Women, Food and God

Several weeks ago while Claire and I walked around MacIntosh Lake she told me about a book she had seen on Oprah, Women, Food and God. It sounded interesting to me as we had just been discussing body image issues, etc.  When my mom called and said she was reading it and love it, I thought, ok I'll give it a shot and picked it up at Target. 

I've slowly been reading it, and though it is interesting, none of it has really applied to me because I'm not overweight and I typically eat what I want. That is until we got to the chapter on indulgers and restrictors. I eat healthfully and exercise regularly, but I do tend to flip flop between the two types of eaters.  I rarely will pass up something sweet or my favorite dip because really, life's too short to not eat at least a bite or two of your favorites.  It's better than binging on it later.  I do however find myself being really selective when choosing what else I'll eat that day or the next to make up for my splurge. Just to make sure I'm not worrying anyone, I never skip meals.  Food fuels my body. I do however, choose what I put into it.

Josh and I have totally changed the food we buy. We've eliminated as many processed foods as possible. We get bread from Great Harvest (only a handful of ingredients and it tastes amazing), our chicken and meat from the Farmer's Market (raised naturally eatting better than we do), we're growing our own veggies and when we buy fruit/veggies from the store they are all organic. We're trying to take in as few pesticides, chemicals and hormones as possible.  I'm even looking at the labels when selecting condiments to avoid high fructose corn syrup. Of course we still go out to eat occasionally so we can't control what's in their food.

You'd think this would be making me feel great, but I have been struggling with my own body image lately. Between not running, traveling for work (a recipe for over indulgence) and all sorts of social events going on, I feel like my body is going soft.  Full disclosure, at the height of marathon training I weighed 126-128 lbs.  I was eating a ton (1800 calories-3800 (on long run days)) and was feeling great.  Now I'm 130-134 depending on the day. This is not a huge difference, but to me it is.  My clothes still fit but feel more snug. My once almost visable abs are fading and the light of day I saw in between my thighs is all but gone. I'd love to say it's muscle but ha, who am I kidding.  I've been trying to look in the mirror and tell myself something positive every day, but I'm still feeling heavy and disappointed in my lack of willpower.  I wish I was one of those naturally thin people, but I'm not. I have to work really hard to stay in shape.

I'm nearing the end of the book and the beginning of training again. Hopefully I can get my head on straight and stop being my own worst critic.