Goodbye Burgers! Hello Health!

I had an interesting conversation in the kitchen at work yesterday.  There was another girl in the kitchen preparing her lunch.  Hers – a salad and tuna wrap.  Mine – a tuna salad.  I overheard her talking to her colleague about how she was ‘detoxing’ (shudder – THAT word) as the party season was coming.  I might just add here that this makes absolutely no sense to me.  So you’re eating healthy because you want to pump alcohol and bad food into your body in the near future?  I can’t even begin to express what is wrong with that theory.

Okay, so there we were making our lunches and she turns to me and she says, “Wouldn’t you rather be eating a burger right now?”.  Now, dear readers, what do you think my response would have been to this question?

a) “Oh yes!  I would much prefer to wrap my mouth around a big, greasy burger!  Let’s run away now to McDonald’s!”

b) “What are you, some kind of moron?  I am a picture of health!  Why would I want a burger?!”

c) “No, I actually would not as it would make me feel sick.  Eating healthy makes me feel good”

If you guessed a) get off my blog right now.  No, don’t look at me like that.  You think those puppy dog eyes work on me?  No way.  You go and don’t come back, ya heard?

If you guessed b) then you are nearly there.  I mean I AM a picture of health, let’s face it (cheeky, cheeky).  But I’m not that rude.

If you guessed c) then congratulations!  You are officially my favourite reader!  Well done you.  Come here, let me kiss that little face of yours.  *MWAH*

Right, so where was I?  Oh yes, I replied to her, “No, I actually would not as it would make me feel sick.  Eating healthy makes me feel good”.  She looked at me skeptically and said, “Yeah, maybe you’re right”.  Hopefully that’s another person I’ve reached with my healthy living message!  Only time will tell.

Don’t get me wrong, of course I love to indulge every now and then but the majority of the time I eat healthily.  This took some time though.  It wasn’t overnight that I suddenly said, “No more treats!  No more chocolate at night!  No more booze sessions every weekend!  No more subsequent hangover food!  No more this!  No more that!”.  It took me a LONG time to get to the stage where I can simply live without it.  Not only did it take a long time but it took a huge internal battle.   I spent months (if not years) self sabotaging and going back and forth in an endless tug of war between mind and body before I finally gave in to my body and did what it wanted me to do.

I’m a realist.  Most things I see are in black and white and living in such a grey space was making my head hurt.  I wanted so badly to be healthy and have the body of my dreams but I was living in a fairytale world of eating badly, boozing and then exercising.  I’d cry and say to my husband, “But I work SO hard and I’m not getting ANY results!” whilst eating icecream.  He would nod and make soothing noises, god bless him.  But the reality was too loud to ignore.  If I wanted to be healthy and have the body of my dreams then I needed to clean up my act.

So slowly I eliminated foods from my diet until I got to a point where I now eat mostly unprocessed, natural and whole foods.  I’ve found balance where I can still eat the things I love occasionally and not feel like I need to have them all the time or that I am missing out on something.

I’m feeling fitter, stronger, sexier, more confident, happier, healthier and wiser than I have ever felt.  This is how I stay motivated.  I’m addicted to the feeling of wellness.  I don’t want it to ever go away.  So I work hard and eat well.  In my down time I relax, I eat what I “want” (and what I want differs from eating junk just for the sake of it) and I enjoy life.  Because I work this hard for a reason – to live.

 

Image from weheartit.com

Enough about me – let’s talk about you.  Do you struggle with motivation?  Or are you the opposite and motivated like a mo fo?  Let’s chat.  🙂