Warm Up the Soul & the Stomach

One of my biggest challenges with my lifestyle as a teacher is eating healthy. Sounds funny, right? Teaching at 4 different places and also seeing clients in their homes, it’s tough to have a home base where I can store my food in a refrigerator or heat it up in a microwave.

For awhile, this caused me to eat A LOT of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, sometimes eating multiple a day! I also found that I was eating way too many processed protein bars and other processed snack bars to keep my hunger away. The unfortunate fact was that these foods were yummy but were not providing me with any energy, just a stomach ache.

This past March, I got an Ayurvedic consultation from Kate O’Donnell, and she provided great guidance around my lifestyle, what to eat and tips on how to eat based on my constitution of Pitta Vatta. Since our meeting, I have made some of the following changes that has made a big impact on how I feel. These changes have been great for my stomach and my energy!

1. Eat warm meals and bring them with me in a thermos. One of my favorite warm meals to take on the road with me is oatmeal. I heat it up, put my toppings in, mix it all together and spoon it all into my thermos. Peanut butter, honey, banana oatmeal is a favorite as well as oatmeal with berries, honey and greek yogurt.

2. Eat Mindfully. I take at least 10 minutes to sit and do nothing but eat. Kate and I first discussed this time being 30 minutes but it was tough to stick with so I have cut it down to 10 which I’ve been able to do. With the weather being nice this has been much easier! Nothing beats eating outside on a 70 degree weather day!

Beautiful view of the Charles River, Boston

3. Avoid raw foods. This sounds a bit odd (we should always be eating our veggies, right?!) but given my constitution of Pitta Vatta (fire and air), I need grounding foods. Some of my favorite foods are grains and root vegetables (love my sweet potato mac-n-cheese). One of my favorite meals to have on the go is a rice bowl at Sweetgreen. SO Good! I also love making a brown rice dish and woking up some veggies in coconut oil and milk. Be on the lookout for some recipes!

Sweetgreen Wild Rice Bowl

4. Avoid dry foods. Bread is not good for me. This makes sense of why my peanut butter and banana sandwiches were leaving me hungry an hour or so later and also why I was feeling tired. This again goes back my need for grounding foods. So if I’m craving something sweet and bread like, I whip these blueberry muffins together or my granola bars.

Some of my baking faves! Granola bars and muffins!

What are some lifestyle tips that you have found to be helpful?