....I became a freakin fanatic! :)My friend Lyn at Escape from Obesity asked me the other day about eating clean.
I'm no expert on the subject, believe me, but I can sure relate to you some of the wonderful benefits I'm experiencing from eating clean.
I'm 48 and I've spent my ENTIRE adult life dealing with the fat issue. I'm an expert on what doesn't work for me.
If I insist on needing or wanting a food, I will always be a slave to that food. It will always be in the back of my mind taunting me. I had to ask myself "Why am I clinging to the belief that I can't live without this food?". One day, I told The Boy that I just had to have some chocolate. He asked me "Are you going to die if you don't have it?" Ummmm, no?
Last year when I embarked on yet another weight loss endeavour, I insisted on keeping "treats" around the house because well, I deserved them, didn't I? How'd I do? Well I started at 280 lbs at the end of January and by June 1st I weighed 286! Good job! I struggled every day fighting off cravings. I kept 100 calorie ice cream bars, snack packs, pudding cups etc. around to "reward" myself with. Well, one would always turn into 2 or 4 or 6! The more I ate them the more I WANTED them. I was always left wanting.
So changing what didn't work last time is key, right? I've removed this category of food from my eating plan. It's kept me sane, believe me. I keep saying this ~~ if you don't buy it, it won't get in your mouth! Simple. I DON'T miss these "foods". They are NOT "treats". They kept me fat and miserable. My proof? I'm losing weight consistently week after week and I'm not struggling with cravings ~ by not eating them.
My definition of treat has completely changed in a matter of weeks. Watermelon gets me excited! Cherries in January ~ bliss! A bowl of plain yogurt with honey and walnuts is my new go-to yummy snack. I feel great afterwards. I feel like I've LOVED my body.
Will I ever have a piece of cake again? Any chocolate? (insert favourite snacky snack here) Isn't this a revealing question when you think of it? As if life itself depended on it. As if that were the litmus test. As if life couldn't go on without a piece of cake!
I'm being cheeky, of course. But really...why is this so important to us? Why do we place such importance on having cake?
You might think you're sacrificing something by not eating this stuff but if you are obese what you're really sacrificing is a life of good health, self-esteem and quality.
Here's what I'm thinking. The very last thing I should be concerned about is whether or not I will ever have a piece of cake or a nosh of chocolate again in my life. That isn't what defines a good life for me anymore, although it definitely used to be not even that long ago. How dare anybody even suggest that I live a life without it! The audacity! Ha. 286 lbs. Nice life.
What I'm really looking forward to is a life without 136 extra pounds of fat on my body. What excites me now is the self-esteem I'm gaining with every pound lost. The sense of strength I'm feeling knowing I can overcome adversity without stuffing my face is making me walk taller.
Cake? Isn't anything even close to being rewarding in my mind now. I state this emphatically!
Ok, so I know we're all different and we have to do what works for us ~~ although I'd be very happy if I could rule the weight loss world & have you do it MY way! :)
Here's my advice if you want to incorporate snacks, treats, whatever into your food plan cause ya just can't live without it!
Remove all temptation from your house. If you want to indulge in a "treat" have it outside of the house in controlled portions. Just my humble opinion.
Eating Clean. Think about it. Before industrialization this is how we all ate!
No choice! It's not a novel idea. It's going back to our roots. How all of our ancestors survived. That got us to where we are today.
We're polluting the gene pool with our chemicals, preservatives, additives...poison. Why? Why are we settling for this? Alot of today's kids will not outlive their parents in age! That's horrifying! And it is SIMPLY because of our food!!!
Eating Clean isn't just a way to lose weight. It's a way out of this stink pit we've got ourselves into with all the obesity and disease North America is experiencing.
I believe this. Let's go back to our roots and regain some sanity and good health.
Here's a question I have for all the parents out there and I ask it with love, believe me.
Why do you feed your kids the very foods that have made you yourself obese? Why are you setting them up for a life of obesity and the accompanying struggles?
So this is the other thing that I've learned for myself. I can live without processed foods and I feel better for it.
When you feed your body the nutrition it needs you will not have the intense cravings of before. Keep feeding your body well and it will reward you with balanced moods and energy.
Eating clean is NOT a diet...it's way of eating for life.
The longer you eat clean the more you will actually crave clean foods. I get cravings for chicken, omelettes and fruit now. It's crazy, I know.
My third thing I've learned is that I need to move to feel good and lose fat. My friend John told me not to kill myself doing it either. He actually made me see that I could slow down and still lose fat. I work out within 70% of my maximum heart rate which is apparently the 'fat burning' zone. It's working!
My fourth lesson is one I never thought I'd have personal experience with. I've suffered from depression for most of my adult life. I take meds for it now (which I foolishly went off of for abit and am now back on. See my meltdown) I never believed that I would ever feel happy or content in life. I thought that people were just born that way.
When I was diagnosed with cancer for the first time I suddenly had an epiphany...
I realized that a positive attitude isn't just something that happens to me. I have to make it happen. I have control over it. That's powerful! I can tap into my power at any time! It isn't outside of me. It's right HERE. It made the experience a smoother one for me and also for those around me. Having a positive attitude doesn't mean that you DON'T get scared, sad, mad, lonely etc. but it allows you to have hope that things will turn around and get better. You can control your response to any situation. I still have alot of work to do on this. I have to WORK at being positive. Everyday.
Okay, so that was a long answer to a very simple question.
I know I can be overbearing about it but I guess it's because I'm very passionate about my success with eating clean that I'm a bit fanatical. This is my way of fueling my body from now on and I find great comfort in that. No more struggling with the weight.
The issues I have which I tried to eat away are going to have to be dealt with in more efficient ways and I've taken steps to start dealing with them.
BTW....
Here is a secret which I paid good money for and which I keep forgetting to apply in my own life: Feelings are simply the result of our thoughts. Change our thoughts ~ change our feelings. Simple. Easy peasy. We make things so hard :)
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33 comments:
First of all...I was totally the lead female in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in high school!! So much fun :)
Anyway, isn't it wonderful when you start a GOOD habit and it sticks with gusto!! Congrats!!
I am a believer in eating real, whole and identifyable food. Doesn't mean that I don't like the other processed, HFCS stuff because I do - but it and other sugar-laden things are death for me. I firmly believe that for ME and I speak for ME alone, removing sugars, processed foods, excessive carbs allowed me to get off of my anti-depression medication. I believe that for ME, this way of clean, real, whole foods eating not only changed, but may have saved my life.
I still struggle with my weight, to be sure, but at least by eating this way, I have the energy to fight the good fight.
I could go on and on about this, but it really is life-transforming. No more frankenfoods for me!
*clapping* over here! Excellent post, woman! :-) I wouldn't say I have been adhering to the clean method 100% this week but I have stopped buying all junkfood for the whole household (mostly to help me but I want my kids to eat better too) and it is really helping in the craving department. Now, when I want a snack after dinner, it's air popped popcorn with Braggs Aminos sprayed on it. I've also been soda free for 12 days now. :-)
Profound. Thank You~
well said, what a great post
yup... I needed to read this today.
Thanks darling!
:)
Here's a question I have for all the parents out there and I ask it with love, believe me.
Why do you feed your kids the very foods that have made you yourself obese? Why are you setting them up for a life of obesity and the accompanying struggles?
I have asked this of my parents. They sometimes say convinience, other times lack of knowledge.
Here's a question I have for all the parents out there and I ask it with love, believe me.
Why do you feed your kids the very foods that have made you yourself obese? Why are you setting them up for a life of obesity and the accompanying struggles?
I have asked this of my parents. They sometimes say convinience, other times lack of knowledge.
this is all so true. Even the meat we eat these days is different from back then because of how the animals are raised. It is so scary to think that our kids may not have a long lifespan due to all of this. I have seen my kids start to think of fruit as dessert now and that thrills me. My vegetable hater is starting to request broccoli ;) It starts with our generation!
I LOVE long answers to simple questions (seriously) as I always learn a lot along the way.
THANK YOU THANK YOU for taking the time to share all this.
Miz.
Great post.
Lots of the things you said ring so true to me. The main one this morning though is how going back on your meds helped. I know this is something I need to do too. :(
And as a parent, let me answer your question. I feed my kids less than perfectly healthy for the some of the same reasons I feed myself wrong.
First of all, it's convenient. I did it at first because it was convenient.
Secondly, it became a vicious cycle. Eating quick crap was SO much easier than forcing them to eat healthy things. It's very easy to convince yourself that a few grams of fat and preservatives are much less harmful to your babies than the emotional damage created by warzone for a dinner table.
Thirdly, they never stop - ever. I'll give you one example. The first time my children ever ate sugared cereal was on a camping trip. For convenience, I bought a multi-pack those tiny cereal boxes that you can pour milk into and eat right out of. Well, two of those little boxes were Frosted Flakes. That was about three and a half years ago, and I can honestly say that (doing some quick math) I have had to hear them ask for, beg - even cry for sugared cereal at least 300 times since then. And that's only calculating one trip to the grocery store a week for 3 years. If you figure that we shop about twice a week, I have 2 kids, and they ask at least 3 time each every time we go to the store plus they frequently bring it up when they open the pantry to get the boring cereal, it comes to well over 3600 times I have had to put my foot down about the cereal.
And that is JUST the cereal. Try doing the math on the cereal plus the frozen nuggets, chips, McDonald's, cookies, candy and every "yummy" thing they ever tried.
Fourth, produce is expensive. And when you're throwing away serving after serving of rotted fruit and uneaten vegetables, it gets to you after a few months.
I fully realize that these look like sad excuses to feed them poorly. However, there *is* a difference between excuses and reasons. These are only excuses if I resign never feed them healthy again. If I stay resolved to trying harder as many times as I have to, then they are just the reasons that it isn't easy.
I thought, before I had them, that I would do better than my parents did when it came to food, quality time, lots of things. And I have - without question.
Can I do better? I can try.
But I couldn't keep beating myself up for failing to live up to my own plans to be a "perfect" parent. There is just no such thing.
I really struggle with clean eating and I just want to let you know that your post is really inspiring to me. In my mind, the junk food that I eat is the "normal" food while the clean stuff is the "punishment" food. Sounds crazy, but that's how it works for me.
Thank you for helping me to see that the opposite is true. You are right, the processed food is poison and the consequence of eating too much much of it is obesity and sickness.
I am going to try to start looking at whole foods as a gift that brings me health instead of as something that I have to suffer with.
I totally agree with you!! For years i've waited to be "that" person who could have just one cookie!! Well it never happened, now i just don't have them in the house :)
And being able to work on a positive attitude is so true!! I also was diagnosed with clinical depression a few years ago and i had major stress to boot. I chose to take my meds, go to therapy and learn how to be a happier person and believe you me i still work at it daily :)
And how i describe clean eating is eating foods that are less processed, that are healthy! And listening to your body :)
The only word I have to say is AMEN! I feel like you tapped into my brain and wrote what you found because i feel EXACTLY the same way about clean eating...people dont believe me when i tell him how much it changes your life but it truly does. And the funny thing about you mentioning having a positive attitude is something that YOU do...is that i just realized this about a week ago..that it isn't something tha tjust happens..being happy takes some effort, but you will truly be happy if you try!
Ah love this post!!!!
Wow, thanks for sharing such a wonderful story! It really puts things into perspective for me!
Thak you for your post you really helped me out today.
I feel like everything you said/wrote is exactly how I feel and I agree with it all. You are the person I relate to and am totally inspired by.My post says today, for me, diets have to be a thing of the past. And I love that you talked about how everyone needs to get back to clean eating. It makes me so sick that our government allowing manufaturers to put poison in our foods.(it's called population control)We do not have to accept it. I pray for the day when we all go back to growing our own food or buying it from local farmers.
As being a parent of a 7 year old I have strived and tried to have our son not to have issues with food Jeff and I have had. I have tried to feed him and teach him about healthy eating. It is hard for him to believe it when we are not doing it ourselves. So we need to be better examples.
As I said ,I love EVERYTHING you said and you are such a great role model for me. Bless you!
I feel like everything you said/wrote is exactly how I feel and I agree with it all. You are the person I relate to and am totally inspired by.My post says today, for me, diets have to be a thing of the past. And I love that you talked about how everyone needs to get back to clean eating. It makes me so sick that our government allowing manufaturers to put poison in our foods.(it's called population control)We do not have to accept it. I pray for the day when we all go back to growing our own food or buying it from local farmers.
As being a parent of a 7 year old I have strived and tried to have our son not to have issues with food Jeff and I have had. I have tried to feed him and teach him about healthy eating. It is hard for him to believe it when we are not doing it ourselves. So we need to be better examples.
As I said ,I love EVERYTHING you said and you are such a great role model for me. Bless you!
Excellent post. All great stuff, and wonderful attitude!
Thank you, and have a great day!!
What an amazing post! You said so many profound things, so many encouraging things. I have learned a lesson from you today and have changed my whole thinking about treats/snacks. You are so right.. one turns into 2, into 3 and then what?!?! It's never enough. Just like money..."just a little more". I am thankful for your post. I will banish these snacks from my home. No treats are worth being overweight for your adult life.
I have 5 children, as for why they can eat different than I, or rather, why I allow them the fatty snacks in addition to their home-cooked meals.... all of my children are skiiiiiinnnny. I was as a kid and so was dh. My oldest son is the skinniest, he has no interest in sweets... and we are always getting comments on how skinny he is. I welcome him getting more calories in ANY form. I hope that's an okay answer. :)
Again, THANK YOU for your post.
Hey, that's my crusade! I'm just not calling it clean eating...
I also think that it makes no sense to allow yourself a little poison every day... it does hurt. It upsets the balance in the body. And a lot of what they put in processed food are specifically designed to addict the eater, very much like cigarettes are designed to hook you for life. The only way to break the addiction is to quit.
As for the popular notion that "there are no good foods and bad foods, it's all about moderation", what a load of rubbish!
I get very frustrated when I see how ignorant people are, but I know that I can't advise, I can only convince people by my own success. And even then, to them this looks like punishment, while we know that it's liberation!
Great post!
Wow! Are we related? I agree with so much you've said.
Part of my *reconstruction* has been about dealing with the big D and anxiety. Exercising regularly and eating better went a really loooong way to helping me feel emotionally better.
Finding an activity I'm passionate about, working at the observatory, kicked it the rest of the way. I was more optimistic than I had been last year at this time, but by this summer, I was optimistic, hopeful and all of the things I thought I'd just have to learn to live without. There was more work involved than diet & exercise, but those were major components.
Anyway, and I agree with you about *treats*. If I can't control it, it never finds its way into the house. I often crave fruit. It's nice to give in and be happy about it.
I agree with you on exercise, too. A healthier lifestyle should not consume all of your free time. That's not balanced. I've really been striving for balance this year. You go!!
This is really inspiring. It brought up my anxiety around food and avoiding snacks and treats. The thought that the temporary anxiety won't kill me came out of this post... thanks. You Are Amazing!
Wonderful answer!! Thank you for responding to my question, great info!!
For me, the cake thing... it's not really about cake as much as it is about tradition. I have made a (from scratch) cake for my kids' birthdays since they were born. They look forward and ask for their favorite each year. And now that they're older, they've started making ME a cake for my birthday! So sweet of them. I need a healthier cake recipe tho.
I dont keep junk in the house (usually) anymore, but when they were small, I had a sudden plunge into poverty that ended up with us eating from the food bank for awhile. 90% of what they gave us was bakery day-olds: donuts, cakes, cookies, muffins, etc. We got in the habit of eating those for breakfast and snacks... because that's all we had at the time. We don't do that anymore, but boy do my kids love sweets. They walk to 7-11 and buy their own now.
It's a learning curve, and I wish I knew 10 years ago what I know now! We are pretty much candy free, soda free, cookie free. Fruit for snacks.
And you inspired me to DUMP OUT my entire sugar bowl in the trash yesterday. I just dont need that crap!
Thanks again!! {{{hugs}}}
How profound!! Thanks for your encouragement and support by sharing your experienes with us. Although I am a fatso I always made sure my children ate healthy. They were all fit and at a good weight when they were younger. Now though I guess through their own volition they have all put themselves on a diet. My son even had surgery to loose weight. He will have to be on a regime of vitamins and not sure what else for the rest of his life. You're a real encouragment to me and it was finding your post that caused me to start my own blog in the effort to improve my outlook on this weight loss I must achieve. Thank you Karen. You know your name almost rhymes with what you are...Caring. *smiles* Have a blessed day.
Eyeballs the Anonymous Post...that was from me Mother Hubbard LOL!!
Awesome post...so true!!! Change your thoughts!! Thanks for the inspirations!
I absolutely agree that we can shape our feelings by changing what we think and believe. Attitude is so much of the battle.
Now, you know I *can't* agree with your statements on cake. What would my Cake Day be without cake? An ordinary Tuesay, that's what. :)
Seriously, I don't keep sugar-y, salty foods in the house because Cake Day would soon equal Every Day. Going out for the treat actually adds to the celebratory nature of the event.
Hope you have a great week!
Great post!! Really.. lots of great tidbits and thoughts. I've struggled with depression for the past few years as well but now that I'm changing my eating and exercise habits I've def. noticed improvements in my mood.
We are in control.. of what we eat.. how we move.. what we think/feel/say... everything...
Thanks for this post...
Karen, I so needed to read this today. I have tried hard to keep junk out of my house and eat clean. I still struggle with hubby's decisions to bring junk in and also the junk at work. I find that dealing with social settings is the hardest for me.
It's so true that I feel so much better when I'm eating clean, mentally and physically. For me, it boils down to defined and undefined emotions/anxiety that sometimes drives me to eat the junk. That is where therapy comes in and just trying to really really think my actions out and figure out why I'm making the decision I am.
The big thing is that this is for life and 18 months into my journey sometimes I get to feeling just plain old tired of it all. But you are right I surely will live without that pizza or ice cream or any other junk and I will be healthier and happier for not eating it.
I try to just keep reminding myself I am happier now than I ever have been in my life and to keep moving forward I have to keep eating clean and moving my body.
Love this post - you have a great writing style! Tell it like you see it...we don't all have to agree! But I could find nothing I don't agree with. My daughter is finally getting positive role models towards food in her life....and she's decided without any coersion from us to eat healthier also. Keep em coming!
Great post!! Well said!! :)
What a great post! I agree with everything you've said, and as usual your post has inspired me to challenge myself to do better in my own efforts to "eat clean".
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