Healthier Eating....I Have To Start Now!

I try to watch what I eat. I honestly try my hardest. I am not a small girl, but on the other hand, if I were blessed to stay this size for the rest of my life I would be happy.

I look at pictures of myself and 80% of the time I am disgusted and slightly ashamed of what I look like. Unless it’s a head shot, I criticize EVERY pat of my body (minus my butt and boobs :) ). I like my face (and those other parts). I am OK with those. But my arms, stomach, sides and thighs I really don’t like.

“Charleston” is the most amazing boyfriend in the world and there is not a day that goes by that he does not tell me how beautiful I am. I accept his compliments and I do believe him when he says it; I do believe he thinks I am beautiful. A lot of the time, in the moment, I do feel beautiful, but I want to have this feeling all of the time, even while looking at pictures. What girl doesn’t?

Right now, I am not 100% comfortable with myself.

I am ready to make a change.

The key to this change is going to be calories in versus calories out.

I have always been good at working out. I like the gym. I like to sweat. I like to push it and work hard. That is not the problem. The problem is I like food. I said it. I don’t know why but for me this was kind of hard to admit…I like food. There, I said it again.

I am not one of those crazy girls that binge eats, or has some eating disorder, I just enjoy cooking and eating good food. I don’t sit down and eat ice cream, bags of chips, hot dogs and soda. I actually NEVER eat any of those foods. In the past I have just been consuming too many calorie rich items (that I thought were not THAT bad) and consuming more than a normal portion.

I have done a lot of reading and research in the past several weeks. I have learned what a normal meal should really look like. It’s not surprising that one of America’s biggest problems is obesity! I need to re-design my thinking of what I buy, what I cook and what I eat. I need to do more research on new and healthy recipes so I don’t get bored with salads and raw foods. Cooking will still be fun, I just need to approach it differently.

The first step I have taken this week is to count my calories. I began using the LiveStrong calorie counter online to track my progress. I have been AMAZED at the calorie content in some of the foods I was consuming that I thought were “healthy.” Looks can be deceiving – especially packaging! Counting calories is not an easy task but I assure you it is well worth it. It is helping me learn what a true portion and serving size is. Counting calories puts things in perspective when you see total numbers of what you consumed throughout a day.

I want to become healthier and hopefully loose a couple pounds. I don’t want to be on a “diet”, I want to train myself to have a healthy diet. Items a lot of people consider “diet” foods are really what we all should be eating as regular food on a regular basis. It’s sad that our society has gotten to the point where “regular” food is considered burgers, burritos, fried chicken and french fries where as “diet” foods are things like lettuce wraps, fruit salad, and hummus. Kind of scary; it makes me not want to be another statistic. I am taking control of myself right now.