Why has eating become so hard?
Tracking food.
Fitting your macros.
Flexible dieting.
Counting calories.
Intermittent fasting.
Low fat / high carb / high fat / low carb.
They are all diets in some way or another - a focus on calorie counting, selecting a food in order to tick a predetermined box - "I need to get in my carbs for the day", or eating low calorie foods in order to be able to fit in a higher calorie food.
With so many calorie counting apps available to us and being readily accessible, entering our food intake for the day has become so acceptable. It's normal for a friend to whip out their phone and search up the calorie content of that bowl of Fro-yo without anyone turning a head. But why? When did this become "normal"? I know people will say they are doing it to lose weight, or reach their goals, and I get that, but really, do you want to still be tracking food when you're 60?
So the million dollar question is.... Have we lost our ability to just eat and enjoy food?
Since dieting for my competition, I feel that I have somewhat lost touch with my body and the food it needs to keep it functioning optimally. I find that I look at food now with a different view. Instead of seeing food as something nourishing to my body, I see protein, fat and carbs. I eat, often even though I am not hungry, just because it's 'time' to eat. I don't get the same pleasure out of eating than I did before, and this makes me sad.
All of this is made worse by the fact that I SHOULD KNOW BETTER.
Turn back to this time last year and I ate whatever I wanted and I didn't have a care in the world. I didn't care about being skinny / fat / strong, I just trained, ate, enjoyed food and didn't give it a second thought. I want to be back there (food attitude wise) and I have started. The first step for me, was actually admitting to myself that something was not right. It's not normal to be tracking everything I eat on My Fitness Pal, and it's not normal to eat ice cream every single night just because it fits my macros, and it's definitely not normal to be over thinking my meals and food choices each day. But what is classified as normal eating?
I really like this quote by an Australian doctor - Dr. Rick Kausman on normal eating -
“Normal eating is being able to eat when you are hungry and continue eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it — not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to use some moderate constraint in your food selection to get the right food, but not being so restrictive that you miss out on pleasurable foods. In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your emotions, your schedule, your hunger, and your proximity to food.”
It's as simple as that, but why are so many of us getting it wrong?
I honestly don't know, I don't have the answers. But, I know how I am going to turn it around for myself and maybe in the process, help someone else too. I have begun trying to eat "intuitively" and listen to my body and what it is telling me. If I am hungry, I will eat. If I am not hungry, I won't eat. If I want chocolate, I'll eat it and I don't have to eat it just for the sake of it. I am not trying to meet a protein / fat / carb goal anymore because it's consuming me. It's taking the fun out of eating and it's hurting my brain. I want to be in love with food again! It hasn't been easy. Yesterday I was completely full from eating lunch and at 5pm, still wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat. But BAM, all of a sudden my blood sugar drops and I get dizzy and headachy driving home. Had to eat even though I wasn't hungry, or potentially faint and crash my car!
SO it should be easy, but it won't be. I honestly think that listening to our bodies and the signals that it is giving us is hard, and often, it is easier just to ignore it. We think we can trick our bodies, but we can't.
Our body is smarter than we think and it's time to give it the credit it deserves.
Tracking food.
Fitting your macros.
Flexible dieting.
Counting calories.
Intermittent fasting.
Low fat / high carb / high fat / low carb.
They are all diets in some way or another - a focus on calorie counting, selecting a food in order to tick a predetermined box - "I need to get in my carbs for the day", or eating low calorie foods in order to be able to fit in a higher calorie food.
With so many calorie counting apps available to us and being readily accessible, entering our food intake for the day has become so acceptable. It's normal for a friend to whip out their phone and search up the calorie content of that bowl of Fro-yo without anyone turning a head. But why? When did this become "normal"? I know people will say they are doing it to lose weight, or reach their goals, and I get that, but really, do you want to still be tracking food when you're 60?
So the million dollar question is.... Have we lost our ability to just eat and enjoy food?
Since dieting for my competition, I feel that I have somewhat lost touch with my body and the food it needs to keep it functioning optimally. I find that I look at food now with a different view. Instead of seeing food as something nourishing to my body, I see protein, fat and carbs. I eat, often even though I am not hungry, just because it's 'time' to eat. I don't get the same pleasure out of eating than I did before, and this makes me sad.
All of this is made worse by the fact that I SHOULD KNOW BETTER.
Turn back to this time last year and I ate whatever I wanted and I didn't have a care in the world. I didn't care about being skinny / fat / strong, I just trained, ate, enjoyed food and didn't give it a second thought. I want to be back there (food attitude wise) and I have started. The first step for me, was actually admitting to myself that something was not right. It's not normal to be tracking everything I eat on My Fitness Pal, and it's not normal to eat ice cream every single night just because it fits my macros, and it's definitely not normal to be over thinking my meals and food choices each day. But what is classified as normal eating?
I really like this quote by an Australian doctor - Dr. Rick Kausman on normal eating -
“Normal eating is being able to eat when you are hungry and continue eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it — not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to use some moderate constraint in your food selection to get the right food, but not being so restrictive that you miss out on pleasurable foods. In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your emotions, your schedule, your hunger, and your proximity to food.”
It's as simple as that, but why are so many of us getting it wrong?
I honestly don't know, I don't have the answers. But, I know how I am going to turn it around for myself and maybe in the process, help someone else too. I have begun trying to eat "intuitively" and listen to my body and what it is telling me. If I am hungry, I will eat. If I am not hungry, I won't eat. If I want chocolate, I'll eat it and I don't have to eat it just for the sake of it. I am not trying to meet a protein / fat / carb goal anymore because it's consuming me. It's taking the fun out of eating and it's hurting my brain. I want to be in love with food again! It hasn't been easy. Yesterday I was completely full from eating lunch and at 5pm, still wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat. But BAM, all of a sudden my blood sugar drops and I get dizzy and headachy driving home. Had to eat even though I wasn't hungry, or potentially faint and crash my car!
SO it should be easy, but it won't be. I honestly think that listening to our bodies and the signals that it is giving us is hard, and often, it is easier just to ignore it. We think we can trick our bodies, but we can't.
Our body is smarter than we think and it's time to give it the credit it deserves.