“FOOD IS THE ONLY BEAUTIFUL THING THAT TRULY NOURISHES.”  

– Richard Gere, Autumn in New York. 

A few months ago, I was pre-menstrual and looking for a reason to cry. Alas, there was Autumn in New York. I had never seen it. And I don’t know if it was my search for Richard Gere or for Winona Ryder on Amazon Prime that got me there, but I was there.  So I watched, and I cried. Success. (The movie, not so much.)

Between sobs, I caught this line. “Food is the only beautiful thing that truly nourishes.” I always thought, somewhere in another life, I had been together with each one of Richard Gere’s characters, but now I knew it. We had equally tough bouts with commitment and an equal love and appreciation for food.

FOOOD GLORIOUS FOOOD.

(Here’s some of mine.)

Oven-roasted, mmm.

Zoodles: easy and delicious.

Shrimp and salmon for the grill!

Color for the win.

Eggs, avo, ‘spargus, sriracha.

Done.

While my relationship with food has not always been healthy… from living on Friendly’s french fries, pasta covered in cheese and butter, and Carvel soft serve ice cream (ages 7 – 12), to barely surviving on coffee, sugar free red bull, and iceberg lettuce (college, yeah!)… it has always been a passionate one. It is, in one way or another, always on my mind. And I’m totally cool with that now.

I’ve had my fair share of ridicule (someone called me a fat ass in 6th grade science class and it took me until last summer to forgive him), fought many internal battles (my freshman year college roommate said I looked anorexic and I took it as a compliment), and somehow (yes, it’s possible) came to find a balance.

I’ve always liked to eat a lot. I don’t know one person who can say they don’t like to feel “full.” It’s wonderful. It’s like a cozy warm blanket wrapping you up from the inside. Yeah. I like food.

What it took a while to realize was that the foods I was eating that were full of refined sugars, processed carbohydrates and little nutritional value, were the foods that seemed to take twice if not three times as long to make me feel full.

Because I had to learn it on my own. 

Pasta was fast, and easy, and cheap even, and for working parents it was a solution to a problem. It wasn’t until my college nutrition class, and even years later, the first time I went Paleo, that I realized that no one is the same… that my body is going to operate differently than someone else’s… to worry about me and only me and not get jealous or spiteful of the 90 lb. girl finishing a sleeve of Girl Scout Cookies with no adverse effects. Or of my two brothers who can kill an entire box of cereal and run their fastest mile the next day. That I don’t need to eat pasta OR starve myself to be happy.

Now I don’t worry about other people at all. I know what works for me and what makes me feel, look, act better. I know what sugar can do to my face and my butt (which is still big, in a way that I love). What dairy does to my skin, my energy, my hormones, my intestines. That vegetables are KINGGG in my world and lean proteins next in line. That too much natural sugar from fruit can treat me just the way too much processed sugar would. That I love love love hot sauce. (Recent discovery, and wow.)

That if I’m feeling tired, I can reach for a grapefruit, or a lemon, or a shot of apple cider vinegar. OR A GLASS OF WATER.

That pretty much anything can be solved with a glass of water. And that I can always drink another, even when I think I can’t evennnn. 

Cutting dairy, most sugars, and refined carbohydrates out of my diet allows me to make room for the good stuff. So I can eat, and eat, and eat. And when I feel full it will be on vitamin-rich greens, energy and immune boosting nutrients, and brain-loving amino acids.

There’s a glow to me, now. A pep in my step. We are indeed, what we eat, and I’d rather be a beautiful stalk of asparagus or a perfectly cooked egg than a cinnamon bun, anyway.

Right, Richard? *Swoon…