this.  They hint first, in the form of farts (or a lack thereof), weight gain, indigestion, fatigue—there’s an endless list of hints.  I’m sure you can guess a few by what you may have personally experienced?

These assistants have dealt with a lot and they sure do deserve a break—and raise wouldn’t hurt either.  Let’s go gentle on them.  You know that alarm clock you woke up to–and threw it at the wall after it did it’s job by almost giving you a heart attack at the butt crack of dawn? You know that sound.  How about a 180?  You wake up to your partner kissing you on the cheek…

Feels good right?  Whew, that memory of the alarm had me clenching me teeth!  Thank goodness it’s a kiss on the cheek instead–or a furry friend pawing at you?  Think of waking up your digestive system like this.   Everything on a smaller level we can expand.  Microcosm -> macrocosm.  You like to be woke up in a gentle, quiet manner and your digestive system does too.

Something warm and light.  Warm foods are easier to process and of course the more simple, the better.

I can give you all of the studies about breakfast, like the one published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, about overweight Latina and African-American girls, ages 8 to 17.  Who ate breakfast routinely, as compared to those who ate breakfast inconsistently, that were more physically active and had a lower body fat percentage…but!  Why do you need facts if you are already in your body?  You wake up every morning right?  Do you eat?  What do you eat?  How do you feel?  Do you feel incredible and ready to take on your day like a rock star?  If yes, try out this concept and see if you grow rock star wings.  If not, try this out and see if you feel like the rock stars or fairies or superheroes—whatever you want to be when you grow up 🙂

Steam some veggies for breakfast.  Boil a sliced, cored apple in spring water and season it in your dish with cinnamon and cardamom or nutmeg!  Have miso soup!  Madonna has miso soup for breakfast.  Who doesn’t want to take on the world like Madonna?  I may speak for myself, but I’d like to take on the world like Madonna.  Have you seen her on stage lately?  The point is, you have a lot of options to do this the right way. Try it out!  See how you feel…and for goodness sake!  Give those happy chef’s assistants a break!

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Find anything interesting? Make a change? Do you like Madonna’a butt too?  Comment below and lemme know 😀