Eating Shitty Feels Shitty

So… remember how I said I would allow myself to indulge a little bit this weekend? Yeah, well, things got a little craycray and I ended up feasting as if this was my last weekend on earth.

Okay, not really, but kind of. Saturday my friend and I ate Laduree macaroons, aka a slice of God’s face, and for dinner we had the most delicious Basque meal, and I took a picture but I think it would be counterproductive to post it here, so just imagine a steaming dish of layered potatoes, ham, cheese, veal, cream, and pretty much everything in the world that your greedy little eyes desire. It blew my fucking brain, and later, it blew my fucking stomach and I kind of regretted it. But not really because it was delicious.

Follow that by a bag of sour gummy worms at the movie theater… WHY? I DON’T KNOW, because it “felt right” until all of a sudden it didn’t. My friend and I were stomach-aching all night long.

Sunday I told myself, today, I will be good. So I woke up and ate a bunch of potato chips and the rest of my candy as an appetizer to the eggs my friend and I were making for our “brunch”. I didn’t eat for the rest of the day because I felt like shit, naturally, until dinner time, when a different friend and I met up and had Indian food. LORD almighty.

(In my defense, I did run on both days!… Okay, yeah, thats a sad attempt at redeeming myself, but hey, it helped me sleep last night. Kind of. My stomach ache kept me up too much to be able to sleep.)

It is now Monday morning, and I am choosing actively to not feel any emotional regret or anxiety for this weekend, because I think I needed to go out and spend some fun, indulgent time with friends since I’m often cooped up here at home during the week, festering in my own loneliness. This weekend restored me in so many ways, and for that, I can never feel any remorse.

However, I do want to point out, mostly for my own sake but if you profit from this too, then the world is just a little bit better: Eating shitty makes you feel shitty. Eating well makes you feel well.

Why is this so hard for so many of us to grasp?

Eating shitty makes you feel shitty.

Eating well makes you feel well.

Do you ever remember a time when you ate too much, or ate something too rich, or too unhealthy? Sure you do because we’ve all been there. How did you feel afterwards? Did that fatty super grande burrito make you feel alive? Did the fast food make you feel smart, capable, and happy? Did that pizza make you feel like you could properly do your work or homework or any task at the best of your abilities? Fuck no!

On the other hand, whenever you’ve chosen the healthy option… a proper salad, some quinoa, salmon, etc… You knew you were at the top of your game. Life was your bitch and you were taking that shit for a damn walk in the park.

This morning, I feel kind of like I’m the little bitch getting walked. Last week, I was kicking ass, felt light, lean, and healthy, and my body functioned in the way I wanted it to. This coming week, I’m going to bring that energy back, because this stomach ache right now is really lame.

I need to remember this next time I’m stuffing my face… It just doesn’t feel good!! It tastes good, duh, but that goes away and all that remains is the grumbling in your stomach and the farts out your ass, and lets be honest here, who actually craves that?

***

Anyone that consistently eats healthy can attest to this mild little phenomenon which I like to describe as “clarity”… It’s when your brain, your body, your soul just feel clear, they feel centered, they feel whole and you feel like the best version of yourself that you always hoped you could be. If you’ve lived your whole life eating unhealthy then you won’t know what this feels like, but give yourself even a few days of healthier choices and you’ll already start to see the difference.

I had a friend who lived off of McDonalds and frozen pizza pretty much every day, and even though his diet and kitchen skills were merde (“shit” in French, in case you didn’t know), he was still fit and thin and he played tons of sports, which probably helped ease his guilt about his food choices. I weaseled my way into his life and convinced him to start eating healthier because it would improve his basketball game, and he reluctantly agreed, and, well, long story short: months later, after I had been ranting and raving about this “clarity” that he would feel if he ate better, he came to me one day and said, “I get it know.” He hadn’t eaten fast food or soda in a few months, and he had been slowly adding more greens, more lean protein, more water, and more fruit to his diet. Since his changes were slow (i.e. starting by just swapping one soda a day for a glass of water, until over a few weeks, he was barely drinking soda at all), he was able to really make true lifestyle changes that would stick with him, instead of reaching a burnout and falling back into his old ways. He said he finally understood that clarity that I always spoke about, and he couldn’t believe he had lived his whole life without it. Indeed, his basketball improved, his energy was up, he felt happier, quicker on his feet, his mind was sharper, and he hadn’t felt his stomach aches in months (he had learned over a lifetime of poor nutrition that stomach aches were just a normal part of eating). I want to convert more people to the dark side! Eating right just FEELS right, and when you start doing it, you’ll understand.

Moral of the story: Stop eating shitty shit, because you’ll just feel like shit!

A few quotes I like to remember:

“You are what you eat.”

and

“Eat like you give a fuck.”

The end. Now go eat a fucking apple.