I guess you could call this another follow-up to the detox posts I’ve made lately. But this is not so much about the detox – which itself was pretty good – but rather, it’s about the aftermath.
I wrote a post called Making it Count as I was anticipating the end of my ten days on smoothies. I was really looking forward to that first good meal afterwards. But there were a couple of…I can’t really say “surprises,” but perhaps “results with which I am quite pleased.”
The first of those results – and I’ve done this enough that I could’ve expected it – is the discipline it has instilled in my eating habits. I went a stretch some years back when I had to lose weight and improve how I ate. The first week or two were tough. But once I got past the initial cravings and lack of discipline, I was able to maintain a pattern of eating that got me down more than 30 pounds over a few months.
But you know how it is…it’s not hard to think “well, I’m safe now, so this raspberry danish won’t hurt.” And so while I never got back up to my peak weight again, my eating discipline eventually slipped away. Fortunately, with the amount of cycling I did I was able to keep a balance, even with the poor diet. But I’d say I put about half of those pounds back on. And what’s worse, I eventually started stress-eating – gaining comfort from whatever I could wolf down (at times, quite unreasonably so — eating well beyond being full). On top of that, I was feeling awful. Headaches, stomach pains, chest pains (from a recurring reflux problem) – just an overall raunchy feeling.
So once I got into the detox, that discipline was forced to come back. I’m putting it to good use on a modified diet where I have a green smoothie for breakfast and lunch, healthy snacks throughout the day, and then a light dinner of lean protein like chicken breast or fish with fresh vegetables.
And this is where the second result comes in – that dinner tastes wonderful! I can’t quite pin it down, but I think part of it is in cutting out the high-carbohydrate/starchy foods like bread and rice and potatoes. And when I think about it, these are foods that are kind of empty of natural flavor – they have to be augmented, right? Rice needs Kimchi. Bread needs butter (or, if you’re like me, you use it to clean up your plate). Potatoes get loaded. Left by themselves, they kind of suck up the flavor of the other foods you’re eating at the time.
And so now that I’ve dropped them (along with coffee), I’m starting to taste things differently – and I’m quite enjoying it. In addition to that, I’m learning the lesson of healthier eating all over again. I shouldn’t speak so quickly, but it seems the head and stomach aches are gone. And of course, I feel lighter and more energetic.
I knew this was coming. I knew it had to be done. My eating habits were careening out of control and I had to get a handle on them. The discipline is back, and now I’ve discovered actual flavor and enjoyment in my food, and I’m quite thankful. Just a few months ago there were times I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on. Now I feel I have a few more good years left in me.
I’ll take that over a raspberry danish any day.