So why am I doing this?
Well, at its most basic level, it’s because I stopped feeling good about myself late last year. I had a bad October – son in the hospital, missing cat and stressful situations at the office. All contributed to my overuse of everyone’s favorite source of comfort: food. Halloween didn’t help either.
So I drowned my sorrows in chips, ice cream and smarties. And while life straightened itself out in November, I kept right on pigging out. I had somehow hit a nice rhythm in my life that included copious amounts of junk food. McDonalds in the morning, McDonalds in the evening – ain’t we got fun!
It wasn’t until I had to retrieve my pair of “fat jeans” from the bag headed to the thrift store that I realized I had a problem. But even more than my weight, I really just felt like crap all the time. My skin, which has never been great, started looking the moon’s surface *all* the time. My hair was oily and stringy no matter what I used on it, and I lost all motivation to do anything productive.
I couldn’t help but notice that a half hour after I sat down with a bowl of smarties that my headache would come back with a vengeance. And less than an hour after a lunch of chips and pop (or soda for those of you partial to the term), I would lose all ability to focus on my work. As I paid closer attention to how my moods changed with the food I ate, I realize that even small amounts of processed foods and candy caused my “brain fog.” Simply put, when I ate crap, I felt like crap.
So here I am eating nothing but natural foods for the next year. I thought about just limiting my intake of processed foods, but I’ve tried that before without success. It’s a bit of a slippery slope for me, and I have no problem justifying a king size Hershey’s as a “small snack.”
While I am hoping the weight will come off too (and I have lost 8 pounds so far), my main concern is my health and my well-being.
Well, at its most basic level, it’s because I stopped feeling good about myself late last year. I had a bad October – son in the hospital, missing cat and stressful situations at the office. All contributed to my overuse of everyone’s favorite source of comfort: food. Halloween didn’t help either.
So I drowned my sorrows in chips, ice cream and smarties. And while life straightened itself out in November, I kept right on pigging out. I had somehow hit a nice rhythm in my life that included copious amounts of junk food. McDonalds in the morning, McDonalds in the evening – ain’t we got fun!
It wasn’t until I had to retrieve my pair of “fat jeans” from the bag headed to the thrift store that I realized I had a problem. But even more than my weight, I really just felt like crap all the time. My skin, which has never been great, started looking the moon’s surface *all* the time. My hair was oily and stringy no matter what I used on it, and I lost all motivation to do anything productive.
I couldn’t help but notice that a half hour after I sat down with a bowl of smarties that my headache would come back with a vengeance. And less than an hour after a lunch of chips and pop (or soda for those of you partial to the term), I would lose all ability to focus on my work. As I paid closer attention to how my moods changed with the food I ate, I realize that even small amounts of processed foods and candy caused my “brain fog.” Simply put, when I ate crap, I felt like crap.
So here I am eating nothing but natural foods for the next year. I thought about just limiting my intake of processed foods, but I’ve tried that before without success. It’s a bit of a slippery slope for me, and I have no problem justifying a king size Hershey’s as a “small snack.”
While I am hoping the weight will come off too (and I have lost 8 pounds so far), my main concern is my health and my well-being.
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