How Low Can't You Go?

It's been some time since my first post about following the 100 Days of Real Food 14-week mini challenges for eating better. Reason being, Hubby and I repeated the first week due to our lack of preparation. As we finished our second week challenge and entered into our third, I faced the ever pressing reality that eating healthy takes a lot of thought and preparation.

But let me not get ahead of myself. Here they are, the highs and lows of our second week challenge: 
Do not eat any food products that are labels as "low-fat", "lite", "light", "reduced fat", "nonfat".

 As we came to the end of our first go at the first week challenge (before we had decided we needed to repeat it) we came home from grocery shopping with a gallon of 1% low fat milk and about a dozen nonfat yogurts. Some habits are difficult to break, even when you have every intention of breaking them. 

The reason we have always purchased 1% milk is merely a calorie counting one. However, what I have learned from 100 Days and other sources, is that the fats taken out of milk (making it low fat or nonfat) consist of nutrients that are actually good for you.*

*But of course, this is the type of "real food" that makes me wrinkle my nose and raise my eyes in that judgmental way that occasionally takes over me. The way I see it, so long as they are only removing good things, rather than putting in bad things, I don't see that food as not real or bad for me to eat.

However, the 100-calorie snack packs and slew of other prepacked items with the words "LOW FAT" screaming in bright bold colors are items that I am consciously avoiding. In all truth, I have been avoiding them for years after realizing that they don't fill me and ordinarily don't taste very good.

With the exception of having to switch our milk drinking habits and having to overly screen our yogurt choices, this week was a cinch. It made me almost want to jump right into the next challenge.

I say almost.

Hello Stomach, Are You There?

Here is where my human side comes out to play.

Earlier this week I should have blogged about our first week challenge: Listen to your internal cues and stop eating when you feel full.

This week, we should have begun the second challenge: Do not eat any food products that are labeled as "low-fat", "lite", "light", "reduced fat", "nonfat".

Only the problem is that while grocery shopping this weekend, Hubby bought enough low-fat yogurt to feed a family of two. Enough yogurt that expires well before the remaining twelve weeks of challenge would occur. I told him not to worry, that I would just switch the weeks around again.

And then I didn't.

It wasn't an I-forgot-to-do-that kind of thing. It was an I-know-deep-inside-I-failed-miserably-and-must-make-it-right kind of thing. If the first challenge gave me difficulty, I knew I was going to have to strive harder to endure fourteen weeks of stacking challenges.

Listen to your internal cues and stop eating when you feel full.

Not gonna lie, that is a difficult thing to do, especially when you really truly deeply appreciate food, as I do. I don't necessarily eat just to eat, but I eat to awaken my mouth with flavors and to immerse myself into experiencing the variety of choices in what is available to eat and how it can be eaten. 

*I also eat so as to not turn into a much less glamorous version of myself known as my hungry alter ego, Jessica "B". 

Add onto that the fact that I am American and bigger is better here, and you might understand why it might take more than a week to remember to scale back when filling my plate at dinner time.

If none of this makes sense to you, God bless you.

If you are nodding your head along with this post, God bless you, too.

That all said, the first challenge is being played again this week. So far, I'm losing but I am convinced that as more challenges are tacked on I will finally get into the swing of adjusting my life to fit my new eating habits, rather than adjusting my eating habits to fit my life.

Wish me luck.