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.