Post by SusieQ on Apr 18, 2005 15:54:56 GMT -5
Some of you may already know that I grow an organic kitchen garden each year. My usual crops include lettuces, tomatoes, zucchini, Romano and green beans, peppers, winter squashes, a couple of pumpkins and melons, and herbs of all sorts.
Today, I was doing a basic but critical task: I was hauling the rich, dark humus from last year's compost heap from its bin in a a far corner of the yard to my still-bare raised vegetable beds. And as I was doing it, I was thinking about how lessons from garden apply to weight loss.
Every gardener knows that good vegetables - high quality, high volume yields - start with the soil. And what do organic gardeners do to make good soil? We take organic trash - grass clippings, fallen leaves from autumn, and kitchen waste - and turn it into garden gold.
And what do successful weight watchers do? The same thing! We take our mistakes, our days off program, our struggles, our problems, our challenges - and we mull over them, letting them dwell in our consciousness until we have learned what we have to learn. And then we turn those lessons into new behaviors, and voila! We get results.
And later in the garden's season, there will be weeds. Plenty of em! What do I do? I pull 'em by hand. I rake 'em out. I hoe between the vegetables. I put organic mulches down that will in turn, nourish the soil. I don't ignore the weeds, and hope they'll go away by themselves. I don't yell at them. I don't curse them. I just patiently, patiently deal with them, one at a time, a little bit every day. And so, I get more vegetables than weeds.
Weight-watching problems are like weeds. Bad habits are like weeds. Every garden gets few now and then. It doesn't pay to act surprised. But just as in a garden, one must deal with those weeds, those bad habits, those challenges. Every day. A little bit at a time. Until one day, you realize that you're more successful than not!
And of course, we gardeners respect the seasons. Winter is a time to let the garden rest. You can't grow good lettuce in full sun at the peak of summer. It like it a little cooler, so I plan for lettuce to grow beneath the tall beanstalks in July and August. Some months, it's just easier to lose weight than others. Respect the seasons of your own evolution. Work with what's going on in your life. Just never, ever, neglect your garden. Never stop taking care of yourself.
So tell me, how does your garden grow?
Susie
Today, I was doing a basic but critical task: I was hauling the rich, dark humus from last year's compost heap from its bin in a a far corner of the yard to my still-bare raised vegetable beds. And as I was doing it, I was thinking about how lessons from garden apply to weight loss.
Every gardener knows that good vegetables - high quality, high volume yields - start with the soil. And what do organic gardeners do to make good soil? We take organic trash - grass clippings, fallen leaves from autumn, and kitchen waste - and turn it into garden gold.
And what do successful weight watchers do? The same thing! We take our mistakes, our days off program, our struggles, our problems, our challenges - and we mull over them, letting them dwell in our consciousness until we have learned what we have to learn. And then we turn those lessons into new behaviors, and voila! We get results.
And later in the garden's season, there will be weeds. Plenty of em! What do I do? I pull 'em by hand. I rake 'em out. I hoe between the vegetables. I put organic mulches down that will in turn, nourish the soil. I don't ignore the weeds, and hope they'll go away by themselves. I don't yell at them. I don't curse them. I just patiently, patiently deal with them, one at a time, a little bit every day. And so, I get more vegetables than weeds.
Weight-watching problems are like weeds. Bad habits are like weeds. Every garden gets few now and then. It doesn't pay to act surprised. But just as in a garden, one must deal with those weeds, those bad habits, those challenges. Every day. A little bit at a time. Until one day, you realize that you're more successful than not!
And of course, we gardeners respect the seasons. Winter is a time to let the garden rest. You can't grow good lettuce in full sun at the peak of summer. It like it a little cooler, so I plan for lettuce to grow beneath the tall beanstalks in July and August. Some months, it's just easier to lose weight than others. Respect the seasons of your own evolution. Work with what's going on in your life. Just never, ever, neglect your garden. Never stop taking care of yourself.
So tell me, how does your garden grow?
Susie