Still Day Two, Still Doing Well

You know what I'm finding hard about not "dieting"? Listening to my body and eating when it wants to. In the past, when I was counting calories or on some other plan, I knew when I could eat and how many calories I should be consuming. Not counting calories and listening to my body's signals is interesting.

For instance, this morning I ate a breakfast of oats that I mixed with shredded carrots, raisins, and applesauce that I'd let soak overnight. I added a chopped apple this morning. I have no idea how many calories were in this concoction, because I measured nothing and of course don't want to count anything anyways. About two hours later I felt empty again, and was getting ready to go on a run. I kept thinking I'd wait and eat after the run, that I should wait until lunch to eat again, but my body was kind of being insistent with me. I ate a banana and a spoonful of peanut butter, gasp, without measuring it!

Then, at lunch, I put some Vodka sauce on my rice/lentil/veggie combo. Normally I stay away from that kind of sauce because of the cream in it, but I put some on and had to STRONGLY resist the urge to look at the label to see how many calories were in it. Why does it matter? I ate lunch when I was hungry and put a moderate amount of sauce on my food and that was that. In the late afternoon I felt hungry again, and also annoyed. My brain was telling me it was too late to eat a snack because dinner would be relatively soon, but again, my body was like, "hello, feed me!"

I'm glad I ate, because it turns out I'm going out to dinner again tonight, but it will be a little later, so thank goodness I ate when my body wanted me to!

It's amazing to me that so many of us have gotten to a place where we live in fear of food - fear of the fat grams, fear of calories, fear of what it will do to us. I eat a diet very, very heavy on the whole grains, veggies, and fruits. I've been a vegetarian for 13 years. I exercise almost every day. I live a healthy lifestyle, except when it comes to what I put my brain, and sometimes body, through when it comes to the way I deal with food.

Today I thought, "Oh my gosh...a YEAR without dieting??? That's a long time!" I honestly have never, ever gone that long without trying to put myself on some plan to make me "better". Maybe in college before I started going on diets, but I graduated 8 years ago and I think I've been on and off diets ever since! I really, really want to keep this blog up, because it means I'm keeping up my agreement with myself to stop dieting. To step off the roller coaster of restriction, overeating, and negative body talk. I can do this!

If you struggle like I do, please consider trying the "no diet" mind set on for a little while. Believe me, I know how scary it is, but when I picture my future and where I want to be, "Free from food and weight obsession" is what I really long for, not, "perfect body".