LOOK FOR FOODS THAT WILL LOVE YOU BACK

If you read my blog about bread, you know that I used to be in a committed relationship with it. For a long time, bread equaled happiness for me. I always found it so tasty and it always put me in a good mood.

About four months ago I realized that I wasn’t feeling too great about my body on a daily basis. I didn’t understand why, I was working out regularly, eating the same foods I’ve always been eating, so what was the issue? My boyfriend recommended cutting different food groups each week, to see if I could notice any differences. Since bread was my main man at that time, I decided to give up bread, pasta and potatoes, and was shocked with how different I felt.

First thing I noticed was my bloat was gone. I always felt bloated and just chalked it up to putting too much salt on my food. Obviously that wasn’t good but I believe my bread intake had a big part in that bloat too. Next was normal bowel movements. I used to use the bathroom like every 4 days. (Sorry for the overshare!) Yes, 4 days I typed that correctly. I oddly put that in my head that that was healthy for about 5 years that I didn’t use the bathroom that much, clearly that is not true. When I cut the bread I was back on a normal system. This probably helped calm my bloat down too since I wasn’t so backed up. But the last thing I really noticed was how I didn’t feel sluggish anymore. I have more energy to get me through the day, I almost have a sense of feeling lighter. Since I felt so good, I just kept with that system and have kept cutting out those three foods.

Since I was on such an awesome path and realized how great I felt, I decided to keep listening to my body and try and figure out what it was telling me. I then noticed that I would often get headaches, but didn’t really know why it was happening. Turns out I was getting headaches from foods that have lots of sugar. I don’t eat a ton of foods that have processed sugars to begin with, but I found if I maybe went a little too far with a box of Oreos or if I had too many Reese’s pieces mini cups, I would get a raging headache. I even noticed that Starbucks would give me headaches, which REALLY bummed me out. I would get a latte everyday from Starbucks because they have one in my office building and about an hour later I would have a headache. I couldn’t figure it out until one day I grabbed a latte down the street instead with my sister. One hour later, no headache. I went to a different coffee shop the next day just to see if it was just a fluke and I still had no headache. So I started listening to my body and stopped going to Starbucks.😦 Unfortunate since there is one on like every corner these days!

At the end of the day though, everyone is different and foods effect everyone differently. So do your body a favor and start to listen. Listen to how your body feels and notice how it reacts to foods after you eat. If we start eating foods that love our bodies back, it will really help us in the long run.