Stay vital and enjoy the pie.

An encouraging word for enjoyable Christmas eating.

I wrote this before we left for holidays but got caught up and didn’t send.

This will be shorty and snappy because, it’s Christmas Eve and we’re in the snow this year! (I will write more about the trip, including the mental gymnastics of travelling from summer to winter with kids) when I get home). I’m sending this via my phone, so please forgive any funny formatting ;)

Firstly, I’ll add in a big Merry Christmas!!!! May God bless you and your family with vitality, peace, simplicity and joy this next year.

For now, a little encouraging word about food in the holiday season.

In short: Let it be enjoyable!! The joy and thanksgiving in which you eat this Christmas matter more to your health than getting your macros right or interrogating every family member about where they bought their flour.

If you are a health conscious, ingredient kinda person (same) who finds holidays stressful because sometimes your food might be out of control— I want to offer some peace and relaxation in that area.

I used to be that way. I was pedantic with my food around Christmas. Why? Because I believed that I needed to be in order to be vital, and vibrant. My anxieties of ‘getting it wrong’— so typical of an eldest daughter, gave me discipline to follow any ‘way’ of eating without much struggle.

But as I’ve written about many times— the fear, tension, obsession and rigidity of being this pedantic has its own toxicity. It grips the digestive system and creates inflammation just like seed oils do.

There is a definite need for awareness, vigilance and high standards when it comes to food and environment, but there needs to come a point where you trust your system to do it’s thing, even when an occasion like Christmas arises, and your Aunt makes fruit mince pies with normal pastry, made from regular flour and who knows what else inside.

You are safe to enjoy these foods, especially when you do so with genuine gratitude.

How you eat matters just as much as what you eat.

Who you are when you eat, matters just as much as what you eat.

When I really think about how much fear there is in the wellness world, I wonder where that fear comes from. What is the root? We are all so very clear about the fact that much of Big Pharma has roots in evil, but I believe so does the incessant fear about food. It is disorder, just like over-medication is.

**note, I am not talking here about genuine food allergies, I’m talking about food worries, obsessions etc. For context.

Fear of food comes from a lack of faith, and a separation from truth.

I have said it 76 times and I’ll say it again.

Create your standard, this will determine your terrain.

Then relax and enjoy your life.

There is so much more to your digestion than food.

There is so much more to your vitality than ingredients.

Have you ever noticed that women will obsess over food to the point it consumes them entirely, but then hustle hustle and hustle some more like men do and think that ‘it must be my less than perfect food’ when really it’s the fact that women are trying to live biologically as men— and these consequences are far more hefty than a slice of pumpkin’ pie with a big ol’ load of cream?

European women are it.

Living in Europe (Italy), I absorbed so much from the women and the way they ate. I’ve written about it before.

They eat beautifully, live beautifully, and their lives are ordered— femininity and beauty first. This informs their vitality. Food is just a natural part of life, a celebratory part, not a stressor.

Quality food matters.

Caring for our bodies matters.

But the sweet spot is setting the foundation, but not letting food GRIP us.

Consume the food, don’t let food consume you, your spirit, your vibrancy.

Have a whole house filter on your house.

Eat good quality, real and mostly organic foods.

Allow yourself to enjoy food that’s made with love that may not fit your regular ‘eating style’.

This doesn’t mean, be a glutton without consequence.

It means this:

Gratitude and love are ingredients too. They affect your digestion.

Relaxation will do more for your gut health than correct eating laced with stress.

When someone in your family has made something with love, eat with celebration of that love. Eat with thanksgiving. Eat with gratitude, not that snobby ‘what is in this?’ as if you are holier than thou.

Sure, you don’t need to eat total junk and you get to choose for your vitality but you also don’t need to be that person that makes others feel like crap for what they made with LOVE.

Here’s a verse I highlighted the other week—  I circled it and up the top wrote “wellness influencers!!”. Pay particular attention to the bold bits.

1 Timothy 4: 1-5

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

We do not need to fear food in order to be vibrant.

We actually need to stop fearing it.

Our thoughts about the food matter just as much as the food.

Eat with celebration.

Eat with thanksgiving.

Let yourself be that person who enjoys a slice of the pumpkin pie your cousin made without stressing over what’s in it. It’s one slice, on a rare occasion.

The stress will do you more dirty than the margarine.

We need to return to the correct order.

Eating with thanksgiving is the beginning of that correct order.

Especially “when it has been consecrated by the word of God and prayer.”

Take a little moment to Thank God for your food and for the peeps who made it. Bless it. Do whatever and say whatever gets you correctly ordered.

This food was made with love.

I get to eat it with thanksgiving.

I won’t be a glutton. I can be a high standard and care free eater at the same time.

You KNOW that sweet spot.

Let this Christmas be so enjoyable.

Focus more on the joy of eating with those you love instead of eyeballing that pie weighing up whether or not you can.

Don’t let food consume you this Christmas.

Don’t let stuff consume you this Christmas.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And Heaven and nature sing.

Love Peta

Xx

Ps. A moment for my new hat. How good!