Fit Fare

This is part of the Healthy Book Club. My mission for the Healthy Book Club is to present you with books that will provide you with the tools and inspiration to live a healthy, balanced and happy life. So pull up a comfy chair and let’s get reading!

Rarely is there a book I enjoy so much that I stop in the middle to savor the ending. That’s what I did with Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Gilbert is a journalist and an author who goes through a devastating divorce, enters a tumultuous relationship and finds herself in a grip of depression and despair that threatens to cripple her or worse. She gets a book deal (to write this book) and sets off to spend a year traveling to Italy, India and Indonesia.

This book is everywhere right now, at least for me. I was on the beach last weekend and saw the book on so many beach towels I lost count. In Costa Rica, I met three separate groups of travelers and all of them had one person reading the book, one who had just finished and one who was waiting to get started.

Yes, it’s that good.

Of course, I’m biased. Not only do I love food and traveling, I’m drawn to India because of my experience there and who it helped me become. That was the place where some amazing women introduced me to meditation while shucking green beans on rocking chairs. They taught me the concept that our thoughts are not us; they’re just thoughts, and we can think them or not think them as we please. Talk about groundbreaking philosophy for a 20 year old.

But back to the book. In Italy, Gilbert’s intention is to reacquaint herself with pleasure. She takes courses in Italian so she can properly speak the language she loves. She eats gelato every day and savors the fabulous flavors of Italian pizza, pasta and produce. Although pleasure is her focus, she spends time taking us back through the events that led her to this trip so we can fully understand her purpose and enjoy her foray into pleasure.

After finishing the section on Italy, I stopped reading the book. I was loving it so much that I decided to finish it on my trip to Costa Rica. I wanted a great beach read. Instead, I had so much fun being present on that trip that I didn’t feel any need to disappear into someone else’s world. It wasn’t until my flight home that I started reading again.

I had left off when Gilbert arrived in India. Flying back from my week of relaxation, I entered her world as she took on her biggest demons. She had met her guru through her boyfriend (aka her tumultuous relationship), and in this part of her trip, she dedicates her travels to understanding god in an Ashram in India. She takes us through her frustrated meditations and lets us listen in on the eye-opening conversations she has with other Ashram goers. Bit by bit she lets go, she unravels, and she starts to see clearly what god is for her and how she can create her life in a way that makes her feel free and happy.

Reading this at the end of my trip was perfect. It helped me look at my travels as a learning experience instead of just a vacation. I connected pieces of my past and realized that my present wasn’t an accident, it was all a part of my purpose. Going with Gilbert through her breakthroughs, I opened myself to my own.

After India, she heads to Indonesia to meet up with a medicine man who years ago had invited her to return to spend a few months teaching him English and learning about god. As the title suggests, she finds more than just ancient medicinal techniques in Bali. She carries with her the passion she found in Italy and the openness she unleashed in India and lets herself experience something beautiful in Bali.

Gilbert is honest and open and raw. She’s funny and friendly and someone you’d like to have over for a potluck. She takes us all the way down so that when she comes back up, we can understand the magnitude of the ride. It’s not all fun and games on her voyage of discovery, and Gilbert makes sure we’re aware of the process, not just the result. Even the ending, which could have been sappy, is turned into a satisfying conclusion because of Gilbert’s awareness. There’s no promises or happily-ever-afters. There’s just a sense that things are as they are, and that they’re perfect, if only in that moment.