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January is always a time of newness and renewed health, after my indulgence over the Christmas period I thought that come the start of the new year it was time to redefine my relationship with food and regain some balance.  Over the past couple of months I’ve felt a little bit out of sync with my eating and this probably started when I was in Sri Lanka on my honeymoon last November.  With the arrival of Christmas everything went on a downward slope of excess and I had a ‘it’s Christmas so I will have it anyway’ mentality.  This past month I’ve made a conscious effort to return to my healthier eating patterns and I just wanted to capture my thoughts on how I’m currently feeling in a blog post.  You may want to go grab and a cuppa as it’s quite a long post.

‘Diet’

My philosophy is to eat in abundance and make it count – and that is exactly what I’ve been doing.  It’s just that I have naturally been drawn to healthier choices and I’ve really been enjoying my food this month, more so that ever.  I’ve been eating all of the food that I want, no restrictions.  I hate feeling inhibited and always appreciate the freedom that I have when it comes to my food choices. I did feel the need to balance out the Christmas excess, but this is something that hasn’t felt forced.  I think my body is determined to find its happy balance after a period of indulgence and over eating and I’m happy to just go with it.

As I said above I’ve naturally been drawn to healthier foods, but I haven’t felt that there has been something lacking with my meals – I always finish them feeling satisfied and nourished. Rather than restricting my eating during January I focused on reducing certain foods like refined sugar, starchy carbs and processed foods. I basically took a more holistic approach to my eating and listened more to what my body craved,  whether that be a bar of dark chocolate or a huge bowl of veggies.  Yes, I have been eating chocolate in January, go figure!  This is a true testament that having a healthy balance rather than cutting things out works me.  Normally I eat on a ratio of 80:20 healthy to non-healthy foods, but this month I decided to bump up the numbers to 90:10, enabling me to get my chocolate fix and still feel great from all of the healthy goodness.

Of course there was the episode with the biscuits where I felt a hint of food guilt, such a waste of time. What I learnt from this after putting things into perspective is that the word guilt and food should not be mentioned in the same sentence.  There is no such thing as ‘bad’ food, I enjoy everything that I eat, otherwise I wouldn’t be eating it. My problem is when I eat things unnecessarily or eat too much than is required. The incidences of over eating are really infrequent, but no doubt may happen again. Ultimately,  I want to deal with my emotions better if and when the next occurrence arises, bury the hatchet with myself and move on, life is far too short.

Something really lovely happened at work this month and it was quite unexpected.  One of my work colleagues told me that I was ‘glowing.’  I was quite taken a back by it as I’m too too great with receiving complements, but I did felt really chuffed.  I do believe that nourishing and feeding your soul makes your outside shine.  I’m just really happy that the attention that I have put into eating well and getting back on track this month is noticeable on the outside.

Body

Body wise I have felt a little bit out of sync and uncomfortable this month.  I’ve felt much heavier and squishy and had to remind myself that I haven’t turned into an elephant after Christmas. I’ve gone through all of my dresses in my wardrobe this month for the simple fact that I’ve felt less self-conscious in them – they seem to cover up a multitude of sins.  I did try my skinny jeans on at the beginning of the month and they were a bit snug to say the least.

With my previous body issues, never in my life would I have thought that I would be proud about how I’ve handled carrying a little excess weight.  I didn’t get stressed over it or cry as my healthy living journey has taught me so much.  Even though I know that my weight doesn’t define who I am and I genuinely love my body and it’s curves, I  do feel the need to reign things in a little.  Feeling comfortable in my own skin is very important to me and at the moment I’m not.  During Christmas I over indulged and a lot of it was with the mindset of “f**k it it’s Christmas”.  I don’t regret eating all of that food at all, as I sure enjoyed doing so, however now I want to regain my balance and eat more nourishing and nutritionally dense food.  Luckily blogging over the past 3 and a bit years has instilled in me a great mentality and given me the tools to deal with these issues.  I may loose a few pounds on the way, but it that’s what it takes to help me on my way then I’m all for it as I know it will be for the right reasons and not detrimental to my health.

Fitness

This month I’ve loved being more active and getting back to my routine.  Generally my workout regimen is based around 2 gym sessions a week with a mix of cardio and strength, yoga, a short run and my beloved spinning class.  Working out 5 times a week is just about manageable with my current work schedule, but I don’t beat myself up if I miss a workout anymore like I used to.  I chop and change my workouts accordingly, if I’m too tired to run then I will do a yoga podcast instead.  I need that flexibility in my routine as my working hours can be extremely erratic and right now this seems to be working well for me.

I would love to go to a crossfit class at some point and reintroduce some hot yoga into my routine, but I will think about that later in the year.  My main focus is to improve my body strength and I’m also hoping to enter some races too.  At the moment I’m really having fun with my exercise and I find myself getting excited to workout.

Thank you if you made it to the end of this post, if you didn’t then I understand, it is rather long. In essence I’m in a pretty good place where my relationship with food is concerned.  Even though I’m not at war with my body I would like to reign things in and I may loose a few pounds as a result. I don’t intend to diet as that really isn’t my style, it’s more about redefining that healthy balance, but this still means chocolate and cupcakes will be eaten as treats.  Some people may turn their noses up at this, but I know this is what is right for my body at this point in time.  Fingers crossed that hopefully I will continue to glow for the rest of 2014!

How do you currently feel about your own relationship with food, your body and fitness?