Life itself is your proper meal.

I choose life. I choose to eat, for I yearn for something more.

Letting go of the need to control things doesn’t mean letting go of responsibility. It means embracing life.

We need to work less to achieve more. We need to stop fighting food and start embracing it. We need to stop punishing our bodies and start providing for them. We need to slow down and enjoy and then we’ll get the results we’ve been looking for—and sooner than we expect.

Any guilt about food, shame about the body, or judgment about health are considered stressors by the brain and are immediately transduced into their electrochemical equivalents in the body. You could eat the healthiest meal on the planet, but if you’re thinking toxic thoughts the digestion of your food goes down and your fat storage metabolism can go up. Likewise, you could be eating a nutritionally challenged meal, but if your head and heart are in the right place, the nutritive power of your food will be increased.

Nourishment is not just “nutrition.” Nourishment is the nutrients in the food, the taste, the aroma, the ambiance of the room, the conversation at the table, the love and inspiration in the cooking, and the joy of the entire eating experience.

Life itself is your proper meal.