Day 5–100 Days To A Healthy Relationship With Food
Blame, guilt and food do not go together
If you have a less than ideal relationship with food, it’s worth trying to understand why. But throwing around blame or feeling guilty is counter-productive.
Here are some examples…
- It’s easy to learn, without being aware, to use food as a coping mechanism:
Perhaps you grew up in a house where self-medication via food or alcohol was common?
2. Losing your natural instinct to know when you’re full is scarily easy:
Maybe you were strongly encouraged to finish your plate of food at home, at school or when at a friend’s house, out of politeness or to not waste food?
3. Often food or drink becomes currency, not fuel or sustenance:
Have you ever used food or drink as a reward, a way of relaxing or celebrating?
Knowledge
There are people, norms and cultural pressures behind learnt food and drink behaviours, but no-one deliberately set out to leave you with food or drink as an issue.
And you didn’t choose for these situations to lead you to having unhelpful habits.
Everyone will have different reasons as to why food is problematic for them, and their original sources can be complex, many years old or still hidden. Perhaps all three.
To unpick your personal relationship with food it is worth reflecting on how you got to the position you are in currently.
It isn’t worth apportioning blame. To yourself or anyone else. It’s happened. It’s gone. Guilt doesn’t help you either.
Guilt looks backwards, hope looks forwards.
With blame and guilt gone, what are we left with?
Let’s try research.
Stress eating. Food as a coping mechanism. It’s often talked about in negative blame-filled and guilt-inducing ways:
“I had a moment of weakness and wolfed down a whole box of donuts”
“I was so down all I wanted to do was curl up on the sofa with a tub of ice-cream and a spoon. I knew I shouldn’t have but I gave in.”
A recent Harvard article described how some foods can, literally, mimic the effects of medication:
“Once ingested, fat- and sugar-filled foods seem to have a feedback effect that dampens stress related responses and emotions. These foods really are “comfort” foods in that they seem to counteract stress — and this may contribute to people’s stress-induced craving for those foods.”— ‘Why Stress Causes People To Overeat’, Harvard Health
We don’t blame people for finding it hard to not get hooked on powerful medicinal drugs. Instead, doctors are extremely careful about prescribing medication that patients could develop a dependency on.
So much of the diet industry relies on us not understanding the science behind food. Unfortunately, it is in their interests for us to fail, so that they can help us try again. Another membership, another book, another session.
I’m not saying that the diet industry is trying to get overweight people to fail — that is not the case. But a lot of the tropes you see in the diet industry (“How To Beat Those Cravings”) put the emphasis on the dieter being weak and “needing help”.
I have honestly made more progress in the last 5 days of this project — trying to learn and understand more for myself, whilst following an eating plan I have designed myself, than on any diet plan I have ever followed.
The whole essence of the diet industry — you can’t help yourself, so we’ll help you — is flawed. It’s built on blame (all those sugar-laden products in the shops tempting you) and guilt (a brand new you!)
Enough. No more blame. No more guilt. Knowledge and perseverance are the ways forward (for me at least).
Progress
Still on track with eating and exercise (I’ve set myself the realistic target of at least a 30 min walk each day). I didn’t weigh myself this morning (I usually do every Friday) and feel all the better for it. Progress, not numbers. Part of my plan is to relax my 16:8 fasting at weekends. I’ve learnt the hard way that being unrealistic in expectations leads to problems. I got a lot out of researching and writing today’s article. Onward.
5/5/100 (Number of days into project / number of days goals met / total days in project)
Why I’ve chosen16:8 Intermittent Fasting
Be responsible about food and weight management. Research a healthy weight, and healthy methods of weight management for you physically and mentally. Remember, you are not defined by what you weigh. I am not a nutritionist.