Guilt. It’s the most self-sabotaging emotion. Have you noticed how guilt wants to halt all your motivation to move forward? How it some how diminishes every desire in yourself to accept your fall and rise to the next battle? This week, I’m trying to rise back and kill the guilt of falling. The food industry sends us messages about “guilty” eating all the time. Somehow, we have become an authority to define food as “good” or “bad”. It also seems to take away any self-intent. You see, what I believe about guilt is simple. You feel guilty when you fear being judged. But being judged by who? Yourself? Your spouse/partner? Your friends? Your parents? The one thing I’ve realized and learned in the last 2 months is that in order to be accountable and authentic, I need to be intentional. I can lead a self-regulated life that is able to see the situation at hand and choose based on that. I can lead a life of intent.

Note, I didn’t use the word DECIDE. I intentionally chose the word choose. What’s the difference you may ask? Words that end in “CIDE” the latin suffix to mean, “killer” leads to the pretense that when you decide on “A”, then idea “B” is automatically killed. For some odd reason, in order to have one thing, you can’t have the other. 2 choices can simultaneously exist however 2 decisions can’t.  A choice to be Vegan. A choice not to be Vegan. A choice to “diet”. A choice not to “diet”. I think you get the point!

No one is safe from emotional eating. Not even myself. I’ve gone of my bus a bit. I apologize for not writing. I’ve had many people email me and message me in wonders of where I am. And really, I fell off my promise and I’m sorry for that. In the past 2 months, instead of a 80/20 split I probably followed the Vegan diet around 50/50 of the time. Things I craved the most? Dairy and Meat and Sugar! I’d like to think that during stressful times, our body craves protein (makes us feel stronger, maybe?). There’s no science to back this up. This is just my validation to make myself feel better and less guilty about taking it slower. Guilt-here we go again.

The last 2 months have been super busy and emotional for me. I know I’ve let down my readers who I promised a “what I eat in a day”. I apologize for the delay. and change in plans. I’d be untruthful to you if I did not share with you my falling off the “diet”.  My first-born, Marz, went to university and although I really wanted to clip her wings and keep her at home, I decided to let her grow-up and move. Of course, I’m suffering from parental growing pains myself. The good news, I could still exercise and did so at least 3x/week. Bad news, I ate anything and everything I could want to. I ate Cajun snack mix on our 3 hours drive and on the way back. I ate chocolate as well. For dinner, at Moxie’s (which I consider one of the few family meals we will share for a while), I devoured a full serving of Fettuccine Alfredo. Strangely enough, when I eat vegan, I could never finish an entire restaurant serving. The fiber in chick peas and veggies and the volume of vegetables likely filled up my stomach a lot faster! Comfort food is so much about mouth feel though. Something about cream and pasta that mesmerize the tongue like a forbidden addiction;  you just want one more bite.

I have some how maintained my weight. I’m still 86.8 kg. Likely because I’ve kept active all this time. That’s the good news. Even maintaining your weight is to celebrate. My blood work is due at the end of this month. At home, Monday to Friday, I’m mostly vegan. However, weekends have been hard to conquer given the social activities my husband and I are involved in. Plus, I’ve learned that few places offer vegan options so eating on the go especially fast food joints is impossible.  And really, if my friends/family invite me for dinner, I have a hard time saying, sorry I don’t eat anything with milk, eggs, chicken, turkey, beef, pork or seafood! That’s a mouthful! I don’t want to lose friends along the way so I do the easy thing and do what my mother always taught us, eat was is provided.

I want to try getting back on track this week. I need your help with some inspiration! Please share your story in the comment box on how you got on track with eating healthy. I can’t seem to find much motivation nowadays.

I owe thanks for many friends that have supported me. Thank you to my lovely co-workers including Courtney who has given me her entire vegan cookbook collection to see try some good recipes. Thank you to Allison, Monica, Angie, Jill and Ginni for always being my gym buddies. Thank you for all of you that have messaged me with your support.

I will be blogging a bit more this week including, what I eat in a day (so I can get back on track!) and also a FAQ about the Vegan diet.

Keep the comments and sharing coming. I’ve missed you all.

With Love and compassion,

Laila aka dietitian on a diet.