I am just going to be perfectly honest and lay it all out there. This isn’t going to be an easy post to write. It’s something I have been struggling with on and off for quite a while now. I am going to be embarrassingly honest, which isn’t easy…but I know that there are lots of others out there going through the same thing and after all, who can’t benefit from support, and knowing they’re not the only ones going through something? So, here goes…
I have a food addiction. I know how to eat healthy. I know what foods bother me and what foods don’t. Thanks to my experience with Paleo, I also know what foods make me feel great, have tons of energy, great skin and lose weight and feel my best. I also know what foods make me moody, give me serious digestive issues, make me have break outs and make it hard to sleep. Basically, there are definitely foods that make me a crazy, moody, monster, craving more and more of what is bad for me. I don’t know what Webster would say is the definition of food addiction. But here is my definition of it: When you know all those things that I just laid out above (what foods make you feel good and what foods turn you into a psychotic carb and sugar craving beast) and no matter how many times you say you are going to do better, put healthy things in your body so you stop feeling sick, you don’t and even worse – you feel like you can’t do it.
I know a lot of people that can do just fine with moderation. They can eat healthy most of the time and still have the ability to eat a piece of cake at a wedding or make a stop at an ice cream place on a hot summer day. I am not that person. Perhaps someday when everything inside me gets regulated, I will be…. But honestly I don’t see that day coming. For me, it is all or none. I can’t just have one cookie. If I give in and I say “ok, lets just get pizza tonight” that will be the end of my healthy eating. I’m like a drug addict – one bite of junk food and it’s over. I don’t just fall off the wagon, I get a running start and take a flying leap off it. I’m that person who eats clean and when I start feeling better, I’m like “wow, I’m doing good. I’m just going to have this one thing and it will be just fine” and then as soon as I wake up the next morning, it’s like my insides are saying more pizza, more icecream, more more more more!!! I know there is science out there that explains all of this. We will delve into that over the next month or so, but for now I just have to acknowledge that my body reacts like this and I need to do something about it and stop trying to fuel my body with junk. Eat to live, not live to eat, right?
Today was one of those days when I woke up and said enough is enough. We had family in from out of town yesterday and we grilled brats, ate chips and had a beer or two for lunch and for dinner went out for Pizza. I went to bed with a messed up stomach and felt awful. So anyway, I woke up and said “today is a new day, I will do better.” Well, this post and public proclamation is the first step. With most things, I have such strong self discipline and control, but when it comes to food, self discipline is just as out as tight rolled pants. I know I can bring the self discipline back (and leave the tight rolled pants in the 80s) but breaking away from this feeling of being addicted to food is so hard. I’ve been cycling through this for a year now it has to stop. I can feel the effects it is having on my body. Not positive effects. Right now as I am typing this I feel bloated, exhausted (it’s 3:53 pm and there’s no reason I should feel this tired) and foggy headed. I know if I continue down this road, my health isn’t going to be good long term. My biggest problem however, is that when I eat bad, it typically translates to my family eating bad. My kids depend on me to provide them with good, healthy, nutritious food and to teach them how to live a healthy lifestyle. I have been failing at that. That is something I am definitely NOT PROUD OF. My husband is a grown man and is fully capable of making his own decisions on what he puts into his body. But, he is also a man. He eats what I cook or nothing at all. If I don’t feel like cooking (because I hate cooking) he is all about joining me at some junk restaurant. If I don’t make a good, healthy dinner with extras for him to take to lunch the next day, he either doesn’t eat and then pigs out when he gets home, or he eats junk fast food at work because it’s cheap and easy. I don’t want to be responsible for an unhealthy family. In fact, I want the exact opposite. I want to grow a healthy, active family who can set an example of healthy, natural living for others.
So, this is my public proclamation that I am going to do better. Yeah yeah yeah, wasn’t I just talking about how I say that all the time? Yep. I know I say that a lot but I have come to a point where any further down this self destructive road will start having more visible, serious consequences for my health and my family’s. I don’t think that I have ever really spoken up to anyone that I have been struggling with food so much. Not even those closest to me. It’s been kind of a secret, hidden thing that I’m ashamed up. But this is me. The real me. Imperfect. But it hasn’t been ideal imperfection, I haven’t been trying my best. This is my pledge that I am going to try to my best – even if it’s not perfect. It will be my ideal imperfection. This is also my invitation to you. Join me on this quest to natural health through clean eating. I will be following a Paleo diet. You don’t have to do the exact same plan, but I do suggest clean, real, unprocessed food.
I am going to take the rest of this month and all of August to post about my journey. Don’t worry, not everything will be about food. There will be posts about workouts, the science behind nutrition, etc. Who is up for a challenge with me?
Be Happy. Be Healthy. See Good. -Namaste