I went to a camp today where the attendees all had an issue with their cardiovascular system. The age ranges were from their 20’s to their 60’s. It was a shock to see someone as young as their mid twenties already struggling with their heart. It was a wake up call for me because my grandmother passed away at the beginning of last year with a long history of heart conditions.
My grandmother loved baking pies, cookies, old fashioned sweet for Christmas time. She had things hidden in cabinets after being diagnosed with diabetes. I kept thinking that I would not do something that extreme and perhaps the desire would disappear completely because too many of those items could kill me. However, they are bad for me right now and I still can’t help myself because sweets and bad food surround me constantly. It seems the more that I try to pull out of this habit, the more that the foods I’m trying to avoid appear.
I feel like I need a shirt that says, ‘Please don’t force food on me,’ because every where I go there is some new food item being put in front of me. I could say no but in Indian culture it is rude to say this and my friends are very insistent that I try it. And, of course it is aways an amazing treat, but every time it feels like I put another tick mark in the times I ate something even though I knew I shouldn’t. It’s also a form of self-sabotage that keeps me from my goals so if I were to blame my friend what would be a lie.
Although, I have cut refined sugar out of my diet for the most part, I still crave ice cream and cream cheese frosting. These two things are constantly available to me and it takes so much will power to not go into the kitchen and grab one or both. We had a snack, Halwa, yesterday that was an alternative to sugar, jaggery. It had a sweet taste without the chemical taste of refined sugar. There were cashews in the mixture as well.
The Cardiac camp had me thinking about my own lifestyle and that no matter the amount of mindfulness you bring into your life, there will always be something that you can adjust. I need to be more mindful of the amounts of food I bring in and the times. For the most part, my diet is completely good with my shift towards primarily vegetarian a few months ago. I have started to learn that eating smaller amounts of food 4-5 times a day is more helpful than just eating 2-3 larger meals.
