WHY DO I SUCK AT FOOD?

This image has been floating around my social media streams lately and it just seems so appropriate. In one image, I can sum up how I've been feeling about changing my eating habits.

I feel like that's how I should end this post. Those two sentences and this one image. Eating healthy or healthier than I have been is quite possibly the hardest thing I've had to do. Being in a constant state of evaluation as WHY I am wanting what I want is miserable. Can't a girl just want to go hard into a over sized jar of Nutella simply because it tastes good and she wants to??????? Does there have to be deep hidden desires behind EVERY craving I have? This week has been tough. And even though I find myseld going through the motion and making better decisions here and there, it has not at all been without excessive obsessing over all the things I would rather be eating. One of my biggest problems is becoming aware that healthy full feels MUCH different than bad full. Let me back up a post and expand on our little Smash Burger adventure. If you aren't familiar, you can get caught up here.

Just to give a tiny re-cap, Sunday evening was by far the most unhealthy eating I did all last week. I had been doing great all day. For breakfast I had half a Belvita breakfast biscuit package and my cup of coffee and for lunch we had sandwiches (on wheat, no mayo) and I was feeling pretty proud of myself. We shared a juice after our hiking outing and things were looking positive. 6:00 pm rolled around and we were sitting down to a dinner of blackened cod with a double serving of asparagus. We finished eating around 6:30 pm and immediately we both felt unsatisfied. I went to the fridge and grabbed us an energy bite thinking we just needed to finish the meal off with something sweet. 15 minutes later we were starring at each other simply feeling hungry still. So back to the fridge I went to cut up some fresh strawberries. We hovered those and again about 15 minutes later, still hungry. Our last stitch attempt to satisfy our hunger beast was a artichoke/red potato dish I had picked up earlier from The Soup Peddler. After a few bites we were aware that there was nothing in our household that was going to do the trick. That's when the negotiations started. Needless to say we found ourselves in route to Smash Burger around 7:45 pm. We both ordered our own individual meal and proceeded to to HOOVER them down NO PROBLEMS WHAT SO EVER. As we walked out with our heads hung low and shame radiating from our hearts it was very apparent that this journey is not going to be easy.

I couldn't figure out where I went wrong. Minus the getting in the car and driving to Smash Burger part. But what we've come to realize is that healthy full can easily be mistaken for not full. And I need to wrap my head around the idea that just because I am not miserably busting at the seams doesn't mean I am not full and satisfied. We felt horrible after Smash Burger, both mentally and physically. So much so that I forced us to walk the around the shopping center three times before getting in the car to drive home. I was bloated and stuffed and gas-y and just disappointed that I didn't have the strength to say no. But as easy as it is for me to beat myself up, I am going to try to just call it a lesson learned and move on. 

So what lessons did I learn exactly?

1. I don't have to eat to the point of no return in order to be full and satisfied.
2. We need to leave less awake hours between our last meal or snack and dinner. That way we aren't just up and constantly thinking about what we CAN eat.
3. I am going to slip up. But as long as I pick myself back up and continue toward the end result, I am still making GREAT progress.

What have you guys done to help keep you on track during the early stages of a eating overhaul?

Bye for now.

Imma Go HARD

Last week was such a mind trip. I've really had to dig deep into myself to start discovering why I eat the way I eat and to start the process of figuring out how to re-train my brain when it comes to food. It's like, totally, no fun, at all. So while my mind and heart have been busy plugging away at that issue, my body has been serving up a hard core dish of ass kickin' in the gym. I got to release all that stress somehow, right? This is what my workout schedule looked like last week...

Monday- 5:00 pm 1 hour circuit/trx training + 1 hour substitute trainer at boxing (more on this later)
Tuesday- 6:30 pm 1 hour boxing
Wednesday- 6:30 pm 1 hour substitute trainer at boxing (wait for it) + Volleyball game
Thursday- 6:30 pm 1 hour boxing

My bangs are STILL dripping sweat! And I like it! Okay not so much really, but I did feel like a badass in the gym. And that was refreshing, since the yang (eating habits) to my yin (exercise) seems to be all out of whack. I was able to stick to a pretty decent eating plan last week as well. I've stuck to mostly My Fit Foods for lunches, snacks and dinners. In the morning I had either oatmeal or a Belvita Bar with my coffee. My sweet tooth I've kept at bay with fruit and these little no bake energy bites. They are so yummy and I can make in batches, so I am prepared for the week. BONUS!

There were a few slips ups. Friday I some dental work done in the morning. By the time I woke up around 6:00 pm starving and craving Chinese food. So my sweet husband obliged by craving and I had some lo mein noodles. Since my mouth wasn't 100% I didn't do the usual damage, but still not the most healthiest of choices. On Saturday the overwhelming craving that hit me was greek food. So we found ourselves dining at Tino's for dinner. Although chicken and salad doesn't sound terrible, I just kept thinking about all the hidden sugar I was eating! Don't get me wrong, I still finished my meal, but I at least found myself thinking about what I was shoveling into my mouth, rather than just eating blindly. Again, baby steps.

Sunday was probably the biggest down fall me for. I will talk more about this in a later post (Lost to say) but let;s just say I fell so far off the band wagon, for a second, I wasn't sure I would ever be able to hop back on! Breakfast, dinner, afternoon snack and dinner number one (yes, you read that correctly) were all pretty good meals. We ate dinner number one at 6:00 pm. We had blackened cod and asparagus. Delicious and healthy, right!!!!? Come 6:30 pm, we were filling unsatisfied. So we grabbed a couple energy bites and were still filling unfulfilled. Around 7:00 pm I was cutting up strawberries and sampling a red potato and artichoke dish I picked up from The Soup Peddler earlier in the weekend. You would think with all that, we would eventually hit a filling of fullness that would be acceptable. Well, you are wrong. By 7:30 pm we heading to Smash Burger. We had convinced ourselves that a cheeseburger and fries was the only way to really feel satisfied. So we drove there, ordered and ate like we hadn't eaten all day. Not to mention just an hour earlier!!! It was so embarrassing. But again, the embarrassment didn't hinder me/us at all from continuing the action. When we walked out the door, I decided we needed to not drive straight home and go to bed. Cause that's what we wanted to do. We took a few laps around the shopping center we were in and talked about the events that had just gone down. I'll be sharing said conversation later on today. Long story short, it was a good reminder that this journey is really going to take time.

Back to the easy stuff, we rounded out the weekend with a hike on Saturday and a late night stroll on Sunday (before mentioned shopping center stroll). Typically, we tend to be less active on the weekends, but I am making it a point to at least get a few activities in. This weekend coming up I am trying out a yoga class. I am hoping if this class becomes a regular standing part of my schedule it will really help with my flexibility. I am terrible at stretching. It's just so BORING, hahaha.

How did you guys do last week. And what are some weekend activities that you enjoy to stay active?

Hi, My Name Is Stephanie And I Am An Addict.

Has you ever been told you can't have something? I'm sure most of us have and I'm sure most of us didn't like it. I am also going to assume the moment you were told you couldn't have said thing, it was ALL YOU COULD THINK ABOUT. Isn't it funny how our minds works. Even if this thing is bad for us we mourn its loss in our life. We ask WHY we can't have it. We justify all the reason we SHOULD have it. And the worst of it all, we DENY that is really is THAT BAD FOR US. We become the exception to the rule. We just know that although this thing is terrible for EVERYONE ELSE, it's really NOT THAT BAD for us.

This week while diving into the deep end of dieting/ lifestyle change research I have found myself confronting my worst frienemy...SUGAR. Frienemy is like the most perfect word ever invented by a teenage girl to describe my relationship with sugar. Sugar is that BIG BITCH who I just want to be close to all the time, but have no idea WHY I like her so much. She is a terrible person and does terrible things to me, but somehow I still go back for more. Why do I do this to myself and more importantly, HOW do I break the cycle.

So far, the answer is quit cold turkey. I am having HUGE issues with this recommendation. One, cause I don't wanna. Two, cause I don't wanna.I have since been making a list of all the yummy goodness that I will be missing out on. The chocolate cake, the donuts, the cupcakes, the cheesecake, the brownies, the tiramisu, the cookies, the NUTELLA... And then it hit me. I really do have an addiction to sugar. Do sane people think this way? Is it normal that before my appetizer even gets brought to our table I am deciding on what I will have for dessert?? Anyone?????? And if sugar is, in fact, the root of all evil, as all the research shows, is it the reason I have such issues with my stomach and can't seem to really lose the weight I want!!!??? Again, what a BIG BITCH!!!!

I am now wishing I was still in the ignorance is bliss bucket, just skipping along, eating anything and everything I wanted, completely blind to the fact that I've been slowly killing myself with sugar. And did you know that sugar is in like EVERYTHING! I know you think I'm trying to be funny here, but when you never really care to pay attention, you just don't know these things. But the stuff is EVERYWHERE. So even on days when I thought I had eaten in a somewhat "healthy" manner, I wasn't. And when I treated myself to sweet indulgences because I thought I deserved them, I was just laying sugar on sugar on sugar. Big ole sugar party for one. I just feel really stupid and I also feel really sad. I am stupid and sad and that is just where this process has led me to this week.

Have any of you been here before? How did you get through it? I've been praying. Praying so hard for wisdom and for understanding and for strength to really approach this change from a better angle than I ever have before. I know my eating habits thus far have been sinful, glutenous, to take it super old school and I know they need to change. But its how to start implementing the change that I am dealing with, And honestly, I feel like I am in mourning a little bit, as dramatic as that sounds. I am mourning a lifestyle that I've become accustomed to. I am mourning my current relationship status with desserts and that status is like FULL ON LOVE OBSESSED.

I am hoping once I make it through the fog of sorrow, I might start to see the bright side to saying goodbye to sugar. I don't want to talk about them now, I mean hello people, does it sounds like I'm remotely ready for that!!!!????? But the important thing is I know there is one. Thanks for listening to be rant and rave, scream and cry. I would love to hear from you if you've struggled with removing something you love from your diet.

Bye for now.