I’m a good candidate for any of several Suppers meetings. The Suppers community offers me meetings for parents who want to get their families to eat better, meetings where we just enjoy preparing delicious foods together, meetings for stable blood sugar and meetings for weight loss strategies.

The people at my meeting encouraged me to share my story because sometimes it really is important to slow down and get well at a manageable pace. Much as I would love to have another 30 pounds off, I decided to take a break at 20 pounds and enjoy where I am. I decided to smell the roses. I’m sitting with the sense of gratitude I feel for the support I’ve received. If I rush ahead with more weight loss goals, I think my body will interpret the haste as, “I’m not good enough today”. But I really do feel I am good enough today.

I like the emphasis at Suppers on running experiments and cultivating one’s internal observer. I like being my own laboratory and noticing things, like how my digestion improved as soon as I stopped drinking diet coke. I like being able to take inventory and give myself credit for the progress I’ve made without pressing on, greedy for more. I like being fifty and noticing that what other people think of me just isn’t as important to me as it used to be. Another woman at the meeting said that she has adopted two phrases to whisper to herself when her own or someone else’s criticisms threaten to disrupt her day. “Just watch” is the one she pulls out when her imagination becomes self-brutalizing and she wants to just watch where her thoughts are going. The other is “Be gentle.” She pulls that out, particularly when she has reason to believe that her dark thoughts relate to the junk food she just ate.

We do important work at Suppers so we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. Slowing down, feeling the gratitude, feeling part of a community, taking joy in the preparing and eating of fresh food are their own rewards, way more important than getting the second 20 off.