From a very young age, diet tricks, hacks and tips are introduced as a way to change the way that you look, to improve health or to gain control over eating. While some of these strategies can be helpful, many are unhealthy and sometimes hazardous to your health and well-being.
Your thoughts about food matter. In our diet-crazed society, eating too little, eating too much and never eating with pleasure can be harmful for the body. Both undereating and a cycle of restriction and binging can have serious effects, especially when this style of eating becomes a way of life. Feeling “fat” can make you more obsessed and preoccupied with food – making you more irrational about how you really look and more inflexible with your food choices.
Because under or overeating can cause many psychological and physiological effects, shifting the way that you look (and speak about) food is critical. The effects of poor nourishment on the brain can lead to difficulty in making common sense decisions. It’s not uncommon for people to give up interests and hobbies (ex. like training for an event), due to an obsession about food and weight. Always thinking about the next meal and wanting to get that meal “right” can make it extremely hard to give attention to other things in life. Learning to develop a healthy relationship with food can do wonders for your health, performance and well-being.
- Avoid the diet mentality - A diet mentality robs you of eating a wide variety of foods. To foster a healthy relationship with food, you must give yourself unconditional permission to eat. Your body needs and deserves a wide variety of energy and nutrients. As a performance-minded or health-conscious individual, sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of a sensible eating approach as you want to get everything just right. The truth is that there is no such thing as a perfect diet. A healthy diet doesn’t have to be perfect to keep you in good health. Nutrition looks different on everyone.
- Avoid the good vs. bad food list - When specific foods are prohibited (not for medical reasons), it creates a mental barrier. Saying that a food is “good” or “bad” may seem harmless, but this language often has a direct impact on how you feel about yourself. It’s as if you are assigning a moral value to food. For example, if you eat “good” food like a salad, you feel good about yourself. If you eat “bad” food like chips or candy, you feel bad about yourself. Transferring labels onto your self-worth can create shame and guilt – which in turn further affects how and what you eat. The reality is that enjoying French fries, a milkshake or regular pizza (instead of cauliflower pizza) will not make you a bad – or an unhealthy – person. To help you feel more at peace with food, learn how to remain calm with your food related decisions.
- Stay flexible - Relaxed eating doesn’t mean that you are letting yourself go or you are giving up on health or performance goals. It’s actually quite the opposite. Being at ease with the social, emotional and physical components of food allows you to eat with purpose. It’s the ability to listen to your body, satisfy your hunger and keep your body fueled, all while enjoying what you put into your body. This flexibility allows you to eat without judgement, punishment or the need to compensate. Eating should never be extreme or all-consuming. With mental health and body acceptance in mind, your eating should respond to changes in your daily routine, workout regime and mood, without obsession on food, your weight or your body image.
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Are you in need of improving your relationship with food and the body? -------------------------------------------------
With my new 6-series Whole Athlete course, you can understand any distorted views that you’ve developed with food and your body (some of which may be unintentional), while learning how to replace unhealthy behaviors with new ways of thinking. By doing so, you can elevate your performance, optimize your health and protect your well being.
The Whole Athlete course:
Lesson 1: Diet culture
Lesson 2: An unhealthy obsession
Lesson 3: Race weight
Lesson 4: Developing a healthy body image
Lesson 5: Developing a healthy relationship with food
Lesson 6: Thank you body
Once you understand why you think how you think about food, health and your body, you can fix the distorted views that you've developed with food and your body.
Learn more HERE.
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