Three Ways IBS Changed the Way I Look at Weight loss

I come from a back round of bad eating habits. From around age 13 to age 17 I dealt with Anorexia in varying degrees. As a result I always either ate with guilt or guilty pleasure. Since changing my eating habits it's amazing how my thinking has changed and I wanted to share some of that.

Firstly, I no longer feel guilty when I eat. I used to feel like I was committing  a crime anytime I ate anything, no matter what it was. Since IBS was added into the mix I eat for very different reasons. Mainly my health and well being. Having to restrict the amount of processed, and animal based foods has really cleared the way for me to exploring the possibility of living well on a high raw largely plant based diet. I more often make food choices based on nutrition rather than keeping under a certain amount of calories per day. I really had to keep reminding myself that raw fruits and vegetables are much lower in calories than many other foods. So in order to stay healthy and keep energy I need to eat more than I would if I were having regular foods. And guess what? I dropped around 10 pounds!

Secondly, I'm no longer intimidated by my scale. The scale used to be this annoying house guest I used to watch out of the corner of my eye in case it tried any funny business. I weighed myself fairly regularly and my self esteem was of course largely based on what numbers I saw. Now I don't base myself on what the scale says. I base a good day on how I feel.  Did I have a day with no symptoms?  I do weigh myself but not nearly as much and I find when I stick to eating largely fruits and vegetables I'm able to keep my weight steady better than I ever did before.

Third, I am learning the value of eating healthy food as opposed to unhealthy food. Having to cut a lot of the junk I used to enjoy has helped me to really notice the difference in how I feel now and how I felt then. I still crave bad things every once in a while but knowing that I'm literally hurting myself is a pretty great incentive to forgo the milk shakes this summer and have some watermelon instead.

These are just a few things I struggled with before having IBS and I'm sad that it took that to push me to make the necessary changes to feel better. But I know it's possible if you are determined enough. It's still a process for me, I am constantly learning and trying to make eating a plant based diet as amazing as possible and I hope this inspires you to maybe make some changes as well. Bye!