Feeling Good

Get ready—this might be a long one!

Hello friends! It has been a dark, drizzle, dreary day in Boston today but I’m actually in a really good mood regardless! I finally am starting to feel de-funkified and I feel like I’m back on track with my healthy lifestyle and definitely feel in control of my eating again. I’m not really sure what happened but it seems like about a month ago (ever since my mom came to visit + my visit to NH) I’ve just been really off. Despite my friends here at school I’ve just felt really lonely and bored with my routine. Normally I love learning and have never really minded doing my work but for some reason I just couldn’t motivate myself. It didn’t help that one of my classes is ridiculously hard and despite the hard work and tons of time I put into it, I wasn’t getting the results I wanted or was used to. This definitely discouraged and frustrated me. I gave myself (with my mom’s help of course!)  a little pep talk and realized that grades really aren’t everything and I should aim to just get the most out of my education that I can. With my new attitude I found that my readings actually are interesting, and it’s definitely been easier to concentrate lately. 

Another thing that was bothering me was that I started slipping with the emotional eating. I was falling back into some of my bad habits of mindlessly grazing, especially at night. There were a few nights that were terrible and I felt so gross the next day that I know I over-exercised and over-restricted to compensate. This obviously set me up for the bad cycle to continue and I had a really hard time snapping out of it. It actually got so bad that I had to get rid of some of my trigger foods (trail mix, pb, and puffins) because I just felt like I had no control around them. I finally think I have a handle on things again and the past week has been really successful so far. I’m looking forward to going to the grocery store and buying my favorite foods again and eating them like a normal person again! I have been able to identify a lot of the causes though and am making a big effort to work through them.

I don’t know exactly what happened to turn myself around, but I’m feeling a lot better now. I realize that I don’t need to be perfect and that I am definitely my own harshest critic. I’m trying to work on not being so hard on myself and actually living rather than planning my life. I don’t know if that even makes sense! I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you spend so much time planning things out then you don’t even have time to live your life. It’s ok to not always have a plan or for plans to change. I haven’t weighed myself in 3 days and you know what, my pants still fit (not weighing does not necessarily mean gaining!! which is something I am still trying to learn). On Monday I let myself sleep a little later because I was exhausted and I had to reschedule my early-morning workout to early-afternoon. And you know what—life went on! I just need to relax my plans, expectations, mind, and body and I think I’ll be a lot better off.

Anyway…enough rambing—and onto the food!

Breakfast

Cereal with banana, skim, and flax. And my book—SO GOOD!

Lunch

I was starving the second I walked in the door after class so I ate some carrots before prepping lunch. This was a great idea because my stomach was calm enough that I was actually able to slow down and enjoy my cinnamon raisin ezekial english muffin, laughing cow, strawberry jam, and cottage cheese.

SURPRISE!!!

When I got home from yoga I had a package waiting for me! The amazing Melissa sent me a cheer-up present with a sweet card and delicious cookies! Is that not the nicest thing ever! I can’t thank you enough, Melissa—you seriously made my day! Honestly, all of you mean so much to me and I don’t know what I would do without all your sweet words and support!

Obviously I had to try some of the cookies for my afternoon snack! These are so good that I could easily eat the whole bag–but in my back-on-track mentality I decided to portion out a serving, put the rest away, and slowly savor them. SO. GOOD. I’m really glad that I didn’t mindlessly snack on these because then I wouldn’t have even tasted them…but now I still have the rest to enjoy later!

Dinner

After doing some homework, it was dinner time. I had an Amy’s Texas Burger on whole wheat with pickles, salad, and a HONEYCRISP apple. OMG was that apple amazing, it was so unbelievably sweet and wonderful—honestly who needs candy when they can have a honeycrisp apple!

Dessert

Obviously no night is complete without dessert! I had some pumpkin mixed with maple syrup and some more of those delicious cookies on the side. I love them!

I hope everyone had a great day—it’s almost the weekend : )