Just Eat Food

Last year we briefly (oh so briefly) tried being vegan. I didn't realize it at the time, but I think that was the last diet I will ever try. Right after that experiment I read a couple of Geneen Roth books. She is opposed to dieting because labeling foods as "good" or "bad" and then depriving yourself tends to mess with your head and create a dysfunctional relationship with food. Although really any relationship with a plate of spaghetti would be dysfunctional. You should probably have relationships with people instead, which I guess is her point. Anyway, I am not a hardcore follower but I do think her books came along at a good time for me.

I read Women, Food, and God and my main takeaway was that by analyzing your feelings about food you can also understand the underlying beliefs and emotions that are keeping you fat and unhappy. That sounds good but the book doesn't really tell you how to achieve any of that, so I also bought Breaking Free from Emotional Eating. This one is more of a roadmap. I only skimmed it, but it could surely be used to "work the steps" along with a journal to write down all your Oprah a-ha moments. I intended to do that at some point but I never really got around to it. I thought maybe I would pick it back up in the new year but my interest has waned, or at least my focus has shifted.

Lately my new mantra is Just Eat Food. I've been cooking a lot lately, and most of it is really good. I'm tired of obsessing about fat grams and Weight Watchers Points. I am no longer interested in weighing chicken breasts and trying to cut a casserole into eight equal pieces. I've done that on and off for 10 years and results (if any) have always been fleeting. Plus I find that path often leads to eating lots of fake food. Americans have only gotten fatter and more unhealthy since we stopped eating from-scratch home cooking in favor of processed, restaurant, and "convenience" foods. My gut tells me that butter that came from a cow is better than margarine that came from a chemistry lab, especially if that cow was allowed to roam around eating grass. I still read labels, but now just the list of ingredients so I can avoid all (most) of the sketchy stuff.

I once lost 27 pounds on Weight Watchers and I went to the gym exactly twice during that time. I was thin but not especially healthy. If I am feeling fat (which I totally am right now) I am trying to focus more on exercise than diet. It's been hard because I'm still not completely done with the physical recovery from the miscarriage, but that's the goal. I have also found that instead of obsessing about all the foods I'm not supposed to have I am able to think about what I should be eating more of. So at dinner my thought process is more like, "Hmm, I should steam some broccoli because I haven't eaten anything green today," instead of, "If I don't eat all this chicken I will still have enough points left for a fat-free pudding cup."

So what am I eating? Lots of home-cooked meals and leftovers. A whole new world has opened up now that I am not limiting myself to crappy low-fat recipes. I have found that I am more satisfied with less food if I use whole milk, pancetta, etc. And cooking is a whole lot more fun when the final product actually tastes good. I have been playing around with a weekly meal plan where every night is assigned a type of recipe. Once we get that figured out I hope to write a post dealing more specifically with what we are eating around here.