As a caveat, I'd like to state up front that this is not a lose-weight-before-the-wedding endeavor. I could gain ten pounds in the next year-and-a-bit, and The Future Mister would still find me gorgeous, I'd still have a fantastic dress and awesome hair, and enough beautifying happiness radiating out of my very pores to knock you over from twenty paces, thank you very much. If I happen to be ten pounds lighter on my wedding day, it'll be a byproduct of a healthier approach to life overall, not some specific effort to fit in a dress or an internal, theoretical idea of what a bride "should" look like.
With that rant out of the way, I'll add that what this is about is a realization that I've been commenting way too often lately that my stomach is "wonky" or "feeling 'off'" or just "meh." I suspect I'd have more energy and motivation to do the myriad of things I need to do every week if I wasn't unconsciously spending part of my energy on tummy woes. And, hey, who wouldn't love to have less discomfort of any variety if that's an option?
Obviously, there are a whole bunch of ways to start rethinking about nutrition, and I think for now I've narrowed it down using a process of elimination. A friend was talking recently about juice fasting, and I'm a little (or a lot) wary of that. I'm unsure how beneficial or harmful it might be to limit one's food intake to broth and juice for three (or however many) days. I've just got a gut feeling (heh, cue the rimshot) that this isn't what I should do.
I'm less concerned about the advisability of avoiding certain types of possible culprit foods. Dairy, gluten, that sort of thing. I don't think this would be unhealthy -- as long as I take some "fake" calcium, for instance -- but I'm ruling this one out too because, honestly, I just plain like those foods, and I'm choosing to be stubborn and keep eating them for now. Why take the overzealous step of banishing bread and cheese from my diet on pure speculation? That would border on tragic, methinks.
So. What I've decided to do in the meantime is to pay attention to what I consume in established nutrition categories. Namely: sodium, sugar, and saturated fat. I've never paid much attention to them in the past; I avoid them as a matter of general mindset, and I don't eat a lot of processed foods as it is, but I'm sure there's some of each lurking where I wouldn't expect it. There's no question that less of each is preferable, so I figure now is the time to start paying attention, assessing what I consume as a matter of habit, and making improvements moving forward. I'm guessing (or hoping? speculating?) that in making those changes, my overall food intake will be higher quality nutrition. If that, the path of least resistance, happens to resolve my low-level but relatively constant stomach wonkiness, so much the better.
And in a few weeks, I should be able to incorporate some uber-healthy sustenance straight from the garden!
Hello, lettuce!
3 comments:
I find that the more homemade, less processed foods I eat, the better I feel. Except sometimes I overdo it on the vegetables when my stomach could use a *little* less fiber.
Good luck with figuring it out. I think healthy habits are more important than weight loss, but often the two go hand-in-hand.
You bring up a good point; some days it might be that I've eaten too MUCH fiber.
Word on the homemade food! The lurking stuff for me is probably in the ingredients, actually. As an example, in making homemade pizza, I happened to look at the sauce I always buy (because it's the only kind I've found with no added sugar)... and hey there, hello 25% of my daily sodium recommendation! Stuff like that is what I'm hoping to address.
My mom always made homemade pizza sauce using plain canned tomato sauce and herbs and it was pretty good. It still has 11% of your daily value of sodium though.
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