Good Intentions

Right then, we've just come back from a mini break with the kids and I've made a resolution to only eat unprocessed foods from now on.

I was sitting in the car, on the way home, feeling really unhealthy - like my taste buds and blood cells were crying out to me - for fuck's sake give us some fruit and vegetables. Do you know what I mean? That holiday mode where you subsist (quite happily) on fried foods and ultra refined carbs and you have a gin cocktail for lunch because you're still so stuffed from breakfast but you feel in need of a fortifying drink after an extremely bracing walk along the Devil's Dyke.

Can anyone relate to that? You might get peckish later on in the day but all you have in your bag are some Twirl bites so that's basically your dinner. Feeling somewhat bloated and icky I decided to try and overhaul my diet. My diet isn't wildly unhealthy, I'd say that most days I get my five a day (I'm going to ignore the fact they they're ow advocating ten a day - Stop moving the goalposts!). I'm vegetarian so that's a whole section of unhealthy food off the table (bacon, burgers that kind of caper). And I do know my way around the kitchen. However, I do have a fondness for all things sweet and also all things highly seasoned and palatable - like crisps.

I can't pretend that this new resolution has nothing to do with a desperate wish to shed some weight. I've broken up with diets now and for good (I think) I've finally seen them for what they are  - a dissolute, unreliable boyfriend who pays you a lot of attention at first, promises the stars, then you see them at a party, when they said they were too ill to come out with you, with their hand down someone else's pants! They - the diets, promise the world and at first they seem to deliver, then two years down the line you are FATTER than ever and your face is so round that you look like a four-year old child's drawing of a person, not to mention the fact the you look five, fucking months pregnant.

I'm trying to embrace intuitive eating - which is like some Jedi mind trick that you play on yourself, whereby no food is forbidden and you can eat however much you like of it, thus you won't gorge on it because it's not forbidden! But, the thing is, you must eat too much of it (I say 'you', I mean 'I') because you are expanding rapidly like bread rising in the oven. It doesn't seem to work for me - the whole - I won't overeat because I've given myself unconditional permission to eat - thing. What about emotional eating? (A whole other blog post).

I've tried to embrace body positivity and what this mainly consists of, for me, is buying lots and lots of new clothes and not mourning my thin(er) self or now too small thin(er) clothes and it's quite fun. I even posted a couple of pictures of myself on Facebook in a kind of exposure therapy kind of way - like, I didn't actually like the pictures but I decided I just needed to rip off the plaster, embrace who I am and not try and erase myself from history. I feel that I need to move quickly on from this otherwise I will fall in a well, so, back to the food thing. I'm going to stay away from processed foods for a while which will mean no chocolate, crisps, roasted peanuts, biscuits or cakes (unless I've made them myself). I'll take homemade lentil salads to work to have for my lunch and munch on fruit or raw nuts if I get hungry. So far I've lasted no days! I forgot all about this resolution at the theatre last night when my friend produced a packet of Minstrels and I nearly absorbed them through my pores, so great was my desire for them. But, but, I did make lentil soup when we got back from holiday and I am eating more fruit so....it's all going in the right direction. In two months time I'll be clear eyed and glossy haired and reeking of garlic and my face will be less full moon and more..er.... something oval.