My Mom is a wise sage.  Maybe she’s just a smart woman, a good mother, and a fine teacher.  My first nutrition lessons came early in life.  At first, she lead by example.  She baked our bread and our cookies, we didn’t have soda, we had salad at every dinner, we ate a wide assortment of foods (“just in case we ever had them at a social function, we’d know what they were and we’d be able to stomach them”).  I remember her asking me to select two vegetables to have with dinner.  What do you think I said?  I was a kid.  Corn.  And potatoes.  Potatoes…”a starch”, she would say.  OK, now pick one that isn’t a starch.  And “corn is kind of a useless vegetable”.  My apologies to the corn growers in the world.  We’d discuss, argue, and eventually have to pick something green (in addition to the salad, which was “ruffage”). 

I learned to love the food (duh, you know that.  I L-O-V-E to eat!), and I love the flavor of the real food itself.  I’m not into marinades, sauces, butter, salt.  I like the plain stuff.  I just like the taste of the food; it makes me happy!!

Keeping the main thing the main thing:  I’m working on a more balanced diet.  Breakfast is going well, and that has trickled down to good lunch and snacks. 

Mom said, if all else fails, that a balanced diet looks like a rainbow.  The more colors in each meal, the better.  The more colors in the day, the more nutritious.  Rainbows…they’re happy!!  Just go for the color. 

14/40     Dinner will be colorful and HAPPY!

I eat my red tomatoes, almost daily.  Oranges prove to be a good post-training snack for me.  Yellow tail wine is a cheap and economical source of…uh, I think it’s a serving of fruit (note to Mom, Kim told me that).  Greens are to be eaten daily, and brocolli is a good default vegetable.  So is spinach.  And arugula!!  When it’s in season.  Blueberries are divine, as is the assortment of berries I adore…adding violet.

When I entertain, I don’t set an ornate table.  Colorful, yes.  And, Mom, just so you know, I get compliments on that.  And I think of you when I do.  And that…well, it makes me happy. 

And on my road to more balanced living, I’ll take a big dose of that!

 Life is good…I’ve made some good decisions, and am acting on setting myself up “in life”…differently…exercise is good…I believe this in a Yin week…getting a good handle on food and shaking off a couple of pounds…my back feels good, my abs feel tight, and I’m not feeling pain.  I tribe has been present…and I’m happy.