Misadventures in Eating... trying to be Half a Skinny Bitch

My husband and I are about to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary & like all couples we are starting to think towards the future & our potential family-to-be. So, in my greatest efforts to be a proactive future-mother I have started to read all about how to be healthy when trying to conceive, etc.

I started reading Skinny Bitch Bun in the Oven & I have to be honest that it is a bit intimidating. It takes the normal "don't drink caffeine, don't eat raw fish" dos & don'ts of pregnancy and straight kicks it in the soft stuff! I am only on chapter 6 but I am already asking myself, "How am I alive?! I've been eating dairy & meat and eating sugar substitutes for years! How do I not have 6 arms coming out of my forehead?!" The Skinny Bitches, if you will, fill their chapters with a barrage of information about not only certain health risks for many of the daily-consumed foods on my menu (and probably 90% of America!) but it also blows the whistle on the FDA & food industry giants for certain less-than-legit test results and statistics. It reminds me alot of the second part of Fast Food Nation - the part that goes in-depth on the meat industry. Eek!

With all of this newly discovered knowledge I have already decided to make a few changes with my eating habits. First and foremost (and probably hardest) was giving up soda & most sugar substitutes. SB goes into detail on some of our most favorite sugar substitutes - worst of all the faves being Aspartame. I think I've known for sometime that aspartame was bad but it wasn't until my dad told me that he had given it up & that action was helping with his arthritis that it really started to make me think that maybe this stuff really was poison! Then, when SB put up a big stink about it & elaborated on the questionable way that it was approved by the FDA I decided that I could probably live without it. So... Buh-Bye Soda.

Next was dairy. I won't go into detail because it is rather high on the "eeeww" factor, but I have decided to try something new on my granola during the morning commute. Today I tried Almond Milk.. and I have to say I was happily surprised. It just sort of tastes like a light-almond flavored liquid (umm.. yeah.. that's because that is what it is!). I enjoyed it very much. So, I'm 1 for 1. Feeling braver & braver, I decide to try Soy Yogurt with my lunch. I cannot say that it leaves me as happy as almond milk, but it is also not the worst thing I've eaten in recent history. It's a bit grainier than dairy yogurt and has sort of a heavier flavor, but all-in-all ok. It will probably not make a headlining appearance in my lunch, but is a good alternate option.

I have to admit that looking so closely at food & health has stressed me out a bit. I realize that so much of the food we consume on a day-to-day basis is just really not good for you. And I am a relatively healthy eater too - not alot of processed foods here. My wise friend, Tina (also a reader of the SB), advised me to find my groove with food. So, that is what I will do. Some of it is just about me asking the question: Why do I eat this? and some of it is making consciously better decisions about my health and my future child's health.

I know this is a completely new avenue for my posts - away from paint & baked goods. But I figured that lots of women go through this when they're trying to make good choices - so, I'm sharing my misadventures. Next... soy butter!