A Little Change that Made a Big Difference

I'm excited about doing this blog because I feel like I'm finally at a place in my life where I no longer care about everyone else's opinion on my weight, how or if I should lose it. I want to share the things I've learned over years and years of living as an over weight woman and growing up in an over weight family. Some days the posts may not be long and eloquent, some days they may just be a celebration or a tip or, knowing myself the way I do, a rant about something that's annoyed me. ;-) I'm not going to tell you what to eat, or how your body should look. I'm not going to make the assumption that what is working for me will work for you.

I simply want to inspire you, teach you, encourage you and let you know that someone else feels what you feel, has been through what you've been through and has all the faith in the world in you to succeed at living a healthy life that is abundantly satisfying.

I believe life is an exciting adventure full of color and passions and beauty, but I think
we get sucked down into the mundane, the disappointments, the things that don't work out, to the point that we forget about the good things all around us. Dieting can be this way especially.

Though I'm a writer and I work at home, I do spend long hours at my laptop creating love stories that will take my readers to a place of exquisite decadence where they can indulge in the all the wonderfulness of love and romance. As fantastic as my job is, it is rather consuming and I often forget to eat on writing days and for me NOT eating is my biggest problem with food.

I swear I find it so annoying to have to stop and eat something. lol

That being said, I've dedicated myself to being the most beautiful me I can be, inside and out, so that means I have to eat. I need to balance out my body's need for nutrition with my lack of willingness to stop what I'm doing and provide those nutrients. In my quest to find the answer to this dilemma for myself, I bought lean cuisine meals. I hated doing it because I don't think those meals are all that nutrient dense and a frozen meal in a black carton is not all that satisfying.

Now I'm very fortunate to still have my grown son in the house much of the time and he's been put in charge of making sure mom eats on writing days, because itis okay to ask for help when you need it! So I asked him to microwave my boxed meal of chicken and pasta, but I also asked him to steam broccoli, cook a few fries (my personal luxury food) then serve with mushrooms & spring onions and a sliced tomato...

I wish I had photographed the plate for you, it was stunning! Colors from white mushrooms and chicken to green spring onions and broccoli, purple grapes, orange bell pepper, red tomato, it was a beautiful looking dish.

 Even though I didn't think to photograph it, I want to show you this picture to your left which I simply pulled off the web. Remember part of being healthy is about being happy and satisfied and I find it difficult to believe anyone really feels those things over food in a black box, at the very least put it on a plate.

I know! You're thinking about the dishes, so what? Aren't you worth having a nice lunch? Aren't you worth a few dishes? Aren't you worth the time it takes to steam some broccoli? Just try it and see how it feels. My guess is you'll be surprised how much of a difference it will make.

I understand how hard life can be, how busy you can be, how much rests on your shoulders, but we have every right to take a moment for ourselves too and treat ourselves well. Add a glass of wine to that lean cuisine meal, sit at the table and I'll bet you, you forget that dinner came out of a box. You won't be hungry when you finish and you may even feel good about the choice you made, which is one of my personal favorite feelings on the planet.

So do me a favor, next time its just you for a meal, and you're thinking of skipping it, or your thinking of just microwaving or eating over the sink... don't. Try this. It wasn't difficult, the teen made it for me the first day I did this, but it did make a huge difference to how I felt and in the end I got my nutrients, my brain continued to work and so could I.

Be good to yourself, because really, you're the only one that ever really will. ♥