Yesterday, I came home from class, exhausted. I had been pretty irritable all day and was seriously considering taking a nap but I was hungry so I decided to have an early dinner. All was well. I had some broccoli with some faux-“chicken” (aka morningstar chicken patyy) Parmesan. I started working on my stats project then decided to give in to my day long craving: baked good.
I used this recipe (minus the frosting + peanut butter chips) and made some pretty tasty brownies.
I intended to have a piece then take the rest to school the next day. However, by the next day, all that was left was this:
Between me and my roommate (aka two girls) we managed to eat all by what is left above.
I’m a stress eater. I hate it, and I’m trying to deal with it. I’m posting this because it may seem like I’m a healthy eater and I am 80% of the time. But 20% of the time I freak out and overeat.
I read a lot of health/fitness/food blogs, most of the time when I read them I find myself thinking “These women are perfect, I wish I could have that amount of self control.” It seems like they rarely overeat (and when they do, it’s a bowl of ice cream or 4 cookies and most of the time it doesn’t matter because they ran 5690 miles today anyway). I’m not trying to criticize other food bloggers, but I want to make it clear that I’m not perfect.
As a blogger or a reader, do you ever feel pressure to be perfect from reading blogs?
I’ll end this sort of sad post with a more positive anecdote:
A friend walked up to me and my roommate, he looks at her and says “Thanks for getting me sick!” She sort of laughs and says: “Karla didn’t get sick and she lives with me!” then she looks at me and says “it’s probably because of all the vegetables you eat and the fact that you exercise and sleep, so basically your overall healthy lifestyle”
I may not be perfect, I may eat half a pan of brownies in one night but overall I’m healthy.
Have a great day!
Foodologie 
“and when they do, it’s a bowl of ice cream or 4 cookies and most of the time it doesn’t matter because they ran 5690 miles today anyway” SO TRUE!!!
I’m not a stress eater but I can’t stop when a dish is extremely good. I have absolutely no self control. I also eat when I’m feeling horrible (which is probably similar to eating due to stress) and ate tons of chips when I heard that my grandpa died (they stared me down at work).
I take away the pressure of having to be perfect for my blog through not posting everything that I eat. It would immediately stress me out which isn’t a great base for a healthy food blog.
Who is “perfect” anyway?
Thanks for this post, Karla. I know EXACTLY what you mean! I read some of the blogs and think, “DAMN…I could never be that perfect!” But my favorite blogs are written by the women who AREN’T perfect– the ones who really do stumble and fall (and aren’t afraid to show it on their blog).
Like Karin, I’m not posting everything I eat on my blog. First of all, half of what I eat is really boring– who wants to see cereal again, and again? And again! It would also make the blog more stressful, and I think it might turn the focus away from what it should be: eating healthy vegetarian cuisine, and living an overall healthy life.
Sometimes, when I read the blogs, I feel like I’m reading “Self” or “Real Simple”– some version of a perfect life that I’m bound to never achieve. They can be very inspirational, but on a bad day, they can also make me feel like crap about my own (quite imperfect) life.
I try not to get too hung up on this. Just focus on your own life– that’s all you can do! And hey, the imperfections are usually what make it interesting 🙂