July Newsletter

Celebrating the Sensuousness of Everyday Life

It’s grey, damp and chilly outside, but leafing through Sarah Ban Breathnach’s lovely thick (560 pages) book Romancing the Ordinary (Simon & Schuster, 2004), is a warm and cosy experience. Some of you will be familiar with her writing style from her Simple Abundance books. 

I’d already decided what this newsletter was to be about, but I’m feeling obliged to set that aside to say something about this book — or more particularly, its subject matter.

Bizarrely, Romancing the Ordinary came about after the author was injured by a panel that fell from a restaurant ceiling and hit her on the head. For months she couldn’t speak, see, hear, taste, touch or smell properly. Like the rest of us, she took her senses for granted, until she didn’t have them.

As they slowly returned, she wrote the book as a celebration of the sensuousness of everyday life. She explores the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures of each month of the year, taking us on a journey that includes music, wine, cheese, chocolate, perfume, the ocean, hats, velvet, pearls, freshly-laundered linen, and doing nothing. But mostly this book is about women’s self-care.

Here are some snippets.

• Amid the bustle of everyday, especially when one constantly needs to satisfy others, it is easy to literally lose sight of one’s own physical presence. You owe it to yourself to feel attractive. 
• Women trust and act upon their instincts when it concerns their children’s well-being, but then shut down their sense of knowing when it’s about their own needs.
• Well-being isn’t about the mind or body but the soul. Well-being is about how well you feel about being you. Your sense of well-being is enhanced when you begin to honour your spiritual sense of intuition….
• Do you really taste or just eat…..? ‘Any time we eat it’s holy,’ M.F.K. Fisher reminds us. ‘We should have ritual and ceremony, not just gobbling down some food to keep us alive.’
• Pleasure and self-nurturing are profoundly important to our health and well-being, but sometimes we need reminding of that… excuse me while I put away the to-do list and go spoil myself with a massage.

More Books...

Since we’ve started on a book theme, let’s keep going.

Fit and Firm Forever by Paula Goodyer, Ebury Press (2009) ‘Stay toned, lean & vibrant through menopause and beyond’

Paula Goodyer is a Sydney journalist in her 60s, and I love that she’s promoting exercise for women in peri- and post-menopause. She also uses some amusing descriptions. As we age, she says, we become either matronly or scrawny. Replacing the muscle we have lost makes us lean enough to avoid being matronly but with enough stuffing to not look like an old chook!

What’s disappointing is that she largely dishes up the same dated information you can find in most women’s magazines. For instance, she tells us to keep our ‘abs tight at all times’ and many of us have poorly functioning abdominal and pelvic muscles through years of doing just that.

While some of her dietary material is good (e.g. on equipment for the kitchen, making preparation easier, and eating healthier at work), most of it is run-of-the-mill and some misses the mark (such as her recommendation to cook with olive oil — actually, it doesn’t handle heat terribly well, so stick to using it on your salad).

I applaud that towards the end she challenges us to think about how well our lifestyle is preparing us for life as an older woman, but on the whole, you won’t find anything new here. (PS. I’ve actually been quoted in this book, but that’s in the section on motivation and attitude.)

Your Pelvic Flaw by Mary O’Dwyer, Redsok Publishing (2008)

Mary O’Dwyer is a physiotherapist from the Sunshine Coast and she’s written an excellent little book on pelvic floor health. If you’re thinking that you already know about all that, listen up. Most of us don’t.

Our pelvic floor is linked with our deep abdominal muscles, and unless we can use these well, we’ll have a bulging tummy, poor posture and be at risk of injury. Unfortunately, most of us have developed faulty movement patterns from doing incorrect exercise or we’ve simply never learned to activate these muscles. This is especially problematic if we’ve had a prolapse or a loss of continence, and hormonal changes around menopause can add to continence problems. ‘Use it or lose it’ applies to all muscles, including these.

Normally this book sells for $25, but Ina, who works from the same building as Fit and Well, has permission to sell them for $20. If I had my way they’d be compulsory reading for every woman. Let me know if you’d like one.

Win a Free Fridge & Pantry Overhaul and Shopping Trip

Next month I’m offering to help you revamp the contents of your fridge and pantry (i.e. ditch the things that deserve to be ditched), and take you shopping for the foods you need to keep you well and healthy. For free! Just send me an email letting me know why you’d love to do this, and the most compelling one will be the winner.

Fit and Well Products & Services

The Midlife Shape-Up and New Woman programs are up and running, but I’m still looking for women to join the New Woman Group. It’s a great opportunity for anyone ready to transform their health, their energy, and their lives over a three month period. For more information, click here.

Managing Midlife Weight Gain – the Seminar

Being overweight in middle-age may be common, but it’s not compulsory. And even a modest reduction in weight makes a statistical difference to our risk of diseases such as breast cancer, diabetes and heart disease. While many women try to lose those extra kilos, few succeed. So forget dieting and calorie counting — at this seminar I want to give you some new insights into the subject and transform the way you think about food, weight, and you.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn:

• Sources of midlife weight gain
• Why ‘eat less and exercise more’ may not be good advice
• What hormones have to do with it
• Why one-size-fits-all solutions don’t work, and
• How to make changes that last a lifetime.

Up-to-date information, free articles, and a take-home shopping list, plus a delicious lunch that will illustrate what you’re learning.

Saturday 29 August, 10.00am-4.00pm. 32 Finsbury Street, Newmarket

The cost is an affordable $99. Registrations close Saturday 22 August.

To register, click here.

Until next time...



Dr Rhonda Anderson

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