This post is brought to you by our sponsor, “Always Eat After 7 PM”. The opinions expressed below are my own.

I decided that I wanted to read Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks—While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion  so I can deepen my relationship with food. I wanted to explore my feelings and thoughts about food, body image, and America’s obsession with the perfect body and food phobia (especially when it comes to carbs and fats) and how I’ve internalized some of these ideas.

What I like about this book is that it clarifies so many of the mixed messages we hear about food. All you hear is that certain foods are good and certain are bad. But in picking up this book, it offers something new and refreshing to the food conversation “Fact is, most diets are extremely narrow with regard to food choices and variety, and many even limit entire macronutrients altogether over the course of the entire program (think low-carb and low-fat diets). Three months with no carbs? No thanks. Such practices not only are entirely unnecessary but make for a miserable, unsustainable experience.”

What’s been crazy about this process is that it dawned on me that I have a more intimate relationship with money (knowing my triggers, having a clear understanding of my triggers, and my most influential money memories), that I’ve decided to apply the same amount of curiosity and compassion to unpacking my food and nutrition story.

I also want to explore my eating triggers. I want to understand the food culture I grew up in and keep the parts of it that support positive and non-extreme beliefs and behaviors about food and exercise.  I want to clearly understand what foods I love, rather than foods I eat for convenience or habit. 

Plus, I wanted to begin to view food as medicine as well as reconnecting with the magic and power of water. The following quote from the book validated the self-care journey: “Water helps digest your food, expel wastes, regulate your temperature, protect your tissues, cushion your joints, and protect your spinal column, among many other vital functions. It is through water that hormones flow to the proper organs, that nutrients reach all cells, and that toxins are diluted and removed from the body.”

If you’re interested in joining me on this journey and want to get your own copy of the book, you can learn more here. 

I did some food exploration to see what I actually liked. Figured out I loved certain green veggies and soups. So they are my go to’s instead of the drive-thru.

I explored times of day for eating. Figured out it’s better that I eat heaviest for breakfast because it makes me less hungry by dinner. Before I used to think I didn’t need to eat much in the morning, but now o do and it’s helped with me feeling out of control by 5 and wanting to eat everything in sight.

She’s recommended a keto diet. I think I can mostly do it, but she’s a little gangsta about eliminating some things I just love because it’s not keto. Like pears, my iced coffee every once in a while so  I’m ignoring that level of deprivation.

What else? Breads and pastas actually make my head hurt when I eat them now that I’ve been paying attention to how I feel after I eat something so I don’t really miss it.

Food environment matters. If I see it, I’ll eat it so I don’t even try to play myself with “Oh, I’ll just eat a little. Nah, I’m not, lol”

Still figuring out what I like to eat and I’d like to take some Bougie cooking classes if you’re down, lol. I had already shared one with Norissa.

Learn more about Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks—While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion and purchase ithere.

This post is brought to you by our sponsor, “Always Eat After 7 PM”. The opinions expressed below are my own.