I believe I can.

I started this blog because I thought writing every day would keep me accountable. But, amazingly, over the last couple of weeks I haven't needed any outside source to keep me accountable.

I am doing very, very well. At home I've been mostly maintaining a plant based and low fat diet, though Friday night it was POURING and we decided to make pizza at home; I ate pizza with a white crust and cheese, the horror! :) Actually, it was great; I only ate two little pieces and had a salad with it. I made brownies, too, but didn't even have a piece that night. I'm starting to feel a little slimmer - that wasn't my goal in giving up dieting, but I figured if I stopped the restrict and binge cycle I'd drop some weight - and that feels good.

How did I do on vacation? Wonderful. I pretty much gave up the idea of trying to eat the way I do at home, and it was just fine. Our first night there (after eating the way I do at home all day) we were starving and at the last minute decided on pizza. Again, I ate a couple of pieces with a salad, and had a glass of wine, and that was it for me. We ate out a few times and I ate some things I wouldn't consider "healthy", but I was fine. We found a great breakfast place where he could get what he wanted and I could get a huge fruit plate with melon and pineapple and banana and grapes and kiwis and yum!

Somehow things have shifted a bit for me. I know that when I'm feeling my healthiest mentally I want to eat a low-fat and plant based diet. But I'm not going to try to do that for every single meal of my life. If we go out to eat and I want something different, that's what I'll get. The difference, though, is that I haven't been getting upset and anxious over eating something outside of my "plan". That is what always led to my downfall - if I ate outside of what I was supposed to, I got really nervous and sort of excited and would end up going waaaaay overboard.

I haven't even wanted to do that lately, with the exception of one night when I was sort of bored and stuff, but I cut it off quickly. I know I feel my best when I don't eat past a certain point, and I want to feel good! Also, like I said, I think I've dropped a couple of pounds, and I don't want to yo yo back to where I was.

So, things are good. I'll keep writing when it seems important, but I realized I can keep myself accountable without any other tool. Because I WANT to. I want to feel good. I want to eat a healthy diet. So often people will say life is too short and we should enjoy this or that that isn't necessarily good for us. I get that, and agree that I don't want to completely limit myself, but at the same time, we've taken that idea much, much too far in this country. Every meal is an over indulgence in some cases, and that's not what I want for myself. And honestly, food that is whole and healthy is DELICIOUS. Yesterday I baked a butternut squash and ate a piece of it along with a cooked honey crisp apple - OMG. It was so good, and after I didn't feel sick, full, or sugary.

That being said - I'm going out to breakfast this morning and plan on ordering the whole wheat pancakes with hot cooked apples. It will be delicious!

Have a great day!

Wow.

Wow. That's all I can say. I totally disappeared, and with good reason - I put myself on another diet. This time I had myself convinced that it was the best possible way for me to eat, that it was incredibly healthy, that I could eat that way permanently.

I lasted about a week. And yes, it was very healthy, it was a "good" way to eat, and for a while it was easy. But then the temptations came. And I kept telling myself no. And then when I finally did give in to temptation...let's just say it's the same old story. I say I want to stop the dieting/binging cycle, but then I just do it to myself all over again!

I wasn't hungry at all during the "healthy" week, but the diet I was doing was very restrictive - lots of things I couldn't eat. The plan is supposed to be incredibly healthy and reverse heart disease and keep a non diseased heart healthy. You know what, though? I don't have heart disease. I have disordered eating.

I'm here again because I want freedom. If I want freedom that means NO DIETING. That means no restricting myself. I can't tell you how many times I've done this to myself over and over and over again. So now I'm starting again. I need to keep writing if I put myself on a diet, not back away and avoid facing the fact that I'm not doing what I said I'd do. So, am I back on day one? My goal was to go a year without dieting, so I guess that's exactly where I am.

I think I should pick up the copy of Intuitive Eating from the library again. I've read it twice already, but I think it would come in handy.