Carrie Saum

As someone who has battled bulimia, overeating, and a fairly disordered relationship with food, a Total Elimination Diet (or TED) is daunting and triggering.

In the tradition of ancient Ayurveda, winter is a time to reflect, ruminate, nurture yourself and your relationships, and be still.

Every year, I recreate my favorite street vendor’s glüwine (pronounced glue-vine), and remember that crazy freedom. I’m instantly transported back to those snowy cobblestone streets, freezing hands and feet, warm belly, and everything tinged with magic even while being naively idiotic.

Something powerful shifted for me when I turned 30. I decided to stop caring about my weight as a means to measure my success, beauty and worth as a woman. I gave myself permission to care for my body, and to care for the woman inside that body first.

Newborn life...when that bliss wears off. Not all at once, and not in every way. But the bliss becomes less blinding. Everything returns to real life.

Corn is one of those things that people needlessly complicate. It's an ancient food that has been part of our food chain for hundreds (thousands) of years.

By 13, I clearly understood: Thinness was next to Godliness, and I could never achieve either without extraordinary means. Jesus loves skinny people.

We all have that One Friend. They found a product that they love and just can’t get enough of it. Whatever your problem is, their MLM has a fix for it.

This is the season where we Pumpkin Spice ALL the things. Pumpkin spice lattes? Check. Pumpkin spice chocolate? Check. Muffins, cake, cookies, scones, sodas, and Cheerios? CHECK. If scientists could figure out how to pumpkin spice newborn babies and puppies, I'm sure they would because we are crazy about All Things Pumpkin Spice.

Gather anything orange, brown, olive green, harvest yellow, and dead. Dead leaves, dead flowers, dead hopes and dreams, and arrange them artistically on your front doorstep.