I was blessed growing up with a mother who can cook really good food. Most of my childhood has happy memories of a “traditional” American dinner: meat, vegetables, and starch of some sort. My parents always made us eat our vegetables. (I was that child who would sit at the table for HOURS after dinner because I wouldn’t finish my plate. I AM that adult who rarely eats everything on her plate now).
My later high school years were much less healthy. I was busy with colorguard, and yearbook, and Key Club, and I usually skipped lunch or ate a bag of chips because I would hang out in the yearbook room during lunch. (Why yes, I am a nerd.) When we did eat at home it was the standard “healthy” meals, but it became rarer that we all ate dinner together. A few times a week, because my poor mom was carting us across town, we ended up with fast food. I would often eat at Perkins with friends on the weekends or if it was winter I was grabbing fries at the ski lodge with a big hot chocolate.
When college arrived, I ate fried food, ice cream, pizza with ranch dressing, and epic waffles with chocolate chips, ice cream, and whipped cream. (Our dining hall had a waffle maker. Best.Idea.Ever.) I rarely ate breakfast other than coffee and my lunches were spotty.
Once I graduated college, I was on the “poor college graduate” diet of pb&j, pb&fluff, tuna sandwiches, cereal for dinner, pasta with red sauce, and mac&cheese. I branched out into rice & beans, hamburger helper, and baked (often over-cooked) chicken when I was feeling particularly adventurous. I must have eaten less than a serving of vegetables a day. I wish I was exaggerating. Obviously I hadn’t taken after my good cook of a mother.
I resorted to eating out all the time because I didn’t enjoy cooking. I also started eating a lot at work so I didn’t have to eat a lot for dinner later –I worked at an ad agency where free food was abundant. To a poor 22 year old, free food is like gold. You can imagine that years of pizza, sandwiches, cookies, and pasta salad lunches started to add up.
I made the connection between what I was eating and how I was feeling around the time I started doing Weight Watchers. When I started eating vegetables, I started feeling less sluggish. When I stopped eating three plates at the Indian buffet for lunch, I stopped wanting to pass out at 3pm every afternoon. When I ate breakfast, I wasn’t ravenous by lunch time and didn’t feel the need to EAT ALL THE THINGS.
I also ate a lot of fat-free, sugar-free things. They were less points than full fat items and of course I wanted to get in as much bang for my buck so to speak for the 29 points I could eat a day (later lowered to 26!). I ate a lot of fat-free Greek yogurt with Special K cereal for crunch, baked Splenda-sweetened treats (which were NEVER good), covered my whole wheat tacos with fat-free cheddar cheese, and drank sugar free (likely aspartame sweetened) hot chocolate.
But I lost weight. I lost 35 pounds, in fact, eating like that. I hit my goal weight eating fat-free, sugar-free, processed foods in conjunction with a lot of fresh vegetables, whole wheat pasta, beans and lentils, and lean protein. I still, however, would get the 3pm slump and need a cup of coffee (or two) to get through the rest of the afternoon.
Then I joined CrossFit. Bob and I joined a Paleo challenge shortly after joining so we could meet people at the box. I started reading the ingredients on the food that I typically bought and realized how much crap was in it. Fat free and sugar free items started to gross me out and I slowly cut them out of my diet. I also eliminated grains and dairy. Although eating strict Paleo didn’t work for me, I learned a lot about what I was putting into my body. I learned that eating Paleo-ish does work for me.
Now, I eat food with recognizable ingredients. I limit my grains and dairy to a small percentage of one meal a day, if that. I include some forms of healthy fats in each meal so I stay full. I eat a boatload of vegetables every day. I allow myself to indulge two or three times a week and I enjoy every bite because I know I’ve worked hard the rest of the week and have made choices that keep me energized and fueled.
Even though I cringe when I look back at certain things I ate, whether it be the heart-attack-on-a-plate waffles in college, the vegetable barren days after graduation, or the aspartame filled Weight Watchers era, I still have learned something from every part of my journey. All of these collective “diets” have contributed to how I eat today and they’ve helped me figure out what works & what doesn’t.
This way of eating works great for me. But it wouldn’t have worked well for me when I started losing weight because I knew nothing about proper portion sizes, how my body reacts to different types of food, or how to distinguish if I was really hungry or simply bored, or tired, or angry, or sad, or happy. So what works for me may not work for you. I do, however, think it’s important that you figure out what works to keep you sane, happy, and healthy.
What lifestyle of eating works for you? How did you arrive at that conclusion?
This is like a window into my own “Diet over the years”. Most importantly, it was a reminder to not go back to Weight Watchers. I struggle daily with quantity of food and trying to figure out how many calories are in something I am cooking, that I sometimes daydream of going back to WW. There was a reason I decided not to go back. No matter how much weight I lost, I still felt like crap. It was a lot to do with the quality of the food I was eating.
Thank you for the reminder.
Yeah, I still struggle with calories/ using olive oil/ eating avocados! WW ingrained in me that low-fat foods were best. But you feel so much better if you avoid the processed crap. I figure, I can’t really over eat on vegetables and meat so even if I’m eating 5 ounces of chicken as opposed to 3, who cares? If I’m hungry, I should eat. And when I’m hungry I choose things that are filling and nutritious. If I want a treat, I just make sure to eat small portions of it and enjoy every bite 🙂 Thanks for the comment — I’m glad it’s not just me!