What is Wellness to You?

Me and my mom!

As I work to launch this website, I’m pondering the overarching theme of optimal wellness and what that means for me and for my varied clients.  What comes up for me regularly this past year is:  do the best you can in your current and sometimes immediate circumstances.  This would apply to many aspects of health, including exercise, relaxation, service to others and of course, food.

Most of the time I can control my food environment and eat healthful foods.  Usually I am home or close enough so I can pack food from home.  Those times when I didn’t have total control used to make me uncomfortable and sometimes truly anxious – and that’s not helpful to anyone’s overall health!

Specifically I recall a fun and meaningful trip last summer with my mother and daughter to east Tennessee to the area where my mother was born and raised.  Being a northeasterner and a healthful eater, I was alarmed at the constant presence of deep fried foods of all kinds, fatty meats (even in beans) and sugar laced tea and fruit.  After a minor freak out and the realization that this food was everywhere – in restaurants and home cooking alike – I turned a mental switch and decided to relax and enjoy myself and simply do the best I could with the food choices available.  And a lot of the food was pretty delicious!   But the most significant part of this was the fact that I could actually enjoy myself and the people I was with, and know that I would be okay eating less than  healthful choices for those few days.

I still think about that wonderful trip and don’t regret eating those hushpuppies one bit!