If You Eat Crappy Food, You Will Feel Crappy!

If you are looking for an update on how my experience of living in Italy for the past 2 weeks has been, I can pretty much sum it up in just 3 words: Gelato. Pastries. Bread. AND A LOT OF IT!

 The Italian culture is pretty much centered on food and the socializing that surrounds it. Meals are hours long, there are usually many courses, and no one is ever in a rush to finish their food, savoring every last bite. So what better way to immerse myself in the culture than to completely let loose and eat all the Italian delicacies?! And for the first week or so, this is exactly what I did. No restrictions, no rules, no nothing! Gelato before dinner? Oh yes. Pastries for breakfast? You betcha. Pizza every night? Why not!

It’s a liberating feeling to just eat whatever you want whenever you want. After all, you only live once, right? This is the outlook I had when arriving in Italy. I planned to try and eat as healthy as possible but only so that I could “balance out” all the not so healthy foods I was going to eat. So I went to the market place and picked up fresh fruits and vegetables and I was good to go!

But about a week ago something happened. I started getting really bad headaches, my eyesight was weirdly blurry, I was very lethargic in the mornings and my skin was breaking out like crazy. I wasn’t feeling like my normal energized self but I just attributed it to jet lag and not getting enough sleep.

Then, however, one morning a few days ago I went to the local fruit stand and for some reason nothing looked appetizing. It was the strangest thing. I was starving, I love fruit, and I had an abundance of it right in front of me. Why did I not want any part of it? After taking a second to think about it, I soon realized the real root of my problem with not feeling so great. My body had been on such a sugar overload from eating pastries and gelato literally 5 times a day (no exaggeration) since I got to Italy that my body was screaming NO MORE SUGAR! Even though fruits have good sugars that are different than refined sugars in pastries or gelato, my body was steering me away from it whatsoever.

I have to say, one benefit of leading a healthy vegetarian lifestyle is that you do become more aware of your body and what it needs. What I definitely need is a few days to recover from this sugar coma! This calls for lots and lots of water, high protein, high healthy fats and tons of veggies!!  Today for example I prepped a huge salad with all fresh vegetables and kidney beans to bring with me to eat in between classes!

I am now starting to get into a balanced routine that will allow me to put healthy food in my body, feel great AND still enjoy the delicious treats Italy has to offer (in moderation!)  It turns out that just like anywhere else in the world, eating healthy is not hard you just have to know where to shop and where to eat. There are actually a dozen of highly rated vegetarian restaurants in Florence, organic health food stores and even juice bars that I found! I even bought myself a blender so that I can enjoy some green smoothies with all the fresh produce that is available! It might take a little more effort but in the end it's all worth it!

In reality, not feeling my best is not the end of the world. I just want to make the point to show that what you eat does 100% affect your body. My experience with a 7 day straight sugarcoma reaffirmed something I knew all along: if you constantly put crappy food in your body, you’re going to feel crappy! And look crappy! And think crappy! And that it's impossible to "outbalence" an excessive amount of unhealthy food. Of course it’s easy to just not care and eat whatever you want but you will pay for it. It is so important to be informed and be aware of the strong relationship between what you put in your body and how you feel/ your health problems. I know what it's like to walk around with no energy, with headaches, and feeling nauseous. Trust me. Diabetes gives you a run for your money. But I also know that the only times I feel this way is when I don't pay attention to what I'm eating. When I do, and when I eat right, I feel like I can run a marathon. 

This is the way I want to always feel. This is the way humans were designed to feel. Everyone has so many health problems these days if only we learned that food can be the medicine.

So here's to living a life full of energy, full of happiness and full of balance!

Ciao!

Lauren