My body is telling me something

I am acutely aware of my body.

I realize that statement can be interpreted in many ways, so let me explain.

I remember as a kid one summer, that I got stung by a bee (or so we supposed).  I remember not realizing that I had been stung, or that anything had happened to me at all until, as I was wandering around the decks of our neighborhood pool, I looked down and noticed that my ankle had swelled to the size of a large grapefruit.  Once I looked down and saw it, I suddenly felt the warmth and pain inside the swelling.

Until seeing the swollen results of the "bee sting" (I've surmised that this is what we called the incident simply because it was the only thing that seemed to logically explain the random swelling that disappeared within a day), I did not realized that anything was wrong with me.  I had no idea how to listen to my body.

Sometimes I look at my first graders as they fall ill throughout a day and simply complain of feeling "tired" if they complain at all, but then get a paper cut that bleeds and this results in an uncontrollable need to take a trip to the nurse.  Because look, "IT"S BLEEDING!"  And I think to myself, they have SO much to learn about themselves.

As a full grown adult, I have learned much about my body since my childhood days.  I attribute much of this to age, maturity (yep, claiming to be mature), and life experience.  But I also attribute a great deal of my body awareness to running.

Running has taught me how to truly listen to my body.  To listen to what it needs, and what it wants, and what it most certainly does NOT want.  It's taught me to pay attention to the little twinges and aches and pains, but not to freak out about them.  It's taught me to feel my energy level, my hydration level, my hunger needs...and to listen to them.  Running has taught me that my body is capable of just about anything, as long as I take care of it and treat it nicely.

As a kid, I didn't notice when my body was unhappy with me.  So it didn't matter.  If I was grumpy or sad or tired or upset or happy or energetic or any sort of feeling, I didn't think it had anything to do with my body.  My skin was the bag that carried around these bones and muscles that allowed me to swim and climb trees and ride bikes.  I didn't care too much about it.  And luckily, it survived.

But now, as a "mature," adult runner, I realize that my body is the foundation for everything I do.  And what I choose to do to my body and put into my body is directly reflected in the outcomes of my day.

I used to be a naysayer.  Yeah right, being Gluten Free makes you feel better, I'd think.  It's all in your head.  A cleanse?? Really?  Such a fad follower.  South Beach Diet.  Atkins.  Jenny Craig.  Eliminate carbs.  Go fat free.  Be a juicer.  Splenda instead of sugar.  No salt.  Fiber, fiber, fiber!

All these things probably have some sort of research proving their effectiveness (I would hope), but the fad diets of the media always overwhelmed me and seemed ridiculous.  And to a certain extent, I still think they are.  I don't necessarily believe in "dieting."  I believe in changing the way you eat in a sustainable, livable way.  A way that you can sustain for the rest of your life.  A fad diet may work for a few months until you realize that all you really want to do is eat that bagel, and then another one, and another, and it all falls to crap.

Random picture of Lucy naughtily on the couch when she's
not allowed that you've all probably already seen on FB
because I have no other relevant pictures for this wordy
post.  She's adorable even when making bad choices.

I don't want to sound too judging here, because food and I have always gotten along pretty well.  All my life, I've been a relatively healthy eater.  As a kid, my favorite snack was cherry tomatoes in ranch dressing.  Or a pickle.  I've never been a sweet or dessert person.  I love fruits and vegetables.  I cut out red meat and pork from my diet when I was 12 (I wanted to save the poor cows and pigs) and haven't knowingly eaten either of these things since.  Fighting weight has never been a major problem for me.

Don't get me wrong though--I certainly have my weaknesses.  I will eat an entire large bags of chips in one sitting.  I LOVE SALT.  And dips for the salt.  Oh man--french onion dip, ranch, salsa, spinach and artichoke dip, smoked salmon dip.  I found a mean recipe for a jalapeno popper dip on Pinterest.  To. Die. For.  Not healthy in any way.

And fried food.  Chicken strips.  Fries.  Tots.  Fish and chips.  Onion blossoms at the fair are one of my favorite things.  All coated in salt.

And cheese.  Cheese, cheese and more cheese.  I want ALL the cheese.

Oh wait, here's a semi relevant picture.  Saw this guy
sitting outside the grocery store and laughed out loud.
Didn't know they still existed.  I don't eat Oscar Meyer Wieners.
Or any hot dogs.  I refused to eat those by about the age of 6.

There's a point to all this rambling here.  I'm getting to it, promise.

In general though, I'm a pretty healthy eater.  And being more acutely aware of my body has also made me more acutely aware of my body's reaction to the types of foods I eat.  When I eat a cupcake for a first grade birthday party, half an hour later I'm grumpy and have a sugar headache.  And dairy and I don't really get along.

Before I became obsessed with running marathons (when I was just plain old running), I had developed some really good eating habits.  I had decreased my portion sizes, ate a salad before my dinner every night, made my own lunch every day, and mostly stayed away from my weaknesses minus some minor guilt-free indulgences (which I think everyone deserves once in a while, if you can keep it to just once in a while).  I was really proud of my eating habits.

Lately, not so much.  I've been eating out a lot.  I've been indulging on cheese.  I haven't been eating my daily salads.  I've been buying frozen lunches.  I've been eating a lot of chips.  And I'm starting to see it in the mirror, which isn't so fun (side note: I don't weigh myself ever--I judge my weight based on how I feel when I look in the mirror, which is all that really matters to me).

And I think my body is starting to yell at me.  A couple weeks ago, I even tried to appease it by switching to soy milk in my morning cereal and coffee.  This has been awesome because the tennis ball that seemed to reside in my stomach after a milky morning has completely disappeared.  Instead of feeling heavy and icky when I get to school, I feel light and ready to go.  I've been slowly trying to phase out most dairy.  Today I got a soy latte instead of a regular latte, and my typical post-latte tummy ache was nonexistent.  But I've been eating a lot of cheese too.  Which defeats the purpose.

Today, I felt like crap on the way home from work.  I had an all day training and went out for Teriyaki for lunch (we teachers don't get to go out for lunch too often, so we take advantage when we can).  Then I had a meeting after the all day training where dinner was provided and ate two extremely greasy, cheesy pieces of pizza.  So on the drive home, I felt that heaviness in my tummy that makes me uncomfortable and disappointed in my choices for the day.

And I'm just going to mention in an aside here the minor fact that I've been sick for almost 2 months straight, and it's been about 2 months that I've been lax in the food choice category.  Perhaps there's a correlation?

I promised you a point to this post, so here it is.  I've been doing a great job of taking care of my body athletically.  I've been running and then mixing things up with boot camp and yoga.  I've been changing routines in an effort to treat my body more kindly instead of pounding pavement every day.  But my eating habits have slipped.

So I'm going to set a new goal for myself here on the internet (I've found that publicly set internet goals tend to work for me, even if no one is actually holding me accountable for them--for example, I still haven't touched that snooze button since August).  I want to get back to feeding my body well.  I want to make my own lunches again.  I want to eat a salad with dinner and go back to taking more time to cook like I used to.  I want to pay attention to the dairy, meat, and other substances that don't work for me and limit them.  I want to continue phasing out dairy, even though I will never give up cheese (has anyone tried soy yogurt before?  I bought some from Trader Joe's and it's staring at me in my fridge, but I'm kind of scared).  I want to be smarter about what I'm ordering when going out to eat.  And go out to eat less.

So, I may be two months late with this, but here is my official New Year's/last year in my 20s resolution:  Get back to eating better.  Continue to pay attention to what my body likes and what it doesn't.  And adjust accordingly.  And then feel better and be even happier.

Ready...go.