Is It Healthy To Always Eat Healthy?

Oct 31, 2011 by Tatianna

 

I’ve been contemplating to write on this topic for quite some time now. There are a lot of mixed opinions out there about this topic, – eating healthy all the time without taking a break. Some people believe that it is NOT OK to give your self a break and give into some not so healthy food choices, because it can create further cravings and mess up their goals. I would like to share some of my own opinions and experiences with always eating healthy without taking a break.

Let’s start off by saying, I am a natural born freak of healthy food. I’ve been this way since I can remember. But over the past year and a half or so I’ve noticed my self going a bit extreme when it comes to eating right all the time. I thought the more I eat this way, the more my mind and body will get use to this way of eating and I will never want to eat any other type of food. And for a while this was true, it started to become very natural and I stopped thinking about my Nutella and cake frosting eating days. I felt great all the time and even if there was a little bit of temptation and I wanted to take a little break, I kept my will power strong and said NO. I worked out 5 days a week on point, and I ate tons of veggies, lean meat and protein shakes, ( and of course fruit and natural peanut butter but that I am never giving up :P, but it’s not junk food anyway ).

The funny thing about all this, is that my husband noticed that I was going all freakish for a while and he told me to be careful and that it is going to back fire on me if I don’t slow down. I didn’t listen of course because I wasn’t’ even craving junk food, what can possible happen?

Time went by, I got into a pretty good shape and my body fat percentage was very low, I became extremely lean ( which was probably a bit too much ), I wasn’t trying to achieve that look, it just happened because I was eating so well and exercising so much.

I stayed disciplined for month’s.  And then one morning it just  hit me. I didn’t know where it came from, one morning I just woke up and I felt possessed, I was craving sugar. And it wasn’t one of those I am craving a little sugar kind of things, it was like give me a whole cake right now or I will strangle something, LOL.

I ignored that craving completely, and I though my mind was just playing tricks on my. I stayed focused, by doing everything possible to distract my self from thinking about cake frosting. Then I found my self mindlessly eating foods that I normally don’t eat, like peanuts ( I always loved peanut butter, but I always hated peanuts, don’t ask why ). But here I was eating peanuts, bags and bags of peanuts. I just kept going back to the store buying those big bags of peanuts that you have to peel and eating them obsessively.

I felt hungry all the time, and all I wanted to do was not work out, and just eat peanuts ( this never happened to me before, because I love working out ). Then even worst cravings started to attack me, the craving for cake frosting was growing by the minute. I kept suppressing them over and over until I became obsessed, I even saw my self eating cake in my dreams ( how sick is this ).

This was a person I didn’t recognize. I felt like a cake maniac. So eventually I had to go and buy my self a cinnamon roll with frosting and the worst part was that I settled for one of those convenient stores cinnamon rolls ( those are pretty gross, but if you are desperate they seem like the best thing in the world ).

I wanted to slap my self, I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. I would wake up in the middle of the night wanting cake frosting, and it made me feel guilty.

My husband said ” I told you so! “. You need a break from eating healthy, you have to always give your self a break even if you might not think that you want one or need one. Sooner or later it will catch up to you, and when it does you will eat a lot more than you would of if you did take that break.

As much as I tried to fight it, it did caught up to me, at first I just resisted and tried to clean up my diet even more, and it worked for 2 weeks, but then I just started to get depresses and miserable, so I just said ” what da heck, I don’t want to torture my self like this. If my body is craving this, I will give into those cravings with peace, because I knew it was the only way for them to go away “.

Now don’t get me wrong, giving in to your cravings doesn’t mean you can run free and enjoy a box of crispy creme doughnuts every day. But what I did was just eat all the nuts I craved and a cinnamon roll ( I can’t eat more than one anyway ), or a chocolate chip cookie if I craved it.

After two weeks ( it was a good run 😉 ) I felt sick of cinnamon rolls, peanuts and cookies. I was starting to miss my spinach smoothies again.  I got back on track and it wasn’t very hard, because I let my self have what I felt like I really needed, and once I got it out of my system I was able to stabilize my self really fast, and I took away a great lesson.

So the conclusion to all of this long spill is this: Don’t obsess with eating healthy all the time, give your body and mind a break.  You don’t need to feel guilty if you don’t always eat a super clean diet, in the long run it will create a much healthier outcome as well as much healthier relationship with food.

 

What do you think?  What are your experiences with food cravings?

 
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