With a new direction in life and the act of traveling into the unknown, you become presented with brand new challenges along the road, like potholes, unexpected flat tires, speedbumps, and other metaphorical road trip descriptions of obstacles that slow down progress. I’m taking care of myself mentally, but my physical abilities and overall health are yelling at me to fix things internally. The one problem I am faced with now is my diet. Food was my safety blanket when the difficulty in living got turned up a notch or two. I excused my behavior by not caring about my weight and only eating “healthy” foods. The obvious problem that I refused to acknowledge was that I didn’t always eat healthily, and regardless of when I did, I overate. Too much of a good thing exists everybody as much as we don’t want to admit it.
One of the leading factors for my bad habit of overeating is that I love food. There isn’t anything, so far, that I won’t eat. I love experiencing cultures through their food, learning their history, cooking methods, traditions passed down across the dinner table. Food is a fantastic conduit for our past to leave a lasting imprint on our DNA. Hungry is my happy mood, and being full is my soul feeling satisfied. Do you know how people use retail therapy sometimes to make themselves feel better? That’s what grocery shopping is for me. Walking down the aisles at a supermarket or farmer’s market is what looking through racks of clothing at a department store is for my sister. I want to try everything and justify whatever it takes to add it to my cart.
I honestly don’t believe in dieting. I shouldn’t have to cut back on eating certain foods purely to lose weight or be “healthy.” If I want to continue loving food, then I must take care of myself as well. I have to cut back on my portions, keep an eye on my calorie intake, and do my best to cut back on fast food, which I guess could also be a diet. Okay, I’m realizing things about myself as I write this. I do want to lose a few pounds; I don’t mean I want to become a fitness model or anything. I would like to have a little more energy and maybe not start breathing heavily after walking home carrying groceries. It might also be that I bought too many unnecessary groceries if I’m honest.
I’m considering talking to a nutritionist or hiring a personal trainer to help me create good habits in the kitchen and the gym. Speaking of the gym, it was one of my attempts to commit to a healthy lifestyle before my medication, and I haven’t gone back for at least three months now. I have become one of those people who pay for a service but never use it out of laziness. I honestly don’t know when I started to hate exercising. I used to enjoy it a lot; I played sports in high school, had friends that I liked working out with in college, and even spent almost a month or two going to the gym every day because I found a rhythm that felt good to me.
Choosing to eat healthily and correctly is going to be a stiff challenge for me. Still, I have to take one step at a time if I want to make some progress. I can’t find the energy to tackle the gym just yet, but I think a nutritionist to help me wrangle my eating habits first might be a significant step in the right direction. As long as the path has food that still tastes good, because I can deal with eating a bit less, but if I have to eat tasteless, bland food, I might revolt. I’ve already started staying hydrated, drinking water all day for the past few days, so there’s that at the very least. But, I will try my hardest to commit to a healthier lifestyle from here on. Who knows, maybe I can finally regain some of the lost confidence that I left in the gym, along with my sanity.
