This post has been a long time coming. I’ve had it percolating in my little brain for weeks, trying to put into words what I feel in my heart is true and just and not crazy.
As y’all know (oh too well) I’ve had a tortured relationship with food for the last few years. Either I ate too much of it, not enough of it, weird combinations of it, or specific types of it. I have yo-yo’ed between regimenting my food intake to the last nut or seed; to being totally lackadaisical and laisser-faire, eating everything I craved.
It is this pendulum of extremes that’s killing me more than any type of food I might be eating. Problem is, the pendulum is hard to get off. It swings back and forth with such velocity, it’s tough to pick a time to jump.
And the blog seemed to make the swings of the pendulum worse. I was scared that my blog was enabling my eating disorder. Worse, I was scared that I was putting out into the world some messed-up views on eating. The last thing I wanted to do was set someone else off down the dark path I was on. It’s the reason why I stopped blogging for a month. And it’s the reason I refused to mention food on the blog when I started it up again. I figured that if I had absolutely no useful insights on the subject whatsoever, then it was best to remain mute on the subject.
But as I’m getting more and more in tune with my exercise plan and becoming more and more active, I see that it is impossible to ignore food when considering a complete picture of health.
It’s time that I start making some small changes to my eating habits, to get them somewhere along the middle point of the pendulum. (My reintroduction to running was slow and steady and sustainable, and I fully intend to make my reintroduction to conscious eating the same!)
Here are some of my new rules of eating for health. They are really simple and somewhat general. I am determined to stay away from any cute or catchy mottos on eating (such as instilling a “carb curfew” or “Ice cream Saturdays” or something) because that is too close to controlling my eating for my liking. (remember, I’m treading in some dark territory here for me, so you’ll have to bear with me!):
Also, please note that these are Marlène-specific rules. If you don’t like them for yourself, go ahead and ignore or amend!
First rule of eating for health: Each meal should correspond to my particular hunger level at the time. (there’s no point in refusing seconds when it just means that I’ll be reaching into the cookie jar 20 min later)
Second rule of eating for health: Whole foods make better snacks than cookies (cookies and chocolate bars are easy and tempting, and they are habit forming too. But they don’t do much for me, not like a pear, banana, or carrots could do)
Third rule of eating for health: Sugar substitutes make me crave sweet things (I’m better off putting a little real sugar in my coffee than going nuts on Splenda.)
Fourth rule of eating for health: Clocks don’t know when I’m hungry. (just because it’s 12:30 doesn’t mean it has to be lunchtime. Sometimes lunch comes at 11am. Sometimes it comes at 2pm. And that’s okay).
Fifth rule of eating for health: Sometimes eating certain animals (like those that are raised ethically, organically, and that are unprocessed) make my tummy feel good. (there’s no point eating soy that makes me feel like shit, when I could eat a piece of local chicken that makes my insides sing)
So that’s it. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject for now. Though I won’t be documenting my meals or keeping hard-fast accounts of my food intake, I will check in on how I’m doing following the rules every now and then, and I hope these rules become intuitive to me over time.
