Body Change After Macros

It's been almost a year since I slowly began falling off from tracking my macros and initially I didn't do it to follow Intuitive Eating. I did it out of necessity, I did it because my hunger cravings were so uncontrollable that I never felt as if I was satisfying my hunger. I would eat a meal, then eat more, and more, and then an entire bag of granola, then handfuls of vegetables, and drink bottle after bottle of water, and still my appetite was off the charts. I knew something had to change, these binges became more frequent because my body screamed that I was starving. I was eating well under my maintenance for such an extended period of time that my hormones and body just couldn't deal anymore with my extremely active lifestyle. I had been tracking macros since my deployment in 2014, it was a great way for me to focus on something that again, I could control in a place where I had power over absolutely nothing. *Should have seen this red flag, falling back into my disordered habits from the past with food.

Let me be clear, at no point did I ever go back to starving myself, but instead a different form of disorder, one that was and is socially acceptable. Labeled a "Healthy Diet" in which I counted, weighed, and restricted every ounce of food I ate for over 3 years straight with no breaks. When I would go to restaurants or family gatherings where I couldn't bring my own food (which I often did or I would eat prior to and then sit there with my mind occupied on when my next meal would be), I would be reeling from anxiety & completely missing out on LIFE. Macros ruled my every waking minute.

At first it felt freeing when I started tracking, because I was able to eat ANY food that "fit." I lost weight and maintained my physique for awhile and I felt liberated from my restricted diets of the past. I finally found what "worked" for me, I could have ice cream, a cookie, whatever- it was great! Until the food fear set back in, until I stopped eating what I desired and denied that hunger. It was a puzzle of making my food fit into numbers for the day. If I ate over my allowed carbs, I would be left with 4-6 cups of vegetables for dinner, which surprisingly didn't dampen my outlook on veggies (thank god!), but I began not wanting to even eat because my food was solely a form of sustenance at this point. I began to be completely disenchanted with food all together.  I would go through phases where I wouldn't feel hungry or feel satisfied, for a week or so and then I would be starving. It drove me to obsess over food, when my next meal was, it even had me craving things that I didn't even enjoy the taste of, like donuts.

I finally broke and decided that it had to come to an end and for F's sake, I was going to be a dietitian, I better know how to eat for myself! I stopped cold turkey and the loss of control was anxiety ridden. It was a back and forth fight, I'd delete MyFitnessPal, then download it again when I felt the weight gain set in, I went through months of eating bottomlessly, I couldn't control myself. Did I gain weight- YEP, and fast. My hormones and anxiety were raging.

It was a few months of this back & forth, before I started to feel sane again, before my body started registering that I was full or not hungry... this is where I started to believe I could overcome and I started to trust my body. We are taught that we don't know what we are doing with our bodies without guidance, something that is innate in us (hunger/fullness cues) we are taught to override and control. The diet culture we are surrounded with emphasizes how unqualified we are at doing one of our most animalistic and primal reflexes. There is no textbook, chart, doctor, online calculator, etc that will ever know me more than I now know myself. Do I get it wrong sometimes and eat too little or too much? YEP! But guess what, my body is fine, it adjusts, and knows how to handle the extra/insufficient amount of food. Am I completely over it? No, once you know macros, it's hard to look at something and not see the numbers, not see everything broken down into C's, P's, and F's. But now I go weeks without preoccupying my mind with food. I have time to not only to do homework and absorb information, but I have time to read what I want, go on walks because I want to, to enjoy being on the phone, and going on trips without planning every calculated move around when and what I "could" eat.

I held onto this idea from diet culture that we can alter our hunger and needs. They sell a deception of ability to deny hunger pains, that someday they will depart. They won't. You will never outsmart your body, you are fighting thousands of years of evolution through famine, drought, etc. Just the same, you can't satisfy a cue with using something else. i.e. You can't satisfy your hunger by drinking a ton of water. Just like you can't send an email by using a potato, and yes I'm saying that is just as ridiculous physiologically. Those feelings and signs of un-satisfaction and under nutrition won't go away. Your body will fight you at every turn to be where it should be, your set point- NOT the way you think your body should be, of what society deems. I got tired of trying to shrink myself and more importantly being something I'm simply just not.

Life after macros... is pretty damn good. I respect and trust my body more now than I ever have in my life. It's so freeing to be present and just enjoy life instead of constantly being consumed with how my body looks and if it's accepted. Manipulating my body to fit into what I thought it had to look like only made me hate everything I truly was. One down side of being where I am is seeing others be so completely obsessed as I once was. It makes me sad, not only for the time I wasted but for them thinking that their only worth is how they look and are perceived. Life is so much greater and I don't do body talk anymore, I don't listen to it or tolerate it in any capacity. I can't control people's thoughts, but I CAN control what people talk about in my presence.

Things I've gained from dropping Macros:

- I sleep through the night, without waking up in the early hours because my stomach is growling.
- I'm warm, well my hands are still cold (sorry Chris..lol) I'm not walking around hunched over anymore because my body was so cold.
- I have time to do and enjoy other things instead of planning my meals out in numbers.
- I don't get upset (Yes, a huge melt down would happen) if someone ate my "planned food".
- I have time to do other stuff- I have new hobbies.
- I don't feel like I need to be moving all the time to burn X amount.
- I am not as anxious throughout the day, esp. around gatherings or "unplanned meals"
- I am more adventurous with food, I try things even if I'm not hungry and try new recipes that may have had too many carbs or fat before and ones that don't have protein!
- Piggy backing off the one above, everything I eat doesn't need to have protein in it. (HUGE)
- I'm not as cranky, because I'm not giving my body under nutrition. I was on edge a lot.
- I have brain space, to think, be creative... write!
- I don't obsess over any food.
- When I travel, I don't plan every second and decision around "where I CAN eat".
- I don't resent others for their food choices.... this is pretty embarrassing, but I would watch others eat and dislike them because they could eat foods that were off limits to me.
- THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE: I have my life back that is full of foods that I enjoy and want, when I want them.