One thing you should look out for in a nutritionist is someone who likes to eat. Far too often I meet nutritionists who seem to follow a textbook with everything they put in their mouths. They clearly know what’s good for them, but if they don’t ever tamper with what’s bad for them, I don’t see a future for us.
I can’t take advice from someone who thinks I’m going to follow a regimen of any kind. I’m an anarchist by nature and when it comes to eating, I need to be able to break the rules.
That’s why I love Sally. She invents her own rules. She made a successful passion-based career for herself while raising and supporting two kids on her own. She has excelled in the study of esoteric healing practices and incorporates them into her sessions with high powered clients. She sent her children to a conservative Hebrew school and raised them to be comfortable with all waves of creativity…so a few years ago when her daughter Jade sang and danced in a sexy burlesque troupe with a menorah strapped to her head, we were all there to cheer her on.
Most admirably, at 57, an age when many women have long given up on hopes of romance, Sally met the love of her life, travels all over the world with him, and enjoys a sex life most people half her age would envy. This is someone I want to teach me how to EAT!
In fact Sally has been teaching me how to eat for almost 15 years now. I saw her when I was a recent college grad, new to the work-world and suffering from allergies and exhaustion on all levels. She put me on a strict clean-eating path and explained to me what I uniquely needed and why. I followed it to the “T”. But when my boarding school friend got married and I asked Sally if I could splurge with a cocktail at the wedding, she not only told me I could, she told me I should! “It’s good for your personality.” And with that she described a clean cocktail that I still drink to this day. (See Needless to say, and with no fault to Sally, that night of the wedding cocktail led to the rekindling of a nagging cigarette habit, many more drunken nights and a dive into the abyss of junky eating. When I finally had the courage to tell Sally of my downfall, she embraced me with loving kindness, pronouncedly different from the ridicule most other older Jewish women had shown me in my life when I screwed something up. The time for the strict diet had come to an end. Now it was time for balance, she explained to me.
This dessert epitomizes the balance that Sally was speaking of. It quenches deep yearning for a filling indulgence and yet only uses ingredients that are good for our bodies, even sensitive ones like mine. It’s good enough for even the best dinner parties and healthy enough to binge on by yourself every once in awhile.
My last post was written in collaboration with Sally and I included her contact information there. She sees clients in New York, Los Angeles and by phone. To learn more visit “>mealandaspiel.com.
