Eat food.

Fun fact: I haven't read fiction in years (for pleasure at least); I'm more of a non-fiction, documentary type of gal. Lately my obsession has been Michael Pollan and three books in, I'm determined to finish all the rest he has written.

One of his most well known quotes is "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" taken from In Defense of Food and he really put an emphasis on eating whole foods - not necessarily things that your grandmother or great-grandmother would recognize as food (because I don't know about you, but my great-grandmother would not recognize cheese or peanut butter at all - it's one of those Chinese things) - but rather just focusing on eating real foods rather than the summation of their parts.

I'm guilty of this too.

Macro counting is insanely popular right now, whether you follow a clean eating approach or an IIFYM approach. High protein cookies, low carb cookies, low fat cookies, cookies made with just protein powder (are you freaking kidding me?!?! Gimme the butter!!!) and of course cookies are just used as an example, but what I am saying is that foods have been broken down to a summation of their parts so that a cookie isn't just brown sugar, butter, flour, and eggs...it's carbs, fats, and maybe a gram or two of protein (unless you're talking about protein cookies).

Whew, I said 'cookie' way too many times in that sentence.

But in all honesty, I just find it slightly disordered every single recipe I've seen lately as been a healthy-gluten free-paleo-high protein variation of a baked good with maybeeeee a smudge of chocolate chips or other "normal" food thrown in there optionally if the baker was feeling particularly adventurous (extra chocolate is never an option - it's a must unless there is an absolute shortage of chocolate going on).

The preoccupation with high protein is disturbingly real. The concern with manipulating and distorting basic recipes so that you can somehow fit it within the parameters of an arbitrary set of macros you give yourself is disturbingly real.

And I'm not saying that you should never have a set of protein pancakes again - in fact, I tend to have them multiple times a week (I add some extra egg whites to my normal oatmeal-based batter recipe, easy peasy!) but those foods shouldn't be a focus of your diet.

Trust me: No. Amount. Of. Protein. Cookies. Will. Ever. Satisfy. Your. Cookie. Craving. Your body and brain wants the dopamine rush from the buttery fats and caramelized brown sugar.

So eat food! Eat real food. Eat food the way they were supposed to be. Have plenty of fruits, veggies, lean and fatty meats. If you have room in your diet, have a cookie or two. Food is so much more than just carbs, fats, and protein. 

Approaching beauty from another end

Whew, so I'm back after a few week vacation. To keep the updates short and sweet, I flew home to Atlanta for a week to spend some time with my family for the Independence Day weekend and my birthday and now have been back in DC for a little over a week, have settled back to my routine, did a whole scrub down of my apartment, and caught up with all the work and emailed that piled up at the office and personal inboxes since I took off.

That sentence was a dozy.

Anyways, back to the routine programming; today I wanted to talk about beauty, body acceptance, fat shaming/acceptance, and finding self worth in a "recovered body." I feel like this is an extremely controversial topic and while I don't want to tip-toe around being politically on my own blog, I am going to present my views and arguments in the most respectful way possible. That said, keep in mind that these are just my points of view and it does not invalidate any other person's worth and feelings.

I think I've mentioned a few times before that my commute to work is an absolute nightmare. I don't have a car and so between the two buses, rush hour traffic, and walking in between, it usually takes 45 minutes to an hour to travel the five miles between my apartment and office. DC, get yo' public transit game in check! Lately I've been really enjoying listening to Podcasts during the commute: they're lengthy, slightly mindless, and help keep me thinking during those frequent traffic jams.

I was listening to the IceCream4PRs Podcast about feminism in fitness when Ilyssa Russ brought up a great quote about beauty's relation to value. In her argument, rather than having all these movements to find "beauty at every size" there should be a greater push towards leaving behind the beauty dichotomy.

Now, before I get any further let me disclaim this by saying that yes, I know that it's a lofty approach. We are biologically programmed to look for aesthetically pleasing mates for sexual reproduction; it's a byproduct of evolution. However, I that aside, I find that the status quo approach on self-acceptance focuses much too much rhetoric on evaluating beauty as the end-all-be-all achievement. In short, it puts too much value on beauty as a trait.

There is the fat-acceptance, the skinny-acceptance, the "as long as I am healthy" camp, the Megan Trainers who are "all about the base" and how real men "like big booties and [they] cannot lie" taglines and in this constant shuffle between the thin, thick, fit, and willowy camps battling for power we're left in the aftermath of a war where all groups have a similar final goal: for overall improved self-esteems but are all yoked on such a subjective matter.

So what if we took beauty off its elevated soapbox?

I hear it so often from people in recovery who email me or post on social media: "I struggling to find beauty in my weight-restored body" or "I just feel so ugly and disgusting." But think about it: physical aesthetics is a trait. It's like having blue eyes or dark hair and while it may not be as subjective or black and white as those aforementioned features, aesthetics is just another trait.

And so many times we value our own self worth based on this little part of a whole. I, for one, am not my looks. I am also not my intelligence, my patience, my culinary skills, or my kindness. I am not entirely a single component of all these parts that combined make up who I am. And while these traits are good things, I am not going to value to devalue myself based solely on a single personality or physical trait. Those traits make up who I am and as a whole make me help contribute to my intrinsic value to society but they do not singularly (positively or negatively) define me as a person.

Smokin' Joe's Bar-B-Que in Townsend, TN

I came home for a few days to celebrate Independence Day and my birthday and so my parents decided to take a short family trip to Great Smokey Mountain National Park. Located somewhere in the Appalachian mountains on the Tennessee side of the park, Townsend is a small, sleepy town (out of T Mobile's service range, as I came to find out) where life really seems to be the definition off slow. Not that it's a bad thing.

Now barbecue, true barbecue is an absolute must when you visit the South (and sorry to offend any Texans, but barbecue is pork, not beef). Smoked low and slow to soak in all that delicious wood flavor and southern hospitality, good barbecue is probably one of the things I eat the least yet crave the most.

Drive up to Smoking' Joe's parking lot and you see the smoker going - you know you're going to get the real deal!

You know you're back in the South when you're sipping real sweet tea out of a glass mason jar. You know, the pound-of-sugar-and-a-whole-lot-of-love sweet tea, probably much too sweet for most other parts of the country, but hey, it tastes like home!

Pork ribs 

Sides // fried okra + coleslaw + potato salad + hushpuppies

Sliced smoked chicken breast // green beans + baked beans 

I'll have to admit, we underestimated the portions and ordered way too much food, enough to feed us for dinner PLUS a cold lunch the next day (and trust me, the ribs were still good cold). All the meats were absolutely delicious and perfectly perfumed with delicious smokey essence. Chicken was tender and moist and the ribs were meaty and falling off the bones.

They offer a couple different levels of spice to their sauces, so I had the smoke (spiciest) sauce on the chicken and my parents got the spicy sauce on the ribs. And yes, the smoke was spicceeyyyyyyy~ I'd skip it next time because I thought it overwhelmed the delicate smokiness of the meat.

While the food was very satisfying, I do have a gripe a little bit about the service; maybe it's because I was expecting a bit more hospitality or maybe it's because I've been working in the restaurant industry for so long, but I just thought the service was a bit less than friendly. Our food took more than half an hour to come out, which makes absolutely no sense considering that everything should have been pre-cooked in the kitchen. We suspected that the server forgot to put in our order since a couple tables that sat after us got their food before us, but she didn't say anything so innocent until proven guilty, right?

Nonetheless, I still felt all my fat, protein, and smoke requirements met for the next few months. I'm happy.

Smokin' Joe's Bar-B-Que

Barbecue, southern | $$

 7753 East Lamar Alexander Parkway
Townsend, TN 37882

20 things I've learned by my 20th birthday

Two whole decades. Wow.

I'm turning 20 in a few days (July 10th to be exact!) and so I figured a fun, thought-provoking post would be to really reflect on the last two decades of my life and remember some of most important lessons I have learned.

1. It's okay to change your stance on certain issues. And it's okay to change your new stance back to the original one. You're young and evolving; embrace that.
   
    
2. Likewise, be open to the world and welcome new people, cities, and cultures.
   
    
3. But at the same time know that it's perfectly fine to stay grounded and rooted by the convictions that you hold dear. Not every single millennial has to be pro-choice, anti-establishment, bike-riding, leaf-munching hipster.
   
    
4. It's nice and refreshing to date people completely different from you until those fundamental differences start creating unsalvageable rifts in your relationship. Values and life experiences are just as important for long-term compatibility as chemistry is.
   
    
5. Filters make your skin good great. No shame in using them.
   
    
6. Just know that 99% of other people will use filters too. Everyone wants to put their best face forward so don't compare your worst to someone's best.
   
    
7. Or actually, just don't compare yourself to others at all. Use other people's achievements as inspiration and motivate yourself to be better than what you were.
   
    
8. No matter how much mom and dad fight with you, they will always be willing to have your back. Mom will always (even though sometimes begrudgingly) put aside her anger to hug you and then give some tough love afterwards.
    
9. But know that your relationship with your parents, as with any other, needs to be worked on and cherished. Mom and dad will get jaded too if they don't feel like you value them. That said, calls at least once a week are mandatory. To both parents. Even if it's just to say hi.
   
    
10. You will undoubtedly never forget your first love and several years down the road, especially on lonely nights or when your current relationship is in shambles, you will likely become wistful and fantasize that first love and relationship as utter perfection. It's beautiful to keep good memories, but know that both you and your partner have grown and evolved since then and are not the same people you once were. There were reasons why things didn't go all the way and it's okay.
    
     
11. Sometimes though, ex-lovers make the best of friends. It just might take a while. This goes out to you, M.
    
     
12. Of course, there are always the ex-boyfriends that you never want to see or speak to again. This doesn't change with age.
    
     
13. Be prudent about who you give your number out to. There is a "block" function on cell phones and utilize it when necessary.
    
     
14. At any stage in life you will have several roles to fill, but you can't be a master in all of them. Pick and chose what is most important to you at that time and focus on it.
    
     
15. You will regret decision you made 2-3 years ago and will have to suffer the ramifications. That's just how life goes.
    
     
16. You will have to betray your convictions at some point and you will feel shame doing so. You will have to do things you aren't proud of to go where you want to go and do things you find worthwhile doing. Be prepared for it and know that self-loathing will get you nowhere.
    
     
17. The harder you work the luckier you will be.
    
     
18. At the same time, the world is very balanced and you will not be able to "have it all." There are always going to be sacrifices along the way. Pick and chose your battles accordingly.
    
     
19. Be friendly with your bus-drivers, custodial staff, grocery checkers, and servers.
     
20. Every lesson you've learned about life will likely be forgotten and re-learned several times over. C'est la vie.