Good evening everyone!

I have had a lot on my mind today, and I have got to be honest with you all. Though this is hard for me to admit, I am not where I was when I started this blog, in terms of having a healthy relationship with food.

When I started the blog, I wanted to show you girls what it was like to live a healthy life,FREE from the bondage of dieting and counting calories. I was at such a healthy place in my life, not only because I ate healthy, but because I allowed myself ALL the foods that I loved, in moderation. I didn’t restrict myself from any food, and I didn’t follow a single diet. All I did was wake up in the morning, listen to my body through the entire day, eat only what I was craving, and I ate when I was hungry- not when someone else told me I should eat.

It turned out that I learned a whole lot about myself through doing that. I learned that I like to eat lots of small things throughout the day, I don’t like having a super full feeling tummy, I love to exercise when it’s fun, my body requires a good amount of sleep each night, I do so much better when I’m not dieting, and that it is truly, truly, truly the inside that matters, and that the only thing that fully helped me recover, was learning to love myself no matter what my body looked like on the outside. Turns out- this made me feel more beautiful! Who woulda thought?! 😛

When I first started my blog, about a year ago, I described it like this:

“I find that the most enjoyable way for me to be healthy, is to not be hard on myself, and allow myself to enjoy everything about living well. The only way for me to achieve this, is through balance and moderation. So yes, I will post plenty of healthy things, because I eat plenty of healthy things. But there will also be things that may not be considered so healthy. But, that’s okay! I try and pick healthier choices whenever I can, but if I feel like, lets say a burrito, or a piece of pie, then I go for it. I don’t jump in and eat the whole pie, I just simply cut a slice, and enjoy it. Then, my very next meal, I eat something healthy. I don’t freak out and beat myself up, skip dinner, and say “okay, I’ll be better tomorrow!” I just enjoy my food, and keep going. Trust me friends, I wouldn’t be saying this unless I had gone through all the ups & downs myself.. I have been through a ton of struggles with food, I just finally found a balance that works for me.”

At this point, I was at peace with my food, proud of my achievements, and moving forward. I didn’t start this blog to go on another diet, I didn’t want to show the world how to get skinny and in shape, I started it to share my story with girls who could relate to me, and who wanted to finally have peace with their relationship to food, because boy, it can be a real battle out there.

Lately, I have not been the best at portraying that (and I am sorry), because I have not been living up to that calm, healthy mindset. I would say the past 6 months, I have slowly started to fall back into wanting to lose weight, dieting, and losing a connection with myself. The truth is, I always feel like I need to be in control of something in my life, and dieting is one thing that I can fully control. I am starting to believe that’s why I resort to it so often. But the real truth, is that my identity, and your identity, is not found by what the scale told you this morning, or how well you did on your ‘diet’ yesterday. Your identity is the person that you are, regardless of your weight. You are fully loved no matter what you weigh, and you are beautiful, because you were created beautifully.

We are all different, and we all have different goals. Some want to gain weight, some want to lose, and some want to maintain. Some do well with diets, some don’t. Some like to eat three bigger meals a day, some like to have 5/6 small meals. The point is, everyone is different, and needs to find what works for them. I know what works for me, and what I do, may not work for you. All I want to do, is inspire you to be the “you’est you that you can be,” and be fully proud of that!

I took the whole day today to listen to my body 100%, eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and in whatever portions I wanted. By allowing myself all of these things, I felt more able to choose healthy foods (because in having freedom to choose, they sounded better), eat slower, leave some food in my plate to save for later, and by doing this, I felt so much happier because I was enjoying everything a million times more!

I am going to continue this, everyday for a week at a time, taking small steps back to the healthy me that I was a year ago (and still am underneath). After just one day, I am feeling so much better, but I know for these things to really stick, they take time. Diet is now a four letter word in my vocab (thank you Kayla), and I am making a promise to myself that it will stay that way.

I know one thing is for sure, I don’t want to look back on my life in 60 years and finallyrealize that I wasted all that time stressing over my body and what was going in my mouth. I want  to look back on life and know that I treated myself to the best of my ability, and appreciated who I was.

So, here is to being healthy, listening to our bodies, and getting back to the basics and jewels of this blog- the whole reason I started it in the first place!

Breakfast- I woke up this morning wanting something cold in my tummy. It was either going to be cereal or yogurt.

I resorted to the yogurt because all the toppings sounded so good! I put one banana, flaxseed, and agave on top.

I get this Greek Yogurt from Costco 🙂

For lunch today, I drove to the Valley to have lunch with my best friend Kayla 🙂

We went to the Whole Foods on Ventura Blvd. It. was. beautiful! We already have an obsession with Whole Foods, so Kayla wanted to show me her favorite one. It was so nice!

For lunch, we got the salad bar because you get a deal on Wednesday 🙂 I filled mine up with all kinds of delicious things! I even tried a falafel for the first time! It was good, but better all heated up when I got home. I ate about half at lunch, and the rest later this evening.

We had to snap a quick picture before I took off.

I love you K. You’re the best! Thanks for allowing me to talk your ear off today! Haha, you’re the best listener and talker I’ve ever met! She even encouraged me to be very honestly with all y’all 😉

When I got home a couple hours later, I had a piece of Cinnamon Raison Ezekiel Bread that Kayla sent home with me. I topped it with a little bit of Peanut Butter. This Bread was great! I will most definitely be buying some when I go to Trader Joe’s next!

When I got to my babysitting job tonight, I had one chocolate covered strawberry that my Mom made 🙂 This was my dessert/petite treat tonight.

Yea, remember when I used to have a petite treat every night? I miss that, too! Let’s get back to it! 😉

A short while after that, I had my last meal of the day. Oatmeal!

Without exaggeration, this might just be the best bowl of Oatmeal I have ever had!! Ahhh, so good! And I ate it super slow so that I could fully enjoy it. I SURE DID!

It had one pack of Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal from TJ’s, one banana all chopped up, 1/2 cup almond milk, 1/2 cup water (these were all heated in the pot), then it was topped with about 1 tsp. of white chocolate morsels, and some walnuts & shredded coconut. Oh my oh my oh my oh! So good! I seriously recommend the white chocolate chips! When they melt, they are to die for!