I want to express how grateful I am for my loving, supportive family. This weekend at my Integrative Nutrition course I encountered more people then I had liked who said that their families thought of them as the “odd one” or the “weird one” in the family. I kept thinking to myself how grateful I was that my family never made me feel that way.
See, at the Integrative Institute of Nutrition we are learning how to heal ourselves through food. To many people this seems like a strange concept, but to all of us students it seems just right. We’ve been living and learning from our food and how it affects our bodies, but now we are learning WHY it affects us the way that it does.
We are also learning how important it is to have our “primary foods” in order, not meaning the literal food that we eat, but the relationships that we digest on a daily basis.
Personally, I’ve had a pretty great support system, sure it took some explaining of what I was doing for them to fully understand me, but they’ve always been on my side.
Last night I was truly blown away – let me explain the events that unfolded:
We celebrated my grandfathers 93rd birthday – I know, he’s an amazing man! – In any case, last week my mother explained that we would be going to my grandparents house in Fort Lee, NJ on Sunday and that there really wouldn’t be anything healthy that I would be able to eat, let alone everyone else. We decided that we would order from our favorite restaurant in NYC and bring it over to their house. First off, she didn’t have to do this! She could have said: “it’s one night and you can deal with eating what everyone else eats” but she didn’t! She understands the importance of eating healthy food on a daily basis and to that I am grateful!
This wasn’t the only amazing event to unfold – yesterday when I spoke to my mother she explained that we were bringing Babycakes cupcakes from the gluten free shop on the lower east side. What an incredible woman she is – not only could she have gone to the local supermarket to pick up any cake or cupcake filled with gluten and sugar, she chose to stick with the health kick and go all the way with the most amazing cupcakes on the planet!
My point here is this: for those of you who don’t feel like your family is supportive of whatever it is that you’re doing – have you tried explaining it to them – and I mean sitting them down and having a nice long talk for a good hour or two? If not, you should probably get on that if you feel that you need the support.
If this just simply isn’t possible then use your friends as your support network. I believe your key to success is to have the backbone to carry you through. It’s too hard to do it alone – so please, don’t try.