Life is a buffet
Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 224 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Let’s talk about food, shall we? Just kidding…but I do think that’s a popular subject! And where better to find food than on a buffet? I didn’t think buffets would survive Covid but they did…
Growing up we used to go to Shoney’s restaurant. Anyone else remember Shoneys? It may have just been a southern thing. Anyway, I remember it well, right on Poplar close to downtown Memphis. We would eat there when we were in town for our conventions. This buffet was huge, or it seemed like it to me at the time. And You could choose anything you wanted and however much you wanted. As a kid I would veer more towards the macaroni and cheese and the dessert section with the chocolate pudding that had chocolate chips in it. So yummy. Of course my mom would step in and correct all of that.
As I became an adult, I was able to make my own decisions.
And as an adult you get to decide…we were recently in Mexico and wow they had a beautiful display of food with gorgeous colors with fruits and vegetables and all sorts of fish and yummy options. That’s what I veer towards now, but while I was there, I started a new thing of having a salad with my omelet, it kept me full longer because I was getting nutrients. Now I tried it because having such a beautiful salad display on a breakfast buffet made me think eating a salad for breakfast was possible. I hadn’t really thought of it.
I hadn’t really ever tried to eat a salad at breakfast because well, my brain told me it just isn’t a breakfast food, but because it was on the buffet in the morning, my brain was like, Hey, it might taste good to have a salad with my omelet for breakfast. Who decides what’s breakfast food anyway? It kind of jolted my brain a little bit and I liked it. Our brains like patterns and familiarity, so often we go to the same thing over and over again. Now, I don’t eat a salad at breakfast back home, but I make it a goal to eat a big salad every day with lots of colors and oil and vinegar all because I tried something new, life is that way too.
Being open to trying something new opens up all kinds of doors. Are you switching things up? Is there anywhere where you’re jolting your brain? I also now eat an omelet for lunch a few times a week because my brain is no longer limiting my food selection to certain times of day.
Our brains impose limits that aren’t real all the time! I know you’ve heard the story about the circus elephant but it’s worth repeating. A young boy was walking by the circus elephant tent and he saw that the elephants had a little bitty rope holding them to the tree. He asked the trainer standing there, aren’t you worried that the elephant could easily break that rope and go free? The trainer said “He most certainly could easily break that rope, but he won’t. You see since he was a baby elephant he’s been tied with that rope. He used to try to break it for a while when he was young and eventually gave up, but now that he is big enough to break free, he won’t even try. Where is your brain telling you you have limits when you really don’t?
You can eat a salad for breakfast or an omelet for dinner if you want, you just have to know it’s possible. When I was in high school my English teacher pulled me aside and said Heidi, you should be going to college you’re too smart not to. I looked at her and said that is not even an option for me. Of course it was, I just had the belief it wasn’t.
Now on that buffet in Mexico there were also all kinds of foods with Dairy and gluten and sugar and all the things I’ve cut out of my diet. I didn’t get mad at them because they were there or rage at the restaurant for having them there, I just didn’t focus on it and guess what? It wasn’t a big deal, yes every once in a while I would glance that way and think, man I would love to eat that but ultimately I know it’s not good for my body so I mostly ignored it. If I kept focusing on it and thinking about it, eventually I would have eaten it. It wasn’t a problem and it wasn’t a problem that other people were eating it either.
Are there places in your life where you are angry about things you see and you’re focusing on it but maybe would be better just ignored? Maybe it’s the news, or maybe it’s someone on social media that just gets you so frustrated. Would it be easier to just ignore it than rage at it? Are you focusing on something too much and it is getting in the way of your goals? Distractions are a big problem right now and just like on a food buffet, there are LOTS of opportunities to get distracted, I could easily have gotten sidetracked big time if I kept focusing on the pancakes or the homemade bread section. We can easily get distracted from our goals if we are constantly distracted by Netflix, the news or what Karen is posting on Facebook that has us super mad this week. Would we be better off ignoring it? I mean It’s there, it’s on the buffet, we can easily partake of it but just because it’s an option doesn’t mean it’s a good one. Where is our time better spent filling our plate with the distractions of life or filling our plate with tools that help us reach our goals?
And sometimes just like a buffet, we fill our plates too full. In life that’s easy to do, isn’t it? Balance of the food we put on our plate is important and so is the balance of the life we live. There are different takes on how your food should be divided on your plate..how much protein, how many good fats, how many vegetables, it is actually exhausting how many opinions are out there because how do you know what’s right for you? Well I can tell you this, you don’t know by looking at what others are doing because what’s working for them may not work for us, I was listening to a podcast where a girl was living strictly to a keto diet and put on weight, it wasn’t right for her body, we so often look at other peoples life to tell us how we should be living ours when it’s not a one size fits all deal…. We are all unique and just because it’s working for someone else doesn’t mean it’s right for us, remember that. And on the flip side, just because it’s not working for someone else, doesn’t mean it’s not going to work for you!
So in the buffet of life, remember…Think outside the box, salad can be breakfast food…what limitations are you putting on yourself just because society says it should be a certain way? And there’s A LOT of variety on the buffet, but you don’t have to focus on the food you can’t eat or the food you don’t like, just ignore it…Focusing on the wrong things will alter your outcomes and probably not for the good. And finally, don’t overwhelm yourself with too much on your plate…It’s good to find balance and your plate may not look like anyone else’s plate and that is exactly what makes life so exciting.
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