Within this week, I ran a marathon. I also ate no Life cereal, cookies, deli meat, potato rolls, or craisins.

I felt pretty good.

My “clean living” officially ended yesterday, so this morning, after a bowl of Life cereal and fresh strawberries, my instinct lead me to the freezer where two of Becca’s cookie bars were kept, immortalized, for me.

I ate both of them at 9:30 this morning.

Later, Maceli’s catered some reception for some people at our house. Down went two plates of pasta, an unmentionable number of meatballs, and some cheesecake bites.

I do not feel well, physically or mentally.

My stomach screamed in protest before that last meatball, but my brain wanted it so very badly. My brain won.

Yet after eating all of these carbohydrates, fats and sugars. I don’t feel proud about today. Earlier this week, I went to sleep feeling light, virtuous, and confident. After eating too much Italian food, I don’t experience these positive feelings.

Food gives an initial rush, but you’re soon left feeling just straight up…bad.

I am going to change my diet for the better. No, I’m not going to eat plain Greek yogurt for every meal and run six miles a day, but I am going to control the volume of what I’m eating. I will listen to my stomach tell me when it’s full, rather than letting my cravings win the internal battle.

Because as much as I crave warm cookie dough, I crave feeling confident and healthy even more. So tomorrow, I am going to have pasta and meatballs for lunch, probably accompanied by an apple. I may have cereal after school and two cheesecake bites after dinner. But no longer will I eat two plates of pasta and three breadsticks just because I can.

If delicious food is consumed in great amounts, it begins to lose its sacred-ness.

That’s the mentality I will adopt from today forth.

“Living clean” for a week has been long enough for me to see that I feel better about myself when I respect the food choices I make. I never felt guilty about what I ate last week, and I think my body appreciated the decreased amount of food.

A huge thanks is in order for Sarah Whipple, who facilitated this change in the way I eat.
It’s late Sunday night, and I still have plenty of precalc and APUSH studying to accomplish. But even as there’s pasta with alfredo sauce, breadsticks and cheesecake in the fridge, I will opt for celery with salsa or an orange to get me through these trigonometric proofs.

I can’t control how many math problems I’m assigned or how early I have to wake up in the morning, but I can control my feelings toward food.

And by occasionally making a healthier choice–I have orange juice dripping down my fingers and onto the keyboard–I know I’ve at least done one thing correctly today. –HKM