Lovely Little Leah-girl

This story is shared with permission.

This story takes place around the time beef was reintroduced to back to Michael, and more and more used-to-be-off-limit-foods were making their way onto the plate (see previous blog post).

When Leah was in the summer of grade 5, she came to me, as the main cook for the family, to ask for help to loose weight. Here we go I thought to myself, I would do anything to keep my daughter from entering her preteen and teen years worried about food and weight gain. So we talked about why she wanted to loose weight. She was not overweight by any means, and was the cutest thing ever.

She wasn't quite happy with the way some of her clothes fit (nod - thinking about her very healthy appetite), didn't like how her belly would flop over the waistband (nod again - thinking about all the sugar she eats), and still got a lot of stomachaches (yes, that is very true - she would complain about stomachaches ever since she was little - thinking about all the cold food she loves to consume). She saw how devoted we all were to Michael's skin and allergies over the years, and she needed that for her stomachaches and softness. We both agreed to make this a priority, so I stuffed her full of food.

I had one shot to prove to her she didn't need to "go on a diet" to manage her weight and digestion. I went to work right away on one of the most important missions of my life. Since she plays hockey and rides her bike on a regular basis, managing extra carbs in a growing preteen would be straight-forward enough.

We still abided by the principles we used to help Michael - organic, nutritious, cooked, bland, neutral - it was so ingrained in us, so what I did was implement some tweaks and substitutions on the snack-side.

The things that haaaaaaad to go were the cold, raw foods and anything that might gunk up the liver. The slurpees, smoothies and iced drinks were replaced by room-temp water with a little lemon and honey. Fruits at room temp were ok. Salads and veggie trays were replaced with steamed or sauteed vegetables - lucky for her she loves her veggies more than cake. I admit the room-temp Biosteel probably wasn't as good as a cold Gatorade while playing hockey, but she was a great sport about it.

The sugar, carbs (bread, rice, pasta, potatoes) and healthy appetite could stay as long as everything was organic. The liver would be busy enough with the sugar and carbs and preparing for puberty, no room left for it to also deal with artificial colorings, flavorings, preservatives or bad fats. Her sweet tooth was satisfied with homemade desserts, cookies, meringues, room temp juices and fruits - these were unlimited after a proper meal.

There were still hints of dairy and deep-fried foods. This was the summer we discovered Village Ice Cream and she realized that if she's going to enjoy some cold dairy, it would only be from Village Ice Cream.

These tweaks were made at the end of July after a friend's stay with us and school started in late August. I saw how the heaviness had disappeared by the time school started and she was so carefree, so I thought.

It wasn't until a few years later that she brought up how she came to me to loose weight, and we had definitely agreed to start, but she thought I had forgotten (intrusive mom thoughts: one of the most important missions of my life! - how could I make her think that I could forget about her! - i felt so bad that she felt so small for two years! - but yay for her that she identified the issue and went to sort it out!) because she never felt any limitations and she enjoyed all the foods. She would still eat 2-4 egg sandwiches for an after school snack finished off with a bowl of fruit to tide her over until dinner.

I was very surprised to hear this because I thought she would have been glad to have reached her goals so soon. I didn't want her to be self-conscious about her weight so I never said anything after we started, loosing weight was not the goal for me, getting healthy was, which is a lifestyle more than a goal. She was not convinced, so we flipped through old pictures, from her friend's stay in late July (before), to one taken 1 week into the school year in late August (after), to all of the pictures in the last few years (maintenance). The realization hit her like a ton of bricks, even though the scale said differently, she had indeed lost the pudge, slimmed down and the stomachaches stopped. She couldn't deny her eyes and rewound her mind to how she felt and looked in her clothes in a different lens. The profound realization wasn't that she was indeed the skinny-girl she asked to be, but that the influences around her were so strong that she figured she had a bad case of body dysmorphia - I was not expecting this, and this was the biggest win. Consuming food is a big part of health. Consuming other messages and influences is just as strong.

Leah's now in the middle of university. She's gone through those tough teen years and come out with one of the healthiest relationships with food I have ever seen in anyone. She's not consumed or obsessed with what she eats, it's more the opposite where she enjoys as much as she wants, but just like in Michael's case, knows what direction she needs to go and where the baseline is for when there are 4-5 celebrations in a row and iced coffees everyday.

Again, the importance of TCM diet principles cannot be stressed enough. Seemingly healthy foods like salads, raw vegetables and smoothies can seriously sabotage attempts at weight management.

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In TCM-speak, her digestive system was too cold, the strong digestive system she had was succumbing to all the cold treats she enjoyed, and instead of producing quality qi and blood, the qi and blood were low and the byproduct dampness was produced. This dampness was messing with her liver, which was already busy enough. In her later years she may need to be careful of developing conditions like type 2 diabetes, which is very successfully managed with a TCM healthy diet.

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In CM-speak, Leah is one of the few people who definitely knows where she wants to go and will figure out a way to get there (my lovely little Leah-flower is a Yi daymaster after all). Many people throw their questions out to the cosmos expecting something to happen, something to hit, but space is just that, a big empty expanse of space, if you simply throw out a directionless question there's a better chance that it won't hit anything and so nothing will happen, the cosmos doesn't owe us anything. When you set your aim for a certain star or planet, and work to get there, you will be among the few who seems so lucky to have made a hit, when the real luck they possess is knowing what they want, what direction to go, the willingness to put in the effort, and the right timing to catch the wave that's going in that direction - they do their happy dance and then look for their next star. Many, however, fear that if they aim for a certain star/planet/GOAL, that they may be disappointed when they get there, how unlucky for them I say. There's only one Saturn, if you happen to hit it, dust yourself off, get better aim, and move on to the next star.