Category Archives: Mindful Meals

Packing a Picnic …

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I used to think frittatas were a utilitarian way to use up expiring ingredients; a dish that got the job done, but didn’t inspire much excitement.

It wasn’t until Christopher and I stayed at Locanda Rosati in Italy’s Umbria region that I had any notion frittatas could be darn near transcendent. One night, the Rosati brothers brought out several of these Zucchini Frittatas–served at room temperature–for the big farm table full of guests and I thought, “oh great, a frittata.” Boy did my tune change when I took a bite. It was luscious and creamy and full of flavors that spanned the spectrum from rich to fresh. (side note … strange that my food epiphanies tend to happen around eggs)

Quite frankly, I refused to believe it was a frittata. I tried to pry the recipe from the brothers for days, but they insisted the dish wasn’t worthy … it was “just a few eggs, and some zucchini from the garden,” and something called prezzemolo (that one took a while without a dictionary … it means, wait for it, ‘parsley’).

But I persisted, and managed to piece together a recipe based on a series of conversations more than anything else. Over breakfast, Giampiero leaned over with wrinkled brow and insisted that both the vegetables and the eggs needed to be coddled over very low heat. In the hallway, Paolo stopped me to say that I should salt both the vegetables and the eggs. In the end, I was able to capture the secret for replicating that divine dish called a frittata in my own kitchen.

I’m so glad I did. Since then, it’s become a summer staple both as a simple dinner and a go-to picnic dish. In fact, as soon as I finish typing I’m going to make one to take to Preston tomorrow. I’ll tuck it away in the cooler and pull it out along with the cheese to warm up a bit before serving. Then I’ll pair it with a hunk of really good whole grain bread and mixed greens tossed with my Go-To Vinaigrette. Simply divine.

I may have started out my life thinking frittatas were no more than a vehicle for emptying out the fridge. But I’ve learned … and now I know there’s nothing better to pack for a picnic.

Finding the “Yes” in Saying No

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I’ve talked to a lot of people lately who are giving up certain foods for a period of time, either for Lent or for a cleanse. Most often, the discussion is accompanied by grimaces over giving up sugar or wistful sighs at mention of meat.

But giving something up in a deliberate act doesn’t have to be about deprivation. In fact, I would argue that honing in on something that has taken a little tighter grip than we’d intended and purposefully letting it go for a spell is a powerful mindful eating practice that will open us up to something new and positive.

finding-yes-in-lent

I’ve found that when I’m feeling anxious about a certain area it helps to take a bold action in exactly the opposite direction. If I’m stressed out about not being able to get everything done, taking a leisurely half-hour lunch in the garden reinvigorates me and leaves me much more productive than if I’d worked nonstop. If I’m freaking out about not having enough money to cover expenses, giving boldly takes my fear away and puts my needs into perspective.

That same type of “positive shock” is activated when you deliberately give up a certain type of food or habit. If you choose to set aside meat for a few weeks you can either whine about it … or you can see it as an opportunity to explore the world of vegetables, whole grains, seafood and soy in ways you’re not able to when you have the crutch of “chicken tonight, ground beef tomorrow” (and to feel great about how you’ve shrunk your carbon footprint!). If you choose to pass on desserts with highly processed flour and sugar, do it mindfully and notice how awesome your body feels in return.

Giving things up doesn’t have to be accompanied by disappointed groans. When we say “no” to one thing, we’re opening ourselves up to a “yes” in another area. When you find that yes and focus on it consistently, you’ll be amazed at just how full you feel.

Nourishing Resolutions: Give Yourself Time to Change

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OK, let’s have it … how many of you have stuck to your New Year’s resolutions so far this year? If you’re grimacing right now, you’re not alone. Statistics show that somewhere between 78% and 88% of people give up on (or forget) their resolutions before the days on the calendar hit double digits.

give yourself time ot change

My theory is that people get frustrated when their lives don’t do an about-face after seven days of good intentions. I know I used to. Then one year, about eight years ago, I gave myself an entire year to lose the 20 pounds I’d been trying to lose and everything changed. I changed.

In the years since, as I learned about behavioral change, it became clear that time was a major key to my success. It makes sense if you think about it; a habit is something we’ve done so consistently for so long that we do it without thinking. The cool thing, though, is that we can use the same process to develop new, healthier habits.

How we form habits

There is a proven progression in learning:

1.     from unconscious incompetence (not knowing that you don’t know)

2.     to conscious incompetence (knowing that you don’t know)

3.     to conscious competence (you know what you want to do, but you still have to think about what you’re doing)

4.     to unconscious competence (you automatically do what you want to do).

It’s the shift from conscious competence (the “I should”) to unconscious competence (the “I want to”) that creates sustainable change. You get to the place, in fact, where it feels uncomfortable to go back to your old ways. I hear this voiced all the time with My Nourish Mentor participants near the end of the program. They say, “I look back on how I used to eat and I wouldn’t even choose to do that any more.” Not only have their behaviors shifted, but positive emotions and experiences have reinforced those new behaviors and cemented them into place.

Getting there takes time, though. One 2009 study found this long-term shift takes an average of 66 days (incidentally, My Nourish Mentor takes 90 days … I like the extra padding for peaks and valleys).

Reforming habits in real life

Let me give you an example of how this worked in my own life. For years and years and years, I was frustrated with myself because I couldn’t lose the weight I wanted to. I tried diet after diet, but still couldn’t get the dang pounds to stay off. At that point, I was at the first stage of unconscious incompetence; I had no idea what I really needed to do to make sustainable change in the way I ate.

When I finally walked away from silver bullets and diets of the month and dug into learning sound nutritional truths, I knew what I needed to do to lose the weight for good—eat more vegetables and whole grains, and less calorie-dense meat and refined foods—but I didn’t know how to get there without feeling like I was giving up all I enjoyed (sound familiar?). I had gotten to the second stage of conscience incompetence.

I decided to tackle one area at a time. To start, I set out to double the amount of vegetables I ate each day. Sounds easy, sure, but when you’re not used to consuming vegetables in large quantities, there are a lot of hurdles. Like refrigerator space, for instance—I had no idea how much space a pound of kale could take up! And then there was repertoire. Most of my go-to’s at the time centered on refined grains and meat—sandwiches made with deli meats for lunch, pasta with meat or sausage and a bit of veggies for dinner. I was in this third stage of conscious competence for quite some time, working at how to get more vegetables on my plate in a way that got me excited about—not dreading—eating them.

But I did get there over time, and I eventually reached the fourth stage of unconscious competence. Now if I don’t get enough vegetables during the course of the day, I feel a bit off kilter and will crave them for dinner; eating an abundance of veggies has become my norm.

So if you’re struggling with the resolutions you made earlier this month, I urge you to give it time. Set your sights on something you want to change and, over the next two months, experiment, work out the kinks, mess up and try again. Most important, though, consistently practice the way you want to be.

Temptation in the 20%: How to Stop Eating When You’re Full

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Hara hachi bu is a Japanese term that roughly translates to “eat until you’re 80%  full.” It sounds simple, I know, but many deeply profound concepts wear a simple shell. This is one of them. Hara hachi bu is sound advice for many reasons. It takes your brain about 20 minutes to register how much your body has eaten, for instance, so stopping when you feel about 80% full means you’ll likely top off around 100%. It also gets you tuning in to every bite rather yielding to the temptation to mindlessly barrel through a burger.

temptation-stop-eating-full

For me, though, that 80% is the border over which the battles of will are fought. Here’s a snippet of what my brain sounds like when I’m eating a so-juicy-and-delicious-all-I-can-do-is-close-my-eyes-and-hum burger and I hit my 80% mark.

Willful Me (turning a shoulder to Mindful Me): “Shut up, I’m eating.”

Mindful Me: “You know, you’re just going to feel like crap if you eat the whole thing.”

Willful Me: “I’m not listening, I’m not listening …”

Mindful Me: “Seriously, why don’t you just put the rest down and take it home.”

Willful Me: (suddenly taking faster bites): “But there’s really not enough left to take home.”

Mindful Me: “Then why don’t you just put down those last couple bites so you don’t stuff yourself and you can feel a bit better about this whole thing.”

Willful Me: (holding the last bite in front of my mouth): “But I WANT this burger!”

I’ll bet if you miked everyone’s minds at that burger joint you’d hear a lot of conversations that sound like this.

The problem is, we don’t have much experience in listening to our bodies and stopping when we’re full—much less 80% full. Instead, we’ve just re-engineered our food so that we can eat more and more and more of it (oh, I remember the glee when Snackwells would come out with a new cookie flavor). Or we’ll “lighten” something up with the implicit notion that we can eat more of it.

But that’s missing the point.

When we ignore our body’s cues for the sake of … MORE … we’re snubbing our nose at the complex, wonderful system that connects our brains to our tummies.

FYI, I did feel awful after eating that whole burger. I was nauseous and uncomfortable all night, and was mentally flogging myself with guilt (“what was I THINKING?”). But I had another experience with another burger a few months later that felt entirely different.

I cut the burger in half and luxuriated in every bite of the first half. Then I noticed myself starting to feel full. I waited for a few minutes, sipping my beer, and noticed that I continued to feel more full even without eating more. Sure, I was still eyeing that other half. But I remembered how it had felt when Willful Me had had her way last time and, finally, I pushed my plate away.

“I’m done,” I said.

“Aren’t you going to have any more?” Christopher asked?

“No,” I answered. “I’m done.”

I felt great. I felt respectful. I felt at peace.

I’m not saying I’ve mastered the territory struggle for that 20%, but I have learned a few battle lessons. Here’s what helps me stop when I’m 80% full:

  • If you’re at a restaurant and you’ve got a big plate of food, create a smaller portion of it for yourself somewhere on your plate. If you’re at home, start off with a smaller portion. Then let yourself enjoy it with abandon (no guilt allowed!) and less temptation to keep eating.
  • If you catch yourself having a conversation like mine above, try to deliberately subvert your Willful Self. Argue back (“you know what, YOU shut up!”). Throw in some hot buttons (“Fine … if you want to feel like a helium balloon all night, go ahead. I’ll bet you’ll feel great at the pool tomorrow too.”). Your Willful Self is not playing by the rules or being rational, so throw in some curve balls to take control away from her.
  • Know, KNOW that you are not saving any starving children by eating the second half of your burger. Yes, it’s probably going to go to waste. So next time, you find someone to share it with.
  • Take a break. When you start to feel not hungry, just hit the pause button for a few minutes. It will give you time to check in with how you feel and helps disengage the autopilot that your Willful Self may have you on.
  • When you’re feeling somewhere around 80%, DECLARE it. Say, out loud, to yourself and/or the table, “I’m done.” It’s powerful.
  • Don’t believe your Willful Self when she plays the card of “but if you don’t eat it all, you’ll be hungry again in an hour.” If you get hungry again in an hour, you can have a snack.

Give these a try and let me know if they work for you!

Comfort Food

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The weather is shifting from the hot, come-hither days of summer to the chilly slant of autumn and it seems everyone is craving comfort food. And maybe it’s not just because we’re heading indoors to flee the cold. Perhaps the “nostalgiancholy” that hits this time of year, where everything seems steeped in memories and somehow raw with emotion, is making us crave something richer, something more soulful.

comfort-food-post

I was getting a haircut recently when conversation turned to comfort food (between Kathleen, Deirdre and me in that salon, conversation often turns to food). We started with what to cook in a big, old Le Creuset . . . which led us to braised pork shoulder and various types of stews . . . which led to Kathleen’s method of roasting chicken in her Dutch oven.

“Roast chicken saved my life once,” Deirdre chimed in. Her gaze was distant. She, someone who loves to cook, went on to tell of the early days after a rough divorce when just gathering groceries leveled her, sparse as they were for one. So for a time she turned to frozen meals and convenience foods while the sorrow swept through.

And then, she roasted a chicken.

“It warmed the house up and made it smell like somebody lived there again,” Deirdre said. “It made me feel like things were OK, like I was OK.” Amazing how food has the power to do that; to wrap itself around us like a giant, ephemeral hug.

For all our talk of mac ‘n’ cheese and braises and pizza and soup, in Deirdre’s words, I heard the true meaning of comfort food.

My Kid in the Kitchen

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Moms ask me all the time if my daughter is a good eater, and I’m happy to say that she is. Part of the reason is that I put her to work in the kitchen (from an early age … see the video below). I’ve said before and I’ll say again that the more kids get involved with their food, the more likely they are to eat it. Here are a few ways that Noemi (4-1/2) and I cook together in the kitchen.

  • kid in the kitchenWe snap beans and peas together, and husk corn … often at the table outside or on our front stoop (I think God made front stoops as a place to husk corn and eat popsicles).
  • Noemi “zips” greens for me. She loves, loves, loves doing this and is so proud of what a great job she does.
  • She cuts soft vegetables and fruits like mushrooms and strawberries. I bought a couple of plastic serrated knives from Curious Chef a couple of years ago and we’ve never looked back. Noe puts a cutting board on her her little “stove,” picks up her knife and goes.
  • Noe loves pounding garlic in my mortar and pestle. Last night, as I was pulling together a pasta with zucchini and pesto, she perked up and asked if she could help out. So I put her to work on the pesto (what she’s not so fond of is mommy hopping up to get her camera and then making her hold a pose …).
  • A different season, but Noemi also loves getting pomegranate seeds out of the pod, and little things like rolling cheese in breadcrumbs and shaping mounds of dough.

The point is, the kitchen is a really fun place for kids if you invite them to do things that they can excel at and enjoy … no matter what their age. Start them young and your kids will become naturally curious towards food, rather than looking at it as something foisted upon them.

Last night after making her pesto, for instance, Noemi was enthusiastic about sitting down for dinner. And, yes, she did eat the zucchini.

 

Here We Go …

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WOW. This is my first post on our brand new, revamped site. I’m blushing from the momentousness of the occasion.

Even more exciting, though, is what’s ahead. First, though, let me tell you a bit about why we redesigned the site.

As many of you know, I launched NOURISH Evolution in 2009 because I wanted a place where we could explore that sweet spot where health and sustainability and enjoyment all intersect. Early on, I recruited Alison, my long-time editor at Cooking Light and dear friend, to be my right hand gal. And all was good.

Then, once NOURISH Evolution was rolling, quite a few people said to me, “you know, you’re so good at explaining all of this and making it easy to understand … what would you think of creating a coaching program to help people actually make the changes you’re talking about?” And that landed. Big time.

So I delved into the (total) unknown of creating a lesson plan and curriculum and worked like crazy to make My Nourish Mentor. At the time, it was a 6-month program that was divided into small groups that all came together for a weekly phone call (thank you to all the pilot testers and early adopters!!!). It was awesome. After spending almost a decade and a half writing articles and sending them out into the ether, here I was with a front-row seat watching people’s lives change because of what I was teaching them. There was no turning back.

A few months ago, I tweaked the My Nourish Mentor program to make it more accessible–changing it from 6-months to 12-weeks, making it more affordable, and moving it entirely online. I also started developing a full library of online e-courses called NOURISH-U. But … everything felt very disjointed in the Nourish world. NOURISH Evolution had our awesome articles and recipes that people had come to rely on, but My Nourish Mentor and NOURISH-U were like little orphans out in the cold. So Alison and I decided on a total redesign to bring them under the fold (plus a REALLY exciting new offering coming later this week).

Now, at last, I feel like NOURISH Evolution is all I want it to be — a place where you’re empowered to live and eat in a way that nourishes all of you … and your family, and your community, and our planet. I’m glad you’re here.

PS — Is there something you’d like to see on NOURISH Evolution? A topic on our blog, a course on NOURISH-U? Let me know–leave a comment here.

PPSS — If you haven’t already, please join us on Facebook; we’ve got a stellar community gathering over there!

Get Over the Guilt

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I came of age during the height of America’s low-fat craze; guilt is built into my circuitry. When I’d eat a virtuous meal of steamed veggies I’d end up feeling deprived, but if I dared add olive oil I’d be leveled by guilt. This deprivation-guilt cycle only intensified as I willed the numbers on the scale to drop; the more I obsessed over what was on my plate the more miserable I’d become until, finally, I’d fall off the see-saw and eat an excess of all the “bad” foods I’d been depriving myself of.

get over guiltBut I’ve learned it doesn’t have to be that way. And in My Nourish Mentor, others are learning it too. As one of them put it, “When I’m eating right, I don’t even want to eat the way I used to. I love that confidence and awareness in my eating.” Here’s how–and why–that happens. And it’s so simple it seems ridiculous. “Good foods” prepared in enticing ways can bring loads of pleasure and “bad foods”–if you’re talking foods like olive oil and chocolate anyway–really aren’t bad at all in reasonable portions.

For me, it was a combination of gaining a firm grasp of what certain foods were doing to my body–that olive oil helped regulate my cholesterol, for instance, and that refined starch sent my body through a tumultuous blood sugar spike without giving it anything to grow strong–and then deliberately taking my eye off the numbers and refocusing on enjoying what was on my plate.

Ironically, once I had that grounding embedded within me and stopped thinking so much, and instead just enjoyed myself, my weight actually dropped. Because what I wanted to eat had changed. And it’s not just me. The person I quoted above just mentioned this week that she’s lost 8 pounds, and another member 20, while on the program … and neither one have once felt deprived.

I’m not talking mindless binging, mind you. I’m talking about engaging with food as, well, food–not a conglomeration of nutrients and numbers and percentages that are destined to make us either miserable or fat or both. The bottom line is that our bodies know better than we think they do. And once we have a bit of a grounding in sound nutrition, we know better than we think we do.

So I challenge you to give yourself a break. See what it feels like to simply enjoy your meals. Notice how thinking about them as food instead of something sinful or healthy impacts what (and how much) you eat. Notice how it makes your body–and your mind–feel. And, sure, go ahead and check the scale. Now, that’s a mindful eating practice you’ll enjoy with every bite. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised by the results.

“Top Chef” Carla Hall Shares Her Recipe for Moderation

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I’m a “Top Chef” junkie, and one of my all-time favorite contestants is Washington, DC-based Chef Carla Hall. Where other contestants brought ego and attitude to the table, Hall always served up her own flavor of generous, spirited optimism. She consistently dazzled judges with her creative spin on nourishing fare, like a stellar vegan African Ground Nut Soup. The show’s viewers shared my affection for Hall and voted her the fan favorite in the recent “Top Chef: All-Stars.” And now she’s one of the favorite co-hosts on the popular ABC daytime series, “The Chew.”

carla hall

Hall originally wrote this blog post for her site and is letting us share it with you here. We think you’ll love her philosophy on healthy eating and why good nutrition, moderation and occasional indulgences all belong on the same plate.

Hootie-hoo!

By Carla Hall

The key to smart food choices starts with a healthy balance of nutritional foods that allow for some less nutritional foods in moderation. I personally have temptations and unhealthy foods that call my name from time to time. But in order to avoid the feelings of deprivation that can lead to weight gain, you must indulge.

Yes, indulge! Everyone needs to treat themselves from time to time for following a healthy and balanced lifestyle. But be sure to treat yourself in moderation. Know when enough is enough.

Here are some quick tips to help you eat the things you love without overindulging.

Pay attention to your body, and stop when you’ve had enough.

I love food, and I love to eat, and being a chef, I’m constantly around food. If I don’t pay attention to portion sizes and my body’s cues, I’ll keep eating and eating until the food is gone. Eating slowly helps me pace myself and allows my brain to catch up. Matthew [Hall’s husband] is constantly alerting me when I eat too fast.

Eat only when you’re hungry.

This can be difficult for most people. One great way to tell if you are really hungry or just being impulsive is to ask yourself: If the plate was full of broccoli would you still eat it? If you wouldn’t, then don’t reach for the treats that are tempting you.

Give in to your cravings from time to time.

If you have a sweet tooth, go ahead and eat a cookie. But only have one instead of two or three . . . or the whole plate. Easier said than done, I know. Eating in moderation requires training on your part. If you’re able to train yourself to give into cravings without binging, you’ll be able to enjoy the not-so-good foods from time to time.

Use your salad plates.

Studies have shown that using smaller plates at meal time will help you eat less. Another easy trick is to keep the serving dishes in the kitchen while you eat in the dining room. This forces you to get up and walk to the kitchen if you want more.

Everything in moderation leads to a happier, healthier life, as demonstrated in my approach to cooking natural and organic meals with Southern and French-inspired flair.

Beyond what you put in your mouth, regular exercise every day will help you add balance to your life. It’s a natural progression to watch what you eat if you have a consistent exercise regime. Those who have a balance of diet and exercise will ultimately reach total health and wellness faster than those who don’t.

Dayna Macy’s “Ravenous” Journey to a Healthy Weight

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Finding balance when it comes to food can be tricky, as Dayna Macy discovers in her new memoir, Ravenous: A Food Lover’s Journey from Obsession to Freedom (Hay House). For years, Macy wrestled with her weight, so she set out to untangle the emotional issues around food. Her journey included exploring the foods she found most seductive–sausage, chocolate, olives and cheese–visiting an organic farm, witnessing the slaughter of a steer, and returning to her childhood home.
Ultimately, Macy made peace with food and found her own comfortable, healthy weight. Today she feels better than ever while still enjoying the culinary abundance of Berkeley, Calif., where she lives with her husband and twin boys, and works as a managing editor at Yoga Journal.

Your diet seemed good to begin with–you’d eaten organic food for years and understood the source of your food better than most people. What was missing?

Even though I ate organic, sustainable food, I ate too much of it, so it’s possible to be a fat foodie. Knowledge about healthy food doesn’t necessarily equate a healthy relationship with it.

It’s not that I ate bad food. I simply ate too much for my body to sustain a healthy weight. When I started the journey of writing the book, I was a size 18.

I’m a feminist at root, and fat can be a feminist issue. It’s a health issue, too. I wasn’t happy to stay at that weight because I was experiencing health problems, especially as I headed toward 50.

What kind of health problems?

High cholesterol, high blood pressure, joint problems. As a yogini, I was having problems doing my practice, and I realized I was doing less and less yoga because it kept getting harder and harder.

You originally planned to conquer your trigger foods (chocolate, cheese, olives, etc.) by understanding them better, but it didn’t work out that way. Why not?

I thought I would go on this journey and there would be some kind of magical gift so I would appreciate my food, love my food and intuitively know how much I should eat and when I should eat it, and I would lose weight. That’s not what happened.

It did give me a much deeper appreciation for those foods that I would somewhat thoughtlessly eat before. I got a much deeper appreciation for the abundance of this planet and the hard work it takes to make these foods. It’s a beautiful thing.

So, I was a size 18, appreciating all this wonderful food and love and abundance, but I still hadn’t fundamentally changed. My journey was to find balance and make peace with my body. In my heart of hearts, I knew that balance meant losing weight.

What finally helped untangle your issues with food?

There were a few spiritual-emotional a-ha moments. One was the three-day fast, because I had all these ideas of what would happen, that didn’t, and then when the hunger did hit, it hit me mercilessly.

How did you react?

With complete anxiety. I realized that what I’d been running from was anxiety and fear. But because I’d made this commitment–and a commitment to write about it–I didn’t run from it. I had sky-high cravings for a very specific salami that’s made in the Bay Area. I’m not sure that if I hadn’t made this very public commitment I would have withstood it. I might have given in.

What I noticed was one of these very basic Buddhist teachings, which is that everything passes. Things change. You can know these things intellectually, but it doesn’t mean you understand them on a physical, soul level.

Then there was the nutritionist who called you fat…

She didn’t mean it meanly at all. It was accurate. It was the beginning of what I call “clear seeing.” There’s a lot of wishful thinking around food and body image and weight. Women have an extra burden–aging women have an even bigger burden. We want to still be seen and beautiful. There’s a lot of anxiety and fear around that.

Being called fat–I think was ready to hear it from a kind, trusted source.

Ultimately, portion control and keeping track of what you eat were the keys to finding your comfortable weight. Those are tried-and-true diet strategies. So–and I’m just playing devil’s advocate here–why didn’t you start with that?

I’m a rebel by nature. If someone gives me the “D” word–diet–I’ll tell them to take a hike. I thought portion control reeked of “diet.”I thought I could outsmart it.

There are all kinds of ways to lose weight, but I realized it was my portions. I started doing portion control and decided to make it a practice. I realized that measuring could, for me be a mindfulness practice.

I discovered that boundaries and limits are very freeing. I didn’t see that at the beginning. There was a sense of entitlement–I’m a food writer!–and the whole thing had to be reframed. Now, if I make room for that bread and cambozola in my day, and I account for it, you bet I’m going to enjoy every bite.

I had to do the work–I couldn’t take any shortcuts. I measure my food every day, and I record it. It’s been very powerful for me.

Have you found the balance you craved?

Now I’m a size 12. Some people will think that’s average, some people will think I’m thin. Others will think I’m fat and everything in between. Without being really ill, I’ll never be a size 6.

The most important thing is that I feel strong, I feel healthy, my yoga practice is kicking butt. The poses that had been off limits to me–my inversions, twists, all that stuff–are coming back into my practice, and that’s really joyful. And I’m 50!