” I’ll tell you the hardest part about making lifestyle changes is, getting off track a little, but getting right back on track. I’ve accepted that I’m not perfect and will get off track every once and awhile but I need to get back on track quicker. “
Eating healthier is a process. It cannot happen overnight, and it cannot be ‘perfect’ in a few months. Honestly, it has taken me 13 years to get to the place I am with my eating and eating what makes me feel good. I now stay away from the foods that make me feel not so good.
But it is a choice. And it is all okay no matter which choice you make. We need to accept where we are at any given time and realize that eating healthier is a journey – noone else can make the journey for us. As a nutrition coach, I can help you with your map for your journey and help get you back on your main road after you veer off track.
Veering off track is a good thing! When you fall off the wagon so to speak, you sometimes fall back into your old habits. Usually you feel terrible just like you did before you started your health journey. This is okay! It is usually a learning experience to remind you why you chose to be on this journey in the first place. The worst is to beat yourself up over veering off plan. Accept it, learn from it, get back on! Move forward.
If you had told me 3 years ago I would be eating avocado slices on vegetable flatbreads I made in my own dehydrator, I would have asked if you were smoking crack or were halucinating! But over the journey I have taken, I started to juice almost daily. I started using a dehydrator and did start making my own vegetable flatbreads. I have made some other changes as well but I will still have a treat – chocolate, beer, wine, potato chips, etc. with friends. I will not though eat things like pizza which has wheat, tomatoes and cheese on it as I know that even the smallest amount won’t taste good enough to outweigh the symptoms I will experience. In this case, refraining from some foods is easy – I do not like the side-effects!
The journey will involve falling off the wagon or off track, and getting back on. Each time you fall, you will get back on. Each time the fall will be less severe, less extreme and eventually less frequent, too. Each time you do fall, you will get back on and each time will be sooner than the time before. As you start paying more attention to how you feel based on the foods you eat, it will become exceedingly easier to eat healthier and have less falls. But be okay with the falls. They are part of the journey. They are not because you are stupid, weak or like to suffer. We just repeat old habits sometimes to remind us why we wanted to change that habit. We have to learn to listen closer. That is all. We all learn at a different pace.
So next time you fall off the wagon, congratulate yourself for doing well for this long period! Take a look at what caused the fall, and see if you can figure out how to get back on and not veer off again in the same way. But love yourself either way. Embrace the journey. Embrace the fall. You did not do anything wrong. You are just learning and maybe taking a detour in your journey of health. You will be back on track as soon as you are ready 🙂 Your nutrition coach will always be here to catch you so your fall is not so hard, and help you get back up and ready to get back on your wagon.
For more nutrition points of view and how to be a better performing athlete using real food, please check out Joanna’s website www.nutrition-in-motion.net. Joanna has been on her own health journey for over 13 years after a bout of adrenal exhaustion in 2000. Realistic healthy is what Joanna is all about.