Please keep your advice to yourself

One of the things I have discovered, in my quest to lead a healthier life, is a great interest in reading a variety of articles and books about how the food we eat impacts us. Particularly junk food. I suppose this is of interest to me because it is all stuff I used to guzzle large quantities of but don't any more. It allows me to express horror at what said vilified food does the body ( or which terrible ingredients it is said to contain) but at the same time feel pleased that this no longer effects me. At this point in time, the days when Mcdonalds was my go to junk food seems like a distant memory. I have also discovered that under no circumstances should I share my findings unless someone directly expresses an interest. 

I have changed my eating habits so dramatically over the last few years that it now feels like there is a vast chasm between younger, fatter me who ate what she liked and did not appreciate being told that Coke uses a chemical that's also found in cosmetics (who cares when it's so delicious, I thought) by a Taxi driver, 

There is a lot out there to learn about food and some of it is hyped up nonsense but often there are some pretty gruelling accounts of what we are actually putting into our bodies. Time has taught me that someone has to be receptive to this information in the first place or else you are just the girl ruining their lunch. 

On some level I can't help feel that if people were better informed that they would make better choices, live longer lives and just generally feel better about themselves but a nation addicted to junk food is quite similar to a nation addicted to any substance in that they wont cut it out until such a time as they are actually willing to make changes. I think you take on board the information that best supports your own belief system which makes it easier to filter out unwanted health concerns about food you're consuming.

I know this because there was once a time when I would have eaten half a Romantica Icecream cake as a desert ( yes those were my fattest days) and if you had told me the calorie count, I would not have cared, I may have told you to be quiet so I could enjoy my cake because I believed it made me feel good. It is strange when you think about the fact that I was a passionate junk food eater and now I am the complete opposite. It feels as though that was a whole life time ago instead of several years. I was 29 when I first started making changes to my diet and doing Crossfit. 

On my Facebook news feed I have a number of pages that publish articles on healthy living and it seems like every day I am clicking on something new that makes me realise how harmful my lifestyle used to be. I cannot get enough of this stuff and bar blurting the odd thing out to my boyfriend (which trust me he doesn't appreciate) I have managed to keep this stuff to myself. I usually wait to till I go home and tell my sister (as a Crossfit coach and fellow clean eater she gets it). Like did you know that soft drinks are one of the worst things ever. Obviously they are full of sugar and that's really bad but also your body doesn't count liquid calories so you will eat just as much as you would without the fizzy drink but you're consuming more calories and sugar. And diet drinks, they are even worse because artificial sweeteners tell your body to prepare to be given something sweet and then doesn't deliver the sugar it promised so you will have an even stronger craving for sugar after it and probably consume more as a result plus most artificial sweeteners are made with carcinogenic chemicals. McDonalds fries, I am told contain 17 ingredients, the good news is one of them is potato but the bad news is they are using about 12 different oils in them which seems both disgusting and unnecessary. Oh and dairy isn't as essential to our diet as they dairy council would have us believe. Milk and cheese are often full of hormones we really shouldn't be consuming and it's best to cut back rather than try and up your intake. Fruit juice contains just as much sugar as coke. Even if its freshly squeezed, all of the fibre has been removed and your body cannot tell the difference between fruit sugar and regular sugar.

There I have gotten it off my chest and I do feel better. There is loads more out there available to those who wish to find it. When I had my first attempt at going cold turkey on sugar (which was a truly unpleasant experience) I read two different books about the sugar industry and the effect it has on our bodies and it was truly eye opening even if no one wanted to hear about my findings. So I will keep this information to myself and watch what I eat and I swear I will only give advice if someone asks for it.