I know it has been a long time since I made a post and I apologize, but I’m back! Now, without further ado, onto my post…
This week I learned the importance of keeping your fridge stocked. And no, I don’t mean just making sure there is food in it (though that also is highly important), I mean making sure there is a variety of food in it.
My parents are in town right now and when I’ve been over at their place I’ve found myself bingeing – or at least overeating – on the foods that I don’t have at home, like those yummy cookies with the yellow icing and sprinkles on top or chocolate covered cranberries YUM!
I was forced to ask myself, however, why it was that I felt the need to eat (and overeat) these foods that I didn’t even bother to put on my own grocery list.
See, I had allowed myself to believe that I didn’t really like these foods. The cookies were too salty, they made me thirsty, the chocolate cranberries were too sweet, they made my stomach ache. And, yes, maybe this is true – but only when I eat them in excess. But I didn’t want to acknowledge that – or should I say ED didn’t want me to acknowledge that – and so I told myself I didn’t like these foods (along with many others) and that’s how I found myself where I was this week – with a fridge filled with food, but it was all the same. There wasn’t any real variety.
I had managed to ‘trim’ down my list of ‘foods I like’ to something so small that each day I was eating some variation of: ham & cheese muffins, strawberry muffins, chicken samoosas, V8 juice and pasta. And maybe a Yam every now and again.
This is not a balanced diet. And if I was honest with myself, I’d realize that this wasn’t an ‘intuitive’ diet either.
And because I was (albeit in some way subconsciously) ‘restricting’ myself from a bunch of other foods, when I did come in contact with these foods (like when I was at my parents’) I would binge.
So what did I do?
I took a trip to the grocery store and filled my cart – I bought new types of salad dressing; a variety of meats; various ‘bulk’ foods like banana chips and chocolate covered almonds, and, yes, I even bought the cookies with the yellow icing and sprinkles on top.
I think it is important for us to keep variety in our kitchen. Even if that means that you buy the cookies and they sit on the shelf for a month, unopened – at least you know they are there and that you can have them if and when you want them.
What’s in your cupboards? Is it time to go grocery shopping?
~ Lauren B.