“That” Person

Last weekend, I set about the business of grocery shopping, selecting a little of the organic this, and some vegetarian that, and a bit of whole sprouted grain something-or-other. I passed by many of the middle aisles, with no temptation to purchase the sugary, processed crap that lurks there. I lingered in the produce aisle, as my new game is to purchase some type of produce I’ve never cooked before and then figure out what to do with it.

About halfway through the supermarket, I realized that over the course of the past several years, I had become that person. You know, the one with spoken and unspoken rules about what she will and won’t eat.

I’m the one that reads the food labels, and then scrunches her nose in disgust in the event that the ingredient list includes more than 3 or 4 items or if any words cannot be recognized as a naturally occurring food source.

I’m that person who talks about “eating clean” and “plant power” or “good fats” and “good carbs.”

Yup, that’s me.

This identity transformation didn’t happen overnight. I didn’t wake up one day and say, “I’m going to be a plant-powered-organic-clean-eating person.” In fact, I strongly resist any labels for how I eat. Within the past 8 years or so, I have also resisted any dietary changes that were not sustainable lifestyle changes.

For me, when it comes to eating healthy, it must be sustainable. I’ve learned my lesson that diets–used here in the sense of any rigid eating plan that requires you to make major changes overnight in the hopes of restricting calories in order to lose weight–are not sustainable.

Anyone who has ever tried the grapefruit diet, or the Atkins diet, or Jenny Craig, or name-your-fad-diet-here, knows this to be true.

You have success on the diet. You lose weight. You feel great. You realize the diet is not sustainable for everyday life. You start eating “normally” again. You gain weight. You feel terrible.

Said simply, diets just xanax don’t work. In the most extreme cases, these diets are not even healthy.

However, thinking about taking a general approach to daily nutrition might be a better way to help us lose or maintain weight, and reap other benefits, such as a more well-rounded and diverse intake of nutrients. Today, I make food choices based on general nutritional principles or guidelines, that are flexible and realistic enough to be sustainable for everyday life.

That’s how I wound up being “that person.” But, I wasn’t always her.

As a kid, I was grossly overweight. I turned to the starvation diet, otherwise known as anorexia. That was effective, but not sustainable in the long term. I tried bulimia. Also not sustainable.

Throughout high school and college, I tried a variety of gimmicky diets. They kept the weight off as long as I stayed on them, but not a moment longer than that.

As I moved through my 20s, the weight came on and went off. The cycle continued. Then, about 8 years ago, I started to make changes. Rather than follow a prescribed diet plan, I created principles for daily eating. My goal is to follow these principles most of the time. If I want to eat something that falls outside of the guidelines, I do. I just don’t do it all of the time.

The nutritional transformation began very simply by limiting white starches, processed foods, and sugar. We incorporated more whole grains.

Green machine.

Slowly but surely, John and I ate more vegetables instead of the nutrient-devoid foods we used to eat. The vegetables made us feel better. In addition to eating the vegetables, we included juicing and veggie smoothies as part of our food options.

At this point I was maintaining a healthy weight, but I still had nutritional concerns. I wanted to make certain that I was eating a diverse balance of nutrients that would fuel my endurance efforts (and recovery), while protecting against a family history of cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

So, we choose foods rich in anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients, such as beets, berries, beans, kale, and broccoli (to name a few of our staples). These types of foods are rich in a wide variety of vitamins and minerals, and by eating such a broad array, we can forgo the vitamin supplements and get our micronutrients right from the source.

Most recently, John and I have committed to avoiding (as much as is possible) the hormones, chemicals and other unsavory crap that is a part of the way our food is processed for sale in the grocery store.

We buy as much organic food sources as we can. While this makes the grocery bill even pricier, dealing with the health fall-out of chemicalization will be even pricier.

We’ve also decided that we won’t eat meat unless we know for certain that it is not mass-produced, and hence injected with crap. In practice, this means if we don’t harvest or catch it ourselves, we aren’t eating it.

After watching documentaries such as Food, Inc. and reading about the ways that our meat products are injected, treated, and processed, John and I decided that we can no longer eat a food source that is not good for our health, our environment, or our karma.

We’ve been eating meat-free for almost a month now, and I don’t miss it. My weight is healthy, my energy is high, and I feel good. One unexpected benefit is that I’ve become very creative in the preparation of our meals. Apparently, eating meat made me a lazy cook, as I would simply cook the meat, make a basic vegetable dish, and call it dinner. Now, I experiment with new foods and try different combinations of old favorites, which has been fun for both cooking and eating.

The adoption of these nutritional principles has been a gradual, evolutionary process. I fully expect that they will continue to evolve as we learn more about how we can best fuel our lifestyle.

I think it’s important to emphasize that I did NOT write this post because I think everyone should eat like me. I know these principles aren’t for everyone, and I believe that nutrition is a personal, individual choice. I wrote this post to encourage anyone who isn’t happy with their food choices to find sustainable, daily nutritional principles that work in their lives.

Because if the choices aren’t sustainable for you, you’ll never be that person. 

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Do you have nutritional guidelines that you follow? How have your food choices evolved? 

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