“Let’s get doughnuts and put them right here, but Becca can’t have any.”
“OHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Look who is eating a cookie! You finally decided to break down”
Nutrition. Research articles are constantly changing and telling us what we should eat, how much we should eat, when we should eat. Zone, Paleo, Keto, IIFIYM, Vegetarian, high carb, low carb, high fat, no fat. These words and phrases are constantly debated in gyms, on fitness blogs, on podcasts, on the news, in churches (probably). There are countless documentaries that tell you which diet is the best, while disputing the other diets. And the next documentary will tell you that their diet is best and the documentary that you just watched was all a lie. Today’s blog will be my take on “nutrition.” I will be the first person to say, I don’t know much about nutrition, but this is a long and candid look at what I have experienced in the last two-three years since beginning my fitness journey.
The first thing that I have experienced with nutrition: I will never win. NOW. I will absolutely reach my nutrition based goals, as long as I stay dedicated, consistent, and patient. I will win that battle every time. The battle that I will lose every time is the one with others. Where I work, there are treats EVERYDAY, and we have potlucks about once a month. People bring in doughnuts, cookies, home baked goods, candy. It’s readily available at my work. When I first started at my job, I indulged. Every time there was a treat, you could bet that I was eating with two hands. Since starting my fitness journey, I have slowly changed WHAT I ate. I used to eat “classic” North Dakotan “put a can of cream of mushroom soup over meat and cover it with cheese and put it in the oven at 350 for an hour.” Classic potluck food. I don’t eat a lot of noodle/cream/cheese hot dishes anymore, so I usually bring my own lunch to potlucks. I don’t eat the treats every time because that’s not what I eat anymore.
The battle that I lose constantly is the one with my coworkers. I am in a lose/lose situation. If I abstain from the treats, they jeer and tease me. “Oh you’re too good for the doughnuts?” However, if I do indulge and have a cookie or a piece of candy, it becomes comments about me “breaking my diet”and “not being as good as I thought I was.” So no matter what I do in this situation. I lose. I am not sure why people think it’s ok to comment on what someone eats or doesn’t eat. My co workers, family, and friends probably do it to me because I CONSTANTLY talk about eating healthy and working out. And I simply talk about these things because I love them so much. This is my LIFESTYLE. The only person I take care of is myself, no kids, no husband, no pets. If I am experimenting with a certain diet, that is exciting to me, and I am going to talk about it. I reduced dairy and wheat from my diet, and I noticed a big difference. I reduced processed carbs and sugar from my diet, noticed an even BIGGER difference. (Sugar is bad, who would’ve thought?). I am going to absolutely talk about how making these changes has affected my life. Disclaimer: do I still eat baked goods, cookies, doughnuts, pizza, tacos, candy, hot dishes etc…? ABSOLUTELY!!! But instead of eating a dozen doughnuts in a week, I will maybe have one doughnut a month. This way it truly is a treat. I generally keep my diet 80% clean foods (foods that don’t have an ingredient list) and 20% other foods.
Next thing I have learned about nutrition. Binging. I like to self diagnose, and I diagnosed myself with binge eating disorder. The last diet that I was on, worked REALLY REALLY well. I dropped a lot of weight, I leaned out, I felt good. But, I didn’t know how to adjust it when I began to plateau. I was extremely calorie restricted, especially for what I was doing on the physical side. I also love my routine, and I had my meals down to a science. It was easy. I now realize, I was being LAZY. I didn’t want to try and do math and try and adjust things. This amount of restriction, really started to mess with me mentally. I would have “cheats” For example, my typical afternoon snack on this diet would be half an apple, an ounce of chicken and three almonds. Maybe later in the day I was feeling hungry, so I would have a small handful of almonds. That would be considered a “cheat” on this diet, because it wasn’t balanced with carb and protein. In my “binge” mindset, I would then justify that small handful of almonds to go have an actual cheat: a whole pizza, beer, cookies, chips and dip, and a box of cereal for dessert. And I would not stop. I figured “It’s only one cheat meal if you never stop eating.” I would go to the store and buy $40 work of junk food that I would eat food over my garbage and have “one more bite.” Then throw half of it away and pour dawn dish soap over it. This way I wouldn’t eat it out of the garbage because I have pulled jars of peanut butter or boxes of cereal out of my garbage and eaten them. I would buy a big bag of trail mix at Wal-Mart and eat it nonstop on the 10 minute drive home. When I got home, I would throw it away in the dumpster and half to three-fourths of the bag would be eaten.
Not exactly living a healthy lifestyle there. I am slowly learning how to balance these these “treats.” I started by getting online nutrition coaching. I am slowly learning how to fit “treats” into my daily intake and not have it be a binge. But it’s a battle where I am constantly learning how to give myself grace and celebrate the little victories. I can now have a box of cereal in my house and not have to sit and eat the whole thing in one sitting. It actually will last a week or two! This is a big win for me. I bring my own food to potlucks, or when I go home for the weekend because I need to in order to avoid binging or guilt trips. Few people understand this, and just think it’s a weird habit or that I am being pretentious. Right now a big nutrition goal for me is balance, and someday I will be able to participate more in potlucks and treats at work without the guilt, but for now, I need to have this “weird habit.” (aka-dedication)
The last thing that I will touch on. Food based friendships. Any change in my lifestyle has lead to change in friendships. I quit drinking, I lost friends. I started eating healthy, I lost friends. I simply lost friends, because I no longer get invited to the nights out, the dinners, or the weekend-long drinking events. I don’t get invited because I always say “no thanks” to these things. And I say no because of the two reasons listed above. I know from experience that going out to eat can trigger a binge. Food and socializing is such a cultural thing. When we gather, we gather around food. But why? Do we remember the food and the drinks? Or do we remember who we are with and the conversations that took place? I have been trying to make an effort to spend quality time with quality people and not make it about food. When I get together with friends I want to be focused on just being together. There are all kinds of things we can do that don’t involve eating for example: do a workout, go on a walk, go golfing, or maybe just sit and visit.
If you are still reading this. Thank you and congratulations. This is a really really long post with very personal content in it. But I do want to give my two cents on nutrition Like I said, we constantly hear about what we should be eating or not eating and it will change every time you turn on the news. Here is my advice, take it or leave it.
#1: Watch the documentary “In Defense of Food” this doc doesn’t have a “diet” agenda, it’s one of the best food documentaries that I have ever watched.
#2: The “food pyramid.” I like to think of my nutrition in a pyramid, with 4 parts.
The base of my pyramid is “What I am eating.” The base of my pyramid is 80% whole and clean foods. I consider clean foods 1-ingreident foods, or foods without labels or ingredient lists. So the base of my pyramid is Meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds. Once I get that down, I move up the pyramid, which is “How much I am eating” This is where measuring my food comes into play. I know how many grams of protein, carbohydrates, and fats that I get everyday. This is something that I am still slowly getting a handle on. The third step of my pyramid is “When do I eat,” this is where nutrient timing comes into play, intermittent fasting, carb loading, fasted workouts. I have just hit the tip of the ice-berg with this one. And the last part of my pyramid is “supplements.” This is an area that I haven’t really gotten into, other than fish oil. Supplements are huge in the fitness industry, but if the base of your pyramid (What you are eating) isn’t solid, then these supplements don’t have anything to stand on. There is no magical protein shake or pre workout that you can take that will make you lose 10 pounds in 1 week. You have to look at the base of your pyramid and work up from there.
#3. Get nutritional coaching from a professional. If you are serious about your nutrition and want to get a handle on it, find someone who knows what they are doing, and pay them to help you. I recently signed up for nutritional coaching with working against gravity, and I am learning so much. They are helping me balance out my nutrition.There are all kinds of nutritional coaching programs out there: eat to perform, working against gravity, renaissance periodization just to name a few. These are great sources, they make individualized programs to help you reach your goals based on your lifestyle.
I dare you to take a look at your own food pyramid, where can you start building: what, how much, when? I also dare you to not judge others for what they eat or don’t eat. Food is a big battle for a lot of people and being kind to someone can make a big difference. Happy eating friends!
Because She Dared 