BSc Economics, Age: 47 yr.
Message from Mirjana
How to Stay Healthy?
This Guide to Mindful Eating was ‘cooking’ in my head for a long time, until the circumstances were right to publish it as an eBook so that it can benefit the one in need. Many of you might be familiar with this story, moving house, change of job, break-up of my relationship, for me, they all came at the same time, as unwanted guests, leaving me devastated, stressed and sick, I simply stopped eating.
I was around 40 when all of this happened and I simply lost it - I stopped taking care of myself, I was bored and depressed, I no longer enjoyed cooking for myself but was indulging in fast unhealthy food. Soon, I had all the troubles in the world knocking at my door, stomach pains, headache, exhaustion. Due to the lack of proper nutrition, I felt lousy, I didn’t sleep well, I was nervous, sleepy at work, and without any energy within my love affair.
After half a year of this unhealthy regime my energy was completely depleted, I was getting thinner, and walking the magic border from a mild eating disorder to anorexia. As it usually happens, I saw my saviors in the health clinics visiting doctors, and various labs. No surprises there, my blood analysis was not good, and even though I was getting thinner, my sugar and cholesterol were shooting up. Imagine the state of stress my body was going through, my hair was falling, and various allergies and eczema were my every-day's reality. One specialist after another gave their expert opinions, but none of them really knew what is the real cause of my illnesses. Morning after morning, I had trouble getting up, I shoved the food down my throat with the feeling of disgust, looking worse with every day that passed. I touched the bottom when my love affair ended and at that point, for the first time, I became worried for myself – one fine morning, looking at my skeleton reflection in the mirror.
Every since my youth I explored psychology and self-development books and I knew that I have to work on my emotional and spiritual development to overcome my physical problems. This period of my life gave me an insight that I have to seriously and consciously explore nutrition and work on my stress reduction techniques, work on my ‘relaxation’.
My recovery took twice as long as the time I spent in diseases and stress but I managed to stay disciplined and serious about my wish to nourish my body, nourish my emotions and slowly come back to the space of love and respect for my own body and mind. My recovery started when I gave myself a simple gift of more rest, more sleep, and frequent walks in the nature. Nature was healing me. Spending more time in my kitchen, experimenting, exploring, learning from various health gurus, preparing food that nurtures me brought me back to myself..Again, nature was healing me. With love and respect towards myself and mother nature, suddenly a whole new world of colors, smells and tastes opened and cooking became a form of therapy.
I have decided to share my thoughts about Nature medicine and my favorite healthy food recipes with you, in hope that you will also learn from Nature about herbs, organics, seasonal veggies and benefit from them as I much as I have in my past. I also hope that I will inspire you to find enough strength within yourself to heal your own mind and body, and give yourself a gift of a well designed and balanced diet bring into your own life more health and happiness.
Yours,
Mirjana