This weekend has been the worst, and yet the biggest eye-opener. I agreed to bake cookies for my sister-in-law's baby shower. And there's nothing paleo about these cookies... She loves my family sugar cookie recipe, so I HAD to make those for her, and this was the first time I bought flour and sugar in over a year, plus the first time it has been in my house and the first time I've worked with it in over a year. It was stressful and terrible. Thank goodness the cookies turned out okay in the end. But I forgot what a pain in the a$& working with flour is in comparison to almond flour and coconut flour like I'm used to. My kitchen was the biggest messiest disaster it's ever been in a long time, and I was just frustrated. And convinced I'm never going to deal with flour and sugar EVER again.
Of course I kept eating the broken or not-pretty cookies as they came out of the oven. I felt sooooo sick afterwards. Paleo cookies don't make me feel that way... They just make me full, and when I'm done I'm done. These made me want to keep coming back for more, and I was reminded of how addicting sugar is. And how heavy it weighs in your gut after eating too much... bleh.
Add that to the Fete at the Fort, a beer-tasting event at Fort de Chartres in Prairie du Rocher, and my weekend was toast. And so was I after 7-8 different samples of beers... Of course then there was picnic food - brats and hotdogs and burgers and all those things come with buns. And I ate enough to last me a few days... I just kept thinking, oh, it's a cheat day. Anything goes!
Doesn't work like that. Especially when I've been eating my feelings for the last few weeks and I've had some sort of "cheat" almost every day... That adds up.
And I've noticed quite a few things since I've been going back to my crappy eating habits. Things that I considered "normal" in my life, or "hereditary" or "something I'll just have to live with". Even things I figured I could just treat with herbal remedies, but never really considered that I don't have to deal with it at ALL.
My allergies have been flaring up, and they've been mild-to-non-existent this past spring and the previous fall. I've always had a postnasal drip every morning that was very aggravating and disgusting, but I figured that just ran in my family (my mom and grandma deal with that too) and I was doomed to have it too, but I have apparently been taking for granted that that's been GONE for quite awhile up until recently, and here it is back again. My energy levels are screwy. I feel crabby more than what I think is humanly necessary. I've been getting way too much acne. My system just feels... off. Oh and I'm getting a little thicker around the middle. NOT OKAY. I'VE WORKED TOO HARD TO GET RID OF THAT!!!
What am I doing to myself?
And, not only that, but how many others out there are just accepting mild ailments as "normal"? Allergies, skin problems, mood issues... Stuff people treat with medicine of some sort, whether conventional or natural - could all be treated just by adjusting the diet, and then you don't need to take any form of medicine at all!
This weekend has been eye-opening, and motivational. I have revisited issues I used to deal with that have been gone since I started eating clean. I don't want these issues back in my life. It's time to stop cheating so much and get back on the wagon.
It's okay to cheat every now and then. Like I said, nobody's perfect, and sometimes you need those little cheats to not make you feel so restricted. A grain-free/sugar-free diet doesn't need to feel restrictive in the first place - with all the recipes I've been sharing you should feel like your life can go on as it always was - but every now and then it's nice to just have some peanut M&Ms.
Just not every day... :-\
For those of you who feel my pain, I've created a new Facebook group called Clean Eating Support. You don't have to be Paleo or anything, just avoid processed food and otherwise do what you feel is good for you. Let's encourage each other to stay on target!!
Its so nice to know that I am not the only one that gets off...after my accident I felt like I lost it...but I am getting back there and I am not going back!!!!
ReplyDeleteYeah! It's those downfalls in life that seem to make it really hard to get yourself back on track! I'm glad you're getting there though! It's definitely a learning experience!
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