What is healthy?

Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to talk about carrot juice. It’s strange, after my workout today I was seriously craving muffins, pancakes, waffles. And unlike you lucky people with kitchens, the only options were at the dining hall, so not the most healthy. I seriously considered making a pit stop on the way back to get some, but strangely enough, the thought of carrot juice was my saving grace. The thought that I could drink carrot juice when I returned was basically enough to convince me to keep on walking. 

My first class of the day was Psych, so I guess it makes sense that I was thinking this, but  was thinking about the “healthy living placebo.” There are a lot of “health food” items. Some are super good for you. Some parade around as health food, but are they really? That’s not the point though. A lot of eating well and feeling good is in your mind. If you consider it a health food, you will most likely feel good and be happy, whether or not it is actually better for you. If you ate an Oreo, how would you feel compared with eating an Organic Chocolate sandwich cookie? You’d probably feel better after the second. What we think of what we do plays a huge role on how we perceive our health and how we feel. So I’m saying eating “health foods” is great, especially if you feel well. I was thinking about this because I honestly have no idea whether that carrot juice was really good for me. According to my nutrition professor, juicing takes out the fiber and a lot of the nutrients. Is this true? Not enough is really known. But I feel like it is healthy, so I’ll do it!

Now for the meat and potatoes. Heehee. I had to. 

While surfing blogs, I came across this post: Get off the Internet. I really, really recommend you guys read it, because I think it definitely is something that needs to be said. People blog for different reasons, and about different things, which is awesome. There is a really cool online community of healthy living bloggers. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE blogging, and I love reading all your guys’s posts as well. But there are some blogs or posts I read that make me uncomfortable. I guess they hit a little too close to home. I can see the unhealthiness and the obsession ( I don’t mean this in a judgmental way, and this is a total overgeneralization). I’ve been there. It’s especially sad to see it in the bloggers even younger than me. The fear of any type of fat in food. The obsession over calories/how much consumed/how many burned. I used to be more like that. I had a HUGE interest in nutrition, and was always concerned with what I ate. I was a fat-o-phobe.  I would favor a “health food” that was low fat (but often higher sugar, didn’t know to look for that). I fell into all the traps. I would obsess over food. And look at where it’s got me. I’m not going to lie, I’m fairly screwed up. My extreme interest in nutrition has made it impossible for me to read my body’s true hunger/full signals. I have a horrible response to sugar, and yet I am a full-blown sugar addict. I am a perfectionist, yet I often fail. I have so much anxiety associated with every meal, and I admit I think about food a lot. But it’s different now. Probably not in the best way, but I just don’t have the energy to care about all that stuff anymore. I don’t have the energy to resist junk food and sweets, because I’ve done it for so long. 

I can understand Lisa’s necessity to get off the internet. Does constantly looking at food blogs make me think about food more? Probably. Getting off the Internet some is probably a good idea. I think her post was something that needed to be mentioned, because I could totally understand it, although from a different perspective. Seeing all your guys’s delicious food makes me hungry! But cutting back and focusing on real life is incredibly important as well. Enjoy life. Enjoy the moment. (But don’t worry I’m not leaving you guys.)

What do you think about the effect of healthy living blogs?