A new way to think about food (p.3)

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So I’ve been going through a pretty big mindset shift that’s really altered my concept of “healthy eating” and how I relate to food. I gotta say, it’s been a total game-changer in the best way possible. I think a lot of these ideas have kind of been floating around in the back of my mind for some time now, but there were a few missing links that made it so I couldn’t see the whole picture. When I finally did, it instantly resonated with me and made so much sense! I’m so excited about it and have so much to say about it that I’m writing my 3rd blog in a row on the subject! (Here is part 1 and part 2 to read for yourself if you’re interested.)

The biggest takeaway for me has been that in becoming so completely focused on what we eat, we’ve lost sight of all the other aspects that make up a truly healthy relationship with food – which in my opinion, instead of being called “healthy” or “clean”, should just be called normal eating.

Seriously, what IS clean eating anyways?!

 

On the one hand, I knew that strict diets didn’t jive with my concept of what healthy eating should look like. On the other hand, when it comes to food and body image, the black and white thinking is so prevalent that I didn’t realize just how much of it had still imbedded itself pretty deeply in my own mind. That’s what recently came to the surface and allowed me to fill in some of the missing links.

So for part 3, I just wanted to share how it’s been going since this “shift” occurred along with some of the insights I’ve already gained. Changing the way you’ve thought about something and consequently what you’ve been practicing for years doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process, but wow, it’s been an extremely freeing and exciting one.

Building self-trust

“I believe that the guilt we associate with food is far more detrimental to us than the food itself.” ~Dr. Eric Cobb

Fully letting go of “good” and “bad” categories and the guilt associated with certain foods is going to take time. But so far, I’m finding that it’s helped me with two really big mindset hurdles:

1) True abundance

The abundance mindset is the mentality that says, “There’s always more where that came from”, whereas the scarcity mindset says, “There will never be enough”. Allowing myself the option to really eat whatever I want WITHOUT GUILT takes away any lingering feelings of the scarcity mindset or the urge to put certain foods up on a pedestal.

2) Owning my food choices

We put so much guilt & pressure on ourselves when it comes to the way we eat, myself included. This truth was big missing link for me. Once I had this piece and realized how it had impacted my own choices and others, I’ve adapted to it pretty easily. Not only is it incredibly freeing for me, but I think it’s important for people to see me eating normally and owning it. No comments about “being bad” or “cheat day” or what I “should” get. I know what works for me, what I can get away with, what else I’ve had that day, as well as how I’m feeling, and that means that sometimes you will find me digging into a salad and other times it’s pancakes and eggs. I don’t need to explain my choices to you and I want you to know that you don’t need to explain yours to me. I don’t eat perfectly and that’s OK.

Aaahh, the sweet taste of freedom…nom nom nom. 😀

Taking a break from what and focusing on how and why 

If you read part 2, then you know that for a while I got caught up in what this professor or that magazine was saying is best and I basically put aside any signals from my body in favor of what I thought I should be eating.

I have always been a naturally slow eater, so I’m pretty good at that how. However, during the last few months, I’ve been practicing tuning back into my hunger signals and eating only when I’m actually hungry (which is my why). What this looks like for me is a lot less snacking, but more enjoyment of the meals I do eat because I’m actually hungry for them. Whodda thunk?? Duh. 😛

Finding the balance

The idea of no longer feeling guilty about any foods is so incredibly freeing that it can be easy to swing all the way over to the other side of just eating whatever you want, whenever you want. BUT, just like how viewing healthy eating as black & white and constantly restricting yourself and feeling guilty is not freedom, eating out of compulsion isn’t either.

Moderation is freedom from extremes…. and guilt, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still discipline involved.

I’m not completely ignoring the what. After all, I’ve put a lot of time and work into focusing on that and building habits around that. But I’ve also spent SO MUCH TIME thinking about the what that I’ve found a much needed mental break by easing up on it for a while. I can eat anything I want, but only when I’m hungry and I must stop before I’m full. That’s what I’m practicing right now.

So to be completely transparent, I had pizza 3 times last week and I enjoyed it guilt-free every time (mostly…like I said, work in progress. ;)).

According to this study, when you eat foods you enjoy, you feel more satisfied! I’m pretty skeptical of most studies these days, but this one sure seems to just make sense, right?!

Appreciating my body

As I talked about in my last blog, the illusion of the perfect body lends itself to unsustainably strict eating practices. I honestly believe that the best way to improve your health (whether it be your body or diet) is from a place of love and not self-loathing. Plus, I can’t stand the idea of spending my whole life only being able to appreciate my “bodies” from the past and never my current one. So here are a few of things that help me fight for contentment now:

beth burns fitness

*Become an expert in all the great things about your body and what it does for you. Do not allow yourself to talk bad about yourself. Seriously, stop that and start a running list of why your body rocks!

*Fight comparison. When I say fight, I mean it’s on. It’s an all-out war and your health and contentment are at stake. If you’re not fighting it, you’re losing.

*Remember that your identity and worth are so much more than the outer shell. My $0.02? You were made in the image of the almighty God – which makes you beautiful. And you are worth so much that He sacrificed His son in order to save you. Remind yourself of this every day.

 

I saw this blog the other day where different health professionals were defining normal eating. So to sum up, here’s mine:

Normal eating is enjoying food in a flexible way so that it enhances your body, mind, and life…
…which means sometimes having more and sometimes having less, sometimes having the treat and sometimes not.
It is free from guilt, idealism, and extremes, but not discipline.
It is listening to and honoring your body by feeding it when it needs to be fed and stopping when it needs to stop.
It’s being able to enjoy a wide variety of foods while owning your food choices because you know that food does not define you.
It’s knowing and believing that food is just food.
Nothing more and nothing less.

That’s my definition. What’s yours??

One of the biggest reasons we struggle with food

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In my last blog, changing the way we think about food, I discussed how the idea that healthy eating is a black and white issue leads to an all-or-nothing mindset, ignoring our bodies’ signals, a lack of self-trust, and a lot of food guilt and stress. (If you haven’t read it yet, you can jump over HERE real quick and do so.)

With this being such a big issue in our culture right now, I can’t help but wonder, how did we get here?

I’m sure there are multiple layers to such a complex thing as the human psyche. In my last post, I mentioned diets and food zealots, but what I think what it all comes down to is something I felt needed it’s own blog….

The Attainment of Perfection

“What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be.”

In college, my diet wasn’t anything spectacular in terms of what we think of today. I was simply really good at listening to my body. I had gotten to the point where it felt automatic and easy and I was maintaining a good physique. Then I was told that the best way to eat was to have 5-6 smaller meals every day and that you should never get to the point where you are feeling hunger.  So I decided to try it. Long story short, it worked for a little bit, but then my body stalled and after that, it reversed and I actually gained some weight. I did it for years, but it never got to the point where it felt easy for me and gradually I trained myself to almost completely ignore most of the signals my body was giving me. Now, I’m practicing and getting back to what works best for me.

So you might be wondering why I would ever change up my eating in the first place! Looking back, that’s what I had to ask myself and here’s what I came to:

I had swallowed the lie that if I could just find and stick to that perfect diet then I could have a perfect body. See, even though I was in probably the best shape of my life, all I could see were the “flaws” and the parts that still didn’t look like the picture perfect image I had in my head. If I’m being honest, I think that deep down I honestly believed I would be prettier and happier and that then, and only then, would I be really worthy of calling myself a fitness professional.

Yikes, right?? 😉

Like so many trainers that I know, when I first got into fitness, magazines seemed like one of the best and easiest places to get information. Well, when all you ever see in magazines is perfectly proportioned girls with glowing skin and not a dimple or blemish in sight, it’s hard not to think that it’s the norm and even easily achievable.

Here’s the thing about magazines:

*They use a few of the best pictures chosen from hundreds or even thousands of takes. Pictures that have been taken with the perfect lighting & angles, make up, professional stylists and photographers, and Photoshop to top it all off.

**Then they tell us what these women eat to look like that by giving us an example of ONE DAY. One day, folks. First of all, do you guys know anybody who eats the same thing every day?? If you do, you should tell them to go see a doctor because chances are they are probably really deficient in some important nutrients. Second of all, if I’m being featured in a magazine and they ask for my diet, you better believe that I’m going to give them an example of what my best day looks like!! (Celebrities are just people too, so you better believe that they struggle with self doubt and insecurities just like the rest of us.)

***Then they tell us that we can look like that if we can just eat these foods or do these 4 exercises every day.  food guilt

As if we’re a bunch of Mrs. Potato Heads that can just pick and choose how we want each part to look…. with just 4 simple moves, of course.

bikini body

 

I’m not trying to blame magazines for all our problems, but to think that we are not influenced by this stuff is only doing yourself a disservice.

“In 2014, Media Dynamics, Inc. revealed in a study that a typical adult’s daily consumption of media has grown from 5.2 hours in 1945 to 9.8 hours in 2014. Our media consumption per day… In that 10 hours a day that we’re in this media consumption, the study summarized that the number of ads adults are now exposed to across the five media outlets (these are the five major media outlets: TV, radio, Internet, newspaper, and magazine) is about 360 ads a day.” ~Matt Chandler

360 times a day we are exposed to ads that portray a very narrow definition of both beauty and health. Ads that tell us that we need to look a certain way to be able to wear a bikini and to be considered beautiful and for men to want to have sex with us. These lies are toxic to our souls and yet, in this day and age, it’s everywhere we look and it’s the very air we breathe. So, even though we know it’s an illusion, we know about Photoshop and we’ve seen the before and afters, we still secretly hold out hope that we will one day look like that. And we believe that the only way to get there is by eating these good foods and not those bad ones.

The truth is that this idea that there is a perfect diet that leads to the perfect body really only leads to discontentment. We spend years, if not a lifetime, on and off of different diets as we cycle between trying to achieve perfection and frustration when we can’t. Those who have attained it, soon realize it doesn’t deliver all the things they’d been promised. A perfect body doesn’t fulfill us, which is why 99% of women, no matter what shape or size, have body issues!

The media tries to tell us that health looks like a flat stomach, slim thighs and a firm butt. The truth is that, depending largely on your genetics and body type, the healthiest version of you might not be the leanest.

When a perfect body is the goal, your life will be enslaved to the never-ending search and marked by anxiety, frustration, and discontentment because it’ll never be enough. And one day you’ll look back and realize you spent way t0o much time focused on the wrong things and not enough time just enjoying food in a healthy way and learning to love and appreciate your body for everything that it does for you.

“Trying to be perfect is trying to fail.” ~Jill Coleman

Don’t worry, I’m not just going to leave you hanging. Check out part 3 HERE, for my personal insights and my definition of normal eating. 🙂

Changing the way we think about food (part 1)

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“Healthy eating” isn’t about only eating “healthy” food. It’s about having a healthy relationship with ALL the food you eat. ~Angela Doll Carlson

For the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about what a healthy relationship with food looks like and why it is so important. After doing some reading on it, I’m amazed at all the things I’ve never really considered and I’m seeing the connection between how we relate to food and many of our most common food struggles.nutrition

The thing is that food is not in and of itself a moral issue and yet, “we’ve convinced ourselves that the definition of healthy eating is black and white—and that we, by association, are either virtuous or sinful, depending on what we’ve eaten recently. Never mind the fact that this completely ignores what else we’ve eaten that day, what we will be eating, what our specific medical conditions are, and what our individual health goals are.” (Robin Hilmantel)

In all fairness, it’s hard not to think this way when every diet and magazine has a list of good and bad foods and every food zealot out there acts like you are an idiot or a terrible person if you do or don’t eat certain foods. I’ve definitely been guilty of this kind of black and white thinking. While this way of thinking might not seem like that big of a deal (in a lot of ways it feels easier), in the end it leads to a number of issues.

Here’s why I think we need to get rid of this way of thinking and why it’s actually NOT easier…

1) The all-or-nothing mindset

I think we can all agree that the all-or-nothing mindset does not serve us when it comes to building healthy and sustainable habits. Yet, so many of us struggle with it!!

This idea that you’re either on or you’re off based on whatever makes the good list in your mind makes each meal and everything you eat seem like a big deal. We start thinking that we are always just one meal away from failure. In other words, no matter how well you might have eaten the rest of the day or week or month, most of us can easily get completely thrown off by one bad meal or day.

No one is good at handling that much pressure and stress day in and day out, every time they sit down to eat, without eventually cracking. When the stress becomes too much, we go “off” our perfect plan until we get sick of how we feel and/or look, at which point we go back “on”, thus perpetuating the vicious cycle of binging and depriving.

2) Focusing only on what 

Here’s the thing: what you eat isn’t as important as we’ve all made it out to be and how you eat is more important than most of us tend to believe.

The human body is an awesome thing. It’s incredibly smart, adaptive, and resilient. It was built to survive. It only makes sense that it would already come with a built-in system that’s really good at letting us know how and what to eat. Unfortunately, instead of listening to our body, most of us eat based on what we’ve heard or think is “best” and have completely lost the ability to tap into the natural signals our body is sending us.

Because guess what….there is no one-size-fits-all! Our bodies are different and therefore, can handle different things. All we have to do is be willing to pay attention.

“In fact, experts agree that we were born with the ability to eat based on our body’s cues. But often, we train ourselves to ignore what our body is telling us because it doesn’t fall in line with what we feel like we “should” eat—or what others are telling us we should be eating.” ~Robin Hilmantel

This leads us right into number 3….

3) Food guilt

food guilt

“I believe that the guilt we associate with food is far more detrimental to us than the food itself.” ~Dr. Eric Cobb

For most of us there is a huge amount of guilt and shame that goes along with eating and food choices.

When I became a personal trainer, I noticed that people were all of the sudden starting to pay more attention to what I ate. Some were just curious, while others were definitely judging. But then I realized this wasn’t just a problem for trainers. Everybody was paying attention to what everyone else was eating and debating between what they wanted versus what they thought they should get, then feeling the need to explain their choices or comment on other people’s choices.

This is the good or bad list coming into play again. It creates this severe lack of self trust, so that we’re either choosing things based on what we think the people around us will approve of or we feel guilty about what we got. Since guilt and enjoyment can’t really co-exist, most of us have lost that true enjoyment that should come from eating.

This is not the way it should be, and yet, it’s the norm for most of us. Health is supposed to enhance our lives, not make it more burdensome. This is why we need to start changing the way we think about food.

I hope this stuff is as eye-opening and fascinating and helpful to you as it is to me. This stuff is so prevalent and there’s even more to it that I can’t wait to share with you guys, so check out part 2 (about one the biggest reasons we struggle with food) and part 3 (my experiences with a new way of thinking about food and my definition of normal eating)!