Nutritional Goddess...?

 

As a follow up to my last post, I’d like to confirm what many of you might be thinking.  My diet is perfect.  Everyday I eat exactly what and how much I should be eating.  I am a nutritional goddess.  I am perfect…

That is, unless I am in the presence of any of the following: alcohol, cookie dough, BBQ chips, tortilla chips, hushpuppies (sorry, I went to school in the South), fro-yo, alcohol, really any bread bowl at any restaurant, kettle corn, brownies, Cheez-Its, cinnamon sticks from every and any pizza delivery company, did I mention alcohol?

I love fueling myself with whole and healthy ingredients in a strategic manner, but sometimes I enter into the world of the processed and usually, it tastes damn good.  You can’t eat a perfectly balanced diet every single day.  I mean, I wouldn’t even want to!  If never eating another slice of pizza means being healthy, then cut that word right out of the title of my blog.  I’d rather just be Happy Hannah who can scarf down an entire pie, generally at 3 o’clock in the morning.  The trick to keeping the “Healthy” an integral part of your title, is in the aftermath. 

On Saturday, after about 6 too many margaritas, 3 tacos, 2 enchiladas, 12 chocolate covered strawberries, enough chips and guac to feed a small Mexican city, and about 27 selfies (a few with which I have indulged you here), I drank a liter of water and collapsed onto my bed for the night.  The next day though, instead of feeling remorse for the damage I had done to my body (and the dance moves I had exhibited without the accompaniment of any music), I simply started the morning like nothing had happened.  The trick to cheating is to enjoy it in the moment and then move on.  If you feel guilty about it, you will try to overcompensate and starve yourself the next meal or day which will only lead to, as I previously so eloquently stated, your body freaking the f#@! out and going HAM on the next edible thing in sight.  Which will then lead to a vicious cycle of guilt, overcompensating, and binging…which, is just really not cute on anyone.  So cheat a little…but make it just that, cheating, a guilty little pleasure—not a lifestyle.

There’s a reason people like Winona Ryder shoplift: for the thrill, the rush of adrenaline.  If she stole every single thing she ever needed, then she would just be a thief and for some reason, that just doesn’t sound as sexy.  So enjoy the rush of that ‘rita and eat a quesadilla for me.  Don’t feel guilty and definitely don’t adopt a “well I already ate this, so might as well eat…everything in sight” mindset—I’ve been there and it is a slippery slope to Mama June-dom.  Enjoy your cheat for what it is and then go back to eating whole foods strategically.  We can’t be perfect and hell, I wouldn’t want to be.