Nourishing my body..

Food has been something I have battled for as long as I can remember. As a child, I was super picky and wouldn’t eat what I should. As an adult I think the opposite started happening. I stopped being picky and starting eating everything I could get my hands on. Food became my enemy.

Throughout my adult life I have tried just about every diet advertised. Atkins left me starving, weight watchers was far too complicated. I would always lose weight, but that was always short lived. Eventually I would go into starvation mode or just miss food and then binge. Quitting the diet led to gaining my weight back plus more. That cycle continued for years. Then came pregnancy… oh man. Pregnancy led to gaining 60 pounds. After he was born; I lost some weight, not all. Then came kid number two. Still carrying excess weight from the first kidlet, I added an additional 40. Pregnancy left me extremely over weight. My little 5 foot 6 ½ frame ended up weighing in at a whopping 215 after all the baby producing was done. I was so miserable, unhealthy and sick.

              In past blogs I have talked about the big epiphany when I started my healthy lifestyle. At some point I picked up running. Running with all that weight was painful. I knew I had to do something else. I read somewhere that you can’t out run a bad diet, true.  My eating needed an overhaul. I started with watching Netflix documentaries. The most pivotal for me was Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and Food, Inc. I started cutting out processed foods, anything that I had to take my time to pronounce on the nutrition label. Slowly, the changes started to happen. Just by cutting out processed foods I was noticing a difference and it was hard to deny. Clean eating seemed like the way to go. This new diet wasn’t a gimmick or quick fix but it involved giving up soda, fast food and processed foods.

At first, oh my goodness I struggled. I had been eating fast food and junk for so long I had a hard time giving it up. I had rarely ate fruits and veggies. But, I started small, I began incorporating smoothies into my daily eating. I hated all things green so I would hide them in smoothies that contained frozen fruit and orange juice to hide the taste. I don’t know if I just started to enjoy the smoothies or I was starting to no longer need all the processed junk… but whatever happened I started to crave healthy foods.

My plate started to look colorful.  Now, breakfast is some sort of fruit and oatmeal. Lunch consists of chopped salads, or chicken, rice and some veggies. Dinner is usually a food delivery service that delivers healthy ingredients to our door weekly.

 (My lunch)

Now, food is fuel. I want to veggies and fruits. I want to try new foods. Food is no longer my enemy. I do admit, I have days where I make bad food choices but one meal doesn’t make me fat. Indulging doesn’t undo all the work I have done. I think that’s what never worked for me before. I love food too much to restrict myself. I eat clean a majority of the time. I always crave veggies but I eat out sometimes too. All things in moderation. 

I don’t want to discourage anyone from trying diets, different things work for different people. I just wanted to share what worked for me. Small changes slowly led to a new way of eating.  I hope this helps anyone struggling to eat better. Experiment and have fun with food. But always, eat the rainbow and nourish your body!

Any questions you want to ask, leave a comment and I will do my best to answer!