For some years I've been interested in organic gardening, particularly permaculture. Recently I've taken a deeper dive into this method of 'natural' farming within which is embedded a deep reverence for, and trust of nature. And I've realised that permaculture has some uncanny parallels to the non-diet approach and Health at Every Size movement I am so passionate about in my clinical practice. For the last 7 or so years I've been working with people with weight, food and body image concerns, from wanting to lose a couple of kilograms to life threatening eating disorders.

One of the greatest teachers of this method of farming is Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One-Straw Revolution. In this book Fukuoka describes his discovery of "do nothing" farming, where he creates situations where nature will do the work with the minimum of interference on his part.

So instead of spending hours ploughing the soil or spending money on adding chemical fertilisers to his crops, he simply chucks the rice straw back on the ground after harvesting it and scatters chook poo over it. Occasionally he sows clover to use as a green manure.

​And that's pretty much it.

And rather than seeing everything turn into a wilderness and watching helplessly as the prickles take over, Fukuoka actually equals the yield of farms that have had these modern high intervention inputs applied to them, with a fraction of the investment of labour and resources.
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Of course by "healthy weight" I don't mean what the BMI deems healthy. I adopt Dr. Rick Kausman's description of your healthiest weight being the most comfortable, natural weight for you - the weight your body naturally arrives at and maintains when we provide the right "soil" (see number 2). So here's what I gathered together in my current understanding of permaculture principles and my more deeply rooted understanding of HAES and the non-diet approach. The biggest parallels between permaculture, and the non-diet approach and HAES as roads to body peace, are:

​In Chinese medicine Spring is associated with the element Wood. The energy of new growth and germination marks this season, and here in SE Queensland new plant life is springing up all around us. This is my favourite time of the year for urban foraging and wildcrafting edible weeds.

The meridian that corresponds with the wood element is the liver / gallbladder meridian. Wood element within us governs our sense of vision, the emotion of anger, and the sound of shouting. Wood energy can aggravate the mind by allowing pressure to build (like a seed germinating), propelling us forward into creating, planning and working. 

Wood element is about us having purpose and vision in our lives, our planning ability. Type A personalities this is the time to be careful to keep your perfectionist / overworking tendencies in check! (talking to myself here - I’ve taken on WAY too much work lately resulting in thoughtless shortcuts, frustrating setbacks and angry outbursts, and I now need to reassess my workload. AGAIN!)

​When vision is stifled, we feel that anger and frustration and want to shout, and at the right time and place we can and should shout. Anger is an energy that needs space and if pent up that pressure can become dangerous.
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Do you dread high pollen count days? Is spring a season of antihistamine overload, soggy tissues, and hiding indoors? Treating seasonal allergies naturally is straight forward with the right know-how.

The sleeping earth of winter is re-awakening, spring is well and truly here, and nature heralds her return. We feel an extraordinary push for life and movement within our own bodies, and we see it in the natural world. And with our own blossoming comes that of the beautiful plant world: so many, pollen-producing, allergenic plants!

The glorious feeling of taking that first breath of crisp, early spring air might be somewhat stifled if you’re one of many sufferers of seasonal allergies. All those pollens and animal hair can set off your allergic rhinitis, a fancy way of saying hay fever. Worse still: when your allergies trigger your asthma!
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I've waxed lyrical about my disdain for the commodification of yoga and how until very recently, it drove me away from yoga for nearly two years. You can read me being all anti-mainstream yoga Ranty McRantus, here.

But the other big reason I quit yoga was this: ​after I gave birth to my first child, my personal yoga practice was feeling spiritually unfulfilling. And physically depleting as hell. 

Following Archie's birth, the yoga I knew and loved - the dynamic, acrobatic, energetic practice full of dance and strong postures, inversions and fast flow - it just no longer... worked. It was not giving me the vitality, peace and stillness it once did.
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It has taken many painful mistakes, a near-complete abstinence from yoga for a time, and a rediscovery of yoga at a deeper level for me to come out the other side. Here's what happened after I had my first baby, and how you can avoid making the same mistakes I did.
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I've taken the last year and a half off teaching yoga. Some people assume I've just continued to teach and are mildly surprised when I tell them I'm not actually teaching. Others have noticed my absence and have been asking me when I'll start teaching again.

I know I've been especially missed by the (wonderful) AcroYoga community on the Gold Coast. ​The last yoga event I lead was a couples restorative AcroYoga workshop over 18 months ago. It was a gorgeous workshop and fully booked out. The people who attended were super sweet and provided such encouraging feedback. The staff at the host studio were incredibly helpful, down to earth and lovely. And I had a fantastic time teaching it.

​I receive near-weekly emails from curious newbies asking when I'll be teaching my next Acro workshop or class. I politely turn them away and direct them instead to other teachers.

The best reason I can come up with for my absence from the yoga world?

I just haven't felt like teaching yoga.

And more to the point, up until recently I have pretty much taken the last year and a half off from practising yoga.

Yep. No personal practice, besides the odd yoga class every few months, and some meditation in between looking after a newborn who is now a toddler (i.e. extremely sporadic meditation). My preferred form of movement switched from pre-baby trail running, daily vinyasa riddled with handstands and AcroYoga... to walking, reformer pilates and strength training to prepare for and recover from childbirth, and to build the strength I need to haul a toddler around without putting my back out.

I QUIT YOGA. Turned my back on it almost completely. After over a decade of reasonably dedicated practice and nearly as long teaching.

Why?

Basically, two reasons:

1. Once I gave birth to my first child (and probably a bit before that), the personal yoga practice I knew and loved - the dynamic, dance-like, acrobatic, yang-centred practice that is so celebrated in modern yoga culture - suddenly felt like total shit.

2. I had a gutful of how wanky it had all become.
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I have a question for you.

Which one factor is absolutely fundamental to women having a healthy sex drive?

Is it having "the ideal body", which we're convinced will make us the desire of every man?
Is it owning and wearing the most exquisite lingerie you can buy?
Is it being a yogi - gymnast so you can act out the entire Kamasutra without breaking a sweat?
Is it re-training your brain to think, breathe and live sex by mulling over your sexual fantasies and doing libido-boosting visualisations daily?
Is it having a sexually adventurous, Samantha Jones-esque personality and not being afraid to search sex shops far and wide for the latest and greatest toys?
Is it being comfortable with and well-practised at masturbation so you're familiar with what your body likes?
Is it being assertive and vocal in bed, and being able to confidently ask for what you want?

It's NONE of these. Whilst some of these are important ingredients to a healthy sex life, there's a HUGELY fundamental sex drive-promoting necessity that's glaringly absent from this list.

The most important thing you can do as far as your desire for sex goes?

It's having enough fat on your body.

Yep, having enough or ample fat, not as little fat as possible.

​If, like most women, you're weight loss dieting... if you're partly starving and/or overexercising your body to get down to or maintain the levels of body fat approaching that of fitness and fashion models (the official body type desired by the average woman in our culture because we think it will buy sexuality)... 

... then your fertility, your sexual desire, your fitness, your energy levels, and of course your overall health, will actually suffer.

​And without these things, even the most dedicated Kamasutra practitioner, sex toy aficionada, "perfect" figured gym-bunny, or modern woman with sex communication skills of steel will not be able to get it on... let alone get off.

Do you watch what you eat?

Do you spend all day thinking about and planning your meals?
​Are you "careful" with your food choices?
Do you have rules and judgement around food?
Do you try to make the "best" or "healthiest" decision every time you eat something?
Do you struggle with weight concern, emotional eating, binging, and/or food obsession?

If so, you might want to take a look at your personal diet mentality.

Diet mentality, or diet thinking, leads to dieting behaviours. And dieting behaviours build a cage around a person that places serious limits on their capacity to live and enjoy a rich, full, and meaningful life.
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​If there was ever an opportune time for us as individuals to slay our own private diet mentalities and weight biases - and for us to collectively dismantle the very diet culture that it stands upon - NOW is the time.

The next new moon falls on Wednesday, April 26th. This mid-autumn moon cycle is known in many parts of the world as the Blood Moon or Hunter's Moon. And it is the perfect time for you to put this diet thing to bed, for good.

Read on for 7 hard-core (but realistic) ways to slay that MF beast that is the diet mentality!