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Washington, DC, United States
I don't write here nearly as much as I should, but when I do, I'll try to make it count for something.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Food Lifestyle: My Personal Diet Wars

It was a bone chilling winter morning in the District today and while I had planned on going to the gym, my desire to stay in my warm bed until the last possible second won that war. But I figured hey! If I'm going to be a lazy bones, at least I can draft a blog post or something, right? And you're welcome, reader.

Today's blog post is about eating healthy. Now here's my problem: I really love food, you guys. To make it even clearer, I love food that is terrible for me. I mean, let's be honest here - this is not an original dilemma to have in this country. And the thing is for about six months out of the year, I'm like, "I work hard! Life is short! I'll eat whatever I want!" And then summer time approaches, and I remember that swimsuit season is rearing its ugly, judgmental head.

I panic. I look at all the extra padding I had developed over those six months. I think of all the cheesy mashed potatoes and gelato and wings and chili cheese fries that contributed to this padding and I curse the universe for creating so many cruel temptations. But then I decide, hey I can turn this around! And by golly I do it... and then, a terrible thing happened that I didn't expect. Suddenly it wasn't easy to lose weight anymore! Back in the day, I could spend a month at the gym and have a few salads and voila! Svelte and ready to show off my hot bod (well my non-flabby bod). But those days are gone. My mother (and society) warned me this would happen but I honestly didn't believe it.

Last year, however, was a rude awakening. Beach season was so cruel and I tried very hard for a couple months to shed off a few pounds but let me tell you - I failed completely. Eventually I gave up and took a very, "If I'm gonna have this weight then I might as well make it worth it!" attitude. I indulged in any and everything which in turn made me feel even grosser. I went up a pant size. Once a person genuinely thought I was pregnant - which is just comical for many reasons.

Finally, New Years came around and like everyone else in this country, I decided that something needs to change. Honestly, it's not even about swimsuit season (entirely); it's more about not feeling disgusting. So I recommitted myself to the gym (and yes, totally getting the irony of my skipping the gym to write this) and got a personal trainer who told me something very scary: I can't just go to the gym - I have to change my whole lifestyle?!?!

Well, reader. I am totally inept at cooking for one. I am busy with volunteer work, my job, attempting a social life, and now classes. I'm trying to maintain a fairly strict budget. How do I keep a healthy diet? To start, I refuse to keep cookies, chips, gelato, or frozen pizza in my home anymore. Giving up beer for a while. That's where it started. Emptied out my snack drawer at work, too! (I'll miss you, peanut M&Ms...)

But cooking at home? That's the problem. Cooking small sensible meals seems so elusive. How do people do it? I've mastered throwing chicken breasts in the oven and then putting the chunks in salad.... but what else is there?

And then this weekend, miraculously, I realized how many different things you can do with chicken! And quinoa! And lentils! Plus I found all these awesome recipes in Jamie's Food Revolution, which I must embarrassingly admit was purchased like a year ago mostly because I have a tiny (HUGE) crush on Jamie Oliver and only skimmed it once and threw it in the large pile of other cookbooks that are going completely to waste in my life. But this weekend I was compelled to look through it and hot damn, if there aren't some great ideas in there! And they're mostly easy, too, which is good because my patience and attention span are quite limited in the kitchen.

So look out! I'm gonna be a healthy food cooking dynamo! Life changes all over the place. But! I have decided that in order to not torture myself, I'm going to give myself one day a week to eat anything I want (as long as I don't cheat the rest of the time and keep up with the gym). We'll see how long this lasts? I am a textbook stress eater on top of everything else. So send me all kinds of positive energy, folks! I'm gonna need it. Lifestyle overhaul, y'all!

Will try to post recipes on here soon. Successful ones... or maybe also the hilarious failures? Stay tuned!

- N

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