7 Self-Care Tips To Try This Week

I can't get enough of this essay by the fabulous Louise McSharry.

"I was a fat bride, with three size eight bridesmaids, and still I was the star of the show, because I was so happy.

It didn’t matter that I had hardly any hair after six months of chemotherapy. It wasn’t important that I was several sizes larger than many women would deem acceptable for a bride. I glowed. I laughed. I danced until five o’clock in the morning. I was beautiful. I was a size 20, I was beautiful and I was myself. Because I am not a work in progress. I am not a thin person trapped inside a fat person’s body. I am not waiting “until I lose the weight” to live my life."

You don't even have to make the recipe to feel the benefit – my colleague Rachael wrote a brilliant piece about how she watches cooking shows, and reads recipes. to soothe her anxieties. She inspired me to buy a second-hand copy of Nigella Lawson's How To Eat on Amazon, to dip into.

"During a seminar one afternoon in early 2012, I began thinking of food, and an image stuck in my brain: bread. Homemade bread, stuffed with rich deli meat and mozzarella. I knew right away I couldn’t buy it anywhere. It had to be homemade, and that made it even more appealing.

I went to my room and started searching words. “Bread, meat stuffed, tv show.” Eventually I found the clip: from Jamie Oliver’s first TV series, The Naked Chef. He makes a bread for a hangover breakfast, stuffed with egg, ham, cheeses, and herbs. Being able to find the recipe and bookmark it, knowing I had the video at hand for future panic, was reassuring.

Throughout my first year of uni I would repeat this process: feel scared, find food show, watch. I’d watch episodes and clips over and over until the recipes became ingrained in my mind. When I got a TV in my first student house I would write all my essays with Food Network on in the background. I’d spend hours in our cold basement kitchen watching YouTube repeats."