Food - part 1 of many to come

I'm pretty strict with my eating. My focus on food now is about nutrients and fuel.

Before my relationship with food was about how it made me feel. If I was stressed, I ate. If it was a celebration, I ate. If I was bored, I ate. And I was a sugar addict.

My relationship with food really came to a head in the early part of #covid lockdown where I ate whatever I wanted cause it helped me to feel better as we grieved the loss of freedom, were stuck at home, and navigated the fear and anxiety of a global pandemic. I bought a bread-maker so we could have fresh bread every 2 days. I learned to make pasta by hand. I made cinnamon rolls for the first time. While these were delicious culinary explorations, it took a toll on my body and I packed on the pounds.

Now my focus on food is about calories, protein, low or easy to digest carbs, vegetables, a few fruits, and little salt, sugar, and oil.

Salt, while still bad for cardiovacular health and water retention, it seems I'm better able to flush out of my system with water and other foods than sugar. I've also worked to try to simplify my palate.

Carbs are sugar and sugars are most often difficult for the body to process and turn into fuel. I now see sugar for the body enemy it really is. It took me over 40 years to get a handle on my addiction to sugar.

I still eat a small serving of dark chocolate almost every day, as my little treat, but there are days where I go without it now - something I could never have imagined me doing before.

Here's one of my daily snacks

• Everything flavoured rice cakes x 2 (50 calories each)

• Hummus - 1 excessively heaping tsp, split between and spread on both rice cakes (package states 70 calories for 2 tbs, so this serving is less than half that)

• grape tomatoes - sliced

• cucumbers - sliced

• black pepper to taste

Clean and healthy eating!

At least I'm trying to and it seems to be working for me. More sharing to come.