After Making You Wait, It’s Finally Time
Hi everyone!
Now that you’ve heard about the very beginning of my journey, it’s time we talk about what truly changed my state of health, and what this blog is actually about: food and eating.
Dive In With Me: Here’s My Story
Let me try to explain my relationship with food growing up and how I was influenced by it.
First of all, I love it. Everyone in my family cooks, my father’s profession was cooking, I am not picky in the slightest, and I have no dire food allergies.
Second of all, I love trying new food, I love eating out, I love experiencing different flavors and dishes, and I love dessert afterwards.
Third of all, a bit more worrisome, I eat when I’m stressed, and I regularly eat too fast.
Hopefully, you can see where each of these things became an issue for me growing up. Think about the stresses of middle and high school, constant tiredness from an irregular sleep schedule, not enough exercise, and unstoppable adolescent hormones… then add in the fact that food was often my only solace for the unpleasantness. Yeah, exactly.
Thus began my habit of eating too much, too fast, too often, while not incorporating enough of the nutrients that make the body feel good. This habit then followed me to undergrad and stayed with me until age 22.
To put that into perspective, I had been eating this way ever since I could remember. I had subconsciously trained myself to do it, I didn’t know how to stop, and I was too far gone to realize the way it was negatively affecting me.
So Was I Doomed?
Sometimes I felt that way. I always had an idea of what I wanted my body to look like, and I truly thought I just wasn’t meant to look like that. However, for my last quarter before graduation, I moved back home with my parents to save money. This is when I started exercising.
Since it had been so long, exercising made me feel so good about myself that I wanted my food to do the same thing. Also at this time, I started cooking healthier. I started sauteeing vegetables, making fresh salads, accompanying everything with these chicken sausages that were heavenly, and I even let myself have dessert if I wanted. I ate the foods that gave me the same uplifting, energetic feeling exercising gave me.
The Good Part
After I began walking a couple times a week and cooking this way, the pounds started to fall off. And when I say “fall”, I mean like leaves from the trees in Autumn. I lost my first 10 pounds in two weeks, and I couldn’t believe the scale. I was practically losing a pound a day. Every morning, I got on the scale and was ecstatic. It felt completely unreal.
This inspired me like no other. NEVER in my life had pounds come off. They’d only done the opposite. I was so excited because I finally figured out what my body needed.
For the record, I wasn’t trying different weight loss tactics prior to this, but I also wasn’t creating the space for myself to do it. I had never tried diversifying my everyday cooking, making sure I got 10,000 steps, or doing what made me feel good on a daily basis.
It sounds so mundane, but I can’t stress enough that I just wasn’t taking care of myself. I wasn’t listening to my body, and I wasn’t giving myself the time of day to really understand what I needed. Once I started, I couldn’t stop, and the benefits were continuous even until today, almost three years later.
Where Did I Go From There?
This was truly the beginning of a lifestyle change for me, as you can tell by that side-by-side image. I started experimenting with different kinds of exercise, I started going to the gym, I got my eating portions under control, I cut meat out of my diet and became a vegetarian, I started confronting my mental health, and I made sure I spent time with those who made me happy.
I’m getting ahead of myself, but you get the point. This all started by me listening to what my body told me, and giving it what it needed. It sounds so simple, which it is, but it requires quite a bit of time, effort and self-reflection. I promise you though, it’s 1,000% worth it, and you are too.
So What?
If you want to change your eating in any way, I’m sorry but you have to eat vegetables… with every meal. Take a little less of the meat and the carbs and whatever else is on your plate, and replace it with a nice salad, roasted vegetables, or sauteed, whatever gets you to eat it.
However, don’t deprive yourself of protein either because that’s what adds that satisfactory aspect of the food and makes you feel full longer (Patten, 2020). Also pay attention to how you feel after eating certain things. This can be huge for figuring out what your body wants and needs.
Check out Lifehack’s “9 Ways a Clean Eating Diet Can Help You Feel Better” for some tips on where to start and what foods should be on your plate.
More from me:
Next week I’ll be going more in depth about my go-to meals early on and how I started a veggie lifestyle!
If you’re interested in how I started exercising after a long time, and would like some tips, check out last week’s post:
Thanks for reading, I appreciate you 🙂
Reference:
Patten, L. (2020). 9 Ways a Clean Eating Diet Can Help You Feel Better. Lifehack. https://www.lifehack.org/703088/clean-eating-diet-helps-you-feel-better