Forty, Fit and Fed but I haven’t really talked much about the “fed” part. Perhaps it’s time to address it. I guess I should clarify that this is not a blog about diet plans. It’s not about eating clean either. I must confess that when I hear about diets, my brain tunes out. It goes in one ear and out the other, and I make no apologies because I’m done with all that.
I no longer believe in diets because if it was a way of eating that I could sustain, I would already be doing it. And any diet I can’t imagine following for the rest of my life is not a diet I want to start. Inevitably, old habits will surface. Additionally, restrictions to forbidden foods only make me want to eat them more. The fixation on what I can’t have will become my undoing.
I won’t deny that once upon a time, I did obsess with caloric intake, fat consumption, and eating to lose weight. But, as I come to the point in my life where I have probably lived more years than I am likely to have left, I no longer feel motivated to watch what I eat. I am quite ready to accept the consequences of eating whatever I want, when I want, even if it means eating myself into an early grave.
Okay, so it’s isn’t exactly a no-holds-barred kind of eating. I do have limits to all the junk I can eat. With age, I have become aware that my body doesn’t tolerate over indulgence. I eat to enjoy; not to make myself feel sick. If I’m done, I’m done. I never say “no” to a slice of cake, or chocolate, or ice cream, but I won’t eat half the cake in one sitting. I’ve also been known to skip lunch to make room for cake and I have no regrets about that.
I’ve stopped counting calories. Instead, I count stomach fullness. I won’t go hungry and I rarely overeat. I say “rarely” because there are the occasional days when I still misjudge how much I can really eat. Because of that, I try to avoid buffets. I know I don’t have the stomach to eat that much. I would rather enjoy a smaller portion of a really good meal over mass eating of average food.
Whatever “healthy” food I eat is because I like it rather than because it’s “slimming”. #FMR has said many times that if he could eat the kind of food I have for breakfast, he would lose a lot of weight. What I keep telling him (although he fails to listen) is that oatmeal is one of my favourite breakfasts. To me, it’s comfort food that reminds me of my childhood, when my mother would make it for me. I can’t help it if he thinks it’s disgustingly healthy food. If I disliked it as much as he does, I would never eat it.
I know I will never have a beach body with this kind of diet, but I’ve come to realise that I’m totally fine with that. Living a life without food restrictions has been liberating. I’ve stopped obsessing about food and I find that I am enjoying my life a lot more. I don’t wish my body was this or that, and I never worry about whether I am allowed to have that cake or not. Why I didn’t do this earlier is beyond me.
