New Year, Healthy Eating

Would you like to reach your wellness goals in the new year?

Do you need help navigating the waters of food choices and fad diets?

With this step-by-step program, you will lose weight and learn healthy habits that last a lifetime.

A healthy diet is essential to achieving and maintaining well-being.

This simple program includes:

Recipes: Taste good health with delicious recipes that are easy to prepare and highlight food as medicine.

Updates: Receive customized advice based on your health assessment.

Tools: Gain tips to stay healthy and keep eating well for life.

Resources: Read articles written by food experts that relate to your wellness goals.

"Lisa's Healthy Eating Program gave me personalized content, including information on how to cook and eat better, reduce stress, breathe, and more! Her simple, weekly guide helped me implement changes at my pace and maintain the new way of being. Thank you!" Christie W.

Mindful Cooking and Eating

When I am cooking, I try to breathe, sway back and forth, and feel the weight in my feet. It helps to simply whisper to myself, “I am cooking”. This reminder helps me notice what is happening and let go of thoughts about past and future.

I am conscious that making food requires energy: the meals I prepare absorb that energy and return it to those who eat them. In turn, I appreciate what’s on my plate much more when I am putting down my fork between bites, breathing, and savoring the flavors of a dish.

To put the techniques of mindful cooking and eating into practice, join me for a hands-on workshop series at the Ayurvedic Center.

Here are the details:

Mindful Cooking and Eating - Thursdays (Sept. 22nd, 29th & Oct. 6th)  

5:30 - 7:30 pm at the Ayurvedic Center of Vermont in Williston

$48 per class includes: hands-on cooking, health benefits of foods, shared meal, and discussion

Drop in or register for all classes by September 1st and pay $129

To pre-register contact 802-872-8898 or ayurvedavt@comcast.net

Mindful eating can help people to both maintain healthy eating habits and cultivate greater connection with sources of nourishment. When I am paying attention to what I eat and how I feel while I eat it, I am less likely to over-eat and more likely to purchase ingredients that were not sprayed with pesticides or processed with solvents.

Experiment with reading, either silently or out loud, of these contemplations on food before you eat.

**This food is the gift of the whole universe: the earth, the sky, numerous living beings, and much hard, loving work.

**May I eat with mindfulness and gratitude.

**I accept this food so that I may nurture others, strengthen my community, and nourish the ideal of serving all beings.

adapted from savorthebook.com

An offering

Let cooking become the creative practice

that lends harmony to your day.

Allow its fragrance to engage your hands, warm your heart,

and fill your being with the nourishment that binds us together

and reminds us of our inter-dependence with the earth.

Harmonized Cookery -

inspired cuisine meets vibrant well-being

Soul Bowl

My most recent food-inspired collage.

Meditation on Nourishment

Since childhood, my entrepreneurial spirit has motivated me to start creative initiatives. From crafting art holiday postcards in grade school to starting a fair-trade Indonesian textile import business after graduating from college, I have always noticed my community's needs and acted on my natural impulse to fulfill them.
I feel most satisfied when my livelihood aligns with my passion of inspiring others to make harmonious choices.
How can you find balance between nourishing yourself and helping others?
For me, this peace comes through the art of cooking. I listen to my body and engage in a dialogue with myself about what can best feed me right now. It might be a walk in the woods, a cup of tulsi (sacred basil) tea, or a particular food. When I give myself permission to hear my own inner voice and take the time to respond with my outer actions, I establish harmony between myself and my environment.
Then, I can go into the world and help others!
Let us remember that life is a journey. How can you be satisfied with the way things are?
Explore this meditation, taught to me by my yoga teacher, Prem Prakash, as a tool to gain appreciation for your life.

Imagine putting down all your responsibilities, worries, and burdens. Just leave them in a heap on the floor.
Walk away.
Come back to them and scoop them back up as light, downy feathers of privilege.

This is your life...and mine. There is no destination, but there are ways you can gain a greater sense of freedom within the structure of your own reality.

Here is a feast table set on a volcanic rock during a recent trip to the big island of Hawaii. Grilled salmon, sweet potato salad, avocado mango chutney, and other delights!