Tuesday Thoughts

Hope you all had a great weekend!

I had a great “restorative” weekend.  Last week was incredibly stressful for me, I’m pretty sure that if Friday didn’t come when it did, my head might have exploded.  That being said, this weekend was EXACTLY what I needed.  I tried to unplug for the most part.  I didn’t even respond to any work emails, which is really hard from me!  We started the weekend off by getting an amazing massage and then we discovered a fantastic new {healthy} lunch spot where we got a big veggie bowl with quinoa, kale, egg, a ton of nuts and veggies.  All energized and relaxed, we made dinner and rented a great movie called “Safety Not Guaranteed” which was super cute by the way, you should totally watch it!  On Sunday I got up early and went grocery shopping, prepped for the week, went to lunch with some girlfriends and then we hung out at our friend’s house for the super bowl and enjoyed some yummy eats.

Overall, it was really the perfect weekend.  On top of all that I even got to read a little.  I just started the book “In Defense of Food” which I am loving already.

I’m not too far into it yet but it has already got me contemplating my eating habits.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about my philosophy on eating and the amazing transformation I’ve gone through over the years.  When I moved to college and no longer had my parent’s delicious home-made meals I turned to processed foods like Easy-Mac at 2:00 in the morning and I stopped at Quiznos for a big Chicken Carbonara sandwich a couple of days a week.  As you can imagine, I gained more than my freshmen 15.  Since college, I’ve slowly begun to educate myself on nutrition and becoming a healthier person.  It seems as though every year I look back at myself the year prior and realize how messed up my ideas were on dieting and eating healthy.  I’m sure I will look back on myself a year from now and wonder what I was thinking, but I look at how far I’ve come and feel pretty good about where I’m at.

If you remember, I’ve been doing this weight loss challenge with my boot camp for the past month.  I set out with the intent on losing some pounds and getting down to my “happy weight.”  I have to come out and admit that it hasn’t gone as well as I hoped.  It’s not that I haven’t been eating well, I’ve been making a conscious effort to make healthy decisions but I don’t seem to be losing any weight. I’m not really sure why but for some reason I feel like I’m doing worse now than before.  I feel like it’s causing me to want bad foods even more because I feel like I can’t have it.  I remember a line I heard on a documentary that said you should transform from thinking “I really want that food but I can’t have it” to “I can have that food, but I don’t want it.”

I really loved this because this is really my ultimate goal.  I like to discover the way food makes me feel and learn to feed myself food that makes me feel good and fuels my body.  As much as I love the actual taste of macaroni & cheese, is it really worth that bloated disgusting feeling you have afterwards coupled with the guilt of indulging?

I was in need of a little gut check and I think I’ve come to a good place.  After this challenge is over, I’m really going to focus on foods that make me feel good, filling my plate with lots of vegetables and amazing flavors that make eating healthy fun.  I will not deprive myself of the things I really love.  If I want to have a piece of dark chocolate (my weakness), I’m going to have it, savor every damn bite and then move on without guilt.  I’m going to be happy with my body, my weight and the strength I have gained over the past few years.  I will continue to set new fitness goals for myself and feed myself foods that fuel my body and allow me to feel my best and glow from the inside out.

Most of all, I’m going to continue learning and growing, and I hope you’ll join me

I’ll be back this week with some delicious recipes!!

-Mai-Lis