Month: January 2013

How I Stopped Being Healthy and Started Feeling Human

Lauren8 Comments

Once upon a time, a girl started reading Healthy Living Blogs, became a runner, cooked almost everything she ate from scratch, and turned up her nose at anything that didn’t fit her description of healthy. That girl was me (surprise surprise).

Over time, this lifestyle started to feel isolating, stressful and just kind of deranged. And just like that, my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

My heart was into movies and literature and too many glasses of wine with friends and spontaneous ice cream cravings that could only be satisfied by the real deal.

Chia seeds, nutritional yeast, and a pile of roasted vegetables topped with hummus for lunch fell by the wayside and were replaced by things that probably don’t have half as much nutritional value, but that feel more authentic to who I am, how I was raised, and what feels normal for me.

I’m not saying green smoothies are a sign of disordered eating (I still drink them all the time!) or that eating 3 square meals and 3 square times every single day is only something people who have an unhealthy relationship with food do. But for me, eating had turned into a quest for perfection and that really wasn’t healthy for me. I realized I didn’t want to feel like I was better than everyone else or that I had it all figured out, because I don’t.

Nowadays, I sometimes eat muffins for breakfast and wash it down with a sugary latte, I order take out pizza, I sample fudge after lunch and sometimes on the weekends I eat a big breakfast and don’t feel hungry again till dinner! Gasp, unheard of in the HLB world. Hunger doesn’t make me anxious or angry. I don’t travel with snacks or schedule my life around meals. Sometimes I eat out more than I probably should and subsist off restaurant leftovers, without cooking all week. And you know what? The lack of order, or worry, or stress or anxiety, or planning feels really really good.

I won’t pretend it’s all rainbows and butterflies over here. Somedays I feel a real sense of loss of control, but I truly feel that letting go is the right path for me right now. I want to feel human, flawed and messy and happy.

 

My Golden Globe Nominations

Lauren2 Comments

IMG_2271

Temperatures have been in the teens (or single digits!) all weekend here in Colorado. To me, this translates to “only leave the house if absolutely necessary.” Which means, I only left to attend heated yoga (as a way to avoid watching football on Saturday) and to buy two bottles of wine.  Necessities, people.  Luckily, we had a giant puzzle and three seasons of Parenthood to occupy us. We made it through one and a half seasons so far and wow, what a funny but emotional show.

IMG_2275

Aaaaand, the Golden Globes are this weekend. I live for award show season! Reading the nominations, I always feel like I missed out on a bunch of good movies/shows. And then I think about all the movies/shows that I thought were good and weren’t nominated and feel like the Hollywood Foreign Press Association must have missed out on those.

If I were part of the HFPA, the winners would be:

this-is-401

This is 40. Okay, so this wasn’t nominated and okay, in the end it was actually kind of depressing but I laughed so hard in some parts.  Lots of parts. And harder than I laughed at anything else I saw this year. That kind of comedy deserves some kind of award if you ask me.

reg_1024.AnnaKarenina2.mh.072412

Anna Karenina. My mom asked me to see this with her and I expected to be kinda bored. Much to my delight, I loved it! It was so strange and enchanting and Russian (except for all those English accents) and it totally appealed to me. Kiera Knightly basically played herself but I thought the film itself was so well done.

042612-django-unchained-leonardo-dicaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio and Christophe Waltz in Django. In my world, they are both allowed to win the same award. I’m still not sure if I’m completely sold on Django (made me cringe so much!) but these two were brilliant!

les-miserables-trailer-uk

Tom Hooper as director of Les Miserables. While I wish we could have cut out about half of the singing, I have to admit that Les Mis was incredibly well-directed. And what a massive undertaking. I think the director deserves some credit.

Az7MPTNCUAAqJUV

Moonlight Kingdom. I was surprisingly delighted by this quirky little movie. The characters were amazing and I loved how wacky the plot was.

argo_2332534b

Argo. Ben Affleck. So hunky. Oh right, and the movie was pretty good too. I had such a hard time categorizing this movie. I mean it’s so serious, but then there’s Alan Arkin and John Goodman adding some lighthearted humor and it’s a total winner, in my opinion.

tumblr_lh8pfwj62p1qc8hpl

Shameless. Oh wait, also not nominated. Coincidentally, the season premiere is also on tonight and I will probably miss it just to watch the award show that didn’t recognize it.

Eye rolls for: anger over Robert DeNiro getting snubbed for Silver Linings Playbook, Russel Crowe in Les Mis, Denzel Washington in Flight, Taylor Swift for her song in the Hunger Games.

Also, Happy Birthday to my dad 🙂

****************
Are you watching the Golden Globes?

What was the best movie you saw this year? Don’t lie, I know it was Magic Mike.

What do you do when it’s freezing cold outside?