On Yesterday

In yesterday's post I came clean on my shitty eating choices. As I stuffed my face with post-long-run-entitlement food (aka, not the healthiest choices), I realized that I wrote down those words and the only person i'm really disappointing if I don't make a move on them is myself. Time to commit to some changes.

I've found during my "soul searching" 20s that I don't always know who I am - so to speak - but I know who I'm not. I've never been (until about 23/24 years old) a person who obsessed about my weight. It wasn't really an issue, it didn't have to be. I wasn't super skinny, but I made it through high school and college around a size 6-8 and I was cool with that. It wasn't until after college that it started to catch up with me, and it was more about having to buy new (bigger) clothes than any thing else (hey, i'm broke!)

In a struggle to deal with changing lifestyles, slowing metabolism, and well, putting on some pounds I've found that I am just simply NOT someone who can obsess about weight - not in any healthy manner. The more I think about the "number" the more I negatively reinforce my bad attitude about how i got there in the first place. Self defeating.

I cannot "obsess" about food and weight and be healthy /happy. With that being said, I am not a calorie counter. I, personally, think it's strange. do people really start calorie counting one day and then do it for the rest of the time they're alive? that seems ridiculous. I can think of way more important things to spend my time obsessing about thank if there's more calories in this yogurt or that cheese stick.

Plus, my goal is to be sustainably healthy, not "skinny" not a "number" on the scale, or on the tag of a pair of jeans, for that matter. There's much much more to healthy eating than how many calories you're consuming day to day. My theory is that if I workout, and maintain an overall healthy diet, good choices, and whole foods, unnecessary weight should go away on its own, right? Obsessing about weight will just make me fatter and less healthy, the past half decade is proof of that.

I don't want to have an unhealthy relationship with food. I don't want to hate it. I certainly do not want to stress about it. Those that know me know that I am a super stressed out person all the time. I obsess about the most ridiculous things and I can't begin to think what will happen to me, and my health, if I allow myself to become that stressed out over life sustenance. I loose sleep over work, money, career choices, the weather, how i'll cope with my cat dying someday (ps, she's FOUR), anything really. Food has often been used as a crutch in stressful situations. however, I'd like to turn it into something healthier than a crutch. Maybe... a vault. Instead of leaning on "comfort foods" when stressed, maybe healthy eating can allow me to use healthy options to vault myself over/through/past the stressful times. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I've decided to cut out dairy this week and see how that helps/changes things. This post was supposed to be about that decision and why, but apparently i'll get to that another time.