Dear Tom,

I really appreciate your sending things like this to the list.
I benefit from your anti-extremist point of view.  If you
write up any of your notes from the Seminar, I'd be interested
in reading them.  I have recently read the Ayurvedic book by
R. Swoboda (sp) and have been wondering if I can incorporate it into
my lifestyle.  When I get into following too many rules, I start
going nuts.  You seem to be into Ayurveda - can you talk about
how you have benefitted from it?

I spent this past weekend at a seminar here in Boulder.  Friday
I attended an all day workshop with Bernie Siegal.  He's written
a couple of popular books. He's not into nutrition per se, but is into the
spiritual.  I asked him a number of questions, one of which was, from
his perspective, do you think it healthier to be neurotically eating
raw vegetables or to be more relaxed and eat whatever you want.  His
answer was that you need to ask how you are treating yourself.  If
you feel deprived and miserable eating a certain kind of diet, you
would probably not do that well on it.  If you see your chosen
way of eating as a choice  - and that it feels as if you
are treating yourself well, it will work well for you.  And that
some days, treating yourself will mean eating that cookie or
whatever it is that you want.  The next day, choosing NOT to eat
the cookie again will be what is treating yourself well.   Anyway,
if nothing else, the way I phrased the question got a few good laughs,
which made me very happy.  Plus, his answer was pretty much the conclusion
that I've come to myself, although I know there are those who would
disagree about ever eating a cookie.  For myself, one sure way to
get me to eat a cookie is make a rule against it.

Thanks,

Trish Pottersmith
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