Good morning, friends! I hope the first Monday of your new year is off to an amazing start. (Mine is!) Monday is my day off, and I have plans to clean up my kitchen, take a long bike ride (indoors, sadly) and maybe try out a new recipe. That is, after finishing up with this blog post!
Things I’m Loving Lately
A few months ago, my sister in law shared this recipe for brown butter chocolate chip cookies with me. Previously my go-to chocolate chip recipe was the one listed on the back of the King Arthur flour. While that one isn’t necessarily gone and out the window, this new one is most definitely here to stay. The cookie dough itself tastes like caramel, which is probably the most magical thing that has ever happened to my mouth.
Delicious, peaceful moments like sitting down with a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie remind me just how grateful I am for my recovery. I have so many sad memories of feeling guilty or ashamed for licking the cookie dough off my fingers while baking, or for gobbling up crumbs left behind. I rarely felt safe enough to allow myself to enjoy a cookie all on my own. Usually I’d resist and resist until I couldn’t anymore, and would end up frantically shoveling them into my mouth at midnight. (Those experiences were far from peaceful, and I rarely ever had the opportunity to even taste what I was eating.)
The number one thing that helped me learn how to eat dessert without panicking was…just doing it. In the beginning stages of my recovery, I desperately craved the freedom I saw in others to be able to enjoy desserts, snacks, and other foods that had historically been on my forbidden list. Making progress in that arena required that I intentionally include those forbidden foods in my day as much as possible. Yes, I ate things like cookies and ice cream every day for years…sometimes even multiple times per day…until eating those foods stopped feeling like a big deal. Recovery means normalizing foods like dessert.
I talk a lot about my past with an eating disorder on this blog, and throughout my journey of healing I’ve come to be able to look back with compassion towards myself. This journey has ebbed and flowed over the years, including emotions like anger at the diet industry, grief over the years I spent lost to dieting, and even fear of falling back into those patterns. However, every time I bite into an ooey-gooey, freshly baked dessert and taste the freedom that recovery brings, I know there’s no going back.
[If you can relate to the feelings of fear or shame surrounding food, I get it…and I can relate. But I promise you that it doesn’t have to be that way. If you need help in your relationship with food or even just someone to talk to, I’d love to offer the support you need. Click here to learn more about my intuitive eating services.]
Shortcuts for a Simpler Life
Due to the nature of my job (and my hobbies…writing and blogging), I spend a lot of time on the computer. I’m fortunate to have a pretty swift typing speed, but one of the things that used to get me hung up was my laptop’s mousepad. Especially when I’m creating graphics for the blog or social media, I find it really challenging to accurately move the components of my design work around with a touch pad. Even when it comes to writing patient notes, I sometimes struggle to make accurate clicks if another part of my hand brushes up against the mousepad. This has resulted in my accidentally clicking out of the charting software (unintentionally) which exits out of my note, and I sometimes lose my work! Ugh! If this has ever happened to you, you know it’s the worst.
Buying an actual mouse seemed like a step backwards with technology, but it makes me life so much easier. I feel that I have so much more control and am able to complete my work much faster when I use the old fashioned kind of mouse. It also works better to have a separate mouse from my computer when I am using a standing desk (or my DIY substitute for a standing desk.) I found this mouse on Amazon for about ten dollars. Life changing…
Interested in starting a blog? Learn how here:
Healthy, Happy, Whole
Thanks to COVID (and a myriad of other reasons, honestly) I no longer have a gym membership. Since running in the cold doesn’t feel great on my lungs, I’ve pretty much stopped jogging altogether (except when I’m chasing Finnegan.) I have enjoyed incorporating body weight exercises into my routine every so often, but I try to avoid too much weight-lifting (reasoning for this coming in another post, but it has to do with progesterone.) So, my new favorite form of exercise, aside from walking/hiking, is riding my bike…indoors.
My sister gave my her Deuter Trainer which, if you’re unfamiliar with one of those, is a device for converting your regular bicycle (such as my hybrid sport bike) into an indoor, stationary bike. It basically consists of an A-shaped frame that screws on to the back tire of your bicycle. There are different settings to adjust the resistance so you can choose how intense you want your workout to be. Then, you can plug in your headphones and jam out to music, or park yourself in front of a computer to binge on Netflix.
As you can see, Finnegan likes to keep me company when I’m riding on mine. However, in full disclosure, I think he’d much rather be cuddling.
What’s your favorite way to work out indoors?
Weekly Word
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Romans 12:12
Are you waiting for God to make a move?
Sometimes it feels like He isn’t listening, even though we persistently ask…seek…knock. But even if God seems silent, he isn’t ignoring you. He is still listening, and actively at work behind the scenes. Every happening in life—each event that comes to pass, was divinely orchestrated at the very beginning. God is for you, He is working for your good, and He hears your prayers.
alexandramackillop.com 
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