TASTES THAT BIND

If ever there was a time for new resolutions, the year after a pandemic and a personal crisis would be it, says Sam Woulidge. Cue yoga and a deliciously satisfying lentil salad

Sam Woulidge is facing the new year equipped with a yoga mat

– and a tasty new lentil salad.

New beginnings. Yes, again.

A few years ago I said that I would not end a year being heavier than I was the year before. Obviously I had no intention of withering away year by year. As if. But it was my way of keeping myself on track so that I could keep a stable weight.

2020 delivered not only a pandemic but also a family crisis, a personal crisis and menopause. So, of course, I turned to food, my most familiar comfort. My friend and my foe. And I ended off the year a lot heavier that I was the year before. In short, 2020 really kicked my fat ass.

There has to be another way, I told myself. A way free of denial and shame. A way of eating food that nurtures me, as well as food that I believe will fill an emptiness that has nothing to do with being lucky enough to have been matched in this lifetime with a very likable husband and an enormously loveable son.

And so I limped toward the end of 2020 downloading calming apps. And meditation apps. And the Ted Talk teaching us all to be more mindful – the one with the friendly voice and cute animation.

But I didn’t seem to progress beyond the cheerful wake-up meditation for sevenyear-olds. Seb is now more mindful in the mornings, which is great, but for my issues I needed a whole lot more than that.

I did try to focus on my breath, tried to be mindful and attempted to control my raging anxiety. But I also ate many Peppermint Crisp chocolates. And saltand-vinegar chips. And my body weight in biltong and sourdough bread. And the guilt and the shame and the kilograms piled on.

Something had to give. So I bought a yoga mat and enrolled for private lessons with the wonderful Mandisa Nduli because I’d heard she was kind and non-judgmental and I had forgotten how to be both.

I wasn’t sure I’d like yoga. In fact I was almost certain I would not. And I’m still not sure that what I feel about yoga is anything close to liking it. It is without a doubt one of the most uncomfortable things I have ever done. Because I have to get out of my mind and into my body. And that is frightening. In cold sea water, where I like to be, I am weightless. I am free. Sometimes it feels as if I am having an out-of-body experience in the water, which is a huge relief. But with yoga I am grounded. Confronted. Trapped in this body. And for me, that is hard.

But I need to be both to have balance in my life so that I become, god willing, not only older but wiser, too.

So I bought a packet of lentils thinking that if I practise yoga, then surely I need to eat more legumes. Because I love a cliché.

Until recently the only lentils I have ever loved were the gloriously comforting spiced Indian dhal. But I felt I needed something that said: “I may not be able to touch my toes or do the downward dog, but I can make a mean lentil salad and I am really good at the breathing on the mat part”. My first attempt was brown and boring. My second attempt was hardly noteworthy. But the third one hit the spot. Lentils, broccoli, chilli and preserved lemon. Perhaps in this new year I will finally learn that, sometimes, less is more. Unless we’re talking sequins and cake and love.