eat healthily

One of the hardest challenges to my healthy eating patterns is when people graze all day long, and also in a social situation where there is a buffet or meal with tons of enticing food laid out. For the past five years every single time I’ve been able to establish a healthy eating pattern for myself, I’ve landed up in difficulty after encountering these situations…often it results in not being able to get my eating back on a balanced rhythm at all, and at best it has caused overaeting until I feel sick everyday for several weeks.

Consequently, I was nervous about going to my friend’s birthday picnic because I was about to be faced with BOTH of my most challenging situations: an all-day picnic where there was tons of food for people to eat over several hours…

When I saw the food I got the normal panicky feelings which instantly gave way to the “rush” that junkies get as the temptation of eating without constraint began to tug at me. I managed to lower my anxiety level and ate a sensible amount. Back at the house there was further challenges as it was all laid out on the table indoors, but when I listened to the sensible voice in my head I realised it wasn’t really that exciting and that I could manage just fine with eating a little bit to tide me over on my journey home.

And so I made it!

I also found it easy (despite an inital knee-jerk reaction) to avoid buying chocolate when I waited for my train. When I got home there was a real trigger because I’d been stressed from my journey (long story!) and also eaten hardly anything whilst travelling so I did allow myself a dessert AND a chocolate bar after my tea that night but all in all I don’t think I ate too many calories that day, so all is good.

I feel really proud of myself for finally getting over these triggering situations and also for not beating myself up over eating more sweet things than I would on the night I returned home. I also succeeded in returning to the normal routine of healthy eating and gym today too, which has also never happened before.

I feel so much stronger and capable! I finally feel like there is an end to what has been a long struggle with eating disorders. Yay!

The water-drinking has definitely become a habit – and I feel so much more energetic because of it.
I drink a small amount of pure fruit juice, but have cut out all soft drinks, tea and coffee.

I’m working on cutting down on starch and junk. And eating more fresh foods – this isn’t quite a habit yet though.

I love eating healthy foods and being vegan, I enjoy eating a wide range of vegetables, wholegrains and pulses. But although in theory this should be a relatively easy goal for me and people probably think I eat fine anyway, the truth is I don’t. The past year has been full of missing mealtimes or overeating when I wasn’t hungry and- worst of all- binge eating in the evening. The latter is an issue I’ve had for about 5 years and I know why it happens but the time when I feel I am motivated and ‘ready’ to do something about it only seems to come around once every year! Two years ago I got myself eating in a really healthy and balanced way, doing exercise too, but when I moved to a different part of the country the stress resulting from the changes just sent me over the edge.

In the past three weeks I’ve had exams and for a while totally lost my appetite. Although it’s back now I’ve finished and I’m eating in a very balanced way, it just gave me the start I needed.

My goal is to continue eating the varied, balanced vegan diet I’ve established whilst trying out new recipes to keep my interest up. I’m learning that if I want to avoid the evening binges on sweet stuff I need to nip sweet cravings in the bud by having an acceptable portion of what I fancy, or even better (if the opportunity arises) substituting a “bad” dessert for a macrobiotic one without the processed sugar and margarine that vegan versions often contain. I’m also reducing my portions and doing 30mins of
cardio exercise a day because I want to lose (overall) about a stone and a half (9.5 kilos).

I’ve lost so much weight that my clothes just don’t fit. I hat to go on a buying binge and it took forever to figure out what size I really am now. Apparently I’m 2 sizes smaller. And shrinking.

God bless my diabetes medicine!

I want food to stop controlling my life, I want to only eat when im hungry and stop when im full and i want to make sure im getting the right nutrients, will strat this next week once im over the initial nicotine cravings. I have always had an unhealthy relationship with food and eat when im bored when i feel sad or stressed and even reward myself with food, although i want to enjoy good food i want it to be healthy and nutritious, i need to start viewing food as fuel for my engine rather than the answer in most situations

I want food to stop controlling my life, I want to only eat when im hungry and stop when im full and i want to make sure im getting the right nutrients, will strat this next week once im over the initial nicitine cravings. I have always had an unhealthy relationship with food and do it when im bored when i feel sad or stressed and even reward myself with food, although i want to ejoyoy good food i want it to be healthy and nutritious, i need to start viewing food as fuel for my engine rather than the answer in most situations

I’ve started:

1) Drinking 2L + water a day
2) Cutting down sugar intake
3) Eating smaller meals

At the food festival I went to on Saturday there was a local organic box service and I have signed up. They called today to confirm so from tomorrow I am going to have lots of lovely seasonal vegetables to eat. As there will be a lot I’ll not want to waste it so hopefully will eat more healthily as a result.

Recently I have been dire, mainly through laziness: buying croissants on the way to work; chocolate for pudding; instant dinners. So this should be good as I don’t even need to leave the house to get the supply.

since I’m back in the States. It’s hard to travel and be diabetic, and the problem I had the most was getting low blood sugar (probably from the increased exercise).

Also, I’ve been enjoying cooking. I made chicken salad over the weekend, adapted for a very low calorie diet. Same thing with chicken soup. And Tipton County cavier (cold black-eye pea salad). And regular mixed salad.

Tomorrow? A roast and tabouli….

while I was overseas. I had trouble getting as much protein, and I wound up relying on carbs pretty heavily to keep my blood sugar up. To my surprise, though, my weight was right on target this morning.