Clean Eating - My New Weapon in my Battle

A month ago I went to the doctor and received some news that kind of rocked my world. Now in the grand scheme of things, it isn't the worst. Not anything life-threatening or devastating. But to me, it was pretty upsetting. After battling with my weight my entire life, and continuing to battle every single day, the doctor informed me that the medicine that they had put me on caused me to gain 15 pounds in only a three month period. I kind of had a meltdown. After losing 100 pounds about five years ago, I've slowly been creeping up and then plateauing and then up a few pounds, in spite of the fact that I work out most days a week and watch what I eat. Then add in this new medicine and I am not happy with where I find myself today.

So that day, after bawling my eyes out on my way home from the doctor, I decided I was going to try to eat clean. No more sugar. No soda. No bread. No pasta. No alcohol. Nothing processed. At all. And for the past month, I have been militant and borderline obsessive about sticking with it. No cheats at all. I go to the gym 4-5 times a week and have been incorporating strength training into my usual cardio routine. I'm taking my vitamins. I'm doing everything I am supposed to do.

I've been too afraid to get on the scale to see the progress so far. Because if it has gone up, in spite of this drastic change, I don't know what I'll do. But I've been keeping my measurements and they've stayed about the same.

I'm not going to allow myself to become discouraged. This stuff takes time and I am looking at my clean eating lifestyle as a challenge, almost like a game. How can I make awesome delicious choices from only these ingredients? How can I transform my (old) favorite things to eat into clean recipes? I think the challenge has made me want to stick with it. Plus, I am excited about how I don't really miss a lot of what I used to eat. The first few weeks were tough, but now, I don't crave sugar or soda. Not gonna lie, I miss bread though. I have an Oprah-style love for bread. But I just have to mentally tell myself that it's not worth it. It's not worth undoing all of the good that I've worked so hard to do.

The hardest part is going out or being social while on this kind of diet. Everyone wants to "meet up for a drink" or "grab dinner," both of which are very hard to do when you have no control over how things are prepared. It's all good, and it's the price I have to pay until I figure this all out. I am focused. And I need to get back on track. So if this is the way to do it, then I am going to do whatever it takes to get back where I want and need to be.