Health, Wellness, and Weight Control
In the last 10-15 years, our understanding of the role of plants and some fatty acids in providing resilience to life-threatening ailments, has grown exponentially. There is no doubt about it. The food we eat plays a major role in our well-being. While health is often thought of as the absence of disease, with a predominant focus on the physical, wellness reflects an optimal state characterized by abundance and focuses on the physical, mental, and psycho-emotional domains in a holistic fashion that recognizes the synthesis of the parts is often more effective than their sum.
HEALTHIf you are interested in addressing health issues strictly from a nutritional perspective, We’re Cooking Now provides classes in vegetarian and vegan cooking and in learning the techniques of healthy recipe makeovers. These classes present an opportunity to maximize nutrition and taste along lines you and your family already enjoy. Recipe makeovers start by evaluating the formula for family favorites with an eye towards increasing vegetables and fruits, reducing total fat, replacing sodium with spices, switching whole grains for refined ones, substituting oils for fats, decreasing concentrated sweets, and lessening the calorie density of foods. These classes are particularly beneficial for those challenged by diabetes and high blood pressure. As in all We’re Cooking Now classes, you will learn the techniques of sanitation and proper food storage to reduce the spread of germs and keep your food safe.
WELLNESS
If you desire something more, We’re Cooking Now can assist you in creating an individualized wellness experience through personal coaching, strengthening your social network, meditation, exercise, learning to cope with anger and stress, adopting a positive focus that eschews guilt and blame, and practicing mind-body disciplines in conjunction with your choice of cooking classes. The wellness approach can be delivered in one-on-one or group formats and provides effective strategies for increasing recovery from heart disease.
WEIGHT CONTROLWeight control offers an exceptional opportunity to enhance personal growth. Because behaviors such as feasting in preparation for possible famine, preferring fats as energy-rich food sources, and selecting sweets because they indicate edible food have been selected over millions of years of evolution, they are hard-wired into our biological makeup. The advantage they conferred at a time when food was scarce, has become a liability at a time when food is everywhere. Because they are hard-wired, they are socially ingrained and largely unconscious. Learning to moderate them presents a perfect opportunity to enhance personal growth by directing us to become more conscious of our behavior.
In addition to practices studied in wellness classes, weight control programs look at how our culture impedes weight control, the role of personal responsibility in creating the life we want, reprogramming your mind, portion control, emotional factors in unconscious eating, goal setting, the role of the media, uncovering the beautiful and sexy you, and much more. Offered in two formats, Total Weight Management and Grow Yourself Thin, the programs are most effective when taken in a group setting where members can develop strong bonds of mutual support. Either approach, however, is offered on an individual basis for those whose schedule does not permit program attendance. Personal coaching is also available to supplement group learning.
Total Weight Management explores all the strategies that have proven effective in weight control, so you can structure an approach that works for you. Grow Yourself Thin explores the same strategies with the same goal of crafting a personal approach, but mandates accountability. For example, students begin Grow Yourself Thin classes with a weekly weigh-in. The ultimate goal in both programs is to make weight control part of an overall healthy lifestyle where you intuitively avoid behaviors that do not support your health.
Because of the over availability of food and the personal nature of body size, student success in weight control rests, in part, on success modeled by the teacher. Would you trust someone to teach you about weight control who is overweight him or herself? Overweight as an adolescent, Rafe’s weight vacillated throughout his adult life until spring 1992. Since that time he has maintained a weight loss of 70 pounds as well as lowered his cholesterol almost 100 points. Having experienced the ostracism our culture heaps on the overweight, he can identify with your struggles while motivating you to success. As successful weight control is a lifestyle adjustment, his personal success and continued focus on healthy behaviors will inspire your own accomplishments.
As part of his weight control strategies, Rafe developed the concept of superfoods. These are recipes that are at such a high level of nutritional completeness, that, to some extent, they act as antidotes to the unhealthy food that is more commonly available in our culture. His recipe for breakfast porridge was largely responsible for lowering his cholesterol by 70 points in two months. Veggie Shake, another superfood recipe made from a blend of selected whole fruits and vegetables, facilitates adding all the nutrition of vegetables and fruits to the typical American diet in a quick and easy low fat shake.
FOOD and DIVERSITY
Ethnic identification is based, in part, on adhering to cultural food practices. Where traditional recipes rely on large amounts of meat, animal fats, or refined grains, changing habits to encourage healthy eating requires more than just recipe makeovers. Techniques We’re Cooking Now uses to influence behavior change in this area include one-on-one and group discussions on topics of health and identity, directed writing sessions to explore personal beliefs, and goal setting to institute small but consistent changes.
Another powerful technique rests on returning to a diet based on pre-conquest foods. Many ethnic groups have a lost tradition of eating based on an abundant use of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains as well as herbs, spices, and chilies. Maximizing these foods in place of recipes high in animal fats, meat, or concentrated sugars holds out the promise of maintaining ethnic identity along lines of pre-conquest eating. This approach has the added benefit of encouraging more holistic value systems that benefit well-being in many ways. In the case of American Indians, Hawaiians, and the indigenous people of Mexico, returning to pre-conquest diets has been successful in slowing the rate of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
LOW INCOME and FOOD ALLERGIESBecause of the central role food can play in health and because many from low-income backgrounds have limited access to health insurance, learning to prepare and eat healthier food holds out the promise of maximizing health and increasing life span. We’re Cooking Now has developed an approach specifically for working with low income populations. The approach combines group work with learning the techniques of recipe makeovers and with learning how to increase member’s capacity to more effectively address food system issues in their community. From addressing school boards in order to prevent junk food in schools to supporting community gardens in order to increase the supply of fresh, organic food as well as providing an outlet for exercise, this approach holds out the promise of radically altering the perceptions of those with low incomes to control the factors leading to health and longevity.
Creating new approaches to eating because of food allergies is another way that We’re Cooking Now employs recipe makeovers. Formulas that avoid gluten and other allergens like nuts or dairy while satisfying taste are increasingly in demand. Rafe also studies the theories behind and benefits of Macrobiotic, Raw Food, and Alkalinizing diets.
“Mom’s After Six thanks you for your…knowledge regarding nutrition. You are one of the most interesting and informative people I have met! You have definitely had an impact on…the group. I have changed a few habits and it is paying off!”
-Paula Hanson Coordinator, Mom’s After Six
“Shelley - I was in attendance at your Sunday cooking demo with Rafe and I want to compliment both of you on your promotion of infection control. As a practicing, certified, infection control practitioner (ICP), I want both of you to know the value of your endorsement of hand washing and surface disinfection. I was really impressed when you discussed emerging pathogens and the use of the alcohol gel hand products. Maybe we could make you both honorary ICPs. You did a fine job of conveying an important message.”
-Jeannie Druckenmiller, CIC, Garden Expo Seminar Coordinator
Copyright 2004 Rafe Montello. All rights reserved.