Baking...cooking...traveling and trying new food...food in general is a passion of mine. I love it because it brings people together, creates memories of time spent together in the kitchen, and it's something I can do for others to show love, friendship, and hospitality. As much as food is my passion, it has likewise over the years been a source of internal struggle, a button that Satan knows he can push and put a bump along the road in my relationship with my Savior. I know everyone has that little button...mine just happened to be the same as one of my passions. Trust me when I say that it makes for some interesting times of struggle...especially when you don't talk about it and keep it inside. I never really thought much about the random cravings or my inherent sweet tooth (I am my father's daughter...), but when I realized that those cravings were replacing my true sense of hunger and enjoyment of treats in a good portion I knew something had to change. I mean I've gone on spurs of tracking what I ate as I trained for a race, tried to lose a few pounds here and there, and other challenges...dealing with the cravings for carbs, dairy, and sweets that were the norm, but I needed to relearn control of portions for those cravings and if that was what I really needed vs. wanted to eat. After returning from my first mission trip a little over a year ago, though, I felt like I needed to do something different to begin acting upon those cravings and gut feeling to change something...so, I signed up for a bootcamp to switch things up a bit. I still enjoy that bootcamp, the friendships I have made through it, and the consistent challenge it provides. So, step 1 - success! I say Step 1, as that was my first step in changing my mentality around health and fitness (I would say once and for all, but the reality is, I'm sure I'll struggle with this in the future again...). Bootcamp helped me reach a goal for my brother's wedding and kept me moving through the stresses of adding 'part-time student' to my already busy schedule.
As the new year began, though, I had a different goal in mind for the year ahead...one I knew would be less about an end goal and more about the process. I had always relied on the numbers to guide my consumption...it seemed like I had lost that trigger or awareness of what my body needed. So, I tried just dropping the tracking altogether...turns out, that was a bad idea within the given time frame. Cravings took over pretty quickly and got a little out of control having had a stressful couple of months of the spring semester. For the most part, I was eating pretty healthy and loving bootcamp; but, it was those stressful nights that were doing me in and when I would cave to the thought of 'I earned this' or 'just one' (which you know never ends with just one). Seriously, no one should be able to go through a bag of Dove chocolates or a bag of chocolate chips or a jar of nutella in a week...each of those may or may not have actually happened (on separate occasions, not the same week). And yes, I said a bag....a whole stink'n bag of delicious dark chocolate mint swirled Dove chocolates. Thank the Lord for staying consistent with bootcamp, or my pants would have been all too snug even sooner. The conclusion I came to was that I needed to do something drastic to reset my system and get that sense of awareness back for a healthy balance. That conclusion was drawn right around my birthday, so I drew up a plan (yep, that's how I roll) to start after the craziness of early April subsided (this is the Challenge 3.60 I have talked about). So, with my new Made to Crave devotional in hand and a new bit of determination, I set out on this challenge. Of course, the week I was supposed to tackle the cravings for carbs was the one when I ended up sick as could be and oatmeal was about all I could handle for a couple of days. That's when the whole paleo concept sparked an interest for me. I started off with a commitment for 2 weeks, but decided to go ahead and stick it out for the 30 days. So, how have the 30 days been? Well...now that context is established, I'll tackle that question in a new post.
No comments:
Post a Comment