When you pick at a scab or cut it gets worse. It heals naturally when you leave it alone – maybe gently clean it. When you pick at a deep, under-the-skin blemish, it spreads, gets bigger, agitated. If left alone and nurtured gently, it recedes. Your body is the same.

As a child, it’s likely that you thought little about food and diets, but felt energized and happy, and ate foods that tasted great and nourished you. As you grew up, you were probably “fed” a lot of media messages that were harmful and conflicting:

You should eat a certain way, act a certain way, look a certain way but you should also be carefree and able to eat whatever you want without gaining a pound.

Pretty confusing and frustrating, right?

When you start experimenting with diets and placing a microlens on yourself and your habits, you forget that your body naturally knows what it needs. You start following rules instead of listening to your individual body.

So many people go through years of dieting and only lose weight when they fully embrace their human nature and get back to their natural, intuitive selves. Self-love plays a big role here:

To make change, you need to have compassion toward yourself, and essentially like yourself. If you don’t like yourself it makes it difficult for other people to.

When we stop trying to fix ourselves constantly, we’re more apt to make aligned choices that end up impacting us way more than obsessing over every detail.

Zoom your lens out and start living fully, rather than picking yourself apart.

When we’re so wrapped up in fixing ourselves, we miss out on living fully.

Here are a few great tools to tune in and create real change:

1. Lose the alarm clock whenever possible. This will put you in touch with your body’s natural sleep cycles and alleviate anxiety associated with waking up, wondering if you’ve overslept, and feeling stressed about getting to work.

2. Let yourself eat whatever you want for a week, but eat every meal slowly and luxuriously, putting your fork down between each bite and chewing each bite 30 times. Your body naturally knows what it needs. When you go easy on yourself and stop obsessing about numbers and specific diets, you free up so much space in your mind and physical energy, giving yourself the space to make decisions that support your goals.

3. Schedule one day a week where your only goal is to relax and reboot. This might mean lounging on your bed, reading, or being in nature. I love to go to the park and draw, write, read, or just lay in the grass and admire Central Park, with no agenda.

4. Engage in consuming activities that make you forget about everything else. I recently launched Superfood Mexican, and while prepping for this event, I completely forget about petty stressors and totally forgot to eat. It wasn’t a diet tactic – I was so fully immersed in the work that everything else melted away. Food is a pleasurable survival tool, not something you need to overthink. Seek out the experiences that put you in the flow, and make them happen more often.

5. Identify flow blockers. What makes you feel stuck, toxic, icky? Is it a certain environment, person, type of food, or all of the above? Identify things that are draining your energy and remove them whenever possible. Here are some ideas to get your brain working: 

• The friend you love but who always talks your ear off and never leaves time to listen to you.
• Those 3 cups of coffee you drink every day on autopilot.
• That coworker who’s always putting you down in passive aggressive ways.

This week, I have a super simple and delicious recipe, perfect for the weekly reboot day I know you’re scheduling in each week (wink). These quinoa collard wraps are really simple to make and have a lot of flavor. Try them out, test out your own variation, and let me know how you do!

Quinoa Collard Wraps

Ingredients
Serves 2

4 large collard leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons sea salt
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1 cup dry red quinoa
2 cups filtered water
1 teaspoon Himalayan salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
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1 medium red onion
½ cup minced fresh basil
½ cup minced fresh mint
Sea salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
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1 avocado
Sea salt, to taste

Method

Rinse quinoa thoroughly in fine mesh strainer and add to medium pot along with water, olive oil and sea salt. Bring to a boil, then turn down to lowest heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, or until translucent and all water has evaporated.

Wash collard greens thoroughly and pat dry. Using a sharp knife, vertically slice out the the tough central rib. Lay collard greens in a large bowl one by one, massaging each one with a little olive oil and sea salt. Transfer to refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Dice red onion finely and mince basil and mint. Transfer cooked quinoa to mixing bowl and add onion, basil, mint, salt and black pepper. Toss well.

Lay collards on plate and put about ¼ cup quinoa pilaf in the center, and layer on a few slices of avocado. Finish with a sprinkle of sea salt, then roll it like a burrito, folding in the short way first, then rolling the long way.

Enjoy leisurely!

Photography: Jake Freeman