Soooo, remember when I was whining about how I couldn’t find a job?
Nevermind 
I put in an application at the cutest little organic bakery/cafe in my town a few weeks ago. Last Monday I received a call from the owner saying that she’d like me to come in for a few “trial” days.
Thus, another reason why I wanted to take a few days off from blogging – I was busy being a working gal!
After falling in love with the customers, the atmosphere, and of course – the food – I’m so siked to have landed the job
Admittedly, though, it was a little difficult transitioning in to working while trying to figure and become comfortable my new meal plan. I wrote up my thoughts and reflections in terms of my progress for the past week and I thought I’d share it with you because — I wanna!
Week 1 Reflections:
The good:
- Honoring my body in terms of working out: Honestly, after being on my feet at the cafe all day the last thing I wanted to do when I came home was workout. So, I didn’t. This entire week I did 2 yoga sessions and Physique 57 once and you know what? I feel great. Perhaps even stronger for giving my body some much needed rest days.
- Becoming more comfortable with “normalized” foods: After a little probing from my nutritionist last week, she really made me reevaluate why I tend to gravitate towards certain foods.
Examples:
- Choosing almond milk over regular milk: while I convinced myself that I simply preferred the taste of almond milk, after a week of drinking moo juice (and loving it!) I realize that perhaps I opted for the almond variety for the sake of saving calories and fat. Actually, I know this is the case. Sure, almond milk has less fat, carbs, sugar, whatever.. It also has a lot less calcium and protein and nutrients – which is exactly what my body needs.
Plus, my family drinks regular milk and there’s no reason why buy my own “special” milk when I don’t necessarily need to.
- Soy cheese over regular cheese: Soy cheese = less fat and calories + less taste and nutrition. Not worth it.
- Chia Seeds & Flaxseed meal: I was so proud last week to tell my nutritionist that I eat chia and flaxseeds on the daily, as I smugly though she would be impressed by my intake of Omega-3′s and healthy fats.
But immediately after I told her, I felt like a fool. She stared at me and asked…
“So, Jenn – why do you eat chia and flaxseed?”
“Um..because..they have like, omega 3′s… and they’re heathy and stuff”.
“Do you enjoy them?”
“uhhhh….”
Hm. She stumped me! After thinking about it for awhile I realize that I eat foods like chia seeds and flaxseed not for the sake of enjoyment or nourishing my body, but rather, for the sake of being “the healthiest health blogger I can be!” I try my hardest to resist the urge to compare myself (and especially my eating habits) to other bloggers, but as I’m sure we all can attest – it’s damn hard! Especially when it’s a community so specifically focused on nutrition and health, I think it can definitely perpetuate an obsession with healthy foods and eating as “cleanly” as possible. While I’m all about eating real foods, there’s a difference between eating for health and eating for the illusion of health. Sure, chia protein pudding might sound healthy in theory, but I think my body would respond much better to a slice of toast with peanut butter and an apple. I know this isn’t the case for everyone but in my own reflections I realized that, while chia and flaxseeds are intended to supplement real foods – I was using them to replace real foods. To me, chia seeds solely signify 80 calories that contributed to my “daily caloric goal”. I don’t enjoy them…I don’t find pleasure in eating chia seeds..and lord knows I probably shouldn’t be spending $20 on a tub of them. For me, I ate them because my blogging friends were and they seemed a lot “safer” than 80 calories worth of nuts or cheese. I talked to Gingie a little bit about this and he said something that really resonated with me:
“Sometimes you can try so hard to be healthy that it becomes unhealthy”.
He is absolutely 100% on point…as much as it pains me to admit. It’s so true though! of course, being unhealthy 100% of the time isn’t ideal, but I think he’s on to something in saying that being healthy 100% of the time isn’t either. (physically or mentally). Moderation moderation moderation!
I think coming to terms with this realizations will REALLY help me to move forward and become more comfortable eating “normally”.
**While I know that everyone has their own rational and reasoning for choosing certain foods (dietary intolerances, personal preference, etc) I know that the decisions I’ve been making in terms of my dietary intake were not rooted in my own desires and needs, but rather, what I thought was “healthier” for me and what I “should” be eating. I’m definitely not trying to knock almond milk or chia seeds – I just have no business buying them!**
The Bad
- Planning: although I love the concept of exchanges, I still think it prompts me to think a little too much about my meals. Though my ultimate goal is to learn how to eat intuitively, I do feel it is necessary for me to have some kind of “plan” and guidelines though, just for the sake of staying accountable and eating enough…so I’m willing to deal.
- Staying in my comfort zone: Although I started eating more real food, a lot of what I ate was definitely still “safe” and, for the most part, my daily eats did vary much from day to day. Although I partially attribute this to the fact that I was working and didn’t have time to really cook (or grocery shop!), I also know that I definitely could have challenged myself more.
Things to work on:
- allowing my mom to cook for me
- cooking for myself and being able to eyeball portions of an entire recipe (rather than trying to single serving-ifyyyy everything)
Overall I think I learned a lot this week and, though I’m not sure what the scale will reveal today, I feel like I’m slowly but surely learning how to nourish my body properly and it feels good! I still have a lot to learn but hey, I’m a work in progress
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- Any thoughts on being “too healthy”?
- Do you feel as though blogging influences some of the dietary choices that you make? Do you think this is a positive or negative thing?
- What criteria are you most concerned with when making food choices? Do you think it’s possible to be “too concerned” with specific criteria?
I’m hoping to get some really great feedback and insight from y’all on this one
For more, please visit www.peanutbutterjenny.com