The Brain Game

I’ve struggled with weight my whole life, much like most girls. Never been really been fat but never been as skinny as I wanted to be either. I wasn’t raised with the best eating habits, so I when I was old enough to realize I didn’t like my body I freaked out. In middle school my best friend and I (now my Maid of Honor), decided we could only eat a snack size bag of pretzels with either a banana or an apple cinnamon nutrigrain bar every single day for lunch, not quite a balanced meal. In high school I did the crash diets and all of the other lifetime movie shit because I couldn’t find the balance I was looking for and I reaally hated to exercise. 

I basically had to re train myself how to eat on everything from portions to timing to food selection. Kind of like how in high school I had insomnia and would never be able to sleep so then I would just pass out random places like one time on the steps up to my room (what? Yes that happened ask my friends). ANYWAY my doctor said that beds are for sleeping, not texting talking internet browsing eating tv watching etc. So when I would do all of those things in my bedroom on my bed without a night routine, my brain didn’t associate my bed or anything specific really with sleeping. I started doing the same few things every night around 11 and then going to my room, turning everything off and lying in bed. I still struggled and it took a while but things got SO much better. I had to train my brain how to turn off at a certain time of day.

The same is true with eating. Girls who eat one meal a day or skip dinner aren’t really doing themselves any big favor. If you only eat once every day, during the time in between your body freaks out and thinks it’s starving. So, when you finally eat something it IMMEDIATELY sends it to storage in case it’s the only food it will get. But, if you eat small meals all throughout the day, your body trains itself based on that, knows more food is coming and will start to burn and trash way more than it stores. Bonus, you aren’t starving, most of your small meals can be healthy but if you throw in some chocolate or a piece of pizza here or there it’s not as harmful.