Amateur Malcontent

The decision to make 2012 the year I took my eating habits seriously* began at a snail’s pace. The first thing I did was take a month off from drinking alcohol.  I also tried to cut down on bad carbs (I switched to whole wheat bread, pasta and brown rice) and ate breakfast at least 5 days a week, but that was about it. In February I discovered that I actually enjoyed Green Monster smoothies and now I have one for breakfast every week day. In March instead of just pinning super delicious fatty sugary carb heavy recipes on Pinterest, I told myself I needed to start usng it to find healthier recipes. Afterwards, I would actually follow through on making a lot of them. I was gettting a better handle on how to cook with more veggies and less fat and still be left with something delicious.  In April my friend Andrea introduced me to CalorieCount.about.com, a free online site that helps people track their food and exercise. 

Now, because of all these things combined, my grocery shopping has changed a lot. My bags are filled with mostly veggies instead of breads, cheeses, chips and sweet snacks. Sadly, my great love of cheese has had to be tamped down a bit, and while I still eat it, I just make sure I don’t douse everything I cook with it like I used to. I try to use it as an accent flavor instead of the main attraction.

The result of these efforts has become more obvious recently, too, much to my surprise. I have started losing weight. I feel great and have more energy. I crave vegetables and it’s become fun for me to see just how many I can cram into any given recipe I’m making before it becomes too ridiculous (Oh, it says to only use one cup of broccoli? Let’s see what happens with two! Why not some spinach, too?). My feeling better and losing weight has even been in spite of me not having an exercise routine (and stuffing my face on some weekends), which is the last part of the puzzle I need to put in place. There’s just so many things I don’t like about exercising that it’s hindering me and stifling my motivation. I want it to be free (because I am the 99%). I don’t want to wear a helmet or ride a bike anywhere near traffic. I don’t want to jog around town on sidewalks, I want to jog on a trail in the woods. I don’t want to have to drive to a place just to exercise. I don’t want to get up early. I want my exercise experience to be perfect**, etc. etc. All I know is, when the perfect set of circumstances all come together in the right way, in the past I have been very good about sticking with a routine. Honestly, what will probably wind up happening is that I won’t get around to doing something about exercise until 2013 so I can have at least a year of heatlhier eating under my belt. I want it to be second nature so I don’t have to think about it anymore, and then I’ll be able to move on and concentrate on the exercise part with my full attention.

But hey, so far this whole nutrition thing has been pretty awesome, and I never thought I’d be enthusiastic about healthy eating. People don’t want to hear it (hey, I didn’t want to hear it, etiher), but when you finally decide to make eating better a lifestyle change instead of a temporary diet, it actually works! The only thing I’m sad about is that I’m bitter that I have to do this because I’m old. I can no longer cram two Cinnabons into my face for lunch then eat two Big Macs for dinner and still be skinny, like I could when I was 18.  I have become the boring old person who eats healthier because they don’t want to die earlier than they were supposed to die. But never fear, no matter how badly I want to hold onto my youth, I’m not going to get as crazy as Suzanne Summers—what with her 60 pills a day and daily vagina injections!  

Just thought this infographic on how portions sizes have changed was really interesting.

*Because now I’m a year and a month away from turning 40 and I damn well don’t want to succumb to the trend of turning into a typical middle-aged dumpy woman. I ought to write a post about what my younger self thought about this, but that’s a different post (a very embarrassing one), and one where I need to give myself a serious punch in the face for being such a bitch about it in my head.

**Yes, I can be quite particular about things. Yes, it’s a total pain in the ass for people that have to deal with (or live with) me in real life. I KNOW.