Peanut Butter Chronicles

This is a dumb post.  I'm ok with admitting that.  Not because peanut butter is dumb, and not because I think I'm dumb, but the thought process that led me to being able to write this post was dumb.  So, therefore, a dumb post!

Now that we've cleared that up, I'll continue.

When I first heard about clean eating, I was a bit skeptical.  It seemed like it made a lot of sense - I could understand that eating fruits, vegetables and cutting out pop, Egg McMuffins and Oreos would benefit me a great deal in the long run.  I was ready to try and live a healthier life.  The part that was difficult for me to wrap my head around was that I am actually the type of person that could do it.  I had lived my entire life without really paying much attention to how or what I ate - who was I to all of a sudden start changing that?

I was comfortable (even though I really wasn't) and I couldn't picture myself doing what I knew I should do. So, I dragged my feet for a bit.  Over the DUMBEST things.  (Again, back to this being a dumb post).  What, exactly, caused me to drag my feet?

Peanut Butter.

Yep, good ole-fashioned butter made from peanuts.  I was reading everywhere I looked for healthy food advice that Natural peanut butter is the way to go.  The ingredient list should just be peanuts.  Maybe a little bit of salt.  But really, just peanuts.  Not a list a mile long of things that I couldn't pronounce let alone tell you where they came from.  But, in my mind, I wasn't ready to accept that I was really going to change how I ate - I couldn't really wrap my head around the fact that things needed to change - both big things and little things!  So, even after I started eating clean, I didn't buy natural peanut butter.  I stuck with the peanut butter I was used to.  Every day for a morning snack I was having an apple with peanut butter, and every time I went to the store I replaced an empty jar of peanut butter with the same type - not natural.

Until one day I just tried it.  I sucked it up and bought the natural peanut butter.  It was a bit strange to have to stir the peanut butter before I used it because it had settled, but I dealt with it.  And, much to my surprise, I couldn't taste a difference!  It was still the peanut butter I was used to.  Buying the healthier peanut butter didn't change my identity.  But, in some small way, maybe it did.  Because, at least in my own head, I became the type of person who buys food that's healthy rather than just comfort food.  I tested the waters and learned something about myself in the process.

So, yes, maybe it was dumb that it took me that long to make a healthy change.  But, now I can say that I MADE THE CHANGE!!!  I'm learning to live a healthy lifestyle, but learning that healthy doesn't mean scary, or gross, or weird.  It just means healthy.  And that's a pretty good thing to be :)