Dessert? Bah.

So, I've come to the conclusion I clearly must not be normal. I've gone from being someone who enjoys ice cream to someone who eats a roast beef sandwich or mashed potatoes as their last 'meal' of the day. If I am looking for something sweet, I eat fruit now. But, usually, I'm looking for something savory and with a bit of meat to it.

For a while, I cut just about all carbs out of my diet. I reduced my daily intake down to around 4 portions. As a result, I had a sharp uptick in severe headaches and more stomach issues. So, I'm eating more carbs now. But the preference for unsweetened things seems to have stuck around. My only exceptions are iced tea and coffee. Still, I have been using less sweetener in those too. I don't appear to have lost more weight yet.

My goal, however, is not to lose weight. As someone who was borderline anorexic in high school for various reasons, I am working not to focus on weight. Instead, I'm trying to keep my focus on what makes me feel healthy. And keep my focus on things like building muscle strength and flexibility. I'm trying to get my endurance up higher for physical activity. I want to be healthier and part of getting there is obviously going to mean losing some weight, more exercise, and eating better food.

In the first quarter of the year, my goal is to get my diet straightened out. I kinda have a start on that by eating multiple small meals through out the day to keep my blood sugar stable. Focusing more on unprocessed food has been pretty easy because most of the processed food is outside of our budget. The processed foods that are inside our budget are just not very good. So, instead of eating things like boxed macaroni and cheese, I'm making spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce. And I'm not having that too often either.

Dessert food and snack food have been slowly phasing their way out of my diet. It is still very much a part of the diets of the guys. But that's ok. Beloved does so in moderation, so I'm not worried about it being a health hazard for him. And the kids need to eat more to bulk up their weight right now. For my part, I'll just try to stick with my fruit as a snack food. Though, I've been leaning more towards vegetables for snacks of late.

Next month, I start keeping a food journal to see what exactly I am eating. This month, I am spending time learning about what manner of diet is healthiest for someone like me. I'm beginning to think I should talk to some nutritionists in training or something. I want to have a healthy diet. What I have now isn't too bad. But I want to do better and have more variety in it. I have been seriously thinking about going back to what I was doing a few years ago where I save my 'normal' meal for dinner time and eat a vegetarian diet for the rest of the day.

It's a good thing I have an almost unholy love of oatmeal and I know how to make overnight oats in the fridge for hot weather. (Just have to say, if you want a savory oatmeal fix, add some onion chutney and a crisply fried egg to it. And if you want your overnight oats to be sweet and fruity, use fruit flavored yogurt in place of regular yogurt or add some chopped up frozen fruit.)