I Eat Dairy, Bread and Grains…And I'm The Healthiest I’ve Ever Been
I like to roll out of bed around 7 AM and start my day with coffee (might be organic, might not- don’t care). Following that, I break my fast quickly with a couple pieces of toast as well as a yogurt bowl including berries and peanut butter. There’s not a single Intermittent Fast lingering in the corners of my Boulder apartment.
Keeping me busy is a steady stream of client calls diving deeper into her questions on how to: create more money, make an online business, find a dream partner, divorce a terrible one, detach from the identity of her children, let go of a bad time, create a good one, start fresh in a new city, sever a toxic relationship and so on.
Around lunchtime I cruise to the kitchen to have a bowl of grains, whatever meat I want and some stem-free broccoli that’s most likely been steamed, meaning the water took out some of the most viable nutrients.
After lunch, I’ll enjoy a Pilates class and potentially a podcast interview where I sit down for a nice chat that’s not about food and where we discuss real topics at bay in the world such as: women speaking up, spirituality, relationships, dating, self-love, worthiness, self-confidence, dreaming bigger and making more money doing what we love.
Fast-forward to dinner, and you might find me leisurely holding a murder mystery book in one hand as I stir a pot with whatever type of noodles I want in the other. There could be a nightshade sauce cooking or possibly something made with fatty-fat-fat cheese, but I don’t know for sure because it’s always a surprise.
What follows dinner might be more food. Even past seven.
Or it could be a glass of wine or a bowl of cereal. Even Halo Top low calorie birthday cake ice cream could be sitting in its cardboard container in my lap because to me, what’s yummy is yummy. Low calorie and not full fat isn’t a crime, and I have no intention of shaming it for being itself.
I sleep soundly each night and wake up each morning energized. I have regular digestion. I take fish oils, multivitamins and a probiotic.
So what will the New Health Obsessed World see that’s wrong with me? Answer: everything.
The wheat is going to block my gut from absorbing crucial nutrients. My dairy is going to slow my energy, create skin issues and manifest life-changing depression. My lack of local, farmer’s market purchased sprouts will decrease my potential for high-vibe energy. The absence of morning bone broth will, without a doubt, correlate with eventual lack of empathy. The maca-matcha-cacao-goji-collagen-powder concoction that’s not gracing my lips is probably to blame for my lack of financial abundance on Monday. The fight Katie and I had last year is because I’m not swapping coconut yogurt for Greek. My dog has diarrhea because he’s so pained I’m eating regular ice cream instead of frozen banana mush in a bowl.
Look, if you love all the things I mentioned above I’m very happy for you- honest to goodness. If you’re not happy with doing all the things above because they are making you crazy and giving you a poor digestive system that struggles to function the way it did when you were a worry-free, pooping five year old, then maybe it’s time you accept an invitation back to Fear Food Land.
On one side, I’m so glad that the world is learning more about new herbs, spices, ingredients, plants and fruits. I’m stoked that restaurants are sharing awareness around calorie consumption in their food for people who have no knowledge of it (though I fully know it can be triggering for some people and I advise you not to go to those restaurants).
But then again, on the other side, the health world is creating a whole bunch of little orthorexics without them even realizing what’s happening. IT HAPPENS FAST.
Before you know it, your favourite once-a-week treat at Jimmy Johns has now become the bane of your existence. You feel guilty for ever flashing seductive eyes in its direction. You’re trying to train yourself to be disgusted by white bread and deli meat. Sure, you’ll go to the restaurant with your friends and sit down but you won’t order anything because, you’ll say, you’re trying a new diet.
Some people truly need to shape up their diet…for the sake of their life. If that’s you, this post probably isn’t going to be super applicable. I’m writing for a specific person. And yes, I have to actually write that out or people will be very mad (though I expect they will be mad anyways).
I’m writing for the person who has found themselves on the Struggle Bus of Deprivation and Obsession. Yes, that’s a real bus and it’s haunted as hell. I invite you to get off. Because you can…at any time.
If you’re eating quinoa because “a seed is better than a grain”, even though you hate it, I gotta let you in on a secret. The best diet is a diet you enjoy. Misery outweighs any benefits that quinoa could potentially provide for you and your body will finally begin to relax during food time if it’s excited to eat.
I used to have the worst issues with digestion when I was eating nothing but chia pudding and green smoothies but I kept doing it because of my fear for eating anything else. I was eating as much fat as possible (p.s. fat is awesome) even though my body runs really well on carbohydrates.
What I continuously found online was that healthy eating gurus, doctors and scientists didn’t like high carb diets (unless they were vegans and therefore restricting meat and dairy) for various science-y reasons that I didn’t study myself, and so I raised my white flag to eat high fat everything.
Look, like I mentioned earlier I LOVE FAT. I really, really do. But I also love carbohydrates. Sometimes white ones, sometime brown ones. I also love caffeine and dairy.
Green smoothies give me an upset stomach. Chia pudding doesn’t really fill me up. Spaghetti squash is amazing, but it’s not the “real deal” to me.
While I will eat all of the above, and sometimes often, I also eat everything else. This is what balance is to me. And guess what? I’m alive. I’m breathing. I’m healthy. I’m fit. I’ve got a sex drive. My skin is clear. My brain is sharp.
I’m living my best life and it’s not because of my diet. In fact, it’s because I finally said “f*ck it” to food and said “Let’s do this thang!” to life. I took my focus away from food blogs and nutrition websites and turned it over to Spotify, Thought Catalog and Netflix/Chill. I dove deeper into my business, I created something special with my clients, I spent more time with my family, I traveled and I got out of my head.
I built a better business, body and life…and food had very little to do with it. That said, it has given me a lot in return. It’s given me life and freedom. I’m so grateful I’ve finally stopped judging it so harshly and instead, learned to live in harmony with everything it has to offer.
What love affair with food have you been missing out on?[Tweet "She eats bread, grains and dairy...and is the healthiest she's ever been. What about you?"]