Diary Of A Foodie

Hello.
I love food.  I have always loved it. Daydreamed about it. Diaried about it (ok, is diaried even a word??). Made it. Ate it. Craved it.  I love to love food.  I hate that I love food...at least to the extent that I do.
Here's a quick waltz through my life with food:

Childhood-
Growing up, we had a mother who cared about feeding her children as healthfully as possible on a tight budget.  This doesn't mean we didn't get treats now and then, it just meant that a lot of main courses were baked beans and cheese, homemade mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, spaghetti, roast chicken, healthy pancakes, etc etc. (some of my favorites).  I still have the diary that I had to write in for school every day and pretty much without fail, I listed what I was going to have for lunch, or snack, or dinner or all of the above that day. Basically, ice cream and candy were my dream treats.  Over all, our family was blissfully unaware of all the effects of pesticides, MSG, GMO, Gluten, etc etc.  But...all of our family has food allergies...I was tested positive for allergies to about 239847928374 different foods.  Peanut butter was the only known food that affected me as I'd usually get a lovely set of hives after eating.  I just...couldn't bring myself to give up those Reeses cups or pb&j sandwiches and....yeah....pretty much, allergies were just a list on a piece of paper and I ate on.

High School-
I continued to eat at my parents home, much the same way as I did growing up in earlier years...the only difference is that I developed an eating disorder when I was a senior.  You can read about that here  (I have been free of this for many, many years now!).  Oh, I also have to mention in early high school, I was told I had Candida (too much of a certain type of yeast that we all have in our systems) and it was strongly suggested that we could do wonders to getting "better" by going on this candida diet.  Oh, the horror.  Oh, the nightmare.  I wouldn't wish that diet on anyone...we lasted about 2.5 months without cheating.  Let's just say...you can eat cardboard, but just don't season it....that can feed the yeast! ;) Sadly, I had to come back to a similar diet (though not as intense)  later in life...which I will get to in a bit.

College-
This is where things went a bit crazy.  You're a college student, you work hard, you play hard, and you love to eat!  I also happened to go to a college that was rated #1 in the whole country for food my freshman year.  There was always a "need" for ice cream at the Stupe (delicious and reasonable prices for huge servings of ice cream located here!), an excuse for a spoonful of frosting and the urge to hoard a desert bar on your way out of the cafeteria, or a cake for someone's birthday.  I used to coax myself up in the morning by reviewing all the good food I could eat if I could just get my tired buns out of bed and over to the cafeteria.  Needless to say....I gained weight.  Lots.  I do believe that I gained a solid 25 lbs by the end of it. 

The Single days-
Near the end of, and after college, I was quite aware that I wasn't healthy.  My chiropractor at the time told me that "I could stand to lose 10 lbs"....I'd just like to say I really really wanted to tell him that he could stand to lose 50, and WHO are YOU!?  A doctor put me on the South Beach diet which I tried for 3 months and of course, in said diet, they call for Splenda in almost all of their recipes.  So, I ate Splenda in everything....nom nom nom...till I found out that research showed it caused headaches, weight gain and worst of all, cancer and other terrible things...No more Splenda.  No more South Beach. I pretty much just lived life and exercised and left that dieting stuff for the um...dieters.  I am not a dieter.  No thank you. 

Married life-
Over the years, I learned bits and pieces about nutrition, got closer to the Lord and grew less stressed and lo and behold, lost weight. When my husband and I got married, we started watching all sorts of documentaries on Netflix....for fun.  We wound up getting sucked in and sold on the fact that organic produce and grass fed beef and cage free Chickens are much better for consumption and that all else is pretty much terrible for you.  Then we learned that all animal products are bad for you and can turn on cancer.  Oh yeah, and so is all processed food.  Oh...and then there's inflammation issues causing terrible illness in people...and inflammation is caused a lot of the time by what you eat.  Yup, that means foods like peanuts, night shades and white potatoes even, cause inflammation (strike 2 against peanuts for me, drat).  
So, with our new-found knowledge, Joshua and I attempted to do our best in eating healthy over all, but still allowed ourselves to live life...and have cheats...lots of cheats...

Israel and on-
Then, I got pregnant with Israel.  Oh the joy.  Oh the bliss.  Eating for two!  While I tried to eat lots of nutritious food for the health of Israel, I also didn't listen to the advice of lots of the documentaries....I ate cheese.  Meat. Sugar. Gluten.  Lots of it.  And...it was divine.  I went to the doctor as well as having a midwife, and there was this one particular doctor on rotation who told me...not once...but on two different visits..."It's good not to gain too much weight and here is why....(blah blah blah)...you only need about 200 extra calories/day and you can get that in a Sallie Fields cookie."  Really.  REALLY!?!?  What kind of advice is that!?  Sometimes a pregnant lady just needs two  five cookies! 

THE WAKE UP-
Soooo after Israel came, we discovered that I had ductal yeast issues (because I was eating all the things that feed yeast of course).  This did not bode well for the 4 boxes of pop tarts my father in-law had bought for me on request for after the delivery...
Ductal yeast meant that Israel would get it through nursing, and then even if I treated myself, he could pass it back to me.  This meant daily boiling of all bottle and pacifier products, topical treatment on myself, on Israel's bottom, ingesting a boatload of supplements, almost 4 months of my baby crying in pain as he nursed because the yeast caused belly cramping, and me wanting to scream as it caused me to feel like I had knives in my chest as I nursed.  This meant....duhn duhn dunnnnn....THE DIET.

That dad-blasted Candida diet (modified) to try to help my yeast go away...and for the sake of my son especially, I signed on.  For three months anyway, this was my diet:

=              NO HAPPY. 

I lasted long enough to get rid of the yeast issues to where we both got a bit better and eventually grew out of it...the effects anyway.  At three months, I cheated and had a piece of sheet cake with that delectable butter cream icing.  That cake was the end of the diet and the beginning of freedom again...but...was it true freedom?  Not really, because I still had the knowledge of what is healthy and what is harmful.  I still had the desire to honor the Lord with my body and take care of the gift he has given me in it.  I still knew the food triggers for feeling sluggish and tired.  I am forever not a fan of non-organic produce or hormone laden burgers made up of 1938921873981723 different cows from 2039489384 different countries...no.  We made some life changes where we can allow with a tight budget, and I don't feel "free" to just trash my body because I feel like eating all of my cravings.  

Why am I writing all this?  Why am I bringing up the ups and downs, woes and joys of my life of eating habits?

Because, you guys, I think it's safe to say I have a bit of an idolatry issue going on with food.  This came out yesterday when Joshua and I were grocery shopping in good ol' Trader Joes (land of the good eats of which I cannot eat much of).  I am pregnant, lacking energy and just wanting some easy and tasty meals to make.  As I walked around, I couldn't find anything that would fill up a cart to assuage the complications mentioned above.  
*****side note***** I am attempting to do a sorta-kinda-shouldbeallout candida diet during my last two trimesters.  Why?  If there is any way I can help avoid through diet the physical pain and the metaphorical pain in the butt of what happened at Israel's birth with this next baby, then I am all in.  Or...so I thought....

***end side note***

SO.  Trader Joes.  I walked around getting increasingly grumpy and my husband noticed.  "What's wrong?" he asked.  I proceeded to tell him that I was so angry.  I just wanted to eat what I wanted to eat.  I was getting irrationally angry and just proceeded to huff around the store, so Joshua just said "why don't we get some chicken quesadillas for lunch if that will make you feel better?"  GOOD MAN!  YES! "Yes, those would taste good..."  We bought them. We ate them.  Then I got angry at myself.  

WHY am I so attached to food!?  WHY is this so hard for me?  Can't I just sacrifice a little now for the possible gain later?  Can't I remember the end goal, the motivation for my misery? (Wow, that sounds mellow dramatic)....I know I have a food idol and it's being pricked...but I'm also pregnant and starving!  (starving only for the particular foods I crave, mind you).  How am I going to do this!? 

My answer is...grace for the day.  Don't look ahead to all of tomorrow's grace because I don't have it yet.  I need to ask the Lord to give me wisdom and strength to do what's best for me and this baby and ask him to help my heart in the process. I can get creative and still create yummy food out of the "acceptable" ingrediets (Example, I just finished my cherry, pineapple, mango, banana with cherry juice smoothie and it was DELICIOUS!).  

Also, I have a husband who works hard to provide money for the grace that God provides through.....CHIPOTLE.  Bless you, Chipotle, bless you.  I want to eat you now and forever. 

Finally, because I am a foodie, here are some pictures of some food I've made in the past that actually just wowed the taste buds in my mouth...and I can still make all of it!  

    nom nom nom nom nom nom