What does a healthy food relationship mean to you?
What does a healthy food relationship mean to you?
Healthy food is good for you, right? We are led to believe that eating healthy food makes us healthy people. But what if I told you that’s not necessarily the case?
A healthy food relationship is different for everyone.
When you eat, stop for a moment and think about what it feels like. Take note of how your body feels, what you are thinking, what your senses telling you. Do you feel joy and contentment or discomfort and distress?
For years I ate only healthy foods. I thought I was doing the right thing, eating what I ‘should’. I was following the rules. Yet I wasn’t healthy at all. Every day I worked hard to focus my diet according to what I knew. I scoured magazines, followed celebrity diets, read studies and listened to the ever-changing advice of health professionals.
My body was fed with ‘good’ food. Foods to provide fuel, make me lose weight, give me energy, make me look the way I thought I was supposed to look.
But all it brought was pain.
Constant pain. Bloating, gas, diarrhoea; internally I was a mess. I suffered from IBS (Irritable bowel syndrome) and PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome). I didn’t feel good at all. But, in my mind, if I ate a healthy diet, I was healthy and therefore, everything was OK. It didn’t matter that my body was screaming out for help.
Eventually, I listened. And I learned that, while this was someone else’s version of healthy, it wasn’t MY healthy. My body and my mind were not in tune.
And here’s the kicker…
Just because a food is healthy doesn’t mean you have to eat it.
We are all individuals who have unique responses to different foods. Maybe you don’t like lentils. Sure, they are good for you but when you eat them, you feel your body tense up. You don’t really want to put them in your mouth but you do because you ‘should’, even though they taste like crap.
Listen to your senses. Heed them. If your body doesn’t want to eat something, don’t. Our bodies and minds are powerful allies and if you eat something you don’t like or don’t want, it won’t be properly digested. You won’t absorb all the nutrients, your body won’t use it properly; the food doesn’t do its job and there is no point.
Over time, and with help, I learned to trust how my body feels. Now, no matter what I eat I feel calm, peaceful and content. Eating brings me joy. In tune with the flow of my mind and body, I only eat what I want and, in doing so, I nourish my soul.
It’s time to redefine your ‘shoulds’. How do you want to feel? What does being ‘healthy’ mean to you?
Explore your emotional connection to food through the 30 Day Intro to Mindful Eating and learn to challenge conventional views. Discover who YOU are - the person behind the food - and build a healthy food relationship that works for you.
Remember, change is from the inside out.
Own your truth.
Love,
Georgie
xx