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The Kitchen Doctor
Plus: why you procrastinate even when it feels bad (and how to get around it)
The 10almonds Team
March 14, 2023
Social Media sucking away your time?
If you want to still check social media to keep on top of things, but don’t want to get stuck “doomscrolling”, get yourself a 2-minute sand timer and keep it handy.
Whenever you check your social media of choice, start it going, and that’s how long you’ve got.
It’ll keep you “in touch and aware” without being sucked into a digital Hellscape.
It’s Expert Insights Tuesday here at 10almonds, and today we have:
Why you procrastinate even when it feels bad (and how to stop)
The Kitchen Doctor
Background
Interoception
How to do it better
App (by no means required, but you might like it!)
Health Simplified (our kind of book!)
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
How To Stop Procrastinating
TedEd has the answers in this short (5:45) video. If you just want the answers without the explanation, you can use the links below to skip to that—but it’ll stick better if you understand it first!
🫀 MAIN FEATURE
Dr. Rupy Aujla: The Kitchen Doctor
This is Dr. Rupy Aujla, and he’s a medical doctor. He didn’t set out to become a “health influencer”.
But then, a significant heart condition changed his life. Having a stronger motivation to learn more about nutritional medicine, he did a deep dive into the scientific literature, because that’s what you do when your life is on the line, especially if you’re a doctor!
Using what he learned, he was able to reverse his condition using a food and lifestyle approach. Now, he devotes himself to sharing what he learned—and what he continues to learn as he goes along.
One important thing he learned because of what happened to him, was that he hadn’t been paying enough attention to what his body was trying to tell him.
He wants us to know about interoception—which isn’t a Chris Nolan movie. Rather, interoception is the sense of what is going on inside one’s own body.
The counterpart of this is exteroception: our ability to perceive the outside world by means of our various senses.
Interoception is still using the senses, but is sensing internal body sensations. Effectively, the brain interprets and integrates what happens in our organs.
When interoception goes wrong, researchers found, it can lead to a greater likelihood of mental health problems. Having an anxiety disorder, depression, mood disorder, or an eating disorder often comes with difficulties in sensing what is going on inside the body.
Improving our awareness of body cues
Those same researchers suggested therapies and strategies aimed at improving awareness of mind-body connections. For example, mindfulness-based stress reduction, yoga, meditation and movement-based treatments. They could improve awareness of body cues by attending to sensations of breathing, cognitions and other body states.
But where Dr. Aujla puts his focus is “the heart of the home”, the kitchen.
The pleasure of food
❝Eating is not simply ingesting a mixture of nutrients. Otherwise, we would all be eating astronaut food. But food is not only a tool for health. It’s also an important pleasure in life, allowing us to connect to others, the present moment and nature.❞
Dr. Aujla wants to help shift any idea of a separation between health and pleasure, because he believes in food as a positive route to well-being, joy and health. For him, it starts with self-awareness and acceptance of the sensory pleasures of eating and nourishing our bodies, instead of focusing externally on avoiding perceived temptations.
Most importantly:
We can use the pleasure of food as an ally to healthy eating.
Instead of spending our time and energy fighting the urge to eat unhealthy things that may present a “quick fix” to some cravings but aren’t what our body actually wants, needs, Dr. Aujla advises us to pay just a little more attention, to make sure the body’s real needs are met.
His top tips for such are:
Create an enjoyable relaxing eating environment
To help cultivate positive emotions around food and signal to the nervous system a shift to food-processing time. Try setting the table with nothing else on it beyond what’s relevant to the dinner, putting away distractions, using your favorite plates, tablecloth, etc.
Take 3 deep abdominal breaths before eating
To help you relax and ground yourself in the present moment, which in turn is to prepare your digestive system to receive and digest food.
Pay attention to the way you sit
Take some time to sit comfortably with your feet grounded on the floor, not slouching, to give your stomach space to digest the food.
Appreciate what it took to bring this food to your plate
Who was involved in the growing process and production, the weather and soil it took to grow the food, and where in the world it came from.
Enjoy the sensations
When you’re cooking, serving, and eating your food, be attentive to color, texture, aroma and even sound. Taste the individual ingredients and seasonings along the way, when safe and convenient to do so.
Journal
If you like journaling, you can try adding a mindful eating section to that. Ask questions such as: “how did I feel before, during, and after the meal?”
In closing…
Remember that this is a process, not only on an individual level but as a society too.
Oftentimes it’s hard to eat healthily… We can be given to wonder even “what is healthy, after all?”, and we can be limited by what is available, what is affordable, and what we have time to prepare.
But if we make a conscious commitment to make the best choices we reasonably can as we go along, then small changes can soon add up.
Interested in what kind of recipes Dr. Aujla goes for?
📱 There’s an app for that
The Doctor’s Kitchen (App)
If you like apps for your kitcheneering, you might just love Dr. Auja’s app.
❝No more Googling “what to eat for …”.
Our research team have done all the hard work for you. We review 1000s of nutrition articles to determine which ingredients and dietary patterns you should be eating that align with your health goals.
Whether it’s eating to support your skin health, sustaining and improving brain health or generally eat better, The Doctor’s Kitchen has got you covered.
We are on a mission to make everyone happier and healthier through food!❞
Features include:
Evidence-based. They review thousands of studies to make best use the ingredients and patterns of eating that align with your health goals.
Step-by-step images! It’s as easy as healthy eating gets.
New Recipes… They add 15 new recipes every month, so you'll never get bored!
Adjustable serving sizes! Cooking for more people? No more mental arithmetic in the kitchen!
Filter recipes. By ingredient, and/or wipe out whole collections according to your dietary requirements (allergies, preferences, etc).
Get Dr. Aujla’s App in the Apple Store Today! (iOS only, sorry)
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Health Simplified - by Daniel Cottmeyer
A lot of books focus on the most marketable aspects of health, such as fat loss or muscle gain. Instead, Cottmeyer takes a "birds-eye-view" of health in all its aspects, and then boils it down to the most critical key parts.
Rather than giving a science-dense tome that nobody reads, or a light motivational piece that everyone reads but it amounts to "you can do it!", here we get substance... but in a digestible form.
Which we at 10almonds love.
The book presents a simple action plan to:
Improve your relationship with food/exercise
Actually get better sleep
Understand how nutrition really works
Set up helpful habits that are workable and sustainable
Bring these components together synergistically
Bottom line: if you're going to buy only one health/fitness book, this is a fine contender.
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Wishing you a mindful here and now and an even better tomorrow,
The 10almonds Team