Here’s the collage for yesterday’s foods. The overall feeling yesterday was OK. I didn’t feel sick after breakfast in the morning, and I brought my snacks with me before lunch. I had a great lunch — thanks to Hook, Line & Sinker on Preston for hosting our Dallas Moms Blog contributor meetup! Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel very sick until much later in the day, again in the early afternoon.
You’ll notice that I stopped eating after dinner. It was sort of intentional to test if it affected the way I feel the next morning, but it was also a side effect of being incredibly paranoid about what I was eating by the end of the day. I couldn’t think of anything I would “allow” myself to eat, so I didn’t eat, even though I was awake for 4 more hours after dinner. I was completely starving when I went to sleep and this morning I woke up at 5:45am so hungry that my stomach was growling and it felt like it was eating itself. However, once again I could not think of anything I would “allow” myself to eat until a little after 8am when I decided to make gluten-free pancakes with my kids.
The incidence of food guilt paralyzing me into starving myself is getting out of control, though. I am afraid of what people will say about what I am eating (too much gluten, too much dairy, not enough veggies, too many nuts, not enough nuts, are those organic? why did you eat so often? you should eat more often, etc.), so I just don’t eat. I am not going to do a Day 3 because I got so hungry today that I got shaky when I talked myself out of eating all morning.
Reminder: I WORK OUT. A LOT. It is not good for me to go long without food, regardless of whether it is good for someone else. In fact, tomorrow (or Friday’s) post is going to be about orthorexia. Go ahead and Google it and I’ll see you tomorrow!
I too struggle with orthorexia, having learned and enforces (as an “caring” RN) the “party line” of “experts” telling us what is healthy and good and right. I am trying very hard to get those voices out of my head. Our culture is all about doing the “right” thing as experts, i.e. usually those selling things (even, sadly, too often including alternative practitioners) define it. Where is the day we just ate what was there? I know there are possibly more toxins in our food today than before but, on balance, folks lived with a lot more germs “back then”. Also, God has made our bodies incredibly able to compensate and handle a great deal. The subject is a lot longer and wider than a post can handle but I believe we also need to look at the fear that is underlying everything in our culture, the fractured relationships, the rushed lifestyles, all the electronic waves and devices pouring their signals into out bodies and not just food as what is making us “ill”. And, anyway, as my coffee mug states so well “eat fiber…exercise daily…die anyway”, so our spiritual health is uppermostly vital!
Your food choices look great to me! Jenny, I’m sad that you feel guilty about what you eat! Anyone who judges you or asks you why you dare eat dairy (seriously??), or foods with gluten in them are NOT helpful. Mother judgers, maybe? Food judgers? What others (who could certainly be way misinformed) makes no difference. I hope that you can find some spiritual/emotional resolution about your food choices…you do what’s best for YOU and YOUR health. I can only imagine how stressful this is for you.
Eating awareness, Day 2 http://t.co/gL9TnxFxsv via @_conscientious
I think with all the stories in the newspapers and magazines on how bad some foods, or some ingredients can be for our health, it’s a little hard not to be orthorexic. But, worrying to the point of starvation kind of defeats the whole point of avoiding bad stuff and eating healthy.