I really wanted these evil little things to work out.
I used to love No Bake cookies. And while they can be made with coconut oil instead of butter, quite successfully, I really wanted to make them without any added oil. I melted chocolate chips and mixed them with peanut butter, with some sweeteners, and vanilla.
They tasted good. They set up nicely. My kids ate'em up. I probably ate three in the afternoon, and three around dinner. They gave me a stomach ache when I ate them, but I ate them anyway.
And woke up with a raging tummy. Let's just say the oceans are tossing and turning.
Last week's Intuitive Eating post by Janae, from Bring Joy, had me thinking. It had me remembering that over a year ago I had no sense of eating intuitively. I had successfully muted my body, and after making the switch to whole foods, I realized something.
My body has a voice.
When I give it the right fuel, it will thank me. Profusely. When I give it the wrong fuel, it will let me know. With oceans, tossing and turning.
It communicates. Quite clearly.
But in order to wake that voice up from the dead, I had to make a lot of changes. Eliminate junk. First dairy and meat. Then eggs and butter. Six months later, oil. I have not been able to eat excess amounts of oil since then, without my body communicating its frustration. The transition process to whole foods made me realize that I had been smothering a very important voice for a very long time.
Yesterday it gave me warnings. When I ate cookies, it ached. When I ate my Vegetable Soup and my Pumpkin Pie Smoothie, it thanked me. I refused to be smart and listen. I lack self-control, really. When I have something in my kitchen, just sitting on the counter, staring at me, there is a %98.7364 chance I will eat it.
This morning my body decided it needed to yell. Loudly. Don't eat cookies anymore! So much for chocolate and peanut butter. My body is much happier with whole grain and fruit desserts than desserts made of chocolate and peanut butter.
Gratitude moment.
I am so thankful that my body has a voice.
I do not want to mute it, ignore it. I do not want to smother it.
P.S. Thank you so much for all of your comments, lately! Now that Paul is away, I save them for reading after I put my kids to bed. It gives me something to look forward to. Instead of nothingness in an eerily silent home.
Man, I have no self-control either!
ReplyDeleteI wanted you to know that your post about grocery shopping/planning has totally changed my life - seriously. I have a notebook on my counter now where I plan our weekly menus and then write out my grocery list. I take it to the store with me and only buy what I need and now my produce never goes bad! So much peace in my life!
You should share the story on you and Paul sometime. And what does he do for work? Oh, and when you get around to it, how do you buy bulk? Costco?
Fun, I like your ideas for posts!
DeleteI buy bulk on Amazon, from the church storehouse, and at Costco. I also get some things at the bulk bin section of Whole Foods. Stuff like red lentils.
Depends on what the item is. I like getting flour from amazon (spelt), oats and beans from the church storehouse, and I do like to get my produce at Costco, and canned goods in bulk, like diced tomatoes and olives.
I really like your blog post and Janae Wise's on intuitive eating. Very interesting subject. I was discussing this with a friend the other day. How when you remove those things that numb you (addictions, behaviors, habit, food etc) it can be a shock to you. You start feeling again... you feel EVERYTHING, you begin to feel things you never felt before and notice things you never did before. You start peeling back layers of haze and fog. I'm not even close to where you are yet, but I hope to get there. I know what it feels like to start waking up to the world, to your body, to life, to new dimensions. And there are levels of layers, you can just keep peeling them back and finding new depth to life. It's an intersting idea, to look back at your old-self and reolize the dramatic difference. You are the same person and yet find yourself transformed.
ReplyDeleteYeah, waking up from an addiction can definitely feel like waking up from the dead. I think dairy cheese is kind of like an addiction. Stuff is full of caiso-morphienes...I spelled that wrong. So when I woke up from it I was pretty stoked. Happy to be alive to say the least.
DeleteThanks for talking to me so much yesterday. Little genius. I always love your thoughts on balance and improvement.
I also have to say that it takes courage to scrap/throw out a recipe (or anything for that matter) that you are so invested in. I have spent many hours perfecting things that I really don't need in the end, too. Also, I have found with recipe developementation that often your alterations bring the product so far from it's original state that it's simply not worth toying with.
ReplyDeleteYes, it takes courage!
DeleteMah achin' belly helped me make the decision.