Literally guys, my diet since I’ve been back in Boston has been pizza, goldfish, coffee, candy and bread.
I don’t know what it is about pizza, but for some reason it never seems THAT bad if you only eat one or two slices or you only take a couple bites here and there. Unfortunately, even gluten-free, moderately healthy pizza is way too much when it becomes a daily staple in my diet.
The past few weeks didn’t go quite as I predicted in my most recent post. I had all these plans to start getting healthy again, and running again, etc., but these plans got delayed a bit due to Recruitment and the 2 weeks of non-stop sorority shenanigans that have occupied my pre-semester days.
Basically, we started preparing for Recruitment on the 8th and the 9th with Spirit Days, during which I ate Mexican food 3 different times. Yes, I ate Mexican food 3 times in 2 days. Don’t judge me, it was delicious.
It didn’t seem that bad because I normally don’t get cheese or sour cream or anything when I eat Mexican food, but my stomach was NOT happy with me, and I’m quickly finding out that my body might have an aversion to this type of cheesy-rice-and-bean deliciousness.
On the 10th we had a day off to rest, and I ended up going to 2 Pilates classes that day, one after the other. I’ve seriously never felt so tired. We didn’t even do that much during Spirit Days, but for some reason I was just so exhausted already and could barely make it through my classes. I was probably giving 50% effort, and I even had to stop a lot because I wasn’t feeling it and I wasn’t tuned into my body. Of course we all have days like that, but it’s kind of a shame because those days seem sort of wasteful.
The 11th-14th were the Recruitment days! Now don’t get me wrong, I loved recruitment so much and it was an amazing time to bond with all my sisters and get excitement up about our sorority, but it was also one of the most tiring things I’ve ever done.
Day 1!
Day 2! Our Philanthropy day
The first two days, we were in the same room for about 4 hours at a time, with quick 10 or 15 minute breaks every hour. After the first 4 hours, we got a “lunch” break (called lunch, even though it happened at 6 pm), and then returned to that room for another 4 hours or however long it took. We then stayed 3-4 more hours cleaning up, getting ready for the next day and organizing everything.
The thing with Recruitment is that none of us want to have to pee in the middle of our long blocks of time when we are stuck in that room! In case you guys can’t see where I’m going with this, nobody was really drinking much water. The first two days I think I had about 4 sips of water before 10 pm.
To make this situation worse, I was scrambling for fuel during our breaks, which meant I was shoveling Goldfish and Starbursts and Pixie Sticks (ew) into my face whenever I got the chance, even if I wasn’t hungry. Then at the end of the night, I would convince myself to eat a full “healthy” meal so that I could get some nutrition, even though it was 10 pm and I was extremely full.
Day 3 is Garden Party! You can’t tell in this picture, but my entire body was puffy
By the 3rd day of all this, my ENTIRE body was bloated. I’m not kidding, my face, stomach, arms and even legs were all so puffy. My stomach felt like I was carrying around a bag of potatoes, and I was starting to get little sores in my mouth. It seriously always shocks me how quickly and dramatically my body reacts to junk food, especially when it comes to mouth sores and breaking out. I’ve never really had a problem with breaking out, and yet 2 days of junk food will give me the most frustrating bumps on my face that turn bright red and don’t go away for like 2 weeks. Awesome.
Day 4 we got to put on black dresses and get all dolled up, which is my favorite
Days 3 and 4 were much shorter, and so I finally started to get some sleep again and get on a somewhat normal eating schedule. Unfortunately, my brain* was really diggin’ all this junk food, and so I’ve spent pretty much every day since then snacking on pizza with my roommates or incorporating bread into EVERY meal.
*The reason I emphasize that my brain was into the junk food is because while my body was yelling at me to stop shoving crap in my face, my brain was becoming more and more addicted to the chemicals and immediate sugar in what I was eating. Unfortunately, my brain wins a lot of the time because I like to make excuses in order to ignore my body.
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Anyway, I always like to make a mental note of those “Wow Whitney, this junk food is hurting your body so you should probably cut that shit out” moments because they are the moments when my body wins over my brain. This time, it started to hit me at the end of last week, but amidst the hype of our new members, and the mindset that the first week of the semester should involve going out every night possible, the actualization of this realization was further put off for more midnight pizzas and candy.
Me, my new little and my big!! I know, we’re precious
Finally, on Saturday night we went on a Retreat with all our new members that was literally about 30 hours of bonding and hanging out with sisters and learning about ADPi. Being in a hotel and away from all the chaos made me fully understand how FULL I was! Seriously, I was still full from the day before (and honestly, I think I might have been full since recruitment). The most I ate all day on Saturday was soup and all of the avocado out of a salad that I intended to eat for dinner.
When I got home on Sunday, my roommates and I all looked at each other, and pretty much simultaneously were like “we should probably stop eating pizza and junk food”. The general consensus is that all of us are just tired of feeling sluggish and heavy and unhealthy! Even though we have 2 huge boxes of goldfish sitting there on our kitchen counter tempting us, I don’t think any of us have touched them for a couple of days because they look sooooo unappealing.
Seriously though, I LOVE those moments when I realize I’m not the only one who has really dramatic side effects to eating badly. I’m convinced there should be a warning on the side of processed food that says “may make your body REALLY freaking pissed at you”.
I’m not kidding guys, junk food WRECKS your bod. It just does. And the only way our bodies are able to communicate when we are eating shitty food or mistreating ourselves is by sending little warning signals like fatigue, mouth sores (gross), body odor (the body’s way of expelling built-up toxins), slow digestion (it feels like I’m passing bricks through my stomach), pimples, etc. Seriously, the list goes on and on.
The problem is that many people don’t listen to their bodies, or don’t even know how to! Before I actually changed my eating habits completely this summer and understood what it meant to feel healthy, I had no idea that anything physically wrong with me could be related to food. Now I’m pretty much able to pinpoint the exact meal or bad-eating-choices day that is linked with whichever physical side effect I have discovered, even if it is the most minor thing in the world.
I was talking to my roommates last night about this concept, and I realized that I have gotten exponentially better at listening to my body, even since the summer. Pretty much every day I come home and I’m feeling side effects to whatever I’ve been eating (even if they are good side effects!), I’ll stand there with my roommates and tell them exactly what is going on in my body and why it is happening.
I honestly didn’t even realize I did this so much, but I think it’s because once I say it out loud, it forces me to recognize that whatever temporary habit I have developed is either hurting or helping me, and that I need to act accordingly. It is absolutely crucial to fully understand what healthy feels like, because this understanding provides a source of comparison for when things are wrong.
Not only is this crucial when trying to diet or stay fit or eat healthy or whatever, but it is also crucial for noticing when we are sick or injured or chemically unbalanced, etc. It can be so easy to forget how powerful our bodies really are, and how obvious the warning signs can be, simply because it’s really easy to ignore our bodies if we aren’t making an effort to get to know them.
The funny part about all of this for me is that because I have made an effort to become acquainted with my body and learn how it communicates with me, I have a much more difficult time ignoring it when it’s mad! All of the side effects feel so much worse and so much more extreme simply because I know why they are happening and I know how much better it feels to be healthy. As annoying as it is, I love being in touch with my body and understanding what makes me feel certain ways!
For those of you trying to better understand your bodies, I would suggest using a journal or using even your roommates to write down / vocalize exactly what is going on in your body and how you feel after you eat a particular food. It’s really amazing how easy it is to catch on to all of our body’s little tricks and messages!
Okay, that’s all for right now, but I have a lot of really good stuff to share with you guys this week so get exciteedddddddd!
furrealz on the pizza though…i had like a slice the other day and now its all i can think about