More Veggies, Please!

Lately I’ve been eating a ton of salads. More and more veggies are filling my daily menu, along with the addition of breakfast (protein bars) every day and more tea and water than I ever thought it was possible to drink. The whole reason I started doing this was to slim down a bit for the wedding, but the results are beginning to inspire a permanent lifestyle change for me.

Feeling better—I hadn’t noticed it at first. A little bit more energy here, a little less head fogginess there. My mood and energy didn’t seem to have noticeably changed. But that’s when I started to notice that on cheat days I didn’t feel good. It wasn’t overnight. After a birthday celebration in the office, I skipped over lethargic and went straight to cake-induced catatonia. After homemade pizzas for dinner (which were actually fairly healthy), I went from feeling quite pleased with the delicious pies to feeling a bit rumbly in my tumbly. When did this happen?? I LOVE pizza. I love cake. I love cheeseburgers and buffalo wings and all the things that make this country great.

Suddenly though, my body is communicating with me. More salad! More veggies! This feels good!

My body is working better. My body wants to move … my bowels want to move. My carefully designed innards that used to need motivation have become a well-oiled machine. Is it possible that I had become one of those people who was filling my body with absolute crap? Yes. And I hadn’t become one. I’d been doing it ever since I became the sole person responsible for my wellbeing. For years I thought I had been eating mostly healthy (it’s not like I have fried chicken for dinner every night) and it turns out that all along I’d been neglecting myself.

It’s a whole new world—I don’t plan to STOP eating anything. I STILL love pizza and wings and cheeseburgers. But those will have to become special treats. For now my body is making one thing abundantly clear: If you keep up the good work, you’ll be repaid in good moods, high energy, and (fingers crossed) the bikini body you’ve been missing for the past 6 years.