Balance, not Perfection
It’s been awhile since I’ve written a blog post. With school back in full swing for both me and the kiddos, life has been crazy. Between extracurriculars for the kids, getting through my final fall semester (WHAT?!?), and an unexpected renovation of my entire downstairs, I’ve barely had time to think, much less blog. When I was trying to come up with a topic for this post, I struggled. Hard. So, I took a couple of days and just thought about my life for the past few months and tried to evaluate where I am in terms of my overall health and wellness. I thought about my personal eating habits, my overall impressions of all the different “lifestyles” out there (no one uses the word diet anymore), and the struggles that most people face on a daily basis in terms of health and wellness.
It’s hard to know what to believe. Should you fast? Do keto? The Mediterranean lifestyle? Gluten free? Dairy free? Vegan? If you frequent Instagram, you’ll see that there are people out there that actively promote each of these lifestyles. Are they right? Are they wrong?
People are always looking for the right answer in terms of what to eat. They want someone to tell them definitively what is healthy and what is not. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. When people find out that I’m a dietetics student, they always ask me to tell them exactly what they should be eating to be healthy. Obviously, I can’t answer that.
The truth is that food and nutrition are both deeply personal and individualized because no two people are the same. You have to do what works for you. For example, I did a Whole 30 several years ago. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s a month-long elimination regimen with the basic premise being that you only eat whole foods, and you eliminate dairy and gluten, amongst other things. I honestly felt amazing during the entire month. I was having some issues with bloating, and it went away entirely during that month. But I also desperately missed dairy and homemade bread.
Food has a direct connection to how you feel every single day. If you eat junky food, you feel junky. But sometimes even if you eat whole foods, you may not feel so hot either. The Whole 30 experience taught me that if I eat too much dairy and too much bread, I’ll bloat. So, I have these foods sometimes, not all the time. For someone else, gluten may be an issue, or nightshades, or any other foods that can potentially cause inflammation.
Food, like most things in life, is all about balance. I do my best to eat whole foods every day. What do I mean by whole foods? Basically, if it was once alive or growing in the ground, I consider it a whole food. Meat, greens, root veggies, rice, whole grains, etc. are all part of a nutritious diet. If it requires a lot of processing (think cheese or store-bought bread), I try to limit my intake. I also love to cook, and I feel better when I eat homemade food. I try to cook most nights every week, even with a destroyed kitchen.
Does that mean I eat this way 100% of the time? Uh, no. Because that would be boring. Also, sometimes it just doesn’t fit in to our busy life. Sometimes we don’t have a choice but to eat out. I do try to make sure we eat nutritious foods when we eat away from home, and I rarely eat fast food. If it comes through the window of my car, I try not to count it as food.
The point is to eat in a way that makes you feel your best most of the time, because nobody can do it EVERY time. If you do this, you’re ahead of the game and well on your way to a healthy and balanced life.
Raye Mullis
Comments
Post a Comment