happiness is low glycemic fruit

There is an organic farmers' market near my new home on Sunday mornings. Organic, low glycemic fruit (berries!) for my oatmeal. Spinach I trust.

My days are bright and happy. It seems to take less each day for me to feel more bliss.

I rode the train from Mountain View to Palo Alto to go to a movie. I know the steady glow is sunny California but I catch myself thinking I have brought the dazzle. Here inside my life, I can think whatever I wish.

Recently, while chatting with Tall and Taller, I was speakng of self love. I believe the key to living in the golden tunnel is self love. This is a new approach for me. For most of my life, I thought the key to a love-filled life was loving other people first. Now I come to find that the more I love myself, the more others love me. Well, I didn't say all of this in my chat with T & T. What I actually said to the guys was something like this: when I turn down dessert, I used to think of it as a deprivation, a denial of something but now when I say no to dessert, I think of it as self love. Saying no to ice cream has become a positive. Saying no to ice cream can make me happy.

It has taken me years, literally just over two years, to change my eating habits. Now I am amazed at how disciplined I can be about food. My whole relationship with food has changed and I love the change.

I've been trying to understand what shifted for me two years ago, when I decided to get very serious about eating for my health. I would like to remember what motivated me.

I do remember arriving in Halifax in August 2005 for an Open Space on Open Space conference. I stayed with a consultant, Cathy, I had met online. On the drive from the airport, she asked me about what I liked to eat and I heard myself telling her exactly what I wanted to eat, telling her how I was working to control diabetes. Cathy, her husband Ron and her neighbor Elizabeth all took my health needs seriously, actually, maybe even a little more seriously than I did. At the end of my week in Halifax, Elizabeth actually had a dinner party in my honor. Nobody ever had a dinner party in my honor before. Before the dinner, Elizabeth asked me lots of questions about what I could eat for dessert and what I would like her to serve. I told her my favorite healthy dessert was low glycemic fruit (berries) and whipped cream. After my dinner party, Elizabeth, who I had just met at the beginning of the week, pulled out a huge crystal bowl full of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries. And all the people who had gathered just to be nice to me were thrilled. Those berries were like jewels. And there were so many of them, more than all of us could eat.

This gesture from Elizabeth really moved me. She had paid more attention to my healthy dessert than I ever had. But I have paid attention to the desserts I allow myself to have ever since. Elizabeth's love for me helped me love myself.

Berries are little spendy for me but now I always let myself buy them when they appear before me. When I saw organic raspberries and strawberries this morning at my new farmers' market, I pretended the cosmos was welcoming me to this sunny new home.

Now I am wondering what is the glycemic index of pomegranates? Sprinkling red pomegranate seeds on a bowl of lettuce makes an ordinary salad seem like another bowl full of jewels.

I am actually enjoying food more and more as I eat less and less.

Self love: the secret to healthy eating.