Oh boy. You’ve made your way to my page where I talk about The Unhealthy Truth About Changing Your Eating Habits. Good Job! Is anyone else all of a sudden craving some scrumptious homemade chicken alfredo? No? Guess it was just me. oh well.
Don’t jump off this page just yet because I have some really exciting information to give you. Though, I want to say this isn’t a once and done kind of post. Like a few of my other pages on my site, I cater to the journey and the experience that I go through with a particular subject. This, here, is no different.
Let’s be truthful here, no one on this planet has found it easy to change the way they are. If you have found someone or you, yourself have changed something about yourself easily then I’m here to tell you – you are a magical unicorn and should be explored further. Change isn’t easy for anyone especially when you’ve been doing ‘said issue’ for just about your whole life.
If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to back up just a bit and walk you through a bit of my background when it comes to activity and eating habits.
Activity Background
I’ve always been a pretty active person from what I can remember. My deepest memory is partaking in gymnastics. From what I can remember at this time, I really enjoyed this sport [yes, it’s a sport.]. The only reason I ended up leaving was because I had to choose between gymnastics or cheerleading. I started cheerleading in early grade school and stopped right before high school. Where we ended up moving to did not offer cheerleading so I ended up doing dance for my four years of high school.
On top of those sporting activities, I also was in: track (hated this), softball, volleyball (obsessed), club volleyball, and soccer. The moral of this section is that I was and still kind of am a very active person. More current, I have worked in several environments that require me to be standing and moving 90% of my shift. Though that is not an ‘activity’ it does tend to balance my eating habits! I’ve managed to get 10,000 steps minimum during one David’s Bridal Saturday Shift. #goalcomplete
Eating Background
This background isn’t so much in the ‘back’ because I haven’t truly transitioned. Here is our first truth: eating healthy is hard. Yes, yes give me a bucket to put all my tears into. I don’t blame you for giving me that face you are currently making right now thinking, ‘Really, if you wanted to achieve this goal, it’s not supposed to be easy or everyone would do it.’
All my life I’ve eaten nothing but junk food and carbs. so.many.carbs. Yes, I’m talking about those delicious, greasy and crispy french fries I spoke about earlier and who doesn’t want a donut from time to time? [or every day] 🙂 So, it’s not that I don’t like vegetables or ‘healthy’ foods – it is that I never really ate them or felt the need to. When you eat sweets, pasta, and pizza most of your life and you don’t have any known medical complications or aren’t at an ‘unhealthy’ weight then you don’t feel that the change is necessary.
I can easily be swayed by some good mouth-watering treats especially desserts. Cheesecake, Tiramisu (lord, yes), grandmas snickernoodles; no one is going to say no to grandma.
Here are just some of the dishes and treats I’d indulge in:
- French Fries (did anyone guess this one?)
- Mac n’ cheese (because I’m still 12 at heart)
- Chicken Alfredo
- Baked potatoes – with so much cheese, sour cream, butter, oh an some good crispy bacon
- Bacon (obviously)
- All Cheese
- Ice Cream
- Desserts of ALL kind
- Soda
- Sugar & Creamer with a side of Coffee
- Chips
- Candy
- Wine
- No Water*
I mean, must I continue? Here is the point (did someone say, Finally?). I want. I mean I need you to know how badly I was eating. Reminder: I worked about 75 hours a week in environments that required mobility and we rarely sat down. Another note is that even though I ate all these bad foods they were all in small quantities.
* Here is the big thing. I hate, hate water. I do not see the point. I don’t really get satisfied with it so I don’t feel the need to waste my time with it. Blah. Super boring. Bad for you? Meh.. I’m still kickin’. 😉
Let’s Get Down To Business
Disclaimer: I define healthy as being able to truly be happy with your life and in your own body or skin. Not a specific size. I also define healthy as: sleeping well and no (easily treatable) medical conditions
My title reads: The Unhealthy True About Changing Your Eating Habits. I say unhealthy because of this: going from eating foods you thoroughly enjoy to starting to eat foods that you can honestly care less about is very stressful. Here, I’m not trying to be funny at all. There are so many times I hear my fellow friends, family, or strangers say how wonderful fruits and vegetables are and how perfect they are for your body.
Here is the thing: I’m sure they are. But has anyone given thought to how it must feel forcing yourself to eat something you don’t enjoy for the rest of your life? Now, I’m not by any means saying that you can never eat a french fry in your life but you tend to lose a part of yourself that you actually really loved about yourself.
I talk about eating like it’s the end of the world if I don’t get my mac n’ cheese. Some days – It feels like that. Here are some struggles that a person who hates healthy foods goes through:
- Constant judging for eating said unhealthy foods
- Some days you feel like if you never accept vegetables that you’ll never get healthy
- “Junk” food is cheap. Listen.. I’m all about saving that $$ so why not
- When you have a craving for something, you don’t want to slash that craving with a pile of unsalted nuts – what you want to do is eat the dang bacon and walk it off… (tomorrow, because your show is on tonight)
Work Life: I’d like to make note that my work life for the past five or so years has not been ideal for good eating habits. I worked in retail and the events industry. Some days I’d be working my normal 8 hours a day then other days I’d be working 18 hours a day. Like I mentioned above, most of my days consist of me running around hunting people down, lifting heavy fixtures and I rarely sit down even to eat lunch. Full honesty – I hate taking breaks; it ruins my flow.
What Are The Issues
The first thing that I am going to point out is that I do not know the difference between eating ‘unhealthy’ verses eating ‘healthy when it comes to how my body is reacting. However, I can tell you what my body goes through on a daily basis in regards to eating.
- I get headaches and migraines that make me ill to the point of needing to go to the hospital
- I have spoken to doctors regarding this subject. The most dangerous time when this was occurring I was on birth control – I was advised to come off of it due to the possibility of having a heart attack.
- I tend to lose my willingness to even want to eat a meal
- When you are running around busy all the time, you don’t have time to stop and get something to eat & if you do, then you grab something small or fast that isn’t necessarily good for you.
- My mind & body are tired
- After working so many hours I don’t have the energy to eat or the willingness to cook anything. So, my husband has adapted that roll and I appreciate him greatly. Feel free to check out my yoga series to read about how I’m starting a practice to bring energy back into my life: My Sensational Yoga Adventure
- I don’t like to cook so I get lazy
- There is a rare moment when cooking sounds fun to me which is why I usually cook something easy (mac n cheese) but most of the time… If my husband isn’t home I just don’t eat because I’m too lazy to figure it out.
- My eating schedule was never consistent
- Working in a retail or events industry environment – your hours are never consistent. You could work from 5am to 2pm or you could work 3pm to 1am. Which can make it extremely difficult to plan your meals especially if your lunch break is during a time when nothing is open or available near you. So – you tell yourself to bring a lunch but your options for lunches are so slim especially when you don’t have time to make the lunch.
Now, some of these might be excuses you are seeing up front here and you’re correct. The most exciting thing we have here is CHANGE.
Steps I Must Take Towards A Healthier Life
- No more migraines –the.most.important.one.– I’m going to drink more water.
- Create a more consistent meal plan
- Get inspired to cook
- Have a better work-life-balance
- Find the courage to try new foods
- Slow down
To wrap this up, I’m on a mission to correct my eating habits one silly carrot at a time. I’d love it if you would come along with me to share your tips, your struggles, or your wins. I know that I’m not doing this alone and I know that you, too, wish to live a healthier life inside and out so why not do it together.
Of course, I encourage you to comment below [positively] and provide feedback if you’r able so we can have a discussion about getting healthy together.
Looking forward to it,
