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Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash I almost drowned once. I did not speak of the experience for decades, nor did I get angry about it for years afterward. I just pushed it aside to a cobwebby corner of my mind. Why did I feel like it was my fault? I was a newly enrolled, 18-year-old college student at an amazing college on the glorious Puget Sound in Washington state, having grown up 3,000 miles away in New York and New Jersey. On my first day of campus, I ran into a friend from my very progressive but equally funky and tiny high school, whose claim to fame was that Buckminster Fuller sat on its board. We decided he would take me on my first kayaking trip ever. We each got into our kayaks, life jackets firmly strapped, and entered the glistening water on a sunny and warm afternoon. I remember thinking that the air felt like a blanket on my skin and I was sweetly excited to take this amazing boat on the beautiful, luscious Sound in my new home in the great Pacific Northwest. My momentary reverie was sharply broken by his instructions. He said something about how to paddle and before I knew it he was about 20 feet ahead of me on the water. I wondered how lame I looked, completely unskilled in this boating activity. I wondered why he didn’t look back or wait for me, but my focus was on getting the hang of my paddle so that I could actually approximate gliding through the water. About fifteen minutes in, I noticed that I was a good distance from the shore by now and that my friend was so far ahead of me, that he was a small dot in an elliptical shape I could barely see. He was probably closing in on reaching the other shore while I was feebly moving ahead, like a turtle with nothing to prove. Suddenly, what I later learned was called a squall- or flash storm- came up. The wind started blowing fiercely and before I knew it the bright, cheery sun was replaced with dark ominous clouds that began emitting huge raindrops diagonally lancing the air, hitting me and my little boat like mini-daggers. My supposed friend clearly had unceremoniously deserted me. I wondered what I should do, besides not panicking. Should I still attempt to follow him or retreat back to the shore? It was raining so hard by now that I could barely see the shore. I knew that the promise of land under my feet was less than a half-hour away but seemed like miles. I needed a plan, fast. So I tried to point my kayak towards the shore. That was a problem. Pointing. It implied an ability to steer. I felt doomed as I saw I was making no progress; instead, I was going around in circles. I noticed out of the corner of my eye another kayaker passing me swiftly, heading straight for the shore. I didn’t dare make eye contact; I knew I looked ridiculous and was embarrassed and scared and had a stomach ache all the way up to my throat. I struggled for several minutes when I heard a male’s voice barking at me. It was the kayaker who had passed me. He had come back for me! He was going to save me! He started screaming that he would help me but I had to listen to him and if I did not, I would capsize and drown. Did I understand? he demanded. Yes, I gulped, nodding. He screamed at me to paddle hard and when I could not paddle anymore, he screamed some more. His voice cut through the squall like a sadistic drill sergeant. It seemed to go on for hours as I leaned into that paddle, fingers frozen, sight obliterated, arms and shoulders aching, stomach in knots, and fear coursing through my veins. Somehow, he got us back to shore. I remember awkwardly getting out of the boat, stiff with cold and adrenaline. He told me to remove my soaked life jacket but I could not unzip it because my fingers would not move. He ended up doing it for me, unhappy about this further task of the rescue operation. Before I knew it he muttered something about being late and disappeared into the woods leading back to campus. I sat on my heels and let out some kind of tortured, primeval sound of relief and exhaustion. Then I followed the same trail, amazed by each step I took on solid land, and shaking off the rain, hurried towards a hot shower and dry clothes. That was my first day of college. I never told anyone about that day for more than two decades. I put the experience away in some cavity of my mind labeled ‘things I will never think about again’. I couldn’t think about it because my shame and humiliation were too great. I remember running into the man who saved my life a few times on campus over the next year or so until he graduated. I always looking away in extreme embarrassment. As for my high school friend, I also ran into him on a few occasions and we awkwardly made small talk. We never spoke of the incident. Again, I was utterly ashamed, assuming 110% fault as if my own inadequacy at kayaking for my first time meant that there was something irreparably wrong and defective about me. But such thinking was insane? How could it have been my fault? How did my mind come up with this distorted and twisted belief? Why would I take the trauma of the experience and internalize it into a seething ball of shame? Within a week or two of my fateful date with the squall, I learned that each September some poor schlub at my school drowned in the Puget Sound. They were typically new to kayaking and got caught in a storm and could not maneuver their boat back to shore safely. Those storms were fierce and required tremendous amounts of upper body strength to fight the wind and rain and build momentum. That took training, and practice, and time. I cringed at this data. I was a secret member of a club of people who almost drowned in the water, due to their novice knowledge and the frigid waters of the Puget Sound. Every fall, I cringed deep inside my soul when another drowning occurred. Still, I did not divulge my experience. Rationally I knew that some terrible shame inside me was not the reason why I could not paddle better the first time I went kayaking. But it was shame that made me feel so insanely responsible for my own inadequacies. Why? Why was I so ashamed? What was so wrong with me? Why did I view the experience as something to hide rather than celebrate? Why did it take me years to whisper the story to anyone? I have searched and searched and can only come up with having absorbed shame into every cell in my being during my childhood. My constant refrain as an unhappy kid was shame. I internalized everything against myself. During those truly growth-filled years at college, I wrestled with body shame, familial shame, existence shame, identity shame and personality shame. Shame was the lens I experienced my days through. Shame was like a master cell in my body’s composition, through which everything was filtered. Slowly, very slowly, and with many twists and turns and defeats over the years, and after copious therapy, I might add, I have learned to extract myself from my automatic tendency to blame and shame myself when something goes wrong as if my presence caused the problem. It is awfully egotistical way to react, don't you agree? At some much later point, I was able to move off and let go of the denial, personal shame, and humiliation of that near-drowning incident. It dawned on me that I could re-imagine the event with appropriate emotional responses. I suddenly grasped that the appropriate response would have been, absolutely should have been, red, hot anger. What was my pal thinking? How could he have left me? Why didn’t he hustle back when the storm came up? Did he realize I could have died? I mean WTF!!! I remember writing and telling him of my anger. He had graduated by then but I found his new address in Boston from another high school friend. He sent a short postcard back that he did not think it was a big deal and I was overexaggerating. Nice! Thankfully, it never occurred to me to avoid kayaking. I never thought about my near-death experience when I went out kayaking, probably because my denial was so deep that it had ever happened. I remember taking a class at the pool at our college, and learning how to roll the kayak. I was completely safe when I was underwater with the boat on top of me. I kept at it, learning how to get the boat to go where I wanted it. I loved the smooth silky gliding on calm waters mixed with upper body exertion through rough choppy waters. I loved the quietness of sitting literally on the water. Friends and I went on a few overnight trips where the stillness quieted us profoundly. Kayaking was full of majesty and magic, and mindfulness. If I could do it over again, I would have yelled at my friend to not leave me. I would have had a whistle on me and blew that thing for help. I would have turned back at the first sign of the squall. I would have profusely thanked the dude who saved me and gone out of my way to find him and keep thanking him. I would have all but strangled my pal while throttling him with vituperative, reverberating screams that he risked my very own, precious life. How dare he be so cavalier? How dare he dismiss and deny me? Was he crazy in his miserable chauvinistic arrogant denying head that his life would have been unaffected had I drowned? Such audacity! Then I would smush his face into a cement wall, his torso into barbed wire, kick him in the butt, and stomp away. Now, several decades later and after a lot of sorting out in my head, I am so profoundly grateful that I did not drown that day! I am not ashamed anymore that my first kayaking experience in the cold waters of the Puget Sound during a squall was nearly my last experience on this earth. I am so happy and thankful that someone saved me! It was not my fault. I am not mad at my high school friend anymore. What did he know? He was as stupid as I was. But, I want to say solemnly and sacredly, that I would give a lot to thank the guy who saved me in person. I don’t even know his name but I remember what his younger self looked like. I send him total gratitude and thanks, and hope he continued to help others in need over these four decades. I pray that when he was in need that others helped him. I hope he had a good life.

I relish the weekly time, each Friday afternoon, I spend with the words of the goddess Mary Oliver, whose poems fill me astonishment, delight, beauty and love. A friend and I contemplate a poem of hers each week as we honor the Sabbath. It is a ritual that has become so very personally meaningful to me that missing it is no longer an option. I hope you will enjoy Oliver’s words her as well as the saintly John O’Donahue and wise Cathy Comandy, as we collectively slip on something saging, and find a way to step into our third and final act, with the spaciousness of love. Enjoy these three poems and a link to more! BECOMING AN ELDER Leaving behind my journey of struggling and racing through the white water of many rivers, I become the river, creating my own unique way. Leaving behind my self-imposed role as a tree upon which others have leaned, I now become the wind, with the freedom to blow whenever and wherever I choose. Leaving behind the boxes I’ve created in my life, crammed with roles, responsibilities, rules and fears, I become the wild and unpredictable space within which flowers sprout and grow. Leaving behind the years of yearning for others to see me as somebody, I soften into becoming my future, with permission from SELF to continually unfold as I choose, without concern for how others may see me. Leaving behind years of telling and teaching, I become instead a mirror into which others can peer and view reflections of themselves to consider. Leaving behind the urge to provide answers for others, I become — in the silence of this forest retreat – the question. Leaving behind the rigor of my intellect, I become a single candle in the darkness, offering myself as a beacon for others to create their own path. I become an elder. ~Cathy Carmody~ Cathy Carmody passed in 2017, but before she passed she allowed her poem to be shared as long as she is credited as the author. For Retirement Here is where your life has arrived, After all the years of effort and toil; Look back with graciousness and thanks On all your great and quiet achievements You stand on the shore of new invitation To open your life to what is left undone Let your heart enjoy a different rhythm When drawn to the wonder of other horizons Have the courage for a new approach to time; Allow it to slow until you find freedom To draw alongside the mystery you hold And befriend your own beauty of soul. Now is the time to enjoy your heart’s desire, To live the dreams you’ve waited for, To awaken the depths beyond your work And enter into your infinite source -John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us For a list of other poems, please go to this link: https://www.joincake.com/blog/retirement-poems/

Photo credit: Tami Gann in Unsplash I am a volunteer crisis counselor with the national Crisis Text Line (CTL) and during my 2-hour weekly shift, I typically converse via a texting platform with 2–6 texters who contact us because they are in a mental health crisis. Think National Suicide Hotline for texters. In the last 28 days, CTL had about 94,000 conversations with texters in crisis, the majority of whom are young; teenagers and young adults. A significant number are LGBTQ. Recently I spent two hours with a texter in crisis, a minor in their early teen years, who ultimately revealed that not only were they very depressed, but that they were experiencing a resurgence of emotional and physical abuse by a parent, after previously having been removed from the home due to the abuse. (Out of respect for our texters’ anonymity, I am giving gender-neutral, skeletal information.) That is sad enough and I know, having grown up in an abusive home. What was worse was how this young person internalized the meta-messages of the abusive environment. This texter expressed beliefs like they should kill themself because they are a mistake, they are a burden, and they don’t deserve to live. They stated that not only did their parent hate them but they hated themself. Their internal pain was so extreme that they were awash with hopelessness and just wanted suicide’s promise of relief from the incessant pain. They asked the quintessential, existential and utterly heartbreaking question “Why shouldn’t I JKM (just kill myself) since we will all end up dead anyway? What is the point of being alive?” I too had despairingly asked the same question when I was their age. I grew up with an abusive parent and an abused parent, in an extremely toxic home life. I may or may not be of a different gender, class or ethnicity, but I felt the exact same way as this young person- I hated myself, believed I was a mistake, that I was marked in some way that meant my existence meant endless suffering. Like this texter, I too had tinkered with suicide and suicidal thoughts as a teen. But something kept me going, whether it was my own willfulness or some greater spiritual force. Now, of course, after decades of life behind me, the answer to the texter’s existential question is to live! Platitudes like ‘it will get better’ and ‘you gotta show up cause you never know when the miracles will happen’ are really true, IMHO. But there’s more to staying alive than platitudes. My path towards finding and living a full life relied on the tender tools of the heart. These tools included therapy and twelve-step programs, a spiritual path and meditation practice, loving guidance and support from true friendships, writing and journaling, multiple experiences of emotional catharsis, consciously shifting my perspectives in order to step out of burdened beliefs, physical healing, and clean food, and sacred time in nature. Developmentally, it is normal for teenagers to face, typically fleetingly, the awareness that they have the power to determine whether they live or die. They have choice and volition in life. However, internalized self-hatred and shame divert the natural order of development and wrench away our hope and dreams rather than help us step towards adulthood. They stop our natural progress and keep us whirling in a sea of miserable agitation. So many young people are in crisis, unaware that they hold the paradox of endless future possibilities juxtaposed with the possibility of endless pain. It is amazing how they each say almost the same thing; they are lonely; they don’t have anyone to talk to; they don’t feel loved or loveable; they don’t want to be a burden; they just want to be free of the pain; their existence is a mistake; and they don’t deserve to live. It is not a coincidence that they use the same words and describe the same feelings. Leo Tolstoy’s famously wrote in his novel Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” He touched upon a profound truism there. Here is another: children internalize the shame of the toxic home with feelings of self-hatred, until they consciously expel the damage, the hopelessness, the self-defeating beliefs. When we choose to keep living, keep showing up no matter what, keep bravely setting one foot ahead of the other, we let ourselves be touched by the beauty of a song, an ocean sunset, the utter majesty of a redwood forest, the smell of a newborn’s head. We experience the slow peeling back of the proverbial onion of our wounded childhood selves as we heal and let go of adverse childhood experiences (ACE). We emerge bit by bit with self-compassion, forgiveness towards ourselves and others, and learn to accept our innate strengths and weaknesses. We forgive and reconcile and accept as we dance with life. We face challenges and struggles and survive over decades, weaving the fabric of our own precious life story. We do all this until it is our time to die. That is the gift of life. Now that I am in my 60’s I have unspooled enough of the shame and self-hatred that I finally feel free. I know how low the floor of my mind can go and I have struggled. Little by little over the decades, the persistent low self-esteem that hounded me has finally abated. I had an impossible, toxic situation just a few years ago that triggered my old burdened beliefs, and have slowly come out of that, stronger. I may not be able to eliminate them all, but I can identify them and manage them appropriately. I finally take the downs in stride, no longer proof of my irredeemability. I finally feel kindly and forgiving and compassionate towards myself, unencumbered by the old shame and self-hatred. I care about spending time working a Crisis Text Line shift and hearing from precious young people, from all over the country, from different genders, economic classes, ethnicities, and cultures. I want to pay it forward and I let them know somehow, with great tenderness, that yes it is worth it. How to let them know they are me 50 years ago? How to give them hope to hang in there? I want to say: Look around. We are here and we are okay. There are a lot of people like us around. Find one and hold on for dear life. What is the purpose of our lives? We get to show up for the healing, period. Maybe that is all we humans are here to do; heal ourselves and each other. This seems like a perfectly acceptable life’s journey. A newish friend and I were talking and she was surprised to discover that I grew up around domestic violence in the home. I nodded and let her know I don’t primarily identify with an abused child anymore; that impossible burden so impossibly heavy for so long was now light. My adult years have been a prolonged course in healing and in addition to the tools described previously, having children myself two decades ago was the best and brightest healing of all. My heart fluttered sweetly when I heard her words, “You’ve done your work, girl, and it shows.” And isn’t that the goal of our lives? To not be defined by past abuse but what we have created for ourselves that is beautiful and meaningful and whole?

How to Make Things Better for Both of You Photo by Danny G on Unsplash I had the unusual opportunity (more on that in another story, someday) to get to meet quite a few men who were in long-term, straight relationships where sex was non-existent. I estimate I spoke with about 3 dozen men. Overall these men felt rejected by their women, and they really did not understand why. They were bewildered by the sexual anorexia they were experiencing at home and tended to rationalize the problem as their wives’ biological lack of interest in sex. The relationship’s sexlessness emerged typically about 20 years into the relationship, further exasperated by the hormonal impact of menopause. A few said their partners had been survivors of sexual abuse and never loved having sex, but most had had a satisfying sexual relationship for a number of years and were stupefied, stumped, forlorn, and despairing. In our individual conversations, none of the men ever articulated any awareness or concern about their own sexual skill in the bedroom, or their communication agility and emotional intelligence in the relationship. When I mentioned that research shows these factors play a big role in women’s sexual desires and satisfaction, they typically responded that they felt that because the sex had been good and abundant at one time, they were off the hook for examining their own role in the disintegration of sex in the relationship. They had in common that they repeatedly absolved themselves of 90–100% of the responsibility- both in and out of the bedroom- in the relationship that contributed to the deterioration of sex at home. And why wouldn’t they? Most of them loved their wives and had come to accept the pluses of companionship. They didn’t want to leave the women in their lives. Some wouldn’t leave because of the kids or finances. They just wanted to have sex again. They could not stand the sexual drought and though desperate, they were trying to do the right thing and stick with their partners. Having been thought of as one of those women by my former significant other, I knew these basically good guys were missing a crucial element or two. Truth: Women get bored faster by the same old sex. They need variety. They want variety in the sex they are having with their partners and they want to have other sexual partners. Truth: Men are more easily satisfied with the same old sex than women. They like their bread and butter sex and often may not have a lot of sexual range, despite their stated interest in variety. My former spouse was fond of his motto ‘no sex is bad sex’. Their lack of sexual skill and range clashes with their women’s desire for variety. Truth: Men respond to a lack of sexual satisfaction in their partner by feeling a loss of confidence. Their insecurity translates as failure or rejection or both. Some men might be able to honestly explore improving communications at home, even after so many years together, and drawing out from their female partners what they want in the mattress magic department, but many men’s ego cannot take it and they withdraw, defeated. Truth: Institutionalized sexism in science and medicine, has long dismissed women as having a lower sex drive than men. Seminal research that supposedly proved this point has been debunked due to sexist confirmation bias. Additionally this research also completely avoided the desexualizing impact of extremely high stress levels women experience at home and work on their sexual drive. How appealing would the specter of boring sex be to a woman who is sleep-deprived and overworked, without enough help or support to keep the marathon of work and home going? Truth: Women, including myself, believed we were less driven by sex than men for a long time. Women bought into the false notion that our sex drive was subjugated to men’s sex drive, to the detriment of both genders, as regards heterosexual sex. Truth: Women do not have lower sex drives than men; in fact, women possess the only organ in the human body whose sole function is pleasure, with no less than 8,000 nerve endings. Accordingly, women have a superior capacity for multiple orgasms and possess the wonders of the G-spot, thus leading to the widely accepted conclusion that women are innately more sexual than men. (It is no surprise that women are driving the movement of open relationships, throuples and ethical monogamy.) Truth: Many women with a history of sexual assault/abuse have done enough healing that they want a good sexual life with a partner they love and trust. So don’t hold her past in a way that keeps you afraid of approaching her. You just might be making her past her present and future. Truth: Men need to overcome their fear of women’s sexuality. Unlike men who find their sexual drive and ability wane as they age, women can, myself included, experience a sexual re-awakening after menopause. So, why the disconnect between women’s liberating, freeing, wild sexuality that they can now fully own, and the sexlessness that so many women experience in their long-term, heterosexual relationships? Because they are bored!!!!!!!! They no longer are willing to be passive, or sexually dissatisfied with their male partners, they want pleasure on their terms, having seen their husbands and partners demand no less than the same for decades, often without reciprocity. As per Tracy Moore’s online article two years ago for the Dollar Shave Club, entitled Both Men and Women Get Bored With Monogamy — Just For Different Reasons: “Newer studies of female sexual desire and arousal find that women crave more sexual novelty than men, and as a result, find monogamy stifling. Their reasons stem from social pressure, too — only from the other side of the fence. Unlike men, who are told they should always be rarin’ to go sexually, women are told they are innately less promiscuous and need stability and commitment over sex. Add to this the highly desexualized role of women as mothers and caregivers, and they may find it far more difficult to access desire and eroticism, or even reconcile pleasure they want for themselves when there are so many others to prioritize. But make no mistake: women are horny and bummed, too.” “ “Traditionally we have interpreted a woman’s desire as less — she must have less of an interest in sex,” psychologist Esther Perel told GOOP about why women become bored with monogamy faster. “But no, it’s that women become less interested in the sex they can have. Put that same woman with a new person, in a new story, and suddenly she doesn’t need a role replacement.” ” Women, myself included, want more foreplay, to change things up, to be enticed and lured, to experiment. We want to be treated really well by our partner out of bed first and then get into bed with an attentive, expressive, and imaginative lover. In the online Guardian magazine article, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/04/untrue-wednesday-martin-review, the idea is further illuminated: “We were taught that men were the ones who needed variety, but the exact opposite turns out to be the case,” says Wednesday Martin [author of Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe about Women, Lust and Infidelity Is Untrue]. “Overfamiliarisation with a partner and desexualisation kills women’s libido. We used to think it’s only men who became sexually bored after marriage; turns out that’s not true. It’s when women get married that it’s detrimental to their libido.” ” Martin continues, “A couple live together, their libidos are matched, and they have a lot of sex. But after a year, two years, maybe three years, what tends to happen is that the woman’s desire drops more quickly than the man’s. At that point the woman thinks, ‘I don’t like sex anymore.’ But what, in fact, is happening is that she is having a hard time with monogamy; because women get bored with one partner more quickly than men do.” “ “So women are socialised to believe that they’ve gone off sex, when in fact they’re craving variety. Instead of being the brake on passion, says Martin, the female half of the long-term partnership is the key to a more adventurous and exciting sex life. ” ” So guys, what kind of partner are you? Do you need to step out of your comfort zone? Are you getting good at the foreplay outside of the bedroom by being a helpful, loving, confident partner by her side? In the bedroom, do you ask your partner what she likes and wants in bed? Do you help alleviate her stress out of bed and lighten her load? Are you able to build the anticipation to make her weak-kneed? Do you know how to tease and make her want you? Trust me that these behaviors and actions go directly to your woman’s groin. Or are you like a former spouse who will go unnamed, who could barely lift a hand to help around the house or with the kids, consistently for years put his own interests and desires before the wellbeing of the family, could only have sex stoned, never spoke or made any sounds during sex, never wanted to know what his partner liked sexually, and could not understand why she would pass on the same old impersonal sex even when she was feeling randy? If you recognize yourself in this description, you gotta step up. Are you helping to create a space for experimentation and variety? If you are doing the same old, your woman is bored. Ask her what she wants, ask her to tell you her fantasies, ask until she trusts you want to hear. Tell her you really want to make it more about her as that turns you on- and mean it. The Guardian article concludes that “ “Men really caring about what women want sexually makes a huge difference. We find that their menus are more varied than men’s. Men are shocked, but also gratified and thrilled, when they find out how sexually exciting we can be when we get past the inhibitions that have been socialised into us.” ” Up your game, hombres. Remember that the two things women want most in the mattress magic department is foreplay and sexual variety. There are great toys and podcasts and entertainment to break through old patterns. Play with the sexual energy, be a considerate and communicative partner outside the bedroom, try some new moves and get ready for lots more, not-boring sex!

Photo by Ashley Green on Unsplash If you are carrying weight on your body that feels extra, and perhaps struggle a little or a lot with disordered eating, you probably know the story: Despite our rejection of the oppressive societal norms perpetuated by the ‘beauty’ industry; Despite our philosophical support of the fat liberation movement and our acceptance of our larger, different-from-the-norm-size; Despite the distorted mental tapes we internalize and carry about how women (and men) should ‘look’; Despite the valid, angsty emotions that drive the overeating (that we now know could be bad, gut microbes causing cravings); Despite the genetic predisposition towards gaining and holding onto excess fat along with blood sugar regulation problems that many of us have; Despite knowing that many skinny people are actually unhealthy and many thicker people indeed are very healthy; Despite multi-generational familial dysfunctional habits behind overeating; Despite all of this, we can feel that place of truth inside us that letting go of excess weight is part of our life’s lessons. We are not trying to be tiny or look like Barbie. We have moved way past that. We can be healthy and the right weight for ourselves, even if the BMI and weight recommendations disagree. We yearn to be healthy and free- mentally and physically. We don’t want to carry the shame or guilt or any self-denigration. Nor do we want to carry extra inflammation, which we know leads to disease. We are searching for and finding our own personalized optimal health. We are not prescribing yours. We want to reach for our own internal freedom from the tyranny of food, weight, eating. And we want the patriarchy and avaricious corporations that would hurt our bodies in the quest for higher profits off our backs. We know that the biggest, most cynical, conniving culprit behind excess weight is the maniacal food industry’s affair with processed foods designed with enough sugar, salt and fat to get us hooked. The cold reality is hyper-palatable foods are addicting- they light up your brain’s pleasure center and make you into an insatiable eating machine of highly processed, high caloric, low nutrient, fake food. So next time you look at that candy bar, chocolate chip cookie, pizza, pasta, breakfast cereal, bagel, ice cream sundae, potato chips, smothered chicken wings, donuts, etc., just know that you are looking at a product that acts like an addictive drug in your precious body. It is a product of greed, with no intention of helping to optimize your health. While not every body responds to processed food as a controlled substance, those of us who gain weight easily, who struggle with agonizing food cravings, who find ourselves out of control after that first bite of a sugary gooey sweet, certainly do. The chemicals and processing used in these products set off an addictive response once ingested for many of us. This response is very often correlated to weight gain and followed by low energy, sluggishness, fatigue, digestive problems, hormonal imbalances, compromised immune functions, high internal inflammation levels, and shall I keep going? Take it from me, someone who has struggled with an extra 20–30 lbs for decades. Ever since I was a little girl, I was overweight. As evidenced most recently by the mutations identified in my genetic testing, my body gains weight easily, holds on to fat, and does not lose weight easily. It's all tied up with my pancreas, metabolism, insulin, estrogen and thyroid. I have spent decades unwinding and making peace with my personal shameful war with overeating, only to discover that the fight is not between some defective part of me and my shame. The fight is with hyper-palatable food which is an absolutely predictable war when the enemy of processed food is colluding against me. We may not need all that expensive therapy after all! We just may need to clean up our guts and consume whole, organic foods, to make the biggest changes to our bodies and our health. I have studied the most up to date, solid literature and am convinced that the science is indisputable: losing weight for those of us with too much of it lowers our inflammation levels, improves our immune health, prevents disease, and slows down aging. There are so many bogus diets out there with scientifically unprovable claims. But here are two things I know for sure: Since highly palatable, processed foods are like cocaine to me and I would not ingest cocaine, ergo I religiously avoid all processed foods. Period. Not one bite. Period. 100% No! 2. There is no one simple approach to eating healthy food. It’s essential for me to have enough body awareness so that I can tune in to discover how different foods make me feel. Doctors, even integrative, holistic, functional medicine ones, don’t have all the answers. You are the expert on your body. You have to experiment, using trial and error, to find out what foods, what exercise, what mindfulness practice, what supplements, whatever, works for you. I have had time periods where I could not eat eggs no matter how much I liked them. My throat closes up if I drink coffee. My nose runs and I get constipated when I eat dairy. I feel energized from chicken bone broth. I get spacey from stone fruit. Fresh wild fish satisfies me like nothing else. I need leafy greens every day. Organic chicken breast with homemade coconut curry sauce is my go-to food. I can’t eat gluten-free pasta without brain fog. Stevia does not set me off. Adopting an attitude of curiosity and willingness to experiment through trial and error willing is essential. You can find your personal freedom so that you feel you are in the right-sized, healthy body, eating health-supporting, nutrient-dense, scrumptious food. When we are living our truth, all the other crap falls away. For ‘Are Hyper-Palatable Foods Wreaking Havoc on Your Health & Making You Gain Weight? Part 2’ of this story here. For ‘Becoming an Under Eater’ go here For ‘HCG: The Only Way I Have Ever Been Able to Lose Weight’ go here. WRITTEN BY Rhyena Halpern Health Coach & End of Life Doula who loves to write on Wellness, Third Act of Life, Death & Dying, Autoimmunity, Trauma, Food & Weight. rhyhalpern@gmail.com Nutrition Wellness Weight Loss Tips Weight Loss Health

Photo by Bruna Branco on Unsplash I have struggled with a tendency towards holding on to extra weight and the excruciating pain of stubborn fat loss for as long as I can remember, going back to at least four years of age. I have lost and gained the same 20–30 pounds about 15 times over several decades. (for more on those stories see Part 1 here.) I have followed a whole foods diet for several decades, since I was a teenager, in varied iterations. I have also done a lot of emotional work on my compulsive overeating, only to discover slowly, painfully and over time, that any amount of sugar including processed carbs, is the real culprit, not my emotional state as I had dogmatically believed. Once I got it together to finally lose the weight, I would be filled with anxiety about gaining it back. And then I would, indeed, gain it back, and more. Hyper-palatable foods are a huge problem for any person who cares about their health. For those of us who struggle with hormonal and metabolic regulation and weight gain, they are our downfall. They set up an unrealistic food reward cycle where the brain lights up, much like it does with excessive alcohol and drugs, needing and craving more and more. We become caught up in this cycle of addictive, chronic overeating, fabricated by the food industry’s profit motives. It's not our fault. But it is our responsibility to address. Here are ten things to know and to do to get out of this hyper-palatable viscous trap, summarized from Ari Whitten’s newest Energy Blueprint work (https://www.theenergyblueprint.com). Make friends with your body’s regulators Your body has systems of regulation that are always giving you critical feedback. For instance, when you are deprived of oxygen, your body hyperventilates to get your oxygen levels back up fast. Or if you are very sleep-deprived, your body lets you know with fatigue, low energy, and poor concentration. Likewise, if you chronically consume excess calories and your weight goes up, your body will regulate itself by slowing its metabolism and increasing its hunger signals. But wait a moment. What is hunger? How do you experience hunger? What does it feel like? Is it a clear rumbling in your belly? Or is a desire for food felt in the mouth? Do you get a headache and feel weak or cold when you need food? The desire to eat might be hunger or it may be the body trying to get back into homeostasis. For the purpose of this story, we consider all of the above hunger. The Queen Regulator of the body is the hypothalamus gland. It regulates many internal systems including the levels of hormones in circulation, body temperature, hunger, feelings of being full up after eating, and the number and size of fat cells. You need a well functioning hypothalamus regulating your body correctly. Read on please... 2. Homeostatic Eating, Not Hedonic Eating The hypothalamus is always looking to find the body’s homeostasis; it wants homeostatic or stable, consistent, baseline eating. We evolved through times of famine and it is set to make sure we have enough food and don’t starve. Think about animals. In the wild, they eat what they need to exist and not one ounce more. They have no obesity (like some human pets do!). They are natural homeostatic eaters, eating enough but not too much to sustain their bodies. In modern times, where highly processed food is hyper accessible, the body does not suffer from the threat of lack of food but rather too much, nutrient weak food. However, evolution is lagging a bit because the body still regulates for famine even though the norm has become overconsumption of low nutrient food. Hedonic eating is when we eat not for basic sustenance but for high food reward, with food that is hyper-palatable, hyper-varietal, very accessible, and very large in portion size. This type of non-homeostatic eating, while good for corporations’ profits, deeply disrupts the body’s regulatory systems, including the hormones that control hunger, and also the body’s circadian rhythm where it repairs and resets its regulatory systems. These systems are further dis-regulated by chronic stress caused by chronic maladaptive lifestyle habits such as too much sitting, chronic toxin absorption, lack of exercise, lack of phytonutrients, and more. 3. Losing weight without causing harm We want to create the conditions for sustainable fat loss without causing harm to the body. We do not want to follow harsh diets that cause the body to lose muscle and water only, without any metabolic change. Each body is unique and finding your homeostasis is a game of trial and error. I believe that we need to get off anything processed: white flour and white sugar of course. However, even gluten-free bread can stimulate the hyper-palatable vicious cycle, due to the processing of different grains and alternative sugars, which are still turned into sugar. All processed foods, even healthy seeming ones, are not natural to ingest. Highly rewarding foods, hyper-palatable foods are sweet and salty, lighting up the brain’s pleasure centers. The brain is not wired for that level of pleasure because it is still on the alert for starvation. Thus these processed foods are addictive substances akin to drugs. Studies put white sugar at seven times as addicting as cocaine. Like all addictive substances, as the pleasure center adapts, it needs more to get the same pleasure. So no more sugar pops, pop tarts, yogurt with mixed in fruit, granola, breads, cakes, candies, sauces, and condiments. Read every food label for added sugars. Stick with whole foods, mostly vegetables, and healthy proteins like organic chicken and eggs, wild fish and grass-fed meats. Have some berries or maybe an apple a day for something sweet. Eat like an animal, not a human who is being experimented on with highly processed foods, pesticides, glycosphates, plastics, etc. 4. Reclaim your body’s natural set point Our bodies have a fat setpoint whereupon if that set point is habitually exceeded, the body gains weight. Your body’s set point, or personal fat threshold, is determined by: · Diet · Genes · Environment · Lifestyle · Circadian rhythms · Stress load · Physical activity Once you reach your own individual personal fat threshold, your body can’t safely store fat in your fat cells anymore. So you gain weight. Some people can technically be obese although they enjoy a metabolically healthy weight because they have a high personal fat threshold. Each of us has to find our own set point. In order to achieve long term fat loss, we must down-regulate our body’s fat setpoint to the level that is normal for each of us. Resetting it to normal is part of the process of finding a healthy homeostasis. During the temporary phase of active weight loss efforts, most people find success when they go very low carb consuming meat, poultry, eggs and fish as well as above the ground vegetables and no more than a fruit a day, and avoid soy, dairy, root vegetables and grains. In the stable, maintenance phase, adding in small amount of nuts or legumes or root vegetables or dairy may work. Here is the bottom line: Consume not hedonic but homeostatic pleasure from nutrient-dense food and get to a good set point for your body. 5. Extra fat cells mean inflammation and insulin resistance We now have sufficient science that shows obesity, which varies from person to person since many of us can be metabolically healthy at a higher weight, weakens our immune systems. Obesity puts our bodies in a chronic state of low-grade inflammation, activating our immune systems to be on the defense constantly. Chronically inflamed fat cells secrete inflammatory signaling molecules into the bloodstream so that they reach every other part of the body. Fat cells become inflammatory and insulin-resistant, affecting the whole body. Too much sugar causes the body to secrete insulin. Insulin resistance results from storing too much fat and causes diabetes. Insulin resistance also increases weight gain. In a body that is working well, insulin pumps nutrients into cells and tissues. Insulin resistance means the cells and tissues are resistant to the insulin signal. They are not receiving the signal to and from insulin to store and better metabolize incoming nutrients. Fat-overloaded cells become inflammatory and resist insulin. It’s not the inflammation that causes insulin resistance, it’s that the cells contain too much fat. It is that simple. So the fat cells are both inflamed and insulin resistant. They secrete inflammatory molecules and fatty acids into circulation because insulin is no longer able to tell it to keep those fats stored. By bringing the body’s weight down below its personal fat threshold, it uses its own fat as an energy source and depletes the fat stored in the liver, pancreas, skeletal muscle, and throughout the body. The accumulation of excess body fat through high caloric intake drives insulin resistance. The hyper-palatable, hyper-rewarding processed food environment often lead to excess body fat, and to diabetes and blood sugar dis-regulation. To stop or get rid of diabetes, you need to get rid of insulin resistance. 6. Hyper palatable foods are addictive and lead to overconsumption Factoid: obesity increases the risk of being admitted to intensive care by 2–4 fold. Since evolution is designed to ward off starvation and not over-feeding, the body’s internal regulatory systems are overwhelmed. Nowadays as body size has increased and fat set points have been overridden, normal body weight is no longer the norm. Visceral fat accumulates in the liver, pancreas, and around the heart and lungs. Infectious outcomes are typically worse for people with obesity because their lungs and muscles responsible for breathing can’t function as well because of the mass of fat. Every time you feel that desire for that candy bar or cookie or chips or whatever your trigger food is, remember this! 7. Let go of disproven, antiquated calories in calories out model The old rule ‘calories in, calories out’ absolutely is not true or accurate unless you eat the same foods every day, day in and day out, for years. Your body can up-regulate and down-regulate its metabolism on a whim, in response to under- or over-eating. How efficiently your body uses energy and burns calories when you exercise affects your energy. If your muscles are highly efficient, and you eat protein, you will burn off more of the energy from that protein as heat than when you eat carbs or fat. The foods that you eat affect how much energy you expend. If you essentially starve yourself, you will lose weight. But just restricting calories does not result in lasting fat loss; 700 calories from chicken breast and broccoli vs pizza and ice cream will create wildly different amounts of satiety in an individual. Not every calorie you eat will be absorbed into your body and available for your metabolism to use. Hyper palatable foods make you eat more because they are not satiating. A processed food calorie is not equal to a whole food calorie in terms of satiety. They light up the brain and know your internal systems into a frenzied state. 8. Let your taste buds change There is no quick fix, but there is a fix. That fix involves changing your taste buds and your mindset so that not an ounce of processed, adulterated, hyper palatable food crosses your lips, forever. Okay, maybe not forever but 95% of the time. It is just not worth it. It will light up your brain and set you onto the downward spiral. You know what I mean. Your body is sensitive. You can’t get away with cheating on sugar. One bite of it sends you into the frenzied state- literally. Think of your body as a finely tuned filter. It can’t take the stress.It's not your emotions; it's your body chemistry. It's not your fault but it is your responsibility. Yes, it is true that not everyone responds to processed food the same way. But you and I cannot handle it. We know that. We have tried over and over again to handle it, always with the same disastrous results. The brain can be retrained to like healthy food as well as exercise. Our taste buds can reject the hyper sweet, hyper saltiness of processed food, of the Standard American (SAD) Diet, and refuse it. The fix must be long term and sustainable. We have to like our food and exercise enough to keep doing it and make the change permanent. 9. Eat A LOT of protein during the active losing period The standard required daily amount, the RDA, is .8 grams of protein per kilogram of current body weight. This RDA is the minimal amount required to prevent muscle wasting. You may have noted that the RDA is based on body weight. That is because the more body mass you have, the more protein you need. When you are losing weight, you always go by your actual weight, not your goal weight, to determine protein needs. Scientific studies have determined that the average person needs 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, to avoid metabolic down regulations. With inadequate amounts of protein, your body doesn’t want to use that protein to grow new muscles or activate your immune system to fight off infections. Thus, metabolic down-regulation, a result of low protein, conserves your energy. Then you start to get low in dopamine and motivation, as well as serotonin and happiness. That makes weight loss hard to sustain and your determination wears down and before you know it, your best efforts to eat less are old news. High amounts of protein are very satiating, making caloric restriction bearable and sometimes not noticeable. There is some concern that high amounts of protein can be harmful to the kidneys. The research shows that high protein is not adverse for kidneys in an otherwise healthy adult or even overweight or obese adult. (However, if you have kidney dysfunction or diabetes, then high protein can harm kidneys.) Although research shows that people eat all the way up to 4.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, it seems that 1.5 to 2.0 grams per pound is a good amount, depending on how much weight you need to lose. I eat about 10 servings of non-root, grown-above-ground vegetables a day. I can be very content with eating a lot of vegetables, prepared simply. It wasn’t always that way. Truly I crave vegetables. I can feel them work as fuel inside me. They translate as less or no sugar cravings. It’s crazy sounding, I know, but happily true. 10. Circadian Rhythms One weight loss tip that is priceless: the longer you sleep, the less time spent eating or thinking of eating! Plus, your body will rest. Stress puts the body into fight or flight mode, producing cortisol and adrenaline, making your body stressed. Your brain reads this as danger mode, whereupon it holds tightly on to its weight because the brain is programmed to sense danger as famine. It does not yet know to sense danger as processed food! But one day, it just might. Getting your blood sugar stable is one necessary step to lose weight. Blood sugar dis-regulation is one result of circadian rhythm and sleep disruption, increases insulin resistance, abnormal levels of cortisol, insulin resistance, and disrupts autophagy or cellular cleanup. Sleep is the single most critical compound for protecting your mitochondria. With insufficient sleep, your melatonin levels are disrupted, producing higher leptin and ghrelin levels, resulting in overeating. Here is something that is going to gain more and more traction now that it is commonly recognized that Americans are sleep deprived. The circadian rhythm’s clock in the brain are affected by light. Electricity confuses the body. Computers even more so. 5G even more so. We are going to have to make some real changes; more than blue light blocking glasses. It’s unavoidable. Weight Loss Nuggets Those are my ten customized points. I hope they are helpful and all praise goes to Ari Whitten and his Energy Blueprint. And here are a few helpful, concluding hints: Things to do more of: •Improve metabolic health by consuming food during hours of light •Have a short feeding window, 10 hours or less, not the norm of 16 hours •Sleep when it is dark •Keep restaurant food to a minimum and be very selective as to what you eat there •Eat more in morning and afternoon for optimal metabolic health and body composition •Cook! A key predictor of leanness is unprocessed whole foods cooked at home •Consume daily 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of current body weight. Divide over however many meals you want. You will see improvements over time. •Remember that this work is all about being healthy and healthy aging. You need protein for your muscles. You need healthy carbs and fat. You need no processed food, no sugar. •Allow your taste buds to change over time. You will be amazed what a difference a year makes. •Be kind to yourself. It is not your fault you’re carrying around extra fat. Once you know your genetic disposition, sleep issues, nutritional intake, exercise, emotional triggers, and how to heal your gut, it will all come together. Acknowledge what needs to change to facilitate the future you want. Things to avoid: •Avoid sleeping during the day unless for under 15 minutes •No long feeding windows •No fast foods •Avoid restaurants •Chronic hunger and fatigue are predictors for regaining •No food when it's dark •Eliminate processed foods. Remember that they make you overeat whereas whole foods do not, as they are aligned with your body regulator. Fat gain is driven by over access and hyper palatability. This is the biggest key to weight loss, and is much more important factor than for example, the carb to fat ratio of the diet. WRITTEN BY Rhyena Halpern Health Coach & End of Life Doula who loves to write on Wellness, Third Act of Life, Death & Dying, Autoimmunity, Trauma, Food & Weight. rhyhalpern@gmail.com

The Sins of the Father are Still With Us Photo by Tammy Gann on Unsplash One. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) The domestic violence in my house at the hand of my father was terrifying for me, as a small person. I remember my father spitting on my mom, pulling a door off its hinges, punching me in the face, slamming my sister against a wall, ripping the phone from the wall. I remember the fear I felt being home. I remember the stinging words he called me- “Shit Ass!” as he turned over the yellow formica kitchen table, crashing a full meal with a rare treat of strawberry shortcake, to the floor, when I dared to mumble something about him ruining a nice dinner. My mother so quick to pick up the already chipped, now-shattered plates, embedded in whipped cream. The worst part, after my fear and trembling, was that he would take to his bed, sickened by his violent outbursts, and my mother was forced to wait on him, bringing him food, massaging his red, psoriatic legs, and trying to explain his point of view to her daughters. That flipped the switch inside me to revulsion and repulsion, and hatred. I would never be that weak and compromised, I vowed to myself privately. One of my therapists used to remind me that the way I survived those years was behaving as if I was in a war zone. She would quote “Intermittent reinforcement is the biggest predictor of behavior.” That saying meant that walking on eggshells- because you don’t know what might blow up or when- is way more unsettling to the nervous system than what you do know what to expect, even if it is bad. I still struggle to free myself from ‘freezing’ but then I took to running to my room when I heard his car on the driveway. My father was always so proud of his tools, with designated spots on the pegboard he confidently installed in his workshop in the garage. He could make and fix anything and his ‘man cave’ was proof enough. When it came to family life, that gray space of emotions and needs where communication matters, he had absolutely zero tools. He would have been just as likely to meet a Martian as to say aloud, “I am scared,” or “I need your support,” or “I feel so much pressure.” He was a rough and tumble kid, raised in the Jewish ghetto in the Bronx, poor and equipped with an 8th grade education. He felt so trapped at home with his third wife, my mother, who could not pretend to adore him and daughters who quaked in their boots at the sight of him. Yes, he had honed survival skills, but he was completely undone when it came to the realm of emotions and communication. Two. Breaking Free For the first half of my life, I was completely obsessed with overcoming the shameful residue of my dysfunctional childhood. Beginning as a young adult, I spent a small fortune on therapy, joined 12-Step programs, and found oh-so-many psycho-spiritual-somatic paths to healing. Pretty woo woo, I know. But I was absolutely, positively determined NOT to repeat the familial dysfunction I grew up in; I would break free and chart my own wild and love-filled path. After all those years of ruminating on and healing the pain within, I found that, starting in my thirties and then on into my forties and fifties, things shifted with me and I rarely felt haunted about my childhood. I felt the lifting and clearing out of a lot of shame and pain. I felt a calmness and freedom about my childhood trauma that I fully embraced. Was I getting free from the burden of my ACE (adverse childhood experiences)? I had no time to dwell on the trauma in my past. I had a full career in the arts and college-level teaching, a husband or two, and the gift of all gifts, my twin daughters. I was busy doing, caring, earning and my focus was on giving all I could to my girls, so that they could emerge from childhood with good self-esteem, autonomy, ethics and a sense of their lives’ wondrous and awesome possibilities. Becoming a parent was a gift on so many levels; the unanticipated one was the way it involuntarily lifted up, up and away old thoughts, beliefs, and pain and landed me in the realm of forgiveness and acceptance. Mothering my children was so healing to me. Three. Acceptance of Questions. My father died when I was pregnant with my girlies; my mom and one of my two sisters are also long gone. I think about my mom, the willful victim, ill-equipped to stand up to the emotional and physical abuse of a stunted, hard-knocks man. I remember a birthday card she had displayed on her table from him, where he wrote inside that she was a foolish woman who would never find happiness. I shuddered with rage and pain for her and made her throw it out. She went on to find love and happy companionship with two good men. Her girlish giggles over decadent chocolate desserts, her loving heart and utterly pragmatic smarts are how I remember her. I vividly recall my vow that gray afternoon when I was five years old to never be financially dependent on a man. How did I have this thought at that age? Did my childhood trauma force me to have adult awarenesses because I felt so unsafe? I remember that same girl lying in bed at night, bewildered by why I was born into this family, and how I reminded myself that nothing could happen to me that I could not bear. I still believe this. I know for a fact that ACEs can direct us to our brokenness and thus our healing. They can reveal our inner strength and tenacity to our selves. ACEs also point us to where the multigenerational familial healing needs to occur. What if the quotas on Jews in college had been lifted and my father’s violent, womanizing, gambling father had put some money into his son’s education, rather than losing it all on craps and running away with another woman? What were my father’s options as he unconsciously carried around his unresolved ACE’s? ACES impact our choices in life partners. I could describe my domestic partner of 23 years similarly to my father in some ways. He was more fun and not violent, he was loyal and could be loving, but that explosive anger, emotional stunting, lack of communication tools and personal awareness were all too familiar. Or was he just like most men, especially of his generation, when it comes to toxic anger issues and lack of tools in the emotional and communication realms? Having now entered the years of my wisdom (ahem), I ponder how to put my adverse childhood experiences in to perspective. Have I healed? After all those years in therapy and healing and living, did I achieve freedom from my ACE? Or do the sins of our fathers still limit me and all of us? I sit with these questions and mull, knowing there are no clear cut answers. I feel satisfied that I did a lot of healing and worked hard to find personal freedom from the shame and abuse in my past. Maybe I am not 100% free but I am a whole lot freer. My daughters are even freer than me and their children will be freer. If you are struggling with healing from Adverse Childhood Experiences, there is hope. After a while, you will know that they don’t define you and that you are bigger than them. Here’s to the soft tools of communication and emotional intelligence. Here’s to human resilience and tenacity! Here’s to radical, incremental, iterative change! WRITTEN BY Rhyena Halpern Health Coach & End of Life Doula who loves to write on Wellness, Third Act of Life, Death & Dying, Autoimmunity, Trauma, Food & Weight. rhyhalpern@gmail.com

You may feel easily compatible with your new partner about the big things that matter, like a shared world view, your professional goals, whether you want to have kids, or sharing money and bills, but how do you know if you are compatible when it comes to ingesting food? Your long-term relationship may have successfully navigated the map of her weird family, their waxing and waning sexual appetites, or made peace with his trail of dirty dishes and stinky socks. But does their requirement every Friday night for pizza and beer drive you nuts? What to do about deep ideological divides in the culinary canyons of your collective stomach? Could they sow irreparable discord in your love nest? My spousal unit told me what he ate the other day. He had a piece of chocolate cake in the morning. He had some blintzes fried in copious globs of butter plus a slice of leftover pizza for lunch. In the late afternoon, he had a handful of potato chips. For dinner he had his favorite meal of chicken in cream sauce and scalloped potatoes with extra gruyere and a glass of wine, red of course. He grudgingly ate a few bites of grilled zucchini. Immediately after dinner, he had what he calls first dessert- that night it was two biscuit cookies dipped in dark chocolate and a few chocolate-covered mints. For second dessert, about 2 hours later, he had Haagen Das chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips. Oh, and did I say he is super skinny? You probably guessed that my food intake on the same day consisted of oh-so-boring organic vegetables and chicken, berries, a handful of cashews. But that is not the point. The point being that how that dude ate was a daily upsetting trigger for me for 20 years. I felt deprived if I did not let myself indulge as he so freely did. I tried to keep up with him on vacation when he consumed no less than five desserts a day. I can’t tell you how much crusty bread and how many sticks of butter I ingested at all of those fancy sauces at the French restaurants he had to, had to, just had to frequent on trips to New York City, never mind the huge quantity of desserts. I intensely longed to be like him, a hedonist who could, with abandon, indulge, all day every day. While he could take one bite of a cupcake and throw the rest out, that same one bite triggered me and sent me into sugar addiction for weeks and often months. Definitely, absolutely, my spousal unit and I were 100% NOT food compatible! And it was hurting me. Literally. Physically. During those blurred years of sleep-deprived, manically stressful childrearing, working a big job with a long commute, and losing my grip on sugar and flour- my hypothyroidism bloomed into full autoimmune Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, my weight increased by 30 pounds, my fatigue quadrupled, and my hormonal imbalances kept me emotionally sliding. I had the sugar-stress blues and was an exhausted, rotund, sugar-addicted mess. Something had to give. Between his unequivocal refusal to keep sugar out of the house combined with the reality of raising small people, that something was going to have to be me. I was going to have to learn to peacefully co-exist with a lot of white flour and sugar, without consuming it. It was a long time coming, but I took up the torch of self-determination to make peace with those very incompatible foods. Like a modern-day Dona Quixote, I was on a quest to free myself forever from my internal war with sugar and my external battle with my spouse over food. Yes! I can do this! And I did. Over time. A long time. Years. As a hedonic eater, my partner lived to eat; he saw food as a sensual indulgence and did not worry about the impact to his health. I eat to live, as an, ahem, boring homeostatic eater, who indulges in a square of monk fruit-sweetened chocolate because it does not send me into sugar hell. I would not consume cocaine if it was in my pantry and since sugar is 7 times more addicting than sugar, I just say no. I recall how it makes me feel, how inflamed it makes my gut, how its hyper-palatability lights up my brain and makes it impossible to stop. I know his way of eating hurts my body. Now that the kids are grown and mostly out of the house, I call the food shots and if my spouse does not like what I am cooking, he can go out or order in. That helps a lot. So does a gluten free diet- excellent for healing the gut and lowering inflammation- since that automatically excludes so many processed foods. I must ‘keep the peace’ with those pesky, incompatible foods. I remain vigilant every day. I never take my abstinence from sugar for granted. I embrace the lack of food compatibility with my partner, allowing it to work to my advantage. I now feel my body needing less food and that feels amazing. I feel my body using the food I ingest to fuel my energy which is also amazing. I am definitely food incompatible with my partner. I always will be but the difference is that now I don’t let it hurt me. Finally, it’s that simple. I went from feeling deprived to feeling empowered in my pantry. What about you? If you are not in a food compatible relationship, how do you navigate that challenge? BTW, don’t you agree that dating apps should include food compatibility in their logarithm?

Remember that saying popularized in the Great Recession, “Don’t let a great crisis go to waste”? While most of us are compliant with the sheltering at home decree, the wearing of masks, adjustment to life on Zoom, why have we given a pass to our collective need to boost our bodies’ ability to fight this virus? People are questioning what ‘normal’ will we return to eventually, and seizing upon the chance to reboot our mindsets at work and home. But what is it going to take to get very real about this call to act on improving our health? People who have been exposed to or contracted Covid-19 and have either had mild cases or remained completely symptom-free hold the secret to fighting this disease. Their immune systems are working optimally, able to fight off the virus. Their white blood cells went on the attack against the foreign invaders and were successful. Would your body’s immune system do the same? No matter the contagion- whether the common cold, flu, SARS, HIV, Covid- 19 — we know that people with strong, healthy immune systems are going to do better than people with compromised and suppressed immune systems. In my studies as a Functional Medicine coach and as a patient formerly diagnosed with three auto-immune disorders, hormonal imbalance, leaky gut and an eating disorder, it is clear that we need to do some pretty specific things to build a strong immune system: Develop and maintain a healthy gut microbiome; Give up, get off, and do away with processed food and sugar; Lower our bodies’ inflammation levels with whole, nutrient-dense foods and high quality, absorbable supplements; Practice good lifestyle habits by managing our sleep, stress, exercise, social connectivity and personal well-being. These four suggestions reflect an urgent need to fight the virus as well as a long-time a-coming need to stop making excuses about what we continue to ingest, despite knowing better. People know that sugar and white flour are ruining our health. People know healthy fats are needed and should not be avoided. People know that pesticides, plastics, metals like teflon and mercury and mold are toxins wreaking havoc in our bodies. People know we are over prescribed drugs that, along with each of the above, are contributing to the epidemics we face in the steep rise in autoimmune diseases, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc. We, including me, have to stop making excuses and get with the program! Stop bargaining with that birthday cake, those burgers, M&M’s and margaritas and make those changes. Getting out of denial may be the difference between life and death! Hippocrates said all illness begins in the gut. Your microbiome needs to be healthy. Most of us suffer from leaky gut which must be repaired as the first step in boosting your immune system. Summarizing Dr. Ruscio here: Leaky gut, or intestinal permeability, caused by eating inflammatory foods, occurs when small gaps open between the tight junctions of cells that line your small intestine. These gaps allow undigested food particles through to get into your bloodstream and cause an immune system response, such as brain fog, joint pain, fatigue, impaired sleep, and digestive problems such as celiac disease and Crohn’s disease, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), as well as autoimmune diseases such as Hashimoto’s, Lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, MS, and brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s. This pandemic is a call to action! To cut our attachment to unhealthy food that is compromising our lives. To get over our rationalizations and denials and just do what we know we need to do for our health. Don’t give in to the attachment to really unhealthy foods. Be a survivor of Covid. Be healthy for life. The Pragmatics of What to Eat and What to Avoid Healing your gut by feeding your microbiome whole, low inflammatory foods is the repair. Once you clean up your act and your health has improved for a substantial period of time (i.e. 6–12 months), you can occasionally indulge in that unhealthy treat, if you must. But for now, no excuses- we are talking life or death! Here is a list of the best foods to consume, in prioritized order and adapted from Dr. Ruscio, Dr. Hyman, Dr. Christianson, Dr. Minich and Dr. Wentz. This list reflects largely what I have done to heal myself. You can experiment and find what works best for you. Fresh Green Veggies: Organic veggies like spinach, kale, peppers, snap peas, brussel sprouts, lettuce, broccoli and zucchini. Nightshades like onion, eggplant, tomato if tolerated. Fresh Fruit: Fruits such as berries and apples provide vitamins, minerals, and prebiotic fiber. Healthy Fats are your friend: Foods such as olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado are good sources of healthy fats to keep your brain, skin, and cells happy. Butter and ghee can be used in moderation. Wild Fish: Provides omega-3 fatty acids and protein to help keep blood sugar balanced. Emphasis on wild, not farmed. Grass-Fed Meat and Eggs: Organic, ethically raised animals that provide beef, pork, and poultry also provide healthy omega-3 fatty acids and protein to help keep blood sugar balanced. Nuts and Seeds: Source of protein, healthy fats, prebiotics, and slow burning carbs. Herbs and Spices: Provides flavor and anti-inflammatory plant compounds. Bone Broth: Long-cooked broth from meat or poultry bones is rich in collagen and gelatin, both of which help heal leaky gut. Cultured Dairy Products (if tolerated): Yogurt and kefir provide some good bacteria. Small amounts of cream and cottage cheese can be used in moderation, if tolerated. Roots and Tubers (if tolerated): sweet potatoes and carrots provide slow burning carbs, as well as prebiotics and fiber. Use white potatoes sparingly. Fermented Veggies (if tolerated): Sauerkraut and kimchi increase your probiotic diversity and give a small boost to your probiotic community. Gluten-Free Whole Grains (if tolerated): Whole grains like brown rice, millet, and quinoa provide fiber and minerals, and are slow burning carbs. Here is a list of inflammatory foods that should be reduced and ultimately removed from your daily intake. Shed a tear and say goodbye, and boost your immune system! Gluten: includes wheat-based products like bread, pasta, crackers, tortillas, cereals and the grains spelt, rye, barley and kamut. Sugar & Artificial Sweeteners (if you feel like indulging just remember that sugar is 8 times more addictive than cocaine. Is it really worth it?) Processed and Junk Food Commercial Sauces & Dressings Alcohol and Sugary Beverages Industrial Oils: Avoid canola, corn, cottonseed, soy, and safflower. This means avoid things like commercial potato chips, falafel, french fries. Restaurant meals that use sugar, MSG, industrial oils, gluten. I read everyday about progress the biologists and doctors are making to understand more how to stop this virus. I noticed that there are indicators that people with high reserves of Vit. D, NAC, glutathione in the body fare better against the virus. As a person with a compromised immune system, I take supplements daily to build strengthen my immune system and keep my inflammation level low anyway. I take only capsules or powders, no tablets since they are not absorbed well. I have increased my efforts to strengthen my immune system with this regimen: Vit D* Zinc* Liposomal Vitamin C* Liposomal Glutathione* NAC (N-acetyl cysteine)* Astragalus Fish Oil B12 Iron Vitamin A *Early evidence exists that high levels of these are found in people whose immune system resisted contracting Covid 19. **I also use prescribed LDN (low dose naltrexone)** for the lowering my inflammation levels and boost my immune system. If you want to know more about that wonder drug see my store here. So don’t let this crisis go to waste. Use it to make your body- and mind- resilient to this virus! Use it to make the choices and changes you know you need! Use it to get fiercely well! WRITTEN BY Rhyena Halpern Functional Medicine Health Coach. Designing our Third Acts, Autoimmunity, Healing, Food & Weight, Trauma, End of Life planning. SF Bay Area rhyhalpern@gmail.com

Are you like me? One of those women who can’t lose weight despite severe caloric restriction? Have you shamed yourself enough yet? Have you double shamed yourself not only for the extra weight but also for buying into the fat-phobic society we live in? Despite your feminist positions on body acceptance, do you feel better lighter?Do you need to resolve your eating and weight issues for your own health and happiness? Have you, like me, really and truly tried every diet? Have you gained and lost the same 20 pounds more than ten times? I lost 32 pounds over the last several months. Those pounds slowly found me again after my last big weight loss six years ago. That brings me to hCG, or the only way I can lose weight. It stands for human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone produced early in pregnancy to sustain the embryo until the placenta is formed. HCG takes between one to two weeks after conception to show up in the blood and urine, which is what a pregnancy test is actually measuring. Additionally, hCG is normally produced by the pituitary gland in minute amounts by both men and women to support good reproductive health. In the 1950’s Dr. Simeons, a European endocrinologist, discovered that, used for short durations of typically 23 or 40 days, injecting tiny amounts of hCG into patients, combined with a very low calorie diet (that emphasize protein, limit carbohydrate intake and eliminate fats), resulted in a. the loss of the visceral fat (not subcutaneous which is good, protective fat), b. significant weight loss of .5 to 1 pound a day, and c . re-set the body’s hypothalamus, causing the body to reset its metabolism and thus better maintain the weight loss. If you need to find out more about it this very instant: Dr. Simeons original protocol can be found here. Alot of hCG businesses will put a big hustle on you to buy the product. The hCG site I trust the most is here. Back to my story. Six years ago, I tried hCG under the care of a Functional Medicine doctor, after months of working on detoxing, cleansing and rebuilding my microbiome, balancing my blood sugar and hormones, according to the tenet that you have to be healthy enough to actually lose weight. I lost 40 pounds; 15 while on the hCG protocol and then 25 more over the next 4–5 months. The first thing I noticed with the hCG protocol was the lack of sugar cravings. I had no hunger and could actually feel the food I ate supplying fuel to my body. That was an amazing feeling! It reminded me that when I was pregnant 21 years ago, I was amazed that my near constant cravings for sugar disappeared. Now I know it was hCG! In the last year, I did two rounds of hCG, separated by two months, and lost a total of 32 lbs. My weight loss was much less linear this time. In the first round I lost 15 pounds, only to gain back 5 very quickly. Then I did the second round and it took me 3x (!!!) as long to lose the same weight. But I kept with it as I felt something was happening internally that I could not quite name but I could feel. The very long duration of the round caused a major reset in my mind and body, and I have finally achieved a kind of peacefulness about food that I never knew before. Skeptical? Your brain is programmed to hold on to weight. “While most people have a calories in, calories out view on weight loss, many people don’t realize that the brain is what controls weight and weight regulation”, Dr. Stanford, a progressive, holistic doctor treating obesity, says. “When weight loss occurs, the brain really tries to do what it can to compensate, such that it’s going to try to rebound back to where it was before the diet,” she says. “That’s why so many people go through ‘weight cycling,’ or repeated loss and gain of weight, for instance. The body doesn’t recognize that excess that’s not needed, so it’ll do whatever it can do to defend that,” she says. “People experience weight-loss “plateaus” because their bodies are designed to work that way, not for lack of willpower.” It seems pretty clear to me that hCG breaks through the brain’s programming by resetting it hormonally, through the hypothalamus. Remember how I said I was one of those people whose body resisted weight loss? That something between my metabolism, blood sugar, hormones had to be off, because my body would go into serious lock down and not let go of fat. Something got reset in me, and my body metabolically changed. I no longer want or need a lot of food. I do fine mostly fish or chicken and a lot of vegetables, and a small amount of fruit, nuts and healthy oils. The carb cravings left, well mostly. I still have some cravings that may be physical or mental. But now I peacefully co-exist with them. I am willing to befriend them. Since the original protocol uses a 500 calorie a day diet, critics say that anyone would lose weight with such low caloric consumption. I disagree based on my personal experience. With hCG, the body uses the daily calories to maintain healthy functions, while burning up visceral fat. hCG stops the hunger because it uses your own fat as energy. I never felt weak or hungry on hCG. I felt like my body was working! I felt free of cravings! Such sweet relief. If you Google hCG, you can find research stating that it does not promote weight loss. All I can say is it is definitely and absolutely the only thing that has really worked for me. It stopped my hunger and cravings, it reset my metabolism. I lost the bad fat and retained muscle. I felt great. A typical day’s consumption of food on hCG was 2 meals of 4 oz of protein (chicken and fish were my staples) and 4 oz of green, non-starchy vegetables and 2 apples, oranges, strawberries or grapefruit. Since the cravings are produced not by my mind/emotions after all, but rather by a physiological process revealing problems digestion and the health of my gut, the even better result is that I no longer see myself as innately defective. Now I know I just have a slight malfunction. And all this time I thought I was a huge, defective monster! What really changed is I stopped bargaining. There are a lot of foods that are kinda, really healthy, that get me going down that addictive spiral to disaster. Like that chocolate bar with monkfruit, dried fruit and cheddar cheese, those sweet potato fries made with processed indigestible oils (palm, sunflower, safflower, canola), protein bars, all those tempting gluten free breads and desserts, and all the restaurant food with too much added sugar, bad oils, and huge portions. Besides, I live with someone who eats 5 desserts a day. As I write this, there are 11 boxes of cookies, 5 pints of ice creams and 3 containers of candy in our kitchen, plus a lemon meringue pie. It hasn’t been easy and I have not felt supported. But its my responsibility. Finally, I have the willingness to choose not to bargain with them. Now I just opt out of consuming them. I don’t want to set off the vicious cycle of obsession, addiction, cravings. I want ease and peace. It took me decades to be willing to give up the desire to eat what my brain told me I wanted and to get over binges based on reactions to depriving myself. hCG completely reset me. I am free! I have to keep it going, generating my own inspiration and making the choices every day that support me. It can help free you too. Rhyena Halpern is a Functional Medicine Health Coach and hospice volunteer who loves writing and blogs on FB at Third Act Coaching and at ThirdActCoaching.org . To find more of her essays, they can be found on Medium @rhyhalpern or click here.

My fear of over eating has left me. My fear of being over weight has left me. My shame is ready to follow close behind my fear, in a bold ‘Kiss My Ample Ass’ curtsy. In this past year, I have lost more than 30 pounds. I have been here before, about a dozen times for a total of around 250 lost and found pounds. I see beauty in fat, thin, tall, short and different bodies. I am only talking about giving up fat that I did not need, that was indeed weighing me down. All my life, I have been plagued by falling into the abyss of overeating, of some weird gremlins driving me to stuff myself, past the point of comfort to a distorted place of brain fog, sluggishness and self loathing. I learned early how to eat shamefully. My mother, father and two sisters were also overweight and we habitually stuffed down our familial dysfunction with food. I filled a perceived hole in myself with processed, gross sweets that made me feel drugged and numb. It's been decades of struggle.The fear and shame about over eating has burdened and weighed down my internal mental landscape, choking and slashing my sense of well-being. I could have invented the cure for cancer with all that effort I expended on this nonsense. But this time, for the first time, I am not afraid of going back to over eating. I finally, after decades of self-work on the issue, don’t need to hurt myself with the wrong types of food or too much food. The change happened incrementally over a long time but I crossed over into freedom recently. I finally got -really got to the core of my being- that my convoluted body image obsession, compulsive overeating, and a body that attracts fat like moths to light, is MY THING. It is not my fault but it is my responsibility. It will always be my thing until I resolve it. It used to be that merely writing such a story as this would trigger a major binge. Today I can write about it without fear, but with confidence, joy and gratitude. My internal food compulsions left me during the last weight loss. My metabolism was reset by my pituitary and hypothalamus glands, a by-product of the hCG protocol (more on this in my story here). Even though I had adjusted to eating less and had lost weight on this protocol six years earlier, I slowly skewed back to my norm. This time, because I did it for so much longer, I felt my body reset to a much deeper degree. My body resisted for weeks and then something kicked in. I just stuck with the protocol week after week until I was different. My taste buds changed. My need for a lot of food melted away. My cravings for sweets dissipated greatly. My body was using the simple food I fed it- mostly chicken, fish and vegetables- as fuel. Now I choose not to over-indulge. I know the cost of falling into the food coma abyss. I know the addictive cycle that gets set up when I fall off the proverbial wagon. I don’t want to start down that hole that the sugar, the carbs, the weight gain brings. The downward spiral. The incessant loud banging in my head. Goodbye fear! So long shame! Now I am in charge. I can wait for that weird switch to turn off, the one that screams at me to overeat - about 20–60 minutes after dinner. I own this weird physiological conspiracy where my genes, my under-functioning thyroid, my hormones, my microbiome -and the critters in there that feed on sugar- bump into each other gracelessly and wreak havoc on my entire system. It turns out these were the real gremlins I had feared for so many years! Having been off gluten, soy, processed foods and most sugar and dairy for years now, my body cannot handle the assault of these inflammatory foods and especially sugar - it's as addictive as heroin to some. I cannot handle many carbs either. I need lots of protein. I need healthy organic chicken, wild fish, eggs, coconut, fruit and lots of green vegetables, plus a touch here and there of nuts and yogurt. No, keto does not work for me. Neither do the dozens of other food plans I tried. The difference now is that I trust myself to know what I need and let this be enough. I have given up the final level of mental food attachment to foods I want to eat, that I think of as treats and that trigger my body’s stability (think sweet potato fries and homemade ‘healthy’ cookies and all the added sugar in the tom kha soup from your favorite Thai restaurant). They are no longer too much to give up. I know what it will do to me and how I will feel. So I choose out of it. One bite is like one snort of cocaine, one hit of heroin. Did you know white sugar is 8X more addictive than cocaine? I choose not to start that vicious cycle again. Besides, I have found some fun foods that don’t trigger me. I adhered so valiantly to the Fat is A Feminist Issue dogma for years, even leading discussion groups on the book, and attending too many Geneen Roth workshops. I have to admit that ultimately it made me worse, not better. I became locked in to an identity of myself as having a psychological sickness. And even though I did overeat, the root cause of that compulsion just may have had more to do with the effects of sugar in my body than my emotional state. I was so invested in my feelings of deprivation that I could not give up the attachment I had to partaking in the food ‘normal’ people ate. Now I strive to under eat. I try to stop before I am full. I notice that I am becoming sated and then have another bite or two. My goal is to stop at around 80% full, although often I stop at 100% still. I know I can have more food later or tomorrow. I gave up the need to feel groggy from too much food. I remind myself of the punishing despair of the addictive spiral. I don’t want to jeopardize or lose this hard earned willingness. I have gone from being an over eater to an under eater. Being an under eater means freedom to me. I peacefully coexist with the internal body switch, with the need to eat for fuel, with my past dysfunction, with my well-being, and with a sense of ease and spaciousness. It can happen for you too. P.S. The Ten Noble Truths of Under Eating 1. If you have a long pattern of overeating compulsively and have a distorted relationship with food, you are not alone. Because It Really Is A Thing. 2. Compulsive overeating is a result of emotional and physical imbalances. Its not your fault but it is your responsibility. 3. Overeating will always be Your Thing until you make peace with it on informed terms that you choose. 4. The key to NOT overeating is not necessarily to work out your shame and self hatred and psychological trauma. A good deal of it may just be in your body (i.e. blood sugar swings, leaky gut, etc.), not your head. 5. Healing your gut and balancing your hormones and lowering your inflammation levels solve many overeating and weight-related problems. 6. Getting free of overeating is a lifelong journey. Its okay if it takes a good long while. It is waiting for you until you are ready. 7. You can find peace with eating food.You will get there faster with kindness than punishing and shaming yourself. 8. You can co-exist with cravings and compulsions. You can have those desires without acting on them. You can notice them and give them space. 9. As per Michael Pallin’s mantra: Eat real food. Not too much, mostly plants, and whole, nutrient-dense, unprocessed food. 10. Don’t live to eat. Eat to live your own precious life. With ease. Becoming an under eater* for life is the path forward. Rhy Halpern is a Functional Medicine Health Coach and hospice volunteer who loves writing and blogs on FB at Third Act Coaching and at ThirdActCoaching.org . To find more of her essays, they can be found on Medium at @rhyhalpern or click here. Special thanks to Robin Woodall for the term ‘under eater’. Womens Health Nutrition Eating Eating Disorders Mindfulness Photo Credit: Sculpture near Lake Constance, South Germany, Canva

Dr. Lorna M. Breen.Credit…Chris Leary Photography I can’t stop thinking about the well-respected, bright and warm NYC Emergency Room doctor who became another casualty of the virus, dying by suicide two days ago. Her name was Dr. Lorna M. Breen, and she was the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. She had contracted Covid 19 after treating many sick patients. After ten days away she returned and was then sent home again as she was not fully recovered. Her parents brought her to their home to Virginia to recuperate, where she died by her own hand. She had no history of depression or mental illness. We don’t know what went through her mind and her heart in her last moments. We don’t know if she was spent, exhausted, ill or overwhelmed. That is hers and hers alone. We only know, as her father was quoted, that she was a very real casualty of the pandemic. Dr. Breen’s death is haunting me. I keep crying for her pain and suffering. I fear her death portends the demise of many other beloved souls. We are going to see many more suicides in this coming of the second wave. People who are out of work and can no longer hold on, completely destitute. Folks who have to close the successful small businesses they earnestly built years ago and can no longer provide for their families. Emergency medical technicians who are sick with the virus from transporting by ambulance those in urgent need of hospitalization but who have no health insurance and thus, cannot get the care they need. Heroic doctors and nurses who have seen ferocious illness tear searing red hot holes through their hospitals in the last 6 weeks, who need time and space to process the trauma but are too busy, too anxious, too upset, too sleep deprived to stop and rest. What of the victims of domestic abuse who have been trapped during quarantine, helplessly receiving their mate’s irrational punches and kicks? What about the kids who have lost a parent or sibling? How will they find their way? What about the high school students robbed of prom and graduation? The trauma is real and we still do not know what its tsunami will bring. We will be floating in its debris for a good long time. Here we are. We are strong and ready to help. We want to be their giving trees. Our hearts are open. We can sing to them; we can cradle them; we can listen to their rage and sorrow. We will help these brave folks who are suffering so completely with the tenderness born from our cell’s core humanity. Can we open our hearts fast enough to scoop them up and hold them through their pain until they get to the space where they can go on with the living? Can we form a circle around them and make them safe from the memories haunting and throbbing within their cores? PTSD is not just what happens to soldiers in wars. Our first responders are traumatized and we must catch them. Of course we can. And we must. We will be there for the people who suddenly lost loved ones to Covid through the shock of their grief. We must be there and help them through. We must listen deeply and witness the pain and soften into love and honor and acceptance. We will tap into the endless well of compassion within. We will lean into our eternal strength. May Dr. Lorna M. Breen’s memory be a blessing to us all. May her life and death inspire us to mobilize and serve.