Eating

Over the last couple of weeks, I've made some substantial changes to my food intake. I despise the word diet which has evolved into a word defining restriction with ephemeral weight loss the outcome.

I struggle with eating cold veggies - salads,etc. I don't know why that is. I was brought up in a reasonably healthy house, very healthy for its time and place, my mother had taken classes in nutrition and that was over 60 years ago, but I've always rebelled against salads. The cold mutinous lettuce in a bowl with tomatoes eyes and cucumber faces. Ironically, my children became salad lovers as a result of my repugnance.

I've struggled with weight much of my life and am familiar with every aspect of food addiction, anorexia, weight gains, substantial weight losses, yo-yo dieting, black beauties amphetamines, sketchy doctors with horse urine shots, medically supervised fasts, weight loss programmes with their business model based on failure, etc.

My recent restricted movement and physicality has forced me to go look at my food intake, to reevaluate my ingestion so to speak, as the weight has crept on since my diagnoses of PVD. I am a foodie, an overall addict of much and often, so I put on my big girl knickers, and toured some blogs who have taken the year of 2018 to focus on health and simplicity and planning. Thanks you guys, you are too numerous to mention but you all inspire me.

I bought ready made salads - I worked out the costs and with the disgraceful amount of veggies I throw out regularly, it is actually cheaper for me to buy a large salad, full of variety with free dressing on the side, that creates 4 meals for me for $10. For some reason I don't question, this is palatable. I also picked up some healthy pre-made meals. With an aging population here, these are becoming more readily available and I often find that one (recently a gorgeous turkey meat loaf with tiny potatoes and zucchini) does me for 2 dinners at a cost of $4.00 each. That plus salad is a great meal.

I also got myself back into a support group which helps me immeasurably in taking stock and working on the inner issues of "it's not what I'm eating, it's what's eating me". The "comfort eating" which is but a moment in time and results in enormous physical discomfort for me. My running and training days are over and I'm truly back to basics which can be a very good thing. For anybody. I (mostly) accept my new limits, my new state of having so many losses which linger in spite of stones thrown in water and candles lit and meditative practices.

I'm still easing into the persona of healthy, moderate eater but I'm getting there.

More on this as I forge this new pathway.