My Whole Food Turning Point & 3 Reasons to Eat them

Whole foods guys.

You know the real ones that have no can’t-pronounce-them ingredients. The ones that aren’t sent off to some sad processing plant where they take out alllll the healthy good for you-ness.

Whole foods. They don’t HAVE ingredients because they ARE ingredients.

I get a lot of questions about whole foods. Why should I eat them? What are they? Etc.

So, they’re what I want to talk to you about today. Really, I want to talk to you about my experience eating them, and how they helped fuel my body for recovery after anorexia. WARNING: personal post ahead!

So, it ain’t no secret around FFF that I was hospitalized for anorexia when I was only 12 years old (!!!) and had a long road of recovery ahead of me. One that I still am working through the mental aspect of today.

When I was sick, I was eating the LOWEST calorie things possible. We’re talking things LOADED with chemicals that I could not pronounce. But, I didn’t care at that point because I was not at all focused on actually nourishing my body. I was focused on losing every. Single. Ounce. Of fat that could possibly be on my body.

I felt AWFUL you guys.

Now, I know that MOST of the reason that I felt SO bad at that time was because, well, I had an eating disorder. So, I didn’t have the required amount of nutrition to make my body and mind work properly. But, I also think that part of it was the fact that the VERY few calories that I ate came from, for lack of a better term, crap.

And then, I was hospitalized.

The first time that my assigned Registered Dietitian walked into the room, I was terrified. I had no idea what they were going to make me eat.

But, you guys, THIS was the moment that I learned about the importance of whole foods. The dietician put me on a diet just chock FULL of them. I was eating a bunch of fruits, veggies, proteins and GOOD, healthy fats. They could have easily just put me on a chocolate cake diet, to get some quick calories in me to cause weight gain, but they didn’t.

Another thing that I noticed while I ate my real-food meals in the doorway (I really had to sit in the doorway so the nurses could watch me eat from their station. Fun times right? Not) and started to put on some healthy weight, was that I felt really GOOD after eating them.

Before, when I would eat a sugar free, low carb, low calorie “ice cream” bar for a meal, I always just felt notsogood inside. But these meals, felt GOOD.

Again, a lot of that was weight gain. But, a lot of that was because my body was actually getting some REAL nourishment.

However, the real change was noticed when I gained all my weight, was released from the hospital, and went into real life with this whole-food diet.

I didn’t go back into eating processed crap with low calories. I adopted the real-food mentality that my dietician had, and started to eat that way WITH my healthy weight and mind.

You guys, it seriously made all the difference. I felt GOOD after I ate (which is huge for someone coming out of anorexia) and it’s the way that I still eat today. I wake up feeling like I have energy. I go to bed feeling satisfied and healthy. Not bloated, tired and icky.

Seriously. Eating REAL food can make a WORLD of difference.

That was long. But, sometimes I think there is confusion about WHY to choose healthy foods. SO, here are 3 reasons why YOU need to learn how to eat a “real food” diet:

1. They’re packed with vitamins, minerals and fiber. That’s GOOD stuff right there!
2. They help maintain a healthy weight because they keep you feeling fuller longer, which causes less overeating.
3. They lower your risk of diabetes and chance of heart disease. YAY healthy bodies!

So, that’s all folks. I hope you didn’t mind the non-food personal post…but I thought it might be helpful for some of you to see how a whole food diet helped ME. Which means it can help YOU feel and look better too! WIN.