Whenever I felt like there was more to the madness of dieting, I’d go hunting down nutrition box facts and keep on top of the balance of protein, fats, carbs and sugar content. This was essential in the beginning to stay attuned to the nutrition value in every meal I had or the very least be aware of what goes inside my system. Starting here felt good and felt like I was a careful eater then. This helped me to gather resources till date on the facts of nutrition for the foods that go into my children’s bodies as well as I prepare them or shop for them in the grocery store. Getting to the hard part was the portioning or portion control if you would. I started restricting in my early days to curtail my hunger. That did not help. Then I started listening to my stomach growls and fullness of stomach very hard and that alone helped me. This is what I learn are the satiety signals as Ms Evelyn Tribole and Ms Elyse Resch say in the Intuitive Eating book. Paying close attention to these automatic cues that my body generates helped me stop policing myself on how much to eat at any given time. Which was very important for me to be on the restricting dieting mentality. Trust me i’ve tried keto, low carb or non fat paleo diets and although there’s a collective benefit in the learning process of certain unhealthy or healthy foods, ultimately I’d say our body is intelligent and knows what to eat or not eat. This was essential for me to stop the cravings or even don’t define them as cravings even. I genuinely respected my need to probably have something sweet. I just chose low sugar snacks that would address my need for something sweet, like fruits that were sweet like berries and cantaloupe which I personally like or stevia based white chocolate chips that I personally cherish for the “sweet tooth” times as well. These were just so I didn’t go crazy in the restrictions. I didn’t feel like I was avoiding certain foods just so I please the society that I’m eating healthy or that I’m being good or bad just because I ate something. Since I have diabetes I do walk away consciously from plain raw sugary items. Which means I do not walk straight into a muffin or donut and be ok with it – that is the level of my restrictions. This way I know I stay true my body’s wellness and give it the nourishment that it needs. 

Many a times I’ve caught myself wanting to eat more in a whim in my early days of mindless eating and the only thing that helped me decouple that was    mindful eating practices. What I mean by that is, I do not do any multi tasking per se during that time of eating. Even if it is 15min on the go kind of eating, I spend that time without distractions. I’ll admit I walk and eat most of the times, just ’cause I’m mulling over a project of sorts in my head and I let go like that.  However, I do not watch my cell phone or read a book at that time. I just eat and know what I eat. I stay mindful during the time I heat up the food items that I’ll place on my plate and with that mindfulness I estimate how much I’m hungry for and let myself judge that portion based on my hunger that day in that moment that my body feels like. This is my time when I stay most mindful and that helps me get lost in my world of thought during the time of actual said eating practice. I give myself that liberty to address the variety of foods the night before so I’m not rushing to a store at lunch time while I’m hungry. If I know that I’m running low on lunch supplies or a meal for the next day, I run to the grocery store the previous evening and prep a meal for the next 2 days. I’m a vegetarian and I choose my cut vegetables that I can purchase from Whole Foods for the week and stay within my ability to have healthy snacks handy for the afternoon and evenings as well. I do have a breakfast plan around 10.30am-11am time frame every day. I feel content whenever I do this allowing myself to eat a healthy meal before I believe I starve myself to the next meal. Cradling the need to restrict goes hand in hand with my need to appreciate the satiety signals of my body to eat. This is how I’ve been able to manage my diabetes and overall health. 

The way I dealt with emotional eating is I actually started addressing my mental health in therapy for several years and through journaling. I read a lot of therapy books in order for me to enable me to process through my emotions and that helped me to see value in addressing the underlying layers of havoc so to speak before I jump to addressing the mere external symptoms. This way I was getting to the root cause and not just superficial glossing over of the wounds. This led to years of conditioned responses to heal or comfort myself with food to actually genuinely questioning myself, do I really need this food item right now or am I just eating for the sake of eating. Don’t get me wrong I still do indulge in the occasional “cheat” sweets so to speak or the pizza. The only difference is this time I do not judge myself for that indulgence. I learned early from Jillian Michaels that I do not prick myself into punishment for a mere setback. I consider these setbacks and not failures on this journey to becoming healthy. This is because I have learned to address my relationship with food – or in a sense made peace with food as food and a far cry from being a coping mechanism. To get here, I remember that I had to let myself explore all the foods that I carved and felt good about it before I could get to choosing the ones that I’m content with. This way I felt like I didn’t miss out on anything I really wanted to enjoy and still do with the pizzas and occasionally mostly minimal donuts.

I can’t stop but address my relationship with my body image. I felt bad for several years when I stayed overweight and diabetic and not having time for exercising. Once I changed my attitude to fitness to feel good  mentally and physically at the same time through an activity that fits without equipments and not to stretch myself to fit it in my schedule, I felt much more comfortable sticking to it. With the weather being gentle in Texas I’ve been able to keep with my walking routine consistently for about a year and half now. Which is how long it has taken me to bring my diabetes under control. Putting these exercise routines and nutrition together enabled me to tap into getting into better shape as well. This led me to finally accept my scars of birthing and losing weight to look better in the mirror. I do like that I have a tiny belly bulge to show that I have given birth to two young ones. Shows that I need to respect my body for what I’ve put it through in nature. That was something I had to embrace as soon as I became pregnant. If I didn’t, I don’t know how I would have coped with the weight gain during pregnancy or the gestational diabetes (GD) that came with my vulnerability to GD due to my family history of diabetes. It has been a wide wake up call ever since that time to get my health back in order. 

I can remember a lot of times I used to think I need to be on the best of behavior when it came to eating healthy. This way I felt I would improve on my challenges. Don’t get me wrong this is the only way I keep maintaining my diabetes under control. The need to watch out for what I put in my mouth mindfully and consciously has been helpful. The only thing I pair it now with is the intention my body cues set for me as well. So I did not have to start with a zero effort included from past experiences mentality and rather add on my body’s signals to eat or not through the genuine need. This meant I needed to stay curious of my body and mind as much as possible around meals and be aware if I’m going to feed myself emotionally or through my own need to eat. This distinction continues to be my tool – this meant I stay on top of my mental health stabilization and incrementally process my thoughts, emotions and impulses through journaling. It brought about a sense of calmness and a sense of agency when I had this method down for my own self. The ability to tell if I’m hungry or not was something I was teaching my kids as early as they were 2yrs old and I felt they needed to know this so they can communicate when they are hungry. This is something I found useful to be ok with for my own self as a mom and it gave me the opportunity to empower them and give them a voice for their needs as well. After all that is all that we want for our kids right?! This has enabled my kids to verbalize their hunger cues to me till date and they are sure to tell me if I’m stalling on their meal even a few minutes :)! Heaven forbid I delay it they are sure to keep chanting on the “where is the lunch now” song in the background :). 

From the moment I started counting carbs and calories, I felt like I had a sense of agency in my own eating strategies. This paved the way to intuitively carve out what felt comfortable in my body to eat and manage my diabetes. Then blending the body cues of how hungry I am on a particular day and meal time, I tie those choices to the portion that I have. I did not entirely curtail myself from a food type or meal that I enjoyed and in a way I listened to my body that day to see if my stomach grumbled then I’m going to take in a second helping of veggies and plant lesser amount of quinoa on my plate so I get the nourishment of feeling like I placed extra on my plate for the mental satiation of eating more and at the same time making sure I add the healthy option of healthy carbs on my plate with the veggies, giving me the sense that I have appreciated my efforts to stay healthy as well.  The need to replace the quinoa with veggies was something I learned during my gestational diabetes time frame with my first pregnancy when my insulins would fluctuate every time I had an extra dose of quinoa or brown rice. This way I was able to regulate my veggies portions and know that I was helping myself feel fuller as well as stay healthy enough to keep my baby growing safe in my pregnancy with my blood sugar levels in check. 

Feeling full or hungry became more intuitive after I started working with a nutritionist. She guided me to see what I was already eating and enabled me to reflect on my choices of food that I could substitute with healthier sugar free options for my PCOS and prediabetes then. This helped me see that with subtle choices of food changes I could empower myself to feel lighter and healthier. With those changes then I did lose 15lbs over a period of clean eating. This helped me regulate my period cycles as well which were very irregular then. My work with my nutritionist helped me see that I could actually make healthier choices of food. The next round of learning came when I worked with a nutritionist for my gestational diabetes for my first kid. She educated me on the carb content in various fruits, vegetables and even dried fruits. I wish I had a therapist during that time as that time was rough on my anxiety. I was so anxious to know if I was eating the right food or not to keep my baby growing in my belly healthy or not. This in a way kept me on top of my healthier choices of food as well. It was an innate humane way of keeping my baby safe and sound with my gestational diabetes. Whenever I made healthier choices and adjusted my insulin levels for the parts that I could not control with just diet, I knew I was doing my best with the help of my care team at the hospital. 

Moderation helped me stay clear of the food police voice that society can thrust on us. As I write this I feel a lump in my throat so heavy that it feels almost nauseous to think about how guilty I felt in my early days trying out various diets and such. It was the harshest of realities and it felt super uncomfortable in my body any which way I turned to try new diets. The only thing that helped me was to ease up the rigidity around the dieting mentality to move towards listening to my mind body connection on how I felt about eating that particular day or meal. With that I would prep my meals for the next day as well. This was a gradation of upcoming days that felt like I nurtured myself in a caring way to become a friend of mine and then say I don’t want to punish myself into eating a certain restrictive way. Instead I’m going to make an educated decision about the nutritional value of the item I’m deciding to put in my mouth. Most often it involved home cooked meals. I use an insta pot to cook my quinoa and veggies with some Indian spices and moderate salt to my taste.  With this I was able to gently tread the path of food in a nourishing positive mentality than a guilt loaded restrictive mentality with the good vs bad black and white thinking going on, which is the cognitive distortion of my past dieting trial days. I can feel my heart racing and breath shallow with anxiety just thinking of those days. I can clearly say that is still an uncomfortable mentality I shake off consciously as I encounter my prior judging version of myself. The days of nutritionists interactions were my healthiest and most caring voice I could implant in my head that gave me grace in approaching food as a friend and ally and not a shathru or enemy. Food did not scare me anymore. Food became a thing of necessity as essential as it is in the Maslow’s heirarchy of needs and made sense that I pay attention to it to the level of my own comfort. As I say this, I feel the tightness in my chest release – almost like a knot unwound. I can feel myself relax into the notion that I’m not against myself when I deal with food. The pressure in my head releases as well. With some nurturing with some warm drink of hot chocolate, along with half a banana and spoon of peanut butter as breakfast and mindful walking I was able to calm my nerves from revisiting that dieting rebel and food police times in my mind. This was really hard and was helpful to move through it with self nurturing to mindfully unwind and take care of myself better. Feel like I hit a nerve there pretty strong and it’s really hard stuff to unwind from and it is ok now to feel like I’m within my body again. Feeling my breathe slow down as well and the coolness in my head is spreading with the care that I’ve taken to apply on myself. I say to myself I’m stronger than I think I am that gets me grounded to the moment. I distract myself with interacting with clients so I know I’m not just alone in this world handling stuff just as me but an interconnected web of lives. 

Whenever I placed a hard deadline or timeline of I should get down 15lbs before this timeline – it seldom worked for me. That just added pressure to myself and nothing good came out of it ever. Instead whenever I added healthy eating choices and walking consistently I would see benefits of losing naturally apart from the key results of healthy mind and body that seemed more significant to me anyway. Staying healthy always mattered to me more than losing weight to be honest. This was something I realized the moment I got diagnosed with PCOS. I knew I was up against something I needed to take care of. Something in my body was healing and I need to provide the appropriate level of care. This notion has carried me through till date given the umpteen hurdles of jumping up and down to have my kids. My mind and body has been through a lot and I continue to take care of it in the way I know best now so far with the coping mechanisms and daily lifestyle choices. 

The last two weeks have been increasingly stressful with the business setup and job line ups. Due to this I have taken the liberty to eat out a couple more times than I usually do to come back and not cook for the evening. However I will reframe the negative judgmental usual thought of I ate out a lot to be gentle with myself and say I did my best to cook more than I usually would have on such weeks in the past. I definitely pushed myself to do better at cooking for more than 2 days by cooking more on one shot so I could compensate for those interviewing stressful days. This way I was able to look ahead and plan for these hard days ahead. I gave myself grace in going to places of setting myself up for success through self-care like date nights and nurturing through yoga and walks still. I would have in the past had a sugary drink or snacked more than I would have felt comfortable. I feel like I moderated on one snack and felt comfortable with sticking to that alone and eased into the self-care routines. 

Satisfaction with the food plays a great deal of a role in my way of eating. If I dont like how the food tastes I dont repeat cooking them or buying them. This is a functional settlement into how I’ve learned that I do intuitively choose my meals. It has taken several years to choose some standard options to goto however it has become easier to choose from a set of veggies, spices, sweetness substitutes for my diabetes management as well as salt proportions with the variety of gestational and pros nutritionists I’ve worked with. I’ve experimented with the carb content that affects my sugar levels as well as the fat and protein varieties like tofu and tempeh and certain amount of egg whites. For me adding tofu in my monthly grocery list helps me bring some different palatable meals in the mix – the variety keeps me feeling excited for the next meal. I try mixing up the veggies and the spices from time to time and bringing in some yoghurt as well to top off, if I feel the heat is too much to handle that particular meal. The satisfaction to be honest has been the hardest to battle and continues to be my battle with the sweet tooth. I feel vulnerable and honest as I disclose this. It is a growing edge for me – the only goto that helps me address this is through a spoon of stevia powder in my unsweetened hot chocolate and tea+mild coffee hot drinks. 

Setting aside time to identify my favorite foods is an ongoing process. I continue to take time to explore the different tastes and venture out into new and fun ways to make fun meals. Sometimes it is eating out with healthier choices in mind and sometimes it is cooking a meal that is enticing and fulfilling its taste promises as well as the nourishment in the portion that I love. Getting full with a portion that I can handle and eating only that portion that I can handle has been the tricky part of navigating the formative  years rule of “finish your plate completely”.  I still follow the rule with the mod that, I finish the plate to the level of my comfort and leave the rest to eat later through the week. By deciding on the portion upfront before the meal, I’m able to leave the rest of the portion for consumption through the rest of the week. My sister and brother-in-law do not relish this method as I have hear and it is hard to manage different expectations. They argue the nutrition value – I on the other hand feel comfortable knowing that  the rule of no wastage of food to be addressed stumps the rule of keeping nutrition to the max and rich all the time. I feel this is a decent balance to keep with especially as an individual in a family cooking for themselves. It does not work like the entire family there to consume the food portions. 

When eating mindlessly in the past for boredom, there was a way of breaking away from the boredom and frustration of life when things were dull or plain repetitive. Snacking mindlessly was a common practice I had to unwind from. Things that helped me to unwind from that was my own check in with myself – well self critical voice to be precise that reminded me the struggle with diabetes. Initially this voice was harsh and once I got into the rhythm of identifying less harsher snacking mindlessly with healthier snacks and then reducing the frequency of the snacking through these methods of substitution of healthy snacks, I was able to calm down and relax much better. Although I am not a fan of my self critical voice, I started there as a familiar place to goto from my early formative years of being raised with a tough parent. Once I did my best to alleviate the situation, I was able to embrace a healthier cooler voice for myself that was gentle and appreciative of my efforts to stay on track with my health. This is very similar of how my family functions overall as well. This pattern of internal self-talk keeps me in check from staying on the unhealthy patterns in my life  and moving onto healthier lifestyle choices. It is a gradation and has always played out in this way.  

As walks go, they clear my mind and help me problem solve the way I try and rack my brain using a calculator and a note book pen during financial planning. The analytical person in me comes alive and figures out what are the pros and cons of the situation at hand. With that I tend to stay mindful of my steps that I track on my walk and have a healthy internal self dialog of figuring out the things I need to figure out as well. It’s always a helpful tool for me in so many different ways that these nature walks help me unwind and reconnect with myself in a profound way. The fitness that I can account for through this for my diabetes goes without saying as well. It is close to an hour of walking daily twice and hence gets me kick start the day with an intention for the day as well as mindfully unwind at the end of the day after work as well. These day markers help me reconnect with myself as a start and end of the work day and keeps me grounded and sane for the rest of the days oncoming. Feeling like a rounded and well established routine for a year and alf now, it feels like a doable ritual for me and my day’s happenings that feels comfortable to safely set aside this time for a soul satisfying and fitness regimen.