Do (mental) work son!

I've been talking a lot lately about the nutrition side of things lately with my n=1 experiments. I want to talk about the mental side of things for a second or two because that side is also really really important. I find I am not as "strong" without my rock here (husbie..duh). The first week he left was rough on me; he left very very quickly with no notice and our vehicle died at the exact same time. It was a double whammy of stress for me. I think lots of us can relate to whammies (double, triple, quad) being tied to emotional eating. I am mostly recovered from disordered eating in general and fully recovered from bulimia specifically but when I am stressed I still feel the urges to turn to food for comfort. It is a really hard cycle to break and one that I am not sure that I will ever be free from. With that comes a lot of negative self talk in my head, a lot of not being kind and berating. The kind of things that if your friends said them to you, you probably wouldn't been friends with them anymore.

But it's all about perspective. I was feeling crappy and kinda miserable without husbie here and was eating too much coconut and dried fruit. My friend came over the night I went to get husbie from the airport and he looked at me and said "you're pretty skinny hey?"...out of the blue, without prompting. I couldn't believe it. I had last seen him just before Christmas when I was riding high on almost a month of mega super duper squeaky clean eating and had just fit into my 27 inch waist jeans and then I saw him again after 10 days of dried fruit and negative self-talk. He saw what was really there, what everyone else sees not the obese person I was trying to convince myself I was (yeah, I get the negative self-talk bad). Not only did his comment make me instantly feel 100 times better but it helped me see that 9 times out of 10 I am slimmer (and probably more tanned) than I actually see myself. It's like I am permanently wearing fat goggles (like beer goggles) and prodding and poking the flaws that only I see.

I have reached a strange spot in my journey where the smaller size me I see in the mirror is now the norm...the "new normal"...where as before I could kind of remember the bigger sized me and now I am seeing the new sized me as the old sized me...does this make sense? I feel like I am doing a poor job explaining it. I was convinced I was back to my old size and reluctantly pulled on my mega small jeans expecting them not to fit over my ass let alone button. They fit...and buttoned easily. Even this morning I had to put on my size 5 board short *just to make sure* I hadn't some how magically gotten fat overnight. I do see that I clearly have disordered thinking about my size (thank god I don't own a scale!). I am just unable to properly see the size that I actually am and this fuels all the negative talk in my head that I convince myself is reality. I think this is a topic to broach with Dr.H because I would love to delve deeper into this and pick it apart in hopes of better understanding it and eventually squashing it. Do I fear being fat/overweight so much that I project all these negative things? I have no idea. My husband has always told me I was beautiful at every single weight and never once has made snide comments or anything passive aggressive so I know this issue is all me. I would really love to hear perspectives from other people if you are willing to share. I want to bring this into the light and not have the fear about talking about it.

Moving forward...back to nutrition...dairy is officially voted off the island. I kinda thought this was going to be the case but I had to know without a doubt the affects of dairy on my system. Lots of guts squeaking and gurgling and some strange BMs. Dairy, you are no good for me...we are never ever ever getting back together. That's ok. I am totally not heart broken and I am glad that strange rumblings have come to an end. So dairy and lots of raw veggies/leafy greens are a no go for me. It has been fun (maybe not the right word) figuring out what is the optimal nutrition for my body because it varies from body to body and what works for you might not work for me and vice versa.

My newest experiment isn't really an n=1 experiment, more of an experiment with a new food, something I have never eaten in my life. While looking for fatty foods for my Eat Moar Fat adventure I came across sardines. Obviously I knew about sardines before but they skeeve me out...tiny fishies in a can with skin and bones...Eeeeee! Going paleo really has opened me up to eating things I never would have eaten before so I figured it was time to take the sardine plunge! Admittedly I bought these awhile ago and some how the box is now gone so I took a picture while at the store the other day. I have no idea what the difference between anchovies and sardines is...I am going to assume they are damn near the same thing...tiny fishies in a can with bones and skin

Not the greatest nutritional profile but not awful either

These are the sardines I bought specifically for my experiment. Lots of them had creepy soy in them but these are clean

Not shockingly the olive oil ones have a better nutritional profile for omega 3 ratios

I am kinda scared to try these mostly because I have never had them and I am worried I will hate them but I'm a grown ass woman and I shouldn't fear tiny fishies in a can. So come back tomorrow for my very fishy experiment full of pictures!