When You Stop Caring About What You Eat

 

Recently I told you that I have really let go of caring about what I eat which maybe you remember me saying. Or maybe you can just tell over the last year or so that I just don’t follow any type of meal prep, meal planning or regular food pattern anymore? Aside from breakfast of course!

It’s not like I don’t have my moments when I suddenly say, WOAH.

Am I eating a lot more than I used to eat?

Does it matter that I NEVER measure my food? I mean, I haven’t done that in years but is my hand too heavy with the peanut butter?

You know, I eat out a whole lot. There’s a lot of dessert and even wine that happens fairly often. I think there are people who choose wine OR dessert. Am I supposed to pick wine or dessert? I always choose both.

And since I haven’t been on a scale in years, these thoughts appear sometimes too.

What do I even weigh these days? What if it’s significantly higher than it was a few years ago? Wait. What did I even weigh a few years ago?

Is what I’m eating going to add up at some point? Is it adding up now? Do I not even notice that it’s adding up? 

Then there are times when I catch an old weekly workout recap post and notice I used to run a lot more miles on a regular basis than I am running now.

How did that happen? Why am I okay with running less now? Am I supposed to care about calories in terms of burning them or not burning them? Why don’t I ever think about calories burned while running?

Most of the time, none of this bothers me. I live my life and don’t think twice. If these thoughts happen, it’s during my PMS week.  PMS alters my brain to think about things that it normally wouldn’t care to explore and also has the ability to put me on an irrational course. I have realized this though and try not to take myself too seriously during this time.

No matter what pops into my mind or when, I always follow the thoughts with what I will NEVER do. That’s the thing with me – it’s never about what I will do if have thoughts like this, it’s what I know I will never do again!

What I will never do:

I have no intention of EVER owning a scale again. Living my life by a fluctuating number on a scale is a miserable way to live. Since I will never give up running or a workout routine and know how to eat nutrient dense foods and cake on a balanced basis, there’s really no true reason to worry about gaining weight to the point where it will ever need to be monitored. A scale might be good for some but I can’t see it ever being good for me.

I will never go hungry. Was there a time when I used to wait for lunch or dinner time to hit so that I could satisfy my appetite? Like, did I ever let myself walk around hungry because it wasn’t a meal time yet? I can’t even imagine that feeling now. If I am hungry, I don’t really care if I just ate or it’s not lunch time. I am going to find my way to food.

I will never measure my food. I do not like to feel limited and I certainly don’t understand paying attention to the serving sizes for most of what I eat anyway. Who measures out vegetables? Why? Measuring reminds me of restriction. I do not do restriction.

I will never use calorie tracker apps. In all honesty, the time when I tried using My Fitness Pal back when it first came out is also the time I didn’t get my period for several months. Clearly tracking my calories is not a good idea for me and I really can’t imagine every counting a calorie again.

Let’s talk a little bit more about using a scale.

When I stopped using a scale many years ago, I relied on my clothing as my weight/size monitoring system. For the longest time, the mindset was, if things stayed the same (or got big), I was doing well.

We are so trained to think that the only way we know we are doing well is to see the number on the scale go down and for our clothing to get big.

But that’s not really an accurate way of thinking.

For example, I have a cute pair of jean shorts (with rhinestones on the pockets 🙂 ).

I’ve had them for five years and recently decided that maybe they were fitting a little different.

Different would usually mean something changed. I don’t like change.

Yet this time, I noticed that my cute pair of jean shorts had a different fit that was a good different. Not in the falling off different but in the wow these shorts fit me better than ever in all of the right spots different.

This different fit was symbolic for the good balance between eating, living, running and Pure Barre I have going on, without needing to know what I weigh or monitor what I eat every second.

I really do believe that our bodies have a happy, set point range and it doesn’t need me to constantly try to control it.

Maybe for a little while we can monitor every morsel and expend every calorie possible to be under our set point but that is not the way to live. It’s not healthy and definitely not carefree.

Life should have a certain level of carefree, don’t you think?

Posts Of Interest:

So I feel like I talk about this stuff fairly often and probably repeat myself in the process. However, these conversations are important for so many reasons! Sometimes we need to hear things over and over as reassurance and reminders and sometimes, people miss a post on the subject so it’s worth sharing again. Feel free to also check out my Amenorrhea section and as always, contact me if you have any questions!

Quirky Eating Habits or Disordered Eating?

Amenorrhea Talk

Disordered Eating Chat

Achieving A Balanced Attitude Towards Your Weight

Finding Balance Between Our Diets & Our Workouts

Do You Really Need To Lose 5 Pounds?

Clothes Should Make You Feel Good

[bctt tweet=”What happens when you stop caring about what you eat #bodyimage #disorderedeating #health” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

Are you someone that steps on a scale every day?

Do you plan out your meals or wing it most of the time?

 

Guys Don’t Like Girls Who Are Too Thin

 

Guys don’t like girls who are too thin.

It’s the truth. Ask them. They will tell you.

So why is it that girls feel they must maintain a sickly thin figure in order to be attractive?

Where does this mindset come from?

While I know it’s important to love yourself and not care what others think, let’s be real.

Girls like to feel attractive and will do what they can for guys to notice.

NEWSFLASH!

Guys like girls who have a shape. They don’t want you to be rail thin with no figure.

Guys want girls who have some meat on their bones. They want to go out to eat with you and see you enjoy your meal, not pick at lettuce or say you can’t share dessert because you are full.

Guys basically want you to be everything you seem to be fighting against.

I have honestly never been someone to care what anyone ever thought of me so listening to the opinions of others was never high on my radar. However, there have been a few times when guys that I know have told me when I was looking too thin.

At first, I didn’t really see or hear what they were saying but eventually it clicked one day and made a whole lot of sense. I even think I am a better person with an even more balanced outlook because of it.

I want to share their opinions with you in my attempt to help you to see that you don’t need to keep starving yourself to maintain an unhealthy, unrealistic and unattractive figure.

You don’t need to worry so intensely about your calorie burn or keep monitoring the scale.

The likelihood is that the numbers on the scale that you are so desperately fighting are the same numbers that would actually give you a cute and desirable shape.

Guy #1

Let’s start with this story from oh, 2012 – 2013. My friend was (and still is) a major health and fitness buff. When I belonged to Lifetime, I would see him at the gym on a regular basis. He was dedicated to his spin and yoga routine and ate a super healthy diet.

Many would call him a jerk, a charmer, a real ladies man if you will. He is brutally honest and has a wandering eye. This description doesn’t sound too nice but it’s the truth. That’s him.

Out of nowhere one day when I was on the treadmill, my friend came to talk to me (probably to tell me who he was newly dating while still dating the spin instructor – don’t ask) and the first thing he said was, “you are looking way too thin.”

Who would have thought that this guy would ever find any girl too thin?

But see, that’s the mindset, right? We think guys never see girls as too thin.

But they do.

And he was right, I was too thin. I had lost some weight after switching to a meatless diet. It was not intentional but it happened. As I lost some weight, I lost my shape and MY PERIOD and clearly, it was noticeable.

Guy #2:

This guy has been in my life for a super long time. Never one to share much of an opinion, he did tell me a few years ago that I needed more meat on my bones.

I didn’t agree with him as I definitely had meat on my bones and had been taking Pure Barre classes on the regular for a few months at this point.

He wasn’t totally right but he wasn’t wrong either. It took some time for me to totally regain my shape and look stronger after being too thin in 2012-2013.

Are you following along here? Life isn’t about being so thin that you can wear the smallest size available.

Guys don’t care about that! They want to see shape, figure and substance to your body!

Women are supposed to have curves!

Guy #3

This guy in particular holds the most weight (no pun intended) because he has told me over and over AND OVER how much BETTER I began to look once Pure Barre was kicking in to my appearance.

So often he reminds me how thin I had looked one night when wearing jeans in 2013, how my legs were barely there.

Never in my life would I have considered my legs to be barely there but I think he was right! I still wear those jeans today, only now I fill them out nicely. 🙂

His honesty and constant open discussion on this topic has probably helped me to fully grasp and understand the other opinions I had received over the years.

The sincerity in his words that explain how great I look now as opposed to then sticks with me every single day, including when I put my old jeans on and notice that different fitting feeling. I no longer have that moment of caring about it and I think I owe it to him.

Guy #4:

This guy adds an interesting twist to this post because he is the only one to think I was fabulous when I was too thin.

Why did he think this way? Probably because he was disordered himself! He went to the gym every single day for 3 hours a day, taking MAYBE one rest day every few months and only because of illness.

He was not a muscle head or healthy eating nut, just a guy who was obsessed with his workouts and appearance.

It is no surprise to me that his ex-wife is a compulsive exerciser, working out for a couple of hours in the morning and then again in the afternoon. Rumor has it she has a bike set up in her living room so that she can peddle while she watches television. Plastic surgery is not foreign to her either.

Important note:

There are no images in this post on purpose. I started to go through my old photos but realized that sharing them may cause too much comparison and possible triggering. That’s not good for anyone.

This post is meant for my reader friends who struggle to see that gaining needed weight back is more than okay. It is for my reader friends who struggle to realize it’s okay to eat and not be sickly thin. That it’s super okay and actually more desirable to have a real figure rather than struggle to maintain a too thin and bony appearance.

I still remain strong in believing that we must love and value our own opinions of ourselves above anything but sometimes, we don’t see what others see and maybe we should.

This does not mean we should tolerate people who put us down or criticize our appearance. There is absolutely no room in life for people like that. 

You are the company you keep, remember that.

[bctt tweet=”Guys don’t like girls who are too thin #health #disorderedeating #bodyimage #toothin” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

Thoughts on this subject?

Finding Balance & Body Image Round Up

 

I have decided to quickly throw together a round-up of the posts I have written this year on the topics of finding balance and body image for three reasons:

1. I always have new readers (hi!) so rounding up the older posts allows new readers to see topics that they may miss otherwise.
2. Some topics, such as finding balance and body image are worth reviewing and reading again because quite often it takes several times of hearing/reading something for it to finally sink in.
3. These posts stay with me long after I hit publish because the ideas and realizations are just so important.

And really, maybe the biggest reason I am rounding up these posts is to get a good look at what I have written this year on the subject of finding balance, body image (and disordered eating too) so that I know what still needs to be said going forward. It’s a tricky thing to keep writing on the same subjects but I know how valued these posts are so I want to continue to bring you the topics that you find the most beneficial, interesting and helpful!

Finding Balance

I worked on this Finding Balance series with Laura earlier this year. Not only did we both learn a ton together while formulating these posts about female runners, we helped others out too.

Finding Balance Between Our Diets & Workouts <  How many calories do you really need to eat an as active female?

Finding Balance Between Our Diets & Workouts Part Two < – Great insight into what to eat and when to support your running routine and workouts.

NEDA Week 2016 (Female athlete Triad) < – Such an important topic. Way too many females, especially female runners, find themselves in the female athlete triad so it’s important to know the risks and understand how to avoid amenorrhea.

Body Image/Disordered Eating:

You know you can count on me to write a post or two (or three!) regarding body image and disordered eating, especially when it comes to how our clothes fit!

Achieving a Balanced Attitude Towards Your Weight < – I am always asked how I remain so balanced and the answer isn’t that simple! I put together the key things that I keep in mind all of the time in order to stay balanced and achieve a positive relationship with food, workouts and health.

Do You Really Need To Lose 5 Pounds? – Well, do you really need to those few pounds? Probably not!

Clothes Should Make You Feel Good – I think about this post especially whenever I am standing there in my closet trying to figure out what to wear and which pairs of jeans I should probably donate.

Disordered Eating Chat – Such an important reminder of how there are much bigger things in life taking place than worrying about controlling what you eat every second.

As always, if you have any questions at all on these subjects, please feel free to comment or email me to chat!

[bctt tweet=”body image and disordered eating round-up from 2016! #bodyimage #findingbalance #disorderedeating ” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

Do you have any jeans you are still hanging onto in your closet but know you should donate? I do, I have this one pair STILL that even yesterday I said needs to go but I just can’t do it yet!

Have you changed your pre and/or post run meals recently or have you been eating the same things forever because they work for you?

Are there any topics that you want to see covered in 2017? Please let me know!

 

Clothes Should Make You Feel Good

Whenever I share my latest thoughts on disordered eating and amenorrhea, I usually need to follow up the post with another one on the subject pretty quickly as I see these topics are the most appreciated.

I think it’s great to know who my audience is and which posts are desired. It’s also somewhat nice to know that on some level, we all go through the same thought processes and situations at some point in our lives.

At the same time, I think it’s sort of sad. It’s sad that so many people struggle with figuring out how to stop obsessing about food and the scale and start living a full life of healthy activity and enjoyable meals.

The diet and fitness industry is so focused on losing weight while getting stronger on less food when at least over here in my corner of the internet, we all need to ignore that.

We need to figure out how to exercise just enough without overdoing it, weigh enough rather than drop pounds and learn to eat to support our health rather than determine how to slash crazy calories.

On that note, let’s chat about something I have been thinking a lot about lately…

So sometimes my mother says things that really make sense.

I was going through one of my I hate my clothes moods and my mother said the following to me in her attempt to talk to me down from the ledge.

If they don’t, get rid of them.

Clothes should make you feel good.

Did you hear that?

How many of us are keeping clothing in our closets that aren’t making us feel good yet we try to wear them anyway for various reasons?

Maybe the pants are from when you were at your skinniest (and unhealthiest).

Maybe the dress is from seven years ago when you were younger.

Maybe the outfit is from before you started running regularly so now you have muscles that fill up space that you didn’t notice in the past.

Maybe your shirts are shorter than they used to be and don’t balance right with your pants but you are still trying to make them work because they used to work and the fact that they don’t work now means something might have changed or needs to change and no one likes change.

What happened? Did I do something wrong? Why doesn’t this outfit work for me anymore?

Did I gain weight? Gain muscle? Eat too much? What changed?

Whatever the reason be, if what you are putting on your body makes you think too much, it needs to go.

The black pants I have talked about in the past have now been donated.

While the black pants still fit me, they were snugger in certain spots which caused me to think way too much every time I put them on my body.

It’s like I gave up the scale years ago yet these black pants were feeling like the scale to me!

I bought the pants when I was too thin and not getting my period. I didn’t need the reminder every time I looked at the pants in my closet.

I wasn’t comfortable mentally or physically in the black pants so I donated them in one of those clothing donation bins.

I think you should do the same.

Get rid of the clothes in your closet that aren’t making you feel good.

I know from the comments and the emails I receive that many of you are dealing with recovery from disordered eating, amenorrhea and other types of eating/body image issues.

I have a feeling that part of what holds you back is trying to fit into the clothing that probably shouldn’t still fit.

Let your body do it’s thing. Don’t allow your clothing to hinder you in the process.

We need to remember that the slightest adjustment in muscle and shape can change how our clothing is going to fit.

It’s nothing drastic but can feel drastic mentally and physically if we allow it.

So don’t allow it.

It’s such an amazing feeling when we wear something that makes us feel good. When our shirts and pants, dresses and skirts fit the way that they should.

I am a strong believer in knowing that if you are eating a diet of mostly nutrient dense foods balanced with your favorite indulgences while working out regularly, you do not need to think about weight management, what size you wear or how to make changes for the better.

You are already for the better.

Posts of Interest:

Jeans Can Lie < – One of my first posts about how your body changes which affects how your clothes fit.

Achieving a Balanced Attitude Towards Your Weight < – My balanced approach to staying in check and healthy

Body Image Chat < – More about clothes and how they attempt to mess with our brains. Learn what to think about instead!

[bctt tweet=”Clothes should make you feel good! #bodyimage #health #clothes #feelgood” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

Do you have some things in your closet that maybe you should donate?

How often do you clean out your closet? Who do you give the clothing to – a donation bin or relative/friend?

 

Girl Talk: Body Image Chat

 

Note: Today’s post discusses body image. If this isn’t what you feel like reading today, no hard feelings! See you tomorrow 🙂

A few weeks ago I had a crazy yet enlightening realization. I was getting dressed in my real clothes which involved my favorite pair of black high boots. As I was zipping the boots up, I noticed they were taking some extra time to pull up over my calves.

I laughed. Ha, look at me with the calf muscles! They are making my boots tight! Maybe by next winter these very boots won’t even zip up at all!

I literally just laughed, smiled….and moved on.

And then I realized — If it were my jeans or black pants being pulled up and taking too long to get over my thighs, feeling snug up top or heaven for bid, not getting up at all, there’s a chance I would have started to freak with thoughts that would look something like this:

What did I do? What did I not do?

Did I gain weight? Am I eating too much?

Is it PMS? Am I bloated?

Am I not running enough? Am I running too much?

What happened? How did this happen?

Is it Pure Barre? Am I building too much leg muscle? Am I not targeting my thighs the right way with my workouts?

Do you see what I am saying? My calves do not phase me but higher up in the leg has the potential to send me into a frenzy.

If I need a larger size in shirts, that’s cool. I need room to move my arms and like to be comfortable.

Need the next size in shoes? Sure thing, bring them out. No big deal.

But jeans? Because the thigh area isn’t fitting right? Cue freak out, call my mother.

I am not a fool, I absolutely know I am thin. And I also know that if I needed a bigger size in my jeans, I would still be a healthy size for my body.

However, I think that the brainwashing effect of living in a society that praises weight loss and small sizes combined with knowing I was once chubby and that chub was in my thighs still has the potential to play an initial role in my thought process if I allow it.

I try to replace the thought process with something like this:

You are insane, you know that? You look awesome and you feel awesome, so stop it.

Like hello, you are a runner. Those legs and muscles continue to carry you across finish lines, faster and faster.

You love Pure Barre. It is a wonderful cross-training workout that has absolutely changed your shape for the better.

You couldn’t eat less even if you wanted to! What would you do, genius, what would you even do? Skip an apple? Not eat sweet potatoes? Start measuring out your servings of vegetables instead just eating the amount that you actually want? Nonsense.

And, eating any less than you do right now would wreak havoc on your body and you know that! You would lose your period, slow your metabolism (and then gain weight for real rather than the fake weight you are imagining right now) and increase your risk of injury.

You realize you are able to run injury free right? I do not bring this up as to not jinx myself but I increase mileage and run 6 days a week for years without issue. I continually thank my body (and how I fuel it) for this.

And heck no, you will never give up dessert. You love dessert and also know that those occasional favorite treats are not what’s going to do you in but giving them up, most certainly will destroy your soul.

I receive so many emails from readers each week looking to me for guidance regarding their own body image struggles and for answers to their disordered eating recovery questions that I think it’s important for me to share my own thoughts and experiences. Realizing we all have the potential to experience these moments about our bodies can help us to see that our initial thought processes aren’t any different from the next girl.

The trick (and probably the most difficult part) is not only realizing that these types of thoughts will pop up from time to time but how important it is to take those body image thoughts and learn how to put them into perspective in order to keep a healthy mindset.

As fitness enthusiasts, I do believe we are most in tuned with our bodies and more likely to notice the little changes that may or may not occur in our muscles and structure.

But see, we are actually the girls who have the wiggle room. The room to eat more because we are always exercising, to skip a workout because we are so routine that hey, it’s okay to rest today! and the room to bounce between sizes because, more than likely, we changed sizes because our shapes changed for the better from our workouts, not because we were inactive and gained weight. Let’s remember this, okay?

Post of Interest:

Achieving a Balanced Attitude Towards Your Weight

Finding Balance Part One – How many calories do you really need?

Finding Balance Part Two – How what and why should we eat for our workouts?

Finding Balance/NEDA Week – Female Athlete Triad chat

Do You Really Need To Lose 5 Pounds? – Probably not!

Jeans Can Lie

[bctt tweet=”body image chat #girltalk #bodyimage #disorderedeating #running #coldstone #fitfluential” username=”cookiechrunicle”]

Has running changed your calf muscles and do you notice them in your boots?

How do you handle the thoughts that pop up when you think your clothes don’t fit right?