A Diet of Discipline
So in my last post I talked about how yoga was helping me cope with my anxiety, which it still is. But there's another area in my life which is affected by my anxiety and that's my diet. I may have spoken about this before, but for the past year I've really not cared about what I've eaten. I always have an appetite and I do eat three meals a day, but what I was eating was never as important as anything else I was doing in my life. I saw food as a means to an end; if I ate something then I was not longer hungry. Done! Simple.
This was a bit of a problem for my foodie husband who adores cooking and talking about new recipes or the best way to cook a steak. I never considered cooking as one of my hobbies but lately it hasn't been of any interest at all. So when he talked about food with me I would just sit there impatiently waiting for him to talk about something else. And when I would cook dinner and he asked me what was in it I would be even more impatient. Who cares what's in it! Just eat the damn thing!
I'm told this is not a normal response.
Yoga was not going to fix this problem. Something drastic needed to be done. So on January 1st I decided that I would cut out several things from my diet in an attempt to create and maintain boundaries for myself. For a whole month I wouldn't have wheat, dairy, refined sugar or alcohol. I was no longer allowed to eat cold cereal with milk for breakfast every morning (or evening if I couldn't be arsed to cook!); no longer was I allowed to have a drink every evening or eat half a dozen cookies when someone at work brought them in; I couldn't just eat soup and toast with cheese every day because it was the cheapest lunch I could find. From now on I had to plan every meal and actually think about what I was putting in my body.
Maria also embarked on this with me and with the exception of a few notable birthday celebrations, we adhered to these rules. Eventually we both realised that certain alterations didn't work at all for our bodies and certain ones worked great. For example, my system didn't take to the dairy replacements I was feeding it so I eventually went back to regular milk for my tea, while still avoiding cheese, yogurt and cold cereal. Maria had the opposite experience with dairy, but discovered removing wheat had very little effect.
Not having sugar worked very well for me, as did the reduction in dairy and alcohol. Eventually I didn't feel like I needed wheat to fill up gaps in my meals and I certainly didn't need all that dairy. Porridge in the morning was much better than milky cereal and because I was making it every morning or taking the time to prepare overnight oats in the evening, I felt like I was really involved in my own nutrition.
When February 1st rolled around I was excited to get back to cheese and wheat but decided to continue avoiding sugar and alcohol. Turns out, my body was not happy to receive dairy and wheat after all that time and I felt super bloated all weekend! Yes, now I'm allowed to eat anything I want but actually, what I want has changed. I don't relish eating a big salad for lunch but I do enjoy feeling physically healthy and energised afterwards. I don't enjoy sugar rushes and crashes so when I pick up a biscuit, I think about whether a few moments of tastiness is worth my feeling rubbish afterwards.
I had forgotten that the food we eat could be a kind of self-love. When I acknowledged how unhappy I was and that my diet was exacerbating those feelings, I realised that my diet had become a kind of self-harm. Everyone told me I was nuts to cut out so many things at once, but actually it was incredibly easy. I needed those boundaries in the same way a child needs to learn right from wrong. Yes there are grey areas but only by forcing certain limits can you find the right balance.
I still don't find cooking a relaxing endeavour but I am able to complete this task and other 'mundane' householdy ones without losing my patience or wishing it were over already! It's not perfect, but it's progress.
This was a bit of a problem for my foodie husband who adores cooking and talking about new recipes or the best way to cook a steak. I never considered cooking as one of my hobbies but lately it hasn't been of any interest at all. So when he talked about food with me I would just sit there impatiently waiting for him to talk about something else. And when I would cook dinner and he asked me what was in it I would be even more impatient. Who cares what's in it! Just eat the damn thing!
I'm told this is not a normal response.
Yoga was not going to fix this problem. Something drastic needed to be done. So on January 1st I decided that I would cut out several things from my diet in an attempt to create and maintain boundaries for myself. For a whole month I wouldn't have wheat, dairy, refined sugar or alcohol. I was no longer allowed to eat cold cereal with milk for breakfast every morning (or evening if I couldn't be arsed to cook!); no longer was I allowed to have a drink every evening or eat half a dozen cookies when someone at work brought them in; I couldn't just eat soup and toast with cheese every day because it was the cheapest lunch I could find. From now on I had to plan every meal and actually think about what I was putting in my body.
Maria also embarked on this with me and with the exception of a few notable birthday celebrations, we adhered to these rules. Eventually we both realised that certain alterations didn't work at all for our bodies and certain ones worked great. For example, my system didn't take to the dairy replacements I was feeding it so I eventually went back to regular milk for my tea, while still avoiding cheese, yogurt and cold cereal. Maria had the opposite experience with dairy, but discovered removing wheat had very little effect.
Not having sugar worked very well for me, as did the reduction in dairy and alcohol. Eventually I didn't feel like I needed wheat to fill up gaps in my meals and I certainly didn't need all that dairy. Porridge in the morning was much better than milky cereal and because I was making it every morning or taking the time to prepare overnight oats in the evening, I felt like I was really involved in my own nutrition.
When February 1st rolled around I was excited to get back to cheese and wheat but decided to continue avoiding sugar and alcohol. Turns out, my body was not happy to receive dairy and wheat after all that time and I felt super bloated all weekend! Yes, now I'm allowed to eat anything I want but actually, what I want has changed. I don't relish eating a big salad for lunch but I do enjoy feeling physically healthy and energised afterwards. I don't enjoy sugar rushes and crashes so when I pick up a biscuit, I think about whether a few moments of tastiness is worth my feeling rubbish afterwards.
I had forgotten that the food we eat could be a kind of self-love. When I acknowledged how unhappy I was and that my diet was exacerbating those feelings, I realised that my diet had become a kind of self-harm. Everyone told me I was nuts to cut out so many things at once, but actually it was incredibly easy. I needed those boundaries in the same way a child needs to learn right from wrong. Yes there are grey areas but only by forcing certain limits can you find the right balance.
I still don't find cooking a relaxing endeavour but I am able to complete this task and other 'mundane' householdy ones without losing my patience or wishing it were over already! It's not perfect, but it's progress.
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