This week, I read Jancee Dunn’s thoughts on a new book, which is titled The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly. The author, Margareta Magnusson, has written previously about “death cleaning,” which is a little less grim than it sounds. Basically, it’s the practice of clearing away unnecessary belongings, so that nobody will be tasked with doing it after you’ve passed away. The idea is to reduce burdens, both physical and literal, so that you can grow older unencumbered. I’m excited to actually read…

I often encourage my nutrition clients to stay a few steps ahead of their hunger. Don’t wait to become hangry before you eat, I say. Instead, grab a snack or have a good meal when your body is requesting food, not begging and screaming for it. This of course involves some practice in getting attuned to one’s body and its feedback, learning to observe the rise and fall and patterns of one’s hunger. If you’ve had an eating disorder for a long time,…

I lead a recovery support group each week on Wednesdays. This week, the topic of fear came up, which led us into the topic of worry. Basically, we talked about the fact that eating disorders often provide us with a means of escaping our fears and worries. In obsessing continually about the specifics of what and how we eat, it can be possible to avoid, at least temporarily, having to contend with our deeper, scarier, and possibly more unconscious fears. In recovery, the…

I’ve mentioned a few times now that it’s taken me a while to get my place set up. But I haven’t elaborated on what that means. It means that I just finally got a TV a few days ago, which is what made me think to write this post today. There are still some unpacked boxes in corners, and I haven’t hung a single thing on a wall. I’m probably 70% of the way toward figuring out kitchen storage, but I’m not there…

On Tuesday night, my mom and I went to see a revival of The Music Man that’s on Broadway, starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. This alone was something to celebrate, because for the few days before the performance, we weren’t sure that we could make it. My mom’s flu had been lingering, as flu often is, and we weren’t sure she’d be up to it. It was also the first Broadway show we’d seen together—something that we love doing as mother and…