Ah, yes, “food glorious food”. I love it. I’ll try anything once. When we travel, I love trying the regional dishes, like fermented shark in Iceland, which I do not recommend. Or guinea pig in Peru, which I highly recommend.
That being said, I have some weird food issues left over from childhood that rear up now and then, like an oddly protective feeling about my food, due to a father and step-father who were both likely to eat all the “fun” food in the house whenever you weren’t looking.
It took almost stabbing my husband’s hand with a fork in a restaurant because he reached to take a bite of a blintz I was planning on taking home to eat later, before I looked deeply enough into myself to figure out what my deal was.
How about you? What’s your relationship with food?
Do you like food? Are you afraid of it? Is food that best friend who never judges you? Do you feel the need to control food and your body? Do you feel like food is in control of you?
Knowing what your relationship with food is can be pivotal to your health. Clarity in that relationship can help to create healthy and intentional eating habits that don’t tax your body or your mind.
With the season of eating comfort food full of carbohydrates, starches and sugar upon us, many people begin to panic about their history of gaining weight this time of year.
When you understand your relationship with food, you’re more able to be proactive in the choices you make.
When people at your work keep bringing cookies, cakes and sweet breads in to share, do you find yourself helpless to the pull of the treats? Do you later bemoan the fact that you ate 5 sugar cookies, and kept going back for more lemon bars? Or do you eat exactly as much or as little as you’re comfortable with?
How about holiday parties with snacks and alcohol? Do you find yourself grazing and imbibing more than you intended? Do you know why?
It is possible to be mindful about choices in eating. It can take a lot of work, but it can help you to avoid things like bloating, indigestion, heartburn, shame, regret, and self-hate.
Think about your habits. Are you drawn to salty or sweet foods? Do you tend to eat late at night? Do you eat standing up a lot? Do you stop eating when you’re full? Do you hide your eating? Do you eat half of any meal in a restaurant and take the rest home? Do you finish your plate no matter what? Do you have snacks squirreled away all over the place? Do you pause to think about your purpose before you grab a snack? Do you skip meals? Do you lose the same 10 pounds over and over? Do you criticize others for their habits? Do you criticize yourself for your habits?
Once you have identified a few habits, ask yourself if you know why you do those things.
Maybe you were raised with healthy, balanced eating modeled for you that allowed for “fun” food without any messages that shamed you. If so, I’m so happy for you and I’d love to chat.
Or you might be like the rest of us and be somewhere along a very weird spectrum of eating habits that warrant looking in to.
Like, if you have snacks squirreled all over the place, is it because you’re afraid to be too far from food at any time? Is it because you sneak food? Are you diabetic or hypoglycemic and need to have food available to steady your sugars? There can be a lot of reasons.
This only works if you can be honest with yourself as to why you do what you do. If you finish your plate no matter what and tell yourself it’s so that you don’t waste food, but the real reason is because you got the message that you were bad if you didn’t clean your plate as a child so much that you believed it, then you’ll never really understand your relationship with food and therefore how to make any changes you might want.
Once you’ve processed some of your eating habits and where they come from, you can begin making plans before you eat.
Some small commitments ahead of time, like checking to see if you’re actually hungry before grabbing a snack, or putting your fork down between bites to slow yourself down.
If you’re all about the sweet stuff you can choose ahead of time how many cookies will be satisfying and stick to that amount instead of mindlessly munching.
If you love all of those starches and carbs you could decide to keep them in balance with veggies and proteins – think of your plate as being in three parts, 1-part protein, 1-part vegetables, 1-part starch and carbohydrates.
You’ll know what changes you can make that will be more intentional than habit when you’re truthful with yourself about how you relate to food.
You might get excited to make a bunch of changes at one time. Don’t. Please. We want to set you up for success. Choose one small change that is doable. Get comfortable with that change. Now you can bring another in while maintaining the first.
Observe yourself to become aware of your habits. Make proactive choices based on those observations to create small consistent changes.
I know this is tough stuff and making those small consistent changes can feel impossible without support. Let’s talk and we’ll work together through coaching to get you where you want to be for the holidays and for life.