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First of all, big thanks to all your lovely comments yesterday! I’m feeling a bit worse for wear today and my knee is a little swollen where I fell, but apart from that I’m still feeling on top of the world!

I’ve mentioned for a while that I wanted to do a post on my thoughts around the excessive snackiness I’ve been experiencing lately. I apologise in advance as this is a very  long and wordy post! I’m going to be talking about some of my issues with food so if your suffering from an eating disorder and feel any of this could be triggering or if your just not interested ;-) then it may be best to skip this post.

I’m just going to do a very quick summary of my ‘healthy living’ journey so far for any new readers. A few years ago I was almost 15 stone, 206lbs, and fed up of being bigger – I was very unhappy with myself and didn’t have a lot of confidence. I’d dieted before but had always regained the weight. Something just seemed to stick with me this time round and through generally eating better and exercising, I lost weight and got to about 10 stone, 140lbs, when I started blogging. Since I started the blog and reading more blogs my diet has changed dramatically. I’ve gone from an omnivore to a ‘mostly’ vegan and I enjoy my food more than ever before. I’m also the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been in my life :-) Clearly I’ve been influenced by blogs, but I feel that the changes in my diet have came about organically as I’ve learned more about nutrition and more importantly, more about my own body.

I’ve also lost more weight, to the point of being close to, but never within, the unhealthy BMI range. I’ve started getting a few comments from friends and family about this too. As I’ve been saying for a while now I really wanted to stop losing weight and at least maintain or preferably gain more weight. I recognised that this was not healthy and that I had developed some unhealthy thought patterns that needed to be addressed, and after a lifetime of trying to lose weight, naturally its going to take some time to reverse those ingrained habits. I’m not perfect and I am on a journey to learn more about myself and my body and clearly I’m going to have slip ups on the way. I have posted a couple of times on this – see my vegan for a month and finding balance posts for more background.

I’d also like to state that I have never had an eating disorder or have one now. That would be a pure insult to anyone that has suffered with what is a truly horrendous disease. What I have struggled with is a complicated relationship with food.

Its only been recently that I’ve started to feel like I’m really getting to know my own body. I’ve developed a love of exercise – and I exercise because I enjoy it, not in order to maintain or lose weight. I’ve also developed a love of certain foods – including green smoothies and big salads, which I never dreamed I would enjoy as much as I do! Its at the point now that my body craves green smoothies when it would usually have craved a takeaway! With this change in diet I have also been left very sensitive to sugar. I’ve always been sensitive to sugar but now if I go even slightly over board on it I can really feel it, I even wake up with a sugar hangover! I tend to feel ‘sugared out’ very easily, and when I eat a lot more processed foods or caffeine I feel a natural urge to eat better for a while.

I know that my diet could be described as extremely healthy and ‘clean’ (although I despise that word) but you know what I mean – very unprocessed, not very sugary etc. I eat this way because I love those foods and they make me feel fantastic. However I do want to make it clear that I also have no problem with drinking chemically coloured cocktails, knocking back shots and hammering the Chinese buffet on occasion too! Life is too short not to enjoy ‘unhealthy’ foods some times – take yesterday for example, I loved every single bite of that cinder toffee!

What I have recently been experiencing is excessive snackiness that seems to happen on an evening. I’ve really been going for sugary nut butters (hello PB&Co I’m looking at you!) and chocolate. When this first started I had no problem with it and really enjoyed it! However it got to the point that it was happening each evening and I was eating until I felt physically sick, and because I’m so sensitive to sugar, I felt really poorly too! This is not healthy for me. I was waking up feeling uncomfortably full and not looking forward to breakfast – my favourite meal, the horror! Its not that I have an issue with indulging every now and then – I was over the moon that I had the appetite to enjoy such snacks to begin with, but then it seemed to get out of hand and has just left me feeling blah.

This additional snackiness possibly combined with not running as much this month has led to me gaining 3 lbs, and I’m completely ok with that. I’m a healthy size 8-10 but would be equally happy with a few more curves! What I’m not ok with is feeling like crap. In all my musings on this I have reached the following conclusions:

• Stress can cause me to eat to excess (i.e. to the point of feeling sick rather than my natural fullness)
• Falling out of my routine throws my appetite off
• I’m probably not eating enough through the day
• I may be missing some nutrients (macro or micro) that is leading to me getting cravings

As I said, I really love the food I eat! I would normally crave healthier foods and I love that. What I do need to look at is making sure that I’m eating enough of the healthy stuff that I love and making sure that I’m getting the nutrients and fuel that I need. I feel like I’ve learned a lot over the last few weeks with regards  to listening to my body, I’ve been ignoring my hunger too much and then when I’ve been stressed recently I haven’t had the will power to ignore that hunger any more, which was ok to begin with but has got a little out of control. What I need to work on now is balancing out that ‘control’ and knowing when to relax.

With that in mind I am making a few changes to my diet, including having more snacks during the day so that I don’t feel as hungry later at night. If I still have a few snacks after dinner then that’s ok too, as long as its not the entire contents of a nut butter jar ;-) I may also calorie count a couple of days just for a while to make sure that I’m eating enough. This may lead to me gaining more weight and I’m fine with that. I know when I reach the right weight for my body it will settle down. I’m also still planning on having a bit of a detox, and yes, a detox is what it will be! I’m not ashamed of saying that, I feel like doing one, I’m going to be sensible and listen to my body, make sure I’m still eating plenty and I’m doing it to feel rebalanced and because I genuinely feel that my body and mind will benefit from it. 

We are all different with different bodies, different needs and different interests. What is classed as ‘healthy’ for one person may not be healthy for another. I personally feel that these differences should be respected and celebrated, particularly in the realm of healthy living blogs. I read the blogs that I am interested in, including blogs that focus on raw and vegan food because I personally enjoy those foods. Would I ever go completely raw or even completely vegan? (I still eat a few things with trace dairy sometimes like chocolate, I eat honey, and I’ve always maintained that I would eat animal products again if it was right for me) No! But do I think these people are wrong for eating in a way that makes them feel their best, or even worse, that they have an eating disorder because of this? Of course not!

I guess I’m saying this as there’s been a few very thought provoking blog posts around on this topic and I wanted to say how I feel about it. I love that what I eat makes me feel great, helps me to feel balanced most of the time, and connects me to the environment and the earth. What I choose to eat is right for me. Do I think everyone should eat or live like me? No! I said in a recent post I want to work with young people and community groups and the kind of healthy living approach I’d be advocating for them is far different to what I feel is right for me.

I think of it like a scale – we all need to find the right balance on the scale for us. For some people its right at the far end eating a high raw diet, for others its just a case of making sure they are getting their 5 fruit and veggies a day! Both can be healthy in their own way…

For me, healthy is doing whatever makes me feel my best physically and mentally. Despite a few little issues, I feel awesome!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! I know a lot of you commented that you have also been experiencing excessive snackiness. What is healthy for you? Why do you read the ‘healthy living’ blogs you read?

Hope that’s not too heavy going, usual service will be resumed tomorrow with a recipe book review and giveaway! Hope you have a great day!