Thursday, September 20, 2012

Turning a New Leaf

I've been doing the "Inspire Me: Healthy" linkup to share my half marathon training to keep motivated. Now, since I'm not running the half anymore, I figured I'd share another side of my "get healthy" campaign: my diet.

All In My Twenties

I know I've mentioned this in a few posts, and without running the risk of TMI, I'll just say this: lately I've been having a lot of stomach issues and pain. It all started when I had food poisoning in San Antonio, and I haven't felt right since. Almost every meal I eat leaves me with awful stomach pains and some mornings I'm curled up on the bathroom floor in the fetal position.

I'm almost 99.9% sure this stomach pain is diet related. I've never been one to have a weak stomach, and it's driving me crazy. I've tried to run through possibilities in my head: lactose intolerance (I drink tons of milk), gluten allergy, wheat allergy, etc. down to even scarier options like IBS or stomach ulcers.

After my sweet friend Bobby gave me an extremely stern lecture about being proactive about my health and going to see a doctor, I'm finally trying to take control and figure out what's really wrong with me. We have clinical health assessments at work tomorrow, where they'll draw blood and take measurements and do an overall health analysis. I plan on discussing the problems with the nurse then to see what her opinion is.

My problem is this: I know one of the first things the doctor is going to ask is what my diet is like. The truth: I eat like crap. I have days where I'm really good and I'll get in all my fruits and veggies and have a completely balanced diet, and then a football weekend comes up and I eat Bojangles for breakfast, drink 8+ alcoholic beverages during 12 hours of tailgating, Wendy's for dinner, and then nachos for lunch the next day (that actually happened this past weekend, I'm not exaggerating). Ugh. It's incredibly disgusting and I immediately am so mad at myself when my stomach starts revolting against all the crap I've been eating.

So I decided to revamp the way I eat, by doing a challenge I found via Six Sisters' Stuff. The challenge is mainly focused towards weightloss, which is not entirely my main goal, although I have gained 10 pounds since this time last year. Woof.

You can see more about the challenge here, but I've adapted it for myself. I plan on rewarding myself with something at the end of 8 weeks if I've reached my goal of eating healthier and finally feeling like myself again. The bribe present to myself has yet to be determined, but I really want an iPad.


It's pretty fun to tally up your points each day! I almost want to congratulate myself for staying away from fried food when I remember that, yes, I did in fact inhale a Chick-fil-a chicken biscuit my client gave me yesterday. Curses.

But I'm getting better. I went to Trader Joe's yesterday and spent all my time in the fresh produce section. I know having healthy options and no temptation is what I need to feel better. One of my major vices is the fact that we eat out every day for lunch at work, since we're traveling. I'm powerless in front of a menu of delicious mexican/pizza/chinese, when I should be eating a salad. I'm working on it.

Sorry for such a novel post; I've been thinking about sharing my troubles for quite some time. I want to be held accountable for taking care of myself! Let me know if you'd like to join the challenge, too!

4 comments:

Anna said...

This is awesome! I know it can take a lot of willpower (and time) to eat better but once you do you'll truly feel it. We've been out to eat at least once a week with work since I started and everyone always "yells" at me for getting a side salad or veggies instead of fries. But then they all feel gross when we're back in the office and I feel on top of the world :)

Ann said...

This is awesome- totally going to do this challenge with some friends! I'm your newest follower, found you on the Link-up! Come check me out too-
xo, Ann
Glitter and Glaze

Ann said...

Also, have you tried going gluten free before? I had a couple friends who were feeling really sick like you described and 1 month of gluten-free their symptoms completely went away. It was actually kind of amazing- makes you wonder what the heck is in the stuff we're eating :/

Traci said...

It makes all the difference in the world to eat right. I have (maybe I should say had) bad acid reflux and IBS. I decided to be stricter with my diet and replace my intake with about 75% vegetables per day and almost 10 weeks later I have literally had zero attacks the last two weeks.