Why do we eat?

Why do we eat?  Simple enough question.  And the answer should be simple too.  We eat to provide our body with nutrients to grow strong and healthy.

This was not why I was eating.  Even though I was eating a clean diet - I wasn't eating for the right reasons. During the day I would often find myself picking up things here and there to eat.  A bag of grapes, a handful of nuts - minor stuff.  Except I wasn't eating it because I was hungry I was eating because I was bored.  Not teenager bored.  Not "I don't have anything to do" bored.  More of a "I don't want to be doing what I'm doing" bored.  And even more of a "I don't want to do what needs to be done" bored - think laundry, cleaning the house, etc. Eating made me feel better.  It gave me a break from whatever it was I was doing that I didn't really want to be doing and I felt better afterwards.

I wasn't overweight when I started eating clean.  In fact I was a very healthy 130 pounds.  But over the last few years slowly my weight has crept up.  I put on 20 extra pounds!  For someone that leads a clean eating lifestyle I certainly wasn't being the role model I should have been.

When I woke up on the morning of my doctor's appointment over 2 weeks ago I knew for the most part what I would hear.  "You need a mastectomy in order to take care of this tumor."  I wasn't shocked.  I was prepared and funny enough I am totally ok and calm about the whole thing.  But from the moment I actually heard the words spoken out loud, something inside my head clicked.  From that moment on I haven't put a single piece of meat or dairy in my mouth.  I've eaten a strictly plant based diet.  I also faced my eating habits head on.

Every time I walked into my kitchen I asked myself - "Am I hungry?  Is my stomach growling?"  Being honest with myself was harder than I thought.  When you eat out of habit you train yourself to actually THINK you feel hungry.  Yet when I really stopped and turned off my MIND and felt with my body whether I was hungry or not I ALWAYS had a different answer than my mind was telling me.  No, I was not hungry.  My stomach was not growling.  I turned around and left the kitchen.  For 2 weeks I've been during this.  The first week I constantly found myself wandering into the kitchen.  Slowly I began to wander in less and now the only time I'm in the kitchen is when I'm cooking or preparing a meal.

Now I listen to my body to know when I need to eat.  While I fully believe in the principles of clean eating (eating 5-6 meals a day), I've found for me that eating 3, sometimes 4 times a day is where I need to be.  I eat when I'm hungry and ONLY when I'm hungry.  I used to feel hungry all. the. time. Now I get hungry in the morning when I wake up, right before lunch, sometimes in the afternoon and right before dinner.  And it's short bursts of hunger.  Not that prolonged, when am I going to eat again feeling.  I've lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks.  I feel amazing.  I have a ton of energy and most importantly I am listening to my body.