Wednesday

To Be Healthy

The other night I had a breakdown.  This isn't too unusual of an occurrence unfortunately, and it usually is instigated by being tired, stressed and feeling gross.  This was exactly the case.  All of the poor eating habits from the holidays piled up and I just couldn't handle it all anymore.  Last week I finished a book my aunt had recommended "The Beauty Detox Secret" by Kimberly Snyder and I really enjoyed it.  When I say that I have probably read at least twenty health and nutrition books, that may be an understatement and that doesn't include the hundreds of articles I have read online, in magazines or in newspapers.  I know that most people think that I am just falling into whatever fad diet I have heard about the most recently.

The issue is that I just want to be healthy.  I just want to feel good.  I want to have energy.  I want to go out and do things.  This is what I told Munchkie's Daddy during my breakdown.  My quest started when I was young, like 13 years old or so, and wrote into the Christian girl's magazine I read for advice on weight loss.  They sent me this cookbook, Eat Well, Live Well and some cheesy note about loving myself.  Obviously that didn't satisfy me.  The problem is that I grew up in a family that loves food.  We are emotional eaters, we like to create, to make, to talk about and to enjoy each bite of food we take.  Each family gathering was filled with eating, from the minute we woke up until we all collapsed in bed praying that the food would stay down.

I have read so many different books and followed so many different plans that I know exactly what I need to do.  I have learned something from each book I have read and have built my knowledge from these, pulling information from each author and making sense of how the body works (as I talked about somewhat in The Evolution of My Diet).  This last book that I read brought together a lot of these concepts that have been floating around in my head, bringing the knowledge from a lot of different books into one lifestyle of eating.  After I finished the book I again felt this deep desire to be healthy, to crave vegetables, to not have the desire to eat junk food, to have the will power and self control to fight through the cravings to "get over" my addiction to junk.  I was so hopeful, getting tons of produce at the store (as shown in my previous post) and spent over two hours before work the other night chopping, mixing and prepping my food.  I got to work and pulled out my kale salad with homemade dressing that contained things I didn't even know existed.  I took one bite and started gagging.  The other nurse sitting next to me started laughing at me because I could not get the salad down.  How can you crave vegetables when you can hardly swallow them?  How do you become healthy when you don't like the food you're eating?

This discouraged me greatly.  I was so down and upset yesterday, unsure of what to do.  I really truly want to be healthy.  I want to eat raw kale and have my body absorb all of the amazing vitamins and minerals.  I want to feel good about what I eat and draw energy from what I put in my body.  I think that I just need to learn to do it slowly.  I can't jump into a raw kale salad with things such as nutritional yeast, dulse flakes or miso when I don't even know what those three things are.  I always read something and get so inspired and so motivated to completely change my life because I know what I need to do.  But then when I am eating that kale salad by myself at work while the girl next to me is chowing on a bag of goldfish crackers and my family is at home eating chips and salsa, the overwhelming feeling of being alone, torturing myself for an end goal that nobody but me cares about makes it even harder to choke down that bite of nastiness.

Munchkie's Daddy doesn't understand this.  He's skinny, always has been.  He doesn't think that it's a problem that he pounds coffee all day long just to get through the day.  He feels good about his life and under no circumstances will he ever give up his cheese-its.  As I write this he's piling a tortilla high with cheese, lunch meat and condiments in the kitchen.  While I am procrastinating pulling the blender out to make a "Glowing Green Smoothie" to start my day with.  How do we make this work?  I tease him and say that after he dies from a heart attack my second husband will eat greens with me, which obviously isn't the way to go.  But it's my way of begging, pleading for him to even remotely care about our health.  It's not the most efficient way to convince someone, and really just makes him mad, but I really don't know what else to do. 

I just want to be healthy.  I understand that this doesn't happen overnight.  I understand that we are young and it takes years to create the person that you become.  But I know that what I put into my body directly effects every aspect of my life and that the changes I make to my diet will have such positives effects on my life.  I know that my skin will be brighter, clearer.  I know that my energy will skyrocket.  I know that I will have mental clarity and break free of this brain fog that has been hovering over me. I just don't know how to accomplish this change in lifestyle.  I just don't know how I can survive a stressful night shift of running around taking care of crying babies with a salad, pushing down the intense desire for a latte and ice cream with chocolate.  I just don't know how to cut out all of the horrible-for-you foods that I love.   I just don't know how to get my family on board.  I just don't know how to make it a team effort instead of everyone looking at me like I'm crazy and out of my mind for "following the latest fad."

Sigh.  I guess the first step is to get up off the couch, go wash out the blender and mix up that vegetable heavy smoothie.  Then continue to pray that I can do this, that I can find the strength to do it alone.  To pray that I can lead by example and show others how great life can be when you pile up the veggies and pair your foods together carefully.

**So I started this at the beginning of the week and never posted it.  I did get up and make that smoothie.  And it was DELICIOUS!  I froze some of it because there was so much and tonight I had one of the defrosted containers.  Munchkie was "sharing" it with me and said that she wanted me to make her her own smoothie.  She said that it was so yummy, and normally she usually spits out greens.  Maybe I'm onto something here.....

2 comments:

  1. Can you post the recipe for the green smoothie? I have made one before and it was good considering the ingredients. I wouldn't mind making smoothies for breakfast, joining you in your efforts.

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  2. I just wanted to let you know that I share many of your healthy eating concerns and recently received a high power blender for Christmas. I've been making green smoothies for a couple weeks now and my cravings for junk have been eliminated and my mood and energy are both up. My first smoothie was inspired by the Glowing Green smoothie recipe but I didn't have all the ingredients. It was still delicious. I've since been creating my own green smoothie recipes and I have come to crave them! Even my husband has been asking for them. It's seriously a delicious way to eat kale, spinach, most any vegetable! Good luck to you and thanks for sharing your struggles and journey.

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