Getting Healthy
My name is Layla, and it’s been two and a half months since my last morsel of processed food.
For the last few months I have been trying to be healthier.
I’m not going to say I am on a “weight loss journey” because I think that sounds clichéd and like I am on one of those stupid infomercials, so going forward I’m just going to call it “being healthier.”
After my previous post about food, I haven’t found that the eating side of it as much of a struggle anymore.
I enjoy amazing food every day and no part about it feels boring, routine or laborious to me.
Eating is one of the simple, greatest pleasures in life and I’ve learned that it is completely possible to eat incredibly healthy, satisfying meals that don’t taste like cardboard or have to convince myself is simply “fuel.”
I mean after all, food and the act of eating should be a pleasure. It is a pleasure!
And I’ve finally learned that it can remain that way while I am committed to getting healthier.
I love to cook, and one of the things I have found is that my Lebanese heritage is actually incredibly healthy and a lot of recipes are very rich in really nutritious ingredients, like beans, spinach, wholegrains, whole yoghurt, chickpeas and lots of vegetables.
Growing up, I was obviously oblivious to how good the food really was for me, but also it’s one of those things that you take for granted because it’s always there.
Now I am constantly Skyping or messaging my Mum, asking her for family recipes of all the dishes I used to turn my nose up at, but now I crave!
I also really like teaching Laura how to say the names of the dishes.
Even though I feel like my nutrition has come in leaps and bounds from where it was a mere three months ago, there is still some improvements that can be made.
I think I need to learn to develop a taste for food without as much salt.
I mean I don’t think that I add as much salt to my cooking as I used to and certainly in the last three months, I am more often hearing Laura say, “I think it needs a bit of salt,” rather than “Yeah that’s a bit salty.”
However, when you consider that you’re probably only supposed to have about a quarter of a teaspoon of salt a day, it leaves me wondering how to manage that amount without it resulting in bland food.
On a regular day, I will add a good pinch of salt to my avocado and tomato on toast in the morning, lunch typically doesn’t have any salt because I eat fresh fruit, veggies, eggs, raw nuts or grains (unless I have leftovers) and then dinner will contain anywhere between half a teaspoon to half a tablespoon depending on what I am cooking which is typically about four servings.
I don’t feel like that’s a lot but, I don’t know. Could it be better?
The other thing I need to work out, is the cost involved in organic eating.
Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to pay extra for fresh, organic fruit and vegetables but I need to work out how to make our weekly shopping trips a bit more cost efficient.
Our last trip to Wholefoods cost us $80 for food for the week and we didn’t even buy any meat. It was mostly fruits, vegetables and grains and I feel like a $80 for those basic things to feed two sensibly eating girls for 1 week is a little steep.
I need to work out how to make our dollars stretch further so that we don’t get caught out and end up going back to conventionally grown produce flown in from the antipodes (which is inexplicably cheaper than local, fresh organic.)
In the meantime I’ll just have to remind myself that even though I am paying more for better food, I am hopefully saving on medicines and other healthcare related costs.
The one area of being healthy that I am finding a struggle, is exercise.
I love the thought of running, but I have become so comfortable in the fantasy of being that girl that it has become difficult for me to separate the dream from the reality.
Every time I go to the gym, even though it is just as hard as it is supposed to be, I always end up hating it half way through, thinking to myself “Why is this so hard? This is not how it’s supposed to be. Is that area of my body supposed to hurt like that when I run? Am I supposed to feel like I am going to pass out/vomit/collapse?”
I am also sure, in fact positive that it never gets easier! I could do the same routine ten times in ten days and find that it was easier the first few days than it was in the last.
That confuses me! Isn’t it supposed to become easier and then you’re supposed to step it up?
I think I need a personal trainer. I mean it will never happen, because 1. They’re expensive and 2. I would probably end up killing them, but I just need something to push me just enough to know that I am on the right track, doing the right thing and letting me know that it’s actually supposed to hurt.
The other thing that is messing me up right now is my shoulder.
About a month ago, I slept awkwardly on my shoulder and did a real number on it and it’s never gotten better.
I mean it has gotten better considering there were days when I was literally bed ridden.
I can move now and even move my arm around, but it still really hurts and whenever I try and run, it just sends a sharp jolt of pain all the way through my arm and down my back with each step.
I’ve tried so many different ways of trying to heal it and obviously nothing will make it better except rest and time, but I can’t just sit around all day and not do anything or going anywhere. I’ll go mad!
I know that I need to be really careful with it and just let it mend, but I get so impatient! I just want to get on with losing this fifty pounds as quickly as possible and this is really holding me back.
I am hoping I have a better paying job on the horizon which will allow me to pay the $200 it costs to see a damn doctor here.
Thank god my health has become such a priority for me! God forbid I get sick and have to go to the doctor!
I also really need to stop weighing myself.
Oh my God could weighing yourself be any more of a psychological mind fuck?
I know that it is, and I still do it.
I am perfectly aware that the better gage of progress is how your clothes fit and how you feel, and yet even though I am starting to look more and more like a hip-hop artist in my clothes each passing week, if I step on the scale and see that my weight has gone up .2 of a pound (probably water) my whole world comes crashing down around me! Even though I know it’s not accurate!
And yet, despite all my good sense, I inexplicably still step on the scale the next day/week and just keep on the crazy scale merry-go-round. It’s so stupid. I don’t know why I keep it.
It takes away so much of the focus on how I actually feel inside, which is so dangerous because apart from my shoulder, I feel really amazing.
Does anyone else have these same thoughts, feelings and experiences?
Would love to chat with someone who has had the same experiences, especially with the exercising part.