Welcome
This is the kitchen where we talk about food, life, and recovery—a spiritual path to healing and peace.

Invitation
You are invited to keep coming back to A Cup of Kindness to share your experience, strength and hope; fears, doubts and insecurities; and to pick up information, inspiration … and have a little fun!

My story
In January 2007, at the age of 51, I joined a 12-step program and began my recovery from food addiction, losing 75 pounds in the process. Read more…

In January 2011, at the age of 55, I began my recovery from a multi-trauma accident, 36 fractures, damaged lungs, and post traumatic stress. Read more…

I am deeply grateful for all the kindnesses, large and small, offered to me in recovery. Here I am... alive… still making progress … still not perfect … finding a new way forward in a growing community of women and men who share a lot in common around food and life.

I hope you'll join me in this kitchen and let me know what's cooking with you.

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About

A Cup of Kindness — menus and meditations on a weighed and measured life

Invitation

You are invited to A Cup of Kindness – a conversation about finding the joy in our crazy, unpredictable lives, by creating new patterns of living; especially by taking pleasure in life-giving, delicious, nutritious fare and becoming healthier, happier, and free from obsession with food and weight.

Offer

This is a community for sharing information, inspiration, gratitude and fun!

We present ideas for a simple, yet elegant way of eating that ends craving and provides just the right balance of structure and flexibility for attaining a right-size body and sustained contentment.

We create menus for the season, recipes to add spice to life, grocery lists, tips on eating out, and suggestions for the holidays.

Philosophy

Each of us has a changing body, array of emotions and unique language which are great sources of learning and deserve tender, loving observation.

We hold kindness, trust, forgiveness and honesty as central precepts for living well, happily and peacefully.

We understand that the root of all suffering is craving; conditioning is the source of habitual coping mechanisms which may have soothed in the past, but are no longer useful; nothing is permanent—things can and do change; fellowship helps; and choosing kindness generates happiness.

We honor the redemptive power of Love.

Practice and Action

In various ways, according to our own unique wisdom, with help from others… we set the limitations necessary for contentment; weigh and measure our food; develop practices that we need for clarity, integrity and maturity; and take the actions that match our good intentions; setting ourselves free… one day at a time.

We share experience, strength, hope and the inevitable problems, difficulties and failures in life.

Valerie

In January 2007, at the age of 51, I joined a 12-step program and began my recovery from food addiction. In ten months I lost 75 pounds. During the first two months, as the pounds came off, I no longer needed treatment for high blood pressure, cardiac asthma, insomnia, plantar fasciitis and arthritis. At six months my total cholesterol had dropped 30 points. At nine months, when I reached my goal weight, my dress size had dropped from a 22 to an 8, and my bra size from a 40DD to 34C. Even my shoe size had dropped from 9 to 8.

In January 2011, at the age of 55, I began my recovery from a multi-trauma accident. My ribs, pelvis, sacrum, lungs and several vertebrae were crushed, and I sustained a spinal cord injury when I was hit and run over by a drunk driver in a Range Rover. I spent 5 weeks at the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami; 3 weeks at the MedStar Shock Trauma Center at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC; and 7 weeks at the National Rehabilitation Hospital. During that time my weight dropped another 30 pounds due to the inability to tolerate tube feedings followed by intractable nausea. It took a great deal of help from my nutritionist, many friends, and trauma therapist to regain the weight.

I have been maintaining a right size body since then… one day at a time. What happened to change my 35-year pattern of one failed diet after another? How did I get over the post-accident nausea that some doctors predicted would last the rest of my life? This is my story… still making progress… still not perfect… finding a new way forward in a growing community of women and men who share a lot in common around food and life.

I invite you to visit A Cup of Kindness daily to share your experience, strength and hope; fears, doubts and insecurities; and to pick up information, inspiration… and have a little fun! Join the conversation!

This is the kitchen where we feed each other. What’s cooking?