How to Reconnect with your Hunger and Satiation cues
plus a great Kale Salad recipe, yoga talk and more opportunities to connect
Thank you for being here! Truly. I don’t say that enough, but I do feel it. In a world with so many places for your attention, you are offering it here and I want to make it worth your while. I want to support you in your lives, with your goals and journeys in the kitchen and in your self enquiry. Please share any requests, interests or thoughts, because you belong here and I need you!
This week I am elated because I finished my 8-month Sattva yoga teacher training course! It has been such a journey and I am so excited to begin to share more of that information here with you all and see how it integrates into the Embodied Cooking practice we are establishing! Now I will be really set free to tell strangers in the coffee shop who complain about their backs hurting how to do chair stretches 😏. I am a nice kind of menace.
It gets really fun in the weekly embodied cooking club, we sing, we learn, we grow! And this past week I presented a recipe that I had never made before to model how we can practice patience and presence with ourselves when we are doing something totally new. If you join you can make any requests you like for me to demonstrate a recipe or concept. It’s just $5/month, that is $1.25/class!
This week I have a recipe for a Kale Salad made with leftover triple citrus dressing and za’atar breadcrumbs. I love playing with new flavors for established recipes like this riff on my usual Kale Caesar.
This week’s open kitchen question is about how to connect with our hunger and satiation for yes, the purpose of curbing over-eating, but so much more. This is an important one so please read and watch the video practice. If you struggle with this, these practices are life-changing. So much has been written about the brain-gut connection, but we are still learning. One thing we know for sure it that is matters.
I’ve also got a yoga and cooking mini retreat coming up on May 20th right away. I am also wondering if any of you would be interested in a virtual mini-retreat so that non-locals can join for this experience? Please comment or write to me if you like this idea.
And finally please scroll all the way to the bottom for an amazing podcast episode I did with Nicki Sizemore over at Mind, Body, Spirit, FOOD.
Open Kitchen #4: Accessing our Hunger and Satiation Cues (This one is sooo important)
Here is our question of the week for Open Kitchen, the feature where I answer your kitchen/yoga/meditation and anything else in my wheelhouse questions! Please submit your questions for Open Kitchen through this form. The questions will be anonymous so no need to think twice about anything embarrassing. Remember chances are if you are wondering something or having an experience there are many others who are as well and when you have the courage to ask the question you help all those other people too.
“I overeat a lot and feel gross and sick. I don’t know when the last time was I just felt full and not sick. I know it’s bad for me, but how do I stop?”
This is such an important question and one I hear about time and again personally and professionally. The fact is that our culture actually encourages us to overeat and to ignore our bodies natural cues for hunger and satiation. We receive portions in restaurants that are usually much larger than we need, we ask children to finish what is on their plates, we also eat on the go or while distracted so that we don’t notice our subtle body cues telling us we have eaten enough. We are used to walking away from a celebratory meal feeling overfull, sick and slow. On the other side we are praised for working through lunch or told we are strong when when we skip a meal. But it’s not strong. It is self abuse. Self abuse we are taught and becomes normalized. This does not need to be our normal!
So it makes sense our hunger signaling feels out of wack because we are shutting it down. We are numbing the signals because we don’t listen. This is painful to our bodies to over and over again be ignored and have our needs pushed down. This tells the body that we don’t trust it so the signal becomes softer and softer.
So working on these issues requires some deep reprogramming! Here is a short breath and meditation practice to get you started.
If this is something you struggle with, consider booking a discovery call with me and we can work out a package of one-on-one support for your growth and development.
The good news is that you are on your way and your body knows just what to do. We have only to bring the light of awareness to it, get quiet and listen. The more we build this muscle the easier it gets, and soon you will be eating when you want to, and placing your fork down when your body feels satiated. And if that is not enough motivation, know that when you choose to reconnect with your body’s hunger and satiation cues you are providing an example to others around you and changing this destructive cultural norm. That is pretty badass!
Join me for a Mini-Retreat May 20th
The weekend after Mother’s day we will continue to celebrate our divine mother energy inside and outside ourselves with a beautiful mini-retreat.
There are just a couple spots left for the May retreat which will be celebrating parents, so sign up while you can! I will be announcing more retreats and other class opportunities over the coming weeks. The warm weather is a chance for us to practice and grow all the seeds we held and nourished during the winter.
Agenda
9:30-10: settling in with tea 🍵
10-11:30 meditation and restorative yoga 🧘🏼
11:30-12 Leanne cooks and shares embodied cooking practice 🍳
12-12:30 Eat lunch and chat/share 🥗
12:30-1 final breath-work and meditation 💨
Float away into the rest of the dreamy weekend feeling released and connected.
Kale Citrus Salad with Za’atar breadcrumbs, Feta and Olives
This recipe came about from having leftovers from a couple of other recipes I have shared here—the triples citrus sauce which is like a dressing in it’s ratios, and za’atar breadcrumbs—along with my personal staples of dinosaur kale, feta and olives. You could do this with other greens or add in lentils or even pasta. This is like a formula for flavor. Simple!
TL;DR: Chop the kale and mix it with the sauce and everything but breadcrumbs. Top with breadcrumbs and serve.
1/4 - 1/2 cup leftover triple citrus sauce (leftover from triple citrus pasta)
1 bunch dinosaur kale
1/4 cup crumbled feta, or to taste
kalamata olives, to taste
1/4 cup za’atar breadcrumbs, or to taste (leftover from the warm lentils recipe)
Add 1/4 cup of the triple citrus sauce to a large bowl.
Remove the stems and finely chop the dinosaur kale. Add it to the bowl with the citrus sauce along with the feta and kalamata olives.
Toss the kale and sauce together and add more sauce, up to 1 cup until everything is nicely coated to your taste.
Finally top with half the breadcrumbs and toss. Then serve in bowls with the rest of the breadcrumbs on top to experience the joy of a concentrated crunch.
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How to Feed the Body During Grief and Loneliness and WHY Noticing and Loving Ourselves during these times is so Healing
I was recently a guest on Nicki Sizemore’s podcast over at Mind, Body, Spirit, FOOD. We got deep about nourishing ourselves when we are really struggling—what that sincerely looks and feels like and why it’s so healing and important to bring our awareness to. For me, this work is not just a career, it is a calling. I believe we were put on this planet to get to know ourselves and become the most shiny and bright versions of who we truly are. And I believe that food and how we relate to it internally and externally can be an incredible tool for self inquiry. What we learn when we cook we take with us into everything we do.
Please take a listen, and if you do not follow Nicki’s work you are missing out!
I would love it if you could do a virtual mini retreat! Thank you for suggesting that!